I got a new phone, yay! Only since I've had it about 24 hours now I'm spending most of my life clutching the user manual, which is pretty damned useless, and googling things. It's a Samsung Jet and it is very pretty and speedy and since I have almost no signal in the house I can use all the pretty widgets and stuff over the house wifi... it does many other things but I haven't firgure those out yet.

I cooked dinner tonight and it was absolutely delicious. Complicated and fiddly but absolutely bloody delicious! I'm working on a theory that swearing a la Gordon Ramsey makes food taste better coz I swore like a trooper putting these together!!!

That is all. I have reached the point with christmas stuff where talking about it here is risky as people may see what they're getting!

Yay! Party was a success! Everyone seemed to have a good time. Food and wine were in plentiful supply and everyone was very complementary about my cooking. I had a full english in the hotel this morning then packed up and drove home across the pennines, there's snow on the very tops, and then crawled into bed for a 5 hour nap!!! Good times. Now I just have to go fight facebook and get the photos uploaded. Facebook hates me for I will not submit to its rule.

OMG, I'm exhausted! At this rate I'll be too knackered to party and it won't be anything to do with my unsociable and taciturn ways!

I'm catering/throwing Robyn's 21st Birthday party at Uni tomorrow night. It's going to be a sort of Fajita/Chilli bar affair with Cupcakes for dessert. So I have done all the planning, then the shopping and now the cooking. So far I have made: 2 types of chocolate truffle, plain and milk chocolate with Cointreau, peppermint patties, vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, a vegetarian chilli, tomato, red onion and sweetcorn salsa and I have done all the prep for making fajitas tomorrow. I have then made up the truffles and peppermint patties into grown up party bags or favours as I believe the americans call them! This is for approximately 14 people.

Tomorrow I have to transport: a slow cooker of chilli, a bowl of salsa, a bowl of marinating chicken fajita mix, 2 dozen cupcakes, 14 party bags, 1 box of wine, 1 case of fizz, 6 bottles of soft drinks, 2 bags of doritos, 2 tubes of pringles, 2 heads of lettuce, 1 tub of creme fraiche, 3 dips, 4 packs of tortillas wraps, paper plates/bowls, banners, ballons, tablecloths, my overnight bag and myself across the Pennines in a Clio with slightly dodgy tires*. Then I have to set up the flat for the party, check into my hotel, change, get back to the flat, cook and party.

I have met some of her friends once and her fiance is now going to be coming so I will be playing billy no mates in the corner all night coz I DON'T LIKE PARTIES!!!! Also where was I supposed to be sleeping before I put my foot down and found a hotel? SHE CANNOT PLAN ANYTHING!!! Which is why I'm determined to make this a really great party for her. My 21st was shit. Mum was in hospital and I was in Japan and I didn't even get a cake when I got back 2 weeks later! Also I'm overcompensating for the shit state of my life right now. If I can cook like a demon and throw a great party then my life is not worthless and there is a point to me taking up space and oxygen.

But it's sodding knackering!

* Oh yeah, my life reached it's feminist peak yesterday. I went to do the shopping for this party and came out to find my rear tire looking decidedly flat. Did I panic or flounder? I did not! I whipped out the electric pump, hooked it up and then danced about in the cold for a bit while it blew up the tire. There were at least 3 blokes in cars watching me and not one of them tried to help, obviously I looked like I knew what I was doing! (I didn't but it was an adventure!) Then as the piece de resistance I put everything away tidily and got out a pack of wet wipes, which no man would have thought to have handily in the car for such emergencies... alright, I admit the wetwipes are mostly there for getting chocolate and ketchup off my face but still! I did car stuff and had wet wipes. I rock!

I was just idly browsing the flist while unable to sleep coz I may stop breathing and came across a meme question, "What is one of your happiest childhood memories?". It's taken me nearly 10 minutes to think of something!!!!!! Now I didn't have a bad childhood. I wasn't beaten or neglected or anything like that. In fact I was spoiled rotten and taken to loads of great places. I DO NOT REMEMBER ANY OF IT!!!!

