So that was Christmas

So Christmas has been and gone again for another year.

After a not so great Christmas Eve the rest of the holiday wasn't so bad! Christmas day started quite late for me, about 10 - 10.30am. Grandma came up while we all opened our presents. We all got lots of nice things...

Courts got a personalised coat with her name & a showjumping horse on the front and 'Meera The Moose' on the back! She also got a saddle seat saver, smellies, hunting whip (which Dad felt the need to demonstrate in the living room - eek!) a paint your own Piggy Bank (!) and a load of other bits and pieces.

Mum got nice PJs from Dad (chosen all by himself which is suprising if you knew Dad, and bought with the assistance of Clare for her discount! Thank you Clare!) some nice clothes from Me as well as chocs, smellies, wine and stuff.

Dad was a pain to buy for - every time anyone asked him what he wanted he just said "A helicoptor!" Yea, helpful! Anyways I bought him a push along helicoptor from Early Learning Centre - not quite what he was hoping for but still! He also got Pirates of the Caribbean stuff since his lorry has been painted with Pirates...pictures, clothes & lots of chocolate stuff!

Now the most important person...ME!

My main pressie was my Pink IPod Nano - Thank You parental types! I also got clothes, shoes (coz I need more!) a shoe shaped money box, a caligraphy set and 4 dvds - The Muppets Christmas Carol, The Chronicles of Narnia, Lady & the Tramp and Ice Age 2:The Melt Down. All really grown up! All in all a good Christmas gift selection so my thanks to everyone.

My cousin, Tom, joined hundreds of other stupid people at Exmouth seafront and ran into the sea....insane!

We all had dinner down at Grandma & Grandad's; the classic starter of Prawn Cocktail, then full roast (Turkey and Pork) with all the trimmings followed by a choice of either Chocolate Gatauex (sp?!) Christmas Pudding or Trifle. All followed up with coffee and mince pies for those who still had room! I did NOT mince pie as I think they are the route of Christmas Evil - every year they smell like I should like them, every year I don't!

The rest of the day was spent in front of the TV and playing with my IPod. Nice day had by all...

Boxing Day we went out to Nannys for a bit then headed to Bill & Julies. Tyler was loving the Christmas vibe....well all the Christmas paper! We ate way too much (I think Julie thought she was feeding the 5000!) but it was all yummy and all finished off with Bread & Butter Pudding and cream........yum! So fattening but yum! After watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks we headed home to do the horses (mum & courts) and a snooze (me!) A perfect Boxing Day.

I had Wednesday off and bravely headed into town....ARGH! I love shopping but I hate sales! I saw stuff I liked but felt that as I plan to lose weight next year (whats new I hear you say!) I didnt buy anything clothes wise. In fact all I got was hair dye, shampoo associated stuff and Christmas wrapping paper for next year! Great sale shopping TA, great!

So, that was my Christmas. Not that exciting but I enjoyed it. Having to go back to work today sucked but shit happens! Plus its only today and tomorrow then off again til Tuesday so its all good!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to an exciting and prosperous New Year...we will be 'Winging It' in Teignmouth.....I'll explain all in good time!

Christmas Eve...Just one more sleep!

Woo! Just one more sleep to go! I delivered my present down to John (and carried out an authorised robbery in his bedroom as he and his mother had bravely gone to Tesco's!) then I went home to get myself prepared for going out with Nat and Co.

Nat and her Dad picked me up at about 8.30 and we headed to Kellys so Nat could get ready as she had only just finished work. We had a couple drinks there then headed up to Butlers to meet up with Liz. It was looking likely to be a good, cheesey festive night out but I was mistaken.....

The plan was to go to Riva on the key as Nat's request so thats where we went only to find it closed! Hmm, great! So, taxi to Arena and no queue - we should've known it was too good to be true. We walked straight in, well almost. Me Kelly and Nat were fine however the bouncer outside was a picky little shit so decided that as Liz had Vans on he wasn't going to let her in since they are obviously trainers. Err, no, actually, they are not. The other bouncer basically agreed but the one outside decided he was not going to back down so once again we found ourselves still outside. Timepiece was put forward and dismissed, Rococo's was thrown into the mix but (thank God!) it was shut. Now Liz was more than happy to go to Timepiece which is way more her scene than any cheesey nightclub and a load of her friends were in there but Nat wanted us to stay together & I was to stupid to say that I was going to Arena regardless so we ended up in another bloody taxi back to the quay to Mambos.

