I prefer my soup chunky

Last week was good as I was only in work for two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) as I was off sick on Monday and I had already booked Thursday and Friday off.

When I first tried New Covent Garden Food Company soups I thought they were chunky, then I tried the Main Course soups from Pret a Manger and I realised just how chunky chunky can be ;o).

Talking of chunky soups I tried another new one when I was off on Thursday Chorizo & Butterbean (chorizo, butterbean, onion, garlic, celery, tomato, organic vegetable bouillon, smoked Spanish paprika, cracked black pepper, thyme, rosemary & sage). It was really nice and filled a soup shaped hole in my tummy ;o).

I decided to make use of one of my days off by going to look at the Christmas shop at Harrods (yes Christmas starts in August for people like me ;o)). I love looking at their Christmas decorations and went for this handbag (or purse for those of you across the pond ;o)) one.


click on the photos for all sizes ;o)

They also had shoe ones too but Ive never really been into shoes, so didnt worry about those!

I then went around to Piccadilly to buy some posh biscuits these and these from Fortnum & Mason sorry James Im not sharing any of them ;o).

On my way to Fortnum & Mason I passed Minamoto Kitchoan (a Japanese cake shop) and got us some goodies (they all have red bean in them) from in there, we still havent tried them yet, Im sure they will be scrummy ;o)).

I came across a really cool art project in the courtyard of Burlington House its a structure of mirror balls, it wasnt sign posted or anything it was just through an archway off Piccadilly.


Also Chelmsford Farmers market wasnt on yesterday because of the damn Street Diversions, so I couldnt buy any fresh sausages, so I will be dipping into my "reserves" the problem is I havent marked up any of the bags in the freezer, so I will be enjoying or enduring a pot luck ;o).

James has been sharing again...

James has been his usual caring sharing self by giving me his cold, I started to feel horrible yesterday, why couldnt my cold have started in the week, so I could feel grotty in work time?

Please imagine me typing this with a husky voice and add a few coughs too for a bit of authenticity ;o)

Oh well, I will pass on the favour by sharing with my train carriage tomorrow ;o).

Talking of trains, Wednesday was a nightmare!

I got to Liverpool Street Station on Wednesday evening and the concourse was teeming with people, so I fought my way through to where my train home normally goes from. About 10 minutes later there is a tannoy announcement that that a tree has come down and damaged overhead lines in the Chelmsford area! The trains were running on all the other routes except for mine aaaarrrgggghhhhh!

At about 20 to 6 there is another announcement that there will be no mainline trains (yes my line) out of Liverpool Street for at least the next hour *sigh* so I rang James and told him that he might as well start his dinner because I wasnt going to be home for ages. The announcers kept reiterating that we are better off staying in London until the line opens (and I agreed with that).

There was a train in the platform where I was standing just saying "Not in Service" on the front of the train, I had seen a few people get on the train, and as it was one of the trains that normally goes to Chelmsford and my legs were aching I decided to sit on the train and wait and wait and wait!

At 6.30 (an hour and 15 minutes after arriving at the station) there was another announcement that the tree had been removed and that the line would be opening imminently! And sure enough a few minutes later there is an announcement that the train on platform 12 (I was on platform 10) would be departing soon and was stopping at Chelmsford. I thought to myself (while working on the philosophy that a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush) well this train (that I have seat on) is bound to be leaving shortly and hopefully it will stop at Chelmsford.

There is then another announcement that the train at platform 13 would be stopping at Chelmsford (it was like they were taking the pee out of me and it was frustrating!). Then as if by magic people started streaming onto my train, we were asking the people if the train stopped at Chelmsford etc (and luckily it did). The train eventually departed at 7pm packed to the rafters and luckily I had a seat ;o).

I eventually got into Chelmsford at 8pm, and I was blooming tired and hungry.

On a completely different subject one of my colleagues was asking if my camera did black and white photographs (I had read in the manual that it did but hadnt had a play with those settings yet). So I downloaded the manual (while at work) and had a play with the different colour settings ;o)


see my flickr pictures here

Christmas is a coming and its only September!

I cant believe that the supermarkets have started selling mince pies already...

I really got into them last Christmas and am aiming to have a mince pie every day throughout December!

I have to admit that since deciding last week to not weigh myself so regularly, I havent been so preoccupied with it all... ;o)

Theres a shop near where I work called Konditor & Cook and outside they have an A-board advertising their wares, on Friday morning I finally went in there and bought myself a slice of orange and lavender slabcake.

It wasnt overly nice, and I much preferred the maple pecan yumyum I got on Saturday, it was far nicer ;o)

you can see my other flickr pictures here...

When coming home from Chelmsford this morning (or rather afternoon as it was in the PM) we were in The Meadows carpark heading back to the car and James suddenly darted off (faster than an old lady who has just heard that there are free Parma Violets for the first 50 customers) having seen a folded up £10.00 note just laying there...

...what a result (that payed for our drinks and eats) ;o).

Dont show me in HD

Post two of two

Last night we watched our first High Definition programme...

Wowzers the programme was so much clearer and sharper ;o)

Paul Sr looked about 10 years older as you could really see all of his wrinkles. You could also see each individual facial hair (even the ones that were jutting out to the side).

And you could see how pockmarked Jim Quinns face was...

...yikes ;o)

They also went to Finland , where they are looking to branch out into Europe, one of the scenes showed it snowing and you could really see the snow clearly too.

One of the people Paul Sr was speaking to had a massive beard and you could see each individual hair really clearly too (luckily there was no food caught up in it) I was looking intently for a piece of reindeer stew caught up like a fly in a spiders web ;o).