Eventually after those 10 minutes I came up with a generic 'Holidays in France' and specifically eating crepes from the market in Le Mans every year for about 5 years. (I've visited every major chateaux in the Loire, probably twice. I now have to go back and actually visit them again now I'll remember it.) And I also came up with the time I fell down the steps up the hill at the end of the garden and bounced off my head a good few times. (I've decided this is probably the reason I don't remember much!) Now the bouncing on my head thing hurt and I had an actual bump the size of an egg but what was happy about it was that afterwards I sat on mum's knee with a Mr Freeze on my head, wrapped in a blanket watching The Fraggles. Which is a nice comforting memory.

( Wherein I struggle to remember a whole bunch of things.  )( Read more... )

But I don't remember much about the great things we did. I really had an Enid Blyton childhood and I feel kind of cheated now coz I don't have concrete memories of it. May be that's it. I have a very visual memory. The memories I can remember play out like a video in my head when I recall them. The ones I know to be true have no video to go with them and sometimes not even a picture, just knowledge so I doubt them to be true and give them less worth than the others because of this. Is that odd? Who knows! But whatever the answer I have very few actual memories before the age of 12. After that I've got plenty. Just in time for the horrific embarassment of puberty and growing up and all that entails to kick in! Joy!

This one is at least the size I planned... more or less. It makes a lovely centrepiece. If only we didn't usually serve at the table! No idea where it'll go when we eat and Robyn's home for the holidays! Also, I bought a new tablecloth! A wipey plastic jobby! I bought a wee bit too much material but that just means we really won't spill in our laps! I think I'm done for now with the holly. It hurts! My hands are scratched up beyond all recognition, I look like I have some kind of disease! But yeah, taking a break until we decorate properly on xmas eve or Robyn's birthday, whichever I feel like, methinks.

And, yes I'm jumping the gun a little but I have so many projects to do this christmas I need all the time I can get! And I always argue for a first sunday of advent as the kick off, not 1st December as mum says, in any event so it's only a 24hr head start... if you don't count yesterday's one... 48 hours? Look at least I don't start in September like the supermarkets!

ARGH!!! Why does it have to be so hard???? I've found dozens of things that I want, although nothing I would ask for, but finding things that other people would like is just being needlessly difficult this year. I've spent the last year being a hermit, I don't know what people are into or if that's what they liked last year, I don't know if I see something and go "oooh!" it's because I think it's cool but the person I'd get it for would just be bemused.

I haven't got a clue what to ask for for christmas. What I really really want is a cocker-poo coz I met one while out shopping the other week and fell in love. But I'm not going to be able to get a dog of my own for years yet I should imagine, if ever. I'd also quite like the bright pink Laguiole cake set from Habitat or the Laguiole 'Brights' sets from John Lewis but when I pointed them out in a magazine mum was all dismissive saying that £35 was a ridiculous price for some forks. I see lots and lots of little things but you can't really ask for things so specifically, I just have to assume that my family, having spent 25 years with me, will actually have a clue what I'm into... I'm usually wrong. Ordinarily I'm easy to buy for, if it looks like something you'd find in Cath Kidston I'm sold! But I don't want homeware this year because I have no home. I'm in limbo here and I don't want to get loads of kitchen and home stuff just for it to sit in a box in the garage waiting for life to finally cut me some fucking slack.

I see stuff around and I think it looks good but if I actually ask for something I get told it's not suitable, so no doubt mum'll just buy me whatever she thinks I should have and pay no attention to what I actually want... if only I could make up my mind about what I want. This is yet another lesson I leanred from a young age. Don't ask for what you really want coz you sure as hell won't get it. Perpetual disappointmet is better than hope any day. If life has taught me anything it's that hope is the shittiest emotion going coz there's never any point. Life has fucked me over at every opportunity. Christmas presents are no exception.

