Hats and Scarves

It is a chilly November; the right month for hats and scarves. Here is Tatty Teddy wearing a scarf knitted by the talented Frankofile for my niece (which I accidentally ended up with) and two Innocent Smoothie Big Knit hats. I love the hats, which seem to appear on smoothie bottles every year around November/December time. Veggie Hubby and I wanted to buy one last year, but by the time we decided to, they had all sold out. So, when we saw them tonight, we bought them before we missed our chance. They are so cute. A group of knitters at work make them, as well as other charitable knitwear. Perhaps I should join them to make some Big Knit hats myself, but I think I prefer buying the hats to making them!

P.S. The flowers are a lovely birthday present from J&J - thanks!

Happy days :-)

I had a good day today, here are some reasons why....

1) Obama (obviously). After 8 years of "W" Bush, at last Americans have seen sense.

2) There are new Christmas drinks in Starbucks, and an absolutely delicious one - dark cherry mocha, mmmm. I couldn't resist it at lunchtime today. It doesn't take much to make me happy.

3) I had far too much work, which has been really stressful, but my concerns have been taken seriously and some of it was taken off me this afternoon and given to someone else.

4) It is Wednesday, but I only have one more day left of the week as I am taking Friday off. I can't wait, as I haven't had a day off in two months and am going to see "The Sound of Music" in the West End, and to a vegetarian American-style diner restaurant. I also am looking to cooking for some friends on Saturday.

5) I am going to the pub tomorrow for a birthday lunch with my lovely colleagues.

6) We have been waiting a month for some keys to arrive from my father-in-law. I was convinced that they had got lost in the post, but they eventually arrived this morning. This means that we have somewhere to stay in Montreal at Christmas. :-)

Is that enough reasons to smile for one day?

Snow and scandal

Last night it was snowing here, in October! It had been raining heavily beforehand, so the snow didn't settle, but it was beautiful nevertheless. I find that there is always something quite exciting about snow. Veggie Hubby and I decided to go for a walk in it, but it was so cold, I was glad to be back in the warm again when we got home.

This morning it was freezing too. I couldn't open any of my car doors, they were all frozen in. Very annoying when you want to get to work and can't even get into your car, and even more annoying when you see neighbours get in their cars and drive off. I never even realised that it was possible for a door to be so frozen it can't open, having a car door that opens is just something I take for granted every morning. I didn't know what to do, but following some advice from a man in a garage, I filled up a large bucket with warm water, carted it down all of the stairs from our top floor flat and threw it over the car, getting soaked in the process! It worked though, I was able to open the door at last, and drive to work, albeit an hour later than usual.

I am also interested in the current scandal in the media with Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, who left lewd messages on the answerphone of a 78 year-old man (the actor Andrew Sachs) about his granddaughter on their radio show. This story makes a change from all of the dull stories about the recession and the 'credit crunch.' I do think it is being blown out of all proportion when there are worse things going on in the world (even Gordon Brown felt the need to make a statement, and 20, 000 people have complained to the BBC) but still I was very shocked when I heard about it for the first time. They behaved really irresponsibly, not like adults, but like immature school boys, and their 'prank' wasn't funny. We should respect others; there is nothing worse than bullying. It makes it worse that he is a harmless old man. Imagine how Jonathan Ross would have felt if someone had left obscene messages on his answer phone about his daughters, surely he should have seen that he had overstepped the mark? It is unbelievable that Jonathan Ross has a contract worth £18 million. I never liked either of them much, especially Russell Brand, and I am glad that they have both been suspended from the BBC over their unacceptable behaviour, and Russell has resigned. Good riddance!

No Martha Stewart

Here is the Victoria sponge cake that I made tonight, which I believe is called a pound cake in Canada. I think that the cake was going quite well until Veggie Hubby decided to pour icing sugar all over the top of it when I turned my back for a second! I was going to sift it. I nearly didn't take any photos but VH told me that I should still take some pictures, because I am no Martha Stewart. Very true.

Christmas already?

