We had a bit of a baptism of fire for the first day of Vegan April. We had booked a night away to a stately home in the boarders of Scotland with the in-laws to celebrate their Ruby Wedding anniversary. We had booked this before we had thought of doing Vegan April and had chosen the hotel for their restaurant, famous for it’s fresh trout and salmon from the river Tweed, not exactly great vegan material. To be totally honest there was part of me that wanted to just start a day later, but you could end up doing that forever and never ever starting, so we decided to suck it up and deal with it!
However I was a bit nervous, especially because this was the first time we had to ‘come out’ as vegan to our parents and we were prepared for a lot of jokes and questions. Credit where credit is due though, they were very nice and other than a couple of steak jokes, I was very touched by their interest and support.

I started the day with a big bowl of Alpro Soya Coconut Yoghurt, Mixed Nuts and Seeds, and a glass of Pulsin Pea Protein. It wasn’t that different to how I would normally start my day, I LOVE my pea protein and will be doing a whole blog on that very shortly.

Then we got in the car and drove to Jedburgh where we looked around the Mary Queen of Scot’s Museum. My in laws had kindly brought us sandwiches to eat in the car but because they didn’t know we were vegan they were salmon and egg so we weren’t able to eat them,  we stayed strong, had a packet of lightly salted crisps and decided to grab some lunch in Kelso instead.
We didn’t have high hopes for what would be available and we decided to look for somewhere we could grab a baked potato with baked beans, however we were blown away by the vegan offerings Kelso had available. We stumbled across Cafe U just a short walk away from the main square which had a large and delicious vegan menu.

I went for the Salad Platter with Humous and Meze and it was DELICIOUS!

We were so full after, we had a short look around the Abbey in Kelso and waddled back to Edman House Hotel where we were staying.

The hotel was lovely, it was very charming full of antiques and quirky furniture. Our room was cosy (but not small) and beautifully decorated.

I didn’t know what to expect for the evening meal, I had contacted the hotel in advance to let them know we were vegan but as it is a restaurant which specialises in fish we didn’t expect they got many vegans in. I was just hoping they’d have something we could eat!

We got mixed roasted vegetable soup for a starter, which was much nicer than it looks.

And the main course didn’t exactly blow my socks of but it was perfectly ok, we got a mixed vegetable medley.

We washed it all down with a couple of glasses of Prosecco and we were too full to have a pudding, but we could have had a fruit salad if we’d wanted it.

All in all I was really happy with my first day as a vegan and I didn’t feel like I missed out at all which is what I worried about.
I’m really excited about trying new places and discovering all the vegan delights on offer!