Lunch With Skippy

Today I walked into town and took The Mermaid Queen to the framers. She's going to be ready in about 10 days. I wouldn't dare risk trying to frame her myself, after six months of work she deserves to be framed by a professional.

Then I went and had lunch in the Turk's Head, which is heralded as the oldest pub in Penzance. I went there because I noticed that the other day they had Kangaroo Steaks on their specials board. I've wanted to try Kangaroo for years, ever since I learned that a local butcher in Gillingham sold it (he was unfortunately out of stock when we went there to purchase some to take to a bbq) and I've been dying to try it ever since then, so today I did.

What can I say? A Kangaroo is just a huge jumping cow! It tasted almost exactly like beef steak, but with a slightly more gamier flavour which was very subtle. It was a nice meal. The Kangaroo was pan fried in Creme de Cassis (strawberry liquor) sauce and was served with a small side salad and chips.

Oh well, nice one Skippy!

Freeview - Me Too

Just browsing the net and found someone else with the same problem as me. I know several people who live locally too me who have freeview and it works fine, so I've just taken this guy's attitude and figured "what the hell" and have bought one anyway ;-)

I'll let you know if it works and if the Freeview website is spouting bollocks!

One More Day...

Only today to go at work and then I'm having a few days off while the office is being decorated. It makes sense, I've got about 10 days leave left to take at work and I don't want to be around the smell of wet paint, not to mention not really being able to get any real work done anyway.

I did consider having a short break away somewhere this long weekend, but I've got to be back at work on Tuesday for the Christmas Party (no sense in missing that one, well I say "party", probably an all day drinking session is the truth which resulted last year in four missing hours and a skinned knee - so I can't wait to see what happens this year ;-), so it would have to be a city break or something like that. I've even considered going to Paris for the Weekend, but have been put off with the fact that I will be in a strange country alone (again) and I can't speak French, and will have to worry about muggers and all the other hastles you get from being in a big city. Cornwall is soooo safe in comparison. So I guess I'll just be moping around here, but hopefully getting a bit of stitching done. Didn't really get any real stitching done this weekend. I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on Sunday morning. Yawn! God, I don't know how I sat through that one - but then I thought that particular novel was a real slog to get through too.

I'm not looking forward at all to Christmas. I think it's just going to be another total non-event like last year: I spent the entire day watching the 11 hour plus epic Lord of the Rings, which was nice in itself, but not to be repeated this year. A lot of single people feel the same way about the holidays, but at 34 most people still have families that they go and spend it with - there you go, the curse of elderly parents! All the more ironic in that my Boss's stepgrandad died today at 96! He certainly had a good innings. My genetic upbringing is unfortunately though, not that of Methusaleh. At one point this year I was looking forward with a sense of hope that I wouldn't have to spend it alone again, but those hopes were dashed quite recently, hence my return in the big way to the stitching world. There is sanctity in stitching afterall.

I spent about an hour or so at work today browsing online and looking for a Christmas break, to get away in a nice warm sunny place is a good way to forget about it all - but I couldn't find a decently cheap break - all the good ones have been booked up already. I phoned Thompson's today and was told the only thing that they had available was staying in Sharm El Sheik at a 5 star hotel on a B&B basis for...... get this..... I couldn't quite believe it £1800 quid! And I'm not sure at the moment if my l/lady will be here to look after Jade for me anyway. Anyone know of a good holiday retreat where they don't mind a few stray grey hairs?

Coming Through the Floor....!

A small earthquake hit Penzance today. It wasn't a seizmic movement however, it was my boss the twat skipping in his office at the encouragement of his personal trainer who he's employed to get him into shape to win a bet but honestly, skipping in your office? My desk is based two floors below his office, but it still sounded like a herd of elephants were stampeding past. The twat didn't keep it up long however, after about 15-20 jumps he came down the stairs to get a cup of water from the cooler, he was knackered already! No wonder he needs that blonde, petite, lady trainer to keep his enthusiasm up.

