Tea and cakes and things I like

Nope, not a real one, a virtual one.
I’m moving site.
You can now find me at www.teaandcakes.net
There’s a good bit of work to be done over at the new place, but I hope to have it all sorted soon enough, and it’s just aesthetics really, the content is all there and it’s where I will be posting from now on.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

So, at the moment I’m studying Brain and Behaviour, with the Open university. It’s great, and very interesting and all, but I am one for leaving my assignments until the last minute.
As I was looking up the effect that opiates have on the mesolimbic dopamine neurons, I came across this sentence in relation to cocaine:

“Spider monkeys with a history of intravenous self-administration…”

Yeah, spider monkeys: the advertising sales reps of the animal kingdom. Lying around in their flash suits, talking nonsense all day.

Good thing those scientists found them, that’s all I can say.

I don’t usually write serious type posts, I am, quite literally, more about the tea and cakes and knitting and the like.
A few things have disturbed me recently though, and I want to get my thoughts out. I’m not massively coherent at the moment. I don’t necessarily present good arguments. Mainly because some stuff I’m so incredulous of that I’m just incapable of it. Anyway, read, don’t read, I don’t mind. I just wanted it out of my head.
(more…)

I occasionally have to go through the toll booth on the M50. Like tonight, for example.
On the journey out I was fine - I went through a cashier lane, handed over the money, and drove on. All was good.
The journey back was a slightly different story.
I decided to go through the lane where you throw your fee into a bucket thingy.
I’m not very good at throwing. I throw like a girl. I know that I am a girl, so that’s going to be the case, but I mean that I really throw like a girl. Now, I’ve been stuck behind people who have missed the bucket throwing their coins over, and they’ve had to face the shame of getting out of the car and picking up the money while everyone behind is beeping at them.
I don’t ever want to be that person.
Approaching the booth I swerve to the right, to get the car as close as possible to the bucket, without actually scraping the car.
So far, so good.
I put the window down as far as I can go.
Everything’s going to plan.
I start with my arm held high, coins gripped loosely (so I don’t drop them, but so they don’t stick to my hand).
I bring my arm downwards rapidly, releasing the coins as I go.
I hit my hand on the basket.
It hurts.
I drive off, pretending everything is fine.

It’s quite clear that I never won any tennis tournaments not because I’m just not that good, don’t really like running, and prefer the whole ‘tea and cucumber sandwiches’ (or pimms and strawberries) element of the game to actually playing it, but because my mum never drugged the other competitors. Just think, I could have been a star.

This is the breakfast of a girl who has just got herself a new job.
A nice big cup of hot tea, a very chocolaty chocolate croissant, and an innocent smoothie (strawberry and banana) because I ate very, very badly yesterday, and feel I should have some fruit.
Mmmmmm.

Oh my, what a day Saturday was. Somehow the Dublin Riots passed me by, despite being in the city centre relaxing over lunch with a friend while cars were being torched 5 minutes walk away on Nassau Street.

We had tickets for the cinema that night, and the plan was to stay in town until then, but there was a bit of an edge to the place, and a banger being set off just in front of us on Grafton Street put the wind up me a bit (yes, I am a coward). So, we headed to a local safe house for tea and knitting and a bit of rugby before heading back into the city centre to the cinema.

Anyway, we went to see The Proposition as part of the Jameson International Film Festival, and it was excellent. I highly, highly recommend the film. It’s sort of an australian revenge western. The director, John Hillcote, and John Hurt were there for questions afterwards, which was pretty fucking cool, I have to say.

Anyway, I’d been too full at lunch to have any cake, so I decided to make up for it with an ice cream at the cinema (Cineworld, up on Parnell St). This was an interesting ice cream. The Caramel Crisp is caramel ice cream wrapped in a caramel coating (sort of hard, like choc-ice coating texture, but caramel). So far, so good. Deliciously cool, creamy and sweet.

Unfortunately, in their wisdom, the good people at Haagen-Dazs decided to add wafer to the top and bottom of the caramel coating.
Now, this may sound ok, but the wafer breaks differently to the caramel coating. This means that sometimes you get some wafter in your mouth, sometimes it just falls off and lands in your lap. That’s just the way it goes, I guess.

A little while ago some friends and I had a rather long (looking back on it now) conversation about how things might be in a biscuit based society. You can find a summary of the conversation here and I recommend having a read. Any comments on which of the views you feel most likely appreciated (especially if you agree with mine)

(For general buiscuit related news I of course suggest you visit a nice cup of tea and a sit down.)

Today I’ve been feeling better, plus I was on a day off work (owed from a saturday worked a few weeks ago) and this is what I’ve done:

1. Gone to the library. More on libraries in another post.

2. Studied. For several hours. I’ve been learning about the brain. It’s been fun, I enjoyed the neuroscience stuff I did in a basic module at college, this was a sort of revision of that as preparation for learning about addiction and ageing. I should have done this part of the course before now, but the DVD it’s on only arrived last week, so it’s not my fault.

3. Made hummus. Mmmmmmmm.

4. Felted (or fulled, if you’re an american, or shrunk on a hot wash on purpose, if you just want the common sense explanation) a knitted bag and strap. Pictures to follow soon.

5. Cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms. My hands need a lot of moisturising now.

It’s been a productive day, I’m happy.

Been having headaches, and nausea quite a lot recently. Kinda like a hangover, all of the time, without drinking any alcohol to cause it. I spent last weekend in bed, asleep mainly. I don’t want to do the same again this weekend.
So, I shall update the books a little, but that is all, I want to limit screen time.
(and yes, I’ll be drinking loads of water and I promise to go to a doctor if it continues, I think I’m just a bit run down.)

