Tags: holiday

m00se

Eat, drink, and be merry!

...for tomorrow we diet. And by "tomorrow", I mean in two or three weeks when the assorted left-overs, snacks and sweetmeats have finally met their demise. The past few days have, not unexpectedly, contained considerable amounts of both food and alcohol (although the former rather closer to excess than the latter). On the plus side, we have been out for a walk every day, and have spent little time in front of the goggle-box (although such sedentary pursuits as reading, playing board games, and wrestling with puzzles, quizzes, and crosswords are little better for the health).

First year with the new kitchen, and we actually managed to get the turkey spot on (after missing the mark in opposite directions the previous two years), so Christmas dinner itself was an almost¹ complete success. Alas, the traditional Christmas Eve ox-tounge was possibly even more over-salted than the previous year despite additional soaking, so it looks like that's off the menu next time. Today was the equally traditional turkey and left-over-vegetable curry - something that has very little danger of going wrong.

To add some educational merit to this post, here's a recipe for you. A rather fine pudding henceforth to be known as Collapse )

1) The "almost" part being due to the Mini Bagpuss Crackers (eight for a pound). These promised a hat, a motto and a sticker sheet in each one. After one cracker each, we had two hats, four mottos (one blank) and no sticker sheets. After the remaining four crackers, we just managed an additional two paper hats, a total of six mottoes³, and one solitary sticker sheet. Unimpressed.

2) I'm not aware of anyone suffering a coronary as a direct result of eating this cake, but proceed at your own risk.

3) On further examination, we discovered that all six were printed with the same joke, which I reproduce verbatim below for your amusement:
What's the difference between a railway shed and tree ?
One leaves.its shed and the other sheds its leaves.
Not quite right, methinks...
t00biest, reunion

...is on holiday

So, I've been in the south of France for a few days now. Naturally, I've chosen the first week in ages where the weather is sub-par. Thankfully it's not been too bad - we haven't had much rain (at least during the day); we just haven't had a huge amount of sun either. Still, I've managed to splash around in the pool a couple of times, and there's plenty of good food and wine to be had...
Rigby-Jones's Diary

"May you live in interesting times"

Well, this has been an Interesting week. As regards interesting item one, I will say no more than to quote Morpheus: "Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony." As regards interesting item two, I will say more tomorrow. (See, I can make vague and mysterious posts too!)

I managed to survive my birthday yesterday - having holiday I needed to take before the end of the year meant that I had the day off, so I graciously allowed my parents to take me out for lunch - a rather fine meal at Pierre Victoire. Alas, the shopping for birthday presents didn't go quite so well - failing miserably to get anything at all. Ah, well...

This year, I've sent virtually no holiday cards, so thanks to those who did send me birthday/Christmas wishes, and apologies to those I haven't sent anything to.

Re: hate memes: Those of you who participated in these know who you are. I'm sure you're remaining anonymous because you don't want the rest of us that you're pathetic, despicable, bigoted, untrustworthy, nasty little people. Perhaps you should consider the old saying "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" before launching your disgusting and unwarranted attacks on fabulous people like hermorrine and others of my friends, all of whose boots you have proved yourselves utterly unworthy to lick.
Relativity

IFOK

Well, I'm back. I was going to post about my holiday tonight, but alas sleep is getting the better of me (that and skip=400), so I shall postpone that until tomorrow...
airport

AFK

I'm going to be AFK for the next 10 days or so - I'm off to the south of France to visit my Parents. I plan on spending the week alternating between the pool and the hammock and avoiding the outside world (well, except for hermorrine :* ). Now I have to catch some sleep before heading off to Gatwick for a 6am flight...

Thought for the day: You're not entitled to your opinion, but you are entitled to your informed opinion - Harlan Ellison
Time for Evil it is!

Merry Christmas Everybody!

I'm off to the south of France for Xmas with the parents. Hopefully it will be at least a degree or two warmer there. I'll be back online in the office on Monday. Thanks to all of you who I've had cards from: addedentry, frayer, expetesso, heidi8, hermorrine, akahannah, imc, jiggery_pokery, kay_taylor, maggie_malfoy, nmalfoy, sophie10, wednesdayschild & huskyteer.

And for those of you who haven't seen it, here's my fandom card design - in Glorious Technicolor!

Collapse )
Phantom Monkey

Happy Thanksgiving

This weekend I had my first experience of Thanksgiving, thanks to the wonderful hermorrine. I flew out on Wednesday afternoon and caught the red-eye back on Sunday night, so it was a nice long stay. Thanksgiving itself involved a not inconsiderable amount of cooking - with me acting as sous-chef (making myself useful and trying not to get in the way too much) and turkey-chef (well, there's a first time for everything). Starvation was fended off with cheese (having completely forgot about it last time), as dinner was heading for around 6pm. We had roast turkey with stuffing, green bean casserole and sweet potatoes. The pumpkin pie we put off (for reasons of time and space) until after we got back from the cinema (Love Actually). Yum!

Friday had a much later start (not having turkey to contend with, and also having no great desire to catch the 6am start of the sales), so when we headed out, lunch was the first stop (at Steak 'n Shake, where we had ...er... Steakburgers 'n Shakes). After this, we went shopping for pants (that is, trousers) - hermorrine had heard about my difficulty finding trousers that fit and had selflessly volunteered to help out, in particular with getting me into a pair of jeans (something I haven't worn for many a long year). After that, it was the cinema again (The Haunted Mansion) and then to the store (to stock up on Dew and Reese's, plus getting more immediate necessities).

Saturday featured a Super Sekrit. After that, we had time to kill, and ended up in Starbucks (my first time, despite their omnipresence) before our final cinema trip of the weekend (Brother Bear). After that, we had some rather fine Italian food at Luigi's House (and yes, the Portillo name continues to amuse me). Sunday was a quiet day at home , watching some DVDs (X2, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas and the final part of The 10th Kingdom). Alas, all to soon, it was time to head off to O'Hare to catch the last 'plane home.
t00biest, reunion

Very Nimbus Diaries

OK, I have finished typing up my diaries and, as promised, I've posted them backdated so as not to spam your friends pages. You can view them just by browsing through my journal or following the links below. The diaries may get updated over the next few days, and if we met and I haven't mentioned you, please drop me a comment as either:
  1. I forgot we met (my memory sucks)
  2. I wasn't sure who you were (and was too t00by to ask)
  3. I don't know what your LJ is (or even if you have one)
Getting There
Friday 11th - Preparation
Saturday 12th - Off to the Windy City
Sunday 13th - Southward Ho!
Walt Disney World
Monday 14th - Disney/MGM Studios
Tuesday 15th - The Magic Kingdom
Wednesday 16th - EPCOT
Nimbus - 2003
Thursday 17th - Go Fangirls!
Friday 18th - Go Seagulls!
Saturday 19th - Go Dobby!
Homeward Bound
Sunday 20th - DisneyQuest
Monday 21st - More Pirates
Tuesday 22nd - Flying Away
Sleep now...
Phantom Monkey

The Very Nimbus Diary of zorac, Day Eleven

Today, it was time to head for home. There was time to get an all-American breakfast for lunch before returning to O'Hare to catch my flight, Of course, there was no way that things were going to run to plan - my flight to Pittsburgh was delayed by an hour and some - nicely nixing any chance of catching my connecting flight. Thankfully, alternate routing was available, and I'm typing this on my flight from Charlotte, NC (hey, that makes four states for this trip) to London.

By happenstance, this is a much more impressive aircraft than on the way out - in addition to being better-looking, it has a top class on-demand video system (watch what you want, when you want) even here in cattle class - I am most impressed, in true geek style.