Lame and Lamer
Mood:  spacey
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
It's a Lame and Lamer Friday here in 31 Dorchester Court. Stephen is sleeping over at work tonight, so what do I do as soon as I've eaten dinner? Embark upon a 3 hour cleaning session, leaving the kitchen & bathroom scrubbed, de-moulded, de-crusted, the carpets up and downstairs vacuumed, and 2 loads of laundry completed.

I thought I would get everything out of the way tonight so I can enjoy the rest of the weekend. Plus it would keep me up until mid-night so I can get the new Harry Potter book. But alas, I am so lame, that cleaning has made me too tired to bother.

I'll just get it tomorrow since Stephen pre-ordered the book months ago.

Not much else to say...I'm planning the week's menu to prepare for the shoppoing tomorrow. I've decided on a theme for Sat. dinner: Stuff It.

This is nothing dirty or lewd, but rather a combination-platter of :

Stuffed Peppers
Stuffed Mushrooms
Stuffed Zucchini (Courgettes in the UK, ok)
Stuffed Red Onions

Does anyone know another other stuffed recipes? Any ideas for a dessert within this theme? Even if you think of something well after tomorrow night, it's alway good to know for future.

Ok culinary wizards or otherwise, I'm pooped.

G'night.

You say it's your Birthday?
Mood:  amorous
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Today has been absolutely lovely! It started last night when Stephen finally came home after a 24 hour shift...see blog below...and we had a relaxing lie-in this morning. Stephen brought all the cards & presents up to the bed, and I opened the cards, and 2 DVDS (Belleville Rendez-vous, Goldmember), 3 books (The Xenophobe's Guide to America; Carol Ann Duffy's Anthology: Out of Fashion; & Alexander McCalls: The Sunday Philosophy Club). I also received some lotion stuff from Jane my co-worker, and who for the 2nd year in a row supplied us with a Thorntons cake of which most was eaten for breakfast.

Instead of a card, Stephen gave me a completed Risk Assessment Form. Some highlights include: "Risk to Self: Will take risks while riding a bicycle. Has led to several minor injuries in the past" and "History of Hostage Taking: Forced husband into unholy matrimony"...and so it goes on and on....absolutely uplifting.

I also ordered a bra & skivvies from figleaves.com, which arrived right on time this morning...a little birthday present to myself.

So Stephen having a day off (coincidently) and myself having taken leave for the day, we set out to Shere, Surrey voted "The Best Village" many times. No Internet sight or description will do this little quintessentially English village justice. It is tiny, but filled with listed houses, some dating back to the 1500s, and previous. One of the these such buildings is an independent pub, where we enjoyed a brew & some real pub food (ie. not pre-made somewhere else, and reheated...Stephen was even served an apple with his ploughman's lunch.)

From the pub we wandered up to the church (dating as far back as the 1300s I believe), and behind the church cemetery was the trickling stream of the Tillingbourne:

There's the birthday girl, clearly enjoying the day..

Following our stroll, I dragged Stephen into a boutique where I bought a nice pair of earings. Then we went for another stroll past vegetable gardens, scarecrows, a ford, and lots of old houses. Hot and tired, we went to the Lucky Duck to enjoy some refreshing tea, coffee, cake & scones. We really felt transported back to 1970s England (because we were there yo...). Afterwards we decided we were too sober to go home, and stopped at a pub by the trainstation for a quick tipple before waiting at the station for 40 min. for the next train...they run once an hour out of this village station. To give you an idea of how remote this station is: There are no electronic signs displaying the train schedule. There are 2 platforms, but not across from each other. Where one platform ends on one side of the track the other begins for the opposite direction. And how does one get from one side to the other? An overpass? Underpass? No, you have to read a warning sign before opening the gate cross through the middle of the tracks. Dangerous much after a quick drink?

But we made it home eventually. Stephen got a frozen pizza for dinner, I got a yummy prawn & cashew takeaway at So's Kitchen.

While the sun set, I was struck by a bird on a wire (or antennae):

And now it is almost time to go to bed...but there's still some cake left...

Best wishes to all!

E

This title is optional
Now Playing: The News
Topic: Stephen Says
As life goes back to normal over here, contrary to what is being reported overseas, I'm gearing up for a busy couple of days (Working this evening, doing a sleep in, doing an hour tomorrow before taking off to Basingstoke all day for training & then going to Camberley to play D&D [nerd] before returning to Woking to kiss my wife, who will already be asleep in bed, goodnight sometime tomorrow night around midnight) and Elisabeth has recovered from the mental scarring from her recent biking accidents to pick up Kelly II again and ride the canals, We're perparing for Elisabeth's birthday on Wednesday. Details are still sketchy.

Also on Wednesday are my grad ceremonies that I was sent no information about (No, that's not true - I was invited & registered and THEN they stopped sending me info. Royal Holloway: Serving a big plate of suck for over 100 years!). Anyway, petty griping aside, Congratulations to all my fellow grads - y'all stuck it out! Have fun Piccolo's & watch out who you snog with.

