The South West of England, Bristol and Bath in particular, never fail to surprise me. Despite having lived in the former for 5 years, I am still discovering new things and new places, and one of the perks of being a blogger in this amazing city is being invited to document these experiences.
I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, and have had the chance to test out the best of what the South West has to offer, in my humble opinion.

Shopping in Bath
Ah, Bath. It’s like the classier, prettier and slightly beige younger sister of Bristol, never failing to disappoint in entertaining tourists with endless cobbled streets with tiny adorable pubs, impressive abbeys, beautiful weirs and of course top class shopping. A couple of weeks ago I had the absolute pleasure of joining fellow bloggers at Duo Boots in Bath, to determine my #DuoBootTribe – that is, whether I belonged to the ankle boot tribe, knee high tribe, or even dared to go over the knee!

I’ve experienced shopping in Bath on a couple of separate occasions, but there are always new places to be found. We parked up in Broad Street car park and took a detour through Milsom Place, which looked absolutely beautiful in the early evening light. I made a mental note to myself to come back and try Jamie’s Italian, perhaps when the evenings start warming up again.

We were hurriedly ushered inside the impressive looking shop in the nick of time, just as it started to rain! There were nibbles and bubbly galore (my kind of event) as we took to the shelves to pick out our perfect pair of boots. I was completely overwhelmed – there was so much choice, and I had no idea where to start. I’d picked out the Mandel boot from their website as a favourite, so went to try those on, but found that they were slightly too lower cut for me. I know a couple of other bloggers quite liked that about this particular boot, but I think they made my feet look tiny!

In the end I settled on their ‘go-to’ Cuban heeled ankle boot, Abel. I was properly measured up and found that I am a 38 (UK5) and regular width. An impressive perk for shopping at Duo is that you are guaranteed to find a perfect fitting boot – not only do they come in three width fittings, but knee high boots come in up to 21 (TWENTY ONE) different calf widths! I decided to go for grey, as it’s a little different to the usual black, but sadly they didn’t have the grey in stock at the Bath store, so I had to settle for…

… black glitter! Uh-mazing. I can’t tell you how in love with my new boots I am, I was very sad when I had to take them off at the end of the evening. I can just tell that these are going to be my go-to for the festive season – they look great teamed with everything, and are perfect for jazzing up an outfit. Expect plenty of outfit pictures soon!

Entertainment in Bristol
When I first moved to Bristol five years ago, Cabot Circus was barely a year old. I lived about a 30 second walk from its main doors, over the road in student halls. Topshop and H&M were on the walk home from me, which was great for Cabot, but terrible for my student loan. Cabot Circus is still going strong all these years later, and as well as shops and a countless number of restaurants, offers one of the plushest cinemas I have ever set foot in.

I was invited along to Showcase to test out their brand spanking new ‘X Plus‘ screen, the very latest in cinematic wonderment. As well as having a curved screen and super vivid projection, it also has Dolby Atmos surround sound, which was a little terrifying to say the least – they test it out with a really long advert at the beginning which immerses you in a rainforest, and it feels like water droplets are leaking from the speakers positioned directly above your head. Seriously, this sound is pretty impressive.

Sadly, the only film they had on which I could see was the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles jaunt, which is one of the worst films I have ever seen. It did give me a pretty good test for the new XPlus screen though, which is worth the few extra pennies on a regular 3D upgrade. I’ll be dragging Tom back to see the new Hunger Games movie when it comes out in a couple of weeks!

Whilst we are on the subject of cinema, it’s worth mentioning that if big commercial movies, surround sound, 3D and giant squishy seats ain’t your thing then a hop, skip and a jump away tucked into a little nook in Stokes Croft is the Cube, where I volunteer once every couple of weeks. You can usually find me ushering outside the auditorium, drinking tea and ripping up tickets. If you’ve never been before then you are missing a treat! It really is one of Bristol’s little gems.

Culinary Experiences Outside the City
The last exciting little trip in my two-week blogging adventure was a trip out to Almondsbury, for a food blogger evening courtesy of the Swan pub. I’d passed this little pub countless times before – trips up and down the A38 to and from Gloucester took me right past its front door. Myself and 6 other Bristolian foodies were treated to miniature versions of their best selling dishes, then tested our knowledge and the creativity of the chef in a little food quiz at the end of the evening.

The pub itself was inviting, though I was rather uninspired by their real ale choices (I sound like a right CAMRA snob, don’t I?!). The food more than made up for it though, my favourite being the signature Swan burger, the simplest of all the items on the menu. The menu is pretty experimental, but it builds on the basic elements of classic dishes (like the burger), so making a choice is easy, unlike a lot of gastropubs these days with their ‘jus’ and reductions and foam atop every plate of food you order. The Swan offers decent grub in a welcoming environment.

I did fairly well at the food quiz, coming third (woooo!), and sampling some interesting creations along the way, including oak smoked cauliflower puree and salmon roe, a Guinness reduction turned into ‘lollipops’, and an amazingly tasty cream cheese brittle, which suspiciously resembled white chocolate. A massive thanks to the Swan for having me, and Emily at nomnomcomms for inviting me!

I feel incredibly lucky whenever I am invited to try out the best that this fair city has to offer, especially when I get to experience things on behalf of the blog. A massive thanks go out to Duo for helping me find the most amazing pair of boots and for a fantastic evening, and also to Showcase for letting me have a sneaky peek of their fantastic new screen.