Same Old Story You Heard Ten Times Before

The same thing happens EVERY year. All of my colleagues bring in the most gorgeous cakes and deserts in to the office (as per tradition here) on their birthday and I think 'oooh, I wish I could bake like that' and then start planning a couple of weeks in advance.

I went ingredient shopping tonight and managed to forget the fricking list. I wanted to bake a chocolate courgette cake (yes REALLY) but didn't get some of the things. So I've spent the whole night trying to make this http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/iced-lemon-curd-layer-cake,1051,RC.html

It came out like this instead.



I have now removed the top layer (was supposed to be icing sugar but dumbass here used caster instead) and it looks a bit better. It is going to be very, very lemony.

The only consolation is at least I have a big bowl of lemon curd left overs to eat with a spoon. It is like eating lemon sorbet only not quite so bitter.

The picture looks wrong, it's a pizza plate so the things quite big. But still.

Off She Went With A Trumpety Trump, Trump Trump Trump!

What a nice few days I've had lounging around watching movies, walking lots and going to the zoo.

Thursday was a bank holiday here and the boyf came down to visit so after a very lazy morning and afternoon we wandered off to the cinema to watch X-Men 3 which was enjoyable fluff with lots of explosions and very little substance. Afterwards we walked back to mine via the park to look at the ducklings and the few that we found were very cute. I had to work on Friday so we met Dew and Surferbill for a few drinks and dinner afterwards. Please do me a favour and read his blog at www.surferbill.com so he'll stop moaning that no-one reads it.

Then yesterday to avoid the godawful Bon Jovi concert that was on here and fully audible from my flat, the boyf and I walked over to the zoo and had a brilliant afternoon going ahhhhh at the baby meerkats, watching the baby gorillas swinging around like lunatics, talking to the fennec fox (which was all on it's own, poor thing) and trying to make the parrots talk. I even walked through the Aquarium with my eyes open the whole way round- although I did get a bit scared and had to insist on holding the boyf's hands a couple of time- so I am pretty proud. After a very nice Thai meal we rented Serenity (strange but good, I'm going to ask Mr.Infractus if I can borrow his Firefly DVDs which would make more sense of the film) and Corpse Bride which was alright.

In other news:
- the infamous Heather is coming over in a couple of weeks!!! I don't know the ins and outs but on Friday I got a message from her asking if she could stay at my place. So after The Dob goes back to the UK after the World Cup I will be on a frantic cleaning frenzy to prepare for the return of the infamous Heather to Europe. I have missed her LOTS. I am also pleased as it means she can bring me some stuff from the US that I am in desperate need of, the most important being Benadryl which is the only thing to deal with bug bites.
- I have a bug bite coming up on my chest and I am NOT HAPPY as I have no Benadryl to stop it swelling up and itching.
- Gayboy- is getting married. His birthday was last week and when I asked him what his boyfriend of about 3 months got him he answered a 'wedding contract' when I was expecting a much more horrible answer.

And that's about it till Thursday....

I've Been Looking For Freedom

So. If I thought that life was weird the last time I posted, it got even weirder at the end of that week.

Friday morning around 11ish. One of the bosses who'd I'd just had a moaning session with came up to me and asked 'What are you doing next week?' I quickly thought through the week- nothing special at work but a day of on Friday to go to a wedding- and was then asked 'Can you go to Bucharest on Sunday?' After a quick cancellation of my plans with Superfrog at the weekend, a rugby tournament in Munich (which we won and are now through to the play offs for promotion!!!) and being manhandled by said boss I found myself on Sunday morning on my way to Romania.

Before Sunday I knew a grand total of 3 things about Romania (1) They shot their communist dictator on Christmas Day 1989 (2) after that, all the orphanages were opened up to the west and there were the most horrific reports of the state of the children in there (I was such a Blue Peter girl) (3) Aforementioned dictator built the biggest building there in the world. I think it was good that I had no time to prepare as I had no idea really what to expect.

And I loved it- I had a fantastic time. The people I was working with and training are soooooooooo lovely- I didn't want to leave. There were a couple of others staying in the same hotel as me and we all got on rather well- going out for dinner together at night, meeting up for breakfast together in the morning. Everyone (the other guests and our Romanian colleagues) went out for dinner to a fantastic restaurant and had a lovely time together- when I left on Thursday everyone came to kiss me goodbye.

The city itself was a little more mixed. It's such a strange mixture of ugly, concrete communism and western consumerism. I've seen 9 year old kids running around in the street at midnight in rags surrounded by Escada, Guess and designer make up shops. Arriving at the airport I realised that I was in fact scared because I just had no idea what to expect but in the end it was just amazing. I wish I had some photos to describe what I mean because I can't really explain it but I hope I get the chance to go back again, it's so intriguing. I didn't have a camera with me either so I really want to go again. And the best thing








If you're wondering, the wedding was fine, and no it wasn't mine- it was a mate of the boyf's and I got to see some of his friends I haven't seen for years including the wonderfully weird Gav. The boyf and I kept sneaking up to watch Doctor Who and the Eurovision song contest. Glad to see that Finland won!!

