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[Jul. 23rd, 2008|05:46 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  awake | ] |
The weathers doing my head in today.
Its so hot, but you look out the window & assume you need a cardigan its that overcast.
Walked to Sainsburys & within about 10 minutes my head was hurting & I was hot & itchy. Have to be really careful in this kind of weather. It was summer 2003 when I got heatstroke & hence really ill in the first place.
However I am really glad I walked to sainsburys. I got a gressingham duck for £4.50. Already on special offer & then reduced. With a little bit of prodding it fitted into the freezer, have not yet decided whether it will be Christmas dinner , but if we don't find a use for it sooner, it may well be.
Thanks to a lucky turn of fate (jons uncle coming over from Australia) it looks like we will be having Chrismas without parents this year :-) This is really exciting. Its the first time we've managed to get away with it ever. Not that Christmas at parents isn't fun, but even now we rotate them it can still get a bit tiring & we usually end up coming back with nasty germs.
Spending half my time hovering on the urban outfitters website at the moment waiting for the Luella Berkly collection to arrive. Not that I massively care either way about her as a designer, but aqpparently her latest collection is influenced by the Boscastle museum of witchcraft.So lots of black gothyness & supernatural creatures & waterstains.
Naturally I won't be able to afford it when it does arrive. But I can live in complete denial if I want to.
Feeling a lot better tonight, to the extent that I can actually cook. So tagine it is. Have just hoofed it to 3 supermarkets looking for frozen broad beans, but can't find any. So I will be using soya beans, but it is a little wierd, I thought they were in season at the moment.
Mind you its another of those 'thank f'ck for Waitrose' moments. They have about 4 times the range of frozen veg as Sainsburys & Iceland do. Iceland surprises me though. Its a freezer based supermarket, you'd have thought they'd have more than just peas & carrots. Must get the hang of budget shopping at some point, no matter how hard I try I can't think like that.
Although I still think Snog Marry Avoid was created by nasty people. I have to thank this weeks episode for giving me loads of good ideas of what to do with glitter makeup. Now all I have to do is get the chance to go clubbing so I can try them out. :-) |
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| Maybe a little ranty - I'm always in a bad mood when I'm ill |
[Jul. 18th, 2008|12:25 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  meh! | ] |
Had a really crappy week.
After last wednesday I had b'ggerred feet that have only healed enough today to not wear really safe shoes.
& I ended up spending the week in bed. :-(
I did go out for 3 hours on Saturday to help on the merch stall at Rhythms of the World. Its been penned in this year to the park behind Hitchn Priory. Which wasn't great as it was raining & you weren't alowed out & then back in again. Aparently that was the polices fault as they didn't want people tanking up on supermarket booze. This whole anti alcohol thing is making me really angry at the moment. Really really angry. Just because a minority of people are idiots doesnt mean you can continually bring out measures that ruin the fun for everyone else...oh, except it seems it does mean you can.
The merchendise stall was thankfully under cover, however in previous years bands havent really had merch, its mostly been selling the Rhythms stuff. But nope, this year everyone wanted merch selling, so the stall got overfull very quickly. Burocracy in motion when My Passion wanted to sell their stuff seperately, & we & therefore them had to wait for nearly an hour to get official permission.
But it was fun, & I got free salads off the tent next door cuz their electricity packed in & they couldn't sell them anymore. New favourite combination, beetroot shoots, sweet potatoe & feta. gorgeous.
All in all having been to jons gig on wednesday & done the merch on saturday, I've remembered why I don't do bands anymore. With bands everyone is always in a state of panic & 3 times as intense about stuff as they need to be. If you have to wait for an hour to sell you stuff, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, if you have no-one turn up to an inapropriate gig on a really wet day, theres no need to go over everything in minute detail. Maybe I'm being a kill joy, but I don't see any of it as that important anymore.
Spent the rest of the week in bed.