And now for the Stitching Blogger's Question:

Do you always sign your projects? If not, why? If so, do you use your first name, initials or what?

I only usually sign work if I am giving it away or taking part in a round robin. I always sign "Vash" rather than my real name, but as everyone knows me as Vash anyway I can't see that it matters. I will also put my Country, or location, i.e. UK or Cornwall. On the Cattitudes RR we even stitched our country flags. I sometimes put the year too.

Red Sky over Newlyn on Thursday evening.

DAFT

This picture illustrates why older people need their driving skills continually assessed when they reach a certain age.


This happened last Saturday, it's a shame I didn't get my camera out sooner or I would have captured a fireman reversing this silly little old ladies car out of the alleyway that she'd mistakenly driven down thinking it was a road.

I came across the sight of the alleyway completely blocked by the reversing car. The fireman did a good job of getting it out though and there were only minor scratches on the bumper. I wonder if she had got it jammed in the alleyway as there was no more than about an inches clearance on either side of the car. I wonder how the fireman got in the car to drive it out? He probably had to climb in through a window.

I had to laugh when I saw the car's number plate, the three letters spelled out "DAF" Daft or what?

Stranded in the Scillies

I've just arrived back in the office from an overnighter in the Scilly Isles.

It's been a really fun, but eventful 36 hours, and best of all for the most part it was a work's outing, so it was FREE!

Our journey began yesterday morning at 8:15 with a lift to Lands End airport. The weather was very bad with drizzle, low laying cloud and fog, so the planned jaunt on the mini 8-seater Sky Bus was put on hold because of the weather. In the end we were shuttled back down into Penzance to catch the Scillonian Ferry.

The Scillionian has a very bad reputation, as a luxury cruise liner it certainly aint! In the end though, we didn't really have any choice it was the boat or no outing. Jason and Ray met us at the ferry port and we all boarded the ferry. The motion of the boat wasn't too bad. I thought it was quite funny trying to stay on my feet instead of staggering around like a drunkard. Actually the best place to stand (sitting down turned out to be worse) was right next to the bar so you could hang on to it. Hayley and the girls played cards and got progressively greener until Hayley ran to the loo and spent the majority of the rest of the voyage in there being sick. Linzi joined her too. Ray thought it was very funny to take the mickey out of their misery, until he too succumed and blew chunks too!

We arrived at midday. I think that was the thing that I hated most about the journey, not the journey itself, just the time wasted getting there. Nearly 3 hours to cruise 35 miles. Not for the first time, I really wished that I'd bought my stitching to do, but this was just supposed to be a quick jaunt on a plane followed by a pub crawl around St Mary's so I didn't think I'd have had the time to do any, so I didn't take it with me.

After leaving the port, we went to our respective B&Bs and dropped off our overnight bags, meeting back at a pub called the Bishop and Wolf for lunch. We then went on a mini pub crawl while the heavens opened up outside. When it cleared up we climbed up the top of Garrison Hill to join Phil and Bill who had hired a tennis court for the afternoon. My boss the twat decided to have a go at tennis and proceeded to play a volley all the time whilst talking on his mobile. He actually played better shots while he had it stuck to his ear than after he'd lowered it. Where's the sense in that?



Bored of Tennis, we played a game of Rounders up on the field at the top of the hill. Boys vs Girls. Of course the lads won in the end, but we did manage to draw the first game, which was a bit of a fluke. I didn't help out much in the second game, because I missed the first few rounds while squatting behind a fern having a wee. (Well we had all been drinking).

After Rounders the Girls had to buy the Boys a celebratory round and then the drinking recommenced. At least it wasn't me that was spilling the pints this time:



We were all a bit laggered by the time we sat down to our dinner at 8 in Dibble and Grub. I really enjoyed the food which was very tasty, but some of the lads complained about the lack of carbs, i.e. chips! Typical. Things started to go downhill afterthat. Phil and the twat started throwing Ice Cream around, people got a bit shirty about paying the bill so I left and went and stood outside. For one moment it looked like a fight was going to start kicking off. Ooops. My boss the twat then decided to go for a paddle, while I tried to follow Phil's example by riding a bike that was propped up against a wall outside the restaurant. I promptly fell straight off it again.

