Z?
I'm beginning to think that sleep is most definitely for the week- I don't seem to be getting any at the weekends any more...
Thursday was, as usual, a great night out at the Union. I drank and thrashed around a bit on the dancefloor, Pete relaxed a little from his own current personal hell of revision stress, and Vicki got somewhat wrecked at the Biffy Clyro gig next door before joining us. Somewhat out-of-character, we hung around to the end despite Vixel and I having work in the morning. Again, 'twas a good night.
Surprisingly I did not resemble the walking dead on Friday morning, though a lack of anything to actually do in the office combined with most people leaving at 4pm (normal for a Friday here- one rota'd person has to stay and man the phones, but the rest are allowed to leave if they've made an hour up elsewhere in the week) meant I skidaddled home at half-four, enough time to watch half the PS3 E3 video with Ed and Pete before Vicki showed up.
Vicki had earlier in the week announced that she made excellent cheesecake and, given our house's (particularly Ed's) love of the stuff, it had been decided she needed to make us one. It had also been decreed that she and I needed to do a roast dinner. Thus I'd dutifully made sure the kitchen was in a usable state on Thursday evening (the remnants of a chili can be worked around). However, given that we discovered we didn't actually have a pan suitable of doing cheesecake in, the cheesecake was put on hold and I ended up doing a botched tagliatelle carbonara. I say 'botched' as I couldn't remember how the hell I was meant to do carbonara sauce. I knew it involved eggs, bacon, cream and pepper, but that was as far as I got. So instead, I did something more akin to three-cheese sauce with added bacon. Though the protions looked a little meagre, we soon discovered that a) those bowls we've got are deeper than they look, and b) three-cheese sauce made with double cream is bloody rich. It was nice. :-D
The night wore on with us alternately consuming Black Russians and cafetieres of coffee, and watching movies until about 3am, when Vicki decided she'd better actually get some proper sleep (she'd passed out on my shoulder at some point while watching Hackers), so I walked her home. On the way back I nipped into Tescos to commandeer a couple of packs of Sara Lee croissants and some pancetta for breakfast- shock, horror, Tescos are discontinuing the SL tinned croissants! Never-more will I be able to make my own pancetta-and-cheese, boursin and/or chocolate-filled croissants for breakfast! Sob! :-( As you may guess, I bought four packs while I could...
After a few hours sleep on Saturday morning (the sun was almost up by the time I got home, and I was too tired even to close the curtains) I headed into town, bought a new cheese grater (at last!) and a spring-form cheesecake pan, and collected Vicki again. We stopped off at Sainsburys to grab stuff for a roast on the way home, which turned into a hilarious escapade of one-upmanship on cooking techniques. Suffice to say that we reached a compromise. ;-)
Saturday afternoon/evening then drew on into more movies and Black Russians- I think between the three of us (Pete, Vicki and self) we probably went through about half a bottle of Kahlua/vodka. It was about 10pm when Vicki- slightly inebrieated- declared it was time to cook the roast.
Now, our kitchen makes most broom closets look roomy. It's quite literally only big enough for two people if they are able to ignore the concept of personal space. On top of that, it has sod-all work-space at the best of times, even less so when the side is still covered with pots from the last meal. And thus the pair of us trying to do a roast dinner, including yorkshire puds, two sorts of potato and four veg in this space was bordering the far end of insane. At one, somewhat surreal, point I ended up in a telephone conversation with Vicki's mother about yorkshire puddings. In the end we completely forgot about the mangetout and the peas, mistimed the cooking on everything else, miscooked the yorkshire (we ended up doing one big yorkshire in the pyrex lasagne dish) and used up pretty much every kitchen utensil we own, but the meal was still pretty damned good- despite the fact it was gone midnight when we served up...
Being studious peeps trying to pass exams, Pete and Ed crashed out not long after the meal, while Vicki and I ended up watching Finding Nemo and Kiki's Delivery Service before she passed out on the sofa and I did so in the armchair- neither of us could find the energy to make it to a bed. We finally rejoined the living world around ten when Ed poked his head around the door.
It took a little longer before either of us woke up properly, and when we did we made a play for the cheesecake. The downside to Vicki's cheesecake recipe was that she couldn't remember quantities of ingredients, so we ended up making it by guesswork, sonsuming a pack of strawberries and half a bottle of red wine while waiting for it to set. Gluttony got the better of patience and we served up about three hours after the cooking. The end result, while sumptuous, had only three flaws- the base had adhered to the pan, the cheese hadn't set fully, and it was maaaybe a little too rich. ;-) Next time we'll use less sugar, fridge it overnight and remember to line the pan with greaseproof paper...