In happier news, & to stop what seems to have turned into a rant again, I've lost weight :-)
Quite a lot, quite quickly, I've gone down at least a dress size. Which is ace except that this winters fashions are aparently goth, tartan(yay punkyness) & flat shoes. All of which I need to buy lots of if I am to have stuff I like to wear out clubbing for the next 5 years. Except I don't have very much money & I don't know what dress size I'm going to be.
The dress I bought last wednesday was a little on the big side then, it is rather a lot on the big side now, so far it is working fine with big belts, but if I shrink any more it will be redundant. & I can't afford to buy everything twice.
Have to see what fits again out of my stuff I've grown out of clothes collection which is at my parents as well, but they can't bring it down for another month, so I've no idea what I've actually got in my wardrobe to base new outfits round. At the moment thanks to maternity tops being fashionable for the past 2 years, & on top of that having shrunk out of everything, not a lot.
Mind you, not that maternity tops werent great when I had a massive stomach to hide, & I'm sure if I ever do get pregnant they'll be a lifesaver.
Why do they have to bring out all the nicest winter clothes in July anyway. By the time it actually gets to winter or I have any money fashion will have moved on again & I'll be grubbing around to find stuff I aprove of for the next 3 years.
Mind you, if this carries on, I'll fit back into vintage & all my worries are over. :-) |
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[Jul. 10th, 2008|12:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
Well yesterday was interesting.
First of all apologies to anyone I rung randomly, I'm not sure how many people I left answerphone messages for. I was in a bit of a panic. Liz got her violin bow out of her case for soundcheck & it fell to bits in her hands. I was watching, she was barely touching hte thing, we suspect it may have been the weather, her case is humidity controlled & takng the bow out into the outside of dampness may have been too much for it.
So I rang everyone I could think of who might know someone who lived in north london & have a violin, including some people who have possibly forgotten I've got their number. So appologies for that.
We even tried to get a bow off the Ting Tings who were playing across the road at Koko (we were at the turtle). THey said they were too stressed/busy, but really sorry. To be honest there was obviously something going on as a couple of townie girls who turned up to the turtle after their gig (and stayed for about 15 secconds as they really didn't like metal) said they only did half their album, & weren't very good. So good to know biger bands can have problems too.
We eventually fixed the bow with duct tape & with a couple of readjustments it lasted for the 30minute set.
Not that it really mattered. The Silver Wizard Project who has been favouribly compared to hawkwind & blondie & unfavorably compared to velvet goldmine & 'the cure being raped' :-), were playing with two bands who sounded like nine inch nails without as many tunes.
No one turned up, which was actualy rather a relief as very few people were likely to like both genres. The other bands & their friends watched & were polite, though not as much when they thought the band couldn't hear , about 2 people did genuinely seem to like it.
So liz's violin bow was not the biggest of my worries.
Silver Wizard Project were good though. They've finally got really really tight. Maybe the difference was more noticable to me as I havent seen them for a few months, but I'm really quite proud of them.
& I supose the gig was good practice.
The rest of the day was a bit irritating too.
Decided to come into london at lunchtime to do a bit of 'windowshopping' happily assuming that even though it was p'ssingdown in Hitchin, London would be better. Soon saw my mistake, so ended up running between Topshop, Miss Selfridges & H&M trying not to get wet. Certainly no way I was doing the whole of Oxford Street properly.
Wierdly everything I ended up buying was in topshop. Red tartan pinifore dress. Thought it was going to never fit me (topshop sizes being notorious). On hte dummy it looked extremely short & extremely low waisted, so god knows what proportions those shop dummys have. But it fits lovely, in fact the size 16 is a bit too big :-) . You would not believe how happy that makes me. I know I shouldn't care about being able to shop in topshop, but it just makes life so much easier & it was so depressing when I got too big for it.
Also got a tarten hairbow with a skull on it & a white bowler hat.