I never used to like breakfast - I just couldn’t eat in the mornings. Recently I’ve come around to the most important meal of the day, and am quite fond of it.

I have a sweet tooth. I have been known to eat leftover dessert for breakfast (apple crumble is a particular favourite of mine). The fun of that lies in the fact that it’s not for every day. It’s an occasionaly treat, to be balanced out with weetabix or muesli and toast most days.

Above is a picture of the cereal on special offer in my local supermarket at the moment. Yep, you read it correctly: Chocolate(y) chip cookie cereal. I saw it quite a few people’s shopping trollies. There were quite afew kids heading towards obesity in the supermarket too. Hmmm, any connection I wonder?

Only in Japan of course, but a company has been selling cakes that look like burgers so that people who are embarrassed to be seen eating a cake in the street can do so, and fool everyone into thinking that they are eating fast food instead.
This is all wrong. It is not shameful to eat cake. In public, in private, with your friends, alone: there is no time when it is not acceptable to eat cake. (actually, I can probably think of a few, but you get my point).
I’d be more embarrassed to be seen eating a burger in public than a cake.
They do look quite clever though.

Went for a walk here yesterday. It was a beautiful day, and the walk is nice and gentle (and long, 7.5km). The sun was shining, it was cold but not windy, and the bag of crisps and an apple I ate after the walk made for the perfect snack.

Above is a picture of my bag. Inside my bag are needles and yarn, waiting to become wristwarmers. I’m in a cafe. By myself. And I’m embarrassed to get them out and start knitting. It’s what I’d like to be doing. I have other things to occupy my time, that’s never a problem, but I’d rather be knitting. Why is it that I’m totally comfortable taking photos of my cups of tea, but not knitting in public. I’m strange, that’s the only explanation.

Hopefully writing the menu isn’t part of the role. (or should that be roll?)
It’s mean of me to posrt this, I know, making fun of someone’s poor spelling is cruel. However, they underlined the bit that’s wrong, as if to draw attention to it, so it’s just tough.

Whiney fucker, isn’t he?

a. When an hour after getting off the bus, you’re still feeling travel sick.
b. When you go downstairs to make yourself a cup of coffee, and come up the stairs with a cup of tea, without even realising what you’d made.

Christmas and New Year were great, which for me means quiet and relaxing.

I worked on Christmas eve and day, which meant I just got to do the fun things like open presents, eat delicious food and listen to carols being sung while missing the clearing up parts, which seemed like pretty clever planning to me.

Then we went back to that England to the civilised Sussex village my parents call home, where I mainly spent time sitting by the open fire, knitting or reading, slowly getting covered in dog hair. I also visited my grandma, who’s a pretty opinionated 89 year old, who spent the time giving out about her cleaning lady who does too much chatting and not enough cleaning. “She keeps telling me about her mother in law and I couldn’t give a toss.”

For new year we went to Bournemouth, which was terribly exciting. I was witness to the ‘binge drinking’, and saw lots of people wearing not enough clothes for the freezing weather. They’ll all have nasty colds now, I’ll bet. Warm coats, hats, scarves and gloves, that’s what they should have been wearing.

Anyway, my new year’s eve went as follows. Didn’t fancy eating anything served in our hotel, so went to “Coffee and more” for yummy beans on toast and tea.

