How Shrove Tuesday 2015 Went Down

I nearly forgot about Shrove Tuesday this year. And when I did remember I found it hard to summon up the energy to actually make some.

I always remember pancake day as being a hugely social activity. We'd all be gathered in the kitchen, fighting over what we were going to put in our pancakes, I'd be begging to be allowed to try and flip one, then most likely crying when it didn't work.

Hanging out on your own, giving yourself a little cheer when you managed to toss the pancake in one swift, professional movement, just felt a little tragic.

But who was I kidding? I'm a pretty tragic individual anyway, why try and hide from it? Just embrace it and get on with it.

And I was absolutely gutted when my first pancake, you know, the one that always turns out horribly for some reason, was absolutely perfect and I had no fucker to share my triumph with. I did however take a picture for posterity so I could share it all with you guys almost a week later...

Then I remembered that of course I'm not alone. I'm never alone whilst I can walk into the lounge and see this little face looking at me...

Ser Jorah Mormont is no fool. He remembered last year when they got pancakes made for them on this special day.

Not really, they just appears whenever he smells food or hears the rustling of something that sounds like it might be a good packet. 

Like last year I decided to make both the boys a little tiny pancake each, garnished with half a slice of banana, a gerbil chocolate drop and a pumpkin seed. Last year these were whipped away and gobbled so furiously that I didn't get the chance to take a decent picture so this time I was prepared. I put them on a plate and held it outside the cage, meaning if they wanted a pancake they were going to have to come pretty far out, thus maximising the photographic opportunity.

Seriously. This is my life.

Sure enough Ser Jorah Mormont took the bait and came out to have a little investigation. Tyrion Lannister had unfortunately just taken a bit of museli out of the food bowl and was furiously trying to eat it as fast as possible so he didn't miss out. It's hard to eat quickly when you only have a little gerbil mouth though, I bet they wish they had pouches like hamsters.

What I hadn't counted on is the fact that after a year has gone by, the gerbils are cool as a cucumber when it comes to being around me. They're not frightened of being picked up and most importantly they know that if they stay still they are almost definitely going to be rewarded with food.

And so, rather than whip the pancake back into the gerbilarium to eat it, Ser Jorah Mormont just decided to hang out on the plate I had kindly provided.

LOOK AT HIS FACE.

Have you ever seen anything so ridiculously cute in your entire life?

Can you also see how even when you think you've given a gerbil a really small pancake, it actually turns out to be outrageously massive?*

Can you imagine how cute two gerbils eating pancakes are?

*After a minute or so and a lot of pictures I took the pancakes away as I really didn't think they should be eating so much. I know, I'm super mean.

How I won at Valentine's Day

I saw a plethora of blog posts last week all revolving around the subject of Valentine's Day. All started with the same sentence "Personally my boyfriend and I don't really bother with Valentine's Day..." and then proceeded to either try and sell me something from a company that was loosely related to the day or (my personal favourite) provide a list of "alternative" things to do on Valentine's Day.

I eventually had to move my laptop to another room to prevent myself from throwing it against a wall.

Smug fuckers.

And the thing was I used to be one of those smug fuckers. Kind of. I've never understood the whole hating on Valentine's Day thing. Sure I've never gone the whole hog, buying insane presents and going out and awkwardly sitting in a restaurant with every other couple in the vicinity, but I have appreciated the day for what it is; a nice opportunity to turn the person you love and go "Hey, did you know I love you?"

No you shouldn't need just one day to tell someone you love them and yes it probably is a sad indictment of your relationship if you throw a tantrum because your other half didn't get you a big enough bunch of flowers, but why would you pass up the opportunity to be a bit romantic?

Which is probably why the lead up to Valentine's Day was rough as this year. Everywhere I went it was as if there were flashing red and pink neon signs up saying "YOU'RE ALONE!" something of which I'm already aware thaaaaaanks.

Luckily for me I had a hot date in the diary for Saturday with lovely bloggy people Gemma, Maria, Sarah, Emma and Katy. That means there were four of Team Norbury around a table which made me happy. (Really I just like an excuse to link to that blog post, it stills makes me laugh like a drain.)

