The beaver is a proud and noble animal
Notes from a bemused canuck
I’m happy Diversity won, but at the same time, I think that it’s a shame and a farce that Stavros Flatley didn’t even place!
Quote of the moment: You’ve got to have some Greek in you somewhere. No one is that cool who isn’t a big Greek.
The dance act is quite cool though, so they’re going to wow the Queen :)
I’ve finally pulled the finger out and gotten some pictures online. You can go browse the galleries on the website and see:
Pictures of the EMBL Staff Association Retreat to Edinburgh: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/edinburgh_may_2009/
A really cool collection of night-time areal pictures of London: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/london_from_above/
Some recently added pictures of Mr BenBen: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/ben/
Of the last gallery, let me give you some teasers :)
Salad
* 450g baby new potatoes
* 300g fine French beans
* pitted green olives, sliced in half
* cucumber, cut in slices
* red onion, sliced into rings
* radishes, sliced thinly
* Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
* Classic vinaigrette
* 2 baby gem lettuce, separated into leaves
* 2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for frying
* tuna loin steaks, about 100g each
* 2 large eggs
vinaigrette
* 125ml extra virgin olive oil
* Juice of ½ a lemon
* chopped chives
method
1. Boil the potatoes for 10-12 minutes until tender. Drain well then halve. Splash with olive oil and sprinkle with chives and sea salt. Leave to cool. Trim the beans then cook in boiling salted water for 2 minutes. Drain and refresh in iced water. Drain well once more and pat dry.
2. Mix the potatoes and beans with the lettuce, radishes, olives, cucumber and onions. Whisk the ingredients for the vinaigrette and season with salt and pepper. Toss the vegetables in some of the vinaigrette.
3. Heat a large non-stick frying pan until you can feel a good heat rising. Add 1 tbsp of the oil then lay in the tuna steaks. Season with sea salt and pepper. Cook for 2 minutes on each side until they feel slightly springy when pressed. The tuna should still be pink in the middle. Cut each steak in half and place on top of the salad.
4. Place the eggs in to a pan of boiling water and cook for 6 minutes (for a well set white and runny yolk). Plunge the eggs into iced cold water to prevent them from cooking further. Once cooled, roll the egg on the work surface, gently applying pressure so the shell begins to crack, then peel off the shell.
5. Place the eggs on top of the tuna and cut in half, to reveal the soft runny yolk.
We ordered a beautiful, stained timber four-poster bed from Kubek, a furniture store in Leicester. We’d been lusting after that bed for years and we’ve always said that when we buy a house, we’ll get The Bed. We bought a house. We bought The Bed. It was supposed to be delivered yesterday. The thing is fricken’ huge and weighs a ton. It was assembled without hitch (the guy even commented on how smoothly it was going). It is beautiful.
It is the wrong size.
We ordered a king sized bed. They delivered a double. It is not a simple problem of having another bed delivered. They’re made to order from Malta. Apparently the guy in Malta (a gentleman called Tony who will shortly receive a bollocking) shipped the wrong bed. When Kubek received their shipment, they checked that all the pieces were there and that it all fit, but they didn’t realize that it was the wrong size. It’s only when the assembly man tried to fit the mattress slats and they wouldn’t fit that something clicked. The bad news is that the next shipment isn’t due until July. They’ll see if they can get cross-members of the right size shipped sooner, but no promises there. They were falling over themselves to apologize and, in essence, we’re still fine to sleep in our old bed in what will be the guest bedroom.
So close, and yet so far.
Things were productive at casa Richard this weekend. We secured all of the shelves and bookcases to the walls and managed to clear out all the boxes of books and DVDs. I put up a curtain pole in the office and we bought waaaay too many clocks on a random trip to Scottsdales (where we were only supposed to buy a house number and some cat food). The shed is piling up nicely with stuff we won’t need to keep in the house, as sheds are wont to do.
I other news, I managed to brain myself quite efficiently on Saturday. All my tools are in a cupboard under the stairs and, when I went to get some rawl plugs to fix the aforementioned bookcase, I got up a bit too quickly while I was still under the stairs. I’m sure I dented my skull. I was ok for Saturday but I’ve been having a minor headache since Sunday. I think it’s just a big bruise, but the migraine I got this morning really isn’t helping matters. It’ll either go away by itself in a day or two or I’ll be dead from an undiagnosed cerebral hematoma (note to self, do NOT go read stuff on Wikipedia).
Anyway, it was a grand weekend and we got lots done and we ate lots and there was ice cream. If it wasn’t for the ding on my head, it would have been close to a perfect bank holiday weekend.
It would seem that the cats are taking well to the new environment. They were in and out all everning, part of the night and most of this morning. They’ve discovered, much to their chagrin I would imagine, that our neighbours have a dog :)
I snapped this with my camera phone last night. I have no idea how she climbed up there but Reenie spend a large part of the evening on the roof of our shed and our neighbours. Later that evening, I heard the dog bark and saw Tolstoy magically appear on top of the party wall fence :) I’m sure they’ll get used to it.
Synopsis of phone conversation:
Them: You did a shit job, but we’ll give you your deposit anyway.
Me: Um, thanks?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?
I have repainted the whole of the upstairs of the Hinxton house. All the floors have been vacuumed to within inches of their lives (Katy has the blisters to prove it). We’ve done all that we’ve humanly could to make the house clean and tidy. The house is in a *much* better state than we’ve left it in. And still, it would seem that the powers that be aren’t happy. I fear for our deposit. We need that money, and it’s not an inconsiderable sum. If it’s less than 1K, I’ll have to look at our legal recourses. I am not happy. I don’t need this shit right now.
In other news, we gave in and let the cats go out this morning. For the past two weeks, they’ve been cooped up in the house and have turned into unbridled bundles of energy. Even Tolstoy was poinging everywhere and playing with random shit. We’d planned on letting them out this weekend but had to relent because they were spending their nights chasing each other all over and house and up and down the stairs for hours on end. It sounded like a herd of rampaging elephants. This is not conductive for a good night’s sleep. It also doesn’t help that BenBen has decided that 5am is a good time to wake up. As such, I am currently exhausted.
And stressed.
I do not like this situation.
going to bed now. it took two hours to get the wi-fi up and running. this is much more time than it should have required. must give props to a really helpful scottish lass on tech support who was actually a) knowledgeable b) helpful and c) a pleasure to deal with. i told her all of this. kudos must be given when warranted.