The tea was good, I like having my own pot, and it was a generous portion - I got a good 2 mugs worth out of it. No picture of the beans on toast, but they were great. 2 slices of toast, with real butter on them, and exactly the right amount of beans. It was so good I had exactly the same thing again as my first breakfast of 2006.

~~~

After breakfast we headed to Studland Beach for a nice healthy bracing walk. By healthy and bracing, I mean, freezing and very, very wet. It wasn’t at first, but the weather hit quickly and we were drenched. It was great though, can’t beat a walk on the beach in the rain. My only complaint was that I had been promised the sight of some nudists, and I was let down.

They must have all been hiding in the dunes.

Anyway, there’s nothing better after a brisk walk in the rain than visiting a warm country pub (or in this case, The Manor House Hotel) for a cup of tea and some cheese and pickle sandwiches.

The tea was Twinings Assam, and it came with an extra pot of hot water, which I approve of wholeheartedly. The whole experience could only have been improved by a milk jug, instead of those horrid little cartons. Anyway, the company was great and I warmed up considerably, so I was very happy.

I did write this explanation before, but blogsome crashed and it got lost, which annoyed me greatly, especially as the post was a minor rant about blogsome in the first place.

When I post pictures from flickr, or blog from my phone, blogsome adds a \ before each ” which messes with the code, breaks the link, and makes it look like I can’t type for shit.

I’ve known about this for a while, so any pictures you’ve seen up here I’ve gone in and corrected the code manually. For the time being, there will be a delay between my posting a pic from my phone and being able to get to the internets to sort it out.

The problem appears to be the blogsome is using an old version of Wordpress. There have been a couple of wordpress updates since, which have rectified this, but the guys who run blogsome don’t seem to be upgrading. Or, for that matter, explaining to all the people in the forums if and when they intend on upgrading. This is fair enough I suppose, given that the hosting is free, but there are lots of other free blogging sites around, and Wordpress have started their own now.

Soon, I shall be moving to a new home all of my very own, so I’m going to stick with blogsome until then. In the mean time, you’ll just have to be patient with the links.

Testing blogging from my new camera phone. Here are some baubles that have fallen off the tree.

I missed the last train tonight, so had to get the bus home, which is ok as there’s less of a walk the other end, but takes longer, so I was home about half an hour later for the sake of the 5 minutes extra I was stuck in the office that made me miss the train, but anyway, that’s off the point.

I was sitting on the top deck, left hand side, about half way down the bus.
The guy on the seat in front of me was eating an apple.
As we were driving along the quays, he finished the apple, and threw the core out of the window.

Now, I’m all for disposing of apple cores somewhere they can break down naturally. I’ve been known to throw them in bushes, leave them in flowerbeds and throw them out of car windows into fields. However. From the top deck of the bus? Dropped on to the road? What about cyclists? I’d be pretty pissed off if an apple core dropped on my head as I was cycling home. (not that I do actually cycle anywhere you understand, but I could if I wanted to).

We went to see King Kong last night and it was fantastic. Peter Jackson really knows how to make a good movie. I loved how everything was of its time – he didn’t modernise it in any way.

Anyway, it was rated 12A, which means that kids under 12 should have an adult with them, but it’s recommended for people 12 and older.

To me, a film about a woman and her love for a large monkey screams ‘adult content’ and it’s not something I’d take a young child along to. Narnia was on in the screen next door, which has the same rating but is made by Disney, and therefore contains little scariness and no blood (see Elimare for more details). Much more suitable for a young child. Basically, King Kong features an emotional storyline that’s waaay too boring for kids, and scary monsters, like giant insects and killer worms with teeth. So, when the person sat behind us with her 6 year old, or the guy a few seats back with 3 kids that cannot have been older than 5, went to buy their tickets, would it not have been prudent for the ticket seller so say to them: “Actually, you know sir/madam, this movie isn’t really suitable for such young children. Instead, I could recommend …., now showing in screen 4”

I get so tired of going to see films and seeing tiny kids there, either dumped by their parents or brought along with them. Not only is in not fair on the kids (I know that at least one child must have woken up screaming last night at 1am having dreamed they were being eaten by bugs), but it’s not fair on me, the adult cinema goer. Kids get scared, they get tired, they get bored, and they need to go out to pee. The 6 year old behind us was terrified, so his mother had to keep making light of everything with a cheery voice giving commentary. “There now, it’s just like Halloween, isn’t it.” etc. That got really, really annoying.

I think parents need to cop the fuck on about what they’re taking their kids to, but I also think that cinemas need to take some responsibility for the business they run. It’s not like there aren’t enough kids films out there to keep the small ones amused. Plus I’m sure kids eat more sweet crap when they’re not scared shitless.

/rant.

It’s very exciting. I didn’t used to like Christmas, for various reasons that I’m not going to go into. I kind of do now most of the time. I don’t this afternoon, but that’s mainly for similar reasons to not liking it before, so I’m not getting into those either.

Anyway, we have our tree, and I’m delighted with it.

This is the fairy on the top. I think she’s great. She was a Christmas present.

These are the pom poms I randomly decided to make from embroidery thread the other day. I’m not sure why, I just had a sudden craving to make pom poms, and some thread handy. I wasn’t sure what to do with them so I’ve made them into decorations. I’ve been humoured for them, and laughed at for them, but I like them.

Been busy, working, housework (not that you’d notice, just that with all the working it’s been a bit neglected), knitting, and watching CSI. I think I’m becoming addicted to CSI and knitting. I’m a very slow knitter though. I want to get some double pointed needles and learn how to knit in the round. I want to make myself some leg warmers and wrist warmers (strictly for wearing around the house of course). I’m not fast enough to tackle a big project like a jumper yet.

Anyway, yet another aplogy for the lack of posting. Must try harder.
Sigh.

Well, that’s perhaps a little strong. However, I passed this year study wise. I’m very proud of myself, and very happy, especially as I didn’t think the work I handed in was as good as it should have been.