At Jamie's we did the usual - ate food, drank some stuff and inwardly (and sometimes outwardly) cringed at the over-familiarity of the wait staff. It was my first time at a Jamie's and it was...you know....okay. I'm all down with the aesthetics they have going on but the food was only alright for the price you pay and the acoustics were dreadful. It was absolutely rammed and there were times when we could hardly hear each other speak.

I don't really know where the time went but before I knew it I was racing back to the train station and hopping on a train to go back home.

The bad feelings could have returned again, coming back home to an empty flat whilst everything on the internet and the TV was all about love, romance and the sexy stuff, but I knew how to keep those bad boys at bay.

All I needed was two simple ingredients.

A Chinese takeaway and Top Gun on TV.

Oh and a third ingredient. 

Twitter so I could just tweet quotes from the film ad finitum.

Suck it Valentine's Day. I win.

Betwixtmas 2014

Apparently we call the period between Christmas and New Year, Betwixtmas. I heard it on Radio 1 the other day and I liked it. I can be down with the kids.

Betwixtmas for me started off with some fairly major snow late on Boxing Day night. Not a big deal in itself, and quite exciting for most people, but a bit nervewracking for me as the next day I had to drive to Hull. I haven't driven in the snow/ice before and I would also have with me my Mum aka the World's Worst Passenger.

But we made it to Hull which was good because we had to break these two people out of cat prison aka the cattery.

Betwixtmas is a time for many a Fred and Lily photo to be taken. Pay special attention to the top right photo - Lily was nicely asleep on my knee for ages and when Fred saw this he immediately had to come and sit even closer to me because he is a big fat jealous ginger boy.

Betwixtmas was a time for catching up with friends. Catching up with them from 2pm until gone midnight to be precise. Messy. Although the next morning I discovered that I'd had a very productive shopping trip at Sainsburys. Oh and I took the funniest selfie with Lily ever - why does she look so horrified? Because I chased her all around the kitchen grabbing at her to take that photo...

Betwixtmas is also a time for me to dogsit for a day. Which just involves lying on the sofa watching TV with this pair of idiots. I don't know why they always look so sad in photos, I swear to god they're really happy dogs normally.

Betwixtmas is a time for crocheting things that have no purpose and are for you and you alone. I got Kerry Lord's book for Christmas along with some lovely fancy Tofts Alpaca wool (which is eye wateringly expensive when you're used to buying Stylecraft)

Betwixtmas is a time for sitting on your behind, drinking hot chocolate and reading massive 900 page tomes.

Betwixtmas is a time for starting to get organised and fill your fridge up after you have eaten it bare. Before I went shopping I swear to god all I had in my fridge was a bottle of cider, gherkins, Flora and an out of date yoghurt. I love a bit of batch cooking although it drives me mental that I don't have more space in my freezer. Jamie Oliver's basic stew recipe is a winner every time.

Betwixtmas is a time for surprise presents out of the blue from Apple. I have been the proud owner of a first generation iPod Nano for the last 9 years or so. You might not remember first generation iPods, I think they stopped making them a bazillion years ago.

Anyway the battery on mine gradually just got rubbish and wouldn't retain charge. I put out a random tweet saying I felt sad that my iPod's time had come, and a stranger replied pointing me in the direction of Apple's First Generation iPod Replacement Program. I was absolutely convinced it was a scam that was going to steal everything from me but it turns out it was actually true.

I sent my iPod Nano off and Betwixtmas delivered a brand new, latest, 16BG, iPod Nano. I could not believe it. Finally being cheap and not buying the latest model of anything pays off...



Christmas 2014 could suck it but Betwixtmas 2014 I could get on board with.

Not Really Resolutions 2014 l The Conclusion

*Insert standard sentence about "Oh my goodness where has the past year gone?"*

Seriously though. What a year. Right now I'll be very glad to see the back of 2014 but before I shove it out of the door I need to take a few minutes to update you on 2014's Not Really Resolutions. After 2013's miserable performance (2 out of 10 resolutions anyone?!) I felt sure that 2014 couldn't be that bad, and actually it's not gone badly...

1. Read 12 Classics

Completed! After failing last year for the first year ever I felt like I wanted to go for this full force. I've had a pretty good mix of more 'classic' Classics and more modern Classics. Quick overview of some of this year's Classics?

