finally arrived

My Christmas Chocolate tasting box finally arrived this afternoon ;o)

They were supposed to come by Christmas Eve but instead have arrived by New Years Eve!

Novo James

Because I have been poorly I decided not to go to James Mum & Dads over Christmas (so as not to pass my bad cold onto his brothers kiddies).

So James went over on Boxing Day (26th December) and yesterday on his own, incidentally the kiddies have the Novovirus.

LOL James came home yesterday complaining of a stomach ache and consequently spent all night on the toilet with the squits!

Its a good job I replaced the toilet rolls on the toilet roll holder otherwise he would have come a cropper.

I am just hoping that I dont come down with it now...

my chocolates didnt arrive!

Way back in August I ordered my Christmas Chocolate Box.

By Thursday it still hadnt arrived so I rang up the helpline and the message on there said that "all of the chocolate boxes have been dispatched and that they were working closely with the post office for all of the chocolate boxes to arrive by Christmas Eve".

I thought to myself "ok fair enough".

So I walked home form the station yesterday afternoon expecting to see my chocolate box waiting for me, and there was nothing on the doorstep. The postman leaves it there if he cant get it through the letterbox. So I opened the front door and there was no chocolate box on the doormat either.

I have since interrogated James (note to self energy bulbs arent as menacing as 100 watts no matter what it says on the packet) and he assured me that the chocolates hadnt made their way into his tummy!.

It must be Christmas Eve

I think it must just be a London thing as I was never aware of it happening when I worked in Chelmsford or Brentwood...

...what am I talking about?

Dads taking their kiddies to work! I saw 2 parents (One of them was a Mum) in my carriage this morning with their kids. One man had his unwell daughter (who vomited in the middle of the carriage no less) LOL she was then bent over almost vomiting by the doors as we were pulling into the station. I can imagine her Mum saying "now dont go embarrassing your Dad at work today" (good luck with that!).

I came into work this morning and found my beautiful Eeyore mug got broken by the cleaner :o(

Merry Christmas everyone ;o)

poorly of Chelmsford

Last Saturday I came down with a cold (courtesy of my colleague) and it still here, while its not getting worse I dont seem to be getting better either!

I take multivitamins and everything but its still here...

Last Tuesday me and James went for our afternoon tea at The Ritz (LOL I dosed myself up on ibprofen before we went in ;o)). It was nice but nowhere near as nice as Claridges or The Dorchester as they seemed to be hurrying us along (it wasnt like we were eating slowly or anything) and one of the waiters even made a remark about the fact that we had eaten all of the food on our cake stand.

Hee hee they have even e-mailed me a survey to complete ;o) The fools!

Poor James was feeling quite grotty that day too (I think he had a different cold to me), so we looked for a restaurant quite near our hotel and found Prezzo we looked at the menu and decided to go in...

LOL we were looking through the literature on the tables and James pointed out that there was one in Chelmsford!

The meal itself was nice...

...we both went for pasta and then I had cheesecake ;o)

a week in a day

I have a one day week ;o)

so between 9am and 5pm this is how my week is being split ;o)

9 am to 10.30 am - Monday - will be feeling down because its Monday!

10.31am to 12 pm - Tuesday - a bit happier because its no longer Monday

12.01pm to 2.30 pm - Wednesday - even happier because I am halfway through the week - and lunch being involved isnt insignificant to this ;o)

2.31 pm to 4 pm - Thursday - really happy because its almost Friday

4.01 pm to 5 pm - Friday - I am ecstatic because well its Friday ;o)

Four trips

"Tuesday afternoon & Wednesday was spent wrapping presents...

on Friday I went to the Post Office four times! The first time was to buy 15 boxes...

,,,the second, third and fourth time I took 12 of the parcels to be mailed, I had the time to send the final three, I just didnt have the energy!

I know that Christmas is the time of year that Charities get their most donations.

Normally at Chelmsford train station you get one or two charities collecting per week...

