The Oscars - Doing it for the Brits!

The Brits were wowing the crowds with the rest of Tinsel Towns finest and looking bloody good doing it!

Helen Mirren

The Queen of the Oscars (who was seen waving a little Union Jack!)

Cate Blanchett

Shimmering in her slinky dress.


Kate Winslet
Looking stunning in pale green


Emily Brunt
Showing her Devil Wears Prada co-stars how its done.

And, in his velvet tux - Clare's Dave......oh no - wrong!

It's James McAvoy!

The Oscars - Special Awards

The Most Visual Impact Award goes to the beautiful Penelope Cruz who manages not only to pull off wearing a massively feathered dress but looks truly stunning in it. Nice One Pen!




















The How To Work A Dress Award goes to Portia De Rossi, girlfriend of Oscars Host Ellen DeGeneres - WOW!

The Cutest Red Carpet Arrivals Awards go to Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin looking adorable in her pink dress and Will Smith and his son Jaden - there's is a lady killer in the making!

Now come on, as one, you know you want to -Awww!

The What Is That About Award goes to Anne Hathaway & Meryl Streep, stars of THE fashion film - The Devil Wears Prada (while Meryl did....still doesn't scream OSCARS at me...maybe better UNDER the mac?!)

The Oscars - the important stuff........

WHO WAS WEARING WHAT!

A few of the bevvy of beauties....

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Reece Witherspoon

Gwyneth Paltrow

Cameron Diaz


Beyonce

Jodie Foster

The Oscars...who REALLY won

Last night was the 79th Annual Academy Awards and following on from my post on who I thought should win here's who did win...in case my blog is the only sauce of information you have ;-)

Best Picture - The Departed

Actor in a Leading Role – Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland)
Actress in a Leading Role – Helen Mirren (The Queen)

Actor in a Supporting Role – Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine)
Actress in a Supporting Role – Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls)
Animated Feature – Happy Feet

Foreign Language Film – The Lives of Others

Another week gone

I can’t believe it is already nearly the end of February; this year is going really quickly so far. Work is as rubbish as ever (especially since this week I had to do two days of 8am – 6pm to make up four hours that I owed for last week!

Tuesday the dress I bought on EBay at the weekend arrived (bargain – Monsoon dress, brand new with tags should have been £160 in the shop for £30 including postage!) Thing is it had a one too many tags…namely the SECURITY TAG! We got it off thankfully although it did tear the lining slightly (thankfully it was only on the lining and not on the actual dress itself) The girl I bought it off was really good though – she offered to send me down the shop receipt so I could get it removed if needs be but we managed - yay for strong magnets!

Wednesday John & I went to see ‘Venus’, the new Peter O’Toole movie at the Picture House. Its my turn to review the film on the joint blog but to be honest I am at a bit of a loss as to what to say about it…I shall give it some thought and then do my best.

Friday I had a really desire to go out so we tried to book a table at Waterfront but they were full so I went down to John’s and we went to the Pen Inn for food………hmm. I decided to have a steak (menu said Rib-eye but they were doing sirloin instead) I chose the steak mainly because a/ I haven’t had steak in AGES and b/ they offered it with Stilton Sauce which I LOVE. John settled, unadventurously, on a jacket potato with Chilli Beans (after telling me off because I was thinking of having sausage and mash and I could have that at home!) I went to order & was told firstly – no stilton sauce (grr) and then no chilli! I stuck with steak but had a pepper sauce and John ended up with Tuna Mayo jacket potato. The food arrived quickly enough and was well cooked. The salad was tasteless but the steak was nice. We then foolishly ordered dessert. This is where the evening really went a bit wrong. I had a summer pudding (which I know I was stupid given that it’s February!) but you can get some nice pre-prepared stuff so I thought it would be ok. It arrived surrounded with pouring cream rather than send the cream on the side which seemed odd and you had no choice as to if you had a mouthful with cream or without. The pudding itself was so sharp and the texture was like soggy cardboard. Really pleasant….not! John had profiteroles with ice-cream & choc toffee sauce. The choux tasted stale since it appeared the ice-cream had been piped in and then they were all kept in the freezer and the sauce tasted really sickly with a cocoa aftertaste – nice! Needless to say I won’t be rushing back there for another meal! Oh, and before we left I nipped to the loo (now I realise that is not a good start to a sentence but trust me – its funny!) I walked into the cubicle and turned round to shut the door…only I couldn’t. There was no room! I had to climb over the toilet to create (just) enough room for the door to swing shut. Then the bolt wouldn’t slide across. I tried leaning against the door and wiggling the bolt and then I thought it went in but as soon as I turned round the door popped open again. I decided that, to be honest, I really wasn’t that desperate so would just leave. Except I couldn’t get out! I had to stand with one leg either side of the toilet bowl, open the door and then swing my right leg over the toilet to escape! What a bloody fiasco! God knows how you’d cope if you were old or hugely fat…thankfully we got back to Johns in good time where I was allowed to make use his (roomy) bathroom – thank you John!

