A very random day out in Hull!

A couple of weekends ago, we celebrated Stu's birthday a day early with a trip to Hull. It is the biggest city to us and a short bus ride away. It is always a fun day out and we usually head there with shopping in mind, even if we don't actually buy much but this time we decided to do something a little different. We had no plan about having lunch. We were just going to see where our feet took us and make a day of it.

No birthday day out is complete without food, and our first stop was Wings International Cuisine. It is a large all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant with a huge choice of food. You can find Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Thai and Italian dishes, along with roast dinners, grilled meats, salads, sides and then an entire section dedicated to desserts. If you leave hungry, that is your own fault! It costs £18.95 per person, which I think is pretty good considering just how much choice there is and the fact you can go back as many times as you like.

I started with a plate of plain noodles, garlic mushrooms, my favourite Coca-Cola chicken, prawn toast covered in sweet and sour sauce, roast gammon and some Doner kebab. It was very random but how often do you get to have all those different things on one plate? The rest of the family got stuck in too. There was pizza, curry, lasagne, chicken pie and sushi being eaten around the table. The desserts are probably my favourite part though. The plate in the photo above was Ellie's and she didn't mess around. She had mint chocolate chip ice cream, mini chocolate gateaux, apple jelly, profiteroles, Oreo cheesecake and marshmallows covered in chocolate. We ended up spending around two hours at Wings eating and chatting. By the time we left, we were all completely stuffed.

I couldn't not include a couple of photos of Stu, my fella, since it was his birthday celebration. Most of the photos I have of Stu are ones when he is doing something silly like sticking his tongue out or being overly smiley!

Normally, when we go to Hull we stick to the same areas. We go shopping, grab a drink and then head home. This time because we weren't actually shopping for anything, we had nowhere we needed to be. So we started walking down streets we don't normally go down. We headed towards Queen Victoria Square, which always seems to have something going on and we weren't disappointed.

There were people dressed up as octopuses, which is not something you expect to see and there were some guys on stage singing. We weren't completely sure what was going on at first but we were wondering if it was connected to the reopening of Hull Maritime Museum. It's had a major refurbishment. We did think about going in for a look around but the queue was so long and from what I saw online was that all the time slots for pre-booking were full, so it's something to remember for next time.

As we carried on walking, we came across something else that made us stop for a minute. There was a group of older people sitting on chairs doing seated exercises. I have no idea whether they were just a random group of elderly people who had joined in or whether it was an organised activity but it looked like they were having the best time. We just stood there thinking well, this is something you don't see every day!

We carried on walking and eventually ended up at Hull Minster. I always think it is such a beautiful building and it is one of those places that makes you stop and have a proper look at it. We didn't go inside this time because it looked as though there was some sort of event taking place but we didn't mind. We found somewhere to sit outside in the shade for a while and just took some time to admire the building.

It turns out we can't go anywhere now without visiting an Irish bar. I don't know when this became a thing, but somehow it happens every time we go out now. We stopped off for a drink and Stu decided we were going to stop for a little bit to watch the football that was on the TV's. Just when we thought about leaving, a singer started setting up his microphone and everything. I checked on Facebook and he was due to start at 4pm so we hung around for that and I was glad we did. As the girls said "he sung all the Irish bangers". lol Whiskey in the Jar, The Wild Rover, Tell Me Ma, Zombie by The Cranberries and Rattlin' Bog that I only know of The Wiggles doing it and seeing videos on TikTok. lol

Once we'd had enough of the football and music, we decided to carry on exploring. This time we went on a little history hunt to find something I'd never seen before. The smallest window in England! The window can be found at The George Hotel on Land of Green Ginger, one of Hull's historic streets. It is tiny, a centimetre wide glazed slit in the building, so if you weren't looking for it, there is a very good chance you would walk straight past without noticing. The George Hotel itself dates back to 1683 and was once the gatehouse for an older coaching inn. I love finding little bits of history like this. The best part was you can actually look through the little window into a small room decorated with skulls and spooky things.

Hull is somewhere we visit regularly but there are still so many little things we haven't seen and this day proved it! It turned out to be a really lovely way to celebrate Stu's birthday and have a great family day out.