Vile Bodies - easy to read, bit of fluff, funny, but not my favourite Waugh.
Lady Chatterley's Lover - not really that rude it turns out.
The Woman in Black - actually full on made me feel scared when I was reading it. Chilling.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - just...weird.
Of Human Bondage - took an age to read but I loved it, which is quite a feat considering that the main character is such a sap. But despite that I kept rooting for him.
Mrs Dalloway - oh I could not get into this at all. It's such a short book but I struggled through every page. Would be very wary of picking up another Woolf.

I always enjoy this challenge and have been doing it for the four years that I've been doing the Not Really Resolutions but I think 2015 might see time for a bit of a change.


2. Eat 1 Vegetarian meal per week

Oh dear. This really could have happened and I hate to be a massive tit and blame everything on the break up but I really do. Post break-up my eating habits have just been plain horrific and I haven't made anything, much less go to the effort of looking up vegetarian recipes to try out.

I think I did about 30 veggie meals which is half way there so it depends what my yardstick is for achieving a Not Really Resolution - if it's 50% then I totally did it.

Mind you the number of times I ate toast or had a jacket potato with beans post break-up I probably did end up hitting 52 meals.

3. Do 1 interesting thing each month

January - Trip to London including a visit to see Chloe
February - Trip to Leicester to meet up with Janet
March - A trip to America to see American Girl and Boy get married and take a little road trip around Arizona (can't believe I still haven't finished blogging about that. Eek.)
April - FA Cup Semi-Final at Wembley to see Hull City beat Sheffield United
May - Trip to the London Pet Show and a rainy Bank Holiday outing to a resevoir
June - A trip to North Yorkshire to see Heather
July - The Color Run in Manchester, a trip to London to Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium
August - Nothing - but I was laid up with sciatica at the time so I'm letting myself off
September - A trip to France to see my Dad and a trip to Birmingham with some work friends
October - A night out at the dogs with work people
November - A trip to Bristol
December - A trip to Marrakech - even if all didn't go quite to plan...

4. Save up to buy a car

All done! It's worked out a bit more expensive than planned given that this was supposed to be something that two people were paying for but whatever, I did it all myself and that makes it even more awesome.

5. Finish my Tetris blanket

Not even close. In fact I don't think I even picked it up this year shamefully. The closest I came to it was buying a light up crochet hook because I knew I had an inordinate amount of black squares to make and thought it might make me blind.

I won't feel too bad though. According to my records I made 26 amigurumi things for people this year which is actually pretty immense when you really stop and think about it.

And that doesn't include the random dinosaur I made for funsies...

...or the Father Christmases...

Anyway. You get my drift. No Tetris blanket this year.

6. Learn something new

I was all set to go "Nope, not achieved this one either" and then I thought I wouldn't be so harsh on myself because actually I did learn something new this year. I learned to be on my own. And whilst it isn't as if I was a massive sap who was completely dependent on someone for their very existence, when someone who has been in your life for 13 years ups and leaves you there is a huge amount of readjusting to do.

I'm giving myself a massive gold star for this one because I didn't have a complete breakdown over anything when I really did feel like it. I got on with it and I learned that I'm not a total idiot, he's a total idiot.

And if that's the only new thing I learned this year then I'm ok with that.

7. Sell something at a craft fair

Well no I didn't.

But, see Point 5.

I was a craft fair this year. I was my own personal craft fair and seeing as the reason to do this was to make some money and feel that my stuff was good enough to put out in the public space I have actually achieved that. I've sold my stuff to people and have made some money from it and therefore I'm going to count this as complete.

I know. I'm a massive cheat.

8. Beat my 10k time

Let's not talk about this shall we?

Let's just say that 2014 was the Year that Running Forgot. It was my Annus Horribilis Runnus. I was either injured or mentally broken for 2014 and that did not make for a good runner. Since my bout of sciatica in August I haven't run at all. I will be back to the beginning once I start running again - ugh.

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There we have it. Five out of eight will do me very nicely.

I'm looking forward to seeing what 2015 has in store for me.

I think.

