Sunday, April 26, 2009

Sunday Super Walk

Today we went for another big long walk around Fletcher Moss park:

There are lots of different areas and trails thru the park. Each time we try to explore a different path, and we always see something new.

However Pepe's favourite part is the 'Beach'- just look at those sandy paws :

She is getting braver going into the water :

Chasing after the Stoopid ducks ! :

... we normally spend about 2 hours walking around. We then have a very tired Pug who tends to conk out and sleep all evening :)

Friday, April 24, 2009

Belated Brill's Birthday

Thursday April 23rd was my 29th birthday !

Naturally I took the day off work. In the morning I opened my presents off Jerry, which were all lovely and got to eat Tarte au Citron for breakfast in bed :)

In the afternoon I made a coffee & ricotta cake. It was my dad's birthday on the 22nd so I wanted to make a cake and give him half when we saw him today :)

In the evening we went on the Wheel



it was quite fun. We've been on a couple of times in the past, and normally go around Christmas-time, but last year never got around to it. I like to go at night and see the city all lit up :)

Because it was also St George's Day there were also Morris Dancers- which we would not have seen if we hadn't gone up on the Wheel :

Today we saw my parents for a meal. We were going to go to Ning, which serves Malaysian food and had Vegan options for Jerry. We walked up there for their Friday Lunch menu, only to find the place closed and a note on the door saying they had stopped Friday Lunches ! Oh well.
So we went to Red Chilli instead. Jerry & I have been there before, when we had 'Sichuan Mrs Spotty's Beancurd' which was amazingly hot ! This time we were gobsmacked when all the food arrived- there was so much ! We got takeaway boxes for the leftovers :)

'til next year... the Big Three- Oh !

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Wednesday Warning

Warning: we have a celebrity in our midst...

Months ago I uploaded some pics on LOLCats website, and kindof forgot about them. You don't receive any notifications if people put captions on them ?

Anyway this week I got an email... asking if they could use one of my pics in their second book - a book called I Can Has Cheezburger?: Lolcats Teach U How To Take Over Teh Wurld !!!


there are a number of captions on the pic, I dunno which one they are going to use on it... or maybe make another one up altogether !

Of course I have said YES !!!

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Tuesday review- Lush

Well we have all recently celebrated Easter, but for some this is easier than others.

Jerry is a Vegan, so rather than getting him a dairy-chocolate egg I thought Vegan-friendly shop Lush might have some fun Easter items for him. We went into one of their shops here in Manchester, where they had bunny and egg shaped Bath Ballistics, but none of the labels said they were Vegan :(
I asked one of the staff who said that the ones that had a sweet on them might not be suitable - the sweet contained gelatine... but I was a little disappointed overall about such an oversight.

I emailed the Customer Services for advise if Any were suitable, and they got back quickly telling me which were- including one called "Honey Bun" which I thought was silly because Honey is NOT Vegan.

Anyway the customer services rep said "give me your address and we'll send you some Vegan stuff to make up for Easter" ... and this is what we received:
1x Ice Blue soap.
I'm not sure if we've had this before, but it has a lovely zingy smell. Peppermint flavour.

1x Uluru Bath Ballistic.
We've not used this one before, but look forward to doing so. It has a sandalwood scent- the most expensive essential oil which caused a massive cock-up on last week's Apprentice !

1x Handy Gurugu hand cream.
I am a complete hand cream addict, so am well pleased this was in there !

1x Olive Branch shower gel
I tried this last night and am not too keen on the 'musky' aroma. It reminds me of The Body Shop's "White Musk", which was popular when I was in secondary school. My fave shower gel from Lush is Sonic Death Monkey.

Also it was all very cutely packaged, and rather than polystyrene briquettes, they'd used popcorn to stop the contents from getting damaged ! Pepe was very curious about this, but I didn't let her have any incase it had any soap or fragrances which might have made her sick :P

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Saturday night Snuggle

Last night we stayed in and snuggled up, watching "Burn After Reading".