Then there was the shoe trauma. I tried a pair of mary-jane heels I'd had for about 10 years again. They were my 'heels that you can walk back from a club in' shoes. No longer. I'm not giving up on them entirely as it may have been the weather, but they have rubbed my feet to bits. By halfway through the gig I had to take them off. Problem is, sensible heels are like golddust & with the dress I was wearing I couldn't realy wear flats.Meh!
All in all a very wierd day.
Must remember one of hte reasons I don't go to london that often is that if I don't have somewhere specific to be in between shopping & evening activities, its very dificult to find somewhere nice to hang around for a few hours without having to walk a lot or sit in a pub, which to be honest isn't that much fun on your own.
Oh well I am knackered today,& I still have huge blisters, but I have a pretty dress :-) |
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[Jul. 8th, 2008|05:12 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  oh for f'cks sake! | ] |
Dear Laura
Thank you for your recent email regarding the Heinz UK commercial for Deli Mayo. Consumer feedback is very important to us and we appreciate the opportunity to respond.
Heinz pulled the ad in the UK because our consumer research showed that the ad failed in its attempt to be humorous and offended people on all sides.
Heinz apologises for its misplaced attempt at humour and we accept that this ad was not in accordance with our long-standing corporate policy of respecting everyone's rights and values.
Again, our sincere apology to anyone who felt offended. We appreciate you taking time to contact us to express your opinion and allowing us to address this issue.
Liz Pickstock
Consumer Contact Department
Ok, I wrote to complain because they pulled the ad & thats ofensive to anyone who believes in gay equality, & they've sent me this.
Do I write back to clarify my position? & if so how could I put it politely so they clearly understand.
My concern is that if they've sent me this, theyve got myself & potentially everyone else who complained about them cancelling the ad down as a statistic artificially inflating the number of complaints that caused the ad to be pulled in the firts place. |
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| Rant. |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|12:48 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
I have finally braced myself to watch Britains Missing Top Model.
Oh dear, now thers a programme that should never have been made. On the one hand it's all the bitchyness & stereotyping you get from the judges on any other modeling program, and then its a freak show with a thin veneer of political correctness. Now I think all these girls seem lovely, but the whole concept just seems deeply deeply patronising. & all of them look like models. Now scuse me for ranting off, but the criteria for a succesful model is so narrow looks wise, that I think finding disabled girls that look like that & making a show around them makes the problem worse rather than better.
One of the girls has ME amongst other things, & one of the common symptoms of ME that I have that she obviously doesn't is a tendancy to be utterly unable to control your weight & thats not just sour grapes, I suspect out of the populations of people with those disabilities all those girls (apart from the deaf one) are complete statistical anomalies. Now all this program is saying to me is 'oh yeah, you may be ill, but even you should still aspire to a completely unrealistic measure of beauty.'
To me it smacks of the electoral reform act of the 1880s (historical details a little sketchy here) where they alowed working class men to vote basically so they didn't have to give the vote to women, so then the two groups couldn't gang up together and protest together.
There have been a lot of 'real women' model programs recently, & ok they are real because they didn't get spotted age 14 or grow up in a castle, but nope, can't spot the difference between them and any girl who turns up in a magazine.
I'm sure in their warped little minds the people working in the clothing industry think that by this sort of thing they are making modeling more inclusive, but I'm waiting for the day when demographics of models reflects the demographics of the britiish population. & that means size 14-16 would be the norm, with roughly equal numbers going up & down after that, so you'd have the same number of size 24s as size 6s & the majority of women under 5'8" (don't quibble about these,you get the general idea, top of head guess from newspaper statistics).Then you woudn't need a program dedicated to disabled models, there would probably be a couple naturally, or if not, thens the time to make a fuss about discrimination.
btw:I've been a size 6-8, I may have looked good in photos & shown a dress off well but I didn't look healthy, I certainly wasn't eating properly & it was probably thyroid related.
I just hate this faschist and really damaging interpritation of what people are supposed to look like.
