Good evening

Hello again to me :)

Just had a really nice evening with my friends - started off in zizzi with a very nice spaghetti bolognese, followed by how to train your dragon film at the Odon Liverpool One, which was such a great film, so funny and so cute and I so want a dragon now...can I have one? Then went for a drink at the Abbey, well a lemonade for me as my car was back at the train station :( but there's always tomorrow.

I would advise anyone to go and see How to Train your Dragon. By the makers of Shrek and with a similar type of humour. But I promise you'll be laughing and aww-ing all the way through it.

Even better than that though was the short day we had at work yesterday as a fire in one of the university buildings stopped all the servers from working and no one could get any work done, so a great few games of boy/girl and I went to the market and bought...ensued. I'm still very impressed by the fact that we managed to get all the way to S before we crashed and burned :-) Well worthy of an award methinks. So they eventually said we could leave (using our flexi time though) so I left at 1pm and went food shopping with mum and hlped dad do his home insurance. Had thought I might have gotten a chance to do a bit more of my assignment but unfortunately not :-(

Today also wasn't much fun with the computers at work but it was better and managed to get a few things done - but then obviously the evening was better! But on to another day and another fun one at that. Work shouldn't be too bad as it's like a Friday and a Friday before a lovely long weekend!! Plus I'm going to Caffe Nero for lunch with Sara and then we'll be giving Sara her wedding gift from the office - €110, how cool is that?! Then the evening is off to a great start with the movie quiz to which Sian is bringing CUPCAKES!! brilliant, though we may have to sneak eat them so the cafe doesn't get a bit pissed off. and then out for drinks after that, though whether it's with quiz friends, work friends or mixed together, who knows?

And then a lovely long lie in on the Friday...fingers crossed!

Anyway it's getting late and I'm getting tired so will sign off now - bye bye people (me)

Grrr...

I hate these clock movements!!! i always get it so wrong :-( lol and completely the wrong way around. Point in case is my previous blog where I start going on about being up late watching 24, but it was actually the other way around and was early lol :-) so I'm glad I got it wrong that way around at least, but still it's very annoying that i can't work it out properly. Ah well maybe one day.

In regards to the clocks, it wasn't very nice waking up in the dark again this morning, made it so much harder to drag myself out of bed! At least it was really nice and light last night, and the mornings will be getting lighter still again.

Apparently there's been talk of more snow for over Easter! More snow? Like we need more of that - it should be getting lovely and warm, but noooo not here. Oh well not a lot we can do about it really.

So today begins a busy busy week. Starting off with the science fiction and fantasy book club to talk about Temeraire, so will be nice to go and talk about a book I really enjoyed :-) But will be heading to Caffe Nero first for my obligatory hot chocolate before the club begins! and will spend the time either reading or writing, maybe continuing on with what I was doing yesterday - getting some ideas for short stories so i could possibly enter them in competitions - most notably the WB one for end of June which has a £1000 up for grabs, as well as a few other monetary prizes. Not likely to win but will be fun trying.

I've also given myself the aim of finishing my article by the end of the Easter holidays, so really need to try and get in to it straight away, which is made more difficult by being so busy this week, but I might try to email myself what I've done so far and do a bit at lunchtimes in work.

anyway the day has already started so I better get off and going

Hello!

Hello again to me and myself :)

Yesterday was quite a nice day - work went relatively quickly, I finished off the birthday cake I  made for Ella (which was very cute!), Ste and Mandy arrived safely at ours and then we saw Mike, Kirsten and Ella to give Ella her presents.
Ella completely understands what presents are now and likes getting them lol. I bought her a pair of Tinkerbell pajama's, and the accessory designed specifically to go with pajama's - a fairy wand :-) I also bought her an ice cream charm to go on her charm bracelet. Two charms down now - many more to go!!

The raspberry cheesecake brownie went down very well, and was very tasy if I do say so myself. I decorated it with a princess figurine in the middle, pink glitter, edible ladybirds and milky bar buttons - what more could you want from a cake? Picture to follow soon :)

Also watched the Richard Alpert Lost episode last night when everyone had gone - it was very good, some good background info on the man himsef, as well as Jacob and MIB (still really wish we had a name for the guy!). I enjoyed it and each episode makes me want to watch more of it - I really want to know how it ends now, but without getting there if that makes sense? What will we do when it's all over? Well I suppose if I survived the end of Buffy, I will get through the pain of Lost ending too.

