bugger this independent lark...

...and find me a man with strong arms who will help me build my new furniture. It arrived this morning at 10am prompt, v.impressed I was with that. Not so much with the men who kept on calling me Mrs J, no, that is my mam, I am Miss please. Obviously I didn't say that to them. So they arrived with the table and chairs no probs, in the kitchen. Wardrobe for upstairs please. Oh (shaking heads) we can't take that upstairs it's more than 40kg. I'm sure the confused look in my eyes and the "but how will I get it upstairs" helplessness must have worked well as next thing I knew they were out the van and up the stairs, wardrobe in hands. Thanking you most kindly, nice Argos men.

Excited at the prospect of new furniture I set to unpacking all the boxes (how much cardboard?). Approximate building time: 45 minutes. A good hour and a half later, several expletives as I realised I'd screwed the legs on one of the chairs the wrong way round, and a hugely aching right arm from all the allen key-ing required, I was cursing my single status and wishing for the Mr to go with my assigned Mrs status from earlier to turn up and build our new table with his manly strong arms. Thankfully my dad (the real Mr J) is turning up later tonight to help me build the wardrobe armed with both his strong arms, and more importantly, an electric screwdriver. Woo. And a hoo.

Oh, in my not tidying up state since Saturday night, I forgot the willy deely boppers were still on my coffee table downstairs. I could see my poor ma looking at them askew when she popped round for tea earlier. I demonstrated their flashiness. She laughed, kind of, but I could tell that she wasn't really that impressed. Think I might have to find a hiding place for them before my dad comes round later. There's a slight problem in that the packaging said they can't be thrown out and instead had the recycling symbol on them...confused? Yep me too. So if I can't throw them out what exactly should I do with them? Thoughts? Suggestions? To clear up any confusion over what they actually are, here's some that look v.similar:


Classy eh? xx

Hola desde España

So I´m sitting in an internet café, reeking of sun cream and mosquito repellent, nursing a cold beer and thinking of you all back there in frigid old Blighty. Tee hee. Here in Ferteventura the sun is HOOOOT but the breezes are cool, so it´s just lovely.

I´ve managed to get a bit of a tan, despite wearing factor 60 and a hat. I went to the beach, but the water looked yucky. Gave that a miss. I just lounge on my little patio instead, reading, snoozing, doing a bit of embroidery (Yes. Stop snorting. It´s cool - embroidery is the new going out.)

The apartment is ok, basic but clean, and it has everything I need, even a telly showing British TV! I haven´t used that though, not because I´m a miser (it costs a lot), but because I forgot about the only thing I wanted to watch, which was Ugly Betty. Never mind, I´ll catch it on the on demand gizmo on my new telly box thingy.

I promised Dizz I´d write a review of Hot Fuzz which we went to see recently, but I´ve just been too busy, erm, lounging. I´ll do it when I get back. Sufice to say, it was brilliant. Dizz nearly wet herself, and I had difficulty breathing, I was laughing so much. Actually, I think I´ll go and see it again. A girl needs a good laugh-fest after a holiday, it helps to set the wrinkles in properly.

Hasta luego
Fizz

PS I am even more fizzy than usual. Sun is not good for curly-tops like me.

I didn't think you were hairdressers...

Last night saw me attend not one, not two, but three parties. Rock n'roll baby. The first one was K's hen night from work. We always knew this was going to be a good'un cos she's not exactly a fading wallflower. I'm not sure if it was the flashing willy deely boppers that alerted me to this or the cucumber that she had to suck on each time she took a dare out of the hen night tin. Give her credit, she lived up to every challenge exceptionally well. I think my favourite was to find the equivalent of the Spice Girls in men and get a kiss from each of them. Being pretty freaking tall in my red stilettos I had a great vantage point in the pub and managed to find Posh for her - it was his quiff and pink shirt that gave him away. Glad you had a great night K, here's to the wedding...it really is REAL now! Eek!

