Tag: pictures

Weekend Update

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Productive weekend. Costly, but productive. Katy was working this weekend but we still managed to get a lot done. Saturday saw us visiting a cattery that's only 5 minutes away from our place and we've found it suitable to board Tolstoy there while we're cavorting in Canada. It seems nice, smells clean and looked busy (therefore popular) while we were there. It's also only £7/day, which is cheaper than getting people to come to our place for one hour and give him some food and a bit of fuss.

Katy and I then went to town (hooyah!) to get some shopping done for makeup, disposable cameras and other stuff. We had to use up a pier discount voucher (or else we'd lose it, and we can't have that!).

It would seem that some time around 3:30 am GMT (10:30 pm EST), I became an uncle. Nat and my still as yet unnamed nephew are apparently doing fine, good good :)

On Sunday, we went to the gym after Katy's shift and I realized just how badly I'd lapsed back into crap shape. That must be seen to! After a bit of lunch, we went to B&Q to get some paint and then to Tesco to do a shop. We are now firmly entrenched in our overdrafts (until the wedding present my folks gave us clears in the bank, a nice and whopping month from now).

it has begun:

The xmas displays are starting to pop up and annoy people. Geez, it's only september and Tesco have their xmas puddings on the shelves. T'is the season to be cynical…

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Some people have too much time and overactive imaginations

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I give you two weird sightings:

A 3 pound, 8.5inch wide swiss-army knife that will cost you $1,200 and has 85 gizmos on it, including: 11 varieties of blades (including the essential cigar cutter), 30 screwdrivers and assorted bits, 5 wrenches, 3 pairs of pliers and 36 other tools (including the ever useful laser pointer, 12gauge choke tube, flashlight, glof club face cleaner and tire tread gauge).

The people who brought you the Play-Doh cologne and the bacon bandages now proudly introduce the bacon wallet. Nothing more needs to be said.

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Great Yarmouth, by the sea

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I had my first taste of a traditional english seaside town this weekend. The Grogan clan took me to Yarmouth.

Pics are here: http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/yarmouth-aug2006/

Apparently, the place hasn't changed. It's hard to describe. Well, actually, it's not :) Tacky comes to mind. Every shop by the seaside sells deep-fried, salty or deep-fried sugary food. All the side-streets are packed with shops selling the same old cheap and nasty souvenirs that they've always been selling and that you'll find in every other seaside town (except the name printed on the crap will be different). It's tawdry, it's touristy, and people love it :)

Katy's IQ and mental age practically dropped by half as soon as we got out of the car. While I don't have the historical background to fully appreciate the seaside experience, I had fun. The SeaLife center was amusing (though I was disappointed that it was no longer possible to pet the manta rays) and the crazy gold (North Americans, read mini-putt) was a good laugh (except for the small child that kept getting on our putting greens and made me lose by a swing when I had to pull a shot to avoid hitting her. I should have, because Katy's dad won and was unbearably smug about it. I do have the bragging rights for the first hole in one though, but I digress).

I was disappointed by the fish&chips, but that's because the place we had lunch was apparently crap. Still, Katy won me a Tasmanian Devil plush toy from one of those grappling-claw type games (and one another toy for her dad, which impressed the hell out of me because I've never seen anybody win anything from those machines, let alone twice).

It started pissing it down with rain at one point, but it didn't last long and cleared the air. All in all, after a good day's walk and generally goofing off and eating too much crap (though I now want to get a waffle iron for home!), we all headed back home. I'd do it again, but I honestly don't get the same out of it as a true Brit :)

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Move over Deliah Smith!

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Today, I cooked! It was good.

Let us first start off with scotch eggs, something that Katy has been telling me about for over a year. It's hard boiled egg, surrounded by sausage meat, breaded with seasoned breadcrumbs and then deep fried. Bad for you? yes. Good tasting? Hell yeah!

Then we have sausage rolls, which is sausage meat in puff pastry and then oven-baked:

And finally, we have beignets, which are evil deep-fried yeast doughnuts, inspired by what I had at Cafe du Monde in New Orleans. Deep fried and covered in icing sugar while they're still warm:

 

We're going to be hitting the gym big time tomorrow to get rid of all that fat, but having said that, we did fry the stuff in sunflower oil (which is not that bad) and the food didn't feel all that oily (meaning that though it probably was, it didn't feel like a “window to weight gain”). Still, this will remain holiday and special occasion food.

But damn, it was nice!

In other food news, we went to Chilford Hall to confirm the reception menu. The lady in charge of the venue was really nice and we were able to accomodate all the wild and wonderful dietary restrictions that are in place for the guests and I.

Finally, in the penultimate food news for today, Katy and I went to the River Farm Smokery in Bottisham today. It's the place that is interested in making smoked meat for me. We bought smoked chicken breast (which we had on thick-cut bread with a honey and mustard) and smoked duck breast (which I'm keeping for tomorrow).

That is all, going to digest now :)

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I clean up well when I want to

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I went to get measured for my suit for the wedding this weekend:

I wanted to take a few pictures to show my best man what he'd be wearing. I keep threatening people with kilts (and if I had a shred of scottish blood in me, even a teensy bit, I'd do it, but alas I'm french canadian as far as the eye can see…), but I settled for a classic cut morning suit.

 

I'm going to be wearing a red waistcoat with an ivory cravate and Michel is going to be wearing an ivory waistcoat with a burgundy cravate. We're both going to have white rose bouttonnieres. The shirt lapels are going to be a bit different from the ones in the picture (they didn't have one with the collar style I want in my size when I went to get fitted), but it's going to kick ass.

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Pictures, as promised

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The first batch is up now:

http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/tolstoy/24_07_2006/

He's actually 3 months old today :)

   

I woke up at 2am this morning to go for a wee and about 5 minutes after I was in bed, I felt something floomph on my feet. After a bit of maneuvering to get comfy, I went back to sleep with the pussycat at the foot of the bed, leaning on the end of my body pillow. I think I might have kicked him at some point during the night, but he seemed fine this morning so no harm done :)

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