Turkey-Lurkey

Spotted milling about in the middle of the by-pass by Asda - a flock (gaggle? herd? sizzle?) of turkeys! It's alright boys, Christmas is over, you don't have to be on the run anymore...

That's roast chicken, numbnuts

Goes quickly in the end, doesn't it! Well, all three days went well, all family members still surviving, no knock down drag out fights (quite disappointing really) and a good haul of presents. Including an espresso maker, so if my posts become even more disjointed and paranoid you'll know why...

Got given the Les Halles Cookbook by Chris' parents, and gleefully read out the first line that it fell open at "But if you can't, for some reason, find neck, or prefer boneless meat (you poor deluded bastard)". This was followed by a rather taken-aback silence. And there was them thinking me wanting a cookbook was probably a sign of good old fashioned domesticity...

Christmas Eve

santa
Originally uploaded by CornishRambler.

Ah, so I wasn't hallucinating Santas.

So, Christmas Eve at last, no work, time to relax. After I've made the mince pies. And baked the sausage rolls. And iced the Christmas Cake. And finished wrapping the presents. And tidied the house. And presided over a tea party in which our two sets of parents meet for the first time...

Help! Someone pass the gin.

Wot no reindeer

Bizarre moment of the day - looking out the office window at the helicopter going past, to see Santa leaning out of it waving. At least, I assume he was waving, he might have been gesticulating rudely, he was too far up for it to be clear...

New Toy

We've just acquired a digi-box, which means we now have LOADS more channels to flick through in the vain hope of finding something worth watching. Although still no channel 5. Sorry mum, means you'll have to keep on taping Charmed for me...

Rambler's Christmas

Tree
Originally uploaded by CornishRambler.

Put the tree up last night - slightly bigger than I thought, and had to chop the top off to get it in the corner! Still, looking good now - at least until the cat decides to jump into it...

Return to Penzance

Went back to the Admiral Benbow in Penzance for lunch on Saturday - pouring rain outside, big fire, pint of beer, huge steak & ale pie and chips, and a background of rock classics - perfect!

Fire in the hole

And this afternoon's tremendously exciting and informative way to pass the time? Mandatory fire and safety training. Which, fair enough, is a valid exercise, just rather unfortunate that it came a week after my induction day. Same people. Same topics. Same words. Same jokes. Same hall. Same seat. No free coffee.

At least this was only an hour, although even that proved enough for the chap next to me to fall asleep, which was quite impressive. I had to swat him with the attendance register to wake him up enough to pass it on. Well, probably didn't HAVE to...

Incidentally the only actually practical bit of the induction fire training was being shown the different types of extinguishers, and how to operate them, and what fires to use them on. Which was the one bit they chose NOT to repeat. Go figure.

Yule approacheth

It's been quite a Christmassy weekend, all told: cake baked (with a good two weeks remaining for the spiking with brandy thereof); most of my cards written (albeit not addressed yet, and I seem to have neglected to buy any stamps); and the tree bought and waiting in the back garden (now just have to clear the shelf of the alcohol collection, the small mountain of videos/dvds and the extra shelf of books which we've put up in the corner since last year...now just to get the present buying malarky out of the way...

The Reprobates of Penzance

Rambling more than usual
Originally uploaded by CornishRambler.

The department Christmas do was on Thursday, which I would have written up earlier but I've only just started to be able to focus again, and I'm still not back on speaking terms with my kidneys. We set out from Truro on the half ten train to Penzance, with three bottles of champagne (between eight of us) which served nicely as breakfast. Managed to get in two pubs (a Wetherspoon's, which I think we wandered into by accident and another one which was a nicer building but bizarrely lacked more decent beer than the Wetherspoon's) before lunch.

Lunch was at Harris's. Hugely fabulous food, tiny place, and only us in there. Which was probably just as well. The walls were dark pink, so it was a bit like being swallowed, but by that point the edges were blurring nicely anyway. Had duck terrine, sea bass and chocolate torte with amaretto sauce. And coffee. And quite a lot of wine.

On to the Admiral Benbow next for more drinking. Really nice pub, dark beams, no headroom, big fire and easy to pretend you're a pirate. From there to the Dolphin where we went on with the pool playing from the morning. Not actually as useless as I remembered, but almost.

Got the half five train out of Penzance (and home at half nine, but that's another story).

A bit of an animal

Overheard in Asda this evening, a mother (crossly) to toddler sitting in trolley: "You pull one more face like that and you can say goodbye to a pepperami".

Induction Day (less exciting sequel to Independence Day)

Had to sit through an NHS Induction Day today (just the three months after actually starting to work there). From 9 to 4, sat in a lecture theatre while entertained by a stream of representatives proving themselves completely unable to locate, open and play basic powerpoint presentations. I mean, they only run these things every month. How hard can it be to:
a/ have all the different presentations in the same folder (and ooh, in the running order while we're at it?).
b/ have up to date information? I think almost all the people presenting said something in each set was out of date. Sometimes quite drastically.
c/ manage to fit correct punctuation and wording in something they're showing to over 50 new recruits every month?
But then, without the "spot the random commas" game there'd have been even less to hold the attention. At least we got free (albeit weak, instant) coffee and sandwiches. And a day out of the office with no requirement to engage brain. Can't be bad.

Holy Cow

Billie Piper the new Dr Who companion? http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/newtv/index.shtml

Errr, ok, I promise to try and keep an open mind. Given that I was the only person on earth to like Bonnie Langford's Mel I suppose I have to really.

The condescending solicitors

Is it just me, or is the current Follett Stock radio advert a wee bit patronising? "London expertise locally, so you don't have to travel". Cornish expertise not good enough then? Coming round here with your fancy city ways and legal trickery....

Monkey business

Had to ask someone to send me a CAD file yesterday. Had visions of a medieval monk detective turning up at the door...