Holy Cow…!
Posted: February 17, 2013 Filed under: Blogging, General, Home, Life, Music, Musings, Personal, Travel | Tags: 2012 Summer Olympics, Daniel Craig, London 2012 Olympic, NYC, Scarborough, Springsteen, The Boss, Whitby 6 Comments »Hey guys – long time speak (ok ,waffle from me…)
It’s been over six months since I last posted – 24th June 2012 to be exact…This is my first blog of 2013 and it’s almost March…!
2012 was one heck of a year though! I feel a tad guilty about not writing anything in/about the other half of it…!
Our personal pièce de résistance was our Silver Wedding Anniversary celebrated with lots of wonderful cava during our absolutely excellent fortnight in Barcelona; the country’s pièce de résistance was our amazing hosting of the London 2012 Olympics (even we were rooting for Team GB and are immensely proud of them! 
); November saw the rather fantastic Skyfall hit the cinemas, and let’s not forget Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee! (There’s a Daniel Craig tie-in somewhere in there… )
We booked a holiday to the Maldives for 2013 and then came to our senses, cancelling it and instead having another festive December break in NYC which left a much smaller hole in our bank balance
Christmas and New Year’s Eve were a bit of a soggy pudding however – we both got a variety of viruses so were pretty much ill for around 5 weeks- boooooooo!!!!
Oh and we’ve fallen off the sensible-eating, no (tummy) pain, no (weight) gain wagon BIG TIME…(don’t ask…)
Here we are now though, Valentine’s Day has come and gone, along with a variety of rain, snow and gales, but we’re starting to see glimmers of spring everywhere – Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early one and who are we to argue with the world-famous weather-predicting groundhog!
- February 21st sees us at the O2 Leeds watching one of our favourite bands Train in concert…
- The end of February (if not before…) sees us climbing BACK on the sensible-eating wagon BIG TIME…
- March will hopefully see me & Mikey on our first trip of the year to the seaside sometime around his birthday – fish and chips in Whitby maybe, or an early breakfast in one of the fab little seaside cafes overlooking Scarborough Harbour, with a yomp hither and thither whichever location we end up at…!
- March also sees us in the audience of Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’ in its first national tour – we saw it in London and look forwards to seeing it in our home town! (By the way, the butler did it…only kidding )
- April sees me and Big Sis off on a short trip to one of her favourite cities, Paris – I’ve never been and she’s itching to show me around …
- June sees us in the Big Smoke for another Springsteen concert with our good ‘Tramp’ friends, Mike & Jayne at Wembley Stadium…
- And at the end of August, we’re back in the Big Apple hoping to go on the Great Scrapple Hunt in the wilds of Philadelphia with our other good friends, Joe and Anna.
Sounds like I might have a few things to blog about if I actually pull my finger out! ;)
See ya!
Our First Springsteen Gig…!
Posted: June 24, 2012 Filed under: General, Music | Tags: Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen, Clarence Clemons, Concert, Etihad Stadium, Jake Clemons, Manchester, Manchester City FC, Springsteen, The Boss, Tramps, Tramps Like Us, Wrecking Ball 3 Comments »So, last Friday, Mike and I went to our first Bruce Springsteen concert at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester – home of Manchester City FC.
We’d decided to spend the day pottering around Manchester prior to the concert – we’d not been there for years and thought it would be good idea but ended up very VERY wet – it absolutely threw it down ALL DAY. The only time we got remotely close to dry was when we went to a great Spanish restaurant called Evuna on Deansgate…but I digress.
Our friends – Mike and Jayne – are HUGE Springsteen fans – definite ‘Tramps’… Jayne has a weekly blog ‘I’d Rather Be At A Springsteen Gig’ that’s definitely worth checking out.
Hardcore ‘Tramps’ waiting for The Boss
They’ve seen him in places all over the world – New York, Dublin, Paris, Barcelona…usually at back to back concerts in the same location and even then, feel like they could have gone to just one more gig or heard one more song…you get the idea When the new tour dates came out, and Manchester was on the list, they suggested our going to see him with them.
