Preparations

Friday, March 25th, 2016 05:54 pm
tourmaline: (coffee)
Yes, I am still here, although I am more frequently found on the Wii Fit these days. And I'm still using Facebook like a proper Facebooky person. But as my last post was about Tim Peake and he's now more than halfway through his mission, I thought I'd better get back on here again so that the post on his EVA wouldn't then be directly followed by an end-of-mission post.

Generally, and specifically now )
Have also been enjoying The Night Manager, even though I doubt I'd have tuned in if Hugh Laurie wasn't in it. Spy dramas, no matter how brilliantly done, aren't my thing. But it's so good to see Hugh playing a properly evil baddie. And Olivia Coleman is awesome as always.
tourmaline: (coffee)
Tonight we had a good evening out from work, and then I had things to do when I got back. Glad to be back, but the stuff to do was meh.
Full story )
It started snowing when I was driving home. Hopefully it won't amount to anything major, but it's supposed to stay cold for a good while yet. I'll be glad when winter is over.
tourmaline: (Christmas)
Apparently many people of my acquaintance haven't started their Christmas shopping yet. As per usual, I've got lots of mine done.

More )
I found out very late last night that Dr. John is at my local Arts Centre tomorrow night. They have a few seats left (at the back or extreme sides) but I've no-one to go with. Not sure any of my friends have heard of Dr. John :(

Busy Today

Monday, October 14th, 2013 10:15 pm
tourmaline: (home-made bread)
Two things that coincided today - having the house to myself, and a team awayday at work which took place 10.30-3.30 - have ironically given me a super-busy day. But in a good way, as the awayday was really good so I didn't mind so much.

So, today's accomplishments, in ascending order: Laundry done (well, the second load is still in the dryer and it will be ironed tomorrow). Christmas cross-stitch cards mounted. And, pasta bake cooked and first portion eaten, the remainder is cooling in little freezable tubs.

The pasta bake had been the big thing, I'm not great at cooking, and last week my colleague had some reheated pasta bake for lunch which smelled so utterly delicious with all that melted cheese it gave me a headache, only cured by having strong cheddar on toast for dinner. But after consulting approximately 493802 online recipes I cobbled one together (needs refining next time) and tonight had my first home-made pasta bake. The refining I need to make is to let the veg simmer longer - the original recipe doesn't contain veg as such, so this didn't occur to me until I tucked in. I had planned to use up three lots of leftovers: tagliatelle (success), mushrooms (completely forgot about them), and breadcrumbs (don't even think of not topping a pasta bake with breadcrumbs, so delicious).

Hoping I don't have to stay up extra for the leftovers to cool down enough. I guess so long as it cools enough for the fridge tonight & I can freeze it in the morning that'll be OK. Need to check there's room in the freezer too.

So Far, So Good

Tuesday, September 17th, 2013 08:15 pm
tourmaline: (home-made bread)
It's only Tuesday but I seem to have done quite well so far at spending money this week. It's stuff I need (really), and I've done OK in terms of bargain-hunting etc. The only negative in this was my trip to Hobbycraft and subsequent search online for card blanks for the cross-stitch cards I currently have in progress - I was hoping for red or green card blanks with large round apertures but have only been able to find white ones, and they're only just big enough. The tricky part will come when I have to wash & iron them without anyone noticing me taking over the kitchen for a big seekrit cunning plan.