What SHIT!

I haven't been in there since it closed and reopened but it appears I have not been missing any thing. Downstairs is totally closed. Warehouse floor has pole dancing poles & its usual clientel of 15 year old chavs and Boogies room was dead! There was at most, 30 people in there, the DJ was doing his best (and that wasnt great!) but he had no microphone so we didnt even know it was Christmas day til someone got their phone out. And most worrying was the fact that NO ONE was dancing. Not one person except us. Hence the pic of Nat; The Loner On The Dance Floor! Shite. Shite. SHITE! I was not impressed.

I left about one - half one as I couldnt put up with the boredom any longer and spent £15 getting a taxi home. It was nice seeing Nat, Kelly and Liz but the tension between Nat & Kelly, the pissing around trying to get in somewhere and the lack of atmosphere in the club really ruined it. Basically what a crappy Christmas Eve. Here's hoping New Years is better...no pressure!

Christmas Work Do

Lovely ain't it?! Well Thursday night was the SACA Christmas party at the Thistle Hotel. Now being organised as ever I left work at 4pm and got the bus into town and proceeded to buy my entire outfit for the party! Dress, shoes, handbag, scarf, tights (even a pair of knickers!!) I just about made it home, got changed, did my hair and got back to the Thistle for 7.30!

I was on a table with Ian, Jenna, Vicki, Jamie, Amy, Becky, Shayne and Glenn. We had bottles of wine on the table (which was bloody good since a single vodka, lime & soda was £3.40! Shocking!) The food wasn't too bad - I had Crab Mousse then Monkfish wrapped in Bacon and Raspberry Mousse. Me & Chris did make a sneaky trip to the co-op at the end of queen street between main course & dessert to buy alcohol at £5 since the bar prices were so high and a lime & soda on its own was only 50p!! Given that I drank at least 3/4 of the bottle plus rather a lot of a bottle of red wine, I was quite well gone especially when you take into consideration that I hadn't drunk for about three months prior to Thursday.

We danced loads, played on the casino tables, laughed alot. I even went on clubbing after leaving the party, to Rococo's for the first time in my life....what a freaking hole! God, I had heard bad things about it - it's regularly refered to as the cattle market - well, slaughterhouse was more like it! Seriously, I love shite clubs (I miss Hothouse for Christ sake!) but that place is something else. O well, it was an experience and I didn't stay longer than about half an hour! Still, I didn't get home til about 5 past 2 then just collapsed into bed. Safe to say I was NOT impressed when my alarm went off at 7.15 on Friday morning (Bleugh!)

I dragged myself into work shitting myself the whole way in that I was likely to get stopped by the police & get breathalised - there is no way I was legal to be behing the wheel of a car. The breakfast meeting idea was brilliant - nice one Steve. We all trekked downstairs to the meeting room to be greeted by bacon baps, sausage baps, cheese, mushroom & tomato croissants, mini blueberry muffins, mini danish pastries, biscuits, orange juice and tea & coffee. Just what we all needed...well all except Vicki who got worse rather than better & had to run off to throw up. Nice! I headed home again at 11am as I had a half day booked (I thought ahead - free hangover breakie then home!) So no more work til the 28th.

Easy viewing for me...a nap for John!

Another Wednesday, another film. The Holiday with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law and the great Jack Black. Not one of John's favourites (actually I think the phrase he used was 'it was rubbish'!) I quite liked it to be honest. It was exactly what I was hoping for - totally unbelievable festive tosh! Just what I wanted! I shall do it a bit more justice on the joint blog when I get my act together.......but I'm not making any promises!

I need to bake!

Time is running out and I have STILL not baked my Christmas goodies! O dear! I was planning on doing it Monday night (well origonally I was planning doing it at the weekend but other things happened!) but Monday I realised I was short of two ingredients I needed so it was put back, again, to today. Yea, problem is I am intending on using Grandma's kitchen (better equiped etc) but she had unexpected guests turn up for so no kitchen!

Maybe I am just not detined to bake! I have now firmly booked it in for Friday afternoon / Saturday morning depending on which day Mum decides we're to go present delivering. Nothing like leaving it until the last minute but it WILL happen!

