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*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*MERRY CHRISTMAS*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*

to everyone! Lots of love and festive thoughts to you all, have a good one and see you in 2008!

I'm off to the UK tonight so this is a final blog, probably. We're doing Southampton, Swansea and Devon, seeing my in-laws, my big sis, her husband & the twins, plus my Dad and his partner. WEEEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEE! Can't wait. Just got to get through a final morning of work, the obligatory work Christmas lunch out then we're off.

Mistletoe and Wine

Ah so I am feeling quite Chrismassy today. I have just booked a table at the gorgeous Wykeham Arms pub for this coming Saturday in Winchester, as we will be over in the UK by then! It really is the nicest pub in the world, roaring log fires and heaps of olde English charm, ahhhhhhh. I am limbering up.

Had a great weekend. Took it easy Friday then went to two xmas house parties on Saturday night, after a day of final shopping and tidying. My cousin hosted the first one we went to, then I drove to our friends Tinny & Sarahs in the Vale and joined the festivities there. I got drunk really quickly (I had obviously had to drive from the first one and was sober as a judge while watching my husband get steadily rat arsed by the minute) in order to catch up. Good night! No drunken injuries you will be pleased to hear, just a rather apocalyptic hangover on the Sunday. I managed to crawl out of bed and had Rachel around to watch Transformers. We were all really disappointed that there was no song - "transformers... robots in disguise" in the film. Booooo.

We finished watching Flight of the Conchords which is really sad, I loved that series so much. We are now working our way through the Box of Delights, which is just the most Chrismassy thing ever and is helping get us in the spirit. My husband watched it as a child and although he loves it, it has given him a lifelong fear of wolves/werewolves. And you can see why... this is from the opening titles:

It is a bit flipping scary.

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I'm not going to make up blog titles any more as it is just so silly, I can't think of anything.

So I finished Confessor, by Terry Goodkind. I was a bit disappointed to be honest. I really loved his earlier books but his latest are just infested with dire monologues that go on for pages and pages. I am glad I have finished, and can get on to pastures new. I think I said before, but I've started reading the Susan Cooper series, which are childrens books and kind of remind me of the Chronicles of Narnia, in the way in which they are written. I've also gotten out of the library a book by George RR Martin, apparentely he writes similarly to Donaldson and Tolkein, so hopefully I will like it a lot.

Just a quiet night in tonight. Then tomorrow two Christmas parties to go to in one night. I could use a time-turner like Hermione had, modified so that it sobered me up between the two.

I popped home at lunchtime and Molly snuck into the lounge and under the Christmas tree. I have left her there as she really really likes it under the tree. If ever I can't find her at the moment I know where to look!

There is talk of going to Herm island on Sunday. However, it will be cold so I don't know. If the tides are right we were thinking of taking our boat Jeannie plus Laurie's rib so we can get a fair few over. We shall see.

Work is dire, I shall say no more.

All dressed up and nowhere to go!

So we woke up on Saturday morning and it was howling wind and rain. As we lurked under the covers we didn't relish the thought of getting out of bed, let alone flying to Jersey.

We packed our bags, then Nick called Alice, who was supposed to be flying out of the island a couple of hours before we did. She was stuck at the airport, nothing was flying out. We phoned the airline and asked them what our chances were of leaving the island. They basically drew in a big breath and shook their heads sadly at us. They did say there might be a 'window' later if the winds changed, but there was now a big backlogue of flights before us so they couldn't say for sure. We decided to cancel the flights, because of that and also the problem that if we did make it then we could easily be stuck the next day as the winds were supposed to be even stronger on Sunday and we wouldn't be able to get back.

So there were 8 of us with our party frocks/tuxedos and nowhere to go. I did the phone around and managed to find a restaurant that had had a last minute cancellation and could fit us in. We dashed to M&S and bought nibbles, and then had everyone around to ours for drinks before heading into town to the restaurant. We ended up at La Perla, which was pretty appauling and we were completely over dressed, but what the hell. Then we found some bar for more drinks and later on a few came back to ours. We were pretty wasted, I thought it would be a good idea to show people this video which I found funny, but now I'm a little concerned people will think I'm a total swinging sex beast. Hey! Watch celebrities having sex! Dear oh dear.