If I wanted to stop right now I would have a postgraduate diploma in the social sciences. I’m not stopping though, so I have 1 more year to go to get my Msc Pschology. 2/3 of the way through.
Yay for me. I rock.

Tonight I referred to a PDA as a ‘yoke’.

‘Grand’ I picked up fairly quickly.
I’m not sure what I used to say instead of ‘yer man’.
I occasionally go ‘asleep’ instead of ‘to sleep’.
I have been known to utter ‘amn’t I’, not ‘aren’t I’, but I’m not happy about it.

This is one step too far.

The new series of ER started last night. I was disappointed. I should have stopped watching a few years ago, but just haven’t, and, well, it’s just not as good as it used to be. I just don’t care about any of the characters any more. Neela made a new person cry yesterday and I was glad. Then she felt bad, and I was glad about that too. Glad and annoyed.

I was never really that into ER, I didn’t get what all the fuss was about, but when I moved back to the UK from New Zealand I was unemployed and depressed, and Channel 4 was showing 2 episodes of the seasons 1&2 each morning starting at about 11am. I’d wake up, make a cup of tea, go back to bed and watch that (in between the frequent bouts of crying and general self-pitying that went on at that point). I got quite into it.

Anyway, that time thankfully didn’t last too long; I pulled myself together and left the country again, which made me a great deal happier. The damage was done though: I was hooked on ER.

Somehow over the last few seasons they’ve managed to get rid of all the decent characters. Or the stuff that made them interesting.
Luka was all tortured and tormented and a bit of a bastard and therefore attractive. Now he just moons over Sam and wants babies.
Sam was interesting at first. I wanted her to sort stuff out. Now I’m tired of her constant whining and self-pitying.
Abbey has kicked the drink, her nuts mum & brother are out of the picture and she’s just getting on with things. I don’t mind that too much, she’s the only character that I’ve even slightly bought in to.
Susan Lewis is now dull - where’s her sister when you need her to liven things up a bit?
Neela is just annoying and I want to slap the telly whenever she appears.
Ray is boring. There’s only so long you can wait for him to decide he wants to be a rock star and not a doctor. I’m getting tired of it. Make a decision man!
Pratt is all responsible and just getting on with it. No longer the talented one who just won’t play by the rules. Yawn.
Morris hasn’t had his come uppance yet. I’m getting tired of waiting.
Darlene from Roseanne is playing Darlene from Roseanne just with less of the attitude that made her a good character.

And that’s it. That’s all we have left. I don’t care about any of them.

So. The big question is this: WHY CAN’T I STOP WATCHING IT? For the love of god, why? I want my Sunday nights back.

I seem to have misplaced a couple of books.

If I lent anyone my textbook on Abnormal Psychology, or my Introduction to Psychology textbook, could you let me know, I could do with them back.

Cheers

T&C

On my way to work today I decided to start my pre-christmas shopping - window shopping to get an idea of what I might buy people.
I went into Fat Face.
I fell in love with lots of things. All for me, not for other people. It’s 2 days before payday, I have a rather large credit card bill, and I’m only allowed to buy Christmas presents for other people in December.
I left Fat Face.
*sigh*

Then I spent €30 on tofu. It didn’t make me feel much better.

So, I’ve quit nano. It got to Saturday night, after work: I was exhausted, and realised that I could either spend the next two days (my weekend) writing like a maniac to try and catch up the 27,500 words I was behind, or I could spend them relaxing and doing the other things I needed to do. Quitting won. Here’s my justification.

a) 27,500 words behind schedule. 41,500 to write.
b) Before November is out I will have worked 3 more late nights and had one overnight trip out of town, that I wouldn’t be able to write on.
c) I really, really needed to get some washing and cleaning done.
d) I want to spend time knitting.
e) I was super stressed anyway, it was making me sick, so taking away the stress that could be taken away seemed like a good plan.
f) I didn’t like my story that much. It wasn’t any good. I know I have a tendency to think that about stuff I write, but I just didn’t like where this was going. It was all too predictable and Maeve Bincheyish. I may go back to it sometime.
g) Hell, I’m just a quitter. I could have told you all that from the beginning.

So, I feel pretty crap about giving in. Really crap in fact. Like you do when you’ve accidentally eaten a whole carrot cake in the middle of a diet just because it was there. I don’t feel good about myself for it.

Anyway. I’ve written another couple of posts so that this will get buried. If you need to comment on anything, comment on those, don’t feed my self pity or give me sympathy: I really don’t deserve it, there’s only one person to blame for this and I know who she is. She has a penchant for gin, vodka, tea and cakes.

Blatantly stealing the idea from Elimare
There has been a big lack of posting recently for various reasons. This is what’s going on.

1. I’m working like a maniac. It will be worth it next year, but I’m not looking forward to the next few months, and I’m going to have to be very clear with the powers that be about how much of this I can keep on doing.

2. I have failed miserably to keep in touch with any of my friends. Sorry.

3. My neice’s birthday present is still at home, not in the post where it should be. Too late now, but I shall try to post it tomorrow.

4. I’m only at 8500 words on nano. About 20,000 behind target. I’m not giving in. I’m taking Monday off. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon too, but I tried that last Friday and worked 12 hours instead.

5. I haven’t been knitting nearly enough. Knitting makes me calm. I should knit more.

6. I have failed miserably at categorising my beverages this last while. I intend to rectify this. Just not yet.

7. I’m trying (and failing miserably at this too) to stop eating cake. Writing about the cake I’ve eaten would just make it real. If I don’t write about it, I didn’t really eat it. Then I can try and kid myself I ate something healthy instead. Like blueberries (muffin) and carrots (cake) yesterday, and healthy healthy, erm, chocolate (cake) today. No redeeming features there I’m afraid. I did have a proper dinner tonight though too. Mmmm, Tesco microwave meals. Euchk. I can still taste it.

Some kind spammer has decided to wind up middle class sussex with a chain email.

It promises a £60 voucher (yes, that is pounds, not euros) to anyone who sends the email to ten other people, copying the email to j.sainsbury @customerservices.com.

The first time I received it I ignored it.
The second time I replied to my mother explaining that it was spam.
The fifth time I replied to my brother (who works in IT and should know better) explaining again that it was spam, and that he should know better.