I had quite a busy weekend which makes a nice change. I went into town Saturday morning with the intention of getting some shoes to match my EBay/Monsoon dress and to try of a pair of smart, long shorts to see if they looked totally ridiculous or not. I ended up being in town from 10 until gone 3 and bought loads! I got two pairs of shoes that could go with the dress, a pair of knee length shorts in next (they looked ok in my humble opinion and when it comes to what I am wearing my opinion is the only one that counts!), 2 pairs of VERY black tights (to go with shorts) 3 t-shits, a nice top, a pair of jeans, Devil Wears Prada DVD…think that’s it! I was knackered when I eventually got home so went for a long soak in the bath and then I had to rouse myself to get ready to go out with Nat & Kelly. My new shorts and nice top got their first outing. We had a really good night but I drank too much (we were on wine & lots of it!) and there are various bits of the night that are a bit hazy and some bits that have gone altogether (I don’t remember leaving the club!) I did however make it to the Chinese on the way home which was yummy and I think played a part in me NOT throwing up Sunday morning!

I did however wake up at 8am with one hell of a headache and a really dry mouth. I made it downstairs to get drugs, a glass of water & a mug of tea before crawling back into bed where I stayed (albeit) until I got up at 2pm. Even then I only got up because I had to get ready to go out at 3pm! I managed to shower and dress and get downstairs with time to eat the rest of my Chinese from out the fridge (I was sensible enough to only put some on a plate and the rest in the fridge in my drunken state at 2 in the morning!!) before we went to watch Holiday On Ice – Fantasy. Work had an offer on that we could get £23 tickets for £12 each with no booking fee so I got 4 tickets and me, mum, Courts & Rach went. It was really good. The costumes were stunning, there was good music and it was a great show. It was all based around dreams and daydreams. One of my favourite bits was a 60s related daydream but that was mostly because they danced to The Locomotion! The fire ritual was really impressive with dark characters, gothic angel types, a guy who I assume represented the devil (since he was totally red) and a skater in a jester outfit including freaky mask who did tricks with flaming sticks and poi whist skating and it all climaxed with a girl being spun over the head of her male partner inside a ring of flames on the ice. There were also acrobatic performances with two men and one woman doing tricks with ribbons, ropes & a hoop all suspended from the ceiling which were cool. The finale of the show culminated in the skaters ‘becoming the music’ as they dressed as instruments, musical notes and conductors then all the lights went off and their costumes lit up, banner things came down from the ceiling and there were fireworks – very impressive.

I watched Devil Wears Prada when I got home then headed to bed for an early night. So I had a busy but really good weekend.

My Oscar Winners

Since its the 79th Annual Academy Awards tonight I thought I would share who I want to win the big ones...

Best Picture - Little Miss Sunshine

Actor in a Leading Role – Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland)

Actress in a Leading Role – Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal) or Helen Mirren (The Queen) Tough call to pick my favourite but I think Helen will get it.

Actor in a Supporting Role – Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine)

Actress in a Supporting Role – Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine)

Animated Feature – Happy Feet

Foreign Language Film – Pan’s Labyrinth

What a weekend!

Well this makes a change – I actually DID stuff this weekend! Well, not during the day time admittedly but still!

