Day 124 - Date with a Dino

4th May 2013

Got up this morning planning to do as little as possible. I pretty much managed it.

Claire and I spent a few hours in the front room, making many cups of tea and chatting. For a second I could convince myself that she still lived here and it made me happy. Then I remembered she didn't. Sad.

After our many cups of tea we wandered into town as Claire was meeting some friends for dinner an dI wanted to see what I could do about my phone. Naturally, we tired at Ealing Broadway and stopped for coffee. Joy!

Phone unable to be repaired/replaced quickly as I did the sensible thing of smashing my phone on a bank holiday weekend. Wednesday being my earliest chance, I wended my way back home, settled in with my delicious green chocolate Dino - thanks Lynsey! - and a massive glass of orange juice and relaxed the rest of the day away. Lovely.

Stephie

xxx

Day 123 - Happy Birthday to me! Smash.

3rd May 2013

It's my birthday! Quarter of a century old now, I hear it's all downhill from here? But then I suspect I've heard that every year since birth.

First message came through at some ridiculous time in the morning from my lovely friend Remi. Remi has a very young, beautiful baby, so I suspect baby Amelia had more to do with the timing than Remi's eagerness to send me birthday wishes. I could be wrong. 

Something I was greatly looking forward to was my birthday message from Joe, Ruth and Susie. I've been getting video messages since Joe was a baby, and they have increased in their awesomeness with every year.

My birthday 2010...

2011...

...2013!

Sadly, 2012 is on Facebook only, not Youtube. Sorry dudes. Trust me though, awesome.

This year was great, early morning hearing 'Good Time' going as I got ready for work, surprisingly good get up tune, who knew?

School was fun. The kids loved that it was my birthday, and made me playdough birthday cakes all day long. I got three renditions of Happy Birthday from each session of Nursery and Reception, two of them included 25 claps. Those claps never seemed to end.

At the end of the day while I was sitting with a few children still waiting to be collected, a child from the morning session crept back in and surprised me with these flowers! His mum said he had come home and insisted that they needed to get me some, and picked these out himself. To say my heart melted would be an understatement.

I came home to find some macarons from Tom, amazing. They didn't last long. Ahem.

That evening we headed out to Wahaca. The plan had been Bodean's, but alas, the universe didn't want us to go there. Wahaca's still good and it was a fantastic night, I was highly spoilt by my fantastic friends with some amazing gifts, and had so much fun seeing so many of them all in one place. I had the crowing glory of being sung Happy Birthday to a fourth time, this time in a restaurant, but there was real edible cake this time so I was able to forgive them. Tasty.

After getting absolutely stuffed, we headed home completely shattered. I was shattered yet excitable...I knew who would be waiting for me...CLAIRE! SO HAPPY! I wish we'd had more energy, but the end of the week was too much I think. We all sat down for a lovely chat and a little glass of wine before each retiring to beddy byes.

An almost entirely lovely day. Why not entirely lovely? Well, me being me, I did this today.

Damn.

Stephie

xxx

Day 122 - Work goodies

2nd May 2013

Like a lot of other workplaces, at school you bring in some goodies for your birthday. Being in the baking mood I have been recently, I decided I would make things rather than just buy stuff.

I had such big plans. I had some box mixes to make cupcakes, and also fancied making a big cake. I popped into town to get extra ingredients and that's where it fell down a bit.

Whilst there I got a message from Nich saying "....I'm in the pub. Just...fyi." I'm not made of stone! How could I turn something like that down? I went over to the pub, dumped my shopping in Nich's house and settled down. We were at The Haven Arms, so I was able to order my amazing burger of dreams. It made me every bit as happy as it had before. It's beautiful. If you're in Ealing and fancy a burger, ignore GBK, ignore anywhere else, go here. Make sure you order it with Bacon and Cheese as well, apparently it makes all the difference.

Of course, my plans were thrown off somewhat. Got to a point where I thought I would end up getting up early to go to Morrisons to buy goodies. Eep.

Amazingly, I still had some energy when I got in. Clearly I wasn't going to be making the cake I had envisioned, but I did make the cupcakes. Half chocolate swirl cake, half devil's food cake. All beautiful. They were frosted with Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge, aka heaven in a tin, and sprinkled with crushed up Maryland cookies.

They look awesome in my lovely new tins. Mmm. I hope I manage to get one, staff rooms are dangerous places for cakes.

Stephie

xxx

Day 121 - Polka dots...everywhere...

1st May 2013

Today I treated myself to a drive into work. I can only do this a couple of times a week due to the parking restrictions, so it's a real treat. As much as I love that I can walk to and from work and it only takes me about 30 minutes, it's a pretty nice feeling to be home barely five minutes after I've left work, and if it's a particularly miserable morning then not having to walk is pretty lovely.