I haven't blogged in two weeks, and time is really flying... Christmas is arriving already. I just heard a DFS advert "All I want for Christmas is you!" on the radio. In the shops today, I noticed many had prominent Christmas displays. You can already buy Christmas wrapping paper, cards and gifts, and it is only October. A very sunny October too.

I have noticed that in recent years, Christmas starts in shops in September with very small displays, which get larger through October and November. So, I cannot blame the 'credit crunch' as it isn't the first year this has happened. It ruins Christmas. I feel that Christmas should be kept special, in late November/December only.

On a similar note, next weekend the clocks go back. I will appreciate the extra hour next weekend, but not when it starts getting dark at 4pm. I'm not looking forward to commuting in the dark. If it was up to me, I would ban any Christmas advertising until November, and also keep the whole year on Daylight Saving Time. We should try to save as much daylight as we can!

Trip to Dubai!

I have been holidaying in Dubai for the last 2 weeks! I have been there before, and this was my 4th time there as I have 3 brothers-in-law there. Here is a sort of picture diary, I will have to show you in installments as there are loads!!!..... We flew by Emirates and CutyBaby received a cute little bunny toy, the flight was at 9 so she fell asleep, unfortunatly i was really uncomfortable, the noise and lack of room meant i really couldn't sleep urg! We travelled by taxi to my brother in laws place, this is the view from our balcony...

It was amazing,like seeing a moving photo every morning, so many cars and activity, it was alive. The weather was also very hot and bright, in fact going out in the day is usually avoided unless you have a proper car and a proper air conditioned destination! This makes outdoor locations like parks a no go area, however we discovered everyone compromises by going out in the afternoons. We went to a park in the evening, it was totally dark but the park was filled with kids and families having picnics!

There was an animals enclosure with loads of animals all put together... It was so different to over here, we certainly would not venture into any park after dark and nor would it be safe over here.

On one day we drove 2hrs to Abu Dhabi, I found this resembled America in many ways. We went to Sheikh Zayed Mosque, and apparently this was built for Sheikh Zayed who is buried here, by his son. This was architecturally the most beautiful building i have ever seen, it looked like a palace, white marble walls, engraving of flowers all through pillars which on closer inspection are actually flowers inlaid with real precious gemstones, the thickest plushest carpet you have ever seen, amazing ceiling designs, water fountains, the largest chandelier, it was calm, serene and stunning.

Moroccan

I realise that I write about food quite a lot, but I think the name Veggie Carrie unintentionally inspires me to write food-related entries. Tonight, I went to a Moroccan restaurant with my colleagues.


Here is the meal I ate:Here is the starter my meat-eating colleagues ate... below, can you guess what it is?


It looks like a cake, and smells like a cake, but it is not a cake in the traditional sense. It is... a meat cake! Well, not what it is really called obviously but what it is (I don't know what it is called, anyone know?). It is mainly chicken and some kind of red meat, but weirdly has icing on the top, and is flavoured by sweet spices like cinnamon too I think.

The most surprising thing, more surprising than even the meaty cake was the bill. For the 17 of us, it came to..... £657!!! They charged us for meals we didn't even have. It was such a rip off I couldn't believe it, and this spoilt an otherwise very enjoyable evening.

Chefs: good guys, bad guys?

I do not have any admiration for Gordon Ramsay. He is, in my opinion, a rude, arrogant man. I think that one of the main reasons for my dislike is because he hates vegetarians, and often brags about his dislike for them. He recently said “If my daughter ever grew up and married a vegetarian, I’d never forgive her.” Despite my dislike for the man, I bought his meaty cookbook for my brother and (nearly) sister-in-law last Christmas, as they used to like him. Perhaps they too now dislike him, because he has no time for them, his loyal fans who queue up for hours to see him. Recently, Gordan has gone down even further in my estimation. On one of his TV shows (The F Word) he turned a room of 'vegetarians' into carnivores in a publicity stunt, and then proceded to hunt, kill and eat an endangered puffin. Very smart.