Friday night I entrusted my car to Bill and Dad to take on a 12 Car (basically a road rally) Dad has been trying to find a travel sickness cure so he can get back to navigating and this was his first test of some new pills. Mum, Caz, Courtenay and James (more about him later!) signed up as marshals and I decided to ride in the back of my car with Bill and Dad. There was some intricate plotting taking place in the pub – not an easy route to plot. Turned out there were only three cars competing which is shockingly bad really. We started well (except for the very loud scraping, crunching noise from the underside of the car about 100yrds from the start!) Dads’ navigating is so good, I really wish I was even half as good as him but we can look at the same section on a map and I just don’t see what he does. His problem is the needing to throw up and sure enough no more than 20minutes in and we had to make a hasty stop. We tried once more but didn’t get very far before once again Dad was out and heaving in a hedge. It was pretty obvious we were fighting a losing battle so we let the next control know we were giving up and then made our way (much more sedately!) to where Mum was marshalling next. We then pootled back to the pub were it was all due to finish and Bill had said “At least now we wont do anymore damage to TAs car!” I did warn him not to tempt fate and sure enough we drove serenely up to the pub and Bill nearly drove straight into a VERY big tree in the middle of the carpark since he was looking at something else!!

It is a real shame that Dad gets so sick since he enjoys the navigating so much and he’s really really good at it. It’s also bloody ridiculous that the club events are so poorly supported. I mean, 3 cars for a 12 car and two of the marshalling teams were supplied by us (Mum & Co and then Marion & Steve who are friends of Mum & Dads) We did say to Bob, the motor club chairman, that they need to get the website sorted out – make sure the events calendar is up to date and the events actually run, get some new photos on their, some stories from members; anything to catch peoples eye. His retort was that new people were more likely to turn up to a gymkhana than a 12 Car but we said that they’re not going to turn up to anything if it’s not on there or if the calendar looks empty. If they arrange lots of stuff and have a good mix of events then people are going to think it looks like a good club that knows what it is doing thus making it worth while getting involved. I get the feeling it probably fell on deaf ears but we’ll see.

Saturday night me and Courts had tickets for the Rocky Horror Show at the Princess Theatre Torquay. We decided not to dress up (we didn’t really have time to plan outfits since I only booked the tickets on Friday!) When we got down there I realised I had forgotten to get any cash out so I only had £10 on me that needed to cover parking, programme and a drink! It just scraped it although I should have forgone the two drinks and got one bottle to share and the better programme but never mind! We did wish that we had dressed up when we saw everyone but there were plenty of people not dressed up.

The show itself was absolutely brilliant. Christopher Biggins was the narrator and Frank ‘n’ Furter was played by David Dedella (the guy who played Carlos, Trisha’s boyfriend in Holby City)! There was lots of audience participation with shoutbacks and people singing along and obviously everyone standing up to do the Time Warp! The first half was marred a bit by the fact we had two really tall guys in front of us so we couldn’t see half the time but in the second half they had a re-shuffle with their friends we could see! They did God-knows how many curtain calls at the end before doing the Time Warp again and by the time we made our way out our hands were hurting from clapping them so much! I really want to go and see it again now! Actually I did watch the DVD on Sunday!!

Other than my DVD watching Sunday wasn’t very exciting – I read, played on the tinterweb, bought a dress on Ebay (by accident – I put on a really low bid thinking I would never get it…but I did!) then had an early night since I was fighting to keep my eyes open watching TopGear.

Oh – about James, mentioned earlier. When I got home on Friday I discovered that we had a year 10 boy staying with us since things have kicked off at home for him and he had nowhere else to go…all a bit odd really since it was arranged though Social Services but I won’t go into details on here. Christ, makes me sound a bit more important than I ever will be doesn’t it – like people are going to be trawling my blog for suspicious government goings-on!!! Anyways, he’s likely to be with us until Tuesday at least.