Which brings me to my next target this week: Snog Marry Avoid, also helpfully provided by BBC3 in its aim to make us all look like youth tv presenters.
I find this program deeply offensive. All their targets are Jordan wannabes (mostly from Liverpool) & various subspecies of goths.
Firstly for 'natural beauty' read 'middle class', there is makeup & hair dye involved, but its 'tasteful'.
As far as goths go, their not trying to apeal to your average bigot in the street anyway, actually I think most of them look fairly good, I mean, I used to be one.
As far as the footballers wife types go, there is no reason apart from old fashioned snobbery that they shouldn't look like that, they're a subculture in their own right same as goths are.
All any of these people need are a few basic lessons on how to do OTT makeup/hair/clothes in a flattering way for them, as sometimes whatever Wayne Rooneys bird or Marylin Mansun do may not be exactly the same as works for their body type/face shape etc.You can do that without erasing their natural style. They certainly don't need turning into someone who wouldn't look out of place on T4.
I don't see why BBC3 is showing this crap,yes you can make programmes abot body image & peoples images of beauty, but there must be a far better way of discussing the issue than producing programmes that reinforce unaceptable stereotypes & try to force middle class 'values' on everyone else.
edit:Oh great they just finished the model program with a clip from next week where they moan about one of their weights, & that was followed by an advert from a program about airbrushing photos. case closed! |
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[Jul. 4th, 2008|12:02 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | blah | ] |
Meh,
Lots of plans for this week, none of them fulfilled. Mainly because I've come down with a chronic case of the ME, which is making me too tired to do anything, combined with the fact I've been well for the past month or so & have completely got used to the idea that I should be doing things during the day.
Hence today: completely clean kitchen, including the bit by the floor under all the units which has never been done before, no aquasplash.
Maybe this is a good thing as cleaning is good excercise & aquasplash costs money.
However all money saved is going on my first & only diet attempt, which involves eating 3 meals a day, 2 of them readymeals. This may seem counterproductive, but the readymeals in question are waitrose ultra healthy ones & salads (all reduced price obviously). The logic behind this is that I can count how many calories I'm having (about 450 per meal) I am actually having breakfast/brunch for the first time in 10 years, & when I cook for myself during the day I am usually too tired/hungry/can't be arsed to make something very healthy & all too often the ham/egg/tinned veg option that I tend to settle on doesn't fill me up so I end up snacking on cheese or eating too much for dinner.
However the structured diet combined with excercise does seem to be working a bit, so I'm not giving up on it yet.
Not sure about Stay Beautiful. Firstly I am really ill, we need to stay till the end to flyer, & I'm not sure I'm well enough. Seccondly, we are a little tight for money, & thirdly, anything I want to wear involves a trip to stevenage. I'm not sure I can manage this and still go to the garden talk tomorrow night, & its the sales so I'm so going to want to buy stuff. In fact the very evil side of me thinks that maybe I want to buy a new outfit as this will be easier than adapting an old & completely out of fashion one. Apart from my corset for christmas I haven't had new going out clothes for at least 2 years.
On a related note, are control pants worth the hastle? I know they work, but do they leave you unable to drink lots and eat anything all evening like a tightlaced corset does, or are they ok?
At least we still have Pimms. |
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[Jul. 1st, 2008|12:38 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  happy | ] |
Had the most amazing weekend.
After the evil that was last week we really needed a bit of a break.
Friday night: down the pub with Christine, nice catch up, then came home to Jon, Liz & Gemma & Glastonbury on the telly. Spent several hours checking out what mainstream musics been doing for the past year. Interested in a couple of things, the Ting Tings don't look too bad. Think Estelle was the absolute worst, poor girl couldn't sing in tune for sh't!
Woke up Saturday, went to Waitrose & discovered there was an offer on Pimms, oh dear! Went to the market whilst Jon & Liz made a start in the garden, brought back strawberries, so that was it, saturday was spent in the garden with the pimms,strawberries & posh lemonade pretending to be sophistocated.
