Skiing

So I woke up this morning full of beans. I’d had a lovely sleep and thankfully my alarm clock chimed at exactly the right moment when I breached deep sleep and was just dozing. I love it when that happens and I positively jump out of bed feeling particularly energised. It’s interesting how sometimes one wakes feeling tired but having had more sleep than on an occasion when one wakes feeling refreshed. Apparently it’s all to do with deep sleep cycles and they’re usually about 4 hours long. Theory goes, I think, that if your cycle is four hours and you wake after four/ eight/ twelve (my personal favourite but rarely achieved these days) hours you’re going to be more refreshed than when you wake after six/ seven/ nine/ ten hours. It’s more of a wrench to pull yourself from deep sleep, and you lose the benefit of the extra hour because you have a disturbed exit from sleep.

Anyway, I bounded out of bed into a lovely warm room, and pulled the curtains back to reveal white sparkly snow glistening in the early morning sunshine. Isn’t snow fantastic? I broke my sunnies on honeymoon and have yet to replace them so am borrowing Mr W’s spare set, and I'll need them today. At lunchtime or after the lifts close I might go and pick up some damn-I'm-cool, look-at-me, new shades that cover half of my face, but right now Mr W's are fine.

The snow was so inviting, and when I opened the window the air was so bitingly cold and fresh that all internal cobwebs from a night of beer-swilling and too-late snacks were instantly blown away. I pulled on my dressing gown and (after shutting the window!) left the cat sleeping and went in search of breakfast. Hopefully this afternoon we would be ice-diving, and I wasn’t about to do that without a full stomach!

Breakfast was functional, if lovely. Muesli and peppermint tea, and a banana stuck in the pocket for mid-morning. Bitter experience has taught me that when selecting a banana for consumption later, it’s best not to choose the ripest, blackest one in the bunch, so I went for a sensibly green one.

A dash back upstairs to kiss Mr W, get into my ski kit, obsessively check my accessories - lip balm, multiple packets of tissues, sun glasses cleaner, piste map, mobile telephone, several hundred dollars (I was probably going to have a hot cider at some point during the morning), health insurance card and drivers licence (to prove I am in fact well over 21 if I decide to convert the cider to a litre of vodka) – and I’m out of the starting gates, heading down to the ski lockers.

The snow outside my window was glistening, the snow outside the house was blindingly bright. Some of the snow that fell in yesterday’s Big Dump had frozen overnight but had stopped being quite so treacherous where the sun had been warming it for a while. This is just as well really, because I hate skiing on ice.

All in all, the morning boded well. It boded with style and panache, actually, and with the air of confidence one expects from a morning that probably has no self-confidence issues and looks in the mirror as it says “you rock, baby”, simulatenously snapping what passes for some fingers. It boded as if it wore a black leather jacket - collar up (natch) - and mirrored shades.

mmmmince pies and fruit cake

Whilst being Jewish means I don't have to do all the hellish shopping for gifts in overcrowded stores, for people who probably won't like what they get anyway, it doesn't mean I have to give up mince pies. I love the mince. When I was ten or so I used to be able to eat three in an evening, and my brother and I would microwave them until the tops fell in, and then cover the resulting mess with squirty cream. The cream would only delay the severe burns to our tongues, not stop it, but we didn't care. We only got mince pies for a month or so each year (who eats them after the Big Feed anyway?) so we'd cram as many as we could into the short period. Rather like cadbury's creme eggs (which I pronounced "creamy" until I was about 18) but more intense. Creme eggs, and my all-time nemesis, the mini egg, were available from mid December right through until the end of Easter. It strikes me that our local shop sells them all year round - but maybe that's not indicative of whether they are made all year round. Hmmm.

Anyway I'm digressing. I love mince pies but feel somehow not entitled to them any more. I have compromised, and haven't bought any of the pre-packaged ones (Mr Kipling and his ilk), but I have bought them singly in waitrose - somehow that is permitted. I've had four or five so far this year - two tiny ones at my hairdresser's a couple of weeks ago, and a few of these waitrose bunnies.

