Greetings from cloudy Peterborough!

So I made it through four hours worth of trains and a quick re-pack in the middle to get to the lovely's house just outside Peterborough yesterday afternoon. Surprisingly, the trains were nowhere near as manic as I thought and so I felt surprisingly calm when I got here!

Today we ventured into the aforementioned city and yes, it was grey (the weather that is). There was some mooching and coffee drinking, which pleased me greatly, especially when I discovered that there was a heart on top of my latte. The lovely got a new watch which he insisted on retelling me he had it every thirty seconds once it was bought! I was happiest though as I got the prettiest dress in Monsoon and when I got to the till it had been reduced to half the original price. Considering I'd wanted it since September this has been deemed a "very good thing" and I just hope it continues next time I see something lovely!

Less lovely was the bus ride home, but that's because Peterborough is officially the roundabout capital of the world and so getting the half hour into the countryside was not fun. We really need to consider investing in a car....

I haven't forgotten that I promised pictures of the cakes from monday's party so here they are:

The cherry and chesnut browniesLemon refrigerator biscuits and the piece de resistance....Vanilla sponge decorated to make it look seasonal.

I was so chuffed with this, although my family thought I was a little bit crazy (so no change there)

Finally, I said the other day that the poem was my favourite christmas present unless the lovely trumped it. I wouldn't say completely trumped, but he pretty much bowled me over with a beautiful copy of Alice in Wonderland (it has gold gilt edges - gold gilt!) and this necklace which I told him I liked ages ago but never thought he'd take me up on it. He picked aqua and purple for the panel and I utterly adore it!

Hope you all have a lovely new year this evening - ours is going to be spent eating tagine and watching Jools's Annual Hootenanny with lovely's parents
xxx

sort of calmish day

Well today has been lesiurely in a round about way. Good things started when it was gone nine when I got out of bed. I'm sure that seems ridiculously lazy to some, but given I was talking to the lovely until gone two last night (yes, that late) it was a fairly sensible time to wake up. AND my mum made me porridge for breakfast, something I pretty much never remember happening before.

Then I had a very productive couple of hours in which I read at least a quarter of Jude which is a very good thing indeed. I now have only 100 pages of Jude and Madding to read before I've finally got through all the books I'm writing my dissertation on. Given I have to produce a chapter summary in less than a month's time finishing the books will be a good step in the right direction!
On the other hand, I didn't write any of my language essay (yet) which may have pushed me back down a little....

Better again though was the bakery I created in the kitchen earlier. The pictures haven't been taken yet, mainly as its not all finished as yet, but come tomorrow there will be both pictures and recipes for you all to try to your heart's content

Until then, have a lovely evening and hope for my sake that the lovely decides that midnight is quite late enough to talk to me!

xxx

Christmas round up

Hello! Did you all have lovely crimbos? I hope so. Mine was lovely as usual, with my Dad pulling out all stops on the dinner front. Really-o truly-o goose is so delicious at christmas that it will be a shame if we have turkey next year

Father Christmas was also generous as ever, with the main present being a new suitcase with wheels and everything. The wheels are important, as most of the life of this case will be spent with it being hauled back and forth along train platforms, and following the collapse of my wheels at New Street on tuesday, I appreciate them more than ever!
However, although it was my main pressie, it wasn't the most exciting present. That's torn between the following;
This grater which is just darling and will have pride of place on my kitchen work surface
This bracelet, which completes the set with the necklace bought for me by my gran for my 21st. The cunning lady bought both at the same time yet managed to hide the bracelet from me, leaving me totally oblivious!
This jug, which matches the teapot bought for me by my aunt for my 21st (seeing a theme?!)
A whole gaggle of cooking and crafting books including the marmite cookbook from my brother (the boy knows me well!)
A frame with a poem in. Sounds odd, but in my family on big birthdays my dad has always written us little ditties for our cards that reflect us in some way, and for my 21st (again!) he took the poem 'When I am an Old Woman I shall wear purple' and adapted it to 'Now that I am twenty one I shall carry a Mulberry'. Its a really lovely poem that brings in lots of things from my life to date, but as is often the way with things in cards, once the card is put away the message is partially forgotten. Now I can have it up in my house for all to see and admire, because that's what I do.
In fact, I think that was my favourite present (although having not recieved gifts from the lovely I may have to correct myself at a later date, though I don't think he'll be offended if I don't)

