Sideburns

So, I was watching TV and Traff said he was going to "tidy up" his beard.

Next thing I know he's dancing round the house in a top hat with mutton chop sideburns (Or "buggers grips" as Sarah calls them...)

Welcome to my life, this is the kind of chaos you're expected to just take in your stride.

Snow... sort of

Roller darby

Tina and May strong armed me into attending  a roller darby try out session, which I ended up really enjoying (Although I enjoyed falling over and landing on my hip far less... urgh the bruises!).

I had wanted to go paddle boarding but it's been really really cold- The ladies didn't fancy breaking the ice on the lake in order to go out for a paddle.

Apparently we're going to be bad weather roller skaters and Fair weather paddle boarders.

I'm not sold yet but I'd try it again.

New snacks- Condensed milk turkish delight... and how to make it..

I didn't even know you could make turkish delight with condensed milk before today! When I saw this in budgens I couldn't leave without buying it.

I did offer it round at work and no-one else really seemed very impressed with it, but I think it's pretty damn good!

I really like turkish delight- especially the rose flavoured one and I can now add that I very much the like condensed milk version too, although it's really not as sweet as you'd have expected it to be!

Maybe I'll try and make some:

http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/294150/Rose-Turkish-Delight

A new adventure.

Sooo, guess what?

I got a new job! In a new place! that means a new adventure for Traff and I from the summer (I have a super complicatedly long notice period).

I'm super excited about it, but I am dreading telling my boss. 

:S

Surprise

New glasses

I'm very excited to be able to swap my glasses up now! Hurrah for spec savers!
I got a turquoise pair with orange sides by red or dead and some chunky brown plastic ones from roxy. 
I'll still wear my blue ones though!

Beca's leaving do!

I cannot believe that Sarah and Ben are moving to New zealand! I'm jealous and in awe all at the same time!
I'm even more jealous of their 4 months travelling round Asia before they have to go back to work!
That really is the life.
I think we saw them off pretty well- Hopefully we'll see them again soon (Maybe somewhere a bit warmer than wales!)

Barry island

Traff wanted to go to the gym on Saturday morning so Sarah and I took advantaged of the free lift and went for a walk along the coast of Barry Island.
We were really lucky with the weather for about 30 minutes and then the heavens opened!

We too refuge in Cadwalders and had tea and cake.
Then we went to the arcades. I have lost all my arcade game skills- we only won 34 tockets between us which wasn't enough for any prizes (I was after a "Whats occurrin' " mug but I was 100 tickets short!) I let sah have the tickets for Alice.

Traff picked us up after the gym, and as we walked to the car park we walked past the pleasure park- the log flume and roler coaster have been demolished!
I took a picture of the sad log flume carriage. It's sad! I hope they replace it with something equally as ugly!

Dinosaur biscuits

Today was Glen's Birthday (And he's only 37.. he had been telling everyone his was 38 so he got a whole year back as a birthday present!) His Wife made us Dinosaur biscuits- which in itself is amazing.

And she put buttercream on top.

I don't really know what it's never occurred to me to do that before, but from now on home made biscuits should only have butter cream icing. Just what we needed as a Thursday sugary pick-me-up. 

Weird crystals

the green crystals are a bit of a mystery- they should be Copper Sulphate crystals so they should look like the really dark blue ones below.

When the solution was put to evaporate, I just assumed it was a low concentration... now I think we have a mislabelled something in the chem store.

A challenge!

They're prettier than copper sulphate crystals. They remind me of palm trees, which is extremely cheering in this kind of freezing cold weather!

Spiralizer dinner

Tina got me a spiraliser for my Birthday to encourage me to eat more veggies- it makes spaghetti from root vegetables and courgettes and seems to be the latest diet fad.
For Christmas she got me the cook book.

So for dinner I made sweet potato and quorn fillet bake. It was a bit of an experiment. It ended up as more of a stew because the Quorn didn't take in the liquid like the chicken would have done but it was still delicious!
That said, next time I'd try it with harissa paste to make it more exotic... and less liquid.

Oxfordshire

I went to see Sophie on Saturday on a tea and cake promise. We went to the Chiltern garden centre- which I have never been to before and did some sale shopping (I got a massive lantern!) and we had rosehip and rhubarb cake.

I am not usually a massive rhubarb fan, but the cake was lovely.
:D
So I discovered something new!

After shopping we headed back to Soph's and she showed me the photos from her wedding which are awesome, there were some very cute ones which need to go on the wall! James showed us his progress with laying the floors upstairs too- I was extremely impressed with his mapping of the pipes and cables. a true genius!

In the evening I went and called for Kirstie, and took her with me to see Abi (In hindsight, I should really also have taken Sophie and James!).
We decided to go into Oxford for dinner to Thaikun.
It was lush!
Although I'm not sure my "health tonic" made my skin any clearer.

Candle making

Jenni got me a candle making kit for Christmas so I thought I'd better make use of it!

Issue number 1 was making an bain marie (For anyone who didn't take Chemistry with Kirstie and I, Wax has a flash point. you shouldn't heat it directly).
In the end I used an empty biscuit tin floating in a saucepan of water and the worked pretty well.

I made some blue candles and some stripey red, yellow and orange ones. I think they look pretty cool.
:)

Although, I did make an awful lot of mess.

Munich day 3