So, the successes yesterday & today have been:

  • New trainers (even though they have pink trim), which means the old worn ones are now in the bin

  • A new watch strap

  • Pizza bases! Just scoffed the first home-made pizza, with rocket, mushrooms, sweet peppers, tomatoes, and two types of cheese. Way better than the ones they make up instore

  • Three pairs of little flower clips for my hair (black roses, cream roses, sunflowers) for an office-friendly trombone-less Elizabeth Lea look

  • Jellybeans, naturally

  • Hotel Chocolat selectors, including rose & lime creams

  • Marks & Spencer yummy food, including Macarons, which I've never had before

  • Two pairs of jeans - I have to go to M&S for jeans as only they & Next (sometimes) do them short & wide enough. Not a fan of the current trend towards lightweight denim & engineering though, when I first saw them in Sainsburys I thought they were just cheapo supermarket ones but it seems they're all like that now :(


Tomorrow we're picking Jessica up from nursery - she's now in the top age group, as it's the start of her final year at nursery. She now also goes to pre-school one morning a week at a nearby church hall - this is to give the kids more of an idea about what school will be like, and she's also there alongside other neighbourhood children, so when she starts school there will be children there she already knows. So I guess for now I'm making the most of these opportunities.

12.12.12

Wednesday, December 12th, 2012 08:41 pm
tourmaline: (coffee)
If you follow the news in the UK you may know about the chemical fire on a lorry on the M6 north of Coventry, which has buggered up the roads around Coventry and Warwickshire all day. Thankfully I was able to leave work at 4.20 this afternoon, despite problems with our website interfering with my e-newsletter editing, and I got home by 5pm with heavy traffic confined to a section of roads which are usually busy anyway.

The Great Loft Clearout Of 2012 has yielded up some surprises this week - three, in particular. Firstly a facial sauna, which my parents brought to torture me with during the worst of my years of woeful teenage skin issues, and secondly a steam iron, which Dad thinks he got from an end-of-line shop. And thirdly, a filter coffee maker, which was completely sealed, and for which we have absolutely no idea where or how we acquired it. Not wanting to pass up on a free coffee maker, I investigated it tonight and now have a half-drunk cup of filter coffee on the side table as a result. It's only a small model - four cups capacity, ie two full mugs - but it takes no longer than my little one-cup filter thing to make a cup of coffee. Judging by the pre-use washing, it's also easier to clean.

Also, I am claiming one 12.12.12 moment. This is due to the fact that in our house, when we start a new bottle or jar of sauce/salad dressing/relish, we write the date it was opened on the side, so we have some idea of how fresh (or not) it is without having to rely on how it smells. So this is from this evening:

Untitled

Happy Thanksgiving

Thursday, November 24th, 2011 06:36 pm
tourmaline: (Default)
Happy Thanksgiving, or if it's not for you today, Happy Thursday. I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving food if you're partaking of the tradition, meanwhile I am about to partake of this:

Fish & Chips

Yum :)

British Bento Box

Monday, August 15th, 2011 08:11 pm
tourmaline: (strawberry shake)
My latest thing for food is a not-quite Bento box, ie a Sainsburys-bought lunchbox:

Explained in pictures )

I was inspired by this Flickr group, and while I don't have the official & expensive kit they have, there's lots of ideas there (Warning: looking through the photos at this group will make you hungry). I've already discovered that cheap supermarket fish fingers taste better cold the next day in salad, even though the breadcrumbs have mostly gone soft. I'm hoping this will keep lunch interesting, it's a struggle some times not to have the same stuff again and again.

I Have.....

Thursday, June 9th, 2011 07:54 pm
tourmaline: (olympics)
I have finished my maths for this evening, this chapter divides itself into three parts and I've now finished the first. I'll do the second tomorrow or Saturday, then the third next week, as per the schedule.

I have seven crackers to eat (it was eight, but one broke in half when I was buttering it so it got eaten in the kitchen). So that's two with butter, three with St Giles cheese, and two with Tiptree Little Scarlet strawberry preserve.

I have an interview to be an Olympics Gamesmaker! I applied for a voluteer post doing something at my local stadium, which is hosting football. Next month I have to attend an interview and selection day at the University to work in the events team, ie meeting & greeting people, stewarding people about etc. After all this waiting it seems so strange to think it's finally real.
tourmaline: (Default)
Had a bizarre dream this morning featuring astronaut Ron Garan (@Astro_Ron on Twitter), who kept popping up at regular intervals within the dream. Other roles in the dream were played by various people from work, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, and astronaut Sunita Williams.

