Christmas and Cupcakes

Greetings and festive felicitations Tea Fans, and apologies to anyone who has missed my updates for the last few weeks.

In a nutshell, this is what I have been up to since we last spoke:

Shop, panic, wrap, install towel rail in bathroom, open proverbial 'can of worms' doing so, have no heating, heating reinstalled, towel rail hung.

Christmas do: drink, rock band, drink, meal, drink, dance, drink, dance, drink, dance, drink, taxi, vom(!), sleep.

Curry, Josie over from France, early morning city shopping, lunch, relax, chilli.
Friends, pub, drink, laugh, worry about tax return, drink more, lose track of time, sleep.

Drive to Wirral, relax.
Relax. Make trifle. Relax.
Christmas day, presents, sprouts, nut roast, potatoes. Trifle.
Relax. Relax. Relax.
Relax. Relax. Knit.Relax
Knit. Knit. Knit.

Drive back to Manchester. Tidy. Unpack.
Dribble over new cookbooks. (Three: Cupcakes, Cookies and Afternoon Teas)

Friends. Fajitas. Gin. Taxi. Town. 30th Birthday.
Popcorn. Taxi. Sleep.

Tax return. Cupcakes.

And that, Tea Fans is what I have been doing since we last spoke.

Now.... New Year....

Ding dong the witch is dead

Which old witch? The wicked witch of course.

Last night saw the annual 'people who used to work for Epigram and people who still do and are girls' Christmas theatre trip last night, and it was to the Lowry again, but this time to see the Wizard of Oz, or Woz as I like to call it.

This time, we borrowed Elsa, Jo's little girl, to make us look a bit more legit and a bit less like a bunch of weirdos who go to pantomimes, like we do most years. However, this wasn't a panto this year (though they threw in a 'they're behind you' for the kiddies) but a fantastic performance of an old favourite.

The munchkins were amazing. They were kids, but they mimed to the original soundtrack so they had adult squeaky voices, and it worked a treat. They had a full on sheer cinema screen that stood in front of the set, so when they showed the tornado scene, they had a 'pitching' bedroom scene in the background and images of scarecrows and twisters and its of houses flying about on the screen. Very creative and very effective. As always, a stunning show at the Lowry.

Anyway, a thoroughly enjoyable night out, I think we enjoyed it more than Elsa, who seemed to spend more time looking at her amazing flashing light show heart that Jo had bought her, but hey!

Now.... who's up for Mary Poppins in the new year? Matt?

Ring a ding ding

Well Tea Fans, its now official.

Finally after a wait of what seemed like years, but was in fact only weeks, I have my beautiful custom engagement ring. Yay!

Unfortunately, due to my cameras sheer bloodymindedness it refuses to focus on the detail of the ring, and more on the detail of my wrinkly stolen-from-an-old-lady hands. But you can see it pretty well.

For those of you who are interested it is a London Blue Topaz, set in 18ct yellow gold setting and white gold band.

Wowsers!!

Sorry you have a life and can't wait in all day for me.

Ok, so here it is.

Our postman left, they didn't replace him, they gave our round to another (very begrudging by all accounts) postman on top of his round. He wasn't happy about having to work till 2pm. Poor you I thought, though he probably did start work at about 6am.

We now don't get our post till 2.30pm sometimes, sometimes, 4pm, sometimes 12.30pm. So unless I stay in ALL day waiting for the postman, if I miss a parcel, I have to go and collect it. Which is fine if it is not-delivered in the morning, but as it is not-delivered 2.5 hours after the sorting office shuts, I then have to get it the next day.

Its NOT good enough, I work from home. So if I work from home, and I can't successfully take delivery of parcels. How the hell can people who go away from their houses to work get their big post?

They should franchise out Royal Mail to Father Christmas, he seems to manage ok.

And don't even get me started on Home 'oh you aren't in, ok I'll leave the massive cardboard box with amazon written all over it on your doorstep two feet from the pavement' Delivery Network.

AND I've not even started on DHL!