The girls' night in.....got out!

I'm not sure that Leeds is really ready for it - but the girls' night in escaped last night from in front of our TVs, DVDs (and in Michelle's case her Nan's video recorder) for our December gathering.

The first part of the evening was very exciting (on my part, anyway) because I had to get on a BUS to get into Leeds - first time in MANY years on public transport! (Yes I am the queen!)

Brasserie Blanc was the location for the dinner part of the evening. Very nice venue - great atmosphere and everyone's meal was fantastic mine wasn't that fab, but I think I might have made a wrong choice - they'll get a second chance anyway as I've promised to take Dan there.

It probably shouldn't happen too often - as previous experience would show that we can get a bit giddy if we're let out! Poor Anthony (of Anthony's Restaurant) may have a twitch for the rest of his life after having met us under similar circumstances after a fabulous night in his restaurant.

So it was all rather civilised during the meal. We took some piccies and the only trauma was that they'd run out of the Xmas menu, just as we decided on the Xmas menu!

After dinner we headed towards millennium square to the Epernay champagne bar to meet up with some of Michelle's suppliers who were in town and who she'd normally be going out with if it hadn't been the GNI(O). They were absolutely top geezers and bought a LOT of champagne for us - Thanks guys! There were loads of silly piccies taken, not least of which because Michelle's camera took a fatal turn for the worse after an earlier nose-dive so my one got passed around everyone (hence all the slightly sideways ones of champagne glasses!) Apologies now if you have an aversion to lots of drunken cheezy grins and a load of red-eye!

Link to the piccies here ---> GirlsNightInOut

Great Meal(s) Great Miles

We've had a good weekend! It has involved food and wine, and lots of both. Dan's buddy Miles was over for Dinner on Saturday night. (Intended) menu as follows...

• Oysters with lemon and vinegar
• Antipasti with dates wrapped in pancetta
• Seared scallops with chilli
• Crostini with garlic, tomato, olive oil, capers, anchovies, ham
• Tuna Carpaccio with pink grapefruit juice and sesame oil
• Watercress soup
• Beef Wellington with baby veg and sweet/normal mash
• Lemon syllabub served with pomegranate seeds soaked in pimms!
  

Unfortunately, between course 1 and course 5, we managed to put away a *few* bottles of wine and actually we never quite got to the soup! It's a good job we'd had quite alot of food before!!!

On the up side, the courses that were left...

• Watercress soup
• Beef Wellington with baby veg and sweet/normal mash
• Lemon syllabub served with pomegranate seeds soaked in pimms!

...made for a perfect Sunday lunch! It's a good job Miles didn't have anywhere to get to too urgently on Sunday, and he joined us for part 2 of the dinner!!!
It's now Monday night and Dan and I have had....avvos, dates in pancetta, crostini and the roast beef for tea! We could have fed about 12 people I think!

Mad Dog, Mad Dan

I've just uploaded my 1st movie to YOUTUBE! It's a silly one of Dan and Winnie playing in the garden....

*** Update - 32 views on YouTube (and no, they weren't all me!!!)

Perry Como - fab!

Oh I'm definitely feeling twinkly!

1st Christmas Cards received!

Ooooh it's very exciting! We've had 2 cards already....thank-you Bev & Daniel! I'm so glad I've written all mine! They'll get posted over the next few days you'll probably get yours soon, postal services permitting, of course!
I'm nearly done on all the prezzie buying because we started ordering things in November (more or less from when we came back from holiday) so it's actually given us a bit of time to enjoy the run up to the festive season! As you can see from the picture, Dan is totally delighted and feeling very Christmassy too!

Putting up the tree

Well it's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting here with Gracie - we've spent a very nice day together. First of all we did the *quickest* dash round Tong Garden Centre to get a tree. In fact were in and out in under 20minutes. Gracie picked up the 1st tree we came to, it was perfect (she has an eye for the artistic!) and off we went. Good job too, Dan was having a claustrophobic trauma about there being too many people. He doesn't like too many people! It rather spoiled our attempts to purchase every sparkly gold thing in the building. But, never mind, we managed to get 150 lights, 5 baubles, and 2 pieces of gold tinsel! Dan, in the meantime, took out 2 Father Christmasses and an entire family whilst swinging round with an 8 foot tree in his shopping trolly!!! It was THE WORST weather in the world. Freezing, raining, and so windy that I ended up looking like I'd been dragged through a hedge backwards! So, tree safely in Dan's car, and Grace, Harry and I safely in mine, off we trotted to Frankie and Benny's at Junction 27 retail park. We started off with some nice garlic bread (and some with cheese, which we mostly all thought was nice) and then we had....

• Gracie - Margherita pizza
• Harry - A BIG lasagne
• Liza - chicken salad (and chips)
• Dan - calzone

As you can see from the picture, we finished ALLLLLLLL of it. We were so full at the end that we couldn't even think about a pud!
When we got back here, we started with the tree in its stocking, putting some cobble stones into the barrel base to keep it upright. Then we filled the gaps with little stones. This provides a very very solid base for the tree. One false start though - we were concentrating too hard on the stones and the tree started leaning at a funny angle! Not a problem, we took the stones out and started again, and this time the tree was more or less upright!!!!
We first put up the 3 new sets of lights. Fab, muticoloured ones. I bought them because the old set was really dying. Or so we thought......when Dan and Harry went into the loft to get down the ornaments, 2 new sets of lights were in there!!! I'd forgotten that we bought them last year. So all in all there were 326 (coloured) lights - one set a flashy flashy one! And one set of white ones (120) which will go into the lounge. Very nice. And slightly forgetful. Ooops!
After that it was a matter of minutes before all the baubles were up - with some query as to the tastefulness of each ornament as it went up on the tree. Some were discarded in bad taste! Others deemed to be so bad, they were good, in a kitsch way.
So now, we're sitting here admiring our hard work, and putting the photos up onto the web - link ---> here if you want to see more.

Dad demos the use of a fridge

Going....














going....














.....gone!

Getting more like home

The renovations have been going on behind the scenes and one week on from the last set of pictures you can see that there have been some big movements forwards with everything. The kitchen, the dining room, the lounge, have all started looking like rooms again rather than a builders' yard! Isn't it looking lovely? The floor is amazing and the rooms still look massive! There are stil a few bits needed. A sideboard and a table (the thing in the picture is actually 2 tressles!!!) and there's a bit of redecorating to be done still, but it's really looking like home - although, not home, if you know what I mean!!!
It's GORGEOUS!

Getting all Chrimbly at work

Donna and Nicole and I were talking about Christmas yesterday (Friday) at work. We were getting all very enthusiastic about it. OK, let's be honest, we were getting giddy and excited! After an expedition across the road to poundstretcher, we came back with some very very classy decorations (ho hum!) and then spent the rest of the afternoon getting the tree up! Well nearly! It looks very nice and will set us up nicely for when we get back after the weekend - after all it is December! We also got a load of tinsel to decorate the desks on Monday - it's going to be fantastic and Christmassy. Can't wait!

The nicest Advent calendar in the world!

Yes, it looks like St Mark's basilica in Venice. That's because it is! It's huge, gold, gorgeous and has (apparently) pictures of various Venetian works of art behind each window!
Thanks Jacq!