Living this Life

I found something really cute that I want. I got to know about it when one of my work colleagues came in wearing one of them and got a lot of curiosity as to how on Earth she puts them on.

Earspirals! :D Have you heard about it? Apparently it originated from San Francisco... it's an earring you can't lose (whilst wearing it)!


Is that cute or what? That's one of the "Californian convertibles", ie you can change parts of it. There are some static ones as well. But I just think they're the greatest! They're not cheap though... -_-

Does anyone feel like buying me a present? :P

Still working on pictures of Tunisia... will be up as soon as I find time to sort it all out. :P I'm sure you're all dying to see them... not! Heh.

*grin* If you've read my Facebook status message yesterday, you will have seen the young animals comment and known that I was mixing up a honey+mustard marinade for half a lamb leg. I marinaded it overnight in the fridge and put it into the slow cooker today, and it was absolutely melt-in-your-mouth heavenly. *swoon*


I know, I know, I don't get points for presentation. Anyway, if you're interested, I followed the marinade recipe from here and then just made it a slow-cooker pot roast instead of a traditional roast. For the gravy, I added a dash of red wine and enough Bisto gravy granules to thicken up the gravy after cooking. Will be making again for sure!

PS: Yes, Ash got us new plates because I broke all but one of the old ones. :(

WE GOT IT! :D :D :D :D :D

Also linked DrivenMagazine on my severely unused links list on the side - show my boy some love! ;)

Cats can't see what's right under their nose, so if you're feeding one a treat right under its nose, the cat can smell the treat but can't see it, so it'll have to nose around to find the treat.

And generally, their vision - when transposed to the equivalent on the Snellen chart - is around 6/9. Or 6/12, I don't remember exactly. But yeah, humans generally have much better visual acuity than cats, despite the whole cats have extraordinary senses myth.

A bit drunk again today... we went to iMMO for food today (Wednesday and all), and it has proper italian decor with cream and dark brown leather seats, etc. We had a bottle of Italian red wine with our main and it was called Domiziano Villa Valpolicella Classico, and it was really nice to drink, smooth and fruity.


I know Richard Hammond did Should I Worry About... Alcohol? where he showed that people should eat whilst they're drinking and they're less likely to be drunk that way, but sharing a bottle of red between the two of us still proved to be too much, because after a glass each we're both a bit tipsy. With food.

It might have something to do with the fact that we're not really big wine drinkers. We can handle our vodka much better, but wine makes both of us silly quite quickly.

Also almost gave Ash a heart attack because I asked him to chose the wine since I'm not particularly fussy with my wine and I think he doesn't like white and isn't that keen on most rose, and then I pointed out after the waiter left that it said £13.95 under per 250ml glass. XD Turned out to be a typo at the end and it was £13.95 for the bottle. Haha! Sorry Ashy! :D


I had Penne Rusticana for my main, and it was a baked pasta dish with seasoned chicken, peppers and brocolli mixed with penne and baked in a creamy sauce with cheese on top. It was pretty good, I liked the peppers but not that keen on the creamy sauce itself. Tasted a bit bland, to be honest, and the cheese was a bit strong. But overall it's okay, and the service was pretty good.

Ash was initially quite disappointed with his main (Pollo Siliciana or something like that) because it looked tiny (sorry, guys, he dug into the food before I started deciding to take pictures, so there's no photo to show!)! I consoled him that he could have dessert and not all is lost, but he soon found out after that it was actually really filling.

We had dessert anyway. ;)


He had a huge apple crumble (laced with Amaretto) and ice cream whilst I had a slice of "honeycomb smash cheesecake" (which is cheesecake with honeycomb base and chocolate-covered honeycomb bits on the top). I liked the cheesecake, but you know what's bad?

I liked the apple crumble more!

