The Here & Now.

Tea making solves most things. Temporarily.

Oh God I'm sick of being at my desk. I have about three things, or maybe two, that I really need to engage with and I just. can't. face. it. And my hair is a lot dirtier than it looked this morning and I feel just horrible walking around like this.

Blah.

Talking about diets is boring, but when you're funny about it, it's less boring. Besides, who hasn't been there? And really, who isn't there right now?

The rice cakes I had as a snack are so not cutting it right about now. All I can taste is a styrofoamy film in my mouth.

Bah. I'm going to go make a cup of tea to distract myself from a)work and b)hunger.

Magic food

In my obsession with takeaway food that arrives after I fill in a web form, I've always loved the concept of Deliverance, even if the one time we'd ordered from them in the past the food arrived lukewarm and a bit soggy. The best part of Deliverance is the choice - I don't have to be craving the same thing as Christopher and we can both be satisfied. This time around we both had pasta, and it was quite good, and very very hot when it arrived.

Not entirely sure I trust them with sushi, but who knows.

All the little Fiats

I didn't promise I would be any more focussed today

I am having a spa day, all to myself.

After the million pages of hell that's gone to print this week, I decided to take Monday off, use my xmas voucher and get a head to toe fancypants treatment at Bliss. I can not wait. Last year I had a miniversion of this and my skin looked incredible for three months.

In fact, I can barely concentrate right now... I just want to go home and sleep. But instead I have rehearsal to sit through (Bizet, since you asked) and then a bit of a long transit ride home.

And since the moon has taken over my mind, and most of the minds of everyone else I work with since we're practically all women and on the same schedule, all I feel like doing is eating. I wolfed down a big pile of scallops and a huge piece of salmon last night. No carbs, no veg - just pure seafood goodness. And I'm having another load tonight since I'll order sushi before rehearsal (doesn't weigh down the diaphragm for flute playing you see).

Scatter brained

It was moron day today at work. Not me (particularly), but everyone else. And being a bit hormonally enhanced, I tried not to take any of it personally. I just felt like I answered the same ridiculous questions 18 times, and everyone was in the way in the kitchen when I wanted to make tea.

This has nothing to do with my hormonally enhancedness either of course. And strangely, no amount of coffee or tea seems to be having any impact.

I've started another pair of Fetching for my mum. You'd be right in thinking this is unrelated to everything else.

Locality

Just before Christmas, the bells started ringing in our local church. Not just on Sundays, but every day, every hour and half hour. This church is very close to our flat, so the bells ring loud and clear in every part of our little flat. Strangely, I find this very comforting, not irritating. I've even started to live by them a bit, and walking down the cold dark street at this time of year is slightly less dank feeling with the bells tolling nearby. I suppose some people might find that increased the feeling of being in the middle of some Victorian horror story, but maybe my time living in Jack the Ripper's neighbourhood has gotten rid of that.

As every building in London seems to have some fun fact that happened in/near/on it, our little church is no different. It was the site of Oscar Wilde's wedding, and Robert Baden-Powell's baptism. Take those nuggets of history as you will.

Not a huge logical leap, but still

Finally someone has actually said something about the weird trend of wearing the keffiyeh. I do find it a bit strange, mainly because the teenagers wearing them seem not to understand the political significance of it. I mean, it's one thing to know and decide to do it anyway. But being an ignorant twit is, well, stupid.

Have you ever put dishwasher tabs in the washing machine by mistake?

I did it the other day. It doesn't make as much difference as you'd think.

Caffeinated accordion knitting

I had my first lesson on the accordion last night. This two hands at once thing is crazy. You'd think, being able to do blowing and fingers, bowing and fingers, that I could do this. But somehow.... more complicated.

Being back at work means my caffeine intake is huge to overcompensate for the lack of mid-afternoon napping. But instead of slowing down the tea consumption after getting used to the new schedule, I'm just keeping on as usual, sometimes making me a bit crazed by 4pm.

Hmm. Yes.

I finished my scarf, duly admired by a couple coworkers. I have taken photos, will post tonight. In the end I only did about 22 lace patterns repeats, and the scarf is almost too long, despite the pattern calling for 27 lace pattern repeats. I messed up the beginning edge, as I found that row's instructions a bit unclear. I'm going to see if I can undo it at the beginning and re-knit that. Though I'm not sure if that will actually work. We'll see later I suppose.

Terracotta warrior stirfry

We went to the British Museum to see the terracotta warriors today, which we booked about two months ago. It was neat to see them up close, though it was an extreme exercise in Not Getting Annoyed While People Bang Into You. It was hard, though, to remember how incredibly old these stone guys are, because I'm so familiar with pictures of them.

I came home and made my most favourite stir fry ever - it's from Donna Hay's Off the Shelf. Crispy chicken on hoisin noodles (or something similar, can't remember the exact name). It started my love for Chinese five spice powder and harissa paste. It's a great book for using common ingredients, and I love the fact it has pictures of every single recipe in it. I used to sit down on Sunday mornings with a cup of good coffee, two sheets of paper and a stack of cookbooks to plan my week of meals and grocery shopping - my Donna Hay books are my favourite as the pretty pictures inspired me.

Which reminds me. I should go make my lunch for tomorrow. Onwards through January, otherwise known as the land of skint.