Grumpy New Year!

It's true, ever since the millenium new years cocks up all over the country I havent celebrated the New Year with anything other than watching Jools Holland with a decent bottle of wine. I just cant see the point of getting far too drunk on over priced booze, no chance of a taxi home, 2 million people squezzed into a 500 capacity bar, not being able to shuffle to the loo and when you do get there there's always someone crying about just being chucked or being sick!!

Apart from that it's pouring down with rain, gale force winds and weather warnings all over the country - call that fun battling out in this weather - er no!

Taking the dogs out at the moment is tantemount to murderous torture. My calves, hamstrings and achiles all hurt due to trying to trudge through mud in wellies. I sometimes feel like I'm moonwalking - one step forward, two steps back and it's more slippery than ice sometimes - Oh, and not to mention the state of my garden - a quagmire! Then the house is a constant cleaning effort with two very wet dogs coming back from the walk - Grumpy? Yes, very - I hate this kind of winter weather, there is NOTHING to like about it!

So here I am raising a grumpy glass to a better 2007. I honestly feel a little more positive this year about 'the Company'. I am sure in my heart of heart that the Indian invasion bubble has burst (or is seriously deflating) and that their days are numbered - and if it doesnt here goes yet another qualified, knowledgable IT professional - I wont be going down this route again (how about a postman, dog walking company - anything's got to be better than being treated like the proverbial piece of sh*t!) watch this blog space!

Happy New Year and may you have a healthy and Prosperous 2007.

from

Louise, Other Half, Bailey, Harvey, Daisy, Marigold and Souffle

Plain Truth......

This will be my third book by Judi Picoult and as usual, I am now bored with her writing. Unlike my partner Alan who can read every single book by his favourite author (Terry Pratchett) and never tires of their style, I can only do a maximum of three with each author.

I enjoyed Plain Truth and especially liked the insight into the Plain (or Amish) people but I struggled with finishing it and it took me far longer than the others I've read by JP one of which I read on a flight home from Las Vegas (The Pact - the best!).

Plain Truth is about an unmarried 18 year old Plain girl who is accussed of killing her new born baby. It's heart wrenching at times and wait for the final twist on one of the last pages - a good book but I think I just got tired of her writing so not up there with Her Sisters Keeper and best of all The Pact.

Boxing Day and not a heavyweight fight in sight ;)

My first true day of relaxation. No having to deliver pressies, no wrapping, writing or sending - no cooking for the 5000 - total relaxation and not even any cooking to do - God knows there are enough leftovers from yesterday to keep me snacking for weeks!

It was cool but not wet, muddy or freezing so I started tidying up the garden and socialising with my hens so that they slowly get to know me. Today saw a corner turned as they now both eat corn out of my hand! Marigold if the most foreward but Souffle likes Bailey - I now know why - she's after his twinkly gold name tag!!! I should have called her Bling, Bling!

A really lovely day and it actually felt at long last that I am on holiday!

Oh, I Wish it could be Christmas Every Day!

I have to come clean and say that I'm not always the biggest fan of Christmas not being that religeous and not having any children but I do enjoy giving presents (as well as sometimes receiving them ;))

This year as I previously blogged I had an Eglu - a very urban and trendy chicken house with two young hens. They have only been with me for a few days but I can already see that they are developing characters of their own and becoming very tame - even pecking Bailey through the weldmesh! It has so far been a wonderful present, I love the fact that it keeps me outside for longer than usual, keeps my mind of 'The Company' and gives me something very new to learn about.

Anyway, my parents came along for Christmas day which was really nice. Christmas dinner was acceptable I think and all in all a good Christmas day.

As well as my Eglu I received a pair of Heelys - OK, OK, I know the average age of a Heely is 9 but I have small feet, they had my size so I asked Alan if I could have a pair - I just need to keep any injuries occurring from Heelying secret from bosses, friends, relations etc as I will never live it down!

I had loads of Accesorize jewellery, the Simon Schama book on art (see previous Blog to see my newly acquired boring interest of art!) an incredible book about setters than I'd never seen before and a barrel waver to give my hair lovely curls - and it works!

The dogs and cat all had their Christmas dinner and appreciated it (Bailey also loves walnuts!!) they are now completely dead to the world - too much turkey no doubt!

I have now had too much to drink over the day, too much to eat, I'm tired from the cooking so it's time to turn in and reflect on one of my better Christmas days!

it's a hens life!

So, my hens have lasted 24 hours - and it hasnt been without stress. I have worried about them all night because of the extremely cold weather and I have worried all day about foxes.

In the brochure it mentions that the man of the house should urinate around the eglu to ward off the attention of hungry foxes but due to the extreme cold of the weather this week Alan declined. Instead this was left to super stud Bailey (he does have about 36 kids you know!) who readily obliged!

(this is Lady Marigold - Mdme Souffle is a little more shy)

There is no sign of foxes having been near the Eglu (mud all round would show up footprints) and the hens are certainly not showing signs of trauma - they are even ignoring the dogs sniffing against the weldmesh! Daisy on the other hand has a black eye tonight so I wonder if she just got too near the run - hmmm.......there again knowing her she probably fell out of a tree!