Today I received it twenty times. Yes, you read that right. Twenty.

These emails are coming from my mother’s friends. People I need to be nice to. People who may read this, who knows? People who use email to forward each other amusing things.

I’d had enough. Politely, but firmly (in hindsight perhaps a little too firmly, but these people need to learn), I explained that this was junk mail, that Sainsburys are unlikely to give away free money in this manner, and that the email address that it was supposed to be copied to does not in any way relate to Sainsburys, ending as it does in customerservices.com

I also pointed out that as I do not live in a country that has Sainsburys, the whole thing was wasted on my anyway.

I didn’t get into the fact that I’m not particularly happy about my email address being forwarded around and copied to junk mail websites, as in fairness, that’s pretty much all my hotmail address is good for anyway. Now, I’m regretting that, I think it could have been a valuable opportunity to educate them in privacy and internet good manners.

*sigh*

3872 words, running behind target.
A migraine and work set me back.
Fingers crossed for weekend productivity.

Ok, I’m calm now about work. Everything’s ok really, I just needed to vent. Venting is good.

Tomorrow I’m off to France, to relax, drink hot chocolate and wine and eat croissants and cheese, not all together naturally. I shall also be knitting, as I’m finding myself addicted to it, and hopefully writing as part of nanowrimo. Trouble is, I’m without a plot at the moment. I have a few ideas kicking around, but nothing’s jumping out at me right at the moment. I suspect that when I relax a bit more things’ll start moving again.

Oh, one more thing: I am now referenced on the interestingly named arseburgers website. Excellent. Delicious, delicious crisp sandwiches.

Bye for now, T&C

A new invention that I can see many, many possibilities for.
Mainly involving hot beverages.
A kettle that you can switch on by text message.

Imagine - you wake up in the morning, text the kettle, and by the time you make it into the kitchen you’re halfway towards the morning cuppa. Brilliant.

I do, however, see a few problems with it:
Firstly - a little part of me can’t help but think that this is a similar idea to the teasmade, a wonderful thought but one that doesn’t actually get used.
Secondly - what if someone had been at the kettle before you texted it and had used all the water?
Thirdly - I fear that it would result in a massive increase in my phone bill.

Maybe I don’t really want one.

When I was at primary school we were taken on many school trips to Amberley Chalk Pits, now called Amberley Working Museum. I only vaguely remember it, so decided it would be a great place to go and visit on the last trip home.

It was great. In an eccentric English way. Completely nuts in other words.

The printing room had loads of old (and working) printing machines and typesetting stuff.
There was a telephone exchange where you could ring a phone the other side of the room and watch the machinery connect you.
There was a wood turner.
The radio and communications display had a guy sat in a booth with a ham radio, listening to another guy talking in Conneticut. He was very pleased about this. Amazed in fact. I feigned interest (hi Lucy) but I think he saw through me, and if I could have heard his inner thoughts I’m sure he would have been muttering something to himslf about young people and the internet and no respect.
There’s a big collection of old buses at Amberley, and a working train line.
The walking stick maker was off that day, but the clay pipe maker was in, making his clay pipes and telling us all about them.
The elecricity display was cool - they had a medical section with home ECT machines.

The kinda sad thing about it was that it’s staffed by volunteers, who are all about 80 now and, well, a little bit odd. I’m not sure what will happen when they start dropping off.

The main draw for me is that part of A View To A Kill was filmed there. It plays the Zorin Enterprises mine. I remember being very impressed by that as a child, although it did make the suspention of disbelief a bit tricky when I watched the film. The thing is, in any other struggling museum that had been used as a film set, you’d see the whole area dedicated to it, with a life sized Roger Moore manequinn and all. At Amberley, they put the railway tracks back to where they should be, let everything grow over so it looks nothing like it any more, and try to forget about the whole thing. Well, that’s not strictly true: There was a poster display about it. Literally. A poster made up of a couple of press cuttings glued on to a large piece of cardboard. It was quite sweet really.

Anyway, all in all it was a lovely place to spend an afternoon. The only thing that let it down was the cafe. I had high hopes for a good pot of tea and some homemade cake. The photo of the best they could do is below. It speaks for itself. I’ll bring a real picnic next time.

From my weekend at home.
I promised.
They were really good.
Light and crispy and held the gravy in.
Not that I had gravy, but if I’d chosen to start eating meat products, damn, they would have held that gravy well.

ok, that’s the bed and board covered.

So, I’m at the parental home at the moment, and I’m cleaning out yet more crap from my bedroom. This is the reason I’m currently wearing a home made tiara, but that’s a bit of an aside. Primarily it’s involved throwing away cassettes - Smash Hits ‘89, Kylie (By Kylie), Jason Donovan’s Ten Good Reasons (2 copies for some reason) etc etc. There’s also a few rare photos of me from the fat phase of my teenage years. I’m thinking of bringing at least one of the pictures back home with me as an incentive to keep off the pies.

Anyway, in amongst all the stuff I found my old brownie badges. There was a frog, for swimming; a cagelike thing, which I think was fire safety; a zebra crossing, for road safety; a red cross, for first aid (I cheated on the test and made the girl I was putting into the recovery position get there herself, don’t suffer a medical emergency around me, I’m no good) and then a saucepan, a broom, and a cup and saucer - it would appear that home-making was very much the focus of the brownies in the ’80’s. I have no idea what the current brownie badges involve, but I hope things have moved on somewhat.

I’ve kept the cup of tea one, it’s the only one I can quite safely say I am still deserving of.

So, I’m at home at the moment, which means that the Saturday Telegraph is there to be looked at. A catalogue came free with it - one of those innovations type ones - Easylife lifestyle solutions.
Here’s a selection of the products.

Dog bark control collar - to control your dog’s barking in just 3 weeks.
Briquette maker - recycle old newspapers into free heat
Super mini ear - micro sized hearing amplifier
Knee relief - support and relief for the weak-kneed
Nordic slippers - warm feet for everyone!
Bath grab bar - get in and out of the bath with ease
Bunion corrector - correct bunions while you sleep

