I am 51 years old…….widowed…have 2 children, age 24 and 22 and 2 step children, aged, 31 and 33 and met Grant 10 months ago.

We both had our unique journeys which had its fair share of sadness, tragedy and loss, yet our hearts held the promise of a future full of hope, adventure, excitement and the recognition that we still had a life to live and felt we had better start living it purposefully!

We hesitantly and slowly embarked on getting to know each other which represented dating (in our 50’s) and planning “dinner dates” for each other at unknown (to us), new interesting restaurants as a surprise for the other person.   Having gone to very limited restaurants for over 20 years and doing the “same ol; same ol; tried and tested, down the road reliable child-friendly dinners”, this was a challenge – all of a sudden, we were googling; researching; studying customer reviews; looking at the menu’s and making “calculated risks” in order to step out of our comfort zone into an uncomfortable new space of the road unknown ……yet was so excited about trying something new……………and doing it together! it all felt so right, terrifying and exciting!

Grant started keeping a record of everywhere we had been – we tended to take turns planning surprise outings for each other (although Grant was MUCH better at it than me!)  Shortly after,  we started documenting our journey and realised that after 10 months, we had visited …………..different restaurants and had so many unique experiences!     We also discovered that we shared a love for GREAT tasty food (not super expensive food) but good quality yummy food and in addition to this, what was so important to both of us was how comfortable we were in the restaurant or environment.  We were getting to know each other and needed to talk for hours and be relaxed – so how comfortable were the chairs? (I have a bad back L), how noisy was the restaurant? could we talk?   was I warm in winter?  (Fireplaces got more points!) and what was the service like?   So good yummy food; comfy chairs and the environment played a huge role in our overall satisfaction of the experience………so we started talking about our weekly outings and sharing it with friends and family who encouraged us to start this blog……

Basically, we were saving them hours of hours of research, getting to the heart of the matter and encouraging them to challenge the boundaries a bit and try a new restaurant….WE GET IT!  We are old (according to our kids!); stuck in our ways;  used to just going to the tried and tested  – not having to think…. when raising kids – if you cannot enjoy a meal from beginning to end without being interrupted a zillion times, help kids down slides, clean off cream soda spills, what is the point?  So we understand…the priority at the time was get out of the house, have some kind of a meal without needing to prepare it, and no washing of dishes afterwards!   Back then, that was a win!

But at 50 something, we have discovered a new lease on life and been encouraged to share our experiences with those we know and perhaps those we don’t know in the hope that we will save you lots of time and encourage you to realise you have 1 life to live and had better make the most of it!

So no better time than the present – we hope by sharing our experiences, we encourage you to try some of the places we’ve been to and explore new ones yourself, but more importantly spend the time making plans to share purposeful special times with those while you can. In essence, we are daring you to truly LIVE while you are alive!  Make this one life you have count!!

Because we have been to so many amazing places over the past 10 months, we may have to revisit some of our top ones to document them properly and share some pics and videos….