Liza & Dan's Bloggings: May 2013

28 May 2013

Friends of Ham

Is a new-ish charcuterie bar in Leeds, just up by the station.

Dan and I went a few months ago, and it was LOVELY!

Fresh flowers on the table...

They do a nice line in local & specialist beers

We had a delicious platter of meat and cheese...

So yesterday when I met up for lunch with my friend Trina, I recommended FoH to her if she liked meat and cheese.

We had 2 large platters, and then spent 3 hours eating them!!!

Same time same place next month eh Trina? :)

I've been getting some advice from Helen our neighbour as to how to plan and plant up our garden. I'm not very good at these things. I mean, give me an hour's notice and I'd be able to feed 20 people, no stress. Butt faced with a weed filled border, I'm a bit freaked!!!

Anyway, since having the fence done at the back last week, I'm all fired up to learn a new skill. Helen and I sat down on Tuesday and she showed me how she plans each bit of her garden. First an overall picture, then individual sections. So I'm currently having a think about what 'look' I'm going for in the garden.

She's helping me plan a conifer and heather border.

This one is going in!

This chap is in - get the bluey green colour of the foliage!! Lovely

These are the sorts of things I like (loads of shades of green and different colours in the leaves...

How pretty is this one? 2 shades of green on the leaves and pink stems.

This was stunning - looked like a load of white confetti had been dropped on to it!

One with pink spikey bits - it's not hardy - but I know Dan likes the bright colours so I think it might get a look in!!

A little bit of a variety mix pack. Dunno about the ivy though, we seem to have enough of that already!!!

2 architectural spiky things - lovely colours aren't they?

So, I'm trying to get my head round what sort of garden I'm going to create. I like clean lines and edges. I like wacky coloured leaves. I like plants which are structured and shaped. I like stones, and brick.

So, watch this space for a little bit of garden creativity!!

22 May 2013

Day at the zoo

Had the most lovely day at the Zoo yesterday with Auntie Bo.

15 May 2013

Cooking some nice things for tea

Toasted sesame encrusted prawns on a bed of wilted spinach

~~o~~

Salmon and ricotta linguini

~~o~~

WW friendly scones with orange yoghurt cream

Here are the preparation pics (forgot to take any of the actual dishes!)

So this is the salmon, ricotta, rocket, lemon juice olive oil and parmisan cheese, ready and waiting for the pasta to go in.

Toasted sesame seeds on the left and spinach waiting to be wilted in the pan.

The first scones I have ever made!!!

14 May 2013

Following Dan

We've both been using WAZE, which is a free mapping/navigation app, for a couple of years. It's a great piece of software. I thought TOMTOM was good (and it is!) but WAZE has the edge in that it's real-time.

So whereas if you sign up for the traffic notifications option (a paid service) in TOMTOM, you'll get the official traffic updates as per the various traffic news agencies, with WAZE it's a bit more like Twitter or Facebook in that anyone who is logged on can report on various things they see, en route, and it'll be pinned to a map based on their location, and you will be notified, if your journey happens to go past that point!

The first time I noticed the accuracy of the information, was an information message popping up to say there was a car stopped on the hard shoulder, in 500, 400, 300, 200m and then there he was! Wow, I thought, that's a little more accurate than the Matrix signs on the motorway gantrys which often have last night's 'queue ahead' warning still displaying the following morning.

There are about half a dozen buttons for declaring hazards en route. Weather, stopped vehicles, accident, traffic jam, etc, which makes it easy to report just by poking the screen once. If you get caught in a jam, it will notice and say "waze has detected you slowing down, are you stuck in traffic?" and it also reports on general speeds of the roads ahead of you, if they're slower than the national speed limit.

Recently we noticed a new feature which allows you to send your journey to a friend and then they can follow you in real time.

So this morning, I'm following Dan to Liverpool...

It's a fabby bit of navigation software. Try it out!

Update at 07:43 from the 'follow my drive' bit of the application...

Arriving in about 1 hour
quicko99 is stuck in light traffic

(that's Dan by the way!)

11 May 2013

What to wear?

I definitely have a sense of what's the correct outfit for an occasion. I like to be dressed correctly. I like other people to follow suit!

Although it wasn't the nicest colour (bottle green) I enjoyed wearing a uniform for school, it meant it was easy to decide what to wear every day.

As soon as I left school, I started working at IBM and I was launched into the formal office wear world. Suits, skirts, blouses, nice shoes (yay!) and general smartness. I have always enjoyed dressing in a smart way!

I remember chatting to a friend who said that all they wear at home is jeans, jeans, jeans!

So now that I'm no longer an office worker, I have to decide what my style is. I don't want it to be jeans *every* day - maybe some days, but not every day. I'm thinking I have to focus in on a nice smart/casual wardrobe.

How about this?

http://theviviennefiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/turquoise-orange-packing-capsule-based.html

Possibly a bit too smart though?

Lush!

Shameless

I recently had to post a parcel at the post office, in a bit of a hurry, but as I was over in Liverpool, I wasn't quite sure where the nearest one was.

