In my last YouTube video I made a joke about my bedroom not being befitting of a YouTuber (no gently burning Yankee Candles and soft lighting) and reflected on not having the confidence to ‘vlog’ in public places. I think as bloggers we definitely put pressure on ourselves for our photographs to be perfectly composed, with just the right dose of stripy straws, bunting, mismatched crockery and immaculately iced cupcakes. A picnic isn’t simply a picnic if you’re taking a camera along – you must have the perfect straw hamper, juicy strawberries and chilled champagne – and not just the food, but the dress and shoes to match; the maxi dress flowing in the afternoon breeze, manicured toenails tucked inside on trend strappy sandals. It must be like that to be a celebrity – never really able to reach for the jogging bottoms or go a few days without wearing makeup, except where they fear being ‘papped’, the only people forcing us to ensure we’re camera ready are ourselves.
That’s certainly what was running through my head when I was kindly sent some vouchers by Oven Pride to have a little BBQ (and a box of their BBQ Pride to clean up afterwards!) “I should wear a pretty dress”, I thought – perhaps we could have some fizz… or some cocktails – better get the stripy straws out and find some befitting glasses. And the garden, oh the garden. The garden is so chock full of weeds it’s getting a bit ‘Day of the Triffids’, and the rest of the bits that aren’t covered in weeds are full of empty pots/old garden furniture/old watering cans/old decking/old, rotting fences and the odd bit of washing strung over the line. It’s fair to say that my garden is not exactly the most ‘bloggable’ of habitats. And having been in jeans all day, I really couldn’t be bothered to put on a maxi dress and floppy hat. So I just had a proper, good old Rosie and Tom barbecue. Our favourite barbecue foods (hickory smoked burgers, Piri Pri chicken drumsticks, pulled pork and beef brisket – all from Asda’s amazing barbecue range). And do you know what’s in those glasses? Innocent Raspberry and Apple juice. Because I’m not really drinking much at the moment, so why blow money on fizz just for a photo op? (I couldn’t resist a stripy straw though….)
Oven Pride really do always organise the best campaigns, and along with sending us Asda vouchers to get some barbecue foods, they generously sent us some high street vouchers to get something for the garden to make our barbecue more enjoyable. We chose a comfy chair from Robert Dyas for lounging in whilst the barbecue master is setting the chicken on fire cooking up a storm.
We have barbecues an awful lot in the summer – we tend to generally eat lots of meat and veg type meals anyway so a barbecue is a quick an easy way of cooking up a yummy dinner. We tend to accompany our barbecues with a bowl of salad, sweetcorn relish and lashings of barbecue sauce. I guess it makes it slightly bloggable that I had my favourite On a Wick and a Prayer Vanilla Musk candle burning away too?
We recently acquired our Outback gas barbecue after my parents spotted it outside their neighbours’ house with a sign on it saying ‘free to good home’. Tom wanted to give it a good clean before we used it so he was genuinely really excited when I told him we had a box of BBQ Pride coming. Hand on heart, receiving a box of BBQ cleaner is probably the most excited I’ve seen Tom about a blogging gift – who’d have thought it? It genuinely is a great product though and makes light work of keeping barbecue grills shiny and clean!
Are you a BBQ lover? Do you have bloggable BBQs or do you prefer the hair tied up, barbecue sauce down your front approach?
