Busy busy busy

I feel like I can barely find time to blog these days. I am trying to blog inbetween.... working, travelling to and back from work through hours of roadworks (the non-event that this takes up most of my life!) reading "The Secret Life of Bees" travelling to visit friends in Liverpool for the weekend, going to a party, going out for a delicious Valentine's meal at Cafe Rouge, preparing to give a presentation tomorrow... oh yes, and sleeping!

Weird

VH and I went to the supermarket yesterday, and bought a towel, some light bulbs, a pack of Valentine's cupcakes and a pie. VH commented that it was quite a weird shop.

Other weird things that have been happening recently...Firstly, it has been snowing lots. The most snow in England for 18 years. (Not as much as in Canada however). Beautiful, but impractical.

Secondly, I went to get my haircut yesterday. I tried out a new place, run by some crazy (gay?) Italians who cut hair in a unique Italian way, using razors instead of scissors. They encouraged me to have a different kind of hair cut, rather than my normal straight one. I had the impression that they were hair artists. It was quite an experience, but I don't think they did a bad job, it's certainly different! VH didn't notice though, which I think is a male thing, as my dad is exactly the same.

Edit: Third (forgot to mention earlier) we have been having some weird food this weekend. We had a mock-duck stirfry last night. Mock-duck is vegan duck with the appearance of a plucked duck! It tasted nice, but the appearance was a bit off-putting. VH had a banana sandwich for lunch today. Tonight, we are trying a vegetarian haggis. I'm curious about it, as I've never had real haggis before, although I'm not convinced it will taste good. Edit: it was vile.

None of this is quite as weird though as the man who smuggled pigeons into Australia under his trousers!

Movies

Veggie Hubby and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire last week, and we both really enjoyed it. I love seeing films that we can both appreciate, and that we quite often have the same tastes in films.

We haven't always been so lucky though. On our first movie date, we went to see X2, which VH dragged me along to see. I'm not sure if he liked it, but I certainly didn't. To make up, we went to see a girly movie a couple of weeks later, A Guy Thing. We both hated it!! Things started looking up and we saw some movies at the cinema that we both enjoyed: Lost in Translation and Brokeback Mountain being some of my favourites. Last year, we saw some better movies of my choice (The Kite Runner, Juno) and his (The Dark Knight, Indiana Jones and Quantum of Solace) - although I admit I didn't like his choices so much! With the Aquatic Life with Steve Zissou which we weren't sure if it was good or bad.

With Veggie Hubby, and perhaps before that, I have discovered that whilst I still enjoy some blockbusters, I prefer to watch smaller independent movies. My taste in movies became more eclectic, I think. Veggie Hubby bought me Mamma Mia! for Christmas (as I had hinted at!) but I saw it on the plane before he gave it to me, and found it too cheesy. We exchanged it for the Chronicles of Narnia boxset.

Have you seen any films recently that you enjoyed? What kind of films do you like?

Winter brownies

Snow is fun, rain is most definately not. Today it rained all day long, tomorrow i have a friend and baby coming over so after a long baking (and blogging) holiday, i made chocolate brownies hmmmmmmm they were soft and gooey inside, perfect on a horrible wet day, enjoy...

xxx

First post of 2009

Happy new year! I haven't blogged yet in 2009, but I haven't had much to blog about really. After a lovely (but chilly!) trip to Quebec, I returned home last weekend. I pretty much slept all day and stayed awake all night last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and thought being at work this week would be really difficult. However, it only took a couple of days to recover from the jet lag, and I felt fine again by Tuesday. I had a pretty uneventful week... and uneventful weekend this weekend, apart from a visit to Pizza Express with Veggie Hubby tonight. Life is fine ... but dull. The most exciting thing is that Veggie Hubby has got a new job working on Saturday morning teaching French to 5 year olds, which he began yesterday!

This month, I am looking forward to...

1) Obama's inauguration, which I think will start a new era of hope for the USA and world. I'm fairly excited about it
2) Lost season 5 starting
3) The Oscar nominations. I am hoping Penelope Cruz wins for her role in Vicky Barcelona Cristina, which played on my flight home from Canada.
(Okay, I think I am sounding American now).
4) Seeing friends
5) Finding out who will represent the UK in Eurovision this year, and what song Andrew Lloyd Webber will compose for them.

I am not looking forward to...

1) Having to wake up at 6am tomorrow to travel all the way to Leicester and back in a day.
2) Spending Saturday mornings alone while Veggie Hubby works.

"Snowmageddon"

Veggie Hubby bought me some clothes to survive the cold weather here, so we could go out and take some photos. Here are a few pictures from snowy Montreal....

The picture below was taken by Veggie Hubby whilst we were sitting in Starbucks. We braved the snowstorm just for a festive drink.
This picture below (of a shop window display - unfortunately not my own handiwork) is especially for Ms Cocoa.
So these are some of my pictures of the extreme snowy weather here. I am sure more will follow soon. In the meantime, here is a link to pictures other people here have taken of the recent snowstorms.

Bitter chill

I am finally on my long-awaited Christmas holidays, in Canada. It is very very cold, colder than I had ever imagined, and I don`t think my clothes are warm enough. I went outside earlier, walking around Montreal, and my knees and face hurt lots from the freezing (below freezing!) air. However, I did manage to have a nice warm sugar-cane flavoured coffee in town, at Second Cup. I was going to go out for a meal tonight in a veggie restaurant (serving coconut bacon!) but as it is so cold, and we couldn`t face the walk, we are staying in. Even Veggie Hubby is no longer used to this weather. I will put up some pictures of the snow tomorrow. There are lots of things we want to do here, but the weather is hampering us. It is -17 today, with a wind chill making it -29!

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!