( And this is where I veer off on a little emotional breakdown so I'm cutting this.  )

Gran's birthday present from us was a trip to the hairdresser for the first time since the war. She always used to cut her hair herself but she's hurt her shoulder recently and can't do it any more. As a bit of a pamper we thought she'd like this. Luckily, she did! I took her this morning to act as translator and make sure she didn't come out with a mohawk or anything.

Then my uncle and aunt and other uncle and I took her for lunch at the village pub. I had to dash off for a few hours as I had an appointment in Northallerton but then I was back for more family time with mum in tow too. I'm lucky, I have a small family and we usually only get together for gran's birthday, used to do christmas too but since Uncle John and Auntie Mavis moved to France and their daughter Claire moved to Wales and had Ellis, now 4, we don't do a big family boxing day anymore. Instead we have gran and uncle Richard (divorced) over for christmas day.

Thank god we don't do this more than once a year coz my family are all batshit crazy and can talk the hind leg off a donkey. You haven't heard rambling til you've sat in a room with my family for 4 hours. Oh and John, the Uncle Knobhead of my family, is apparently writing a book. May god save us all!

We took the dog to go see Gran today. She's 86 on Tuesday.

After weeks of searching for the perfect madeleine tin I gave up and bought the almost perfect madeleine tin.  As a result I have made madeleines twice in the last two days.  I bloody love madeleines!  Essentially it's a sponge but it's so light and airy in little easy bite sized scallop shapes. I may be in love!  Recipe and pics over at Annainthekitchen as always. 

Another discovery was that I am allergic to hyacinth bulbs.  Seriously allergic.  I'm allergic to a lot of things but usually it takes a while before I notice symptoms.  This evening I was putting the bulbs in the bulb vases to force them and within 5 minutes I felt like my face and neck were being bitten all over by ants.  It was awful, spiky, prickly, itchy, nasty!  I was trying to claw off my face within a minute of it starting.  I gulped down an antihistamine and the second I was able I raced upstairs to wash my face, hands and neck and slather on antihistamine cream but it took a while for the redness to fade.  Luckily it wasn't more serious than that but it was the most unpleasant feeling.  I thought the way my hands swell up and itch when I'm exposed to some plastics was bad but this was torture!

I slept for 12 hours and woke up feeling remarkably better.  Hopefully I will continue to be better coz I have an interview next Tuesday for another Legal Sec. job.  I can only hope I get this one.  I haven't been doing much recently other than staying in bed and being ill.  I made bread on wednesday but other than that I haven't even cooked (a major benefit of living at hope, when sick other people cook for you!)  So nothing to report on that front either. 

I did drag myself out to the village bonfire last night though.  It took them an age to get the damned thing lit, it was hilarious!  Back in the day Big Ron would be in charge and put a massive fuel soaked round bale in the middle with little bales leading out the the edge under the rest of the stuff.  It would go up a treat!  Last night no such planning had occured.  They just had a pile of stuff, wet stuff, and a few handfuls of straw.  The best part was when the curate's husband clumbed up the lit bonfire (only parts of it were burning at that point) and grabbed some dry stuff off the top to try and get it going.  Also the bloke with a jerry can of fuel liberally splashing it on the burning heap.  We were just waiting for him to go up in flames but it must have been diesel, or just incredible luck, coz nothing happened... in fact the bit he splashed all over didn't even catch light, it just smouldered a bit round the edges.  The fireworks were, well, fireworks to be honest.  I may have been spoilt for fireworks forever by Chinese new year in Hong Kong.  But, hey, we're a small village we don't really have a budget for anything, it's just a social event with added fripperies like a sausage-in-a-bun (I don't think any of the people on food duty read Pratchett as I was sniggering away to my self).  Anyway, it was fun and having worn myself out in the cold I came home, ate my dinner then crashed. 