No real news, otherwise. We spent the weekend being lazy and buying a stereo so that we can now properly listen to all of Tim's CD's without any (superfluous) feedback and bizarre stopping & starting and skipping of tracks. It's damn hot out here and I'm very happy that I work in an environment where shorts are allowed and water fights are a daily occurence.

In conclusion, who is that sexy guy???

London bombing blogging II
Now Playing: Primus
Topic: Stephen Says
Man, I'm lazy.
It's 2 pm & all I(we)'ve managed to do is eat breakfast and talk about how we should go out & buy a CD player & maybe some food for dinner. I'm also too lazy to comment, in my own words, on the other day. But that's ok - I've found someone who pretty much sums up exactly my opinion of things. So click here, please.
Righty-ho, I've got to get a move on.

London Bombing blogging
Now Playing: Maceo & All the King's Men - Funky Women
Topic: Stephen Says
I'm trying real hard, now that I'm home & have read how the American press has reported the bombings in London (Granted, I get all my news from those dirty Left-Wingers so I might be a little biased), not to comment until things unfold. Instead I'll leave it up to George Galloway who, even though he's off his rocker, makes a helluva lot more sense than Chimpy.

Anywho, E&I have our first weekend off together for 3 weeks. We're detoxing. Sort of. She's gone to the pub & I'm drinking cider and I think we're still rough from this past Wednesday. Mark & Jenn? I think I've found a group of people who can party even harder than you. They're wackyer, anyway. I was thrice almost kicked out of the karaoke pub and I only remember two of the warnings.

And howzabout that? I used 'thrice' in a sentence. Bully for me!

Joking Aside,
Topic: Stephen Says
I was supposed to go into London for some training this morning and am quite happy that I chose instead to get pissed, sing karaoke & eat curry last night, which negated my ability to get my act together enough this morning to get up in time.

I Did It!
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
I Did It! I've resigned from my post! But being a good girl, I've agreed to stay on until end of October, since everyone has staggered vacations until end of September, and we need to employ and train a replacement, which gives them a month. The timing seems right, and I feel very happy at this moment!

What will I do? I am going to work in Woo Woo Woking, maybe temp at first, maybe work part time, maybe work full time...the options are OPEN baby!!!

I'm going to go join Stephen and his boss for a drink at the pub.

Oh, and congrats I guess to London for the 2012 bid. I feel I should be happy for them, but I just don't see it...Pauvre Paris (am I a traitor or what?!)

"Man, you're working way too many hours."
Topic: Stephen Says
Is what I've ben told. I'll leave it up to y'all to dcide if 70 is too many. I'm just tired alot. My official policy towards any overtime this week is Just Say No.

Alright, a little bit of bookkeeping this evening - Tomorrow is the 1 year anniversary of this blog. It's also the 2 year anniversary of mine & Elisabeth's arrival in England. I've heard stories that the 4th of July signifies something-or-other's anniversary as well but it beats the hell out of me what that something is.

I'm off to Thorpe Park with work to celebrate. It's kind of like La Ronde but also with a petting zoo and a train that goes through it. I'll take the camera.

And as it's time for the website's 6 monthly update, is there anything that desperately needs doing? Anyone actually go in through the front door or do y'all just just right to the blog? No one's commented on our now 6 month old photoshop picture on the front page. Should I do another?

Arg, tired, drinking cider, bla, bla, bla. Toodleoo! Sorry, this is a stupid entry.

Saturday, What a Day!
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Since I'm on holiday, I've been madly cleaning our tiny apartment, and as I'm sure everyone can testify, that no matter how big or small a space is, you will always fill it up with crap.

So I took a bunch of old clothes and photoframes to the charity shop. Now those of you who know League of Gentleman can visualize what charity shops are like here...and more to the point, the types of personalities that work there.

So I gave a couple bags of clothes to the lady, who then inspected the garmnets, and seemed satisfied. Phew I thought to myself, she's not going to chastise me for dontating a t-shirt with a hole in the shoulder...

And then I gave her a bag of photo frames and clip frames that I had bought from work. "Oh no. No we can't sell these. I mean we can take the photo frames, but we couldn't possibly sell THOSE. They're made of glass, it's a safety issue."

I thought to myself, "are you made of glass?" and made for the door, when she stopped me with a condescending tone "Why don't you just put them outside. I mean in the bin. Just throw them away."

I smiled incredulously at this ding-dong and marched down to Oxfam. I told the lady my story and she said, "Oh, no I'm sure we could use these, I'm sure we've been able to sell them before." And I made the Oxfams lady's day by putting down their rival Woking Hospice.

All in a day's work I say. Speaking of which, Stephen is still working the same shift he was working when I posted my last entry. In fact, he's still not due back for another 9 hours. I'm starting to wonder if he's just avoiding me?

Hope you are all hungover and enjoying the weekend.

Toodle OOO :)

P.S.
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
P.S: Stephen's growing a goatee...