Went in to watch Dr Who (oh my god! :-) ) and eat. Venison pie from last weeks farmers market and new potatoes & pettit pois from our garden :-) had forgotten since childhood what fresh veg tastes like, see why everyone raves about it now.
Then we had a Buffy marathon.
Sunday, grill-up then off to london to meet Jons mum & brother, had tea at the Royal accademy, dinner at the British Film Institute & then Pentangle at the festival hall. Good gig, strangely Lite Flight was the second song they played, first half was all the folky stuff, second half was all the jazzy stuff.
Today naturally I have been knackered. But I did mange to do a roast, but a roast with thai style marinade & a salad, so vaguely healthy.
Rest of the week I have pub quiz & CAMRA & aquasplash & a how to grow veg talk on friday which I am going to with Christine. As our plans for this weekend so far involve london & stay beautiful, I think I am going to have to wiggle my way out of most of these to begin to afford it.
But we shall see.
Meh, It's not bedtime yet, but I've exhausted telly options. |
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| Today just gets better & better.... |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|11:48 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  ill | ] |
Note to self,
You don't get on well with fish & chips. Don't know what it is, but the last 5 or 6 times you've eaten them you've been sick afterwards. It's not the chipshop you use, Jon eats them fine. But its a complete waste of money to eat stuff your just going to throw up afterwards.& it's not the most pleasent experience in the world. Specially as you usually get them as a treat because somethings gone wrong.
In future don't bother.
PS. Avoid KFC as well for same reason
The worst thing is I am very tired I feel fairly miserable, I just want to go to bed & get today over with, but you know what, I can't, not till my stomachs settled properly.
MEH!!!!!! |
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[Jun. 19th, 2008|08:09 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bouncy | ] |
Got dragged along to Aquafit at the local swimming pool with Gemma & her neighbour yesterday. Had a lovely time, realised I was a lot fitter than I thought I was. Then woke up feeling like my body had flu this morning. But now I have loads of energy. May well keep this up. It can only be good for me.
Have been quite useless on the cooking front for the past couple of days. Yesterday I made fennel & tomato gratin, according to the recipe it takes 7 minutes to soften fennel. Bollocks it does! Unfortunately I only noticed the error half way through cooking and I was short of time.
& today I'm making curry. Using shoulder of lamb as I've decided I need to learn to cook with cheaper cuts. Recipe fairly streight forward, apart from the add the stock & wait for the lamb to cook bit. So of course I read this in a hurry, & thought 'lamb, about 20 minutes then'... nope not with shoulder, I'll be lucky if its an hour & a half.
Have really got to learn to read these things properly.
Have nearly finished my bag, all the little rhinestonse stuck on. I'm not going to use the rhinestone buttons, I'm going to look for some cheap costume jewelery broaches on the junk antiques market tomorrow, & attatch them instead.
Everyone local s resisting the idea of doing something stupid for the solstice. So it's a video night round ours. Meh :-( |
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[Jun. 18th, 2008|01:56 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
Am really happy today.
Thanks to finally finishing sorting out te wardrobe have discovered a pair of jeans I had forgotten I had. They are size 16 & fit properly ;-)
Have really got to start wearing trousers that fit. I am officially size 16, but I usually buy 18s cuz I can't be bothered to navigate different cuts & waistlines to find the ones that fit and look good. Cuz 18s are a bit too big I can buy any style & it will definately sort of fit. However seeing myself in properly fitting jeans, I'm realising that it's worth the effort of trawling through stuff, cuz fitting trousers make my arse look considerably smaller than too big ones do. & I don't have to worry about builders bum every 5 minutes.
Christine has leant me a bag making book, out of which 90% of the stuff is really fiddley & horribly naff. Well it was published in 2002, about the same time those corset shaped handbags were popular. But I have found one really nice pattern that will sort out some fabric I've had for a while & not known what to do with. So thats good.
