emchi.co.uk

Well today involved going to Fairford then off to Ikea in Bristol.  Lets get beyond the traffic and complaints about how far away it is… and lets get onto how I tripped over my own feet and now have knees twice the size they were this morning.  Ouchy!!

Ikea in Bristol is strange, I’m used to Ikea at Lakeside, laid out logically and easy to access.  Not this place.  Anyway, ended up spending more than I’d anticipated, typical me really.  Well the shelves are put up in the pantry now and all I’ve got to do is prey I’ve got enough shelves for the amount of stuff I’ve got.  Yeah, likely I know.  So tomorrow will be unpacking the boxes and putting stuff away.  Fun!  Still the kitchen already looks better. 

Also on the list of things to do tomorrow will be buying mastic for the shower surround which is leaking like a mother bleeper.  I’ve yet to find anything in this place that’s been done well.  So hopefully by tomorrow evening I’ll have an un-packed kitchen, a shower that no longer leaks, and I’m going to do a bit of cooking.  Make up some stuff for lunch next week, well that’s all hoping my knees don’t suddenly decide they’ve had enough and give up the ghost.

Right, I’ve still got to go down the shop and buy milk, and lets not get started on dinner for tonight!! gah!

There’s something rather nice about living in the country, it’s not just the peace and quiet, it’s that the stress from the city seems to have sloughed off of me.  Mornings involve waking up to the daylight pouring in through the window, which is in front of the bed, so I can lie in bed and look up the hill to the horizon.  The trees, currently devoid of leaves look like ink leeching into water colour paper.

The commute to work, as mentioned before, is no longer a cattle train express to the smog filled city scape that was the past, it’s now a pleasant trip through the mud bog in the front garden, to the car.  Then it’s a pleasant 15 minute drive up the road.  No traffic lights, no dual carriage ways, no queues of traffic, and no swearing.  It’s relaxing.

So now I’m left with having to think about what to write about.  I wouldn’t say I’ve got writers block, because I can think of lots of things to write about, I just don’t seem to be able to find anything to get ranty about.  So perhaps this is a new direction for me? 

Who knows… I like this place more, I feel settled here, more than I did in Kent and London, there I just felt like an un-welcome outsider.  Perhaps it’s the thought of not feeling like an alien, I don’t know.  It’s just good to be home.

I was reading in the observer food magazine today about the winners of the Waitrose and Observer food awards. Before you read on, those who hate Jamie Oliver may want to turn away now. The reason for the post about Jamie Oliver has to do with his better food for kids campaign. Whilst I’m not exactly a massive fan I did admire the work he’s done to try and get better food into the schools for kids’ diets (the hyperactive kid who’s behavior improved once he changed his diet is a shining example here). The interview brings out his passion for improving the diet of the nation. Something that amazes me. You only have to look at the way the French, Italian and Spanish eat to see that you don’t or shouldn’t have to be rich to eat a healthy balanced diet. Whilst I’m no expert as I’m overweight, I do put the blame on the supermarkets who advocate the quick to eat foods that take little or no time to prepare.

If you walk into a supermarket in the UK, once you get passed the fresh veg and fruit, you’re immediately placed in front of the “micromeals”. You walk into a Supermarket in France, and you’re presented with, well anything but. I think the best you can find ready prepared are pizzas (this may have changed slighly, but I know it was pretty much the case in the Hypermarket I normally go to in Dunkerque).

People say they don’t have the time to cook, how come I can rustle up a pasta sauce in the time it would take to cook a micro meal in the oven? Ok so it’s not overdone with fresh veg, but I know what’s gone into it. I find it has more flavour than the tubs of fresh sauce you buy in the supermarkets as well.

Another thing that the government is banging on about is the new traffic light categories on food packaging and eating less fat. That’s all well and good, but those lower fat meals you buy are more often than not heavily laden with sugar to make up for the missing fat as it adds flavour. The sugar is worse for you than the fat is. There are lots of healthy fats out there for you to eat, I don’t really know why it’s always so black or white.

Going back to the article, Jamie says that getting kids to learn how to cook at an early age is important as we don’t teach our kids how to cook anymore. Whilst I find this good, you have to educate the parents as much as the kids. You’ve got a growing culture of kids having kids, so they wouldn’t have learnt how to cook themselves. They’re the people going out and buying the crap the kids eat at home, so educating them is equally as important as teaching the kids themselves.

The interview goes onto mention that you can make food out of the cheapest of ingredients, this is fantastic, but none of the recipe books I’ve seen go out of their way to give you the recipes. Why on earth not? Why isn’t there a book out there, that’s cheap to buy, giving you good quality food recipes for relatively no money. Encourage people to buy the ingredients raw, and give them the recipes and you’re more likely to get them cooking. So here’s the challenge for Jamie Oliver or other celeb chefs, get togther, come up with some good English recipes, mix in some european “pesant” food and start getting it out to people on low incomes.

Here’s an example, last week we decided to have soup for dinner, only the other half is a bit fussy with food and wanted the Heinz tinned veg soup, I personally can’t stand it as it has a tinny tasteless flavour. So I raided the fridge and cupboard. I came up with a base for the soup out of the final few bits of salad in the fridge, some tinned tomatos and some beans and pulses. Result? Dinner for two days and lunch for one. Took me about half an hour as well.

Ok moan over… it’s safe to continue onwards without fear of me mentioning the Oliver type person.

The re-design work is almost done, it still requires a heavy amount of tweakage to get it perfect but it’s now looking better than it did two days ago, three columns in place and some of the colours are working. I now just need to work out how to stretch the display so it’s not three inches wide… it’s not too bad if you’ve got a monitor like the size of one I use at work, but a 20″ widescreen like at home looks naff.