Now, mixed in with these, so you wouldn’t notice them, not in a seperate section for the over 40’s only, are:
Natura-viga - enhance sexual performance, vigour and vitality
Vigel - Girls, enhance your sexual experience!
Sex for the over 40’s videos - can making love get better with age? - It’s true!
Breast lifts (8 pairs) - Perky bustline you had when you were young
Vacum pump - Stronger/larger erections

I’m disturbed. It’s going to take me a while to get over this.

..and it’s not me for once.

She sits down next to me. With her headphones on.
I’m sat there, ignoring her.

Crazy lady: “Have you ever seen a cheatah?”
Teaandcakes: “no, have you?” (Damn, shouldn’t have asked back, stupid work habits)
CL: “yes”

A few seconds pass. I look out of the window.

CL: “Fastest animal in the world, they say”
T: “Hmm, so I’ve heard. What do you think?” (Dammit! Shut up shut up shut up)
CL: “Oh, I wouldn’t know, I’m not one”

A few more seconds pass. I look down at my bag.
Perhaps I should have got my book out, but it was only
a short journey.

CL: “I wouldn’t like to be a cheatah.”
T: “No, neither would I” (I’m learning at this point, I stopped myself from asking why not)
CL: “I like being a human”
T: “Me too.”

Crazy lady gets off bus.
Teaandcakes wonders about the world.

Shiver me timbers ye lily-livered scallywags, I’ll be making ye walk the plank.
“Pieces of eight”
Shut up polly.
Yarrr!

Oh thank jebus I’ve finished this course, my final assigment is in, I just need to sit back and wait for the results in December.
I’m so tired it hasn’t hit me that I have my life back until I start the next one in february. And assuming I pass, in a year’s time I’ll have an Msc. Go me! I rock!
Sorry, came over all American there for a sec. Excuse me.

From tomorrow I shall be back into the real world and important things like reviewing cups of tea.
(Todays was a cup of red fruit tea in the Dublin writers museum cafe while I was waiting for a meeting to start. It was a lovely mug - kid of like a giant white cup and saucer that was pleasingly shaped and held just the right amount of said hot beverage.)

In the mean time I shall return to reading. I haven’t read a book in over a week, damn essay hanging over my head. I’ve done plenty of sudoku puzzles, but that’s just my current study-avoidance strategy (sadly the obsessive cleaning one of my college days has gone).
Oh, and knitting some more. Maybe baking too. I’ve been receiving shortbread demands from the office.
Right now though, it’s a nice hot bath with a book. I was up until 3am finishing said essay and up again this morning for work at 7.15, so I’m very tired and not full of interesting, witty and clever observances tonight.

Arrrr me hearties, there be buckles in need of swashing. Right now I’ve another 600 words of my essay to write, so I’ll be battening down the hatches and getting back to it.

In the mean time here’s a quiz to help you find your pirate name.

Farewell for now land-lubbers,

Dirty Grace Rackham
Arrr!

1. So when I throw tea over myself when I’m driving in the morning, it doesn’t show up.

I’m not much of a drinker. Actually, that’s not true, I love booze, from a fruity pimms on a summer evening, to a long cool gin and tonic, to a hot whisky in winter, to a nice strong martini after work. What I should say, is that I don’t drink very often, because I get horrific hangovers. Awful ones. I can’t do anything. I tried to get up and do things on Saturday, but it just wasn’t happening. I spent the day sleeping on the sofa, occasionally waking to see if I could eat or drink anything, discovering that I couldn’t and going back to sleep. I made it to the pub in the evening for drinks with friends though. I had a cup of tea.

So, with Saturday gone I was left with one day of my weekend. Today we viisted a friend and had delicious buttery crumbly scones with butter and home made damson jam. They were wonderful. That was followed by a walk in the park, then home for some frantic house cleaning, then tea with other friends.

It’s been nice.

I’m not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow though. Spending one day of the precious, precious weekend sick means that Monday feels like it’s come along all too quickly.

We have curtains!
They’re fab.
Now it’ll be really obvious when I’m spying on the neighbours.

Oh dear.
Now, I wasn’t expecting a work of cinematic genius. I’d read some reviews. I knew it wasn’t going to be bad, but in reality it was really, really awful.
Apparantly the Macedonians all had Irish accents. One can only presume that Colin Farrell wasn’t up to a neutral accent so evryone else had to fit around him. I kept expecting Brendan Gleeson to pop up. The accents made it hard to suspend disbelief, which would have been a useful skill for accepting Angelina Jolie (age 29) as Colin Farrell’s (age 28) mother. I like Angelina usually, but she wasn’t right for the job.
The movie didn’t shy away from the gay thing, which could have been a redeeming feature, except that they were so self conscious about it it was cringeworthy. Like an uncle trying to be down with the kids. I wouldn’t have been suprised if Aristotle had turned to face the camera to speak to the audience: “Yes, I’m talking about the man love you know.” I almost wish I’d been in the cinema to see how it played with Irish teenage audiences. Still, at least that part was historically accurate. Better than Troy’s “He’s my cousin. We’re cousins. Yes, I love him, it’s because he’s my cousin. Cousin.”
The storyline was all over the place, it kept jumping forwards and backwards in time, the length of Colin’s ridiculous hair the only guide to whre you were. Oh, and a note that I presume only relates to the directors cut: My weekend would have been just dandy without the shot of Colin’s testicles.
My final comments on the film: My, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Jared Leto are pretty. If only I was a gay man. Or their cousin…

1. Popeye. It’s all in the voice. Especially the laugh.
2. Jimmy Saville. Voice again. Especially the “now then, now then” stuff.
3. Peter Mandelson’s hands. They just do.
4. Benny Hill. I don’t need to explain this one, do I?

See, tomorrow is the day the a level results are out in the uk. One of my half brothers will be getting his results, and finding out where he gets to go to college. It’s not going to be a big suprise, he’s going to have done really well, he’s super intelligent. The thing is, I’m not in touch with them. I’m happy about that, I don’t want to be around them and see the positive reaction to his results and compare that to how things are with me. But I’ve no problem with him, I’d like to be able to congratulate him. I know I will, in a month or so, when he’s off at college and I won’t cause ructions by being in touch.
It just got me thinking that it’s a bit sad really. But even the thought of going back into that part of my family makes me tense and stressed out. I didn’t think it would at this point. I’m guessing it’ll get easier.
Really, I think my hormones are just playing up and making me think too much about things I shouldn’t worry about.

