(not) A Photo An Hour: 18 February 2017

As I mentioned, I had to attend an event at work yesterday. I couldn’t really take my camera out all the time (plus I had to help with things), but I didn’t want to miss out on the link up altogether, so I hereby present to you a photo every hour that I wasn’t working 😉

5:30 a.m. Yes, you read that right (ugh!). Up and off for a shower.

6:30 a.m. On the tram, which will be leaving in precisely 3 minutes.

7:30 a.m. My oh-so-healthy breakfast on the train: a vanilla croissant and some vegan drink thing. I’m clearly not vegan (don’t even want to imagine how much cream is in the filing of that croissant!) but I do like to try interesting looking things. This particular one was weird and not that nice, and I ended up not finishing it.

8:30 a.m. Couldn’t manage to sleep on the train so I’m reading instead.

9:30 a.m. On the way to work. I wonder how many readers now know which city my company is located in from this?

What followed was a lot of socialising, discussing and, in between, clearing away plates and things. It was an interesting day, but also kind of exhausting.

5:30 p.m. I should probably have left a gap between the two photo halves, but symmetry! Waiting for the train home.

I was supposed to take two photos on the train, but I was reading and totally forgot sooo…

7:45 pm. Back on the tram.

8:30 p.m. Home, and the oven is pre-heating for my pizza. There was no way anything but convenience foods was getting consumed after that long day!

9:30 p.m. Pizza has been consumed and my pyjamas have never felt more cosy!

10:30 p.m. The only reason I’m still awake is because Jan was at a choir practice thing all day and I wanted to at least say hello to him! He has arrived home now and is watching TV, so it’s time for me to turn out the light and snuggle up with this cutie! (He’s called Nick, by the way)

That was my Saturday. How was yours?

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Time to start eating healthily again!

Why must you be so tasty? (Photo credit: suanie)

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been letting the fact that I could eat normally again go to my head. Pizza, chips, jaffa cakes, chocolate Digestives and Walkers crisps have all disappeared down my throat like it was the last time I was ever going to be fed. The result? I’ve now put back on half of the weight I had lost thanks to my wisdom tooth operation. Ooops! It’s time for this to stop, and healthy eating to recommence. That’s not to say I won’t be eating any junk food. After all, I do have a sweetie hamper that it would be a shame to let go to waste! And they say a little of what you fancy does you good. But muffins and pizza in the same day? Half a packet of Rolos followed by a bag of crisps and a handful of Liqurice Allsorts? Slightly excessive, don’t you think? It’s got to stop! So, from today, I shall be cooking nice healthy meals again. And no snacking in between! That’s the plan anyway. We’ll see how well I stick to it…

And obviously Irish pub days don’t count… I need my fix of chips with salt and vinegar at least once a month!

Cross stitch woes and Friday letters

Hiiii!

Posting on my blog has been a bit sporadic recently. I do apologise! Cross stitching like mad was the main culprit. I really needed to get the finished article in the postbox before the first collection this morning to be in with even a slight chance of it being delivered on time (the wedding is tomorrow), but despite staying up until midnight last night, this is as far as I got:

Unfinished…

I will still complete it tonight and get it sent off first thing tomorrow morning, but the earliest it will arrive now is Monday. Most disappointing! I suppose more cross stitching and less going to the Irish Pub for the Champion’s League final would have helped…

Anyway… it is Friday again, and that means it’s time for some letters.

Snail Mail Terminal (Photo credit: Vicki & Chuck Rogers)

Dear Dublin. This time next Friday I will be boarding a flight to you! So exciting.

Dear weather Gods. I very much appreciate you sending the sun out to play yesterday for the fourth (and final) holiday of May, but was it really necessary to follow up be chucking buckets of rain at us today? Sitting at work with wet legs was not fun!

Dear waist measurement. Why aren’t you getting any smaller? I know I haven’t exercised quite as much as I was intending to, but it’s definitely an improvement on before!

Dear boyfriend. Thank you for taking pity on me on Monday (when I ended up working for an extra hour and  half after arriving home) and suggesting we order pizza so I wouldn’t have to cook. Love you.

Dear self. Pizza (and brownies and other treats) are probably the explanation for the waist measurement thing. Just saying….

OK, that’s all. I need to go and have a cup of tea then decide what on Earth I’m going to cook tonight. Happy weekend folks!

Friday letters

I spotted this over on Moose Noose and thought I would join in this week.

Dear senders of packages. PLEASE do not use Hermes! They don’t turn up when they say they’re going to, regularly fail to ring the doorbell when they do turn up and the opening hours of their so-called “packet shop” (in a dry cleaners) are even worse than the post office!

Dear Friday. You have no idea how pleased I am to see you! It’s been a looong week. But on the plus side, I have managed to amass some more overtime, which means a day off is definitely in my future.

Dear weather. I’m loving the fact that you’ve decided to warm up again. Now if you could manage to stay like that all weekend that would be amazing!

Dear boyfriend. Thank you sooo much for suggestiong we order pizza for tea rather than me cooking something. Junk food is exactly what I need after this week.

Dear Tina Dico. It’s been almost a year now since I read that you were coming back to Karlsruhe in 2012 and around 5 months since I bought our tickets. Tomorrow it’s time for the concert. I can’t wait! And I really hope you sing One, because I love that song.

