Thursday 24 February 2011

Not wavy but downy

I thought that over-straightened hair was a bit passe.  Not so in the hairdresser I visited yesterday.  My hair is wavy.  I told the stylist it was wavy.  She could see it was wavy.  I asked her for advice about maintaining the curl and reducing the fly-away-ness of it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand naturally, following all that, she dried it straight and plonked a load of serum on top to reduce the fluffiness from blow-drying it.

Weirdest of all about this, she had very nice wavy hair with well defined curls and waves and no straight fluffiness in sight!!

Pfffffft.

The search for a good hairdresser continues........

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Delicious day off

Today I had the day off and went out for a marvellous lunch with Mr Bookworm and 2 of our friends.  It was my friend's birthday on Feb 1st and it's mine on 18th so the lunch was a treat and a celebration.

We had wanted to go to Morston Hall, but sadly it doesn't do weekday lunch :-(  So we chose The White Horse at Brancaster Staithe.  http://www.whitehorsebrancaster.co.uk/.

We had a nice leisurely drive up to the coast in perfect sunshine, stopping off in Wells along the way for a coffee and a bit of window shopping.

Back on our way we saw lots of people with binoculars and long lenses by the side of the road - I wonder what bird they were looking for.  We saw a Barn Owl which was a surprise at 12.30 in the afternoon.  They are huge!

Then we got to The White Horse which is a lovely pub with a lot of flint wall, and pale blue paint. It has a very pretty setting looking out over the north norfolk marshes to the sea.  Our table was in the conservatory right by the window and a view.

I'd already had a pre-emptive look at the menu, not that it helped with choosing as it all sounded delicious.  It's a relatively small menu for lunch but I was still stumped - we all were, even Mr B had 4 veggie choices available.  Being on the coast there was a lot of fish and shellfish and for a moment 2 of us wavered over choosing a sea platter. Or oysters.  Or mussels.  In the end I chose bouillabaisse and a pork belly porchetta with truffled butter beans and crayfish tail sauce.

The bouillabaisse was rich and delicious, and came with a really nice rouille and a gruyere toast.  It was a big and satisfying dish, tomatoey, slightly aniseedy from dill and pernod, and packed with pieces of fish, prawns and mussels.  Then the porchetta which was really good - a small hit of chilli in the rolled pork belly, lovely white beans, lots of crayfish tail and a lovely sauce with truffle and crayfish and something creamy.  The meat was really tender from long cooking, that dead giveaway of soft fibrous meat that gives at a slight pressure of fork, and the beans were a delicious contrast.  I would not have thought of putting pork with crayfish but it really worked, and there were lots of them.

We were too full for pudding!

Then we had a stroll along the edge of the marsh and spotted lots of birds - Curlew, Avocet (we think), Starling, a Redshank, Gulls and many others that I didn't know. 

Then we returned home, taking a different route through Blakeney,Cley and Holt.

It was such a lovely day that we think we might like to do this perhaps once every few months.

A fab day with friends and delicious food - what more can a person ask?

Monday 7 February 2011

Daydreaming

I sometimes spend a few moments in idle fantasy about living elsewhere - not that I don't love my home, I just wonder about other lives in other places. An alternative me perhaps.

Sometimes it's a place I know well, other times it's completely based on nothing more than a travel feature or a good photo.

One of these elaborately woven dreams comes from our summer holiday 2 years ago. I fancy I'd quite like to live on Jura. Well, I'd like the life of a girl we met in the tea tent at Jura House. She made cakes and gardened and did 'stuff'. It sounded rather idyllic, on a beautiful island with the gulf stream and some rather fine whisky and stags.

And then I remember that the island population is small and one's personal business might not be as personal as a person might like!

And on a day like today, when all is gusty outside and I'm seriously wondering if my car will actually stay anchored to the road or if it's going to go all "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore", I wonder if the wind would drive me bonkers.

And that's when thoughts turn to a high-ceilinged apartment in an old palazzo, with tiled floors and a balcony or two, and the sea nearby. And a bit less wind TYVM. And southern Italy's beauty and loveliness on my doorstep.

Today it's an Italian day.


Location:Work

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Expectations

There are certain things I expect from my work/employers. Simple stuff like being paid on time, or having some direction.  Or having a manager.

Most of these seem relatively easy to fulfil, however, the whole manager thing appears to be beyond the ken of my employers. 

I'm not going to get into extensive employer-bashing, but I would quite like someone to approve my leave, or check I'm not overloaded, or set some objectives.  Or give me some feedback...

It's all a bit wearing really.