PS

The good news is Richard loved the rice pudding! Wa-hay, result!

Fated to be late

Man! You know what? I'm cursed. It's official. No matter what I'm making, no matter how long it's supposed to take, it always ends up taking me about 3 hours. Take tonight. I have made rice pudding - the first time, I've never tried it before although Mum used to make it. I saw what looked like a nice recipe on the TV yesterday morning (see what happens when people put the TV on during the day?) and thought Richard was making dinner. When he came through to ask why time dinner was ( I was by this time deep in a movie on TV) I realised he wasn't!

A brief discussion ensued, we decided I would make a dish I'd found which takes 25 minutes (Richard was gnawing his arm off by now). - unfortunately it turned out the dish requires cooked potatoes - and cold ones, at that! At least another 40 minutes!

After another consultation I defrosted a coupla helpings of stuff I'd made last week - lasagne and shepherds pie. That took another forever to defrost in the microwave so by the time we actually ate it must've been about 2 hours.

For a mere defrosting or a 25 minute dish? See? It's fate.

Clear morning

We unexpectedly had snow yesterday morning when we woke up. I say unexpected because it wasn't heralded by a week's "SNOWMAGEDDON!!!" hysteria from the "national" press. Why was that, I wonder? Perhaps because it wasn't going to affect the south of England?

Anyway, it's going now but still up at the track. With a lovely light sky this morning too.

Gizzy's Revenge

That cat! She haunts you when she wants fed, sitting on your laptop or on the counter and giving you that look "Feed me!"

Then she hangs out with Richard in bed, waiting for me to come to bed so she can lie on me half the night.

I'm quite strict, not giving into her demands for food when she already has some etc. So last night she got her own back. I lay on the bed to play with her and she took an eppy and attacked my hand. Told her off and never thought any more about it. Until this morning when I woke to find my wrist had swollen up and was quite painful.

She tried to poison me! There are a couple of scratches which is what has caused the infection. Luckily I applied Savlon (Dad would be proud!) and it's going down now. The good news is it meant Richard had to ride my bike home from work instead of me. Silver linings...

The best laid plans

So tomorrow is Richard's 60th birthday and yesterday I was thinking about his 50th - I threw a party for him and I remember me and Emily picking up the balloons from the gift shop. Lightbulb! I headed off to Blooms & Balloons, who're taking one of my students on placement shortly, and duly snuck into the house with two sets of helium filled Happy Birthday balloons which I stashed upstairs.

And, along with the birthday banners (same place), the cake (in the garage) and the candles (in the baking drawer) I was confident all was safely hidden.

Once he sat down after dinner I snuck off and moved the presents, balloons etc to the sunroom - he'd never find them in there - and duly collected them after he headed off to bed.

The slip twixt cup and lip? Nick had gone through there to watch American football and Richard went in to talk to him. I didn't realise til I got them and Nick was like, "er, I think he saw the balloons" - NNNOOOOOO!

How careful do you have to be?! It's so unfair. On him as well as me, cos he'll not get the surprise and I won't get to see him getting the surprise. Etc etc. Oh well, now he's immortalised in a blog post instead.

Happy Birthday Richard!

Dismantling Christmas

I HATE taking down all the Christmas decorations and the tree. I guess everyone does, although for some reason Richard is going at it with gusto this year. However I'm trying a new way to make it easier - blasting out Michael Buble's Christmas album (well I did the same while decorating the house so it's a karmic circle, right?) and doing it in stages. Took the cards down on Thursday, the tree down today and will put the ornaments away tomorrow.

Sigh.

Back to the dreichness of everyday winter life.

Oh yes, I forgot - there's still Richard's birthday to get through.

Mac isn't the answer to all my problems

At least, while trying to order a gift card for Richard's birthday, I found the usual problem - can't upload the photo I want to be on the card as it's not recognising the photos in the Photo Library! Is this a mac problem or a me problem?

At least I have the ability to go and get a free training session at the Apple Store. Thank goodness!