Tag: slice of life

I've notived a trend in my recent entries – mostly they fall in the “news from the stupid” or “america is going to hell” categories. I'll try and do better. Therefore, this entry.

Katy and I were in Leics this weekend for Katy's parents' anniversary and Stu's birthday. It was an ok weekend. Friday night was a bit rocky because we gorged ourselves at the pudding club. This was not a good idea. The meal in itself was lovely (I had cod for the first time and discovered that I like olives and artichoke hearts) but the sheer amount of fat and sugar we ate meant that both of us were so wired that we were still up at 4am reading a Kleeneze catalogue. Yes, it was that bad.

We managed to get a few hours of sleep and head to Leics without major issue. We spent a few hours in town gethering the last of our Christmas shopping and then headed to the in-laws. The weekend itself was uneventful. I attempted to teach the Grogans how to play cribbage, but since we didn't have a board, we had to rely on pen and paper to keep track of the pegging. Still, we managed to get two hands in and I think it might catch on when we finally do get a peg board.

We got home around 7pm and had the cat join us as a welcome wagon. He's cute when we wants to be. It's always nice to have him greet us when we come home. What's a tad worrisome though was that he came from across the road and greeted us in the driveway. Not a lot we can do about that – we can only hope he'll be careful about traffic.

I made a quick and dirty homemade tomato soup for a light dinner and that was pretty much the evening. We watched Top Gear and I had a shower while Katy watched a weird comedy/trama thing on the Beeb. I had a bit of trouble falling asleep last night and only ended up going to bed at 1:30am. It's been a bit of a long day…

We seem to have a lot on our minds these days. A lot of it revolves around Christmas. It's been stressful. If it wasn't for the fact that it's been “planned” for a year now and most of it has been paid and is non-refundable, I'd just barricade myself at home with lots of booze and wait for it all to go away. Katy and I have had to organize things from both sides of the ocean with two sets of parental units. My coworkers are pissing themselves from all the stories I keep telling. It can be funny from an external point of view. It can also be putting a large strain on the holidays and take the fun out of it. I'm sure it'll all go well with a minimum of drama. I'm sure we're making a mountain of a molehill.

Right now? I'd just settle for having a quiet weekend with Katy and having nothing to worry about.

We had a busy weekend. Saturday saw Katy and I wandering around Cambs separately to do a spot of xmas shopping. Sunday was spring-cleaning-in-autumn day. We took a flame-thrower to the whole house. It was sorely needed and back-breaking work, but the end results was really worth it. We threw out a bunch of stuff, sorted through the piles of paperwork on the office desk, vacuumed, scrubbed, sorted, sifted, cleaned, folded, put away and every other cleaning-related verb you can think of. We even hung up the last remaining pictures!!! (some of which had been lying around for the last 18 months or so). So yeah, go us!

As a reward, I made us nachos and pizza! Nachos!!!! I haven't had a good plate of nachos in years! Dinner was evil, but nice :)

Weekend was nice, mostly, but didn't go according to plan, mostly. On saturday, Katy and I drove up to a little pet shop north of Cambs to go buy a fish tank. We got a really nice starter kit for a really decent price. We were told that the tank needed to be setup and working for about a week before we should be putting fish into it (mostly to de-chlorinate the water and let the filter get up to speed).

We got the tank, filter, light, heater and gravel for £85, so go us! We're going to go back next tuesday to get some plants and get the fish on thursday (should be ok by then).

We got back home at 1pm, had tea and got ready for the second part of the day. We wanted to go see a double-bill of Transformers and Bourne Ultimatum in town and then go for a nice meal at Cafe Rouge. We'd planned to take the 2pm bus into Cambs which would have left us with plenty of time to get everything done. Unfortunately, the 2pm bus only showed up at 3:30 – apparently the bus wouldn't start.

Now, you see, in Canada, they'd have just gotten another bus. Apparently things don't work that way here, so they simply cancelled the only – hourly – bus into town while they were trying to pull the finger out. Blergh. Now I understand why Katy says that nobody likes public transit in this country. Oh, and the phone number to complain? They're closed on the weekend.