Thanks to Mike and Jayne we’ve been able to listen to quite a few of his albums most recently Wrecking Ball. Now to be honest, I wasn’t that keen on Wrecking Ball. My first couple of listens to ‘We Take Care of Our Own’ irritated me actually, and my first full Read the rest of this entry »
Oy! WordPress…WTF???
Posted: June 13, 2012 Filed under: Blogging, General | Tags: Bugs, Errors, Faults, Hosts, Reader, Reader broken, Tools, Unhappy, WordPress, Wordpress.com 5 Comments »Ok – I’m seriously unhappy with WordPress.com… 
For more than 3 days now I haven’t been able to navigate to posts published by blogs I follow by any of the ‘reader’ functionality/links on the WordPress.com site either via the Banner linked tabs across the top or by hovering over the ‘W’ icon in the top left of the page – in fact NONE of the sub-menu options under Reader goes anywhere – at all…. Hubby can’t see all the blogs he follows either (he sees one – which is one more than I do….but that’s it) I’ve happily been using Chrome for a while without a problem….! What on EARTH is going on?????
Oh, and I can only get one and half pages of Freshly Pressed – the ‘earlier’ button does absolutely sod all…nada…nix. Has my account got corrupted? He can load a second half-full page of more FP’s but then half’s empty like mine - but his ‘earlier’ button works…reloading half a page…
Maybe this explain why my blog’s not getting many new hits / new visitors – or are my posts just plain boring? (Not sure I want an answer to that one actually…)
So right now guys, unless I get an email from your blog when you post, (and to be honest I turned several off a month or so ago, just trusting I could go to the Reader whenever I had time rather than my mailbox getting inundated…) I can’t get read your posts which is a real bummer! Getting quite pee’d off now…
WordPress – please get your act together and sort this out – you may well have put some new stuff out there that appears to be setting the blogging world on fire, but get the basics working again will you please – or I just may have to go to another blogging host…
Or is it just me? Is anyone else having problems with this? I’ve tweeted several times to @wordpressdotcom and getting no response – from them or anyone who follows them… Looks like I might have to email Support about it…joy…trying to describe THAT should be interesting…via email…back and forth… (sigh)
Nespresso v Gaggia
Posted: June 11, 2012 Filed under: Coffee Posts, Food, General, Home, Musings | Tags: AeroPress, Caffeine, Capsules, Coffee, DeLonghi, Drink, Drip brew, Espresso, Filter coffee, Food, Gaggia, Gaggia Baby Twin, George Clooney, Krups, Latte, Nespresso, Nestle, Semi-automatic, Senseo, Tassimo Leave a comment »We like coffee – in fact we love coffee.
My perfect mornings start with a good strong latte. Meanderings around our local town centre usually end up with a great coffee or two in one or two of our splendid independent coffee bars. Our favourite cities are full of even more favourite coffee-based haunts.
Coffee officionados out there will probably laugh uproariously at us, but we also love Nespresso machines.
Tempus Fugit…
Posted: June 10, 2012 Filed under: General, Home, Life, Musings, Personal | Tags: Blogging, Home, Ironing, Laundry, Lazy, Life, Procrastination, Tempus fugit, Workweek and weekend Leave a comment »The days are passing at an alarming rate, rapidly multiplying into weeks, and then months.
It’s hard to remember what day it is let alone what the actual date is… and having just glanced at the date in the top right hand corner of my MacBook – crikey! it’s the 10th of June! A few weeks ago I found myself wondering how far away Easter was and then remembered that it’d been and gone…first May Bank Holiday / second May Bank Holiday / Jubilee Holiday – both gone. I see posters for things on at the theatre pasted to walls around the city centre and find myself thinking ‘oooh that might be interesting’ only to realise that they were on weeks or even months ago – they’d just not been pasted over with something new yet.