I just cant wait until the Christmas break so that I can really get to know my two lovely hens. There again I just cant wait for my Christmas break - period! I have never in the ten years I have been at 'The Company' known the atmosphere and morale been this low.

Christmas Comes Early for Louise!

Well, what can I say! I took today as annual leave on Alan's instructions. He said that he thought I should be here when my Christmas present arrived! I didnt understand why - until my present arrived at 10am. The present came in the shape of an Eglu (www.omlet.co.uk) a new and funky way to keep chicken in your garden - very cool. I have been looking at these since it first appeared in the back pages of Sunday newspapers and have wanted an Eglu since then.


(this is Lady Marigold on the left and Madame Souffle with her head in the food tray - as usual!)

Welcome to Billingham Marigold and Souffle my pair of Rhode Island Reds! I have never owned any kind of fowl before and never handled a hen and it was a complete surprise, my girls are soft, gentle, calm and very sweet - and incredibly warm to touch! They are only about six weeks old and have obviously been handled since birth - I was so ready to be pecked and clucked at but not at all they were so calm!

I hope this is the beginning of a long and happy relationship - with the possible advantage of delicious eggs evey day when they start laying. The only down side that I can see is that I have more to worry about and with the nights being so cold at the moment I will worry about my new pets all night, I just know I will.


I cant wait till summer when I can spend all day in the garden with my dogs, cat and now hens!

Cooking up a Storm!

I've probably not mentioned on my blog my other passion - apart from dogs and cats - and that is cooking! Despite virtually losing all my sense of smell (and consequntly my taste) after a bad case of bronchitis a few years ago, I still enjoy cooking and trying out new recipes on my poor partner Alan (although he only rarely complains!) Here is my recipe for a cheats chicken curry which is Alans favourite:

Serves 4

Heat the over to about 180 degrees - not sure what this is in other ovens.

Cut 4 chicken breasts or 8 thighs (or how about a mixture of both?) into one inch pieces.

Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and a couple of tablespoons of Aromatic Balti Spice (Schwartz) into a bowl and blend the chicken with a small chopped onion into the bowl.

Take the onion and the chicken out of the bowl and place in an overproof lasagne dish and put in the over for about 20 minutes.

When the chicken has started taking on a colour, add a can of coconut milk ( I actually use low fat coconut milk which is readily available from Sainsburys) and about two tablespoons of Pataks Tikka Masala curry paste and stir together.

Stir every few minutes, until it's piping and well cooked. Sprinkle chopped corriander on the top of this when cooked. (it takes about 15 mins for the first bit and 20-25 for the second part but just keep an eye on it - I dont do precise cooking stuff ;))

Serve with homemade pilau rice (recipe published later) and enjoy! I've yet to find anyone who has not been impressed with this and no-one has guessed how easy it is! :)

Will it ever stop raining!

Had the day off to use up holiday and to have a break after the long day on Saturday. We planned to go out or do something with the day but Alan has man flu so we just about managed to get to the pub (White Hart at Pribright) for something to eat.

On the way we went to have a look at what has been my local for more years than I care to mention, The White Hart (Wood Street this time). This pub has seen many changes over the years from sawdust and spitoon local to almost nighclub status in the village. The last owners all but drove the local clientelle away with lousy food and a very nepotistic workforce and visitors. I knew this would come to an end, I knew this couldnt last in this day of high running costs and people voting with their feet - after all you cant pay the wages and bills with just a few mates turning up every evening can you? Well, it has changed and how! Although it wasnt open the builder let us have a look round and my God - this has got to be the best transformation! I just hope it doesnt lose that 'local' feeling and become pretentious - its a village pub after all! We'll go and try it out when it's open next week.

I love Paris in the Springtime - but sadly it was winter!

So begins an incredibly long day at 5am to start my day in Paris. This is my second day trip to Paris using the Eurostar and sadly the last time we can go straight from Waterloo to Paris - next year I believe it's from St Pancras all thanks to Englands now well renowned scrimpishness with money and shoddy workmanship - basically the line from Waterloo is too slow due to the age and wear and tear of the railway lines - and to think we invented the railway!! What an embarassment!

Anyway, onto France, the railway is smooth and very fast and although it's all the same colour as Ashford (green) you can so tell you are in another country! Dutch barns, water towers, farms that look quite different from ours - welcome to France and I have to say that on my short visits to the mountains and to Paris I have well and truly fallen in love with the country - still not sure about the natives but there again I have met quite a few nice, friendly, polite frogs in the last few visits.

We got into Paris Nord at about 09.00am (or was that 9.00am French time!!) and headed towards the market areas. I wanted to go to a proper market - their produce is so much more organic and not uniform shape and you can find fruit and veg that you wouldnt even see in supermarkets over here (eg lychees on stalks). We bought some superb parma ham but wernt too sure about bringing veg back to this country but still had a good look around.