Anyway, I managed to bully Katy into going in town anyway, and we caught the Bourne flick after a bit of shopping in the city center. The rest of the evening went off as planned, which was nice; and we got a chatty cab back home (which was the reason we wanted to take the bus into town in the first place – if Katy drives us, she can't have a drink when we go out).

Sunday was supposed to be a hedonistic, slobby day. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way – which is partly my fault. We got up and went to Tesco early to get it out of the way so we'd have time to set up the aquarium and then eat, drink and be merry at home.

Except that I wanted to shore up the shelf where the tank is (it weighs 130lbs when filled, so, ya know…). That meant going to B&Q to get some supplies. I also wanted to get a drill pump – a pump that is powered by a drill to transfer liquids. One of these thingies:

Sounds simple, right? The doofuses at B&Q didn't have a clue. The nicer people from Homebase thought we wanted a pond waterfall-effect pump. The 17-year old kid from Halfords at least knew what we were talking about but had never seen one in a store but “whenever I want to buy something, I just go on the internet” (Best comment of the day).

Anyway…

By the time we got home, it was 5pm and we hadn't even cracked a bottle open yet. I also wanted to make coq au vin for dinner, which would take a good hour to make. No worries. The plan was that as soon as we got home, I'd put up the brackets, get dinner on and then get started on the aquarium prep.

Except for the drill incident.

Katy has now decided to buy me a proper drill for xmas to avoid any future incidents of the sort. The cordless drill I brought over from Canada is completely useless faced with masonery walls. I'd borrowed Lennart's drill and had it all set up and ready to go. Until I realized that Lennart's drill, being Belgian, had a continental plug – one for which I did not have an adaptor. In the end, we had to pop in the car and go to Phil's place to pick up his drill. What was supposed to be a 5 minute pick-up jobbie ended up in us having a cuppa and watching the end of Shrek 2 with Phil, Caroline and the kiddies.

So it waa 7 by the time we got home and dinner got started.

In the end, to make a long story short, we didn't get drunk. We had a glass with dinner (which was kick ass), but in the end, the simple goal for that day didn't happen. I admit that I got fixated to getting the aquarium up and running, so it's my fault that things went out of whack.

I'm glad the aquarium is up and running, but I feel bad about the rest :(

Poo.

Very bleh day. It had potential, but it kind of fizzled out in the end. Last night was good. Met up with Donna and Will for his birthday do. We went punting on the Cam and managed to squeek in just before the rain set in. Then there was booze at a riverside bistro. Then there was really, really good food at Cafe Rouge on Bridge St. It was funny. This week is graduation week so everywhere is booked solid. We'd walked in earlier in the day and asked to see if it would be possible to book a table for later in the evening (that's when we found out about grad week and all), but the hostess told us that since it was just the two of us, she might be able to sneak us in if we came back later.

That's what we did, after the punting and the booze. There was a couple who came in the restaurant just before we did that got turned away because they didn't have a booking, but we were quietly ushered in to the restaurant. It turned out that we had prime seats in front of one of the only open windows in the place – and it was a relief cause the whole place was muggy because of the rain and the packed bodies. I had a very good onion soup and a great slab of dead cow with melted blue cheese. Loverly! We met up with Donna, Will and the rest of their troup for another round of drinks, and another, before calling it a day and grabbing a cab back home.

In other news, the cat now has a jingly-bell collar. It's impressive how short a time it took for him to get used to it. We got it for him in preparation of letting him go outside for reasonable periods of time at some point in the near future. We've also gotten a new cage for the gecko, who managed a houdini-like escape act but didn't go too far (we found her in a storage box, happily munching away at some treats). She now has a double-decker condo with better locks.

Today was meh. Slow start to the day, then Tesco for a shop, then home for some Rome reruns and some cooking. The Dr Who finale left a bit to be desired. A bit too much “poof! everything is right in the world again!!!”, but it had some redeeming features.

Dinner was a bit of a letdown. I'd planned onion soup, roast pig and tarte tatin. I think I was a bit too ambitious, given that I was running around all afternoon and trying to watch Dr Who at the same time. It was ok, but not as good as I've made before. Passing grade, but not much else.

I'd hoped to be able to have a nice long chat with Michel tonight but, as is seemingly our usual, we didn't connect. I haven't spoken to him more than a few sentences of email in … it's been that long that I can't even remember now. This is highly distressing… sigh.