Vicki left around half-nine after watching 51st State (great film, takes the piss out of both Americans and Scousers), not long after which I crashed out so I'd be good for my interview today. The meeting was at 10am over at the Quality Hotel, which I reckoned was a good three quarters of an hour away. I was about right and, after grabbing a shower and making myself look about as presentable as I get, I headed up there, arriving about 0930- fashionably early. As to the interview itself, I'm in two minds about how it went. I made sure I stressed my expertise and experience with databases and IT systems, knowing full-well that the team in question are thin on IT talent and have a requirement for someone who knows what they're doing, so I think I scored points there. I also enlightened the people in question as to their intranet page being out-of-date. However, I have come to the conclusion that my interview technique is shite- my brain locked up a couple of times, and I don't think I sold myself to the best of my ability or came across as committed enough. My chances are probably about fifty-fifty, but aren't they always? Either I'll get the job or I won't. Either way I'll apparently know by the end of the week. The interview was done by half-ten, so I took a slight detour through town and picked up some sushi from M&S to take the edge off the angst- discovered the decent-sized packs are only around in the early morning, so may have to take lunch earlier in future...
Which brings us to the present. I've finished my sushi, written this blog and am now thinking about going for lunch (ie. nipping home and checking the progress on my download of The Wings Of Honneamise, one of my favourite anime movies of all time). Work content of the morning: zero. I'm almost going to miss this job...
Countdown: 96 days until next NL holiday. :D
Thursday was, as usual, a great night out at the Union. I drank and thrashed around a bit on the dancefloor, Pete relaxed a little from his own current personal hell of revision stress, and Vicki got somewhat wrecked at the Biffy Clyro gig next door before joining us. Somewhat out-of-character, we hung around to the end despite Vixel and I having work in the morning. Again, 'twas a good night.
Surprisingly I did not resemble the walking dead on Friday morning, though a lack of anything to actually do in the office combined with most people leaving at 4pm (normal for a Friday here- one rota'd person has to stay and man the phones, but the rest are allowed to leave if they've made an hour up elsewhere in the week) meant I skidaddled home at half-four, enough time to watch half the PS3 E3 video with Ed and Pete before Vicki showed up.
Vicki had earlier in the week announced that she made excellent cheesecake and, given our house's (particularly Ed's) love of the stuff, it had been decided she needed to make us one. It had also been decreed that she and I needed to do a roast dinner. Thus I'd dutifully made sure the kitchen was in a usable state on Thursday evening (the remnants of a chili can be worked around). However, given that we discovered we didn't actually have a pan suitable of doing cheesecake in, the cheesecake was put on hold and I ended up doing a botched tagliatelle carbonara. I say 'botched' as I couldn't remember how the hell I was meant to do carbonara sauce. I knew it involved eggs, bacon, cream and pepper, but that was as far as I got. So instead, I did something more akin to three-cheese sauce with added bacon. Though the protions looked a little meagre, we soon discovered that a) those bowls we've got are deeper than they look, and b) three-cheese sauce made with double cream is bloody rich. It was nice. :-D
The night wore on with us alternately consuming Black Russians and cafetieres of coffee, and watching movies until about 3am, when Vicki decided she'd better actually get some proper sleep (she'd passed out on my shoulder at some point while watching Hackers), so I walked her home. On the way back I nipped into Tescos to commandeer a couple of packs of Sara Lee croissants and some pancetta for breakfast- shock, horror, Tescos are discontinuing the SL tinned croissants! Never-more will I be able to make my own pancetta-and-cheese, boursin and/or chocolate-filled croissants for breakfast! Sob! :-( As you may guess, I bought four packs while I could...
After a few hours sleep on Saturday morning (the sun was almost up by the time I got home, and I was too tired even to close the curtains) I headed into town, bought a new cheese grater (at last!) and a spring-form cheesecake pan, and collected Vicki again. We stopped off at Sainsburys to grab stuff for a roast on the way home, which turned into a hilarious escapade of one-upmanship on cooking techniques. Suffice to say that we reached a compromise. ;-)
Saturday afternoon/evening then drew on into more movies and Black Russians- I think between the three of us (Pete, Vicki and self) we probably went through about half a bottle of Kahlua/vodka. It was about 10pm when Vicki- slightly inebrieated- declared it was time to cook the roast.