We went back to another pub, and things got a bit bleary after that, and about 10:30 I was about to pass out asleep so I went back to my B&B and zonked out. I kept my roommate awake with my snoring - apparently!

The party continued without me in the boss's B&B where they trashed the sitting room, leaving Phil passed out asleep on the floor between two half drunk four pint takeaway jugs of Cider and Lager. He wasn't even staying there! Linzi awoke Phil about 7:15 and made him go back to our B&B. He was there standing on the doorstep at 7:30 calling his roommate Bill to let him in because he didn't have a key.

Breakfast was very nice, and passed without incident, but even Bill couldn't finish his breakfast. We got a rip off skybus taxi (£3 per person) up to St Mary's Aerodrome and proceeded to wait for our flights home. But there wasn't any. The crap weather from yesterday continued, so we sat and waited for 2 hours for news of when we could return.

Eventually the Sky Bus put on an extra helicopter and we boarded this to go home, (but not all of us as there wasn't enough room). So I got to have a helicopter ride. Cool. Despite the weather it was a fun trip, just very loud.



So now, I'm sitting here at work, blogging, because I'm still hung over and can't really do a lot else. I do feel really guilty though because 5 of our party are still in St Mary's waiting for another helicopter back. We thought that they would be on the next 'copter following us. But not so. There is talk of them having to catch the 4:30 Scillonian Ferry back - I hope it doesn't come to that because two of them spewed on the way out there!

Best Beach

Well I guess this makes it official....


This article in Today's Daily Express rates St Ives as the best beach in the UK and I live about 20 minutes drive away from it. How cool is that?

Chef!

Received my Lavender Diamonds Reflections fabric from Silkweaver this morning to start stitching the Stitching Bloggers RR. I'll probably start this on Saturday. I don't have any plans during the day on Saturday, but in the evening I'm playing "Chef", by helping out in my boss's restaurant because they are short-staffed.

I went in there last night as well to be shown the ropes while they were quiet during the week. It was fun actually. Nearly sliced my thumb open chopping up the carrots, (didn't draw blood, fortunately lol), burnt some garlic bread and actually enjoyed cleaning down the kitchen and mopping the floor. I was revelling in domestic bliss! lol

I'm actually looking forward to Saturday night. It will be busier so it should be more interesting. Who'd have thought that working for my Twat of a Boss would give me this opportunity to try out one of my ambitions?

I like the idea of playing at "chef" because I wanted to have a go at this after watching Jamie Oliver's "Fifteen" on Channel 4. I really wish that I'd been given that kind of opportunity when I was younger, but when I was in my teens and early twenties, I couldn't cook at all! It was only when I had my own kitchen that I had the freedom to make a mess without being moaned at by my Mother that I actually started to enjoy cooking, and learned to experiment and actually became not a bad cook in my own right.

By the end of 8 years living living with Sean, I was a far better cook than him - the memory of his plastic roast potatoes still haunts me to this day - while I learned the knack of getting them perfect every time.

Other stash I acquired this week was a small package from Dawn, my Stitching and Stash Buddy! I sent Dawn a chart of the new Mirabilia Mermaid last month and this month she reciprocated by sending me a kit of the new Anchor cat "Solo" [pictured left] which I fell in love with when he was in Cross Stitcher a few months ago, some Silkweaver Reflections Material (which I also love, and I don't seem to stitch on anything else at the moment!) and a couple of Ozark Sampler threads.

Thanks Dawn

41°!

What a scorcher this weekend has been.

