Friday 26 April 2013

I have officially found my favourite Chinese restaurant.

This place is fab - and they don't hold back. Low cost, big portions, plenty of chilies and flavour... they don't even skimp on the more expensive bits. My kung po is amazingly mouthwarm and packed with chunky, tender bamboo shoots and huge, crisp disks of water chestnut...

The crispy chili chicken is very crunchy and warm, the chow mein noodles were firm and the mushrooms in great quarter lumps...

And I don't know where to start on the duck rolls. The pancakes were crisp, the meat tender and flavoursome, the hoi sin delightful and the Thai dipping sauce - fabulous. I couldn't tell if the rolls were temperature hot or spice hot! :D

Happyhappyhappyburrrp.

Monday 22 April 2013

One of the world's finest, most successful and most respected pirates... was a woman.

Cheng Shih was purchased from a "flower boat" (a brothel), tied up and hauled onto ship. The captain released her to get a better look - and she laid into him like a wildcat. Apparently, he thought that this feisty woman was pretty epic, fell in love and they got married!

She demanded her own fleet, and to keep her own captured treasure - and soon became his greatest rival on the seas, landing more booty than he! Sadly, he was killed in a storm - and lo, the fleets came in to port and bickered over who would be the new pirate lord.

Cheng walked in, threatened off all the competition and took control. In less than three years under her Red Flag, she took the fleets to over 1000 ships strong, and became the most formidable force on the oceans - outmanning most other countries entire navies.

She also shrewdly diversified from just pillage to protection, blackmail, spying and extortion; even developing good working relationships with farmers to provide her men with good food.

At the end of her reign, she was even offered a universal pirate amnesty in exchange for peace. Of the 80,000 men in her fleet, less than 400 were punished. They ALL got to keep their booty, and most of them were given good military jobs!

Cheng went on to open a gambling house with her husband, and passed away as a 69 year old grandmother. A truly remarkable pirate.

Thursday 18 April 2013

If it has lots of species of insect - does that make it a buggery?

Well, the nice weather is here and with some money left on the budget, thanks to my lovely grandparents for their kindness with "pocket money". Yes, I know I'm 27 - I have pointed this out to them several times. I get that look if I try to refuse though. I'm very grateful to them for it. :)

As a result, I have treated myself to a multifunction composter.

The Wormery have this little beauty going for £52 (that's including postage) - which is a nice little bargain: the next best I found was only three trays high, and £72.

I've picked this over a standard composter because it has a leach-away tap (for producing liquid fertiliser!), is insect friendly if I actually want to put worms in, will work efficiently as a standard composter if I don't, and I can put it in the dark, concreted corner of the garden that isn't much use for anything else.

Liquid fertiliser, solid compost, recycling food waste, using the footing to make a small animal hideaway for frogs etc and maximising useage of my small plot of garden space.

Anyone know where I can get a nice bench? And a gate? And I need to work out how to fix the brick (or to buy a whole new) barbecue... My garden will be functional when I'm done.

Saturday 13 April 2013

Oh boy, what a day.

Work was ... tricky.

Besides a couple of tricky queries to programme and a couple of problems to solve, I had not one, but three groups of people come in to notify me of family member customers whom had passed away today - two groups arrived at the same time and took some careful juggling.

Luckily, my boss predicted this (being as I am the only trained Estates staff member in my branch) and sent my colleague in to have a speed-training session with me whilst I handled a case. They were a truly lovely family too, organised, jovial, kind - despite the sad circumstances, they were a genuine pleasure to work with.

This meant my colleague was able to take the less-tricky second case whilst I took on the hard one. I can't give you details, but it wasn't pretty. I did my best, and I hope things get easier for them.

So yeah, that was... interesting. But not nearly as interesting as hometime.

Grabbed veg on my roar through Marks&Sparks (not because I'm posh. It's the direct route through town for me!) and milk on the way past Costcutters (because I'm not posh and it's a fair price!). Turned the corner on the home stretch and frowned at a big bundle of something in the middle of the path.

Figured it was something the chap at 122 was moving and maybe he'd nipped in to grab the phone or something.... then I realised it was a person.

Yes, there was a dude sat in the middle of the path, hanging on to his ankle, twizzled up on himself like a hedgehog. The chap from 122 popped out and confirmed the fella had parked himself on the floor, curled up awkwardly and stayed there.

I called the ambulance and we carefully tried to unravel him. He made a grunty snorting noise and curled himself back up - dropping a baggie of white tablets as he did so. (They were about a cm long, oval, 4mm wide, with a break line in the middle.)

I have no idea what he was smacked out on, but his pupils were like pins and apparently his face was really itchy. The ambulance chaps were less than impressed but, as he was in really unstable condition and lapsing in and out of consciousness, they took him away.

So. Yeah. That's about one a month so far: we've had the poor diabetic old chap in the middle of town collapsed on Valentines (with his big bunch of roses for his wife, to apologise for being staggering drunk!), we had the raging girls in the middle of my street (see a post of a few weeks back) and now this chap.

Got home, made layer veg pasta, advised a rescuer on how to deal with a seriously sick bearded dragon, added three more appointments to my calendar (a quiz on Thurs, work's night out later in the month, my father visiting at the weekend), confirmed that the weird scary thing that turned up at the university IS actually mine and, now it's coming up to 9pm, I think I'm caught up.

Wednesday 10 April 2013

I've been doing some thinking.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm doing a few things wrong - and that I need to fix these issues.

Problems:

a) I keep seeking validation from others.
a) I keep expecting my father to make an expression of "I'm proud of you".
a) I keep procrastinating over things that I can do - putting them off for no good reason.


Improving:

b) I have got much better at saying "I don't know" and trying to learn (at work, etc) as well as taking responsibility for and admitting and fixing my own errors.
b) I have got much better at expressing my concerns and my faults. (This post - made public, deliberately, is an effort to work on this.)
b) I have realised I have pretty good eyebrows. Not sure why, but they're nice.
b) I have got used to the idea that I'm always going to be tall and broad (even if I was five stone lighter, my shoulders and hips are always going to be this wide! And I'd be anorexic.)
b) I'm pretty sure ALL people have problem finding clothes that actually fit right, and that it only LOOKS like other size groups of shoes look more exciting than what's available in my range in the shop...


Further improvements required:

c) I need to find more joy (even in the boring bits) in my job.
c) I need to accept that my father and I simply aren't compatible.
c) I need to make a better effort to connect with the rest of my family - more regularly. (With thanks to Mum and Nan for their efforts as always - it is always appreciated!)
c) I need to remember the stuff I don't look forward to usually turns out to be not nearly so bad. And is usually satisfying at the end.
c) I need to learn to accept gifts, and not feel guilty if I can't return the favour. My family are giving me gifts because they can, not because they expect the same in return, not because they're the Mafia and I owe them a favour! (Though I'd never refuse a request if I can help!)
c) I need to stop procrastinating about joining the gym. I know it's bloody expensive, but I do need to take better care of myself. See, I'm doing it now.