We both had a massive hangover yesterday, no surprise, and now Nick thinks he's properly ill cos he's got a really sore throat. And yesterday we had a huge problem with our electrics, as something is making the upstairs lights ping off, and they're taking all the electrics in the rest of the house with them. So we've just had to turn them off until we figure out the problem, and I had to shower by candlelight this morning, which actually was rather nice.

Wet Hair

. . . And trousers, is what I have. It is one of those days that is chock full of weather. One minute it's eye watering sunshine, the next it's big dark heavy clouds, buckets of rain, and the wind! Well, its coming in a westerly and luckily we're sheltered here on the East coast but I was on the phone to a friend up in the north of the island this morning and he was worried that bits were going to fall off his house!

I drove along the sea front an hour or so ago and there were about a million white horses between Guernsey and Herm island. God I love being so close to the sea, it's all so awesome and dramatic. I do, however, feel extremely nervous that I'm supposed to be flying on a small aeroplane to Jersey tomorrow in force 9 winds. We will see what happens!!

Confessor!

I am dancing a little virtual jig as I finally have my hands on a copy of Confessor, the last book in a series of 12 I've been reading by Terry Goodkind. It got published a couple of weeks ago and my copy arrived at the library that I had reserved about a decade ago it feels. Well I finally have it!! And I stayed up late last night devouring it, I read about a fifth of it. (It is quite a large book, that is a lot of reading.)

In other news, I have been feeling generally tired and passive and in need of a lot of sleep. I am off tomorrow on a plane to Jersey for a Christmas party and I pick up my dress this afternoon (remember the one I drew a few posts ago). I am wearing bright red nail polish and a green top, festive or what. (Don't say 'what', it looks festive, honestly.) OK, more later if my boss goes out.

Office shenanigans

So, a lady left the office for good last week, she is off to OZ to live. We are not replacing her at the moment and I have moved from one side of the office to the other and have her old desk. It is much better as I am:

1. Not right next to the door and all the cold draftiness.
2. Sat next to a warm radiator.
3. Not right in a window so I don't get stared at by weird men walking past.

So all in all a good move. She also had a much better printer/scanner than I did so I stole that as well. I think we need to do the Christmas decs this afternoon, I am going to try to persuade my boss to get the big box of treats out from under the stairs.

Nick was away at the weekend at the Royal Television Society Awards in Plymouth and he won an award!! It was for the documentary he made about a local couple who have 12 children and another one on the way. He won one last year as well in a different category so this shows that he is good allrounder. Anyway it's great news and I am very proud indeed.

I had my first go on a Wii at the weekend. We played the basic sports games that come with the consule and they were great fun. I especially liked the tennis one, it was definitely the most violent. I also did a LOAD of Christmas shopping on Saturday and had a really nice night out in Christies on Saturday night. There was an incredible woman singer who was like Erykah Badu, gorgeous voice, and we all danced around in there. On Sunday I felt hungover but managed some housework and then went around to my Dad's and we dug out all my old school reports and ancient family photos. 'We have had to move Samantha away from other classmates of a similarly chatty nature!' Not much changes then.

My Dad has recently converted the garage into a spare bedroom/library and small utility room, and he has started to bring the books down from the attic and fill the shelves up. He has always collected Sci Fi/Fantasy books, since the 1970's and has over 3000. I have missed them while they've been up in the attic and am so pleased to see them again. I've borrowed 'Over Sea, Under Stone' by Susan Cooper and am devouring it.

Loaf of Bread Cat

Parom Pom Pom

Hiya. So I appear to have lost my husband to the weird virtual world that is 'Second Life'. This is an online world with literally millions of people logged on and they all interact with each other. You create an avatar, or character, and go flying around cities exploring cool stuff. It is very freaky but I can see how it could be very very addictive. I spent about an hour tweaking Nicks characters face to make it look like him.

I had to go to a work do last night for one of our local advocates firms. Wasn't as boring as last year, but that could be cos I decided to drink lots of wine this time around. There were nibbles.

Also this week we went to our friends Sue & Laurie's gorgeous cottage out on the west coast for a meal. She has this hot plate thing made of stone that you put in the middle of the table and then you chuck meat & fish on it. It has a grill underneath and you each have a tiny frying pan that we loaded with cheese and put under, It was great fun, although very messy and there were a few plate smashes/drink spillages by the end of the night! It got quite hot though and we had to open all the windows as we sat around the table.