Worked an 8-6 today to make up for messing up my hours last week and am doing the same tomorrow as I had 2 hours off on Friday for an appointment then back to my 8-4’s Wednesday – Friday this week. Got something planned every weekend for the next couple of weeks; Holiday on Ice this weekend, Major Business Convention next week then the South West Enduro rally the week after (although I am not 100% sure whether I am going to that since Dad has told Steve he can go but hasn’t checked if we have two or three seats in the van. He is going to have to find out this week since I have time booked off work and I don’t really want to lose two days holiday if I’m not going to be going anywhere.)

Isn’t time marching on?

I can’t believe it’s the middle of February already.

We had a dress down day at work yesterday – Wear Something Red – in aid of Mencap. I wore red shoes, gloves, scarf – lost my gloves & my shoes rubbed! Two peoples from work are running London Marathon, so the money is going towards their final fundraising total. They had decorated the entrance hall with red balloons and heart cutouts in honour of it being Valentines Day!

Speaking of 'V-Day' - well it was the same as every other day...dull!

John and I went to the cinema last night (surprise surprise!) We watched the highly acclaimed Babel – what total rubbish. Well that was my thought on it anyway! It could have been good but it wasn't. There was a random Japanese thread that added nothing to the film in my opinion so could've been stripped out which would have made the rest of the film more coherent and it would've made it SO much more of a bearable length (as opposed to the 140+ minutes that we endured!) John's going to give his thoughts at some stage on the joint blog so have a look.

So that brings us to today…nothing to report! As I said, dull, dull, DULL. Oh well, life goes on!

Happy Birthday Courts

HAPPY 16TH BIRTHDAY COURTENAY!

We went for a nice family meal at the Swan’s Nest. Dad looked dead on his feet but then he had been up on a breakdown at half one in the morning! Mum and Dad opted for the carvery, Courts went for a veggie pasta bake with garlic bread and I had a seafood mixed grill which was really nice.

I hoped I’d saved room for pudding but, alas, I did not! It was a really nice meal, a bit of a quick night but my neck was killing me (it woke me up in the night and I was walking around like I had a neckbrace on all day) and Dad was knackered. We told Courts we’ll have to go out for pudding some time!

My night has been rounded of with a strong painkiller and an early night!

Weekends nearly over

Hmm, Friday was a weird day. Lyn & I were filling forms to enter the team for an Excellence in Business award at the Major Business Convention and I saw a mail flash up on Jamie’s computer from Vicki. I’m not going to go into details but it wasn’t nice. It really riled me; here was us stating on a form that we were a happy team with high moral and good team spirit and part of the team was acting like a total child. The endless bitchy atmosphere sucks. It really put me off the idea of the team night out we had planned for that night too. After speaking to Mum about it though I decided I wasn’t going to let one immature little girl ruin my plans so I got my glad rags on and headed out to meet the others.

The final attendees were; Me, Shayne, Gemma (who didn’t eat, just joined us for drinks) Jamie, Vicki, Amy, Carol, Jenna, Lyn & Lyn’s husband, Ray. We met at the Waterfront on the Quay for Pizza and Drinks. I had planned not to drink but that soon went out the window when I bought a bottle of wine! The food was great (me and Shayne split a duck pizza and a portion of chips) and amazingly the atmosphere was really good. Steve Williams popped in at 10ish for a quick drink. Then me, Shayne, Gemma, Jamie, Vicki and Amy headed on to Arena for more drinking and dancing. Em, Lisa & Phil were already there when we arrived and we all danced ourselves silly. I made a move at about 1.30 (when I left Amy had her head down the toilet – classy!) I ended up having a really good night.

Yesterday I was up early and Grandma gave me a lift to the Quay to pick up my car and I popped into Matalan and got a couple new tops. The rest of the day was devoted to the strenuous activities of finishing HP5, starting HP6 (the Half-Blood Prince) oh, and sleeping! And yup, today has involved much of the same! Hard life! day!

Improving myself as a person!

Today I had a half day at work – I didn’t start until about midday. I had a meeting arranged for the morning with a girl called Kristy from Business in the Community. She was setting me up to take part in a volunteering scheme called Right to Read where you listen to children read. You give up an hour of your time each week and spend 15 minutes each with four children, listening to them read and helping them if they need it. Kristy introduced me to the headmaster at a local school where they are looking for extra volunteers. It seems like a really good scheme. I just need to wait for my CRB check to come back before I can start.

