an apple a day

some bug is trying to get the best of me this week, and with a day off booked too, typical! but i will go to bed extra early tonight and tmro and fill my face with vitaminC in a bid to beat it before the weekend...

i'm planning to do some international globetrotting later this year which is very exciting, a bit daunting and likely to be a bit pricey, but it's something to look fwd to... or is it?

by allocating all my allowed days off weeks, nay months in advance, i find it a bit depressing that that's my lot as it were... oh to be self-employed! haha i'd seriously like 3 months off a year, and promise to be tres proactive in the 9 working ones... doesn't seem that bad a proposition, must make an appointment to chat to my boss... NOT! i'm sure he'd love that! haha

ofcourse the ever present problem would be if one only works 9 months, one only gets paid for 9 months - i'd better come up with a really great money making scheme if i'm ever going to make that work:life balance work out!

it's like the whole work 5 days get 2 off deal, who made that up? work 4 for 3 days off surely makes a happier camper?!

for more grumblings tune in next time.. haha

top 5 drinking holes

now i'm gonna go against the tide of disapproving headlines in the papers this week with my top five watering holes... yes i enjoy drinking, perhaps i have had one too many sometimes (see one or two previous entries on hangovers) but for the most part having a beer with friends is all i need to get by! all this talk of putting up booze prices and cracking down on teens drinking is way too stiff for me, having drowned a large percentage of my own late teens in vodka 'and it didn't do me any harm', all this doom and gloom about the state of the nation is enough to drive anyone to drink! haha

i am a woman of simple pleasures and a half of genuis (Guinness) or another full-bodied ale, good conversation and perhaps the occasional trick with a bar mat or two to master is a great night out in my book!

having just moved to a new city, these nights are thwarted simply by my ignorance of where the decent drinking holes are! a friend took us to the Green Room last week, we liked! we also took our debut trip to the PND (pub next door) and frankly it was fabalas!

and so to the top five places for a pint (IMHO)*

5 The Old Coffee House, London Town

a great little old-school pub that i've whiled away many a few hours catching up with friends over a pint - and so much more pleasant since the smoking ban kicked in so window seats no longer a must! haha

4 The Devonshire Cat, Sheffield

any place that has a 'menu' for beers alone has to be in the top 5!

3 Brighton Pier, in, er, Brighton, hehe

the sun shining, sitting on a deckchair with Brighton Pier Radio in your lugholes, seagulls threaten overhead, pint of lager-top in your hand... perfeck!

2 The Jacaranda, Liverpool

the original Beatles pub! before The Cavern they played here, which is why it's great to go to the Open Mic night on a Thursday and imagine what it must've been like for them. With Macca's performing arts school only metres away its always full of new talent, oh and the Guinness ain't bad neither...

1 this is a toughie... i've lived in so many places and drank in so many great pubs...

The Knot Bar in Manchester boasts a great choice of beers and a legendary jukebox - but so often you can't hear it... The Jekyll and Hyde in Edinburgh has fantastic hidden loo doors! hehe

so i'm going to choose... wait for it...

...

...

...

The Briton's Protection, Manchester!

i know i know, i just spent 4 years there so i'm a bit biased towards the old Manc boozers, but let me tell you its an absolutley fabulous pub... and no frills! lots of little lounges in an olde-worlde-stylee and no music so just conversation to get you by! legend...

any recommends/ your own lists are always welcome, wherever you are in the world, i might be there too one day and in need of a nice sit down...

*jodester reserves the right to change her top 5 watering holes at any time! haha

morning has broken

oh lordy...

4am and minus 10, well that's what it felt like...

i don't have the equipment to back up my wild claims that it was actually minus 10 this morning when my alarm went off but it surely felt cold!

and since i hadn't slept well the night before i was sooooo tired...

monday mornings are always a killer, but wow! 4am takes the biscuit! i wonder if it will be easier to get up at that time when its summer and not so middle-of-the-night... but ofcourse the flipside is that i'll be trying to sleep when its beautiful sunny evenings outside! crazyness!

and it never fails to amaze me that there is anybody else on the road at 5am - where are they going? but the worst is red lights when the road is empty - come on! i'm likely to fall back asleep with this kind of pointless delay to my morning journey! surely traffic lights should be ignored at that time of day?!

apologies if my witterings about early mornings seem a bit repetitive... i do feel rather stilted creatively by these hours, i seem to always be yawning! not entirely an attractive look! but you'll catch me at it before, during and after the show i work on, at weekends when i'm trying to have more 'normal' hours, in the afternoons while i try to stay awake til bedtime... tired all the time! rubbish! which means when it comes to engaging ones brain, it doesn't always want to...