Nick is away this weekend as he is up for another RTS award. He won one last year and this time around he is up in a different category which is the documentary one. It would be awesome if he won it! While he is away I have a Wii night planned round at a mates, I have never been on a Wii and am very excited. I also am going around to my Dad's for tea on Sunday and we are going to get out loads of old photos and have a laugh looking through them.

My sister's little twins, Rowan & Ralph, have not been very well and had to go into hospital : (
They have had this nasty brochalitis thing which makes it hard to breathe and because they were not eating they had to be monitored and fed by a drip. Poor things. Rowan is back at home now but Ralphie is still in. Suz is staying with Ralphie and sleeping at the hospital while Si as at home with Row. Poor Simon has a food poisoning so they are all under the weather. I so wish I was there to help! I wish they lived closer.

Well, that's all I can think of to write for now, hope you are all well my blogging chums! xxx

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What ho. Ten to five on a Friday, my stomach is grumbling, I'm out of scrabulous moves and I want to go home. I have spent the entire day feeling vaguely sick and sleepy after a Christies drinking session last night and I just want a log fire and a bar of dairy milk, in that order.

I have been rereading the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon and marvelling at how completely great it is, thinking that it would have been amazing to have lived through that culture and how something that was written so long ago can be just so entirely brilliant and true. The stuff it contains is so true today. For instance when Shonagon writes a list of things that she dislikes, and one of them is 'the inside of a cat's ear'. I inspected Molly's after reading that and it was black and sticky looking. Not nice at all.

Possible Prom Party Outfit!

Eeeeh! I am excited. I found a red and white polka dot dress at the fancy dress shop that I am going to wear for this 50's prom party I'm going to. So, then I went on Ebay and bought these white shoes, and a pink cardie with bowtie buttons (close up below) to go with it. The dress comes with a headband and an original 1950's petticoat. I now just need a bag to go with. I'm thinking shiny bright red or white vinyl...

This is my artistic impression of what I will look like in it. I have made my boobs bigger and waist smaller, that is what is called artistic licence.

Can't hear myself think right now

So, outside of my office there are two burly workmen digging up the footbath - with pneumatic drills. I can feel the vibrations through my desk/keyboard and can't hear a damn thing. We are having to shout across the office to one another. A great Monday morning!!

SoooOOOooooo, the weekend has again passed by... I worked on Sat morning then had a big house clean in the afternoon then popped into town for some Christmas shopping. I managed to get a fair amount done. I also took delivery of a rather large box which contained a cross trainer machine that Nick had ordered. He assembled it yesterday while I was asleep in bed. It is rather large and annoying to look out, but it strengthens my argument that we need a piano so...

On Saturday night we had the most fabulous meal out, at Christophes restaurant, which has a Michelin star and is very posh and la de da. It was a friends 30th and he wanted to try the 'Gourmand' menu which is 7 courses with different wines all included. OK it wasn't cheap, but we were there for a good 4 1/2 hours eating and drinking so all in all not too bad for £50. So, what did we have?

On sitting down at the table we were all presented with a small blue cheese profiterole and a green lipped mussel on a silver spoon. This was to get the tastebuds going. Then, they came around with a sweet white dessert wine. This was to go with course no.1 - fois gras in a creme caramel sauce with a sweet cinnamon biscuit. It was delicious and my favourite course.

Course No.2 was a small portion of lobster rissotto with a white Chablis - very very nice.
Then we each were given a small coffee cup filled with a white creamy bean soup with truffle oil. Again, really beautiful but I could have downed a pint of the stuff.

Course 4 was the main course and was venison in a wild mushroom sauce with a kind of cheesy pureed pumpkin roulade on the side. Awesome. This came with a gorgeous red rioca.

After this was the cheese round - Oh, the cheese round! The waitress came out with a trolley with about 20 incredibly stinky interesting cheeses on it and asked all in turn what kind of cheese we liked and then made up an individual array of cheese to suit. I said I liked everything and ended up with a really stinky Rocquefort, a goats cheese, a cheese from the Champagne region of France, a very rich Brie sort of one and I can't remember the last. We ate this with a glass of port, grapes, walnuts and homemade biscuits. Nick had a cheese that was literally grey in colour and couldn't eat it - it was so strong.

Then we each were given an ice cold shot of passionfruit juice with ginger. Very refreshing. By this stage we were all getting a bit full and sweaty and having to pop out for cigarette breaks.