Here is the problem:

Can I actually sleep sitting up crosslegged?  I can't stretch my legs out coz the dog is fast asleep at the end of my bed!!  If I move my legs I wake up the dog and he looks so confused and upset and his little sleepy face just says "why?!"  So may be I will keep playing on the internet until the dog moves.  *sigh*  This dog is so spoilt!

I didn't get the job.  Absolutely nothing wrong with me at all, in fact they said I was brilliant.  They just gave the job to the other woman.  I had a 50/50 chance, I just ended up in the wrong 50!  They did also say that if another job were to come up I would be the first person they called so that's something.  And yet again I've had it reinforced that I'm an excellent candidate, just noone wants me.  Story of my fucking life!  See, this is also why I don't date.  I'm lovely, pretty, wonderful personality (most of the time!) but noone wants me.  *sigh*  Such is life I guess! 

In more positive news I managed to pick the last of the apples.  (Shush, I'm trying here!)  I walked round the long way instead of across the field because I was not up for any agro from the Barningham brat.  It is not their field, they don't even pay rent for it, they just sometimes keep stock there but last time I was there picking apples, with permission from the actual owner, he rode by on his bike yelling "Gerrof our land!"  ignorant shit.  It's common knowledge in the village that they're tenant farmers through and through, they own nothing of the farm at all.  But still it had been a shitty day and I wasn't up for any unnecessary agro so the long way round I went! 

But yeah, the last of the cooking apples are now picked and stored.  Mum got us some of the fruit separating cardboard sheets from the grocers so they're on those in a plastic box to keep the mice out with a layer of rice in the bottom to soak up any excess moisture.  Hopefully they'll keep for a bit coz I have a few dozen!  I did damage a few getting them down though.  The higher up ones I hooked down with a shepherd's crook and half a dozen or so bounced off branches and punctured their skins so I'll be making apple pie and sauce tomorrow I think! 

Well, I didn't stay up reading until 4am.  Didn't get to sleep before then either though!  I was tossing and turning all night stressing about EVERYTHING.  At one point I was worrying about de-algaeing my fish tank with an anti-algae thing but I don't want to hurt Spot in case he's sensitive and I was trying to work out approximately how many cubic cm there were in my tank and how that converted to litres/gallons.  In My Head!  Eventually I got up and used a calculator so I could move on and stop worrying about the problem.  (About 6 gallons, fyi.)

Then I moved on to an elaborate fantasy/plan involving what would happen if someone were to spill coffee down me in Starbucks prior to the interview.  Then the dog left me.  He absconded in the middle of the night to go back to sleeping in mum and dad's room the little turncoat!!  So then I was unsettled coz I missed the dog.  Then the rabbit started thumping her feet out in her hutch but it took me about half an hour of freaking out to figure out that it was the rabbit. Eventually I just passed out from exhaustion but I didn't get more than 4 1/2 hours sleep and woke up feeling like death. 

The high point of my day was supposed to be finally buying the madeleine tin I've been lusting over for weeks, only when I got to the shop they'd put up the price by £1, making amazon much cheaper instead of mildly cheaper so I didn't buy it and will now have to hit google again.  ARGH!!!

I did, however, get some shoes that don't fit but are exactly what I was after.  My left foot is a size(ish) smaller than my right foot and I have very wide feet.  I tried on 10 pairs of shoes today in 3 different shops and the bigger size was always too big, the smaller size far too small.  I'm hoping to work something out with socks and insoles coz otherwise I'm fucked!  I also got some shorts for winter wear with tights, a pretty top and some mittens for 99p.  Interestingly these exact same mittens with little pearls sewn on cost £7.99 in the same shop.  Apparently pearly plastic is expensive!   

And to top it all off I am starting with the cold that's been going around the family.  My throat is scratchy, my nose is stuffy, my head hurts and my sinuses are complaining loudly.  I don't want to be ill.  I am supposed to be going out with gran this friday, just for a drive about and lunch but I'm looking forward to it and if I'm ill I can't go!  I'm now curled up with a box of biscuits I made in the shape of ghosts and bats turning my tongue a lovely shade due to food colouring and feeling sorry for my self.  I expect to wake up tomorrow and have a better day or else!