...this week just past guess how many charity collections there were?

"two?" not even close
"three?" I wish
"surely not four?" Yes there were four; Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday - I guess that they thought that if someone did Wednesday too then it would be "too much"!

Surely the best time to target rich city folk is after 10pm on a Friday night when they are sufficiently "tanked up" and more willing to be "charitable".

We were in Sainsburys this morning getting our food shopping for the week, as usual we were scanning and packing our shopping as we went. Anyhow we got to the till and there was a boy scout (he must have been about eight years old) and he asked "can I help you with your packing?" my first thought was "are you taking the p1ss?" so I said to him "no Im ok we packed our things as we went along" and the cashier said to the scout trouper (or whatever they are called) "this isnt the best till to stand at as everyone will have their bags already packed" so I said to the kid "thanks anyway ;o)". The scout trouper then walked him to another till.

I wanted to try this last week

Last Friday one of my bosses bought us bacon sandwiches (as you know Friday is the day that I go for half a lamb sandwich, as I didnt want to have two lots of bread I had a looksie on Itsu to see if they had anything that I fancied the sound of...

...I found their seven vegetable rice bowl and thought that sounds "just the ticket" ;o)

So I went in there at lunchtime and shock horror they didnt sell them, and if I did want one then I could get one from Gracechurch Street. So I went into Pret a Manger and got this instead ;o).

Today I decided to go down to the Gracechurch Street branch of Itsu to try their rice bowl and it was blooming lovely...

...I will definitely will have this again ;o)

95 excavators

I am currently (not currently because I am not wrapping as I type) wrapping up 95 excavators as presents for our brokers!

better than chocolate

Yesterday I went to Taste of Christmas, I was supposed to go with my Sister-in-Law, but she lives on the outskirts of Trowbridge, its all country winding roads where she lives, and understandably she didnt want to get stuck in the snow somewhere trying to get home after. This country really doesnt do snow very well!

So James came with me instead...

We got there and James was sulking, and decided to sit down while I went for a look around...

...so I made my way around to the Cuisine au Chocolat kitchen, and a demonstration was about to start, so I plonked myself down and it was the head chef from Sams Brasserie. He made chocolate french toast and some chocolate pancakes...

...I got to try some and they were lovely ;o)

Just as Ian was finishing, they announced that Jean-Christophe Novelli would be up next, so I got myself a prime seat right in the centre and at the front so that I would get a really good view ;o)

It was about 10 minutes before he came on stage, he cooked a chicken dish with a chocolate onion sauce (the aromas were absolutely gorgeous).

He eventually finished and he was standing at the side if anyone wanted to say hello/get his autograph/picture...

...so I grabbed my bag, coat and fleece and joined the queue. James had meanwhile caught up with me (I had texted him to tell him where I was). I woman in front of me (her name was Annette) got him to autograph her programme and I asked if it would be ok to get a picture of him with me. He put his arm around me and posed...

...then asked us what our names were and if we were enjoying ourselves and then he gave me a kiss...

...Jean-Christophe kissed me! Annette didnt get a kiss but I did ;o) It made really my day ;o).

James afterwards asked if he had spoilt the day for me with his sulking and I said that Jean-Christophe kissing me more than made up for it ;o)

Is there nothing that they wont CGI

Yes Mum I know that I have used some ungood English ;o)

I saw in the paper this morning that the new Andrex advert will have a CGI puppy!

What was wrong with a cute puppy wrapped up in toilet paper?

I forgot to bring some gloves with me this morning

Because of the snow we had yesterday (and more last night) James was rushing me out of the house first thing this morning...

...he dropped me off at the station and I went to reach into my pockets to get my gloves out and realised that I had left them on the radiator in the lounge :o(

So at lunchtime I got myself all layered up to go out to get some gloves...

...first I went into Next and all they had were glove and scarf sets (and absolutely no pairs of gloves)!

So I then went to Marks & Spencers and got these long sleeve gloves ;o)