When I got home from work today, mentally compiling an inventory of the fridge and coming up with a depressing list of salad veg that Mr W eats (and no mince pies), there was a package on the floor outside our door. First I thought Mr W had been binging on amazon again, then I realised it wasn't books. It was a parcel, relatively heavy, from my parents. When I examined it more closely, it was a DeLuxe Fruit Cake from Collin Street Bakery, Texas.

We used to get these exact cakes delivered when I was very small. I'd have a piece and it would last me all night. If I ate it too fast I'd hurl. It was that rich! It comes in a lovely tin, I guess it has to seeing as it's come a long way, and I can't find a photograph of the tin, but I'll take one and badger Lucille "Strike" Smithson to show me how to upload it. The tin isn't particularly Christmassy, it's just slightly old-fashioned. It's just the right size to hold my ever-expanding sewing kit. When I popped the lid open, it smelt like the Christmasses of my childhood. Weird, eh!

I'm having Christmas with my lovely wonderful parents this year (again) and Mr W's coming too (also, again). I'm going to help mum with the cooking as I usually do (yes, really, only it's much easier with an aga which does not need to be heated up). My dad will drink champagne all morning. Mr W will be, well, wonderful and entertain everyone with a selection of seasonal puns. We're treating the 25th as a day to see my family, rather like 14 February is a day to avoid going to a restaurant. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and see if my Channukah candles have stopped burning yet...

What have I done this year?

Rather than starting to beat myself up about all those things I should be doing, and depressing myself by listing them, and promising that in January I'll start behaving like a machine (up at 0600; to the gym three times a week; eat four portions of fruit and three of veg a day; get nine hours' sleep a night; go to the ROH once a month; do all my filing the day it comes in), I'm going to list the things that I've done this year.

Things that I'm proud to have achieved, and things that make me feel good. Herewith the greatest re-writing of history since Stalin, but hey. It's my blog and if I want to spin stuff to make myself feel better, then I will. I want to explode confidently into 2007. I don't want to feel guilty because I'm not going to the gym or whatever - I want to be happy that I can do what I want and value my own opinion. Something I don't do out loud too often.

So, this year:

• I've organised a fantastic wedding (photographs will be up soon on the website, I promise);

• I've converted to Judaism;

• I've managed to gether a year's worth of commercial/IT/telecoms law experience off two temp jobs that proved to be amongst my favourite jobs to date;

• I had a fantastic wedding and have amazing memories to look back on;

• I acquired a fantastic husband and we're creating a happy marriage (bleurgh);
  

• I now have a much healthier diet;

• Oh yes, I stopped smoking;

• I flew in a 'plane with a mate (he actually did the flying) and drastically reduced my fears of aeroplanes;

• I stopped biting my nails (thanks to a lovely salon which paints my nails so I can't bring myself to bite them);

• I joined a gym (ha. maybe I'll start to use it by the end of the decade!);

• I tidied my desk (this truly is momentous - I don't think it had previously been tidied since I bought it);

• I have started cooking more and generally not avoiding the kitchen.
  

The list will, of course, be updated. Look out for the bullet points over the next few weeks....

cross with golf and reporters

The whizzy Will has directed me to golf balls. The whole link thing failed to work, so if you tried before, please try again. I've now spent five minutes when I should be sleeping trying to work out how the screaming hell I get the url of this webpage in front of the one that should be coming up and linking to. Which should be www.nike.com/nikegolf/juiceball. There. Let's see if the stupid machine can work out how to screw that one up...

If you've seen this already, don't you agree it's fascinating? If not - the jello (babelfish: jelly) is one of my personal favourites. And the cake must be solid icing from at least one inch up.

Then there's the iBelieve - a lanyard for the top of your shuffle (does anyone have one any more; they're soooo last year). So now you can attach the cross to yourself, rather than yourself to the cross, a la Madonna.