From there I went along to another party and met D and her workmates for drinks. Cat joined me for these drinkies. We plonked ourselves down with this group of people. I knew a few but others hadn't met me before. All were fascinated by the flashing willy deely boppers (great ice breakers, if anyone wants to borrow I will gladly pass them on...) and talk went round to the usual chitchat smalltalk that these things take. Until one guy pointed at my flashing willy deely boppers and asked me if I like them or girls. Direct quote, I kid you not. Trying hard not to lose any of my Corona whilst snorting through my nose, I pointed at the flashing deely boppers and chuckled muchly. The poor guy was mortified. Apparently the fact that both Cat and I have short hair and I have funky eyewear with my new glasses means that we are lesbians. Obviously people. I mean come on, keep up here. Tee hee. That's a first for me I tell you, being asked outright like that!

Cat and I then decided to leave this sweet group as I was off to my final party of the night. We headed out to the main road and were innocently waiting for the green man to flash us over the road when this man commented on Cat's funky 60s print dress. He proceeded to cross the road with us, chatting all the while, conversation including where one finds a decent shagpile carpet these days, did we want to go to the Bongo with him, were we designers cos he didn't think we were hairdressers...truly bizarre moment. Thankfully a taxi did a prompt u-turn to pick us up and we piled in gratefully. Madness.

So to my final party destination. More Corona. Any snacks? What, a girl has to eat regularly! I left there at about 3am and click-clacked my way back to my house in my red stilettos. Sheesh, what a night. Every Saturday night should have 3 parties, if only to come across all that bizarreness for blog tales!

Oh PS. doesn't everyone realise that footless tights are passe now and that smock tops really do make the thinnest of girlies look like they're about to drop a sprog?
Ta-ta xx

Pancake Day!

It was pancake day yesterday and after a hard full day at uni L and I decided to try the new pancake house that was having its grand opening! Suffice to say the first day is never the best to visit a new place as the staff weren't sure what they were doing and my first pancake came out cold - yuk! But they replaced it with one hot wnough to take the skin off the roof of my mouth so all was well in the end.

Coming to my point then, they had a massive selection of exotic toppings available sweet and savoury but in the end I went for butter and maple syrup - my favourite secind only to cherry jam! L went for a waffle instead but agreed that she would have had to go for traditional lemon and sugar if she'd had one. So I ask everyone today what's your favourite pancake topping and could you be tempted to try a new flavour?

tizz x

things that are not good

1. My cheap-as-chips version of Ugg boots. In the rain. On slippery paving stones. How I didn't fall on my arse is one of life's mysteries;
2. My new glasses. I've struggled for a week thinking that it was just my eyes adjusting. Turns out that spaced out kinda feeling is that the prescription just isn't working for me. Am v.sad that I've had to take them off and am back to my old ones. Re-check on Thursday though so hopefully all will be resolved;
3. Working till 8pm. On yet another Friday night when I should be out rocking the town. I'm supposed to be doing that when I finish and all I want to do is go home and eat and sleep;
4. Applying for jobs when you're in competition with people that you really really like, cos even though you might think that you won't hold it against them if they get it, there'll always be that teeny weeny voice asking, "why wasn't it me?";
5. Holes in the side seams of your pants, less said about that the better probably...

Ahhhh bless, just served a Computing student who gave me the loveliest of shy smiles. Cancels out all those not good things.

Ta-ta x

Infamous

Another cinema outing for Dizz and me at Arc recently, this time we saw Infamous which is the story of Truman Capote's writing of In Cold Blood. Our mate Sandy (Bullock) was brilliant, as usual, and Gwyneth proved again that she really can sing.

A couple of scenes were a bit gruesome though: the death scene was distinctly uncomfortable, and watching Daniel Craig snogging another man was just horrible. Nooooooo...

have I mentioned...

