I'm pretty sure there must have been more BBQs in the UK in the last three weeks than there were in the whole of last "summer". The weather has been stunning and for once it was so nice to arrange a BBQ in advance without having to worry about the weather.
When Money Supermarket launched the Charcoal Challenge and offered bloggers £50 to host a BBQ it seemed appropriate to invite another blogger to join us, so that's exactly what I did. Kirsty from Damson Lane lives just down the road from me and it was a delight to have her, her husband and son come to visit us. I'd also had one of those "getting older" life events earlier that week, so I was keen to make this BBQ easy with as little preparation as possible. So, what did I spend the first part of my budget on? £4.50 worth of garden themed fabric so I could make some bunting!
I have seen somewhere some lovely vintage style BBQ fabric, but alas I couldn't find any in time, so instead settled for some very cute garden themed fabric instead. A couple of hours of cutting out, pinning and sewing together and I was rather pleased with the result.
In an attempt to distract slightly from all the food and drink I also splashed out £4.99 on a children's badminton set which kept the kids amused for a while and also provided me with more exercise than I've done in YEARS! Probably a good investment.
As for the rest of the budget – well that was simple. Nearly all of it want on very nice organic meat, bread rolls and accompaniments from Ocado. All conveniently delivered straight to my kitchen that morning.
I lie, there was one very small bit of food preparation in the form of marinading some pork in teriyaki sauce and then creating kebabs with it. Not exactly taxing.
After all that work we then just concentrated on enjoying ourselves. Musical entertainment was expertly provided by the children with their first piano duet. I'm sure Lang Lang is worried…
After their duet the children seemed to have an absolute ball playing outdoors and it was lovely to see them get stuck in to a spot of gardening.
Thanks to Mr C's amazing outdoor cooking skills the BBQ part of the afternoon went without a hitch.
Whilst we may have spent much more than we would usually do on a BBQ, what we did spend the money on was delicious and it was very much a hassle free BBQ party for all involved. Exactly what I was after.
After the first six months of Master C's life featuring snow every month he's now getting quite used to eating alfresco and loves being out in the garden. He may be in for a bit of a shock though when the weather changes again!
Disclaimer: We were kindly given £50 by MoneySupermarket to host this BBQ.
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