Saturday I spent sitting on the beach stitching the Mermaid Queen. This was a lovely hot day and despite my Lanzarote tan, I still got a little red on my back. As I stitched I pondered whether particular bits of stitching call to be stitched in certain places. Food samplers in the Kitchen, floral displays in the garden. Paradise Island on holiday ;-) The Mermaid Queen certainly deserves to be stitched on the beach, you can just imagine her swishing her way out of the blue Cornish waters towards you on the beach.

Sunday it was even hotter.... and I confess I caved in and sat outside eating my Sunday Lunch under a sun umbrella. I could feel the heat even through the shade. I wandered around Penzance and eventually went into the park for a bit of a doze. Came home and carried on my doze all evening and night long. I slept for over 12 hours!! - the heat sure takes it out of you. I was a little worried about Jade in the evening, I thought he was having problems breathing, but I think he was just panting like a dog to stay cool. Silly bugger was laying on the windowsill in the light of the setting sun though.

I also went to see Madagascar on Sunday morning. The Penzance cinema going population obviously hasn't heard of preview showings, because I was the only one in the cinema apart from another couple who arrived late. Madagascar was good, not as good as Shrek, but a fun film to watch anyway. The penguins made me laugh hijacking the boat. As if!!!

Today it was back to work with the hottest temperatures of all. Everytime I got up out of my seat today my skirt was stuck to my butt with sweat! Gross right? This evening, 7:30 and you'd think it would be cooling down right? I've just checked my inside/outside thermometer: 29° in here and an amazing 41° outside still in the shade.

I just put a bottle of cider in the freezer to cool it down. Will it explode?

Mazey's Eve Prize Collection

Well, here's my little collection of prizes from the fun fair that is down on the Promenade for Penzance's Mazey Day. Well.... apart from that chair leg... that came from a bar Called the Blue Snapper and well.... I was just sitting, chatting... and the next thing I know the chair has just collapsed and I'm sitting there pissing myself laughing on the floor in front of my boss and all of his friends! So I walked out of the bar and took the chair leg with me as a souvenier. I do these things when I'm drunk, it always seems like a good idea at the time!


Friday evening started off to be quite civilised with Hayley and me going for a meal in my bosses restaurant. He was supposed to be working there as a waiter - so we went there to give him grief and do the old "garcon, there's a fly in my soup" line. But the only "work" he did was to take our order, then got a pint for himself and sat down and joined us. After we'd eaten, his brother joined us and we started on a few cocktails and all intention of work just went out of his head! Even though the cheeky twat owns the place he still made us pay for our meals! Git!

We left the restaurant at about 9:30 and Hayley drove us up into town, the P brothers giving Hayley loads of grief about her bubble like 4x4. Hayley left us outside the Blue Snapper to drive back to Camborne and my boss introduces me to his mates as "my secretary who drinks pints"! Jees thanks mate! This was followed by the aforementioned collapsing chair incident.

We then went down Chappell Street to join the revellers outside the fair and the Navy Inn and watch the fireworks display. The Twat disappeared en route. When he turned up I asked him where he'd been and he said he'd been on the dodgems. But I walked through the fair (sober) the next day, and there was no dodgems to speak of.... was he so pissed that he was sitting on a kiddy ride believing it to be the dodgems? If only I'd got a pic of that! LOL

After the fireworks had finished we climbed over a wall to get into the back of the fair. Well the other's climbed - I sort of had to get a shove from my boss in the ass to be able to get completely over the wall, remember I'd had the quite a few cocktails and pints by this point!! Over the wall, we faced a row of portaloos "Andyloos" they were called and as this is my bosses name too - I said "well I've got to go have a pee in there, haven't I?" to his face as well. Ooops.

My boss, his brother and a mate of his then got really competitive playing games involving arrows, balls, and guns... I didn't play but I ended up with all the prizes that they won. Hence the picture above. The last prize that the twat won was one of those giant blow up hammers. He immediately used it to hit his brother with it as hard as he could and popped the bloody thing. I lost the P brothers when I went for a ride on the Carosel, and my last sight of any of them was my boss walking through the fair still carrying his deflated hammer, I called to him from the Carosel, but he didn't hear me and he was gone by the next pass, so I ended up going home on my own.