And, about crosses, what's the deal with Fiona Bruce? It appears the Beeb, like BA, got a bit hot and sweaty about religious jewellery being worn by staff, and has now backed down and permitted religious jewellery so long as it's not too blingy. However, if you look at the picture accompanying this article, which showed the "crucifix", you'll see it's not actually a crucifix. It doesn't have an image of Jesus on it. I read an interview with Fiona earlier this week where she said it was a "jack" - one of those things you'd play games with as a child.

I wish reporters would get it right. The whole crucifix/ cross thing should be a relatively easy distinction. Similarly, this person in Ipswich who is killing women all of whom share a line of work. He's not a Ripper; he doesn't use a knife. He's a strangler. And, he's not a serial killer - he appears to be a spree killer. If he has a break, gets on with life, and continues to do it over a long period of time, whilst living a normal (yes, I'm not sure how one lives a normal life which involves murder - I think the definition indicates a serial killer carries on going to work/ poker nights/ the gym as per usual, and all the while killing people who share certain characteristics) life, *then* he's a serial killer.

When I say "he" in the above paragraph, the term is used as gender neutral.

Chocolate sneezes

I'm three days into my new fun temp job; I'm at my pre-wedding weight; Mr W is indeed W; so I should be very happy. Or at least, sickeningly content. But this week is really pissing me off.

Mr W has spent most of it working somewhere out near Reading, which requires him to leave the mansion at 0700. He has at least a two hour return journey. Tonight he's gone straight from work to a work party at some swanky bar on the King's Road, Monday night he's planning on staying over.

I started the week with the tail end of a cold, which today lurched back from the dead making me into a green snotty monster. I would have liked to have made it through the first week before revealing my impressively loud nose-blowing technique, but alas, that was not to be. Thankfully no-one actually sits near me apart from the IT girl (who has so far failed to switch my name over from my maiden name to my married one). I'm in the ridiculous situation of signing emails with one name and sending them from another. Anyway I'm trying not to infect her either, that's how nice I am. I don't want to spoil her Friday evening. Leading to my next gripe.

I've been very kindly invited, along with Mr W, to the company's Christmas bash. Tomorrow. In town. Black tie. Starts at 1830. So I have to take my black tie into work with me and hope Mr W can get from wherever he is working over to Sloane Square before they start serving supper. The employees have been told they can leave at 1700, but I'm paid by the hour and haven't been told this. Which is fine - it would take me an hour to get home and then probably the best part of an hour to get back, so even if I could leave at 1700 I probably wouldn't. At least it means I'll probably have the ladies' loo to myself to glam up in! Then I've got to travel from bloody docklands across town in a cocktail dress - which is not insulated. Mr W had better not be late... I've thought about cancelling but it's a bit late now. Besides, it'll hopefully improve after a nice warm mug of hot chocolate and an early night.

I found some gorgeous hot chocolate that doesn't break the bank. Charbonnel et Walker do a good one, but it's incredibly fussy to make, costs a lot (a tenner for half a kilo), and seems to have short sell-by dates. Green and Blacks - really not so fantastic. It used to hit the spot when I was at law school, but my tastes have obviously evolved. My drinking chocolate now has to be artery-cloggingly thick, and so sweet you want to add maple syrup to dilute it.

Then I found The One. Twinings - it's amazing. Try it - their version is called luxury chocolate drink, and they sell it in waitrose (well, at ocado). It has real lumps of chocolate in it... It tastes so good I burnt my mouth with it last night. And it doesn't have to be so sweet is makes your vision blurry. It just tastes of liquid chocolate. Heavenly.

Mr W should be home soon. There's a casino at this party tomorrow evening, and one of the guys I know at work plays poker. And I think the booze is free. And I dn't have to get up until 0830 on Saturday morning.

Hot chocolate works, you know.

*sneeze*