She also leant me the Cath Kidson ideas book, which is full of nasty pastel florals & even nastier distressed pastel painted furniture. But actually has a load of good ideas in it. Am pleasently surprised.
Loads of stuff I want to do, so naturally I'm going back to bed instead. |
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[Jun. 17th, 2008|02:56 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
Not been too well this week, but got a lot of stuff done considering.
Last wednesday went down to the pub for lunch as Gemma was working there. They had Oscar Wilde on :-)
Then Gemma & I went on a shopping trip to Stevenage. Spent £24 at Hobbycraft. Got 3 rhinestone buttons for the top of my bag, & a pack of little rhinestones for the flowers on the main part. Got fake pearls, pink satin roses & swartski crystals to finish my necklace & got a pirate costume pattern for jon.
I am really pleased to have accquired this. Hobbycraft have just started doing patterns, so their range is limited (to about 20) but the pirate costume one hs been on my list for ages & ok it was £5.50, but thats way cheaper than buying it off the internet with shipping. I am not going to use the whole pattern just the coat bit, but it will look good on Jon.
Not amazingly happy with how much it all cost though.
Weekend was fairly boring. Jons band had a rehersal on friday night & a gig in Tamworth I wasn't going to on Saturday. So I went down the pub with Christine on friday, & couldn't drink cuz I wasn't feeling very well, & then out for a walk with her on Saturday. Fell asleep as soon as I got home & slept through to 9am the next morning with only an hours waking up to get some food down me.
Jon was wrecked on Sunday & I was ill, & yesterday Jon had the day off to get some adminy stuff done, except that it took all day, & we have been chronically ripped off, cuz aparently our old contents insurance provider was allowed to renew our insurance for another year without consulting us or even telling us they were doing it. & we had gone & arranged much cheaper cover with someone else. According to the CAB that was legal. So we have had to pay a horribly extortionate fee to make the insurance go away. Very angry.
So in the evening we decided to get p'ssed. Due to saving money we drank at home, but Waitrose is doing a lovely £3.70 offer on a nice rose wine, which is perfect for this kind of weather. Watched that supersizers go 70's programme, & even though I was born in the 80's & jon was born in 79 we both recognised most of the food on there, so now we have cravings for angels delight, prawn & avocado & silly cocktails. However we have far too much onion soup knocking around & we have to eat all that first. Have really got to get in the habbit of freezing leftovers to stave off food boredom.
Today I went to the market & have started making my necklace. Unfortunately I got tired & had to give up half way through. I am saving up for a hammock then I can nap in the garden. It seems such a shame to have to sleep indoors when the weathers so nice. |
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[Jun. 10th, 2008|11:29 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
Had a massively productive day today.
Made pie, cleaned the house & made a bag.
All of which went better than hoped.
What I thought was enough pie ingredients to make 4 portions with, has actually made about 7. So no cooking for the rest of the week for me then :-)
The house was an added bonus, I had no intention to sort it out, but it just kinda happened.
The bag is lovely. It is a little smaller than it should have been, & will do more as a large handbag than a shopper. But its the first time I've made anything without a pattern so I'm fairly happy. The lace round the top is cream & at the moment the combination of cream crocheted lace & 1970s pattern looks a little more granny than customised vintage, but a few rhinestones will sort that out in no time.
If I can find any. There are absolutely no sew on ones on the internet that I can buy. One site only takes credit cards, all the really good ones only ship to america & the one uk site I have found only has about 5 colours, none of which are suitable. My only hope is hobbycraft in Stevenage if I can get a lift up there, failing that it's going to have to be a trip to soho.
Mind you I'm not going to get into a rant again about how the 'craft' industry is aimed at rich 50 somethings & actually stifles creativity rather than promotes it.
I did however miss the pub quiz, as no one else was available. However we have a nice bottle of Merlot at home, so I am not too upset.
Now I have absolutely nothing to do tomorrow! |
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| Oh sh't!!! |
[Jun. 3rd, 2008|02:16 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
So you know allotment waiting lists are like 2 years at the moment.