Since I had some extra time after my meeting I settled myself in the restaurant at work and made some serious headway towards finishing me re-read of Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix.

We had a team meeting at work this afternoon and I basically put my hands up and said I haven’t got a clue what I am doing. Hopefully this will be a step forward to getting things sorted.

Cinema Again!

What a confusing couple of days – after going to the cinema on Monday my body was convinced it was Thursday yesterday thus making today Friday and the end of the week but nope, it’s only Wednesday! Breaking from routine should not be done!

Anyways, we went to the cinema again tonight, Picture House to see Notes On A Scandal with Jame Dudi! The guy on the snack counter was a snotty little being but never mind! We were in the bigger of the two screens and sat right at the very back in the corner, I think he put us there on purpose since I told him he was rude!

The film was SO good. Jame Dudi was her usual brilliant self, this time in a role as a psychotic ugly stalking lesbian (well that sums it up anyway)! It certainly wasn’t her most glamorous role! Switch over to the ‘Doing Stuff’ blog to read my review.

One was not amused

Today was all sorted when I got up –I was on 10-6, so I could help mum do the horses, get home, get read and then spend some time reading my book before going into work for 10am. Things started to unravel when my bloody car wouldn’t start. I think I left the CD player on pause since I got home from Clare’s yesterday so the battery was a flat as a pancake. Grandma gave me a lift into work but I still didn’t get in til 11. Crap! I mailed Claire who I used to carshare with when I got to work to see if I could have a lift home. The response I got – “My boyfriend is picking me up so I have to ask him if he minds” Nice, thanks. Given that I took Danny home for her the other day so she could go straight to Dawlish but never mind. As it was I didn’t need a lift anyways as I had to go into town to meet John.

I was mighty pissed off when I walked out the door at 6pm just as the B Bus pulled away so I had to march over to the Park & Ride. The bus there seemed to just sit there for AGES while I watched the time tick by. I got off the bus near the Vue at the top of town and then marched full pelt down the middle of town to the Picture House and got there for 6.40 which wasn’t bad I thought! We used John’s complimentary tickets from when they screwed up Ghostbusters (I would just like to say – I got nothing!) We went to see The Queen with Helen Mirren. I really liked it, it was a good film and it bought back a lot of memories from when Princess Diana died; the public mourning, the flowers, the funeral. They used a lot of archive footage from the news reports from that time in the film. And best of all for the night? We didn’t get locked in!

A’Visiting I Go!

I have had a really nice weekend – I went to visit Clare in Salisbury. I was up early on Saturday to make sure I wouldn’t arrive with Clare too late. I finally got away from home at about 9 and spent the whole way cursing – firstly the fact I was driving into the sun and secondly the fact that the A303 is a totally SHITE road!

Anyways, I got to Clare’s in good time (at about 10.30) After somewhat surprising her since I had driven so quickly we motivated ourselves to go into town (Dave was still in bed) we headed in Salisbury town. I was intending to get some cash out but I managed to leave my wallet in the car so Clare lent me some money. We headed to Subway for food (we were REALLY hungry!) Clare then showed me the culinary delights of Salisbury starting with an Aladdin’s Cave of a cook shop! I could have bought everything in the shop (I didn’t but I COULD have!) We then went to a great shop that sold all different oils, vinegars and accompaniments (along with a lot of wine!) They had so many tasters and samples that we could have bypassed Subway but never mind! Again, I had to resist the need to buy everything in sight.

After a wonder around some other shops and the market (where I bought a bag of mixed Turkish Delight) Clare took me to ‘look through the window’ at the chocolate shop. Now, I know this sounds odd but Clare claims Dave only ever let her look, never actually go in (much the same as Grandma did to me with some Black Forrest Gateaux when we were IN the Black Forrest!) Anyway, we looked through the window and it looked good…so, we went inside! Just to look! So we looked closer from inside and it looked and smelt good…so we decided to stay and have a drink! On sitting down and just taking an quick look at the menu we decided against the Hot Chocolate and opted instead to have a cold drink…and a piece of cake! Clare went for the Chocolate Fudgey Cake and I obviously had to choose the BFG (Black Forrest Gateaux not the Big Friendly Giant!)