Today we had my mum's side of the family over. Mayhem was one word for it, although it did calm down considerably as the day went on (note: I have five cousins from 15 down to 5. Needless to say they all wind each other up something rotten!). We went for a walk round the lake but oh my word it was cold. I mean I've been cold before, but there was something about the way that the wind wipped through clothes and got at your ears that was horrid. Nice in the sun though :)

Tomorrow I'm having a baking day in preparation for a party my parents are giving on monday so shall be up to my arms in flour which is just the way to be!
Hope you all had the loveliest of christmases and got everything your heart desired (within reason!)

xxx

knackered

That's the only word I can find to describe how I feel at the moment. My throat is still funny, my eyes are very tired, my feet ache beyond compare, my ears are blocked and following the lovely boy's departure this afternoon if I watch anything with 'emotional' music I want to cry. And only one of the aforementioned Smiley-Carole-Smilie concerts have happened... Oh dear...

On the plus, I have found a bottle of sparkly stuff in my magic cupboard which I forgot I had, and I've just remembered that I have ice-cream from these people in the fridge.
I've also just spoken to my dad who initially asked if I fancied cooking one round of chesnut and cherry brownies for our village get together on the 29th. Its a brilliant event which involves my family, the families in the village we're friends with and copious amounts of alcohol.
I had a better idea. Seeing as I'm pretty much abandoned here in the Brum, I don't have anyone to cook for, so instead I'm going to go into complete overhaul and make lots and lots of yummy baked goods for the collected people. I'm thinking the brownies, some choc-chip cookies, maybe some kind of muffin-y thing and maybe a cake as well. It's a very exciting prospect! (and obviously I will be using this wonderful lady to the extreme :D)

I am feeling much happier suddenly. Turns out this blogging malarchy is quite cathartic! And thank you for reading it, I truly value knowing that there are people who read this, it makes me feel not quite so alone on a cold evening!

Have a lovely christmas all of you, though I'm sure I'll post again before then
xxx

Updated (like 30 seconds later) to say: More happiness - the lovely lovely Chanel no.5 advert was just on telly. Truly it is Christmas now and I feel all warm and glowy inside :D OMG and they've just said that the film tonight is Knight's Tale. This is amazing! I think this is a sign that I should eat takeout as everything is going nice. Or maybe I'll just eat fish fingers. Both are good!

Waiting for the heating to kick in....

Really I should have got properly dressed rather than yesterday's clothes six hours ago, but I've delayed it for so long that I've now just got another half hour to go and then the heating will kick in, and I can have a shower with a warm towel! (ah the mini-luxuries of student life!)

On the other hand, though I've been a bit rubbish today, I was UBER productive yesterday, and spent hours in the library working my way through a mountain of books and leaving with pages of notes.
I was impressed....

Sadly, my favourite housemate went home this morning (a reason for the delayed shower) which means that now EVERYONE apart from lovely boy has left sunny Birmingham town for parental housings, leaving me sitting in a dark bedroom on my own. Yes,I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself, and its only going to get worse come saturday when the lovely leaves too and I'm back to living on my own again. However, I will almost certainly be swamped with these concerts and when not singing my little heart out I always have all you lovely bloggy people to read and discover and be inspired by

I hope all your Christmas preparations are going swimmingly
xxx

To the castle! (WARNING: photo heavy content)

So as promised here are the photos from our trip to Warwick. We took shedloads as ever, so I thought I would instead treat you to a few of my favourites. Rather annoyingly they appear much darker here than they did when I looked through them on my computer. The only thing I can suggest is maybe opening the pictures in a bigger window, though how affective it is I don't know. But on with the show....

Here standeth the lovely boy in front of the castle. I was so excited about the fact we were going that I positively BEAMED all day long. Luckily I had the camera and so there aren't that many horrific pictures of me! The tower you can see behind him is called St. Guy's and can be reached by walking all along the ramparts, which explains this next photo....

The random bump on the wall is my head which gives you some idea as to how steep the steps up to the tower were (although they were nowhere near as bad as those inside the tower!)

The sign which is where my head should be says 'low door'. I don't think they were wrong!

After literally hundreds of steps we made it to the top of the tower, and were greeted by this amazing view out over Warwick town. You could go the whole way around the tower's top, but this is the prettiest sight - the boy thought so too, as he then proceeded to take a picture of me with the church in the background sticking out of my head. My how we laughed....

