All these things that I have done

I feel grumpy today. Maybe it's the approaching cold I can feel coming on. It's silly really because I had a nice weekend and there's nothing wrong with work so far but I feel snappish and refused to lend the IT dogsbody guy my headphone extension cord so he could listen to a podcast purely because I find him very annoying. I know, I know, never get on the wrong side of IT but I couldn't help myself. I think if asked, I'll blame pmt.

Anyway. I did in fact have a lovely weekend. We headed over to white_hart and topicaltims on Saturday evening for dinner. Managed to get off at the right bus stop thanks to the clear directions and settled down for a very relaxing evening imbibing wine, eating delicious roast bird (wood pigeon?) and trimmings* and savouring Tim's fine birthday pressie - 40 year old port with stilton. Really lovely stuff and relaxing convivial company - what more could you ask?

I did something I've often done before, which is to crash and head off home around 11ish and then perk up on the way home and want to not go to bed but sit around and play music, which we did until the small hours, very enjoyable, but not exactly a good plan considering I needed to get up for the Remembrance Sunday service.

Managed to pull myself out of bed in a reasonable state considering the previous night's drinking, the only main sign of which was tiredness and a large desire for diet coke. I always want fizzy drinks after a full night - I'm not entirely sure why but it really settles me again. Anyway, the weather wasn't too cold and the Brownies were very well behaved for the service so that was all good. I satified my coke desires in McDonalds and headed home to spend the afternoon alternating lounging around watching the second series of Dinnerladies (a show which I just love - it's so sweet!) and doing things in preparation for serious curry making - tandoori chicken, garlic and coriander naan breads and saag aloo. Actually the whole thing came out really quite well. I was very pleased with the chicken particularly. The naan were good, although I should have used slightly less water in the dough I think and rolled them out a bit thinner and the saag aloo pleasingly spicy, although I should have allowed slightly longer for the spinach to wilt I think. Still, overall, very sucessful and, as it was all out of weight watchers books, pretty gentle on the waist too.

And hopefully it will go as well as last week. Unfortunately I didn't make it to OUSFG yesterday after all which is kind of ironic as the reason we all made an effort to bat around in that part of town was so that we would be at the right end for OUSFG :) Oh well, we still had a pretty cool day.

Actually heaved ourselves out of bed in the morning (shock horror!) to go to the Phoenix for the showing of Porco Rossi or the Crimson Pig which was fantastic. It was set in the real world between the wars about pirates and bounty hunters who use sea planes but the main character was a pig. It was never made clear how or why he was turned into a pig but it was a great film.

Then, we all went for pub lunch in the Radcliffe - chocolate fudge cake ... mmmmmm ... followed by a bit of random shopping in Borders where I found the Cosmopolitan book of quizzes in the sale! Oh yes, 64 quizzes which will tell me absolutely everything I need to know! I have already found out that Alex and I are moderately compatible, that I would be a good mother but not yet, and that Alex would be a quite good but a bit repressed father! I warn you, when I've done them all, I'll post a mega entry with all the answers in!

So yeah, after that we went to the new G&Ds and then the Turf to kill some more time and then we wanted tea so we went to Pizza Hut for pizza (and cheezy bites - mmm) by which time it was 10:15 and so I decided that in the interests of not feeling shit today I'd better just go home. And it worked which is good :)

OK, Friday didn't go exactly to plan in the end although in a good way. As it was our last day in our old building we decided to go bid our farewells to the Old Monk at lunchtime so at about 12:30 most of us moseyed down. At about 1:00pm our boss turned up (Mike) which is almost unheard of because he's insanely busy so we were really pleased to see him. We sat and drank and chatted and had a laugh for a while and then someone looked at their watches (because the drink had run out and the whip round all been spent) and noticed that it was 4:00pm. This was mentioned to the group upon which Mike said "Lets have one last round"! So we ended up not coming back from the pub until 4:50! As you can imagine, I was quite sozzled by this point. I packed up my desk as quick as poss and then headed off. Got home and decided that I was now too drunk to cook so bullied Alex into buying us pizzas and the guys came over to play cheapass games. Unfortunately I wasn't really in a fit state to actually take part but I did enjoy watching.

Nice lay in on Saturday followed by a bit of leisurely shopping and then nice dinner before dispatching Alex off to see Rock of Travolta at the Zodiac while I settled down to some nice MCSE revision. Yeah I know I'm boring but its got to be done. If they can't give me working from home then I'm not sticking around here, nice as the new office is. Maybe its a good thing - I was having trouble motivating myself to get the exams done again - Microsoft is so dull.

Sunday was another nice lay in followed by broccoli and chicken cheese for lunch which is one of my favorites. I haven't done it for ages but it went just right and the sauce thickened up and everything. Sat and enjoyed a bottle of white with Alex and then he went off to do some housekeeping while I watched Buffy - which is looking very good again at the moment - finishing up with the musical episode which rocked. Then unfortunately my brother rang and we were so busy chatting (he's getting a water cooled PC after Xmas apparently :) ) that I didn't notice that it was 6:30 and I was supposed to be at Alex's that instant. I grabbed coat and purse and broke my personal speed record for the journey between our houses - 10mins! Unfortunately I hadn't managed to remember my mobile phone so wasn't able to warn him of my late arrival but it all worked out OK and we went in to see GhostWorld.

I have to say that I wasn't very impressed with GhostWorld. The main character was staggeringly immature and didn't seem to mature at all during the film but was given a get out instead. Plus she was incredibly self centred - she didn't seem to care at all that she completely ruined someones life. Bits of it were quite fun but overall, not a particular recommendation

At least I finally made it along to the library for OUSFG after weeks of only getting to the pub though. It was really nice to see the guys again and I'm quite looking forward to the party next weekend - should be a riot. The only problem is that I haven't started working on my costume yet so I might not be able to sort it out as I'd like it. I was going to go as Rose Tattoo but I might end up wussing out and going as Jenny Sparks - we'll have to see.