...that me and Tizz are going on a jolly holiday this year? And the destination to that holiday is SAN FRANCISCO!!!!! (and that deserves many more exclamation marks, Fizz). Have just got off the phone with Tizz and am yet again bouncing around all over the place with the excitement. And that's just from talking about going. We haven't even made any firm plans yet. Can you imagine how excited I'm going to be as it gets closer? I will be so fecking annoying that people will be slapping me down and telling me to shush. We're going to do so much, it's going to be so freaking cool that it will rock up there to possibly the best hol of all time (the current one for that is New York, baby). Anyhoo, just had to blog that squeakily high excitement!

In other news, sightings from today that should be banished:
1. flip flops. In winter. Er hello?
2. vest tops. See above
3. that girl with the perfectly manicured, french-polished nail digging out her bogies. On the bus. In full view of all. What is that confusion?
4. not really a sighting as more an assault on my nasal passages, get that smelly man off my bus, what's with the men who smell of bad body odour and wee? Nast-eee.

Ta-ta x

Scots Wahay!

Scotland 21, Wales 9, wahay! And I was there to see it all, thanks to my very generous brother. Let's be honest, it wasn't the most exciting match, and it was beyond freezing, but we won, so I don't care. I took my binoculars too, so I could perv over the muscular bums and thighs in those lovely, dirty, muddy shorts. Oh! suits you. I have to say though, the Welsh kit is better than the Scottish one. New ruling: I want to see white shorts on all international rugby players from now on. Actually, all rugby players at any level. In fact, why can't they all play in entirely white kits? If you don't know who's in your team, you shouldn't be playing for them in the first place.

Just re-read what I've written. It might seem, to the superficial reader, that I'm more interested in lusting after the players than the actual game itself. Not true, honest. No really...

big mama

I have this list of things that I always thought were things I would never do. Friday saw me do one of the things of that list: shop for maternity wear. Let me hasten to add that I am not the big mama in question, actually the mama isn't that big either, but she's getting there, hence the need for maternity wear. So we hit the first shop and find some pretty bargainous things. I'm okay in there cos it's clothing of the usual variety, just longer and more spacious. And totally bargainous cos it's in the sale, all good is what I say, the champion of budget shoppping.

The second shop however revealed some more interesting things, and by interesting I mean that my knowledge was seriously lacking. Did you know that they do special tights for when you're having a baby? And they have tops that they actually call nursing tops? They also had what I curiously thought was a v.short black strapless top. I picked it up joking with R that she should buy the wee strappy top and show her bump to the world...she quickly informed me that it's not actually a top, it's a bit that you put round your middle to cover your bump...riiiiight says Dizz, nodding, how odd.

I could go on with what each shop revealed but I won't cos it was mainly just me demonstrating total ignorance of maternity wear. The funniest bit by far was one dress in TopShop that can only be described as the Von Trapp family meet the smock top brigade in a shim-sham of brown nastiness, sheeesh it was hideous! When R put it on and emerged out of the changing room we fell about laughing. I mean seriously, who is going to buy that? Even R who is pregnant looked like a marquee in it!

We did succeed in finding a few things but I have to tell you peeps, the maternity sections are seriously lacking. I don't know what I would do if it were me, but then I suppose it's ultimately a matter of comfort over fabulous style at the end of the day. They don't have the same disposable fashion that I enjoy. Good job I'm not going to be a mama then.

And how good was I? The only thing I bought was lunch, and that was very yummy indeedy. It's really easy though cos everything in the shops is nast-ee. We are talking smock-top-tastic. In every single shop. Huge jersey, huge patterns smock tops that would even make Kate Moss look preggers. I say no, no, no.

Ta-ta x

beep beep beep beep

I'm not normally one to blog about work stuff cos frankly it's boring but today I was on stocktaking duty, and the beep beep beep of the scanner coupled with the totally mind-numbing task that I was up to, got me thinking about the blog and so I decided to post about it.