Holidays Are Coming (still...!)

The other CocaCola ad that they are not showing! Enjoy and be festive!

8 More Sleeps Til Christmas!!!

Wooooooooooooooooooo!!!

I am getting so excited! I spent today making the house festive. I put the tree up then decided the decorations we had were crappy so went to Homebase since they have 1/2 price on all Christmas stuff. I went intending to go for traditional Christmas colours of golds and reds but the selection was pretty non existant so I went for silver instead. I got 100 tree decorations for £12.50 plus some glitter ball style things, a door wreath and a little silver reindeer along with some card hanging things.

The tree looks really good and I have a green garland with sliver balls on it over the dresser & around the outside of the living room door. I've festived outside too - the wreath is on the door, I cleaned the front steps and got some fir & ivy to make a base for the reindeer & Grandad put up my snowman lights too.

I will take some photos and post them soon as, tomorrow hopefully although I am baking tomorrow evening as I didnt do it today!

Anyways, I am off to bed for my Christmas Minus 8 sleep!!

Merry Christmas everyone!

50 weeks down, two weeks to go.

Here we are at the end of the second week in December, well on our way to Christmas and not far off 2007.

Since getting home from Newcastle I have been back at work doing jack shit as per usual. I have to say that for a company of its size and stature EDF would have difficulty organising a piss up in a brewery. So thats work pretty much summed up then! Well apart from the fact that I have finally got my own official desk - yay for me! I am on a pod with Glenn, Steve T, Maria, Paul & Gareth so feel abit out on a limb but its a desk all the same. We had bacon & sausage bagettes for breakfast to 'celebrate' out new desks! As it is the festive season too we have been decorating the desks and I took charge of decorating our pod with tinsel & a mini tree (Maria supplied the lights & chocolates - Go Maria!) I also have a little reindeer family & two Father Christmas card holders - what can I say, I like Christmas! Oh, I also have something of a Winnie the Pooh collection building on my desk, well more Tigger (with a sprinkling of Eeyore) but still they are all from the same Disney family. I have my Tigger mug, glass & toy, Eeyore toy & Hundred Acre Wood mouse mat....no, seriously I AM 23! We had our team Christmas meal in the work restaurant on Friday which was quite good. Certainly good value at £2.50 for three courses! Obviously it is not Gordon Ramsey but it was nice enough and you really have no right to complain at that price.

John & I have had a hectic couple of weeks. We have been to the cinema twice; on the 6th to see Little Children which was complete trash but we did get free Tia Maria and again on the 14th to see Pans Labyrinth which is brilliant. You know the score now, head to John & TA - Doing Stuff for details.

We also had a trip up to Cribbs Causeway on Saturday. We did question if we were mad going up so close to Christmas but we set off early to avoid traffic and that seemed to work. We arrived at about 9ish and had a coffee before some highly stratigic browsing, working from one end of the centre to the other on each floor before lunch. After lunch we set about shopping with purpose! Got some great gifts and one or two bits for myself. When we left the shops at about 4pm (I know - how long were we in there?!) we made a quick pitstop at the entertainment part of Patchway to see if the Prestige was on at the UCI Cinema there but we were out of luck so we made our way back towards home.

As we came up to Taunton I decided to take a detour to check the cinema there for the Prestige. I managed to get lost multiple times trying to get into and out of the cinema complex carpark area and it was all for nothing since the film wasn't on there either! We stopped off at the Beefeater at Countess Wear for food on the way home. It was a really good, albeit long, day and I really enjoyed it.

Other than that its been all work, same old same old. O well, soon be Christmas....

Holidays are coming!

'They' are not showing the Holidays are Coming CocaCola advert this year (I know - Shocking!) So as I do not believe it is really Christmas until I see this ad I have posted here for all to enjoy...

Off Up North!

December started off really well with me and Mum flying up to Newcastle with use of the tickets I won on Gemini last year. I was really excited about going especially since John had said it was a really nice city when he went up and even more so since I found out that the Metro Centre in Gateshead is the biggest shopping centre in the whole of Europe - Woo!