When You're Strange, People Come Out Of The Range

This has been a very strange week in my life.

I don't know what was going on last night in my town but there were a number of weird and drunken people out on the town, on my trams as I came home from rugby training. My friend Rachelle and I were interrupted by one who insisted on speaking English to us and thus ruined the conversation and on my connecting one home, there was a very drunk bloke talking to his dog.

Strangely enough that's not the weirdest thing I've seen on the trams this week:

(1) Going up to the pub quiz there was a teenager on a tram who obviously thought he was Germany's answer to 50 cent (15 cents!!!!) He was dressed exactly like 50 Cent but in even baggier clothes (if that's possible) which looks ridiculous on anyone who isn't a gansta rapper and especially not on teenage, german boys who are whiter than I am. Underneath his baseball cap he had a bit of cloth tied round his head, and tucked into the cloth was a $1 note with half of it sticking out on the side of his head above his ear. He looked like a right wally to say the least

(2) As he got off, one of the blokes with a parrot on his head got on the tram. Let me explain. There's a bunch of buskers in town (I've spotted at least 3 of them) who play the saxophone with a real, live parrot sitting on their head. And one of them got on the tram with me this week and whistled and said 'hello' to people as they walked past it. Which was very cute and made me smile.


But the best/ yet weirdest thing that happened this week was an email that dropped into my inbox at work. I was busy in an online meeting with my eye half on my inbox when I noticed a new one and thought the name sounded strange but somehow familiar. I double checked that it wasn't spam and opened it- and it was from an old mate from Uni who I haven't spoken to since I left and who's just started working at my company in the UK. We spent a while that afternoon chatting on the work messaging system hearing about his wife and baby which was just lovely.

Walking Round London Town

I wish I was in London at the moment for two reasons

1) In the sunshine it is the most fantastic city in the world bar none. Do check out LDN by Lily Allen at http://www.myspace.com/lilymusic which sums up how I feel about it.
2) There is a 42 tonne mechanical elephant wandering around and listening to coverage of it on Danny Baker's radio show on BBC London online from Friday made me really want to be there. The 5m big puppet girl involved as well sounds fantastic and I've loved looking at the pictures of kids sitting on her arms. I really can't describe what it's like, check out the photos online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4981728.stm


But I'm not there.

I am though having a fantastic time at the moment in my quest to pickle my liver. Had a quick beer after rugby training this week and went to a brewery for someone's leaving do at work on Thursday which resulted in me getting several boys to show me their chests. Result.

Then Kezza came over on Friday night and I cooked and we headed out to an 80's night/Depeche Mode party with my friend Metalhead from work and her best mate and a good time was had by all. I danced lots, the music was fantastic and the people watching was of a very high calibre.

And then last night was beerfest night with rugby. Excellent, excellent fun although I am disappointed at the lack of attendance from my fellow ladies. I hope the situation will be reversed. We ended up at a french night afterwards where our Elvis lookalike (Curlygirl- I have to call you soon to tell you about this) tried to ply me with pasties- horrible, disgusting stuff.

You Do Something To Me.

I know that you've been waiting with bated breath for my update on the Paul Weller gig last week. I've had to leave it till now as I've (1) only just come down from it (2) had no time until now. If you're easily bored/fed up of my Paul weller obsession forget this blog and wait for the next one (where I will go on about my rugby injuries)

As imagined it was fantastic. Got there really early and found out I wasn't the only one there and the venue was very smart so I didn't have to wait outside in the drizzling rain reading my book. Got talking to a group of others outside the doors to the room who'd followed him around the rest of the dates on this tour. They were from all around my huge country and met each other through the interweb and (if you thought it wasn't possible) are even more mental for Paul than me. They were lovely enough to let me hang around with them for the rest of the evening and they are my new friends (hello popkid, clau and guenterdudda and the others when you get to read this!) Turns out they'd been hanging around the venue since the afternoon and got to meet the man himself. We all stood together in a bunch right at the front of the stage, just off to the left where Paul plays. The support was excellent, watch out for Paola Nutini in the next few months, he deserves to be a big, big star. Go and download some tracks for free at www.paolonutini.com and enjoy- especially Loving You which is just mmmmmmmmmm. And he took photos of us, the audience, from the stage with a wind on camera.

The main man himself was on good form but it wasn't the best concert of his that I've ever been to but I can't put my finger on what was missing exactly, it just wasn't as good as the last one I went to. He played all my favourite songs of his (currently Sunflower, The Changingman and From The Floorboards Up) finished up with Town Called Malice and played Long Hot Summer which sounded fantastic and was a new one live for me. When he sat at the piano to play it the first person he saw looking out to the audience was me and in the middle of the song when he does the 'shoo be doo be doo be doo bah' bits he could see and hear me and this other girl Birgit singing it and dancing along. Utter bliss. A beer with Paolo Nutini as the others had arranged the previous night didn't materialise but that was the only downer.

Pics of the gig courtesy of some of the aformentioned are at http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/7277/weller5zv.jpg and Paolo Nutini http://web2.gotodoc.com/albums/album32/IMG_8487.jpg