Our local allotment isn't run by the council, so it's not on their website, but I wanted that one as it's 2 minutes walk round the corner from our house. They've got a plot available. Their sending me the details.
We thought we'd go for one now as in 2 years we'd be ready for it.
& we've got one pretty much imediately.
We don't have to go for it, we get to have a look at it first.
I am so scared now! Really really happy, but really really scared!
edit: oh my god they are huge... they are about 3 times the size of normal allotments! Thats ok though, we can decide how much we want & palm the rest off to friends. I really hope we get this now! |
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[Jun. 1st, 2008|12:03 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  meh! | ] |
Had quite a fustrating day. Got all the shopping done within budget, Im getting quite good at this, but Hitchin was full of ambling families, so getting round town was quite difficult. There has been some kind of incident in the male toilets on the market. There was a police cordon round it. The story the stallholder nearby told me about what had happened is horrific, but there has been nothing in the press and I've heard no other confirmation, so hopefully he was making it up.Hitchins a nice safe place, I don't want nasty stuff happening here.
After lunch jon had a hairdressing apointment, which was supposed to take an hour, but took 3 hours as the hairdressers are not too good at timekeeping. However they are the only hairdressers in Hitchin who really know how to deal with blokes with long hair, & they are nice people, so you can't complain too much. However by the time he got home it was 6.30, so too late to make the circle line party :-( & I wasn't even going to attempt the 9.30 meetup after looking at the number of people coming. Luckily I was asleep for the time jon was out, so I didn't sit there clockwatching. I did get 2 hours more sleep than planned though, so I am awake now.
The hairdressers timing also made us too late for our alternative plan for the evening, which was Daevid Allen (or however he spells it), ie the bloke from Gong & Soft Machine, playing at Club 85. So we went down the pub. However as I had made leftovers pasta, which included a block of mozarella that was about to go off, I ended up with milk allergy symptoms, which don't mix well with alcohol. So I could only have 1 pint :-(
However despite all this, I am not in the chronically p'ssed off mood I would expect me to be in. I am getting rather tired, and to be honest if we had done anything tonight I would have been ill tomorrow. I've been sleeping later in the morning & all afternoon for the past few days, so I guess I'm just going through a bad patch.
I have managed quite a bit this week,from where I left off in my last post: thursday went to see Sex & the City with Gemma & Christine (the only spoiler I would give is that not much happens to spoiler!), & then had them for dinner afterwards, which involved cooking and also a lot of hoovering before hand. Friday I mostly sat on my arse & watched telly, in the hope of being well enough to manage this weekend. Which obviously hasn't worked. As yet, I am not half as depressed about being ill again as I normally would be. Hope this continues. |
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[May. 27th, 2008|02:53 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  busy | ] |
Brilliant weekend!
Saturday:Sainsburys & market. Once again have done our weekly shopping for £20. Hooray! Picked up a tray of apricots for £3 for todays jam making project.
In the afternoon we boiled a ham for sandwiches & made a roast dinner. Did a couple of hours of gardening, in a few months we will hopefully have radishes, courgettes, spinach, carrots, potatoes & petite pois. :-) settled down to eat roast in front of eurovision.
Sunday: cover bands day at the cricket club. Lots of fun, lots of dancing arse off, surprisingly little drinking.
Monday: despite the rain we went for a walk to Pirton (a nearby village), saw baby moor hens, baby rabbits, swallows, pheasents & a fox.
Today: have been making apricot jam, well I say jam, it's more caramel as I left it on for a bit too long. Thats what happens when you listen to your mum instead of gut instinct. I got it to set properly though, & it is rather nice, just more as a sauce to go with ice cream than for on toast.
Have left over apricots, not sure whether to try to do another batch properly, or bung them all in the tagine I'm making tonight for dinner. Have to use them today though, as they will go off.
