who dat?! ::

I have come to work to recover from a very hectic weekend.

Mmmm… Eggs Florentine ::

On Saturday morning m’boy treated me to a delicious breakfast at Ripple, a small café run by two dear friends of mine. Eggs florentine is my absolute favourite. I love the mix between rich free range egg and irony spinach. Probably teaming the creaminess of the sauce with a massive strawberry milkshake was a tiny mistake. Euuuurrrrrrrgh. My stomach haaaates meeeee. This was not very conducive to achieving a great deal; shame.

I browsed through the latest article on Helena Bonham Carter in the weekend Observer. I have always adored Helena Bonham Carter. If i thought that i could run around in massive boots, corsets, bloomers and with flowing Pre-Raphaelite hair, then trust me i would. I think for a moment about suggesting to my sig’oth’ that we too buy expensive georgian terraced houses, one each, and bridge them with an internal walkway. Also that we don’t sleep together because he snores and i kick and soliloquise.

There it is – looming :: Look out for the numero uno ::

I spent the afternoon putting in some quality time with my bestest bud and visited his new studio space at Stand Assembly. For a while i helped him insulate his space with a giant role of plastic sheeting, some tacks and a hammer, until i realised that this was too much like hard work and what has he ever done for me anyway? I played to my strengths and made tea.


More cheese and wine than you could shake a stick at ::

Saturday night was cheese and wine night where we finally got round to eating our body weight in stinky stinky cheeses – a potted cheese, a red-and-blue cheese and a cheddar infused with whiskey cheese – that our old housemate gave us for christmas with an assortment of posh biscuits. I discovered that i do not have much of a stomach for blue cheeses {they make me pull my very classy GAH! GAH! GET IT AWAY FROM ME! GAH! face} and that i do not have a taste for fine red wines. I’m dead classy, me. Instead, we whiled away half an hour discussing the merits of various wines according to what colour they stain one’s lips.

Sunday saw an uncharacteristic burst of proactivity from me and I blitzed our scruffy little house and whipped it into shape, albeit one still frayed a little around the edges.

Fried shrimp :: And we ate it all :: Euuuuuuuuurrrrrrgh ::

In the evening, mister new housemate cooked us a New Orleans -style feast in time for the Super Bowl that evening. The latter makes no real sense to me and I went off bedways, but the former suuuuuure tasted goooooooood!

Saturday ::

:: Take some photos

:: Go for breakfast at Ripple with John-Dave so that he can apologise for being a plonker

:: Visit Jeffers’s Studio

:: Read at least one chapter of my book

:: Buy some jeans

:: Buy at least one new top

:: Read Anna Pickard’s TellyWonk on Lost S6, episodes 1 & 2

:: Tidy the house before folk come round for cheese, wine {&/or beer} and scrabble night

Sunday ::

:: Do my share of the cleaning rota

:: Clean/tidy our bedroom

:: Read at least one chapter of my book

:: Upload the photos

:: Visit Trina

:: Remember it’s madre’s birthday and treat her to a birthday telephone call

Monday ::

:: Write to nanny brewin

:: Return by Toast wingtips – sob – because they don’t fit

:: Use the refund money to buy a Brevity ‘horo’ necklace {!}

:: Chase Washing Machine Man Dick

:: Watch Silent Witness on iplayer

warning: I have no sense of humour about my hair ::


Banged good ::


So i have been poorlysick now for over a week {ok, so, only a day over a week… Indulge me!}. What started as a mild sniffle has turned into something a whole lot more revolting: I am now a barking, sniffing, snot-encased monster. And, new development today!: I have now lost hearing in both ears and my labyrinthitis is back. I have to deliver a rather important presentation tomorrow and yet can’t hear or speak for longer than a minute without choking on my own throat. It’ll be a true miracle if i even manage to stay upright.

Sigh.

But, after umming and ahhing and gurgling and choking for a good while, I decided to keep my appointment at the hairdressers. I only really visit the hairdressers, oh, once every four months because I fear smalltalk and looking at myself in the mirror for any great length of time. However, I thought a new haircut my cheer me up and make me feel a little less monged.