BEDM Day 13: The King of Sandwiches

I love sandwiches. I'm a bread lover baby. People who don't eat bread? They confuse me.

I go through all kinds of sandwich jags and will quite happily have the same sandwich day after day after day after day. The current obsession is ham and coleslaw - it is all I can think about and all I'm interested in.

And you can never ever go wrong with any form of cheese between your slices. Cheese and salad, or cheese and chutney, or cheese and Salt & Vinegar crisps, or cheese and cheese...

But really there can only be one sandwich that is the king of all sandwiches.

I can only apologise for the quality of the following photos. I was really only concerned with one thing when I was making this sandwich and that was shoving it in my gob as soon as humanly possible.

Step 1...

Step 2...

Step 3...

The BLT is the best of the best when it comes to sandwiches. The crispness of the lettuce, the sweetness of the tomatoes and the slight crunch of the well-done bacon, all topped off with an over generous splattering of mayo.

Nothing could be better....or could it? Convince me...

BEDM Day 4 - Adventures in meatless cooking

One of my Not Really Resolutions this year was to make more of an effort to try out some new vegetarian meals. I wrote that I would eat one veggie meal a week but I allowed myself some leeway, as long as it adds up to 52 at the end then I'll count it a success.

There have been a couple of obstacles in the way of my venture, one such obstacle being The Person.

If I called him a fussy eater he would vehemently deny it and that probably isn't a fair label. He just has a lot more things on his list of Things I Don't Like than I do.

He did not greet my decision to eat more vegetarian meals with masses of enthusiasm, he is very much the meat eater. But he has agreed to go along with it and has been a kind of willing participant in my latest experiment.

The one obstacle that I still have is that the list of vegetables that The Person really doesn't like include some of the bestest vegetables that feature most often in vegetarian recipes - namely carrots, butternut squash and sweet potato.Damn him damn him. When I tell people this there is always a chorus of people that say "Cook it anyway" and yes I agree but for a few small things:

1. I'm not cooking two meals

2. I'm not putting up with a kitchen where two people are trying to cook two different meals

3. Our freezer isn't big enough for me to freeze my lovely carroty/butternut squashy/sweet potatoey leftovers

(Living with a boyfriend can be inconvenient sometimes you know.)

But I've been coping well in my mostly root vegetable existence. I've looked online for recipes and I've had a ton of recipes recommended to me - mostly by you lovely guys. I've scoured through the always overlooked vegetarian sections of the cook books that I own and leafed through the scraps of torn out recipes that I've pulled from magazines. I bought a cheap little book from Tesco that contains lots of veggie recipes - that has been a little treasure trove of ideas, best £3 I've spent in a long time.

I've been trying to go for purely vegetable dishes and not go for meat substitutes such as Quorn or tofu. No particular reason, just trying to see what veggies can do when left to their own devices.

There have been successes and some....less so (falafel burgers I'm looking at you here). But actually on the whole it's all been going well. I'm torn between whether or not it's quicker to make veggie meals rather than meat ones. It feels like there's a lot more prep that goes on - those things don't chop and peel themselves you know. But on the other hand the cooking process is over much more quickly - no-one likes limp veg after all.

I've done well so far at not really repeating anything - the lentil bolognese I've counted for two meals and it will be the same for the aubergine and courgette lasagna. I did think about being very strict and only counting 'new' recipes as part of my 52 but....no. I'm doing well as it is, let's not make it more difficult.

The Person and I tend to do one week on and one week off for cooking and as much as he is on-board with my idea (kind of) The Person is not in any particular hurry to cook vegetarian meals on his own steam. So that tends to mean that on my weeks we're having at least two veggie meals.

At the time of writing we are 18 weeks into the year. We have eaten fifteen meals so there's a chance that we'll be having some purely veggie weeks throughout the year to come.

Perhaps my greatest achievement won't be expanding my culinary repertoire but turning The Person into a veggie lover. I'm slowly chipping away at his defences - I could tell he wasn't thrilled at the prospect of the aubergine and courgette lasagna I made this weekend, those vegetables ranking only very slightly above those orange ones I was talking about earlier. Upon finishing his plate I asked him what he thought of it.