The final food round was a sort of pear cheesecake with a blackberry sorbet. It came with a sweet Italian red wine - very unusual and quite similar to the port in taste. This was perhaps my least favourite course as I'm not a huge fan of sorbet -too cold!! After that we had coffees/teas and homemade chocolate truffles and biscuits.

So that was my meal out, if anyone is thinking of doing the meal there I would recommend it, you can see what we had was amazing but they change it in line with what is in season.

Soooooooooooooo Sleepy...

I am absolutely falling asleep at my desk.

Reason being is that I got up early this morning in a French house(!!) and had to get to the airport really earlyish. Then I had to fly home here to Guernsey, on Joey the little yellow plane(!!!) which rocked, then peg it here into work by 10:15am. I haven't had a lunch break and I am so completely full of yawns it's not true. Ahhh, but I had a lovely time, and that is what counts. My husband has the day off today, as do several of our friends, and when I spoke to him an hour ago they were all at our house drinking cups of tea which is very frustrating. Boo.

I have been in Dinan! That is in Brittany, and not too far from St Malo. In fact we arrived in St Malo on Friday evening and the ferry crossing was in fact OK. I took my stugeron and didn't feel ill at all. We were staying in Lanvallet, which is across a big viaduct from the walled town of Dinan and a 10 minute walk to the main shops and restaurants. It is very quiet and extremely pretty. Our friends parents have a farmhouse and they let us have it for the weekend. They also have a large wine cellar which we enjoyed rather a lot. We visited the very cool city of Rennes on Saturday, where I found a L'Occitaine shop, yum, and also an Espirit clothes shop where I bought a great top. We ate a lot of food, walked round a busy French market, listened to Samba, then went to a big Intermarche and bought a shitload of king prawns and had a big feast. We played lots of charades, did a big walk along the river and ate bucketloads of moules. I will put some pics up when Nick sorts them out for me!

Well, writing this is killing the final half hour of the working day thank goodness. I have to pop to the fancy dress shop and see if they have 50's prom dresses, as we have a prom night themed party in Jersey next month, then I have to go home and drink tea and collapse. ZZzzzzzzz.....

Off to France

I'm off on the ferry this afternoon to St Malo for a weekend in Dinan.

Only slight problem is that the shipping forecast says rough, force 5-6 decreasing to moderate force 4 this afternoon. This means I will have to go and get me some Stugeron from Boots before I set off. It seems to work, although it makes me a wee bit drowsy. I am somewhat dreading the ferry crossing, I just can't wait for it to be over and to be there. Luckily we are flying back on Monday which is my much preferred form of transport.

It's been a quiet old week, I have been mainly snuggling down for the Winter time. Lots of hot food and telly in the evenings. How very lazy.

Only 23 minutes of work left before I can go home and pack! Eeeeeeeeeeee!

*~*~ FiReWoRks~*~*

OOOoooooh

Aaaaaaahhh

I do like fireworks. Generally. Sometimes they can be a little too close though. Take last night for example - around at our friends house in their fairly smallish garden, about thirty people, plus about 100 fireworks that people had brought along with them, including, one called 'The Apocalypse'. I kid you not. Every time a fuse was lit the crowd surged back into the corner, everybody trying to protect themselves by having other bodies in front of them so it was a bit of a scramble, ha ha. Luckily, there were no injuries (well, none by the time we left) and it was all very exciting. A couple of large sparks came very close and I ended up with grit and smoke in my eyes but what's a little discomfort when there are big sparkly things to enjoy!? We even has toasted marshmallows and hot fudge sauce, as well as bean jar and mulled wine. Aimee & Gareth are officially great hosts.

I have my husband back. After over two weeks away he has returned home finally. I am so so pleased to have him back, even though I have a touch of PMT and feel a bit overemotional this week and have been feeling teary and wobbly more than usual. It is so nice to have the house full and busy again, it felt really empty without him around. Apart from I did have Molly for comfort, but she isn't great at conversation and to be honest just uses me for food, and body heat.

I had my hair done last weekend, had some more blonde put in as I was feeling a bit drab. Looks nice, got much shorter layers put in the back as well so it's not as big and heavy. Now it kind of curls up when I scrunch dry it. I have also ordered a load of scrumptious things on the Lush website, as I realised they knock the VAT off when they send to Guernsey, so I've got a box of hair and body treats on the way! Nick already bought me some delicious smelling lemon and tea tree deodorant that is so nice I just want to make love to my own armpits. Yum Yum.