OK, so I’ll admit it in writing: I like watching big brother. I like watching people, always have, so watching a load of attention seeking people locked up in a fishbowl togetherbeing made to perform a series of tasks for the amusement of the braying public much like performing monkeys, is, well, something that appeals to me.
I’m not going to go into any sort of description of the programme etc, save this - I wanted Eugene to win and I didn’t believe Anthony when he said he wouldn’t have taken the money.
For those not familar with this years contestants, read what Charlie Brooker had to say about them. He’s much better than me.

Anyway, I was flicking through the tellybox earlier, before giving in and having a bath instead, and I caught some of a “What they’ve been doing since they were evicted show”. I don’t think we’ll be hearing from any of them soon. My reasoning:
Mary: Would like to be an actress. When her publicity person asked her what experience she had she stated that she’s met Neil Jordan. Said publicity person then set her up a meeting with an agent, who said of himself “We never turn any possibility down”. The discerning agent then. He sees Mary as “The next mystic meg”. From the look on her face I think she was hoping for the next kate winslet.
Sam: Her goal is to set up a female lads mag, with pictures of semi naked blokes in it. Cosmopolitan, Company et al must have passed her by. And the whole “ladette” culture explosion. Wish I knew how she missed it, would have been a useful talent. She also claims to have been a feminist all her life. One who spends most of her time in high heels and a bikini and had a boob job. Right.
Lesley: Lesley wants to be a singer. We watched her cut a demo. My word, that was one talented sound engineer. I predit a brief chart sucess with the single, then it’s on to the cruise boats and off the telly.
Maxwell and Saskia: We didn’t see either of these guys with a publicist - I’m guessing that neither of them has any talents to attract the attentions of a publicist. Well, apart from Saskia’s obvious ones, but Maxwell didn’t like the idea of her getting them out, and it’s not clear if she’s told him that she already did. Anyway, we saw Maxwell meeting Saskia’s family for the first time in the local pub. He walks in, shouting “What, no round of applause”, to deathly silence. It’s all covered up and everyone’s soon drunk and happy, Maxwell and Saskia (who looked like she’s been punched in both eyes with turquoise eyeshadow) singing along on the kareoke machine to Kylie and Jason’s duet. Lets just hope they break up before they breed.

Erm, sorry about that, been busy. It’s ok though, I realised that it doesn’t actually matter, my motivation for this isn’t to have lots of readers, I don’t really like attention.

This blog is number 15 in a google search for “feminine freshness”.
Brilliant.

I was walking down the street on Tuesday, feeling very relaxed and happy - still relaxed from the holiday, full of a delicious veggie powercrepe plus pancake that was my dinner, on way to the pub, I was accosted by a person who opened the conversation by apologising for stopping me, and explaining that she worked for Toni and Guy. Ah yes, I say, you’re about to try to sell me some sort of loyalty card deal that only pays off if I get my hair cut and coloured there every week. No, says she, I’m a student, and my exam is coming up, I was wondering if you would model for me?

So there we have it, my modelling career is resuming, with a free haircut from the place I go to anyway.

“But I didn’t know you were a model?” I hear you cry. Yes, well, in my younger years I strode the catwalks*, but the publicity hungry, coke fuelled, bitter world of modelling just wasn’t for me, so I retreated into a world of books and Haagen Das.

*Catwalks = the local community hall when I was 5 and a local bridal show at 13.

I believe my readership is temporarily increasing.
Hi. Wish I could be there. Especially as it’s raining here.
Travel stuff and links to photos will follow, hopefully this week, things have been busy since we got home.
Oh, and I’ve disabled commenting. I hope. I tried to anyway.

So, what was it that helped me calm down from my stress freak out earlier today.
Was it:
1. The flowers in the rescue remedy
2. The alcohol in the rescue remedy
3. Placebo effect
4. The cup of tea and chocolate biscuit that a colleague brought me

Not a trick question, I’m really wondering. Answers on a postcard or comments…

Playing scrabble online just now, and I got to thinking. I’m realising as I write this that perhaps what I should have been questioning was why was I playing scrabble over the internet with someone I’ve never met when I could have been doing something cool instead (why don’t you?) [sorry, british child of the 80’s reference - originally switching off the tv and less boring rather than less cool, but my point stands]

Anyway, I digress.
I was wondering about online-scrabble-with-strangers etiquette as far as rude words goes. Just the minor giggly ones, it’s a fairly safe bet that c**t should only be used in scrabble amongst good friends. (apologies for asterix use, those who know me know I have no problem with the word in question and quite enjoy people’s reactions when I say it, but I’m considering doubling my readership by telling my mum about the blog)

I digress again, I spent all day training people and kept getting off topic (we were discussing tea at one point, definitely not relevant to the topic of the day). Focus, dammit, focus.

Yes, online scrabble. My opponent opened with “pee”, which made me giggle, and later used “ride” which also made me giggle, but I think they were american so didn’t see it that way. I could have got a pretty good score at one point by using whore over a double word score box, but here’s the thing - I didn’t. I was winning anyway (admittedly against someone who opened with “pee”) so it didn’t really matter, but it got me thinking about why I didn’t want to do that - I’m never going to meet this person, it’s not like I plan on spending a huge amount of time playing scrabble online, so why do I care?

Scrabble becomes a lot more fun when you can use mildly rude words you see, so it would be nice. That’s if you have a peurile sense of humour and find rude words funny, which I do. Very funny. I snicker away to myself frequently when the 2fm news comes on. (presenter: Avril Hoare). I’m such a child.

Anyway, I need to somehow find out what’s considered acceptable to use in scrabble among strangers. Where is the line drawn?

So, I’m done, finally, and a bit late, but not so late I’ll be penalised.

Another essay that I think will pass but I am yet again unhappy with the quality of, not because I’m worried about it, but because I know I can do better, I just don’t seem to be able to apply myself to studying at the moment. I worry on occasion that maybe I can’t do better, maybe this is just how my work looks now, slapdash and shoddy. I mean, if someone was to collect together my assignments for this course, that’s what they’d think of my work. The fact that I know I can do much better, have done much better in the past, is really irrelevant. The fact of the matter is, my undergraduate essays were of a much higher quality that my postgraduate ones.

