Morroccan Mood Lighting

Oh No! Did you get one of the chocolates filled with mouth ripping chilli?

No chilli chocolate for Ewen, smooooth.

Chocolates potentially packed with chilli? Anyone? A game given to us at Christmas. You're supposed to spin the wheen and eat the chocolate indicated. Stu went straight for the first one he saw, and copped a mouth'o'chilli goodness.

The always darling Meredith (that's right, there are two of us mwah ha ha), and her no longer imaginary partner Steve. We thought we may have had a Bagono on our hands here, but it just turns out he travels a lot for work. Sure Meredith, then why did we see you grabbing him off the street in front of our place and settling on payment before you knocked on our door? Hmmm?

Refusing, point blank despite social derisions associated, to take down the tree. It's the longest any plant has ever survived on my watch. Proud as punch. NB:- mood lighting, oh yeah.

Best game ever! Not just a quiz, not just pictionary, not just charades, or scrabble - but all of these magical elements in one game. Preach!

Admit it, you love our dinner party/games night!

The most delicious flat bread, cooked fresh on the spot by one clever Meredith (the other one). was devoured so quickly, I didn't have time to get the camera out. Sorry food bloggers, you'll just have to imagine the goodness...

Ewen's wife Claire - another case of mystery date, as we've hung out with Ewen countless times, but never met his wife. She was awfully polite for an escort we thought, even one of the high class variety. Since Ewen can't afford high class escorts, we figured he had to be telling the ruth, and that this was infact the fabled Claire of stories told.

Scary Stu.

Ha ha, well I love a good dinner party. Unfortunately, our flat really doesn't cater for more than 2 guests. When faced with the prospect of a rather embarrassing chair scramble on Saturday night when we had, gulp, 4 guests, I decided on the only logical course of action. No chairs, for anybody. Morroccan madness ensued, buoyed by Cranium (love love love it!), cushions, cous cous and cocktails (oh, and about 4 bottles of vino, just to keep things interesting.)

All Hail The Buff!

Sexy, sultry sender of salty seasoning. We love you! 2 different kinds of Maldon - we have been thoroughly spoiled by one particularly generous Canadian. Thank you so much Buffy, we shall cherish our salty friends, and we shall also sprinkle liberally in remembrance of your beautiful gesture.

For those of you who may be confused, let me explain. Snow in the UK is not as common as elsewhere. Thus, during the recent dumping, salt and grit supplies for the roads were stretched to the limit. The councils' answer: Supermarket salt. Absolutely dead serious that for several weeks, cooking salts were in damnably short supply. Buffy to the rescue - sending us salt all the way from Toronto out of the goodness of her pure maldon-soaked heart. Bless thee Saint Buff Buff!

Where was I? Ahhh, Christmas.

So I'll just resume my place without ceremony shall I?

Stayed at Emma's place for a couple of nights in Weston where it was mercilessly wet. Ventured Bristol way to catch up with Ken - purveyor of fine supermarket pizza and devotee of PES (computer football to the unitiated, or uninterested - I fall into both categories). Drank polish vodka (ahh Bison grass goodness, where have you been all my life?) and caught up on who's screwing who in Japan. Apparently everyone's screwing everyone.

30th - we packed up the car once more and bid fond farewell to the dreary, wintery, sodden streets of Weston (Stu's going to hate that bit, he always gets pissed off when I am less than moved by Weston's charms) and headed yet further south into deepest, darkest Devon. Fortunately for us we weren't travelling this week, or we'd have made it little further than Tiverton - an unexciting transport hub on the cusp of the North Devon Links road. Anyway, it was last week, we made it with little to no fuss and were warmly greeted by Heather and a rugged up little Rock. Fred was napping and Dave was golfing (he's mad).

We had a beautiful night in Devon, eating steak, drinking red wine and champagne, and playing Taboo. It was boys against girls and I'm ashamed to say we just barely scraped through with the win. Heather and I (undoubtedly clever and lateral thinkers that we are), who have known eachother for years and can pick up on our respective idiosyncracies effortlessly, were close to defeat, too close. There was clearly an awesome power at work here. For want of a better phrase (anyone?) I call it 'boy-know'. This almost-victory (1 card separated winners from losers) was made all the more worrying for Heather and I when we realised that through the course of the game, Stu had managed to consume 3 good sized ales and a bottle of port all to himself. He was close to green, woefully drunk and slurring dreadfully - and still they kept up the onslaught. How? I suspect that when H and I stepped out for some fresh air, they may have peeked at a few, or all, of the cards.

Fun was followed by furious hangover. Thus Stu and I found ourselves, on New Years Eve, heading back to Bristol to check into our apartment, where we had a brief hour to recuperate before Ken, Katy, Rich and Stu's family descended on our rather cramped living quarters for dinner and drinks. Stu, Ken , Katy and I then headed to the Bristol Academy to dance the night away.

It was pretty chaotic and very messy by the time we got there at 11. Bar lines were outrageously long, so much so that midnight ticked over without any of us having been served. We were close to giving up when all of a sudden, we found ourselves at the front of the queue where we ordered as many beers as we could carry and settled in for what we hoped would be a night to remember.

It was, but perhaps for the wrong reasons:

Reason # 1: The music was lacklustre at best. I do believe at one point I entered a room only to be assailed by a mashup of Blue. Blue the boyband.