We then headed towards the Louvre and in doing so walked up the Rue de Rivoli weirdly enough this was the last place that Diana and Dodi ate together - I didnt know that at the time but saw it on TV a few days later. I wanted to go to the Louvre after reading the da Vinci Code and watching Simon Schama's art programme every week and thinking myself now an art buff :) - we saw an amazing collection of art and even had lunch in the Louvre cafe but what I wanted to see were paintings by Louis David after the most intriguing episode of the Arts programme. He was a propagandist, he was an antagonist - he has so intrigued me! I sadly only saw a few of his paintings (we couldnt walk any further - each wing is 1/4 of a mile!) but enough to know what the magic is all about - he was an amazing painter.

We also saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo - both iconic and famous - brillliant!





We then walked up the Champ d'lysees and looked in all the shops and took in the Christmas atmosphere in this romatic City. A big surprise was this poster of the new Citroen DS - I didnt even know there was to be one. If you read my first blog you will see that they are my favourite car and have been of great interest thanks to my fathers fascination in them and the fact that we had a few as children. I will wait to see what the new DS has to offer by ways of querkiness and downright weird design - I hope Citroen have stuck to that well known eccentricity that we all loved in the 60's and 70's.

We then returned to the station to have a sandwich and a few drinks before catching the Eurostar and then train back home to Guildford.

I returned home to two very relaxed, chilled out dogs (and cat) thanks to my neighbour, Muff who looked after my little darlings all day and who without I wouldnt have been able to relax and enjoy my trip to Paris.

The Maine Coon Cat

At this time of boring, dark, damp days (my god I wish I was a bear and could hibernate) with not a lot to report in the Blog let me introduce you to the Maine Coon Cat.

I am not a cat person. Dogs are my first love but I became interested in the Maine Coon in the late seventies when they were first introduced to the UK and promised myself that if I ever decided to own a cat this would be the breed I could live with. Alan loves cats so we struck a bargain - yes Alan you can have a cat but it must be a Maine Coon.

So, after much discussion about owning a cat we contacted Anita Aukett, one of the breed pioneers in the UK and were invited to her house to look at and meet the Cooney! We entered Anitas house being greeted by two Cooney boys who were honestly the size of Springer Spaniel dogs - we were blown away. Anita then brought out a gorgeous red tabby male kitten - he was adorable but not what I had in mind for my first MC. Then we were shown a tiny silver tabby female who was orignally destined for Egypt but the prospective owner had wasted so much time that she was offered to us, she was so young we wernt even allowed to touch her for fear of infection - it was love at first sight - a silver tabby is what I had dreamed of and I can tell you she have lived up to every expectation - a true companion.

The Maine Coon is the largest domestic, pure bred cat in existence. They are thought to have descended from the Norwegian Forest Cat and were taken to the East Coast of America by 19th century explorers. They are semi-long haired, usually tabby and have distinctive tufts on the tip of their ears and a very bushy tail used to keep them warm in the cold Maine winters. I could wax lirical for ages about the many attributes of this wonderful breed but here are a few points that make them a little different from your everyday moggy and other pure breeds of cat. Cooneys are very dog like, they will walk with you, help you with the gardening and steal food - just like dogs! Daisy has been known to come with me and the dogs on a two mile walk - it looks like a film from Walt Disney, two large dogs with a silver cat trotting along with them. They also have a very wide vocabulary, they dont just meow - they have a distinctive chirrup when they are happy and can talk to you when they are hungry (which is usually most of the time) - they also purr like trains!

Maine Coons are very large and although can be considered friendly to those they know are a little aloof with strangers. They are incredibly playful and will remain so for most of their life. One other breed trait that we certainly find to be true with Daisy is that she will sit next to you, not on you (possibly due to the fact that most laps arent large enough to accomodate a Cooney but also maybe because they are warm enough anyway with thier double coat so dont need the warmth of your lap!) Lastly, I dont know if this is normal for all Maine Coons but Daisy is incredibly tolerent and laid back, nothing phases her , she never growls or spits or gets upset about two large dogs bumping into her!


...and the other question most people ask? How does she get on with your large, boistrerous dogs - well, lets just say that she's in charge, what she says goes and Harvey and Bailey just go along with it - cats huh! I'm not a cat person but my God I'm a Maine Coon person! They are cool...for cats!



.

Am I in the Christmas Spirit? Well, it is only the 1st Dec!

Due to the vulnerability of our positions/job/careers at 'The Company' we wernt too sure if a departmental Christmas 'do' would be on the cards. So Rod, in all his madness decided to arrange one (good luck I thought- or is he after Corrine's old job :)). Anyway, we all trapse off to a very 80's wine bar in Farnham called Borelli's. As is traditional with all 'Company' Christmas meals it was pouring down! I havent been to Farnham for an evening in a long time - put it this way, I moved away from the area over 15 years ago and boy has it changed. I think I may have to re-discover Farnham - a lovely, old fashioned town.



The food was late and a bit weird (turkey with chilli sauce on soggy stuffing) but who cares, it was the company that counted. This could be the last time this group of people are together at this time of year. What a shame, what a load of friends, what a great bunch!

I hope these pictures sum up the atmosphere and the fun we had on this very soggy, typically British office evening!