I dont know if I would have upgraded had our sky+ box not have broken, but I am glad we did, I just hope that there are enough HD programmes to watch.

HeaDache

Post one of two

On Monday morning I had a phone call just before 9am from the Sky engineer saying that he would arrive between 9 and 10 am (at least Im their first job of the day). At just after 10 am I hear the sound of a van outside and look out of the front door and see two sky vans and two engineers. My first thought was ok so Sky doesnt care much about their carbon footprint.

Anyhow the two engineers come in carrying a box containing the shiny new Sky+ HD box, they start disconnecting the defunct Sky+ box and connect up the HD one. They then switch our (supposedly HD) television to HDMI mode, and there is vision but no sound :o(. So one of the engineers goes out to the van to get another HDMI scart lead whilst the other is on the phone to Sky finding out why we "aint got no sound". I asked him if this sort of problem occurs regularly and he just said "it aint a problem its just a setting".

So the new lead is fitted and there still isnt any sound, so they then went out to the van to get a new HD box in case that was faulty, and there was still no sound *sigh*.

They then call the TV manufacturer to see if they can suggest as to why there is no sound (they were worse than useless) the bloke was just reading off a card saying to disconnect the tv and reconnect everything and to re tune it etc, the Sky engineer was starting to lose his patience and told him that he knew this wouldnt work. The sound worked ok through the normal Scart lead (but not much help if you want to watch HD).

He then asked me if the tv was still in warranty as that must be where the fault lies. I remembered that we bought the tv from Argos in November, so was sure it was still in warranty. I found the receipt and yes we bought it in November , November 2007, my (cleaned up) thought was blimey we are out of warranty.

I sent James a text to tell him about the problems and he suggested calling Argos to complain. So I called Argos and explained what happened. I was then put through to a supervisor and explained the situation to her, she then spoke to the store manager on my behalf and they agreed to give us a full refund in gift vouchers to be used towards a new HD television. What a result ;o).

So last night I sent James out to Argos to do the exchange, and we now have a brand new television for £50.00, and yes the HDMI socket has both sound and vision...

See my next post for the review of the first truly HD programme that we watched last night...

three possible titles

The first two titles of this post could have been "Its pining for the fjords" or "The saga continues"...

Yes youve guessed it the damn Sky+ box is on its last legs again! You can read the whole sorry tale here and here.

On Wednesday night we came home to find the sky+ box wasnt allowing us to play the programmes already recorded or to record programmes, so we rebuilt the planner again, it would work for a while and would die again! After this happening three or four times we came to the conclusion that the sky+ box is on its way to the big "sitting room in the sky", and it was time to bite the bullet and either upgrade or get a new box.

After being told when I rang to upgrade to Sky+ HD that it would take six weeks due to the high demand, I then got an e-mail two days later saying that an HD box was ready for me, I have subsequently been getting e-mails from them every other day (I kid you not) saying that my HD box is ready!

So Thursday morning I tried ringing Sky to get an engineer out to replace the box, and because I was ringing from work and couldnt rebuild the planner from where I was I would have to wait and call when I got home (and wait an extra blooming day I may add). I wasnt having any of this, and decided to jump in head first and upgrade, I tried doing it online (as per the e-mail) and it wouldnt let me, it gave me a number to ring and was when I called was told that the "Sky offices arent open yet" but didnt say what time they would open. I was ringing just after 8am so this was hardly in the middle of the night!

So I looked on the Sky website and rang the number there, long story short; tomorrow morning I will be awaiting a man bearing HD ;o). I am so excited!

Thursday night I got home and I have received a statement from Sky for this months payment including the £65.00 for the engineer visit that I cancelled a couple of weeks ago! So I called them Friday morning and was told that when the engineers visit was cancelled the person forgot to delete the call out charge, and because it is less than two weeks before the payment date they cannot amend the payment! So my choices are either to cancel the direct debit and pay the normal Sky subscription and set up the Direct Debit again (which I am not happy about in case we forget to do it), or to let them keep the money and they dont charge us until the £65.00 has been used or for them to credit us back the money to our bank account. If we want them to credit us back the money we then have to wait another 14 days because the bank has 2 weeks to refuse the payment.

I then asked to speak to a supervisor as this wasnt the fault of the person I was speaking to, and I had a general moan about it all and all she could do was apologise. I then asked if they could offset the £65.00 against the money I was paying to upgrade to HD and no they cant do that either! So I said I would have a think about it and will call them on Tuesday. This is all such a palaver!

We have really missed not having Sky+, and had to record The Hairy Bikers Food Tour of Britain on VHS how antiquated was that?

The other possible title for this post was "On the soup again", as on Tuesday I decided that Pret a Manger soups should rejoin the lunch repertoire ;o) So I tried another new soup Malaysian Chicken (Chicken, rice, coconut milk, onion, garlic, red chilli, fish sauce, lime juice, lemongrass and galangal), it was really nice so will definitely have that one again ;o).

Yesterday while in Marks & Spencer I was looking at their scrummy desserts and after loads of deliberating I decided to go for their Key Lime Pie, whilst looking at the nutritional information on the back I misread the portion size thinking it was per quarter, but was actually per sixth! oh well ;o) Im sure I will get through it ok ;o) And even better James thought the lime was a bit sharp tasting so I dont have to share it ;o)

I weighed myself this morning and was the same again, I think I am going to stop weighing myself for a while and just do it once a month or something ;o)

Published photographer

Im now a published photographer ;o)

The guys at Schmap included my picture of Leadenhall Street Market...

Today WILL be a good day ;o)