Why Do I Do It…?
Posted: May 29, 2012 Filed under: Food, General, Home, Life, Musings, Personal | Tags: Apathy, Ben & Jerry, Choices, Eating, Food, Ice cream, Idiocy, Lapse, Mother Nature, Stupidity, Sugar 4 Comments »***WARNING***
This post has been given a ’PTMI’ ( (Potentially Too Much Information) rating of 8/10 – you have been warned
Why do I do it…???
“Do what?” I hear you ask…
Well… being as you asked… I’m sitting here with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream in front of me and I’m going to eat it – all of it – in one sitting – in fact before it’s at perfect eating temperature…you know, that wonderful gooey not-quite-in-its-frozen-state-anymore-but-about-to-become-a-liquid state…to be honest, my sturdy spoon is in danger of being bent due to it being the total opposite of perfect eating temperature – it can’t defrost fast enough…
If there were any other ‘bad’ foods in the house, they would be in serious danger right now…lucky for me (or not so lucky for me in this state of mind) I don’t get them in anymore. No bars of ‘normal’ chocolate, or crisps, or pizza lurking in cupboards…just fresh veggies etc in the fridge along with some cold meats and bacon – none of which appeal to me right now I’m ashamed to say… I’m being very strong and NOT going online to look at pizza takeaway menus – heck I’m even thinking of cracking open a bottle of wine so I won’t get in the car and go get takeaway chicken and fries (which always makes me feel like cr*p after I’ve eaten it when I’ve succumbed in the past…) I don’t drive if I’ve had any alcohol at all…
I’ve not had a ‘bad’ day at work – manic and tons to do yes – but I actually like it like that. Ok, starting my usually clockwork precision-like period 4 ******** days early whilst still at work – and in the middle of marathon back to back conference calls - without realising - wasn’t good - in fact if Mother Nature had been standing in front of me at the point I realised – or even now come to think of it – she’d have been told to stick her ‘monthly gift’ where the sun doesn’t shine – but like I say, in the scheme of things, not a ‘bad’ day at all.
BUT
Can I be bothered to make ‘wise food choices’ right now – no.
If I had another tub of ice cream in the freezer would it be in danger after I’ve scraped the bottom of this one clean – yes.
Would I care – no – ok maybe I would after the second tub – my tummy (and head) are starting to complain a bit after the first one actually if I’m honest – that (was) alot of sugar… (yep it’s all gone…)
I do find myself back at where I started at the beginning of this totally random post – what on earth makes me do it??? Then again… I can’t be arsed trying to analyse it and life’s too short to regret my less-frequent-than-they-used-to-be lapses of good judgement
I’m off to get some paracetamol for my headache…
Best Laid Plans…
Posted: May 13, 2012 Filed under: General, Home, Life, Musings, Personal | Tags: Apathy, Blogging, Food, Free Time, Home, Laundry, Work, Workweek and weekend, Writing 2 Comments »Firstly, apologies to anyone who finds what I write interesting enough to read on a regular basis and has noticed my absence…I’ve been preoccupied. The days are flying by at an alarming rate and when I look back, I don’t seem to be doing very much with them – apart from working – which is a good thing and something I’m immensely grateful for. I guess it’s just all part of getting back into the rhythm of things again.
It’s strange how quickly my focus and priorities have changed around again…I’d previously started filling my days with grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning, washing and ironing – that kind of stuff (and writing of course!) - whereas my days are once again filled with the job (which is coming along fine – a steep learning curve as with anything new, but I’m getting there…), and evenings are trying to fit in grocery shopping and making our main meal, as well as ‘decompressing’ before going to bed. Cleaning has definitely taken a back seat – the vacuuming only gets done when it’s REALLY irritating me (and as I look at the carpet in front of me, that may be soon…), and laundry when we start to run out of key things – both are shameful I know, but hey…