So, I googled the nearest one, which was in Speke itself, was only a 5 minute drive from the office.

So, having excused myself, off I went to post my parcel.

As I drove off the main road, I was thinking that it was quite a nice area - there was an attractive church on the corner and some large houses. Very smart.

As I approached the post office itself though, I could see the end of a derelict row of shops. I did a double take. In fact, all of the shops in the row appeared to be derelict; the windows were boarded up and the shutters were down.

It looked VERY scary!

The only reason I drove around to the other side to have a closer look was because I had called the Post Office to confirm it was open. So, I was thinking it must be there somewhere.

And then I saw it. A sliver of a doorway, open in between some of the shutters. Oh my goodness! It looked like something from the Chatsworth estate on Shameless!

It was OK inside. There was a customer in their pyjama bottoms, though!

A closeup just in case you missed it...

Scary huh???

As you can see from the photos, I didn't actually stop outside to take the pictures! I locked myself in to the car first!

A lovely day at the races

It was Auntie Bo's birthday on the 8th May and so Mum, Bo and I went out for a nice day at the races!

We had lunch in a really posh restaurant on the race course called 'The Turf' - it was sooooo lovely!

Very pretty table centrepieces, each one different on every table...

We were only the 2nd table to be sat down - we wanted to make the most of our day - it said we were allowed to occupy the table from 11:30, so we did!!!

There was a glass of champagne on arrival! Yum!

The food was AMAZING - 5 choices for each of the 3 courses, and then a cheese course and coffee.

These were our starters...

This is my main which was 'Beef 2 ways'

It looks a bit 'nouvelle' but after 5 courses, and then afternoon tea, believe me we were full!

We think we need to turn it into an annual event.

7 May 2013

Time

I've been thinking about 'time' today.

I observed myself doing something that I normally do; when I drive into any car park, I search for the nearest space to the place I'm going, and I try and park there.

So I pulled into one space and then saw a car pulling away from a nearer space and thought, "Oooh quick, get in there". I went to put the car into gear, and then I thought "No, you don't have to save time, chill out" and I didn't move the car another 20 feet closer to the shops.

I sat for a minute and thought about why I'd wanted to get the car to the closest possible point...and I realised that I do certain things, and in fact, I also don't do certain things because time is a factor.

So, I try to do things quickly, I try and shave miliseconds off various tasks when I'm doing them. I work out ways to do things the quickest way possible. I often won't start a task if I think it's going to take too long. That's not a defined time for a task, it's often just an arbitrary feeling! I get stressed if I think it's taking too long. Whatever that means! Another arbitrary feeling.

A classic from over the weekend was when I had cut up the rhubarb for our crumble. It needed washing and then putting into the pan. I chose the big colander so as to make as few trips between the chopping board, sink, and pan, as possible. I would normally have tried to do it in 2 goes. As I was packing in as much rhubarb as possible to the colander, I had a similar moment to the one I had in the car park this morning. "Why do I need to do this so quickly? Chill out!" so I put half as much rhubarb in the colander, and washed and drained it in 4 goes.

It seems almost trivial now, as I'm writing it, but it was quite a leap forward for me!

I think I'm going to have a different relationship with time, over the next few weeks and months. I'm looking forward to seeing how it changes.

6 May 2013

Good idea!

Saw a very cool thing as we were waiting for the bus into Christchurch one day on our hols. A little interactive bus stop.

You press the number of the bus you're waiting for, and then a light flashes as to how many minutes away that bus is! Simple to operate and low cost to run (Led lights).

All you'd need would be a connection to the database. It could be wireless. Can't tell from the pole.

So as you can see, the no 60 to New Brighton (!) is only 14 minutes away! Cool huh?

It was quite accurate too. I was checking it out with the various buses due at the stop before ours was due, and they all were pretty much to the minute.

I wonder how complicated it would be to implement in the UK?

Morley Beer Festival

A few weeks ago, Morley had its first ever beer festival!

It was a relatively modest affair, but cute, in its own way. It was held at the cricket club just on the other side of Morley.

They had a nice selection of beers on, from a few local breweries...

And as part of your entrance fee, you got a nice commemorative pint glass...

And there were quite a few local beer enthusiasts queuing up for their nice beers...

Here's Dan, glimpsed through a doorway, heroically queuing for another pint...

It was a very nice day out.

Dingbat Alert!

I've been trying to work out a way to get my pics from the Google+ Instant Upload album, to here, without having to download them somewhere first and then upload them.

I've just read a very helpful blog post on the topic and it would appear that I've been a bit of a dingbat and completely missed the obvious.

Lets see if it works shall we?

Oh dear! It would appear that I've got so used to uploading pics from my laptop or from a URL link, that I haven't recently stopped to see that there are several new options on the 'add photo' page. One of which is very clearly marked 'From your phone'. As you can see, clicking on this link brings the pics from my phone. Hmmm the clue is in the name!

I spent a good few hours when on holiday last month trying to work out how to easily get photos from my phone to the blog. It would appear I couldn't see the wood for the trees!