Still not done...

So now, even right this moment, I should be typing up my pancake feature (deadline Friday) but I'm afraid it just ain't happening. Mostly because I've had a pretty tough morning but also I always find it hard copying up stuff onto the computer, its not the same as when your writing and in direct flow like I am now. At the moment I'm afraid there is rather a lot of copying up to be done as paper has to suffice when an Internet connection is lacking. The upshot of this? (and this is something I've realised for a while now) we really really need Internet access at home. I will look into it.

Last night I had my violin lesson as I've got a folk festival meeting on Wed. Robin took pity on me and drove me home as it his last lesson of the day (and he's trying to persuade me to become his sound technician for when he plays live, I'll probably do it anyway but if he want to keep giving me lifts then that's fine :-). His car is pretty new and has a temperature gage on it. It was -1 when I got in the car and dropped to -2 by the time I got home (I only live 10 minutes away!) Cold weather indeed. No rapper tonight or in fact anytime soon. I made the really difficult decision over Christmas to give it up, as its quite a long way away from where I live, I've never actually danced out with the team and I feel that rather than being a help sometimes, I am a hindrance (all the other ladies who dance have another side that they dance with as well). Still I have had a great time, I'm really glad I did it and I hope that at some point in the future (under, I hope more favourable circumstances) I will be able to take it back up again.

So nothing to do this evening apart from house stuff. I thought I might do some cooking. I've got a recipe for hazelnuts in honey from my new River cottage diary that I'm anxious to try plus some beetroot from Fi (that needs pickling). If I'm lucky I might even be able to fit in a smidgen more decorating (excitingly I have to go buy more paint this weekend, this must mean progress, slow progress maybe but progress nonetheless) & I might drop in on Fi this evening to give her my lime (actually grown on my lime tree) and see how Alex is (he wasn't very well at the weekend, poor little bean). So having said nothing is going on tonight there is actually quite a bit of stuff going on, always the way...

The tying up of ends

Why is it that no matter how prepared I am for the weekend I never get all the stuff want to get done done? Time always defeats me. Well at least this weekend I was in the country! The snooker Masters did prove a bit of a massive distraction, but I figure everyone needs a little wind down time at some point right? (I have to confess, I wasn't hardcore enough to stay up for the final last night, but I'm delighted that Ronnie O'Sulivan won) and I did multi task, sort of. I managed to finish Sam's birthday present, which is mostly homemade and matches something that I made and gave to her a while ago (pictures to come after the event as I'm pretty sure she reads this blog, foiled again...). Finished writing my lead article on pancakes for work (I found some pretty yummy fillings which I'll be posting on here a bit nearer to the day itself). Finished a baby hat and a scarf for a young lady for my friend Olie (you may remember he took the knitting group photos in exchange for knitted goods :-) Did some serious gardening of the indoor sort, re potting, planting cuttings, feeding the orchids and finally got round to planting my wild sweet chestnuts, bringing my seed to trees total to 6 sweet chestnuts, 12 normal chestnuts and 12 oaks, if any of those come up I will be a very happy lady indeed :-)

I also got a seed catalogue through the mail, I'll be buying all my veg seeds in person from the garden centre as I find a random selection seems to be the best way of doing it. As disaster struck with my Joe's longs chilli's last year these will be coming from the experts at the Devon Chilli farm who guarantee theirs will fruit (most excellent) which leaves only orchids and bulbs to be bought from the seed catalogue. I've been very good and limited myself to just the one orchid, its a new variety and has flowers that look like white flying birds which are lovely. One of my best (but most terrifying) Christmas presents was a garden planner from my aunt and I feel that pretty soon will be time to start preparations for this years harvest.

Speaking of preparation I think a decision has finally been made on the chickens. My dad has very kindly offered to come down for a weekend and help me make the garden chicken proof (they will be in their run most of the time but this is just an extra precaution). We have had terrible trouble trying to track down baby Arucanas and so an alternative breed has been chosen in the form of the Cotswold Legbar. These were apparently bred from crossing a Cotswold breed with Arucanas and as a result they also lay blue eggs (I must admit I do quite like the idea of having a breed that orientates locally). The next step is to contact the breeder and also get the run finished. Exciting times ahead!

Night and day

So last night we headed off to the Anvil in Basingstoke. Not a very glamorous venue, I'll admit, but it was well worth the trek. Richard Thompson brought his 1000 years of popular music tour to the UK and we had tickets!!!! The concept of this tour is brilliant in its simplicity, Richard Thompson (who is a genius, I know its a strong word but well he is soooo brilliant) performs songs from the different eras. Quoting from his website " Richard starts in the 13th century and then moves to medieval Italian ballads to selections from the songbooks of Gilbert & Sullivan, Stephen Foster, Ray Charles, Hank Williams, The Beatles, The Who, Squeeze, Prince, and even Britney Spears" He's not on his own during all of this sublime songbird Judith Owen and percussion maestro Debra Dobkin join him on stage and they literally played everything they could possibly think of, throwing all caution (not to mention fear of mixing genres) to the wind. My own personal, highlights were one of the earliest songs (written by Richard the lion heart and sung entirely in French), the Kinks, See my friends, Night and Day by Cole Porter (which was sung by Judith with RT doing some very melty guitar stuff over the top, lush, it really was), a nice Irish ballad which I forget the name of but I remember it was about consumption (always a good ballet topic :-) and the finally songs by the Beatles and Maneater by Nelly Futardo. This last number kind of encapsulates the reason why RT is so great. He introduced it as a modern song which for the most part they would be performing in the style of the artist who sang it. However the middle 8 he would be reverting back to a madrigal style singing in Latin, the translation of which is 'she is an eater of men'. Why they were doing this was just because they could, because it was there, and I just think that is a really great attitude to have. It was brilliant and I will never forget it.