Anyway, apologies for the naffness of the templates on here, I forgot to move over the archives template and the comments template. Still I know the comments work thanks to someguy. Once I’ve sorted the templates out I can sort out the category archives and think about some of the extra pages. I’m basically re-doing the archives. I’m going to call them channels… with any luck I may end up with a better structured site. Trying to simplify things I’m going for the following:

Mac Tips
Cars etc
Media - Books, Films, TV & Music
Girly stuff

Under those I’ll go for sub categories. I’ve got a basic navigation in on the page that looks quite cool at the mo. However I’m contemplating drop down menus… I know it’s anal, and I know I don’t get much traffic, but I’m bored and it doesn’t cost me anything to develop these things, plus I might learn something out of it in the long run.

It would appear Newham has a problem with people driving around in un-licensed and un-taxed cars… So I found it amusing seeing cars being towed away from a set of traffic lights in Stratford… I do hope they don’t crush the pale pearlescent blue skyline as it did look like a very nice car. It just serves the muppet right for not having taxed it… Some muppets never learn

Well the weekend was rather interesting… ok it was excellent, company was fantastic, frenetic, shocking, amusing. Spending Saturday trying to avoid all the traffic / people going towards Wimbledon / Live 8 / Hed Kandi thing in the park… what to do… go to Camden!!

Eating dim sum, drinking lemonade, wandering around stalls, buying glass jewelry (again), incense, getting a piercing… happy summer days. Pear Cider (OI you lot before you say anything about me being from Somerset and drinking cider… it was Swedish Pear Cider, very nice but could see it was about to give me indegestion so stuck to one).

Going onto dinner in this looney place on Drury lane called Sarastro, totally bonkers Opera theme going on, with opera boxes as booths to eat in, a mad accordian / guitar band that would not go away. Oh and I think I forgot to mention the pornesque murals in the ladies and gents… (photos to follow).

Feel so relaxed I’m tired… urgh. either more coffee required or something stronger. Toodles.

well that was fun… Cumbria to Maidstone in 6 hours… exactly. Nice.

M6 Toll road - Great fun, smooth surface, no traffic and great adverse cambers.
Vectra Drivers - Pay Attention - your cars aren’t Ferarri’s they really don’t go that fast, don’t try.
The driver of the green ford escort at the Dartford tolls, yes it was a Clio 172 sitting next to you, and yes it was a chick that toasted you - badly.

Well my back is sore, and I ache so I’m off to the gym to sort it out.

well the drive up took eons… but worth it… wel until I got to the hotel. This place is bloody awful, I went out for an hour just to get a modem lead so I could live with the real world for a few minutes. I will upload pictures when I get back to civilisation, ie a place that has broadband.

The M6 toll road is quite nice though, lots of free space wit no traffic. My kinda place if you ask me. Some of the scenery was beautiful once I managed to get off of the motorway but I don’t think its that great around here.

Things I was reminded of today:

1. Motorway service stations are not the nicest place on earth.
2. Argos really IS full of chavs (don’t ask I’m too ashamed)
3. Wearing comfy clothes are the best thing to wear for driving.

New things I learned:

1. Your nan may have died but her spirit lives on in hotels across the country
2. They have M&S food places on the M1.

When I’ve let the lovely Cumbria digest will post more.

I’m not an old woman, and I don’t drive like one. When I’m on my own in my car I do tend to push it a bit. However in wet weather why does everyone in a big car drive like a total wanker? Leaving my flat and driving down the road that takes me to the motorway, I had some fucktard in a Mercedes sitting on my tail, swerving to get round me and generally being a tit. It’s a 30 into a 40, it was wet and there was no reason for it. Then someone who should have known better, oh hang on a mo, maybe not, another Clio 172 driver, up my tail and being a tit. Only one small problem, why didn’t he have Xenon head lights, couldn’t work that one out.

That wasn’t the worst of it. Why is it, in the rain tail gaters are always BMW or Merc Drivers? Whats the hurry? The visibility is naff, all the lanes are congested with traffic, nobody is getting anywhere fast and if there is an accident (which is likely on the stretch of M20 you’re so insistent on tail gating on) you’ll go into the back of my car, writing it off, giving me a pain in the neck and a ruined car. Wanna drive like a twat? do it in good weather and when there’s no traffic, oh and get a car that has more torque and doesn’t drive like a wardrobe on wheels, you may stand a fighting chance.

I’m up to 99 comments on my blog… anyone fancy making it 100? post something sensible, idiot posts don’t count.

Well whoop de doo… it’s easter, another Hallmark sponsored holiday. Being that I’m barely religious, I seem to be taking these holidays with a pinch of salt and using them for much required sleep. Well what else is there to do? You could of course join the traffic queue heading for no where in particular and sit in your cars for the next four days.

Coming from Somerset (no, you can’t borrow my combine harvester, it’s in for servicing since some twonk decided that it would look good with tree “mods”, ie they wrapped it around a tree), you tend to notice the coming holiday season because the volume of traffic on the M5 seemed to get busier. My childhood home being near the motorway, it used to be fun to go and stand on one of the motorway bridges and wave at the traffic. Goodness knows there was sold all else to do.

So happy chocolate egg eating holiday to you all. May you keep Rennies in business with indegestion remedies. Ah just think in a weeks time they can start advertising for Christmas trees and stuff (considering Cadbury’s cream eggs seem to go on sale on Christmas eve). The advertising person’s dream!