I thought it was just okay, my favourite part was Doritos and salsa ! :)

My favourite Coen Brothers film is "Raising Arizona" which is LOL funny.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Stuff on Saturday


What a nice quick week, after the Bank Holiday on Monday.

On Wednesday brother- Ryan and sister-in-law Sandra came to Manchester, bringing baby George with them. I'd sent them the blanket for George in the post as an Easter gift... and here George is modelling it:


Monday, April 13, 2009

Happy Easter

Yesterday we went for a big walk, looking for Easter Bunnies... here is what I found:










A crow













A wood pigeon ?










A duck









A magpie










A spider













A drake










Pepe was very brave and went and looked in the long grass!


But sadly no bunnies... until we came home !

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Wooly Wednesday



Well I finally finished the Garter Stitch blanket from
"Baby Knits for Beginners" Yup all done, stitched together and finally sent off to little George in an Easter gift package. I hope it's big enough for him ! (It's folded over in the above pic !)


And now I have started to make him some "Fluffy Clouds" socks from "Cute Knits for Baby Feet" . This is the first time I have made something which has a colour pattern , which I have struggled a little with ! First I just copied it out bigger and thought I could just cross off the rows as I did them, but I kept forgetting that you have to change the way you read the pattern on each row. So I have just been writing out each row longhand... hopefully it will be worth it !



I do have to be careful about leaving my knitting around though. Jesse James had done his trick of trapping himself in the bedroom. When I went to check on him this is what I found ^^ Fortunately he hadn't unraveled any of my carefully made stitches !

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Tuesday Ten- Annoying habits



Inspired by an entry over on Purs n'snorts here is my Top 10 annoying habits- not all mine !!
  1. Wasting too much time on the Internet, LOL
    This is probably worse when I'm in work, I'll be doing a straightforward case, then get distracted and go on the Internet and all of a sudden it's 10 mins later and I have no memory of where I was up to in my work...

  2. I think one of the criticisms of my star sign, Taurus, is laziness. I'm not sure how true this is, but I am 'good' at procrastinating... I've had an application for a Graduate Trainee position- a job I would LOVE to get for some time now, but as the closing date is the end of May I keep on putting off doing any work on it :( Maybe I'll get around to it this Easter holiday weekend

  3. Pepe barks. We put her in the kitchen overnight and when we want some 'quiet time'... and she isn't quiet about when she wants some company again. Her barking isn't loud or aggressive, but she seems to be able to go on forever... when all you want is for her to settle down again so you can have a weekend lie-in

  4. Pepe sheds. Well okay all the animals shed. Generally in the evening we need to vacuum both sofas before humans can sit down on them, unless they want a tush full o'fur.

  5. I am very acquisitive when it comes to books. I joined the Bookmooch website where since July 07 I have given away 93 books, but received 146 ...!

  6. Jesse James does not understand the concept of doors fully. Most often when he wants to leave a room he will reach up to push the door; so either the door will swing wide open meaning we have to get up to close it again, or he closes the door and traps himself inside

  7. I have to admit that at times I am very easily irritated. When we settle down for the night in bed, Jerry & I might stay up to do a bit of a read. Everything is so quiet that I can hear Jerry biting his nails and it does drive me a little crazy

  8. Pepe eating things in the back yard. Our back yard is paved, but there is some plant sprouting up and a few dandelions here and there. Some days when I take her out there to do her business I just want her to 'go', but she delights in snuffling and sampling anything she can get her chops around

  9. Staying up too late at night
    Some nights I know that I'm tired and should just give in and go to bed, but on the other hand I can't be bothered to go to the routine of getting everyone ready for bed. Unfortunately this always needs doing so I end up rushing around in a bad mood trying to get it over and done with

  10. Shyness
    I guess I'm still pretty shy. E.g. I started going to Pilates class. When I come home Jerry asks "did you talk to anyone", but to me -going by myself- it just seems that people turn up, do the class and then leave. You're all concentrating on yourself getting the moves right, and the Instructor that there's not that much interaction with other members

Wednesday, April 1, 2009