Rainy Saturday

Today it's very rainy. I would go outside, and do some Christmas shopping, but it looks very unappealing today - wet and dark. So... I'm staying in and what better to do (until Strictly Come Dancing starts) but blog!! I haven't blogged for a while because everything gets so busy in the run-up to Christmas (Xmas parties etc) and at work, things don't seem to be winding down either. I am dashing around the country and when I'm not off somewhere random, I'm doing lots of writing!Frankofile kindly tagged me - asking me to name five addictions in return for this beautiful award. I do think I can get easily addicted to things. Some things though that are most addictive I thankfully can happily go without e.g. smoking and alcohol.

1) Coffee- I like my morning cup when I arrive into work, it sets me up for the day. It's funny because for years I didn't like it and now I'm addicted to it. However, there is a caveat - I am not addicted to boring, plain coffee but to speciality coffees like mochas and cappuccinos. The more chocolate that is involved the better. An expensive addiction, yes, but a delicious one. Addicted as I am to coffee, I limit myself to two cups maximum per day.

2) Chocolate - preferably milk chocolate. I love how it melts in the mouth and it's lovely creamy texture mmm.

3) The Internet- I don't think I could function without email/blogging/facebooking/online news anymore. This is one addiction I don't exercise much self-restraint with!

4) Shopping - I am feeling a bit caged-in now because it's raining so much and it's a Saturday so I should be out shopping!

5) Bed - I love bed (although not actually my current bed as it is rock solid, and not all nice and soft). When I drag myself out of bed in the morning, I am often thinking when I can get back into it at night. I'm not looking forward to having to get up at 6.15am on Monday. At weekends, I love lying in although sometimes like this morning, I'm in such a routine that I wake up anyway.

So - I have to pass this blog award onto five other bloggers. I think I will pass it onto Dottie because I think it's such a fabulous award, and she deserves it for managing to maintain her blog whilst also getting a Distinction for her studies at the OU! Oh - I see Frankofile has also awarded it to Dottie but never mind - you have a second nomination for this award Dottie. My mind is blank, and I can't think of four others...

Copy and paste these rules/instructions in your post.
When you post about receiving this award, include who gave you the award and link back to his/her blog.
Post five winners and link back to them as well.
Post five of your addictions.
Add the award image.
Let your winners know you gave them this award by leaving comments on their blogs.

First Christmas

Since we have been together, Veggie Hubby and I have spent four Christmases on different sides of the Atlantic ocean. Every Christmas, he would ring me at 9am in the morning (3am his time) to wish me Happy Christmas! Last Christmas was the first we spent together. However, we didn't have the chance to get our own decorations because we didn't even have a home - in the month running up to Christmas we were living in B&Bs (the thought brings back bad memories!). We had only been living our flat for 10 days, and barely had the chance to even unpack, let alone think about getting decorations, when we left England to go to Canada for Christmas.

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that this Christmas is our first opportunity to buy a tree and decorations. We spent this weekend getting some, which was fun! Here are some of our new decorations. So perhaps we are slightly early in putting up our tree, but we wanted to make the most of spending Christmas together. We can really appreciate it, unlike last year when we couldn't, as were living in someone else's house, and only had one small decoration.

Retail therapy

I haven't blogged for a little while as work (and Strictly Come Dancing!) is taking over my life... yes, weekends too :-( Ah well, the deadline is next week so it's nearly over now. Anyway, today I did a little retail therapy and bought myself a Radley bag. I've been wanting one for ages, and today seemed like the right day. My current bag (which isn't that old, just a few months) is already falling apart so I thought I'd better invest in a higher quality bag, and get one I really wanted. VeggieHubby always made me feel guilty about purchasing a Radley bag as they are made of leather, but this one only has a small amount of leather in it. I just love the little Radley dog.

Whiskers the cat

I just got a new pet cat for my blog, Whiskers. Well, I can't have a real one living in a second floor flat, so it's the next best thing (perhaps....). Feel free to play with him!

He is cheering me up from this horrible cold, and all the work I've got.

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 :-)