Off out soon for meal at a Beefeater for Ella's birthday -should be lots of fun and this will include a Waybalou (no idea if I've spelt this right and I'm very proud of the fact that I don't know) birthday cake - 3 cakes in two days for such a small person! lol.

So the clocks are going forward tonight, making tomorrow a short day and also a tiring one as 24 will technically be on at 10pm-11pm :-( so work won't be fun on Monday for anyone methinks. But on the plus side, we'll now be getting lots of daylight - if only the weather would warm up - although it is quite sunny today but still not overly warm - hence my countdown to visiting Phil, Lisa and the kids as it should be very hot there this time of year. I'm also hoping for a massive storm when we're there, that would be cool!

Right, I'm tired and have a big headache so will sign off now :)

Cakes

So it's another day - but at least it's a cake sale day, and if you have to be in work then this is the best way to spend it, in the lovely presence of cakes :-) The sale has gone down really well so far and the current total is £104, which is great news! Go team! All my brownies are gone, which is nice and most of the chocolate cake too.

Just been online and ordered a pizza hut pizza for dinner tonight, to collect on my way home :) yum! Need something quick and easy as will need to get on with baking the raspberry cheesecake brownie. Decided to make the base bit tonight instead of tomorrow as I'll probably just get distracted with Ste and Mandy there and then Mike, Kirsten and Ella coming to see everyone for Ella's birthday.

So nothing much has actually happened today of any note other than the cake sale. Maybe I'll write again later with lots of exciting things to say - haha or maybe not.

Looking forward to the new Lost episode tomorrow, we've all been looking forward to this one for a while now as it's all about Richard Alpert, the guy who never ages...ooooh.

I have no new film to review or book to talk about

I could do with having another good go at my assignment 2 for the writing course, I've spent ages on it as I've been very stuck, but I want to get it out the way now and move on the assignment 3 and reading the modules for that, although from what I saw of the next assignment, it also looks hard and is about magazines again :-( Never mind, I'll get it done. I've written about 900 words on my article, but it'll need a lot of editing at the end I think as there's still a fair amount to say.

I also really want to start thinking of my own story ideas and possibly looking at trying to enter short story competitions, not that I could ever win, but it'd be good practice. Doing this blog isn't bad practice either, even if it just means I'm writing something down every day (or thereabouts).

Ok lunch over

Finally...

this long long long long day is almost over. It's just been one of those days where you try not to clock watch but it just happens anyway and the minutes tick by so very slowly :-( so having lived through 3 whole days in one day, I feel slightly cheated now that it's not Saturday tomorrow. Oh well, on the bright side there is a cake sale in work tomorrow! woo!

Cake sales always work really well in our building. Our manager is doing the pedal it pink cycle in Sefton Park next month and we're holdnig this cake sale to help raise money for her to give to Breast Cancer Care, a brilliant charity I'm sure you'll agree (or I agree since I'm my only follower!). So I have just finished my donations to the sale - Brownies, made from scratch (woo!) from my Hummingbird Bakery book, and they are very yummy, which I accidentally found out when one of them crumbled in my hands and just became unsellable. My second offering is chocolate fudge cake, made through cheating using a Betty Crocker mix, but that doesn't stop it tasting any less nice, especially since I added edible pink glimmer to the top of it, what more could you want?

Yesterday was ok, nothing much of any note, except of course meeting up with my lovely friend Carol to go and see I love you Phillip Morris, which was a good film, funny, though very strange. I quite like going to see films I know very little about, no real expectations, although that doesn't really matter with me since I very rarely dislike a film. The film was unexpected but fun :-)

More baking to come in the next few days as I will be making raspberry cheesecake brownie for the second time, let's hope it wasn't beginners luck last time! Although it's actually my brother Michael who wants me to make the cake, we're pretending it's in honour of my niece, Ella's, 2nd birthday - which I'm more than happy to go along with as I really liked it as well. so fingers crossed over that. So Stephen and Mandy are coming up on Friday and possibly Phil, but it depends if he has to work or not, which would be a shame, would be nice to see him while he's in the UK. Going for a meal at Frankie and Benny's on Saturday for Ella's birthday meal.

Anyway, I'm going to go now before I leave myself with nothing else to write on here for the next month! lol
Catch ya later

Today

Ok, so to the slightly more dreariness that was today. Not a lot happened; I was covering reception today in my job which is not the nicest of jobs and doesn't really let you get on with your work very well, but it's also quite nice as a bit of a break from the norm.