Hard to explain

So last night my friend Sam and I ventured out in the very, very cold to see mystery band Quadraphobe. Now you are going to have to concentrate for this bit. We went because my friend Adam (who is coincidentally Sam's car share Adam) has a friend who is involved with them in some way (I think he's actually in the band) and so we were dragged to see them. As any good pop pundit would I checked them on the web beforehand (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=21151173) I was promised "Pioneers of Anglo-German farmyard power-pop" and their genre was listed as ska/pop/funk. I think that would be a slight misinterpretation but I think I can claim pretty fairly that they were entertaining (whether they meant to be this kind of entertaining I still can't tell :-)

I'm well back into the workee swing of things now and it would almost feel like I hadn't been away were it not for all the nice little treasures that I was lucky enough to bring back from Tenerife. I'm going to try and make this my New years aim (as well as the resolutions that I'm working on achieving at the moment, and my general resolve to not get worked up/stressed about things I can't change) to sit back and enjoy things once in a while and not go tearing about like a mad thing. With this in mind I rifled through my old CD collection on Friday night and listened to some stuff I hadn't heard for years as well as some stuff that I had neglected of late because I had bad personal memories associated with it. The upshot of this is that I have fallen in love with Interpol again (they were off my listening radar for the second reason listed) for like the four millionth time and have sworn never to neglect them again and I will be adding the strokes (neglected for the first reason) hard to explain to my ipod as soon as I get the chance. It seems to capture perfectly what I'm feeling right now...

I missed the last bus, I'll take the next train

I try but you see, it's hard to explain

I say the right things, but act the wrong way

I like it right here, but I cannot stay

I watch the TV; forget what I'm told

Well, I am too young, and they are too old

The joke is on you, this place is a zoo

"You're right it's true"

Cream crackered

So here I am signing in after my first 'jog' (I use the word lightly here, really it was more like sprint of 2009) I am, as the title suggests, absolutely shattered, and I will take this as further proof that I should have done quite a bit more sport than I actually managed at Christmas. Nevermind I'm paying for it now. Tonight I've got a guy from work coming to look at our spare room. I don't think he will take it as we are still in possession of a retro bathroom (toothpaste green anyone? With matching Stilton effect titles? Thought not) but you never know. I'm still trying to get my head around the fact that Mel's wedding is happening this year and that she is actually moving out. I find things like this very difficult to imagine until they happen but hopefully a suitable replacement will be found and a new chapter in Manior du Rose history can begin.

Last night I dropped in on Fi after work as I haven't seen her for ages. Alex has grown really big and was surrounded by presents gifted to him by his many admirers for Christmas. Its probably quite a good job I did drop in last night as Fi reminded me we are going to see Richard Thompson and his 100 years of music concert tomorrow night (it was supposed to be my first night back at Violin) so I had to phone Robin & plea to rearrange (I was lucky in escaping the commitment lecture). Violin now clashes horribly with decorating day on Sat but I suppose it will keep me out of trouble. I'm really looking forward to seeing RT tomorrow (can't believe it that soon, this is the best kind of surprise) and today tickets have also gone on sale for Jon Boden (of Bellowhead fame) and his new band the remnant kings. They are playing the Jericho Tavern as an Oxford Folk festival pre event. Exciting times ahead!

Home again

Vikki on Tube
Originally uploaded by victoriaros56

Happy new year everyone and sorry for my utter minceness at blogging these last few weeks. It turns out that my parents Internet connection was far from being bad, actually none existent. So instead I took the old fashioned route and kept a pen and note pad handy at all times & I'm hoping to go back over the last couple of weeks and update with back posts (whilst also making new posts, Ambitious? Yes, but I'm hoping it will work. I got back from Tenerife yesterday with my plane touching down at 5.30pm and was back in my abode by 9pm so that wasn't too bad. Work today is horrendous with a barrage of emails waiting for me (why is it when people get an out of office they feel the desperate urge to send you many many more emails?). Once I've worked through those it will be time to get to grips with my 3 new journals taking me to a grand total of 16 titles. Crumbs! This is going to have to be organisation on a whole new level.

But Organisation this year will be a joy as I get to officially open my River Cottage 2009 diary packed full of recipes and tips it is sure to keep me entertained till next year and beyond! This weekend I plan to crack on with one of my first resolutions, New Year new start things and finish painting my room (why do I get so annoyed with doing it when I know the end result will be fab?). Mel and I are also having a Sleeping beauty and related film night in on Friday with wine and ice cream (she has never seen it, I find this really hard to believe as Malificant was a regular feature in my nightmares when I was little, actually she's still pretty scary now).

I've also got go & see Nick. Fi & Alex at some point as I haven't seen them since before Christmas and I want to thank her properly for my gorgeous knitted gloves and muffle (I still haven't knitted her anything she can wear cause she's such a fab knitter she could make anything she wanted herself, this might be a possible idea for her birthday though which is coming up, hmmm I wonder). Right better go & sort out my inbox.