Reason # 2: The girls, oh the girls. Barely legal and barely covered up. Honestly, I thought we may have inadvertently wandered into a child pornography ring's Big Night Out. There was also a stipper on one of the stages dancing with King Kong, waving giant bananas. Ahem.

Reason # 3: There I was, happily dancing away to crap music, when some guy leers behind me and pinches my bum. It wasn't even as though there was anyone else around to blame, Katy and I were standing off to one side watching the mayhem. I gave him the finger and he leered again grabbing his crotch. Charming.

Reason # 4: The most pitiful reason of all for this being a night to remember - I didn't, couldn't, drink enough to forget.

Katy, Stu and I decided at 2am that the jig was up and we hightailed it, leaving Ken and his mates to dirty dance with 16 year olds til dawn.

Bless you Ken, thank you for getting the tickets for NYE, we did enjoy ourselves, and I hope you did too. It's just that I won't be doing it again. Ever.

Stu, Katy and I woke up on New Years Day to sunny, but chilly Bristol and took advantage of the fact that it wasn't raining, and we weren't feeling queasy, to wander the streets in search of breakfast. Spent the rest of the day wandering. I really love Bristol, especially the Clifton area - jammed full of funky shope, cafes and bars. I love how everything you could need or want is in walking distance, and it's so hilly. Love a good hill.

Anyway, that pretty much sums it up. Stu and I packed up the next day and did the long drive back to M Burgerville via the dreaded M6. We spent the next day in a state of semi-comatose, rousing only to attempt getting ready for work the next day.

Now back at work (for a month) and looking for another job. Sigh. Need a holiday.

Some Photis to Break Wordage Monopoly

Eburger Castle.

Rooftops. Duh.

Awww, purdy Eburger. View from my office. One of the nicest in Eburger.

Enough?

Ok, how about some-a-this?

Christmas dinner for two. We each had 3 Christmas crackers, and I wanted us each to wear 3 hats. Sadly, Stu's big head kept breaking his hats.

Cheers!

Stu's new shirt. Primark, love ya! Also, we though Stu's baldiness made him look a little psychotic, so T-Shirt worked well.

Cheese, mmmmmm.

Dinner stuff, including brussel sprouts I shall always regret feeding in vast quantities to Stu at his insistance.

Stu's rather sad mince pies. They exploded because he forgot to seal them and over-stuffed them.

Christmas tree and prized panda for Freddles.

M-Burger from our flat.

Fun Christmassy New Yearsy Stuff

I'm a doofus. Packed everything we needed for our road trip dooon soooth, bar one fairly important piece of record-keeping equipment: Camera charger nestled safely in amongst hair dryers and and makeup. Camera left bereft and lonely in laptop bag next to couch in the living room.

Sigh.

Still, I found out that you don't actually need to document fun in order to have it. Of course, it can help you remember the next day precisely what kind of fun was had, but sometimes it's better not to know.

We left M-Burger on 27th, having spent the previous 2 days consuming our body weight in duck and mince pies. The car reluctantly started, being as it was packed to the rafters with presents and suitcases (what the hell, we thought, we're not flying, let's take the entire contents of our flat with us in case we need it. Makes the camera being left behind all the more ridiculous). We made our way south in a gingerly manner, as at times we were driving through actual whiteouts due to the snow that wouldn't stop falling. There were so few other cars on the road, we didn't know whether to be relieved, or concerned.

First night in Lancaster. Lovely time at tapas restaurant with Alex, Martin and Nick (Stu's Uni of Lancaster mates) et al. There may have been Sambucca shots at dingy nightclub at 2am. I can't be sure, and have no photographic evidence to testify. Thank god for that.

28th December - day of hangover, regret and loooooong delays on the M6. Basically turned a 3 hour journey into 7. Fortunately DJ Mez was on hand to provide music and abundant karaoke to the ever-suffering Stu. Unfortunately, our lovely Hoisin duck with cucumber and rocket wraps were tragically left in fridge of friend's flat (along with my best knife) and we were forced to settled for horrid moto-stop fare. Arrived in Weston-Super-Mare at 7pm, and out to dinner with Stu's brother (Simon), sister (Emma) and partners (and Emma's cute little boy Loui).

Eeep, boss coming out of meeting. To be continued.

Smooches!

2010 and The Big Freeze

Hey hey, it's sunny, with a light breeze, and about minus 10. Welcome to Eburgerville's (and the UK's) current obssession:

It's cold. Yes, we get it. But you know what? There are colder places. Yes, there are. And you know what else? Their lives, economies and general ability to think or speak about anything besides the weather, do not come to a standstill in the wake of said cold and obsession with said cold. Russia. Big, important place with ample cold. Still there, still (well while possible not thriving, still there). Great huge chuks of North America. Massive contingents of China. I won't go on, but my god, one glance at the BBC and you'd imagine that this is it. Say your prayers sinners, we're about to suffer a collectively frigid catastrophe due to our inability to accept the following:

1. Winter gets cold and sometimes there's snow and ice (okay, sometimes there's large amounts of snow and ice).
2. When there's snow and ice, you have to operate vehicles and such in a slightly different manner, ie slowly or not at all.
3. There needs to be a larger amount of grit on hand to deal with slippery surfaces so that emergency rooms are not clogged with elderly folk who have broken there bum bones. And DO NOT use my sea salt!

It's hilarious how alarmist everyone is being about this. And you just know that in a couple of months, when the weather gets warmer, we'll all forget to do anything to prepare for next year, when (shock, horror!), it'll all happen all over again.