Off for a nap now, as I still have dinner to cook & a pub quiz to go to. & having a couple of hours sleep is the only way I'm going to manage. |
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[May. 21st, 2008|02:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | happy | ] |
Having a really nice week this week.
On monday I did cooking all day. We now have 2 jars of strawberry jam, well I say jam, but jon says it's more like a sauce. This is cause I used the Jamie Oliver recipe rather than the WI one. But to do it properly I need to get hold of some pectin in a bottle, cuz that makes it a lot less hit & miss.
I also made butter chicken. According to Jon it tasted like a restaurant meal ;-) which was the aim with buying my indian cookbook. It took about 2 hours, was a right faff, but it's a lot cheaper than eating out. I need to work out how to do my own naan bread now, as that still adds a lot of extra expense.
Yesterday Gemma & I went judging cider at the Cambridge beer festival. Then we spent several hours drinking the leftover cider. Came home with two takeouts, pickled pig cider for me, & chocolate orange stout for jon. lovely. Wierdly the hangover hit last night rather than this morning, whihc was a pain because I had to miss the pub quiz, but good because I feel fine today.
This evening I am walking up to Great Offley for a CAMRA branch meeting & tomorrow Gemma is coming over & we are going to make a start on our dresses for Tapestry festival.
At some point I will probably get ill again & ruin this, but it is all good for now. |
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[May. 18th, 2008|10:05 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  mellow | ] |
Had a really good weekend doing nothing in particular.
Went to the pub on friday night with jon, gemma & christine. Nice beer, nice chat.
Saturday, planned the menu for next week then went to the market to buy all the stuff I needed. The best bargain was the root ginger, 30p for 3 large lumps, about a tenth of the price of Waitrose. Did entire weeks shopping including meat for under £20. This also included 8 punnets of strawberries for £3 which will be jam as of tomorrow.
Think this planning my shopping will be a regular occurence in future.
In the afternoon we went to Wikinsons & planned to spend the evening sorting out the bedroom. This was quickly put a stop to by our neighbour who was holding a rather loud party. No problem with this, its the first time he's done it, they turned the music down at midnight when we asked him to, just wish he'd warned up then we could have aranged something to do that wasn't a quiet evening in.
However it turned out really well. We decided that as it was too noisy to cook, we'd go out for dinner. Went to an Australian restaurant in town, that we've always seen as a bit of a trendy bar & avoided like the plague. But now I've got my curry cookbook we didn't fancy one, jon didn't fancy piza & all the italien restaurants were full, & the rest of the restaurants in Hitchin are terribly expensive. So it was about the only place to go apart from the pub. It was great. Amazing burgers, & they have crocodile & kangaroo steaks on the menu. Totally converted.
Today, we did gardening & chatting & not very much, & this evening have ordered the fabric for my tapestry costume for this year. I am using the same pattern to make it with, but we bought some brown William Morris fabric off ebay for the bodice, & I can easily get cheap brown heavy cotton off the market for the rest of the dress. Dead excited. It's about time I got sewing again. Problem is, the cheapest I can get patterns, that I have found is £5 + about £3.50 postage. Hence wanting to buy them in bulk to save money, but never having enough money to actualy do so. But it's a start, & if you make the same thing twice you can only get better at it.
I have toothache, not properly, but another bloody wisdom tooth has decided to put in an apearence. Luckily there is an NHS dentist taking patiens in Hitchin at the moment, so I will be off to register next week. I have no pain from any of my fullly emerged teeth, but the wisdom ones keep getting stuck half in & out of my gum for 6 moths at a time as they grow, which can't be good for them, & I certainly can't clean them in that position, so I need that checked out. I also think there can't possibly be room in my mouth for any more teeth.
Not quite sure what to do with myself. I usually spend the evenings when theres no alcohol, necking fruit & herbal teas, but our kettle has broken & I'm not sure I can be arsed to boil water on the hob. I'm sure I'll think fo something. |
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drunk
complete disbelief
amused