We had a slight issue at check-in in Exeter as we weren't intending to check any bags but we ended up having to as although you are now OK to take liquids in hand luggage they have to be in containers of less than 100ml which many of ours weren't. Soon rectified though and even better was the fact that the dim boy on the counter didn't charge us (it's supposed to be £6 per bag) Anyway we landed in Newcastle at about 11.30 and caught the Metro to Jesmond to find the B&B we had booked. After collecting our key & dumping our bags we caught the bus into the city centre then caught a second bus out to the Metro Centre, my number 1 priority!

The place really is HUGE! God, I could've spent a whole week there never mind an afternoon! We went to Nando's for lunch where I had a really nice Mediterranean Chicken Salad (lemon & herb chicken) and Mum had a Chicken Breast in Pitta with fries (medium peri-peri chicken) All was fine until Mum poured Garlic Peri-Peri sauce over all her chips with out trying some first! It was really nice but a little hot, especially when it was on EVERY chip; pouring some on the side of the plate and dipping would have been more advisable me thinks! The bottomless drinks (unlimited refils) came in very handy. We then shopped, shopped, shopped! The stores are A-Maze-Ing. Even though a lot of them are just regular highstreet stores the selection in them is so much better than what we have at home. Take Primark as an example:- there is all the stuff you see in the magazines the supossedly comes from Primark but you never see yet there it all was! I got an amazing pair of tartan heels in there, another pair of shoes that I obviously need! After hours of shopping we had to give in to the sore feet and headed back into the city centre. We watched the ice skating at the outdoor rink near the life centre then had a couple drinks at a bar called Twist before going back to the B&B for an early-ish night. I had had plans for getting changed and going out to experience the Newcastle nightlife but unfortunately Mum had been on a breakdown with Dad the Friday night and then we had been up early Saturday morning so we opted for an early night instead.

Sunday started with a great breakfast in the B&B; cereal, fruit juice, toast and cooked breakfast. Feeling totally stuffed we made our way into the city centre and waited around for everything to open at 10.30. We did some serious browsing in BHS then had a Christmas coffee in Starbucks then shopped some more. We had to buy a new pair of trainers each since I had blisters & Mums feet were aching so much in her boots. We also had to buy a big holdall for all the stuff we had bought - no way was it all going to fit in our little bags!

In the afternoon we went to the cinema to see Happy Feet, the animated film about a dancing penguin called Mumble. Now anyone who knows me will know how much I love animated films so this one was a big hit with me. It has a great cast list with names like Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Robin Williams and obviously Elijah Wood as Mumble. The story follows Mumble who hasn't got a heartsong, something that is held special by all Emperor Penguins, because he can't sing but man, can he dance! I think Mum was suprised by the depth of the story - the discrimination, the famine, the global warming. When we talked about it afterwards was when she realised that all Disney films contain quite deep messages.

Sunday evening we went down to the Quayside to see the bridges lit up and take some photo's. We then had a drink in the Pitcher & Piano before moving on to the Slug & Lettuce for a meal. We shared a platter which was made up of a selection on wings & ribs, garlic bread, jalipino (sp?) poppers (jalipino peppers stuffed with a spicy cheese filling, coated in breadcrumbs) potato wedges and chips - God, we felt SO fat when we left!

We flew home on Monday morning after a really great weekend. I would really love to go up again, the city is great and the shopping is a dream. I could quite happily live in a place like that, I hadnt realised how much I missed being in a big city. So here's hoping....

Wasn't November boring?

After a hectic start to the month it was all pretty dull from the 12th to the 30th with the exception of a couple days.


First interesting day was Children in Need on the 17th. Now I must stress I am clutching at straws by classing this as an 'interesting day'. We had a dress down at work for which we all donated £1 each. They also ran a raffle which I bought tickets for. The first prize was a mountain bike then there were three runners up prizes; a large Pudsey and two small Pudsey hand puppets. Claire, the girl I carshare with won the bike and I won the large Pudsey. He is really soft and comes in his own box (very posh!) but rather randomly he growls (since when has Pudsey growled?!) and he has got rather alot of pen marks on him from when Matt, who organised the raffle, was carrying him around the office showing people. Maybe that is why he growls - he's angry at being violated with a magic marker! I had a hairdressers appointment after work which was nice - I love going to the hairdressers. It was just a tidy up but its nice being pampered.