Lucky, lucky hairdresser. I nearly asphyxiated trying to keep my germs to myself while she moved around at close quarters trying to “texturise” my bob. I appear to have regressed somewhat; for a fleeting moment there I saw my ten year old self in the mirror: bobbed and block-fringed. So yes, very much like a mushroom again. Oh dear. And yet apparently hairsnipping folk have discovered “texturising” since the 80s, where they snip snip snip dramatically at one’s hair with special magical scissors and de-mushroom. A flat bob, you say? Who’d've thunk it!

So I am now a fringed, or banged {snigger} as los Americanos would say, snot monster. The above photo pretty successfully shows both the latter and my boy’s attitude towards this.

sweet, sweet, cherry piiiiieeeee ::

I am about to embark upon a shopping trip of epic proportions. This is fantastic because we all know how much i love Real Life Shopping. Especially in the rain.

I am on a moleskine (mol-a-skeen’-a) mission -to help myself to become more organised and with which to shower my bud on his birthday. This will surely cost me an arm and a leg, as it ain’t bloody cheap to follow in the footsteps of noteworthy Moleskiners from ‘gifted artists Henri Matisse (1869–1954) and Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), to poet and leader of the surrealist movement André Breton (1896-1966) to Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) considered the most influential writer of the last century, to famous travel writer Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989)’ {thank you website}, but it’ll be worth it.

I have also – perhaps somewhat foolhardily {fool.hardy. fool.hardily. hmmm…?} – decided to throw my aforementioned bud a Pie Party to celebrate this weekend. Thanks to Mr. Oliver, I have a list of four tasty pies up my sleave, and probably soon all over my sleaves, and face, and floor. I have a sizeable shopping list, carefully categorised according to shop, which covers two sides of A4 with little room to spare.

Last time i attempted a shopping trip this ambitiously gargantuan, aforementioned {twice} bud had to rescue me, broken shopping bag in hand -CURSE YOU, TESCO!, and my shopping as it rolled across the middle of the road.

This time it will be much more successful, no doubt.

UPDATE ::

Did i mention that i created four -bloody FOUR! – successful pies for this feast?

It was my ambition to create all the famous pies I could think of. So…two.


Cow Pie ::


Four & Twenty Blackbirds Baked ahem on…sort of A Pie ::

And yes, i’m aware that these are white birds.

And then two sweet pies that had absolutely no claims to fame whatsoever {it’s harder than you’d think}: An Apple, Blackberry & Ginger Pie and A Chocolate & Orange Pie.

After dinner, we attempted to fly one of those Chinese Lantern-y things, because the birthday boy had been given some for his birthday. Oh crumbs, this did not go well. Lighting the bugger took around half an hour and, once in the air, the paper lantern erupted into flame. So essentially we had released a flaming ball of paper into the air. Nobody thought ‘errrrr… are we sure that paper is the best thing to make this out of…?’.



frosty and in pain ::


Frozen Britain ::

I’m being a terribly eager beaver. Honestly, you’d be proud of me. So far my new year’s resolutions are going well:

:: Last night, i went to aerobics in an attempt to improve my fitness. This means that i donned some hideously unflattering garb, bounced up and down for an hour to hideous bouncey music, pulled more muscles than i knew i had, and tottered out into the snow a sweaty ball of ache. I can already feel the tautening of my ‘Abs’.

:: I have also been walking into work every morning in my wellies. This involves negotiating a very steap, icy hill. This morning this was made somewhat more difficult by my previous night’s activities and the fact that my muscles now despise me. Not so graceful on the ice today. More flailing. More like Bambi on the icy icy pond, legs akimbo.

:: I have decided to be less frugal and scared of money. This essentially means that i’m being much more selfish and much more frivolous. Hello Howies order, hello new laptop, hello new Plumo slippers, hello new Zara cardigan, and, yes, hello new Gap tights… Ahem. This may be the least healthy of all my new resolutions. Hmm… Perhaps they need an ammendment…