Mothers Day Muffins

Just finished work, a normal day with a new and rather ambiguous rule about discounting muffins as it is Mother's Day. Louis and I went down to Lidl yesterday in search of Mum's favorite chocolate bar but sadly they didn't have any so we bought her a whole bunch of similar chocolates and presented it to her the morning where it was met with sarcastic scorn funnily enough. We went above and beyond this year it felt...

About to watch the final two episodes of Life on Mars before sloping to bed, should be a nice evening. 

Same cinema, same film

First time for everything. Went to go see Wreck-It-Ralph again today for the sake of seeing it with Mark and Dan for our podcast so we discuss that in our latest episode which will be up soon. Mark stayed behind after recording to play Dead Pixels, a game I picked up for about £1 and we spent about 2 hours on it, just tanking our way through wave after wave of pixelated zombies.

Rain usually means busy

Considering that its been the first time, in what feels like 2 weeks, for it to rain here, I sure didn't miss it. Rain typically means a very busy day at work and the common leaky ceilings we get too. But once again we were very quiet today for no special reason. Nearly everyone at work has caught this sickness that he been going around, my boss has had it for the past week and it is slowly working it's way through the other staff. Hasn't hit me yet though, guess it's just a matter of time.

Adaptation

There was a time where Nicholas Cage was a very decent and interesting actor, and I think he stopped being that after he was cast in Face Off and got a taste for being in action films. However, his performance in Adaptation was possibly the best I've even seen him; tied with Leaving Las Vegas. Adaptation is about a troubled screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Nicholas Cage) attempting to adapt a novel written by the Meryl Streep character, writers block and several other distractions get to Kaufman however, the most hilarious of which is how he tries to cope with his more successful twin brother (also Cage.) The film dips into moments of great comedy and tender moments when dealing with relationships and periods of self doubt that are unique and great to watch. One scene in particular involving a script doctor was very bizarre and intriguing, ending with the advice 'Wow your audience in the end and people will remember it.' Unfortunately the film didn't take it's own advice with a third act that is a bit too detached from the overall feel of the film but it was still enjoyable. I recommend this movie if you were a fan of Being John Malkovich but this has a little more structure and substance in my opinion so check it out.  

Happ Birthday Lucy (a making of)

Yesterday was a huge and successful day for us. It was our friend's Birthday and we we wanted to do something a little bit special but since she is quite a 'low-key' person she didn't want to do anything too flamboyant for her Birthday. Mark suggested just coming over to mine to chill and eat pizza. That would be fine for some situations; but not this one.

Texts were sent, phone calls exchanged, messenger pigeons set free in order to arrange a surprise party! With Me, Dan, Jenny and Phoebe on our team here is what we did.

Firstly I got up and had a shower and some breakfast, can't do nothin' til you done that. Biked down into the high street to pick up a piñata plus munchables for the evening:

Penny the piñata

 I then met up with Jenny for some amazing cake baking, she had per-prepared some delicious fairy cakes but we also went all out to make an amazing sponge cake.

Initial stages of the cake decorating

 So, now we had a small buffet table with crisps, sweets and the like but the table looked a bit bare, as did the room. Before I even had a chance to think Jenny bursted out with 'Banner!' like an over excited child. Grabbed our roll of 14 year old paper and got cracking with paint at the ready.

Long way to go here, still had to colour in 'PY BIRTHDAY LUCY'!

So far so good. Picked up Dan from school and ventured to both Sainsburys and Tesco for decorations and additional bits

The car boot was groaning with goodies at this point

Back to mine (we were in a bit of a rush now.) Dan and Jenny decorated the cakes, and the room while I endeavored on a much more feral task involving these damned things:

 

 

As of yesterday I have a love/hate relationship with coconuts

Plan was to have hollowed out coconuts as quirky make-shift cups. Plan was to have them done nice and quick. Notice how it's daytime in this picture? Retrospectively I should have taken a photo of my little coconut shop of horrors with a tool-set ranging from a Chinese meat cleaver to a hack saw, just anything I could get my hands on to crack open these bastards. Immensely satisfying when it happened though, just took 90 minutes longer than expected!

Eventually the room looked like this:

Little victory pose from Dan here too! Note the incredible Birthday chair!

And here is some of the spread we prepared.

Nail the coconut cups!

All we had to do now was wait...

Wait and cook pizza...

Collectively we also decided to add on a last minute 'surprise' element by shutting the door to this room until it was needed. So when Lucy turned up we all said our Happy Birthdays and the like, made small talk to distract Lucy from asking why the door was shut and while we waited for the pizza to cook. Longest 5 minutes of my life. Eventually it was all done and I nonchalantly said 'Shall we go into the dining room? Lucy could you get the door, my hands are full with Pizza.'

The look on her face was worth every second of effort put into making that room what it was. She was holding back tears of happiness she told us. She deserved it too for being an all round lovely person and a great friend.

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Naff all, just the way I like it

My bed was very comfy this morning, I just tucked myself in over and over again until I convinced myself that there was more to life than cosy bedsheets. In reality though, I could have stay in bed all day and it wouldn't have made much difference as I had a chill day once again to recharge. It was rather nice to actually be home for Sunday Dinner today as well, as opposed to the usual microwave version of the same meal the family ate 3 hours ago I get after work. Gonna hop back into my bed now!

The odds were against us.

Eight parties today. Eight.

Typically we have 4-6 parties on a single weekend day but today was different. It was the one day of the week all the staff members were dreading because several kitchen staff members booked the day off as holiday. This meant it would be me, a girl who ended up leaving early for feeling beyond ill, and a party host who could just about knock up some chips and a jacket potato. we knew it'd be chock-a-blocker. To add to this already busy day, the coffee machine lost all pressure, meaning that it could take upwards of 2 minutes to get a single shot of espresso.

We were doomed it seemed. But as luck would have it, we weren't quite as busy as anticipated. The head of Eddie Catz cafe management came down from London for the day and politely asked if I could have a short, 15 minute break because we were so busy. Imagine the look on his face after I came back 7 minutes later to get back into the action. I think he was impressed.

Came out of work today with a lot of positive comments and praise which was really lovely coming from a team of great staff members.