*yawns*

right then... sorry about all this...

sunspots

there's something very alluring about a sun spot that makes me just want to curl up and have a snooze in it!

i think because its February and the midst of winter they're far more alluring than they would be in say July, but i reckon cats on window sills have got the right idea!

yesterday i got home around 4.30pm after getting my frozen ipod updated at the mac store and couldn't resist a lie down with the sun on my face, not good when your afternoons are a no-nap zone! but the orange rays of a low winter sun proved to much to deny...

luckily i was only out for 15 minutes but it could have been a disaster with my hours!

staying awake in Brum is more difficult than you might think! because i work unusal hours at the opposite end of the day from my man's own unusual hours i seem to spend a lot of time by myself, and i can be quite broing company! haha if i don't have a crumble to bake or an errand to run sleep seems a lovely option! but alas if i'm kipping in the day i'd find it difficult to drop off at my designated bedtime of 8pm so i have to walk around the flat or do some stretches to stay awake some days!

time for a new hobby (now that i've got bored of last year's! haha i'm so fickle)

mr blue sky

i am working on a feature called the Six at Six - i have to book guests who talk about their six favourite tunes, lovely stuff! but it got me thinking, and we all know how much i like a list...

so my Six at Six would be (in no particular order):
The Beatles/ Blackbird - love a good finger plucking i do...
ELO/ Mr Blue Sky - never fails to make me more cheery this one, and i just found out one of the guys at my new office used to be in the band! rock connections a gogo baby!
Bjork/ There's More To Life Than This - one of my all time fave tracks from the queen of quirky
The Boxtops/ The Letter - a great tune from the 60s and only a minute and 29seconds long!
Martha and the Vandellas/ Dancing in the Street - a party favourite
Nitin Sawhney/ Street Guru (Parts 1 & 2) - just cool as, telling it how it is, seek it out!

now i'm sure that this wouldn't be the same if you asked me in 2 weeks never mind 10 years but i see the Six at Six as a fluid ever changing thing, hehe

let me know your Six at Six!

bleary eyed and bushy tailed

blimey this morning shift takes it out of you... it's a good job i'm an upbeat lady!

this weekend we watched Groundhog Day actually on Groundhog Day! i can't deny i was a tad excited at the prospect of actually celbrating the day properly and even tho i failed to get it on a local cinema (maybe '09) i simply dusted off the video tape and we watched the crackly image from the comfort of our sofa!

what's not to love about this film? i hear the DVD has some cool extras so i'll be investigating that, but even though i've seen it more than a dozen times i can still enjoy it, even down to the cheesy 'romantic' sax music they put over the scenes where Phil (Bill Murray) tries to seduce the lovely Rita (Andie McDowell) over and over again... and repeat viewing capability is the sign of a truly great film!

we did notice tho that it had the worst poster and tagline ever:
"He's having the worst day of his life... over, and over..."
i can't offer a better idea of the top of my head but Murray's face in an alarm clock doesn't really say much does it?! i wonder what other films have suffered from poor poster design...

Groundhog Day does always make me what to visit Punxatawney tho, which i discovered is a real place only this year! whodathunkit?!

first chocolate bar of the year

sound the fanfare!

today i ate my first chocolate bar of 2008!

i did well to last this long without, but even tho i'm trying to be healthy i didn't plan on never having any bad stuff ever again! and i don't mean to mislead you, i did have banoffee pie on the weekend (which i mistakenly read the nutritional values of on the side of the packet before i ate it which i'm sure took away somewhat from the pleasure principle) but i'm trying to be good 90% of the time... which means avoiding the vending machine at work!

i'm proud to report that my choc of choice was a tres British treat, that is to say, a double decker... a fabulous piece of confectionary with a delicious fusion of chewy nougatine, crispy rice wrapped in cadbury's milk choc, lovely stuff...

later on i'll be grating a twirl finger into my pancakes, i reckon if you're gonna fall off the wagon do it in style! hehe