"I feel very conflicted. I didn't think I would like it, but it was really nice and I want seconds and I wasn't  expecting it and now I don't know how to feel. It's as if I was kissing another boy and liking it."

Who needs a Michelin star?

BEDM Day 3 - Not Really Resolutions 2014: Update 1

I was supposed to do this post at the end of March when we were a quarter of the way through the year but somehow something magical happened and we reached the end of April and we're a third of the way through the year instead.

Oh well.

1. Read 12 Classics

We're off to a good ol' start on this front. Not surprising as this is the Not Really Resolution that I don't normally struggle with.

Lady Chatterley's Lover was a bit of a surprise, it wasn't what I was thinking at all. I think with all the fuss that's made about it I thought it was some kind of Fifty Shades of Grey but it's actually a really sad book in a way about the loss of female identity. At least that's what I read into it. But yeah there's a bit of rudey in it too.

Flowers for Algernon is a beautiful book and a slight cheat because I have read it before but it's lovely and it makes me cry at the end and it's only teeny tiny so you definitely have to pick it up.

2. Eat 1 vegetarian meal a week

I'm currently a little behind on this one, it's not quite working out at one a week, some weeks it has been none and others it has been three but as long as I eat 52 I'm calling it a win. I have a whole post for talking about my adventures in meatless cooking though. You lucky devils.

3. Do 1 interesting thing each month

This is coming along very nicely indeed. I got off to a great start in January by seeing the lovely Chloe and continued the meeting up with internet people theme in February by meeting up with Janet and exploring Leicester. March doesn't have a specific post but I went road tripping in America so I think we can call that month taken care of interestingness-wise. April passed by in a bit of blur, I didn't even really do anything for my birthday but I did go to Wembley to see Hull City beat Sheffield United in the FA Cup Semi Final so I reckon that is up there on the interesting scale.

4. Save up to buy a car

Yeah I definitely need to put a plan into action for this one or else it's not going to end well...

5. Finish my Tetris blanket

Not a Tetris blanket

Ugh. I wish. Unfortunately I haven't been able to work on this, much as I would like. As I mentioned in this post back in February I have been making a lot of amigurumi stuff. And if you follow me on Twitter you will see a lot of photos of animals flying off my hook. The trouble is that word got round at work that I could make these animals and orders came flying in. And they just won't stop. This is for two reasons - one being that it's earning me a little bit of money on the side (although I'm not charging anywhere near what I should be for the time it takes) and the other being that I find it hard to say no. In my messed up little head saying to someone "Actually I'm sorry but I'm not taking any more orders" is the same thing as punching someone in the face. What can I say? I'm a people pleaser.

I have decided to be firm and am absolutely shutting up shop so I can make something for myself.

Probably.

6. Learn something new

Still waiting on this one. Maybe inspiration will strike? Anybody want to teach me something?

7. Sell something at a craft fair

Hmmmm. Not sure about this one. Although technically if I'm selling all this amigurumi stuff doesn't that mean that I'm kind of selling stuff a craft fair.....No?

8. Beat my 10k time

Oh dear.

At the moment this has never seemed further away. I started off the year laid up thanks to a completely random knee injury that occurred in the flat. Apparently I am a person capable of tearing the tendons in my kneecap just by standing still. I don't know what happened. My knee overlocked, there was searing pain, it swelled to twice its size, I was in agony all over Christmas and New Year. I eventually went to a physiotherapist and after paying an ungodly amount of money and being poked and prodded and given homework my knee was fixed again.

I'm signed up to the Run for All Hull 10km which is taking place at the beginning of June. I put a training plan in place and off I went. Running life was good until this weekend when I went trotting out on a Saturday run. The wind was in my hair, a lovely podcast was in my ears, a searing pain was in my left calf....oh hello. I have no idea what I did, I guess I wasn't warmed up enough (although I never warm up before my runs, I don't run fast enough to make it worth warming up) and I definitely didn't trip or stumble over anything. There wasn't a 'pop' or anything dramatic, it just hurt. A lot. And when I thought I might be able to "run it off" I most certainly could not. I hopped about for a little bit and then resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to limp the mile home looking terribly terribly sorry for myself.

I guess I should be grateful that I don't run faster, I could have been even further from home when it happened.