On the way down from the tower, you then go along the ramparts and into another tower, which gave the boy his 'best idea ever' - he ran on and did the 'silly english k-nigguts' routine from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Here he is warning me that I should go away or he will taunt me for a second time.....

I have been mildly foolish in not including a picture of the mound which is the oldest part of the castle, but it is from there that this was taken, which shows rather nicely the castle courtyard. Yes, there was a picture that had me in, but frankly its my blog and I'll hide pictures of myself if I want to!

This peacock greeted us as we entered. We counted about ten around the castle and my word they're HUGE, much bigger than I expected. They also weren't that bothered about us, although I was sensible enough to realise that trying to stroke one would lead to a pecking!

I feel I have probably bored you all enough with my pictures now, so I shall bid all you fair maidens and sires adieu (look at me keeping with the olde-worlde theme inspired by the castle)

xxx

Hello world!

I thought I would start this with a big HELLO! to everyone out there. I've got a blog count on this, more for my own curiosity than anything else, and it was really lovely to see just how far ranging the readership of this is, so I say thank you and hello :) You've all really made my week :)

And now for updatement as it has been a while (ie. not that long really!) since I popped in for a how-does-you

*House Christmas went off with loveliness on tuesday. The dining room was all pretty (see pictures below) and the food was de-lic-ious! We full on stuffed ourselves, with roast chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, lashings of gravy and lots of yummy christmas pudding to finish :D

I love that you can see the steam coming off the food in this picture (though I think you have to click to make it larger first)

My attempt to make it look a bit more Christmas-y in our stark dining room

*The Christmas stockings were finally, finished, and have been given to the lovely girls. As well as the pictures I previously posted, I put in gingerbread stars (though I forgot to get a picture) and some home made jewellery, which I did get a picture of

* Today me and the lovely boy went to Warwick Castle and had lots of fun running (ok, walking sedately) around the grounds, climbing up the ramparts and taking pictures of things coming out of each other's head. I'd really recommend it as a day out, as whilst there isn't a lot fact-finding wise, there's loads to see, and if you have little people there was a lot of effort put in to making it enjoyable for them.

*And then? Well the lovely boy said that he'd like to get a bit of crimbo shopping done in the bullring, which was fine, but then he announced that, seeing as he's the lovely boy he is, he was going to take me out to dinner at one of my all time favourites, Strada! As you can imagine, I was a muchos happy girl, and having filled my boots with an antipasto platter, sausage brocolli pasta and half a bottle of wine I needed a lie-down once we got in. Though oh my the taxi ride home was eventful. The driver was asking what we study at uni, and lovely boy made the foolish error of saying truthfully 'International relations'. The question that immediately followed 'Who would you say is causing all the problems in the world today, even though we all know the answer?'. In the words of lovely boy:
"I knew it was bad, because he was either from India or Pakistan, so I'd get it 'wrong' whatever I said, but when I tried to deflect with 'the yanks' and he came back with laughter and 'yeah, but really we all know who it is... the Islamics' and as we hadn't even left the town centre, I knew it'd be a LONG taxi ride home"
The boy wasn't lying....

The pictures for Warwick will follow in their own post, as my camera is separate from the cable which is separate from the computer! as there are so many of them!

Hope you've all had a lovely couple of days and aren't quite as knackered as me! Also wish you the best of weekends; I'm off to see my grandma on a surprise visit (surprise for her not me!) so will let you know how it all went on sunday or monday

Keep smiling (especially in thought at pictures of me with half of warwick coming out of my head!)
xxx

I'm a happy christmas elf

It is true. I am indeed working for the big fat man in the North.

Well, I might not be, but given my housemate described my room as being 'Santa's workshop' earlier this afternoon after seeing the frantic creation taking place with Emmy I think I warrant calling myself an elf.

So far, I've managed to make stockings and wine charms. It may not sound like a lot, but trying to do it all covertly in a small house is VERY difficult. Still up are bracelets and gingerbread biscuits, though I have a cunning plan for those. The boy house is all of five minutes away, and I'm sure with a teensy bit of bribery they'll let me use their oven for some intensive baking.

