Battle of the Christmas Chefs December 19, 2008

Much to The Boy’s disgust, this week I have been watching cookery programmes in the evening, whilst waiting for my fake tan to dry (can’t move when fake tanned, so consigned to watch telly whilst holding arms out in air).  I’ve taken in Nigella, Hugh and Jamie and here’s my thoughts on the three of them:

Nigella

I hate her.  She does good recipes, as evidenced by my Cherry+Chocolate pie I cooked from her ‘How to Eat’ book at the weekend.  But the woman is a pain in the arse.  Her smug face is made less tolerant by what comes out of her mouth.  “Plumptious beauties” is not the way I would refer to cranberries.  Plumptious isn’t even a word woman!!  The Boy was driven to absolute distraction by her drivel, even wailing out at times because he couldn’t bear it any more.  Recipes = good.  Nigella = only good as form of torture for boys.  I can’t bear to watch her again, with her ethnically balanced dinner table guests (production crew), her lickety lips and her overembellished wordage – she’s like Russell Brand on that front, but with better hair and fatter hips.

Hugh

I like Hugh. I’ve always liked his style of killing, cooking and eating.  In his programme he shot venison which immediately got The Boy’s interest.  I liked watching him butcher it up as well and exude delight that he could use the suet in his Chrimble pudding – which was a roly poly – what’s that all about?  A good attempt to be different but not my idea of a Christmas pud, Hugh.  Having said that, his staff at River Cottage looked like they were having a really good time, especially the mushrooming/vodka duo who took delight in winding each other up.  Boy and I agreed that Hugh would be a good boss, we reckon, although I would have permanent envy of his veg patch.

Jamie

Jamie was on last night and this was my last fake-tan-cooking-programme combo.  I like Jamie, a friend bought me his cookbook and I’ve done loads from it – it’s my kinda food.  The Jerk ham he did looked really fantastic and something I’d like to try, and the turkey and leek pie? I was saying out loud that I wanted to eat it now and Jamie said in the next instance “You wanna eat that, don’t ya?”.  I also liked the addition of the slightly bonkers Italian man – he looked familiar but I couldn’t think who he was, but the combo of him and Jamie worked.  Despite this positivity, Jamie still irks with me as he’s another one who makes up words which don’t exist, in the hope of making his food sound more delectable.

Hugh’s the winner for me.

Oh, and the fake tan worked out well – streak free.  I am now what I consider to be a plumptious beauty.

Extreme lengths to all over exfoliation December 18, 2008

People pay a lot of money for all over beauty treatments.  Me and my buddies found a more thrifty approach to skin smoothing, which had the added bonus of losing us some calories, being total fun in a bun and giving us that winning feeling:

On the plus side. PMA! December 11, 2008

With my operation cancelled yet again, I’m keeping my spirits up by thinking on the ‘plus side’ of this news.  Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. I get to go to Robyn’s mince pie and mulled wine bonanza this evening

2. I can go to the Rugby Girls Christmas party without a smashed up face and properly drink, hoopla!  This means I won’t feel a fool playing the silly games, and I am likely to feel a fool the day after when I will be hungover. Good news

3. I can go to Monkey and Lisa’s place for afternoon Mojitos on Sunday

4. All of the above are alcohol related activities – on the non-alcoholic scale, I will now be able to go lovely lunching and mooching round posh shops on Saturday afternoon with my University buddies

5. I have a black tie do to go to on 19th December, which I should be intact for (unless I get a short notice cancellation, in which case I deffo won’t be going!)

6. I get to see my work buddies in work each day in the run up to the Festive season (the down side is, I’m in work).

7. A consolatory posh dinner out with The Boy on Friday, which will make up for not doing anything on our 4th anniversary.

That’s all I can muster up at the moment!

Northampton General Hospital? Nil points December 10, 2008

So this morning I got up 0650 and sleepily microwaved and ate a big bowl of porridge.  This isn’t my normal behaviour but with a nose operation in the afternoon, I was told not to eat anything after 7am – and frankly, I struggle to go a couple of hours without a scooby snack so an early rise was essential.  After a quick shop to get some easily edible essentials, and resisting the urge to drink anything, I was off to Northampton General in a cab, psyching myself up for a nose operation.