Right, I've a job interview tomorrow at noon, any positive thoughts you can spare for me are always welcome!  Legal Secretary job, could be interesting but it's a job and this is the first interview I've had in months! 

The pics and recipes for my Halloween Feast are up over at Annainthekitchen, I'm rather proud of this one!

In news that is utterly irrelevant to anyone other than me the shower in my bathroom was finally fixed today, the new one is AMAZING, powerful and really hot, love it!

Now bed before I stay up reading fic until 4am and cock up the interview before I've even got there!

I keep hearing Christmas songs on the TV and getting excited but it's too damned early!!!!!  Halloween isn't even out of the way yet.  I was excited about Halloween coz I wanted to make lots of cool foods but mum is sick and grumpy so I lack people to feed.  So making biscuits and cakes tomorrow even if I have to eat nothing else for a week!!!  But I must hold out against Christmas at the very least until Bonfire Night is out of the way!!!

Well, I ended up watching True Blood for nearly 24 hours in the end. I've still got 4 episodes to see but I passed out last night after over 24 hours awake so I'm saving them for later.  Not as keen on the second season.  It all got a little odd but, whatever, I watched Buffy for 7 years, odd I can handle!

Just to mention, has anyone noticed how much better I'm being with the !'s?  I used to put 3 on the end of every sentence, I annoyed even myself but I'm learning restraint and only need !!!!!!'s if I'm really really excited/pissed off about something.  It's been 10 years or so so it's an ongoing process but I'm weaning myself off them. 

In other news hits on Annainthekitchen have picked up a lot in the last week and I'm very googleable.  I'm in the first ten hits if you're looking for a recipe for Christmas muffins (which, if you're searching for those, god are you ahead of yourself!), nikuman and spicy butternut squash soup.  Yay!  If you do happen to drop by please do leave a comment as I know that people are looking but I'd love to know what you are thinking too!   I enjoy it a lot and I love the experimentation it has encouraged me to do in the kitchen, it's a very rewarding hobby.  Tomorrow I will be making Boeuf Bourguignon for the first time.  Mum has handed it over totally to me so we shall have to see if I do a Julie and burn it! 

Frodo was sent to the vets last week.  He is no longer an "entire" dog as they so charmingly phrase it!  He was developing a mean streak and other behavioural problems and it just seemed the best course of action.  Which is not to say that he wasn't/isn't a sweetie, he was but occasionally he was pushing it on how violent he could get and he was running away after scents, we assume a bitch, and not coming back until he wanted to.  The poor thing is all distressed though (as you would be!) and even worse than having one's 'boys' cut into he had an allergic reaction to the dressing they stuck over the wound! 

He also had the weirdest reaction to the anesthetic.  He is a lovely dog and has never bitten anyone, only nipped in play, even when he got snarly and growly he never actually made contact, just snapped at you.  Well, mum got bitten when the vet tried to fit an elizabethan collar on him.  He turned really really violent!  He's totally better now but for about a day he was totally out of sorts.  The vet said he'd never seen anything like it, if a dog is a biter, sure he'll bite but to have such a change in temprement before and after surgery was just weird.  Our next door neighbour Ez is a bit like that though, she's so lovely in person but she once decked and knocked out her anesthetist because she gets really violent and curses a lot under anesthetics!  Anyway, he's fine now and seems to have forgiven us.  He's got anti inflamatory drugs that seem to knock him out at night so he's currently asleep under my bed and not coming out.  I have a growling bed!

I've been going through a little bit of a funk recently.  I ran out of my B6 pills on Friday and couldn't get any more til today, add to that that I stopped taking my pill today and I've been a right treat!  I was sleeping a lot and finding it very hard to get out of bed because I couldn't see the point.  It doesn't help that jobhunting has slowed right down either, it's a knock to my self esteem even after this long!  Any way, I was cutting up onions for dinner and the knife slipped, I didn't cut myself, only took out a chunk of skin leaving a 'dent' but it was a hell of a shock so I burst into tears and cried all over the onions for a bit.  It was just a shock but I'm all off kilter so my grip on my emotions is a bit off at the moment.  I'm thinking it's going to be a fun week. 