So yes. I'm not running again. Hopefully only for a week, after not being able to walk at all on Saturday I was much improved the day after and every day it feels a little bit better. Let's keep our fingers crossed, yeah?

This does mean that beating my 10km time seems terribly unlikely. At the moment running 10km without stopping seems terribly unlikely. *sulks*

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[Don't understand why I'm doing these things? Take a look at this post to see my reasonings behind them.]

Shrove Gerbil Tuesday

Damn. I should have either done this post on this Tuesday when it was actually Shrove Tuesday or I should have waited until next year and posted them just before Shrove Tuesday.

But there is no way I'm sitting on these photos for a year. No way.

In fact I haven't because I totally already put them on Twitter.

But I'll tell the story behind them anyway.

The gerbils have a little routine now where they wake up and come to the first floor and stand right in front of the door. We call it the Seed Door as we have clearly trained them that if they come up to the door and look cute we will go over, open it and give them a pumpkin seed.

So it looks a little something like this...

So we're sat eating our pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and there the boys are, looking super cute at the Seed Door.

And then the best idea I've ever had came into my head.

GERBIL PANCAKES.

Gerbils are allowed little tiny treats as long as they are in moderation. They can eat most things but it's really hard to get around your head how small gerbils are until you give them something like a blueberry.

Blueberries are small aren't they? I'd read that gerbils like blueberries and I picked one out of a punnet and handed one to a gerbil. Once the gerbil takes the blueberry out of your hands it instantly looks like the biggest piece of fruit ever, it's like you or I standing with a watermelon in our hands. It's brilliant.

We also added half a slice of banana and a little gerbil chocolate drop to the top of the pancakes. Important note - gerbils should not eat normal human chocolate. It's bad for their little gerbil tummies. But you can buy special little furry people chocolate drops which they can have.

I knew that we wouldn't have long to get the shot of the gerbils tasting their pancakes so I was at the ready to take the picture.

What I was not expecting is that I would only get one photo which is of Tyrion Lannister absolutely whipping the pancake away from us and running off in to the gerbilarium with it.

He whipped it away so fast that he left the toppings behind and Ser Jorah Mormont contented himself with his first taste of banana.

See! Look at the size of that piece of banana - that is half of a tiny slice of banana and look at it in his little gerbil paws!

After Tyrion ate most of the pancake to himself I decided that one pancake was probably enough for two little gerbils and that is when I invented a new thing...

PANCAKE CANAPES.

You are welcome.

What I've been doing whilst I haven't been blogging

Oh it's February...

How did that happen.

I have a brain which is full to the brim of things I want to blog about (mostly involving gerbils) and I know that there have been many times when I've said to myself "You need to sit down and get your blog on woman", but for some reason, even switching on my laptop has been an effort.

One thing I have not been doing though is sitting on my bum and feeling sorry for myself you will be relieved to hear.

Things I have been doing include:

Reading

2013 was over-shadowed at the end of the year reading-wise by some fairly weighty tomes that took up all my time. Vanity Fair took me a ridiculous almost three months to read - although that was because I kept dipping in and out of it. When I wasn't reading Vanity Fair I was starting to make my way through George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series (also known as Game of Thrones to TV fans). If you've never seen them before they are whacking great door stops of books.

I decided to take a break after reading the first three books - the third of which is so large it's split into two massive books - in January and raced through three books in the first three weeks. This is mainly because the sum total of pages of these three books probably adds up to one Game of Thrones book.

After finishing Heft, I have turned back to George RR Martin and I am currently reading A Feast for Crows - this means my book tally for February is going to be a low one.

Eating

After my Not Really Resolution to eat more vegetarian meals I have been spending time looking for interesting veggie recipes.

This is the trouble I find with vegetarian meals. They are often terribly uninspiring and it's been harder than I thought it would be for a variety of reasons.

However I've made a good dent and am four meals down.

From top left: Blue cheese & pesto pasta / Tortilla / Mushroom & Spinach pasta / Lentil bolognese

Crocheting

This is the main reason that I have not been blogging.

I have been crocheting like a wild woman in 2014. A couple of people at work had found out about the amigurumi stuff I was doing and asked me to bring the books in to work so they could have a look. Before I knew it, the books had been passed around work and the books came back to me with little bits of paper sticking out all over them.