Yes, the greedy person that I am, I stole part of his dessert too! XD

I gave them a non-compulsory tip at the end because whilst it is not yet standard to tip at restaurants here, they did offer a good service and I can't really fault them for anything plus they didn't kick us out of the restaurant even though we were the last two people there and they were obviously dying to close up. :P

So it was a nice close to the night, we left the restaurant at quarter to 11 and stumbled our way back to the room. It was freezing outside... it's winter already and it's only October! Apparently it was snowing in London too!

Lancome has just came out with the world's first vibrating mascara.

Like, what? Are women around the world surveyed and they found that women would prefer it if their mascara wands vibrated?

Soon we'll find that it's like electric toothbrushes, with a tagline like "coats more eyelashes than traditional mascara!" and "recommended by makeup artists in Hollywood!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4

Funniest thing evah! Kept bursting into laughter at 8am today even though I was trying to be quiet because Ash is sleeping. XD

Makes me want to hasten my efforts on getting a (or two) kitteh though. :'(

The right side of my head is pounding away and feeling really heavy, but regardless - I went to the cultural market (again) today!


Lincoln has this thing for markets. Other than our annual Christmas market (that everyone in Lincoln is in love with), every so often, we will have a cultural market where people set up stalls in the middle of the high street selling all sorts of things from different countries and cultures. There are stuff like Transylvanian glassware, Parisian leather bags and belts, bonsai trees, traditional handcrafted woodware, frost-resistant garden gnomes/animals and hand-painted pictures. What I'm really interested in though in these markets are the food.

Glorious, glorious food. No surprise there! :D

There are traditional English hog roast (and on the side of the stall, a large whole hog being turned and slow-roasted on a spit), Danish pancakes (which are tiny pancakes less than 2" in diameter), German sauerkraut and bratwurst, alternative meats burger stall, French crepes (which I had had two days in a row... oops!), fresh croissants and sweet brioches, Spanish paella (I've heard loads about this from Ash; it looks like stewed meat and veg and then rice is cooked with the stew to absorb all the moisture and flavours, but I won't know until I try!), French baguette au fromage, Indian curry, Portuguese egg tart and meats (such as chorizo and other stuff I don't know the name of), pick-'n'-mix biscuits and nuts, gourmet coffee with various names, cheeses from all over the world and olives, caramel roasted nuts, chilli prawns, and sweet tarts of all kinds!

It's like a funfair without the rides - it's so awesome! The best part is all of these goodies are made fresh in front of you - you can be certain the pastries you buy are at most a few hours old. I want to try everything, but even with my crazy habits of stuffing myself still I cannot manage to have a bit of everything. ;_; Too bad they are only here for 3 days!

On Friday Ash and I went to walk around the market after lunch to browse, and I bought some tarts for us (chocolate and almond for Ash, strawberry and peach for me) and we both got crepes for dessert. ^^ I had one with maple syrup, which was yum, and Ash had his with maple syrup and banana after much coercing from yours truly. They weren't cheap, but the guy who made them was very generous with the portions!

I went again yesterday even though Ash had already went off home for his go-karting session with his family so I figured I may as well enjoy having lunch at the market since it's just outside where I work. Went up to the hog roast stall and got a hog roast sandwich with onion and sage stuffing (and you can opt for applesauce too), and it was really juicy and tender. ^^ After that, I had apple and cinnamon crepe, which was delish, but I think I prefer the maple syrup one I had the day before. Also bought some Portugese egg tarts because Nicky R had been raving about it whilst we were stuck outdoors Friday morning due to the fire alarm going off at the workplace three times within the hour and Fire & Rescue unit had to come around twice to check things out. I don't like egg tarts as a general rule (too cold and stodgy and sticky), but these were heavenly! XD I've been proven wrong!

You won't believe what I did today morning though. I forgone the usual McD's double sausage and egg muffin for a trip to the alternative meats stall for a burger! XD


"So what's good?"

"Everything is," he said, laughing. "People usually go for kangaroo or ostrich, but I personally prefer wild boar."