That’s it from me. You can read more letters here:

Fun at Das Fest part 2

First I have to get the two bad things about today’s trip to the Das Fest out of my system, then we can go back to the fun.

So, bad thing number one. The man at the entrance stole my water!! As far as I was aware people are allowed to take their own water in on Sunday morning for the breakfast. According to this man no drinking water is allowed in at any time. You have to buy it there. I wouldn’t mind buying it there so much, but they only sell fizzy stuff and I hate, hate, hate the taste of carbon dioxide. Extremely sulkily I watched as he threw my water bottle in the bin. Then when we got in I saw at least 3 people with bottles of water much bigger than mine. I know for a fact those bottles weren’t bought at the Fest becasue a) they don’t see big bottles and b) even if they did sell big bottles they certainly wouldn’t sell Vittel. Taking my water away was just plain mean!

Bad thing number two. I had to use a port-a-loo. I’m now officially traumatised. AT least it was still fairly early (around 12:30pm) so it was clean and had toilet roll, but still. It was horrible. For one thing it was on a slope so the whole time I was in there I felt like it was about to tip over. Then there was the fact that the door was sooo hard to shut, which made me wonder whether I’d ever get it open again. The thought of being trapped in a port-a-loo for ages is not pleasant! But I survived, I managed to do what I went in for without actually touching the toilet (eeew!) and the door did open again when I wanted to come out. Still traumatised though!

Now back to the fun. The day started with the classic breakfast… everyone brings along something to eat and has a picnic on the grass while an orchestra plays classical music on the stage. A nice experience, although the lack of shade in front of the stage is sooo not good for me. I’m now sunburnt despite making use of the free suncream DM were giving out. And I used the highest sun protection factor. Curse my pale skin!
After breakfast we headed down to the river to see the duck race. This year 7,000 people bought a duck (or rather a ticket to represent a duck). Seven thousand ducks floating down the river looks brilliant! If you ever get a chance to see a rubber duck race definitely do. Neither of our ducks was among the first 25 to reach the end, so we didn’t get a prize. But we do still have a chance… the fasted 200 ducks win something, but only the first 25 prizes are handed out then and there. Tomorrow a list will appear on the internet so I can see whether we’ve won one of the smaller prizes. And if not, well it’s all for charity.

Once the duck race was over we headed back towards the main stage via a tap in the ground that we had spotted on the way down to the finish line. The tap produces drinking water, so I refilled the bottles of fizzy water that Jan had bought during breakfast. There’s no way I haven’t drunk enough water today!
Back at the main stage a band called Soundnugget were playing. The name has been bugging me all week. I knew I’d heard it somewhere before but couldn’t think where. The answer came to me yesterday… I read it all the time on one of the posters down in our bar. They played at one of our residence parties a few years ago. I missed them the year they played here, but today at the Fest I got to hear them and they’re actually pretty good. Young lads, in their early to mid 20s. They sing in English and are very enthusiastic.
The band who came on next we weren’t really bothered about seeing, and Jan wanted pizza, so we wandered off towards the so-called “sportpark”, bought pizza and went in search of the freestyle frisbee show. We found a few people doing stuff with frisbees, but nothing that looked like an official show so after watching some skateboarders doing tricks and stopping for a while to watch some random sport involving people juggling skittle shaped things on a volleyball court, the idea being that each person had 2 white ones while an orange one was passed from person to person, we headed back towards the main area. DM had a little tent where you could print out 5 photos from your camera for free so we took advantage of that before heading back to my place. Now Jan has gone home and I’m drinking gallons and gallons of water and praying that the sunburn isn’t a sign I’m going to be ill later. I get sunstroke soooo easily and I have to work tomorrow…

SATC and Italy Italy

Last night Jan took me to see Sex and the City. I thought it was good, but not brilliant. It was basically a 2 and a half hour version of one of the episodes. Itt went on far too long for my liking (after 2 hours I was wondering whether it would ever end!), but I suppose there were a few loose ends to be tied up. The ending was incredibly predictable (of course they were going to get married. It just wouldn’t be SATC without the happy ending). There were a few good one liners. I’m glad I saw, but don’t think I’ll be buying the DVD. And is it just me or does Sarah Jessica Parker look old?? I know she’s not in her 20s any more, but seriously, she’s looking haggard these days!

By the time the film finished we were starving, so we went to a restaurant called Italy Italy. Guess what kind of food they sell? I had some gorgeous lasagne with Bärlauch, which leo.org tells me can be translated as bear’s garlic, wood garlic or wild garlic. It’s green anyway, and yes slightly similar to garlic. Jan had a huuuge pizza thing. It was one with the filling in the middle, so I was expecting something like a calzine (normal pizza folding in half) but what turned up was this huuuuge round thing with an inflated bit in the middle where the filling was. It kind of looked like a flying saucer made from pizza dough. Interesting. It must have been huge cos even Jan couldn’t eat it all! I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him leave food on his plate in the whole 4 and a bit years we’ve been together. So to sum up, Italy Italy in Karlsruhe does very nice meals with huge portions at reasonable prices. Aah, I shoud be a restaurant critic (hahaha).