In other news, Dad shaved off his beard today and looks like he's lost a stone, mum insisted on making sandwiches for her lunch again as there was leftover roast beef (totally typed beast there, twice) but I wrestled her lunchbox off her and added white sugar paper RIPs to make them gravestones and a  sugarpaper ghost too.  I try!

Well, I went along to the WI thing this evening.  Was quite good.  Not too sure about a talk from a domestic violence charity for the first meeting but there was cake!  I did not enter one as I didn't think it would survive my driving on the way there.  I dragged deedeedee123 along with me for moral support.  There was a news crew there doing a piece for the local news and Dee and I are sitting there in the back of the shot the whole time!  Eek!!!  If you fancy having a look it's the last 5 minutes of this but you have to get through the rest of the news first!  Go make a cup of tea for 25 minutes.  This is as close to fame as I get!!! 

After that I met up with Dee again, she'd had to leave early to meet another friend, and we went to see some light shows around York.  They were rather cool!



This one was an interactive projection, basically a big neon doodlge projected onto the tower wall, rather cool.  The really cool one was again a projection onto a building but it was a sort of film with a sound track depicting a hedgehog, a fox, eyes in the dark, an owl hunting.  Really really hard to adequately describe.  I'll upload the video tomorrow but due to my shitty broadband it'll take a few hours and I am going to bed now!

I just got back from finally seeing the film!  I really enjoyed it and managed to drag my mum and sister along too.  Mum didn't really want to go and was kicking up a fuss because of that and Robyn is home sick so she wasn't feeling great but I enjoyed the film none the less.  I am left with an overwhelming urge to make boeuf bourguignon.  I bet I'm not the only one! 

When we came out of the cinema we popped into Tesco to grab some dinner and saw them stuffing the contents of the reduced counter in sacks to go into the compressor.  I managed to rescue some mince and some mushrooms but it was just scandalous the amount of food being thrown away!  At least 3 large sacks of stuff were there.  If the freezer weren't full I'd have been grabbing loads of stuff but unfortunately I just don't have the space nor do I have time to cook anything as the next few days are organised!  It just really pissed me off. 

Ok, I've told several people I intend to go to this WI thing in York on Friday and I have now emailed them asking a boring question so I have made contact that will encourage me to follow through on my plan.  I am such a recluse!  I've never ever been good at new social situations but after the last 6 months here I'm starting to get a bit special me thinks.  So I have decided to go to the New York Sisterhood WI meeting and now here I am telling all of you lot so I can be held to this decision by even more people.  I hate that I have to force myself to do things but I'm a woos!!!  God I wish I didn't have to drive there so I could have a little dutch courage beforehand!!!

Last night I had something in my eye.  I'm beginning to think I've done something terrible to my eye coz whenever I take my contacts out at night I feel like I've got something in my eye and it scratches whenever I move it.  I was washing the eye out with an eye bath and turned my head... not particularly suddenly but obviously I did something coz my neck went CRRCHK!  Que pain. 

There was nothing to be done so I toddled back to bed, eye now feeling much better, and figured it would have fixed itself by morning.  Nope.  Still painful.  Everytime I rolled over in the night I woke up coz OW! This morning turning my head is best done very very slowly.  So I'm sitting on my bed very carefully not moving.  My head is surrounded by pillows so I don't have to do anything muscular or tendony. 

Obviously it's just a bad day for the tendons on my left side as my left wrist has gone too.  Some, but not all kinds of, twisty or grabby motions or exerting pressure on it are not advised.  Thank god I can still type but I can't open a jar or a door without screaming a tiny bit.  Ah well, I have a large bar of Dairy Milk and nothing to do today so I'll no doubt survive!