So, having the car, I decided to pop into town after school to pick up some bits that I needed that might be a bit heavy or cumbersome for a walk. Cake tins were among these bits. I went to my usual and favourite kitchen shop, but everything in there errs on the side of expensive, so I decided I'd go to Argos and grab some from there. I originally went to Tiger, a new favourite shop of mine, but they had none. Boo.

Argos only had this set, and I'll be darned if this isn't some kind of fate or other such nonsense. We all know that the flat seems to attract red with white polka dots, so when I spotted these in the catalogue I had a real chuckle to myself. It's the little things.

Stephie

xxx

Day 120 - Dinner with Ma n Pa

30th April 2013

As it's my birthday this Friday and I'm not going back down to Kent, I met up with Mum and Dad for a lovely dinner instead. Dad works round about West London so occasionally Mum will come up in the afternoon and meet up with us both for some food before they head on home. We tend to go to Westfield as it's a nice easy spot to meet and get home from, and there's plenty of mooching opportunities while we wait for the Pa.

On this occasion we went to GBK, I've been in a mad burger mood for a long time since having that beaut from The Haven Arms and thought that this would suffice, particularly as I could add jalapenos, my other addiction.

I've got to say...disappointment GBK. Dis. A. Ppoint. Ment. My burger came without the jalapenos ordered, I thought they might be more concentrated in the middle so it was a while before I could be sure. I'd also got the Avocado and Bacon burger, and it was definitely just Guacamole. Now, I love a bit of guacamole, don't get me wrong, but I'd been expecting just avocado. Also, the guacamole was really peppery and it totally overpowered it. It was fairly sad. Still demolished it though. Hunger, innit.

I took them afterwards to get coffee from Sacred, my favourite coffee place in the world, it just tastes so good. I used to get my caffeine hit from here when I was at Apple, the first sip I ever took was followed by me stopping in my tracks and looking at the cup in wonderment. Beautiful. Naturally, it being at least 7pm I got decaf, as I'm not a mental. Mum and Dad are utter mentals and have coffee as a drink before bed! I ask you!!

With lots of love and hugs Mum and Dad headed off and I decided to go to Supercuts and see if I could get a quick trim. I usually avoid Supercuts as I've had bad experiences, but I decided it had been a long time, I'd give them another chance. My good grief. The trim took off a good 3 inches, and my layers are far too short and far too much hair is a layer, there isn't enough hair in the long part. She asked me whether I wanted it blow dried naturally or straight, so I said naturally thinking of how it usually looks if I just dry my hair without any particular effort one way or another. Oh no. I came out of there looking like Friends Season 1 Rachel. Not a good thing anymore lady. It was put up as soon as I was clear of the windows and straightened as soon as I got home to try and make sense of the thing.

Really very very annoyed with it I was. Time will tell if it settles over the next week or so - that's when I'll really know what it looks like. I can tell you one thing for sure, never going back to Supercuts, I will be buying my haircuts from Groupon now. Pah.

Stephie
xxx

Day 119 - Minibeast

 

29th April 2013

This term at school the kids are learning about Minibeasts, aka, spiders, ladybirds, worms, caterpillars etc. We have a little 'bug hotel' outside, some wooden pallets where we have a whole load of bugs and creepy crawlies. 

This morning we headed out into the garden to find some more, and the class found this little guy, who came inside for a short period. The kids went either crazy with excitement, crazy with fear or stayed their own version of crazy. When he was hopping around and they were all screaming we said to them "Don't worry, he won't hurt you, he's just taking a look at everyone, wondering who all these children are" This lead a particularly amusing boy to introduce himself to Mr. Hoppy, as he had been christened. 

After getting a little too hoppy, and causing slightly too much hysteria it was my job to take him back to his happier outside spot. 

Hope you enjoyed meeting us Mr. Hoppy, thought I won't be offended if you weren't. They were a bit screamy. 

Stephie

xxx

Day 118 - Edamame

28th April 2013

The problem with Sundays is that Man Vs Food is on at precisely the best and worst time. It makes me sick and hungry at the same time.

This morning I saw it and all I wanted was a burger. I considered picking up my kindle and heading to GBK alone, but I'm not quite there yet. I wasn't sure if they did takeaway, so I managed to change out of my pyjamas to investigate and walked down the road. I couldn't be sure, so just headed into Hare and Tortoise instead.

This is a sushi place. I hate sushi. I keep trying it because everyone tells me it's great, but I'm sorry, I just can't get on board. But what I do love is vegetable tempura and edamame. Amazing.

I got my favourites in, headed back to the flat and settled down with When Harry Met Sally, one of my all time favourites. I was so entirely content with my day at that point. Loved every second. I'm even tempted to watch it again within the week I love it so much, and have been waiting so long to see it, because Nich keeps selfishly keeping all of her DVDs at her house. I mean, what kind of person does that?!

Happy Sunday.

Stephie

xxx