It’s possibly because for this course the opinions I express have to match those of the faculty - I don’t remember my undergraduate lecturers being so insecure - sure, they knew they were right, but we could come down either way in our work as long as we’d backed it up with enough evidence. For this course we’re provided with all the reading, and discouraged from looking elsewhere for research that might provide an interesting perspective. In fact, my tutor’s made it pretty clear that going outside of the readings is unnacceptable and we won’t be credited for it in our work. (Fair enough really, she has a full time busy job as well as doing this). The readings we’re given are so biased though, and for this assignment I needed to be able to criticise them. My preferred method of criticising things is to find alternative evidence or explanations, but as the course is so focussed on the faculty’s view being the only one, they don’t give any alternatives, except rubbish ones they’ve already surpassed. Criticism in academic essays needs to be backed up with evidence, but we’re not given any.

Anyway, the essay is done, a huge weight is off my mind. I don’t seem to be able to focus on anything else when I need to get something done at the moment. I’m usually a master of avoiding working: tidying, cleaning, anything that can be justified. I’ve done some washing, the fridge is full, and the flat’s a good bit cleaner than it was on Friday, but, well, it’s not exactly great yet. No, I’ve just been useless the past couple of days. Last night I fell asleep on the sofa for 2 hours watching big brother. Woke up with lines imprinted on my face (cord sofa) - very attractive.

Anyway, now I’m just gibbering. 2 hours of very restricted writing and it all just comes out now: I need to learn to write essays like a stream of consciousness.

I always do my assignments at the last minute, I just can’t seem to focus until I really have to. Thing is, that worked fine when I was able to pull all nighters, work until 4 or 5am to get it finished, a quick proof read in the morning after a couple of hours sleep and I was done. Look at me now though, not even 1am and I’m giving in, too tired to think logically and criticise people (well, the ones I’m supposed to be criticising, I could rant all night about the course, and this is one I’m enjoying). It’s supposed to be posted tomorrow, but at the back of my mind I know I can get away with posting it on Tuesday, so that’s probably what’ll happen. Only 700 words to go anyway. If only I could include this post. Or write this easily in the essay. Sigh.

The first thing I realised this morning as I walked to the bus stop was that it is cold today. Cold, grey, windy and although it’s not raining right now, it has been. The only concession to summer was the slight scent of cut grass on the wind. That’s it. Pretty paltry in my opinion.
The second thing I observed this morning is that some people really annoy me. Now, that’s not exactly news, but the specific annoyance this morning was the man sat next to me on the bus. Although I’m partial to cake and chocolate, I’m not an especially large person, I think I take up a fair amount of the seat on a bus, certainly no more than my part of it. The man next to me seemed to want to take up the whole seat, and most of the space in between our seat and the next one. The thing was, he wasn’t a big guy, just someone who feels that they have the right to spread out, legs wide open, elbowing me and leaning against my right arm. I dealt with this like a true Englishwoman – I sighed loudly and made a big deal about moving further across the seat so I was pressed against the wall. Made no difference. Completely oblivious he was.
Anyway, the bus experience and the cold led me to feel that I deserved s a treat for breakfast, which is why I’ve just polished off a chocolate chip scone and I have a cappuccino next to me too.

Now, I don’t intend to post amusing things etc here, but this was in a magazine in my b&b in Galway (lovely b&b, by the way, Petra House).
It’s for feminine freshness products. I love the idea that you should be shiny fresh and clean and antiseptic there. Who buys this shit? And who designed the ad?

I get the same bus each day. It gets me to work roughly on time, which is close enough for me. Today it took an hour and a half to get to my desk though, which is a bit much by anyone’s standards.
Anyway, I get on at the first stop, and I’m usually waiting there when the bus pulls up. I great the driver with a cheery ‘Good morning’, pay my fare, and head up to my usual seat. Top floor, right at the front on the left hand side.
And this is the thing. I was running a bit late this morning, so had to rush for the bus - and there was someone sitting in my seat. The cheek of it!
I was initially annoyed, but as I took another seat further back I realised it was a GOOD THING. See, I’ve been getting a bit worried about this whole usual seat thing. Surely it’s not healthy to always sit in the same place and spurn all the other seats. Now, I know that I could have tested it in a normal way, by sitting somewhere else through choice, but I haven’t been able to do that. Which is what was worrying me. But this morning I had to sit in another seat, and did so without freaking out and waiting for the next bus.

Change. I can do it. I’m one step further away from becoming crazy cat lady.

I’m 27.
I’m not sure I’m happy being 27.
I liked being 26. It was clearly mid-twenties, a little more mature than 25, but close enough to it to not feel old. I don’t feel old, I know 27 isn’t old, but I’m now aware of the ageing process, put it that way.
I think I’d always set myself rough aims of where I wanted to be when I was 28, and although I think setting stuff like that is stupid and it’s not something I live by or worry about, maybe that’s what’s got me worried.
Maybe my biological clock has just started ticking.
Hell.

About time.
I set up a blog, worry I may not have things to say, stuff happens, I want to blog it, and where’s my blog? Down, that’s where.
Anyway, all is well with the world again, I shall continue to play, and will investigate moving said blog elsewhere.

Right, here’s somewhere I can finally put down my ramblings about tea and cakes and the joy of crockery and lovely things, and rant about people when they piss me off. My friends will be delighted to know that they no longer need to hear my continual gibbering, it’s much easier to ignore somone online.

Once I’ve figured out adding in images etc through flickr I can review my favourite and not so favoured crockery. At work I have to drink out of mugs that are quite unsatisfactory, and when I can post pictures you can share my pain.

I can also update you on my garden prowess, I’m quite green fingered. At least, I haven’t killed a plant yet this year, which is very good going.

OK, more playing to do for now, don’t want to get caught blogging until I know I have something to say.