Food was also a theme. Let me explain. )

So, I had to get all of that down before breakfast, so I am now rather hungry. And I must think about kettlebells some time today. I cannot let good intentions slide.

Venturing Out

Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 05:51 pm
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 363 Have been to Sainsburys - it's very foggy out, this was the view from the car park:

Foggy Scene

No sleep until well past 4am again, my nose is still fdksjfkljflkasjf but not as much as it was, but am still coughing at night, which is what keeps me awake for so long. Have bought a few more items for sushi-making, which will happen tomorrow (I have shop-bought sushi for today), plus a few dips but DUH! I forgot breadsticks, will have to make do with plain tortilla chips :(
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 360 Following yesterday's present haul, I'm not short of DVDs to watch:

Something To Watch

Although for now, I'm quite happy enjoying the silence while spending hours at a time on Wikipedia reading about EastEnders characters from the 1980s or whatever. Also my sleep schedule is totally wrecked, because it's so cold at night my sore throat is irritated further and I'm up most of the night coughing, so sleep happens mostly between 5am and 11am, with odd hours before or after if I'm lucky. So long as I can shift this cold I should be fine about getting back on schedule, I'm not in work until 4th January, and I'm past the stage in my cold where I need an extra snooze in the afternoon.

We don't really have any leftovers apart from the turkey and half a jar of good quality cranberry sauce. Because we had Christmas dinner late in the afternoon we didn't have a buffet-type meal during the day, so we never bought the accompaniments usual for this (eg dips, breadsticks, cheese straws, etc) that are so yummy when eaten as leftovers. We do have the stilton of course, plus some strong cheddar, various relishes, and the box of biscuits for cheese, which I made a start on as part of breakfast. I was thinking it was a shame we didn't have the dips, but then they're so predictable, everywhere sells the same quartet, it's no longer a novelty and no-one ever wants much of the thousand island dip. But I still plan to make sushi at some point next week.
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 358 Christmas Day preparations are underway:

Stuffing & Preparations Christmas Preparations

Dad has gone to Morrisons because apparently the nuts we have aren't up to the usual standard. He's also said he'll get some more Paracetamol - I am getting better slowly but still getting through the stuff at speed. Meanwhile I am keeping up with NORAD Tracks Santa (as I type he's heading for Shanghai) which I just love so much. afjelkjfjflajflkjfldjfklsj so wonderful, hi-tech meets Santa magic saljfal;fj;dsjf;lsjfl; OMG just wait until Bean is old enough to be introduced to NORAD Tracks Santa dljflajflkdjsflslkl

And last night The Good Life episode "When I'm 65" was on! It normally never gets shown, it was a one-off episode made for the Queen to attend the studio filming. It was shown with the Queen arriving beforehand and meeting the cast and credited crew (ie studio managers, makeup artist) after. The voiceover mentioned how some of the crew had been with the BBC for a while ("He came as a pageboy in 1931" and so on).

Lovely Stilton

Sunday, December 19th, 2010 06:11 pm
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 353 I tend to be rather wary of starting Christmas food (ie snack food, seasonal variations of the usual stuff) too early, lest it all be gone by the big day. But we had to start on the Stilton because it's too big for the cheese dish, so we have some in the cheese dish and this is the rest:

Stilton

So the stuff in the cheese dish is less than half of what we bought. And it's highly delicious. I know Stilton is delicious anyway, but this is more sublime than the usual stuff, it doesn't have the standard sharp kick, more of a gentle buzz that increases in intensity when you eat more. Very highly recommended.
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 351 We had our Christmas lunch from work today. This was my Secret Santa gift:

Scret Santa Lush Goodies

So that's a Christmas Pud, Gingerbread House and Sugar Plum Fairy fizzy-splashy-bath things. They're currently on the windowsill (in their separate bags) making my room smell lovely.