That just leaves the bracelets, which might take a bit of time, but will be easy once I figure colourways. Oh, and possibly some of these from Lupin's tutorial, if I have time. If not, no biggy as I'm still going to make some for myself come the new year :D

I leave with:
pictures of work so far,
the happy news that we didn't come last in the quiz (the fact we weren't first is irrelevant!)
and a question:
Should I be worried that I still have another stocking to make (for boy's sister) and an apron to make as well?!

xxx


ps. For some reason unknown to me they were giving out free Oreo's at uni today. You know what to do...

Fighting fit?

Ok so I'm still not completely 100% better, but today I managed to not only leave my house and go outside, but I went outside for prolonged periods of time to places that aren't houses of my nearest and dearest. Yay! (in fact, I think this could warrant a huzzah....)

First off was a trip to see my lovely tutor who first off told me that I don't need to go to the lecture on thursday if I still feel ill(fat chance - I'm out of bed and intend to stay that way!)

Then... I was here -->

(image from www.planetware.com)

For a bit of serious Christmas shopping blitzing. Not that I got much done, but the hope was there, and at Christmas we could all do with a little bit of hope :)

Speaking of which (in a random roundabout way which only my head could make the connections for!) yesterday was House Christmas at the lovely boy's, which involved lots of and lots of food. Great, apart from the fact my poor stomach hasn't quite adjusted to being healthy yet so doesn't eat as much as its used to eating. There was many a shocked man when they realised I wasn't going to eat the levels of food they're used to seeing. Still it should hopefully mean that I'm able to eat all the delicious pasta being prepared by the lovely as I type and listen to the greatest christmas album ever.

Its pub quiz tonight, which should be momentous! score update and possible-change-of-team-name-decisions tomorrow when we have girly house christmas! Yay!

x

ps. did i mention I've still not finished all the christmas presents for tomorrow....

*EDIT* We didn't win. Again.

This is getting ridiculous....

Day three, and I have now resorted to buying proper cold medicine in the form of Beechams All-in-One which
1 . Tastes horrible
2. Seems to have done me absolutely no good

So now I have a request to send to all you lovely people. Please enlighten me as to sure fire cold cures! I have tried
* The aforementioned yucky beechams
* Hot lemon, ginger, cinnamon and honey
* Ribena (vitamin C overload!)
* Endless cups of fruit tea
* Ibruprofen at the recommended dose

and I'm about to try hitting it with alcohol, a hot shower and bed, as per my dad's instructions when I phoned home all bunged up earlier!

Any other suggestions?
xxx

bed/sofa day

Oh my word!
It is now day TWO of feeling rubbish, with no work, christmas presents or food being sorted out. I'm not impressed :(
On the positive, I can finally look at a computer screen without my head exploding AND I don't feel too cold anymore so expect lots of catch-up blog reading and writing over the next couple of days....

Hope the winter weather isn't getting you down
x

I really should be working

So...

• It's week 10 of an 11 week term
• I have three essays due after christmas
• I have to finish a transcription for one of the essays (yay for prompt email replies!)
• I've not really started researching the essays properly
• I haven't finished the christmas stockings
• I've still not figured out what to buy the lovely boy for Christmas in whole

...and yet I'm farting around on the internet!
All is good? :)
Yes, because there is a red velvet cake in my kitchen on which the icing should by now have set. As with yesterday, photo still to follow!

The cake in all its glory. Behold the pretty damn impressive snowflake design on the top (that isn't so I can portion it more easily!)

And behold also the (poor image showing the) redness of the cake. I promise its a lot pinker in real life!

xxx

The merry wives?

Today's glorious (!) Shakespeare lecture was on the Merry Wives of Windsor. Needless to say, I felt totally justified to NOT read the text as I saw the musical production at Stratford with Dame Judi Dench herself two years ago.

However, interesting as that was, it was nowhere NEAR as exciting as my trip to Sainsburys after uni. Not too brilliant to your minds, but wait... What's that I spy down aisle 15.... Is it? Could it be?!

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!
Yes, I already had some on my (£1.50 from woolworths) tree, but now there are more :)

(a pretty picture will be here when I find my camera and take one...)

Isn't it lovely (currently you'll have to imagine it...)

The plan now is to bake some Red Velvet Cake. I've never even eaten it before, but given how much certain blogs have been raving about it recently, I thought it was about time I gave it a shot.
What recipes are you just itching to try out?

Over and out x