I think the order book was at about 12 items so I've been head down.

January's output is this so far:

 Dinosaur & cat from this book / Monkey from this book / Seal, goat and bee from this book 

 Actually I'm quite impressed with myself. Pat on the back for me.

The dinosaur is by far and away my favourite I love him and I want an excuse to make him again. The cat was also a favourite although all the colour changing to make his face did make me want to poke my eyes out a little bit. Bee was super quick to make up, until I got to his wings, which are made out of a super annoying fluffy wool but I'm very proud of myself for not swearing once whilst making them up.

Oh and actually I made two goats this month so add another one on to the total.

It's hard to crochet and blog. It's impossible to crochet and read which is something which I find really annoying. Unfortunately audio books don't work for me, I can't concentrate on them. What I have done is watched a vast amount of absolutely terrible television whilst creating all this output.

Still left to make:
- Horse x2
- Elephant x2
- Panda x1
- Octopus x1

Who knows, eventually I might be able to crochet something for myself one day.

London with almost a plan

One thing you should never do in London.

Go without a plan.

For in a city with a myriad of opportunities it is impossible to choose anything to do when put on the spot.

One other thing you should never do in London.

Go when it's pissing it down with rain.

For in a city which is mired in a blanket of grey and misery it is even more impossible to choose anything to do when put on the spot.

Instead you will find yourself being pulled into the Tate Modern even though you know you're going to hate it because you're just not a fan of modern art and even thought you know that your significant other is going to hate it too.

It's ok though, you last about 20 minutes in there. The breaking point is when your significant other sees a piece of art which is some wood with stones hanging from it at varying lengths. It turns out that that is his limit when it comes to modern art.

You swallow your "I told you so" and trudge back outside into the gloom (after a visit to the gift shop).

This is why it's important to have a plan.

Instead of heading aimlessly over the Millennium Bridge towards the comforting glow of St Paul's Cathedral you head over it with purpose, laughing at the pigeons sat in rows, laughing at the fact that your hood is so big you can't actually see out of it and laughing at the fact that thanks to the wonder of Twitter and The Cafe Cat you know exactly where you're heading.

Responding to my plea for somewhere cool to have tea and cake she gave me more than one idea and one h happened to be close by to us, underneath the menacing clouds.

For we are headed to Bea's of Bloomsbury (the St Paul's branch).

We follow the directions on the website (when they say keep turning right they really do mean keep turning right) looking for the hanging teapot lights, foolishly thinking they're hanging on the outside. At the point where I'm about to lose my temper and the rain is really starting to wear us down, we spy a welcoming glow in the distance...

What better way to decorate a tea shop than with hanging teapot lights?

Bea's of Bloomsburys manages to do a difficult thing - be homely without being chintzy, be small without being claustrophobic and be cosy whilst still maintaining a sense of 'coolness'.

We somehow manage to pick the same cupcake from the vast array of cupcakes and cakes and general sweet stuff on offer. Normally the idea of getting the same thing as the person sat opposite me horrifies me but the rain and gloom have got into my soul and I just really bloody want that peanut and chocolate concoction that's begging for me to eat it.

We sit and we talk and we do that ever so British thing of rolling our eyes at a table of women who shriek at some unexpected news. We talk about the weekend ahead, which is going to be spent in Horsham, staying with some of The Person's family and we talk about this and that and a little of the other.

And then we decide to just head to the pub where we're meeting his family later.

Because we are in London without a plan.

And that's just fine.

Things that go bump in the kitchen

I really don't like cooking you know. I've tried and I've tried and occasionally I can find myself enjoying it but mostly it feels like a chore, much like washing your hair. It's one of those things you've got to do but you don't ever really feel like doing it.

I wish that meant that I didn't like eating but unfortunately it's not the case. I sometimes wonder if, left to my own devices, I'd just sit and eat outrageous amounts of toast, salad and crisps.

Actually I don't wonder at all - I'm home alone tonight and have just eaten beans on toast. I felt proud of myself for grating cheese.