Our meal was delish, the place was really lovely (except I was near the fire doors so I got a bit of a whistling draft, but it's preferable to being too hot) and the staff were very good. It was snowy enough to be picturesque over that side of town, but our main road outside our home is slushy and icy. I hope it'll be OK for me to venture out to work at least one of the two days I'm in next week, so that I can go to Sainsburys. We're due for some more snow over the weekend but it's likely we'll miss out on the worst of it.

Photos Today

Monday, December 6th, 2010 07:52 pm
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 340 Meh. Started the day smelling vaguely nice thanks to this:

Ice Musk

Which I like because the tube is pretty. The scent is Ice Musk from Boots, which is wintery but doesn't overpower other scents or smell cold. I do like their Natural Collection stuff, always have, but I preferred Global Collection, does anyone else remember it?

It's been foggy today, and we've had a bit of snow here tonight, just a thin film but enough for you to walk carefully. I took lots of photos of the trees and bushes around work and in the front garden covered with frost, which you can see here. It did look pretty when the fog thinned out. Unfortunately the fog came back just in time for hometime but it wasn't too bad on the whole driving-wise. Am still in a crappy mood so I bought these for myself at Sainsburys:

New Hairbands

They're from the kiddie range but they're not too kiddie-style. It's often cheaper to get hairbands from kid's ranges than from Next or Boots or wherever. I also bought a freshly-made vegetable pizza, which I'm now half-way through and is delish. And some sushi for breakfast tomorrow.
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 326 Back at work :( But I had these for everyone:

Hershey's Miniatures

Bought from Selfridges food hall last week, and a welcome addition to afternoon tea/coffee today.
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 322 Just finished some delish food, a split muffin with smoked salmon, poached egg, chives and pesto on each:

Poached Eggs & Smoked Salmon

The original idea was for Eggs Benedict, but I have no Hollandaise Sauce. I then came across a recipe online involving a spoonful of pesto on top of poached egg, so I combined the two. The egg-poaching worked very well, I tipped the eggs into a good whirlpool and they held well, poached for four minutes which gave them a solid yolk. And the little towers didn't collapse:

It Didn't Collapse!

Earlier this afternoon I went to visit my sister and baby Bean. Bean is three months old now, and smiles and gurgles and laughs a lot. akalfjslfjdlfjdljfsld she is so cute, I took lots of photos of her and only stopped when the batteries died on my camera <3 <3 <3
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 318 I've had this pic in mind for a while, but I'm about to open the tin on the left (the older one) to have the contents on doorstep Hovis.

Sainsburys Veggie Ravioli

I bought the other tin last month, and was surprised to find they'd changed the design. I'm not sure how long I've had the older tin for, but it's good until some time next year. And I don't know why one is 'vegetarian' and the other is 'vegetable' either, but there's a whole three calories' difference.

Meanwhile I am finding stuff on YouTube and interesting photos and tumbling them. If you want to follow along, this is my Tumblr. So far there's a few pictures of railway stations, and some Fry & Laurie and French & Saunders sketches. Yay.

Even More Sushi

Thursday, November 11th, 2010 09:28 pm
tourmaline: (Default)
Day 315 I made another load of sushi this evening:

Even More Sushi

I forgot that less is more with Philadelphia, and made some with loads of Philly which then mostly squished out. But I did learn that a few chilli flakes are an excellent addition - strong flavours are good in home-made sushi it seems. I used loads of sundried tomatoes in this batch.

I had some pieces, as well as all the raggedy ends and the ones which fell apart when slicing, so I'm now full of sushi. Dad's had some, he was very impressed, I think there's 35 pieces left so that's plenty for lunch plus enough to share around at work.

EDIT: A few pieces fell apart while transporting to boxes (the seafood stick fell out leaving a Polo-like ring of sushi rice) & I pinched a couple more pieces, so will take some to work for lunch and leave some here for Dad or whoever wants some.