Now, our kitchen makes most broom closets look roomy. It's quite literally only big enough for two people if they are able to ignore the concept of personal space. On top of that, it has sod-all work-space at the best of times, even less so when the side is still covered with pots from the last meal. And thus the pair of us trying to do a roast dinner, including yorkshire puds, two sorts of potato and four veg in this space was bordering the far end of insane. At one, somewhat surreal, point I ended up in a telephone conversation with Vicki's mother about yorkshire puddings. In the end we completely forgot about the mangetout and the peas, mistimed the cooking on everything else, miscooked the yorkshire (we ended up doing one big yorkshire in the pyrex lasagne dish) and used up pretty much every kitchen utensil we own, but the meal was still pretty damned good- despite the fact it was gone midnight when we served up...
Being studious peeps trying to pass exams, Pete and Ed crashed out not long after the meal, while Vicki and I ended up watching Finding Nemo and Kiki's Delivery Service before she passed out on the sofa and I did so in the armchair- neither of us could find the energy to make it to a bed. We finally rejoined the living world around ten when Ed poked his head around the door.
It took a little longer before either of us woke up properly, and when we did we made a play for the cheesecake. The downside to Vicki's cheesecake recipe was that she couldn't remember quantities of ingredients, so we ended up making it by guesswork, sonsuming a pack of strawberries and half a bottle of red wine while waiting for it to set. Gluttony got the better of patience and we served up about three hours after the cooking. The end result, while sumptuous, had only three flaws- the base had adhered to the pan, the cheese hadn't set fully, and it was maaaybe a little too rich. ;-) Next time we'll use less sugar, fridge it overnight and remember to line the pan with greaseproof paper...
Vicki left around half-nine after watching 51st State (great film, takes the piss out of both Americans and Scousers), not long after which I crashed out so I'd be good for my interview today. The meeting was at 10am over at the Quality Hotel, which I reckoned was a good three quarters of an hour away. I was about right and, after grabbing a shower and making myself look about as presentable as I get, I headed up there, arriving about 0930- fashionably early. As to the interview itself, I'm in two minds about how it went. I made sure I stressed my expertise and experience with databases and IT systems, knowing full-well that the team in question are thin on IT talent and have a requirement for someone who knows what they're doing, so I think I scored points there. I also enlightened the people in question as to their intranet page being out-of-date. However, I have come to the conclusion that my interview technique is shite- my brain locked up a couple of times, and I don't think I sold myself to the best of my ability or came across as committed enough. My chances are probably about fifty-fifty, but aren't they always? Either I'll get the job or I won't. Either way I'll apparently know by the end of the week. The interview was done by half-ten, so I took a slight detour through town and picked up some sushi from M&S to take the edge off the angst- discovered the decent-sized packs are only around in the early morning, so may have to take lunch earlier in future...
Which brings us to the present. I've finished my sushi, written this blog and am now thinking about going for lunch (ie. nipping home and checking the progress on my download of The Wings Of Honneamise, one of my favourite anime movies of all time). Work content of the morning: zero. I'm almost going to miss this job...
Countdown: 96 days until next NL holiday. :D
posted by Union Jackal at 1:00 pm
6 Comments:
You make me sound like a piss-headed control freak... you might be right.
I explained the concept of gravy karma to Rob (from work) earlier... I have decided, gravy is one of the driving forces of the universe (as is port). I think I might have confused the child somewhat.
Interviews are eeeeeeevil, but lack of sleep is somewhat... fun. *slightly hyper* Either way, good enough excuse as any to get drunk this evening! Woo!
I wouldn't say piss-headed control freak at all. Alcohol-fuelled kitchen dominatrix, Dark Queen of Gravy, perhaps... ;)
In case it didn't come across, I enjoyed the weekend. :D
:o
Dark Queen of Gravy... muahahaha! I like that, I might get it printed on an apron :D
Of course, if you're the Dark Queen of Gravy, what does that make me? The Meat Lord? *thinks for a bit* Hopefully not, that's just wrong on a number of levels...
*almost sprays water over screen*
saying things like that when you know I'll probably read them at work is just cruel :P
I try. :D
BTW, how's the cough?
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