"Hmm. Well, I've had ostrich and wild boar meat before, so let's try the kangaroo!"


So yep, I got a kangaroo burger. XD How did everyone's favourite marsupial taste?

Weird. It had the texture and colour similar to beef, but it tasted slightly... fishy? I don't know if that's the right word, but there's an odd aftertaste. Not sure I'd go for it again if I'm honest. Maybe I'm just not used to it. But that's another thing crossed off the BBC's 50 Things to Eat Before You Die list. I think I have around 15 more items to go (stuff like guinea pig, reindeer, Australian meat pie, Moreton Bay Bugs, alligator, caviar, and haggis... might be able to get haggis since it's Scottish, if I'm not mistaken).

After that, I browsed for dessert again and got myself not one, but two tarts. XD No, not prostitutes, idiots (why are they called tarts, anyway?). Voila!


Don't they look delicious?

Mmm. The best one I've had is the peach tart. ^^ Would definitely get again.

I had a fantastic Sunday with Ash. Wonderfully scrumptious breakfast in bed, a very eventful live F1 feed to follow (with more cock-ups from the Ferrari team), going out shopping for food at M&S, watching Death Race at the cinema (it was fantastic!), cooking dinner and cuddling up in front of the TV with one two bottles of wine.

<3!

We went to Sunderland for the weekend to visit Brother #3 who just arrived in the UK on Saturday, and it was pretty fun. Ash drove us there with a little help from GPS and my appalling navi skills when we hit Sunderland city centre to actually get to the B&B we were booked in on the seafront. The B&B had really good reviews on TripAdvisor.com, so thinking that that many people can't all be wrong, I rung them up yesterday to book a room for the night. He said I could have the double en-suite for £42 and breakfast for two. On their website, that price is actually for a standard twin/double room (without en-suite), so we got a pretty good deal overall.

We arrived (after getting lost because the GPS led us into the back alley somewhere) and parked up in front of the B&B and was rewarded with the awesomest, almost staggeringly powerful view of the North Sea. For a moment there, it really did take my breath away.

As we were checking in, we were also pleasantly surprised that we were not only given a double en-suite room, but a double en-suite room with a four-poster bed (I personally have yet to know what is so important about four poster beds that people charge you more for sleeping in one) and an extra single bed and a view of the sea from the bedroom. We apparently did get quite a discount then, as a "four poster bedrom with seaview" is priced at £52/night.


And we got a seaview. And what a nice one too, with the benefit of a panoramic window!


The room itself was pretty nice, very cosy-looking and roomy, with amenities like bath and face towels and TV with remote. They not only have tea/coffee-making facilities, they even have a fridge and a microwave in the room!

Went to visit my brother after that in a taxi, but after much problems, we finally got to where he is staying and hung out for the day. We went out shopping for stuff and then ate at Wetherspoons and watched The Dark Knight. My poor brother had to pay for it all because I only had £8ish in my bank, which I felt really guilty about. :( But I did reimbursed him the next day for all our spendings, so that's okay then. :P But this means we haven't had the chance to drag him out to introduce him to pub-life, but I'm sure his seniors are doing a pretty good job of that as we speak...

The next morning, we woke up to the smell of breakfast wafting upstairs and was hungry long before 9am, our pre-arranged time for breakfast. We stuffed ourselves silly when we went to the kitchen with cereal+milk, orange juice, a full cooked breakfast and toast and then went off to meet my brother again before we left because Ash wanted to show off his precious baby. That is, his car. And for me to pay my brother back what he spent the day before, because I was supposed to be the one treating.

We did take some photos of the three of us today, but the two men were complaining about how they look horrible (Ash goes, "My hair is a mess!" and my brother goes, "I look fat!") in the photos so I'm not allowed to post it up or send it around. :( I am having zit problems (three appearing in one day, ugh!), and I wasn't complaining about that. Hmph. And men think we women are the whingers. :P