After checking myself in with the ward receptionist I took a seat in the dismal waiting room (6 skanky chairs) and flicked through some April 2008 magazines.  A very excitable young boy (6 years old maybe?) was giggling heartily at his mum’s jokes and taking great glee in doing his spelling tests, bless him.  On the other side of the room, which had a whiff of bleach about it, a larger lady showed us just why she needs a nose operation as she sloped into sleep and started snoring incredibly loudly.  Various nurses drifted in and out of the room looking for patients (gone missing?) and double checking who we were and what list we were on (err, shouldn’t you know that?).

After ages (it was ages, probably over an hour) a sheepish looking nurse came through and began by checking who we were (again) and then saying “unfortunately…”. I knew this was bad, but surely she wasn’t going to call off my operation for the second time?

 

You guessed it, she was.  It fell to her to tell us that there was, once again, no room at the inn.  Poor woman, she did look really apologetic but I was no happy shopper this afternoon.  Having rearranged work meetings, socials and beavered away to get ready for recuperation, I was not happy at the prospect of waiting again for another operation date.  Much as having my nose operated on is not a prospect I relish, it was worse to psyche myself up and then be let down.  Again.

 

Having rung the waiting list lady (another apologetic person. They must spend most of their working days apologising, poor staff!), I was told that not many people want these operations in the run up to Christmas time (no shit Sherlock!  Christmas parties with black eyes is not the best combo!!).  What this means though is that I might get listed again before Christmas.  Which means I might have black eyes for some parties but what the heck, I just wanna get on with it now. 

 

As much as I appreciate that the NHS is trying desperately to cram everyone in as soon as possible in the hope that people will clear beds quickly, this policy is SO not working.  For the second time, I’ve had to rearrange my life, get work sorted out, have people take time off work to pick me up and look after me, and psyche myself up for what has turned out to be a non-event.  I even took ‘before’ pictures of my nose this morning!

 

On the other hand, I can’t worry about what’s out of my control, so rubbish as it is, I just have to wait again for Northampton General to sort itself out.  I believe that the third operation date can’t be cancelled, or if it is I go private, so here’s hoping my face will be smashed up soon!!!

Last day at work before Nose Job. Do I post pics? December 5, 2008

Last day in the office today before I head off for a couple of days of leave and then my nose operation (long awaited). It’s already been cancelled once and I’ll be dead cross if they pull the plug again on me. I have SATC DVDs lined up, Mum has booked time off to pop over with Pride and Prejudice on video, and there’ll be good Christmas telly on so I’m pretty sorted for amusement. Trouble is, I’ll look like shit – so best to stay holed up at home with the box on.

I’m debating whether to put a picture up of how i look after my operation. It’ll probably be gruesome, but in the interests of sharing (good sharing?) I’m willing to go public. Question is, do you folks wanna see it?

Vote now, and I’ll be guided by you:

This is my first poll btw, so I’m excited – so vote, please!

Gotta dash, bits to tie up and things to sort before I scoot off until January from work…

wedding budget fear December 2, 2008

Boy and I spent a few mins last night totting up estimates and actual costs so far for The Big Day next year and I immediately felt frightened when I did the “SUM=” thing in excel and saw the total totted up. Scary.

It’s not that we are being frivolous with our wedding, far from it – we are being very budget conscious and seeking out bargains. This extends to dumping favours (I can’t be arsed, and people won’t take notice of them), getting work print unit to print out wedding stationery (bargain price) and using jam jars with ribbon round the lip instead of buying tea light holders.

It’s just that with a party in the day for 200 people plus another 70 for the evening do, there is no way we can do our wedding on the cheap. Feeding that amount of people costs a fair bob, and watering them – well, half of them are Irish and another batch of buddies are rugby club, so it’s gonna be an alcohol soaked fest! Added to this is the pressure that with a recession biting my Dad’s company is looking at “restructuring” – so until this happens and we know what’s going on, I don’t want to ask my family about contributions (I hate talking money anyway!).

It is a tricky one in a way – we both want a big wedding and big weddings cost big bucks – FACT. There’s no real way we can cut down on costs apart from getting rid of people – and we’ve been strict on that already. So, I am resolving to cost-down wherever I can, but to go with it – it’s gonna be a fantastic day and I don’t want to constantly worry about how much it’s costing us. After all, a marriage is priceless, right?