I spent my lunch hour thinking of some possible article ideas to write up once I manage to finish Assignment 2 for the course! This was instead of going into town as I had intended in my lunch break, as I really need a specific size baking tray. My manager in work is doing the Pedal it Pink cycle through Sefton Park in a few weeks to raise money for Breast Cancer Care and I suggested that she get everyone in work involved in a cake sale as we've had a few and they always raise loads of money. So we have lots of people who've offered to make cakes and let us sell them this Thursday, myself included, hence the need for my baking tray, which is to make brownies from my new Hummingbird Bakery book (and hope they turn out ok as I've not made them before). But I will also be making my trusty cake from a box, care of Betty Crocker as well which always taste nice.

Also, another thing to mark today was the release of the New Moon DVD, yay! I got my dad to go to Sainsburys and get it for me for £7.99! Not a bad deal. So I'm looking forward to watching that again at some point. Bearing in mind I saw it 4 times at the cinema! But i thought it was a very god film, especially for a book adaptation and i feel it stuck very close to the story, as best you can when making something visual. I think they did a better job with New Moon than they did with Twilight, but I guess they were trying to appeal to all those who hadn't read the book as well as those who had, so despite New Moon being my least favourite of the four books, I have so far found it the best film. Ok, so there's 3 more to go (since they're splitting book 4 into 2 films, a la Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) but I can only go on what I have in front of me. Not long to wait until Eclipse comes out though, and I've already explained to Becca that I will be dragging her to see that in America :)

So here's to tomorrow, a better day? We'll see

Shutter Island

I went to see this film on Friday with two of my very good friends. I'd been very much looking forward to seeing the film and although I wasn't disapointed with it, it wasn't at all what I was expecting. The trailer makes it appear to be a very creepy, scary, almost a mild horror film. However, this wasn't the case, and yes although it did have its creepy moments, again, they weren't in the way I was expecting.

I'm not quite sure how to categorise the film into a genre, possibly psychological thriller would be the closest description. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is directed by Martin Scorsese. It is set in the 1950s and begins with two government agents travelling to Shutter Island to investigate the disappearance of a patient at the mental institution housed on the island.

With no rel help from the staff, the two agents stumble from one weird event to the next, always uncovering something not quite right about the place. Their investigation takes them all over the island in search of clues to the whereabouts of the missing patient. When the patient turns up safe and sound without a scratch on her, alarm bells ring in their minds and they continue to look into the events surrounding the disappearance. I can't really continue on with a description here without it spoiling the whole film for all these followers I have :) so I will leave it there and tell you it is worth a watch.

The Hunger Games

Yesterday I sat down and started this book and could not put it down until I had finished all 450 (or so) pages of it! It was brilliant.

The book is written by Suzanne Collins and is the first in a trilogy (which I had no idea about until I got to the end, which is quite frustrating as I now want the other 2 books!).

The book is set in a dystopian US, which had been divided into the Capitol and 13 districts, until Disctrict 13 was obliterated, leaving 12. The story follows 16 year old Katniss who resides in Disctrict 12 and starts on Reaping Day. Reaping Day is the day when one boy and one girl is chosen from each district to play the Hunger Games, a brutal "game" the state puts on where the players are put into an arena of the state's choosing and are forced to fight to the death, with only one survivor, the winner.

Katniss' little sister Primrose is the girl chosen for their District, but Katniss volunteers in her place, to keep her sister safe. The games are watched by all Districts and the Capitol and a big fuss is made of it all, to the point where there are opening ceremonies and interviews etc, all designed to show everyone who the players are and this allows betting to take place, but also sponsors to cmoe forward for each child.

The story follows through to the end of the games and reaches a conclusion in itself, with no major cliffhanger that makes you feel like you have to buy the next book that second to continue on with it, which is good, but it still leaves you wanting more.

I won't say any more about the book as I don't want to spoil it, but if you get the chance to read it then I suggest you take it :-)

Hmmm...

Ok, well that didn't seem to work out quite as planned did it? Oh well. I've now joined the book club that I talked about in the last blog and really enjoy going. To be honest there haven't been many books that I've enjoyed reading and there's been 2 I haven't actually been able to finish :-(

But the last book we read, Temeraire I really loved and finished within a week. It was about the English Navy capturing a dragon egg from a French ship, which you find out later, was on its way to be presented to Napoleon (as the book is set during the Napoleonic wars). The dragon hatches and becomes attached to Lawrence, the English ship's captain. The dragon is named Temeraire and basically the two of them become great friends and have some good adventures together. I have also recently learned that there are more books in this series, so I will be looking to get hold of them! :)

Ok, lunch over - think I might try and right film reviews on here - note my key word...try :)