OMG – the slices were HUGE! Clare’s cake was like a solid brick of chocolateness! Gorgeous but SO sickly rich. My BFG was rich but not too rich. By the time we finished, well I finished – Clare just couldn’t finish! Then just as we were attempting to bend over to pick up our bags and pay the owner announced “It’s 4pm on a Saturday…I think it’s time for a chocolate!” and with that offered up a tray full of beautiful looking chocs! So wanted one but no room! Playing for time, Clare asked what they all were and then picked the only one he didn’t know (new sample!) so she had to eat it there and then to tell him what she thought! Turned out it was an ultra rich dark chocolate surrounded by white chocolate – really nice but not what she needed after the slab of cake! I picked a yummy Baileys Surprise which was a soft, Bailey’s flavoured fondant sounded by milk chocolate. After our chocolate extravaganza we walked…well no, waddled around to the cathedral which look stunning in the late sunshine.

We made our way back to Clare and Dave’s flat via Smiths to get Clare’s knitting magazines and Blockbuster to get a DVD (we wanted Chocolat (!) but they didn’t have it so we opted for Little Miss Sunshine) When we got back to the flat Dave had surfaced (well obviously, it was quite late in the day!) but he was surprised we still had to get the ingredients for the dinner! After a quick sit down I had my first introduction to Waitrose (where I forgot my wallet AGAIN!) Clare made a lovely Beef and Ale casserole (which I want the recipe for please Clare!) She also managed to freeze the wine but it was all ok in the end! We watched the first of our DVDs while the casserole was doing it’s thing – High School Musical. Hmm, it is so hilariously bad its well, bad! Clare’s face was a picture from start to finish! Classic! We then sat down for food was yummy, wine was (very!) chilled and the company was great.

After dinner we watched Little Miss Sunshine which was a brilliant movie. I wanted to watch it at the cinema but John wasn’t keen but I am really glad I have seen it now. Come the end though I just couldn’t stay awake any longer so Clare, dear of her, made up the airbed and I put my head down for the night after a really enjoyable day.

Sunday I was awake early but I read my magazine for an hour or so before getting up. Clare surfaced when I started putting dishes in the sink! We headed into town for me to treat Clare to Sunday lunch. We went to The Haunch of Venison for a gorgeous mixed roast, which we hoped to follow up with Bread & Butter Pudding, but they had no B&B (apparently it was ‘yesterday’!) so we both went for the Sticky Toffee Pud. A really nice meal. After picking up a couple bottles in the Oil & Vinegar shop I decided it was time to head home. Again I picked the wrong time of day – leaving Salisbury at half 2 had me driving with a faceful of sun the whole way home which gave me a headache!

Even a headache couldn’t make the weekend a bad one though – it was really great catching up with Clare and I had a lovely time. Salisbury is a really nice place and knowing Clare is there just gives me more reason to go back.

So, thank you Clare for a lovely weekend and thank you Dave for letting me impose and pinch your girlfriend for a weekend.

Oh, and Dave does look like James McAvoy!

BREAKING NEWS!!!

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS RELEASED 21ST JULY 2007!!!

Woo!!! I am SO SO SO SO SO SO SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited that JK Rowling has finally announced the release date of the 7th and final book in the Harry Potter series! I even have a countdown calendar on my desk at work where I can cross of the days not to mention the flashy one I have added at the top of here!

I have been re-reading the 5th book – Order of the Phoenix – in preparation of the 5th film coming out on the 13th July, which I was excited enough about but now….well, what can I say?! I have been threatening to hunt Rowling down and beg, kick and scream until she told me what was going to happen but now, thankfully, I won’t need to!

I have to say though, as pleased I am to have a date and as much as I can not wait to read it I am a bit apprehensive about what is going to happen. I mean, are we going to see Sirius again? Is Snape really loyal to Voldemort or the Order? Are Hermione and Ron finally going to get together?! And the most important question of all – is Harry going to die?

What ever happens, all I can say is…
BRING ON JULY – HARRY POTTER EXTRAVEGANZA!!!