The next day of any interest was Wednesday 22nd when , just for a change, John & I went to the cinema (!) This week was the turn of the new Bond movie, Casino Royale with the amazingly GORGEOUS Daniel Craig! We went to The Meeting House (the other Weatherspoon's pub in town) Before we went into the pub though we went and had a gawp at a crash that had taken place on the roundabout at the end of the road. There were police cars (with very unorganised policemen in them!) ambulances and TWO fire engines (two fire engines = twice as many fireMEN!!) We thought we were going to see use of the Jaws of Life to cut a chav out of one of the cars involved but the paramedics kept inconsiderantly getting in the way so we retreated to the pub for food! We had a very nice meal with quick service unlike last time we went to the Meeting House when we waited an hour for out starter! We then wandered up to the Picture House for the film which was brilliant. I had heard mixed reviews but I loved it. I thought it really set up the whole Bond story and Daniel Craig makes a great Bond in my humble opinion. People keep moaning that Bond cant be blonde but lets look at this logically - Bond has been Scottish, Irish, English....so why can't he be blonde? We have, obviously, reviewed on the joint blog.

The final day of interest in November came on the last Sunday of the month when Clare & I went to Johns for Sunday lunch cooked by John's fair hand since he had got the COOK with Jamie (Oliver) book for his birthday - thanks Hev!

There was a slight mix up between me and Clare regarding travel plans - I offered to pick her up but as I received no reply I went directly to John's then Clare rang to say she was waiting for me and where was I? Not to worry, she made it by herself. John cooked a lovely veggie pasta dish of 'upright cannelloni' which was yummy (altho definately looked more presentable BEFORE serving than after when it just looked a mess!) and for pudding we had Eton Mess which was, again, yummy, all finished off with coffee which I got for John as part of his birthday present. We then sat and chatted for hours, browsed the internet, listened to the dodgy songs on the Amateur Transplants site; home of the London Underground song. Clare brought her Chirstmas presents with her too since we won't see her again before then. It was a really nice day.

That was basically it for November, we didn't go to the cinema the following week since I had a totally shit day at work, more on that later but basically I had such a headache and felt physically sick by the end of the day so I just headed home for an early night.

Roll on December....roll on CHRISTMAS! Woo!

What a week....

After an enjoyable Bonfire Night it was back to work as normal...well, not quite as before since this week my hours changed from 9-5 to 8-4. Nothing drastic I know but nice to be home before 4.30, makes the day seem shorter if that makes sense. I also started a new car share with a girl called Claire who lives in Alphington. There is another lad meant to be joining us in a month or so and we are hoping that 3 of us car sharing will swing us a perminant carpark space at work.

John and I changed our regular cinematic plans by going to Picture House on the Tuesday evening rather than the Wednesday. As John was without car (his mum was using it!) I drove down to Teignmouth to pick him up. We went to see TransAmerica as part of Picture House Exeter's 10th birthday celebrations. I really enjoyed the film, I felt it had a good balance of comedy and drama. John wasn't so keen but not to worry! We also had a nice meal had Weatherspoons and then I dropped John home again and it was REALLY foggy, you could barely see 10 metres ahead of you. Not nice driving conditions.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!

On the Wednesday John joined me at the ripe old age of 23 and I went to his house after work for a meal with his family. We went to watch Monty Python's Life of Brian on DVD which John got as one of his birthday presents but for some reason (age?!) we were both shattered and fell asleep half way through! Oh dear! I drove home with some struggle and straight to bed. Ah the exciting life of a twenty something!

The rest of the week was pretty dull, I had the Friday off work and spent a lazy day doing not much. The weekend started off much the same but the Sunday was a bit more interesting...

Who You Gonna Call?! GHOSTBUSTERS!!!

John and I went to the Picture House Breakfast Club where they were showing the first Ghostbusters movie. We were really looking forward to it but it did not live up to expectations which was a shame given that we usually sing the praises of Picture House. They opened late (possibly due to being Rememberance Sunday but no explaination was given so who knows) then the service was slow, the atmosphere was dull and to top it all they played the film reels in the wrong order which whilst amusing was rather annoying. All in all not an experience I am in any rush to repeat.

So that was my week...for more detailed reports on the cinema head over to 'John & TA - Doing Stuff' Actually head over there anyway & feel free to comment! Not that I am hinting...more BEGGING!