The thing with jobs is that most of us don't really know what any of our friends do. If challenged we'd have one of those moments like in Friends where they have to answer what Chandler does and they all look around wildly throwing random guesses into the air. For instance, I know that Fizz does something that is I.T. related, it involves talking on the telephone to customers, and it's some accounting thing. Doesn't really reveal much does it? Tizz on the other hand fixes people up when they come to her for repair cos she's a paramedic, slightly easier that one. But my job? Library stuff - one of life's mysteries. Everyone thinks that all I do is stamp books all day. And strive for my twin set and pearls and tweed skirt image that I try so hard to maintain...

So I'm going to reveal one of the library-world mysteries: the stocktake. This pretty much does what it says on the tin. We're finding out what stock we have. And to do this we scan the books, register their barcodes and check with logs. Dullsville central. But the scanning stuff is fun! Picture it: dusty old store, rolling stacks, kick stools, beepy thing that resembles one of those old brick mobile phones, Dizz up on said kick stool, scanner in right hand, books off shelf in left hand, grotty old barcodes that don't scan, scanning anything with the crazy red laser line but the book including my left boob, stomach, and thighs today (hope that didn't cause any damage by the way). Is mad. And there's a certain technique to the scanning that involves shielding the barcode from the light, kind of like when you used to hide your answers at school. Or tipping the book upside down. Or tipping yourself upside down off the kick stool. It's a workout in itself; who needs the gym?

And today, in the hour and a half that I was over there for I scanned 640 books! Wooooh! Apparently I'm the leader so far, but then it only started today so not sure how that board is going to play out.

So there you have it. Next time someone asks you what happens in library world you can tell them that we not only stamp books but we scan them as well :o)

Ta-ta x

a Delia moment

For those of you who were readers of Mocha-Choca you'll know that I would quite often talk about what I was cooking up for tea. This is mainly because I LOVE FOOD. And those of you who know me well know that I also spend a great deal of time eating. So I've had a Delia moment and am blogging upstairs whilst my chicken casserole cooks itself downstairs. I've eaten a lot of casserole. But in my 32 years of life have never attempted to make it before. So today was the day. I had to borrow a casserole dish from my ma as I didn't have the correct receptacle. I've broken with convention and not followed a recipe, I've basically thrown lots of things into the dish and look forward to the end result.

So for those of you who want to try Casserole a la Claire, here's what I put in it:
red onion
leek
carrot
parsnip
courgette
chicken (obviously, it being a chicken casserole and all)
covered it all with boiling water and a veggie stockcube
liberal sprinklings of rosemary and mixed herbs
salt and black pepper it up
et voila, Casserole a la Claire
serve up with mashed potato (yumness) and some sprouts and there you have your 5-a-day all blended into one dish of yummy goodness.

As far as I can see the only flaw to the casserole cooking is that you have to wait 1 and a half to 2 hours for it all to cook. Mind you, having said that, it's all that slow cooking that makes it so blimmin' flavoursome. Mmmm-mmmm, yummy scrummy.

Thus endeth the casserole sermon. Over and out x

Perfume

Dizz and I seem to be on a cinema-going bender at the moment. We went to see Perfume last night, at Arc once again. I've been looking forward to this one for a while because I loved the book. I even re-read it recently just because I knew the film was coming out.

We both really enjoyed it. I had half-expected the scents to be visualised in some crappy way, like in the Bisto adverts, but they weren't. The director still managed to show smells though, very clever.

If you've read the book you'll know there's a big orgy at the end. I thought the film-makers would cop out, maybe use soft-focus or some sort of arty impression of an orgy, or maybe just miss it out completely. Nope. You got the full-on nekkid people writhing about (don't think there was any actual bonking) with flabby bits and disturbingly hairy bum-cleavage. More power to them. The film-makers, not the owners of the hairy bums.

So, big thumbs up for Perfume. We just have to choose what we're going to see next week. Can't go to Arc because they're showing The Nativity Story next week and since it's now February, that's just wrong. Any suggestions?