A Fabulous Weekend in the Country

Stayed with my boyfriend Vince, mum and dad and grandparents at Tower House, near Kirkby Stephen in Cumbria. You can see photos of Vince and I cooking on the AGA at my mum's blog The Dark Blonde. I don't have any photos of my own to put up at the moment but will try and do so soon.

As you can see the place is rather fantastic. The bedroom Vince and I had isn't in any of the pictures but it had a wardrobe that looked like you could've got to Narnia through it. It felt like a really nice room during the day but at night it was really creepy at night. It kind of felt like someone was in the room, and there was something weird about the mirror on the dressing table. The child's room and play room also had a weird vibe. The huge bath was amazing - I had a good long soak in it as we only have a shower at home :(

It was very sad to leave and we didn't get snowed in as I hoped which meant Vince and I had to come back on Sunday night when we had the place until Monday morning as we couldn't get the day off work. We only spent two nights there but it already felt like home. I thoroughly recommend staying there But get in quick before my family clubs together and buys the place as we have all fallen in love with it!

The Perfect Me

Evil, evil song!!

I have had the guitar intro to the song The Perfect Me by Deerhoof (taken from their latest album Friend Opportunity) going round and round in my head since Wednesday!!

Billy Collins, the American poet wrote a poem about such a phenomenon about having More Than A Woman by the Bee Gees stuck in his head. "A mad fan belt of a tune" he called it. I wanted to quote the poem here in its entirety but would you believe it I couldn't find it on the whole of the bloody internet!! So you'll just have to go out and buy the book it's in - Nine Horses (or you could wait for me to bring my copy of the book and blog it next week if I remember).

If you also want to be so inflicted by a plague of Deerhoof then you can listen to it on my My Space page.

Also if anyone can tell me what time signature(s) its in I'd be very grateful. It's been a few years since I did my Music A Level and I'm a bit out of practice.

I thoroughly recommend Deerhoof though, especially live. I saw them supporting Beck and Radiohead at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last year. They're totally bonkers but very energetic performers.

Solicitors

Solicitors are a strange breed of people aren't they. I have worked for many different ones and they're all a bit strange in their own way. Usually worst in the males of the species

The worst one I ever worked for found out I had read and liked Lord of the Rings. I had read it once. He then used to quote passages and look hopefully at me. I'd look blank. He'd then enthuse that it was a quote from LOTR. It seemed his favourite quote was "Ai! A Balrog!" which he'd exclaim when things weren't going his way.

Also he used to go on about rock climbing and use all the terminology and expect you to now what he meant and didn't explain it to you.

He used to chat with the secretaries and be jolly and tell jokes and then he'd suddenly turn and become a 'higher being' i.e. a solicitor, when he wanted you to do something for him. He couldn't take it if you made jokes at his expense.

In fact he was very like David Brent, and I told him this to his face, rather stupidly. Fortunately for me he hadn't seen it as this was around the time The Office had just started and not many people had seen it. I find The Office very realistic and too painful to watch as my boss was so like David Brent.

I'm sure he's not the only one.

Diet Schmiet

What's the harm in apples and carrots for fucks sake!?

As mentioned in a comment to my previous post, I think you're right about it being a bit weird to totally cut out one food group. For example for breakfast I had 1 Weetabix biscuit (where I would normally have 2) and two boiled eggs. I'm still going to try and be as 'good' as possible according to the diet and avoid carbs as much as possible. This is so I can be a bit lax at the weekend as I'm going on holiday.

It seems to be working though as I have lost 2 pounds and this is day 6 of the diet. I'm not getting obsessed and weighing myself everyday. I was just curious to see if it had actually done anything as I would be inclined to jack it in if it wasn't.

No, this is not the Atkins diet, although it does seem similar. I am following the diet from "Neris and India's Idiot-proof Diet" details of which can be found at Amazon.co.uk.

Oh for a scone!

I am in day 3 of a new diet. I cannot eat carbs for 2 weeks. Carbs are contained in most of my favourite foodstuffs :( Also it means I miss out on the work ritual of a daily scone.

Luckily I can still eat cheese.

I'm bored already and all I can think about is lovely bread, crisps and cake. But I'm overweight so I've to get rid of the flab somehow.

I'll probably never want to see another egg again at the end of all this. I doubt it will put me off cheese.

Image nicked from www.deliaonline.com

BASTARDS!

Neither Vince or I have got the job as library assistant at St Martins :(

I hope the person they pick is totally crap and incompetant. I nearly put incontinent there instead so I hope they're that too!!

Pink, Pink, Pink Moon

I've been a bit poorly so this is the first time I've managed to blog since the weekend due to having not net access at home.

Had a great meal on Saturday night even though I was sent out of the restaurant several times by my family to check on the progress of the lunar eclipse.

When we got home from the meal, the moon was almost fully eclipsed and we watched it reach totality. It was great as Vince and I were staying at my parents' house for the weekend and they live where there are very little street lights. Had we been at home in Carlisle I doubt we would have had such a good view.

The night was so still and clear - there were thousands of stars and some of the planets in view, the misty bands of the Milky Way were visible and Vince even saw a shooting star.

All in all it was a magical night, and strangely warm considering it was March and it was nearly midnight when we were stood outside.