T O T K a t

Almost 2 weeks off over the holiday period and back to work is... a bit of a smack in the face. My poor stomach is very confused; I'm either feeling a bit sick or starving hungry, with nothing in between. It's going to take a few days to get back onto a proper eating schedule.

In other news, I've got a wedding to organise.

:oD

It's a great relief that there are only 12 more photos left to take for Project 366. It was a really good thing when I started it, got me out of the house etc. but in the last few months it has mostly been just a total chore. When you go to work, come home, sleep, go to work, come home, sleep and repeat ad infinitum, it's a bit tricky to muster up the effort to find new and interesting things to photograph. The odd nights out here and there are either a bugger to lug a camera around or just too much fun and involvement to get around to taking a picture. I will be glad when the project is complete; there's no way it's not going to be!

One more working day left this year... and it's the day of the office party so the afternoon probably won't be all that arduous. Roll on proper holiday break!

November came and went; alcohol free and it wasn't difficult. Tonight, teensy drinkies at a favourite bar & restaurant, followed by dinner.

The weekend was yet another productive one of getting rid of old crap that is no longer needed/wanted etc.; trips to the tip and charity shop to ditch it all. Almost ready for the guest bedroom to be nicely usable now (rather than just usable in desperation) - of course, we need a frame for the mattress but that's not going to be awfully expensive to fix.

20th November and I've not had an alcohol since 31st October. I'm not missing it, but I sure am looking forward to a glass or two on 1st December!

I've just come across a nice, healthy treats website; graze. They do 127 different varieties of snackage for grazing on; including fresh fruit, veg, breads, dried fruit, nuts, crackers... all in different sizes and types of box. You order ad hoc, or on a repeating weekly basis up to 6 days a week. Today I had, fresh pineapple and "muffin dried fruit mix"(cranberry, raspberry and banana) in the "graze3aday" box. And, OH YES, the pineapple was perfectly ripe and juicy and tasty! Dried fruit is for this afternoon... I'll see if I can manage on two boxes a week, but the way today has gone so far, it's gonna be a daily thing I think. 's better than forking out more for soup every day though!

I'm not all that used to going to the theatre much, but after a big gap since seeing Spamalot back in the Summer there's been a bit of a run of it recently; West Side Story on 1st Nov, Bill Bailey last night (supported by a really really tasty dinner at Aurora beforehand) and then Noises Off on Saturday.

Culture. Izzit. :o)

Only one new plastic carrier bag since the last update (carryine one around with me really helps) and loads of stuff taken to the recycling centre, including bed linen that's perfectly serviceable but I've just gone off it (and bought some gorgeous new stuff from M&S :o)). I've also thrown away 5 tangerines that had gone mouldy and half a potato.

Sunday really was a domestic day; packing up the chopped down garden and taking it to the tip - to be shredded by rose thorns as you're not allowed to put the bags in with the garden waste and I didn't take gloves with me; baking muffins; cooking a roast chicken dinner and roasting a Coquina squash (sweeter than Butternut and Sainsburys have them on 1/2 price at the moment - I got a 1.1 kg one for £1.25), while the oven was on for the chicken, to make spiced soup from. The soup, by the way, is absolutely heavenly. I roasted cubes of the squash with madras curry powder and olive oil, then blended it with some vegtetable stock. Yum! And much cheaper than getting soup from EAT for my lunch.

We slobbed around most of the day, scoffing the leftover cake and roast lamb from the weekend, watching the first few episodes of the first series of The West Wing (I've been hankering after that for the last few weeks during the build-up to the US elections) and working our way through a bottle of champagne. Eventually we hauled ass out of the house to a Thai restaurant in Fulham for dinner which was absolutely heavenly - I had rice-paper-wrapped prawns with sweet chilli sauce, followed by duck in red curry with jasmine rice. A nice pot of tea followed at home once we'd battled through the freezing rain to get home and *bing* there appeared a chocolate encrusted, toffee cake! *explode*

It was such a good idea to take the day off and just do pretty much nothing but eat and drink nice things and snuggle up. Mmmm-mmm!

The weather was lovely pretty much all week and despite an oopsie with not checking the weather line the night before our scheduled balloon flight at the beginning of the week, we did manage to go for a balloon flight at the end of the week and it was lovely. Flying above the misty Devon landscape, in the chilly morning sun, sipping champagne and getting a nicely warm head ffrom the burners... really lovely.

I took one or two photos; hot-air balloons and cows are quite photogenic.

11.5 miles into Launceston and back; walking up the last hill into town. This bit of the world is a bit on the hilly side and there's a whacking great long one uphill on the way home. Still, reckon we worked off half of one of the clotted cream scones from earlier.

(11.5. Miles - [208.5 miles])