Jamie Oliver, on the other hand, is completely different. I do not agree with everything he does, but he has many good causes, and I love his attitude. He really seems to want to do good for this country. Last night, I watched the start of his new series, Jamie's Minsitry of Food, in which he teaches poor families (who seem to use all of their benefits to feed their children expensive take-aways) to cook. His 'pass it on' theory of friends sharing recipes with each other is admirable (if idealistic). The idea is that he teaches two people to cook a few meals, and then for those two people to teach two more people to cook those meals, and then for them to 'pass it on' to two more, and so on. I also support Jamie's school dinners campaign; getting children to have healthier school lunches, by serving healthier food in school canteens and banning junk food.

My verdict: Gordon Ramsay - thumbs down :-( Jamie Oliver - thumbs up :-)

Award winning blog

Thank you to the lovely Dottie for very kindly awarding my blog with an Arte Y Pico award. I am very pleased to be the author of an award-winning blog :-) It seems to be a blog of sculptures these days, but this one is the best.
The rules of Arte Y Pico are - you must pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting content, or for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language!

Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

The award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link or the Arte Y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

I now have the honourable task of passing this award onto five others. So, here are my five picks:

1) Le bleuet for being the first blog I ever followed, and also for taking the time to translate everything in both French and English.

2) Ms C for her rants about life, the universe and everything (well, her car and house)!

3) Mystereous World for her cute animal pictures, and for keeping me up-to-date with Horace and Hermes.

4) Shop Girl* for sharing her story, past and present. Also, for trying innovative things out on her blog, like a Podcast!

5) Last but not least, Vraie Fiction parce que je l'aime. Sometimes, it is also nice to hear about something we have done together from a different perspective. Also, for the effort he makes to update his blog daily, and for his views about anything and everything.

Cliveden

Veggie Hubby and I went to Cliveden yesterday. It was a sunny weekend, and we decided to get out of our sleepy town and do something different. It seemed that lots of other people had the same thought. However, the woodlands were so vast, we walked around barely seeing anyone. As we were walking through the woods, we happened upon a fantastic view of the house, and then we got lost and ended up in the beautiful landscaped gardens by accident. Hmmm only four days to go until next weekend....

Birthday Party's!

Last week was very very busy. My little baby is turning 2 on 30th sept and I had decided to have a proper party this year. It turned into 2 parties as some people wanted to come earlier, so basically last week was spent putting up loads of pink balloons, banners, then making a whole load of cupcakes! Heres a pic of the cakes from the 'mini party'... these are coconut sponge with mascarpone and coconut icing. The others are coconut sponge with cream, almonds, strawberry sauce and a choc wafer.......

Then at the weekend I had my first proper kiddy party, it was so exciting! Having it all over and done with now I can say that I had a great time and wish Veggie Carrie could have been there too! Everyone started arriving at 12, and I let the children who were all under 2 play for a little while. The sun came out! and I had put a bouncy castle on my balcony (which is surprisingly large), and then when they got bored with that I had these giant caterpillar balloons which i brought out for each child, then we had a picnic with lots of food. I had made tiny cupcakes with strawberry buttercream which went down well. Afterwards we had a little treasure hunt in the grass. I gave everyone little goody bags, a balloon and cakes as they went home! Cuty baby was so tired she fell asleep afterwards. In the afternoon we let her open the presents which was fun and she now has some nice kitchen accessories!! Anyway it was alot of fun and i would love to do a few more!!

x

Boats

Hi everyone.I have lots to update you all with. Firstly outside my window recently there were these huge cranes and they were lifting something out of the sea (ok river) and as i kept watching it was a huge boat!!! I was imagining a huge sunken ship along the lines of the titanic, it was very exciting! Heres a pic of it, though actually it just looks a bit wet and mouldy....

Then as I walked along the waterfront, there was a huge display ship that looked like a pirate ship, like something from Pirates of the Caribbean!! And apparently it is a working and teaching boat, anyone can join up and learn to become a sailor. This boat is over 100 yrs old and was possible made somewhere in Europe. We even got to go onboard, have a look around, I had a peep into the kitchen.....