But I'm lucky really, The Person actually enjoys cooking. He loves sitting and sifting through cookery books, looking up recipes online, chopping things and throwing stuff in a pan, putting things in an oven and all manner of spatula-related kitchen wizardry.

And so I know I definitely shouldn't complain.

Except...

Have you ever attempted one of Jamie Oliver's 30 minute or 15 minute meals? If you haven't this is basically how it goes:
1) It takes about 3 times longer than it should do
2) You use every utensil and pan and piece of crockery you own
3) Your kitchen is destroyed by the end of it.

The trouble is, every expedition in to the kitchen for The Person ends this way. It's not specific to Jamie Oliver, it's the same for every single meal. Most of the time after eating a lovely meal and getting up to put my plate in the kitchen he stands up, takes the plate from me and goes, "Don't go in there." I know well enough not to - my poor heart won't be able to stand the strain.

Don't believe me? Look at this:

This is what happens after The Person makes two sandwiches.

That's all. Two. Sandwiches.

But I'm really not complaining.

Honestly.

Thirty

I did a birthday.

And turning 30 really wasn't that bad you know. In fact, you could almost say it was just like any other birthday. In fact, it was just like any other day, except for the fact that you get presents and you get to do everything that you want to do all day long.

The celebrations started a little early, a couple of days before when Best Friend came over from Hull and we went to Ribby Hall Spa for the day. See, that's what's good about turning 30, when you're younger you don't have the money to spend on getting poked and prodded and quite pummelled violently at times by a much younger girl.

I could totally be a lady who lunches by the way. I would quite happily, if I had the money to spend, just hang around in spas all day. The pair of us were so relaxed by the end that we were unable to hold a coherent conversation with one another, but we managed to pull it together to go out for tapas at my favourite place in Preston, Pond, where we ordered far too much food and had to bring most of it home in a doggy bag.

The day itself was just me and The Person and once all the presents had been opened he ran out of the room  saying he was going to get my final present. 

He came in proudly holding before him his very first cake;

The cake is a blog post in itself and I think I will save it for another day, but I don't think he's ever been prouder of himself.

We spent the day in Manchester where we ate lunch in Wagamamas and mooched around the shops, hoping to find something to wear for Saturday night, but discovering that fashion is not for the Thirty - it is for pre-pubescent girls with a penchant for neon. Only I could go to a major city in the North and walk away with a top for £13 form H&M which I bought in sheer desperation because I refused to go away empty handed.

The highlight of the trip however was a visit to Cloud 23 which was all that I'd requested we do for the day. For those not in the know, this is the bar in the Hilton Hotel which resides in Beetham Tower on the 23rd floor, offering some rather splendid views of the city and far far beyond.

I've been before at night to have some cocktails and admired the city all lit up and orange but really wanted to see what it was like before the sun went down and we weren't disappointed as the day was lovely and clear.

The photos don't do it justice - I have somehow taken photos which just look as if I've taken them out of the 5th floor office window and I can't convey just how far you can see when you're up there. You can the planes taking off from Manchester Airport for freaks sake. You can see Jodrell Bank!

You will just have to take my word for it. It was high up. The views were awesome. The End.

We shovelled a cream tea in our faces and then made our merry little way back home where we had planned to eat but discovered that lunch at Wagamamas and a cream tea at Cloud 23 goes a long way.

It doesn't sound like much I know but it was a happy day for me, with my favourite Person, in my favourite city, doing my favourite thing - eating.

A birthday in food: Tapas at Pond; the birthday cake; demolished cream tea; Wagamamas

And then it was back to the Motherland for the weekend where we did more eating. We had Chinese with Mumsie and galettes with my Dad (plus more cake) and finally much drinking with my special friends on the Saturday night where I surprisingly managed to get off pretty lightly hangover-wise considering the amount of money I spent and the number of shots that kept appearing in my hands.

I wrote a post previously about how I was feeling about Turning 30 (in case you were wondering, it wasn't a good  feeling) and I'd be lying if I said I'm now totally over it and feeling fine and breezy. But you know what? I know people who are 30 and have the kids and the house and the job etc etc and quite a few of them are basically complete dicks. 

I may not have a house. I may not have children. I may not even have a fancy career. But I'm definitely not a dick. So 30 can suck it, I'm off to get me some more food.