Animal Products in food...

Now I am not a vegetarian. I enjoy meat and eat a fair amount of white meat and fish, and occasionally red meat. (However, I am planning on cutting down on bacon and salami products, because of their recently found links to cancers. Besides which, they are generally not all that good for you with all the salt and blah blah.)

However, a story about Masterfoods on the BBC website has enlightened me about the product 'rennet', which I had never heard of before and which has, quite honestly, horrified me. Basically, if you want to look it up on Wikipedia go ahead, but rennet is a product that occurs naturally in the stomachs of baby mammals. It helps to break down the mother's milk and basically turns milk into curds and whey inside the stomach so they can digest it. It is extracted commercially from the stomachs of young calves and is put into quite a few food products. Mainly dairy.

Masterfoods have announced that they will now be putting it into a lot of their products, a basic list is:
Bounty, Mars Bar, Twix, Minstrels, Maltesers, Mily Way, Snickers and all Masterfood icecreams, which I'm guessing is the Mars icecream type things.

For the BBC article all about it click HERE. Personally, I won't be able to enjoy a Mars bar ever again without thinking that Im eating a baby cow. Call me a hypocrite if you like because I'm not a veggie, and I know I am one, but I would never feel right eating veal or a meat I know came from a baby animal, so I can't see myself eating these things again. What is more annoying is that these products didn't previously contain rennet, it is a recent decision to include it.

That was quite an impressive rant for me, I hope you're not too bored. I'm off to the supermarket in a bit and am going to examine all the ingredients thoroughly! Of course, there is also gelatine but I don't see this as quite as bad as it is a genuine by-product (the animals are going to be killed anyway and presumable aren't babies) but I am going to try to avoid that as well, at least for a bit.

Happy Halloween!

Or Samhain, whatever floats your boat.


I am off to the local cinema club tonight to see this old horror flick called The Innocents, with Deborah Kerr. It is supposed to be what The Others is based on and sounds quite spooky.

Rachel's Halloween Party 2007!

Rachel is such a legend. She really goes to town every Halloween. This year, she wallpapered her living room into a scary cemetary, invited a load of drunken people round, and proceeded to throw a Halloween party that featured Pass the Parcel and Balloon games.. Great!! I baked some bat shaped biscuits, made Halloween rum punch featuring floating eyeballs, and some extremely potent vodka jelly that no one could eat. My outfit, as you can see above, was some kind of a red flame lady person. The person next to me is the hostess with the mostest. The inflatable pumpkin below is Sue. She had the best tights on but you can't see them in this pic.

Rachel sporting a very attractive mask.
I am flame girl, I will kill you with my orange cocktail.

The pic below shows the wallpaper that she decorated her flat with, awesome!!

Work

Yesterday, I flirted with the idea of becoming a Prison Officer, because that was the only job that wasn't in finance and I could understand what it was. I can see myself, plodding down dimly lit corridors jangling my keys while getting occasionally spat at by surly inmates. I could learn how to do stuff like the Vulcan death grip and one inch punch to control them. No? Can't see it? Well, maybe not. Maybe I will try to write a novel. I have read so many Mills & Boon ( I developed a fixation with the really dated 60's/70's ones a few years back, much to Nick's horror) - I reckon I could vomit up a few sickly love stories, no trouble.

Yesterday our house exchanged in the UK that we have been selling. It hasn't completed yet but it's great news that it's exchanged. Its a weight off our minds. My husband has already bought a new car in the UK to ship back to Guernsey with the proceeds, unfortunately it is not a Hello Kitty car, but a rather larger masculine 4X4, perfect for Guernsey roads! Not. It is very comfy though, and will so long journeys very well when we pop back over.

A cup of tea awaits for me.

I want this car SO badly...

My latest obsession has to be the Mitsubishi i - Hello Kitty edition. I might actually be prepared to kill someone to have this car. It has kitty shaped headrests!!! Who could possibly want for more? Seriously, if my budget could stretch to it I would definitely buy this car. At least my husband would never want to borrow it. I don't usually go nuts about cars but this is so Japanese and cool, I just love it.