Monkey

First off, the dress hunting trip on Saturday was quite successful. Dresses were tracked, captured and tried on as were tiaras and, because you have too, veils in BHS - I looked more like I was going for my first holy communion than a bride :-/ We also tried on half the hats and fascinators in John Lewis's for the fun of it as neither of us will be wearing hats. Try to imagine a montage of dress flicking, jewellery ooohing and general, thirty-something bonding but in a non Bridget Jones way (God I hate that book) if it was a 1950s Musical film it would have choreographed by Gene Kelly and stared Audry Hepburn as Me and Grace Kelly as Anne.

Fast forwarding to the present. I'm not well, again, I'm fed up with this. I went into work feeling fine came over all funny within five minutes of getting into the office half an hour later I was on my way home. Simon took the day off work to look after me armed with provisions and a present to make me feel better, he says it cost him loads but he keeps changing channels whenever this ad comes on.

Gothicly

Gothicly, originally uploaded by Jane Goth.

Anne and I are stood at the train station on our way to Peterborough to look for wedding dresses. Anne is going to protect me from the scary wedding dress shop ladies they are fearsome and they don't take no for an answer.

How Cool Is This

As seen on Rockmother's blog. This is kewl.

I'm still not well, I left work early today cos I felt like crap.

Poorly Sloth

I have an incredibly sore throat, my voice is rapidly disappearing, this tiny print is the visual equivalent. I was supposed to be looking at dresses and stuff with Anne my chief bridesmaid today but after her hearing what I sounded like this morning, she suggested that it was best we postpone til next Saturday and that I go back to bed pronto.

So I'm still alive, just not feeling too clever at the moment.

Good News About That Awful Poo Lady

That Awful Poo Lady has been forced to stop using the title Dr in her advertising by the Advertising Standards Authority on the basis that it was misleading. After all calling yourself "Dr" implies that you have a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the subject you talking about instead of fuck all. A nation, well the bits of the nation that cares about such things rejoices.

Read all about it on Dr Ben Goldacre's Bad Science Blog

Today I Have Been...

Mostly driving about the Lynn area, which means I've managed to miss most of the two 6 Nations rugby matches on today. I caught the last 15 minutes of the England - Italy match, although England won the game they looked very pedestrian against the Italians. By all accounts they were not the same team that beat Scotland so well last week, a match I missed fortunately for my poor wee Scotland supporting nature. I'm watching the last few seconds of the Scotland Wales game as I type this we are gonna win but apparently this has been a poor game too. The weather looks miserable up at Murryfield which could explain the lack of flowing rugby. But at least we won! :D

Brmmm Brmmm

I've got to the point where I don't really need that many more refresher lessons for driving maybe one perhaps two more but I do need practice so I get a chance to do the stuff I've relearnt and to do the maneuvering that you don't learn in lessons. I did my first ever multi-story car park today, the thought of going round one had always been on of my stress bunnies but doing driving around one in reality was far less stressful than I had first thought.

Mmmmm

Simon is creating a culinary masterpiece in the kitchen as I type which is already beginning to smell very tempting, chilli just the thing for a dreak, dull wintry day, he's gonna serve it burrito style I think, he's just wizzed up the salsa in the blender it all smells gorgeous. I suppose I best offer to help him, although it's a bit too early for yardarm time.

That Was The Snow That Was

It snowed. Last night felt like the night before Christmas, the expectation was palpable. I woke up at silly o'clock this morning wondering if the snow had arrived, it hadn't :(. Then when I woke up at a slightly more reasonable time there is was, not only that it was sticking and trying to settle on the road. But by 11 this morning it had all but stopped and the melt had started.

Boo Hiss.

Now I'm not saying anything new, but I like snow, yes it causes chaos when if first falls but if we had decent snow falls that stayed around for a while this wouldn't be a problem. When I lived in the States we had decent snowfalls that stayed around for a good while, the first storm of winter caused problems but after that, everyone coped because the gritters were up to speed, chains or snow tyres were donned and that was it, the roads were passable.

Here because we get snow in the morning, slush by afternoon and it's gone by tea time it's chaos because we never have to equip up for it and it always takes us by surprise, equally there are too many drivers who don't know how to drive in snow.

Gah, never mind the More Sunshine For Britain Party I want a Better Winters For Britain Party.

Robot

This should get the Geek in you saying "Want. One."

Charlie Brooker Really Doesn't Like Macs and other linkage

To say Charlie Brooker doesn't like Macs could be considered an understatement judging by this very funny rantage. For the record I agree with about 75%.

Bossa - it's an interface for playing your tracks stored on Itunes and if that was all it did I wouldn't have bothered but the clever part is it allows you to tag your tracks using suggestions from audioscrobbler or your own choices something that iTunes doesn't allow you to do which is something I've wanted to do for a while. It also automatically links to the wiki page on the artist playing and to pictures on Flickr which are appropriately tagged as well, which is rather neat I think. Right now it's a free download, up until the end of February, so get yours now.

I found out about it on Darren Barefoot's blog.

Notting Hill

I like to keep my finger on the pulse - news, reviews, blogs etc. But not popular culture, so it is only just now that I've seen Notting Hill nearly 8 years since it came out. It's not half bad, first off they didn't cast Andie MacDowell as the American so they were already on to a winner, boy that woman can't act. Ok yes, got to give that it's an idealised, sanitised view of London and us British but it's not too annoying. The cast as almost to a man and woman top notch, the humour light and sharp like a freshly made salsa verdi and the mawkishness, of which there is, in bits, doesn't sledgehammer one into submission.

It's a chick flick but it's a very good chick flick which doesn't insult the intelligence and it does look lovely.

I've been to the cinema on girls night out before and seen some utter crap "What Women Want" - dreadful film misogynist and unpleasant. "Maid In Manhattan" - pulease Cinderella from the block, J-Lo looked stunning, Ralph Fiennes looked embarrassed and the story stank. I felt cheated the only movie I've felt more cheated by was the first X-man movie which I had looked forward to seeing but absolutely loathed.

Porridge

I'm currently enjoying a bowl of porridge, being no masochist, it's been sprinkled with cinnamon and a pinch of brown sugar rather than the more edgy alternative of salt. Porridge is another dish that reminds me of childhood, when we were little we often had it for breakfast, it was my brother's favourite meal. It reminds me of cold winds and kite flying and using the old sofa as a climbing frame and trampoline.



A lot of my childhood memories from Scotland are of the winter, darkness and cold outside, warmth indoors and the black and white tellies. I remember envying the bigger girls who had platforms and flares, now I'm deeply glad my mum said no. I think the cliché is "We were poor but 'appy", well we weren't actually dirt poor we lived in a biggish house, (probably where I got my love of high ceilings) but the mortgage was at the edge if not slightly beyond what could be afforded thanks to the oil crisis. But we were certainly happy and very loved.

I suppose everyone thinks that their childhood is "normal" until they talk to others, one of my old bosses used to cheerfully tell the office stories of her childhood that would leave the rest of us dumbfounded at the casual, thoughtless cruelty of her parents towards her and her sister. She didn't seem to realise that their behaviour as she described it was sometimes beyond the boundaries of what was acceptable even then, let alone now, she saw it as normal for her childhood.

It's only as an adult that I've begun to truly appreciate how great being loved and cherished is.