Yes, you can picture me, sitting on the Carosel riding around and around and up and down (being the only rider on the whole thing) at 12:30 am with a stupid green dinosaur hanging out of my bag because it was stuck on the zip and I was too pissed to unhook it. Embarrassment? I don't care - I had fun! - But just what do I now do with the bloody chair leg?

Alfresco Dining Experience

I had a nice afternoon off yesterday - I had to wait in all afternoon for some repair people to come and adjust one of the screen modes of my tv as it's developed a fault. While I waited, I sunbathed in the garden. About 4:30 I went inside to phone them and find out if they were still coming, instead I got a message left on my phone saying they couldn't find the house! Well, they couldn't have looked very hard because no one walked up the alleyway peering into the houses that I could see. I'm quite annoyed because this is the second time that I've waited in all afternoon. The first time they went to completely the wrong address!

I didn't want to go inside, but to continue to enjoy the sun. So I went down to the Promenade and bagged an outside table at the Lugger Hotel. I had a couple of long slow drinks while I stitched on the Mermaid Queen, then I ordered sliced pork loin in a creamy mushroom and mustard sauce, served with chips and salad. The complete "Alfresco" dining experience as I enjoyed the cooling sea breeze along the prom.

Sometimes I think that when the weather is nice down here it's the best place on earth!

Remaking "The Birds"

So... the latest movie news is that they are remaking the Hitchcock classic "The Birds" "....it's going to be some $180 million blockbuster", is the quote from one of the actors. Why does it need to cost so much money?

It needn't cost anything at all. Just install some surveillance cameras down at St Ives harbour and sit back and watch the seagull attacks as they steal all the Emmet's pasties ;-)

The Stitching Slump Continues....

So, we've just had another bank holiday weekend, and how much stitching did I do? Less than about an hours worth. This is terrible!

Mind you: I've done other things, the "weekend" started on Thursday night with yet another date with some guy I've been chatting to on the internet since January. No attraction there [sadly] and he drove a red ford escort with a dodgy tail light.

Friday night was a little better, went for a meal with Hayley after work. Had a good time, a few drinks. Hit my head on a beam in a pub! Well I'm only 5' 3" so usually I don't have to watch out for these things so bonk! The ironic thing is that it's the second time I've hit this same beam. Fortunately it's well padded! lol!

Ended up in yet another pub where Hayley introduced me to one of the office's former clients and his ever so geeky brother. You thought I was bad in the geek states? Hayley left when her parents came to pick her up at 11, so I went clubbing with the former client and this strange (old) guy from Exeter who kept grabbing my ass. The geeky brother had gone home. What a shame - I don't supposed he'd ever been to a nightclub. Don't know what happened to the Exeter guy though, he kind of disappeared when we entered the nightclub. The other guy stayed with me all night in the club which was quite sweet, even waiting for me outside the ladies, so he didn't lose me on the way out. I remember having a drunken arguement with him in Bread Street after leaving the nightclub about whether he was in a fit state to walk me home after fluffing the sobriety test three times in a row! Nevertheless, I arrived home safely and was up again about 9:30 on Saturday.

Got myself up - and out and went for breakfast in the Weatherspoons to intake much coffee and try to head off the hung over feeling. From the Weatherspoons' I went to the First Choice travel agents in a last ditch stand to book a holiday. You know, it is so frustrating being in a travel agents' and knowing that with the resources of the internet I can do a much better (and cheaper) job of searching for a holiday, and I also have far more resources at hand. Do you know that they don't even have a true internet connection in there? Sheesh! In the end they found the sort of holiday I wanted, but about £200 over my budget but one of the holidays they found didn't even have a picture in the brochure. So I went home to do a little research and found out that all of the all inclusive holidays they had found in Majorca had gotten bad reviews, so I struck out again. Did a little more research (well Holiday surfing) before I had to stop to get ready to go out on another date with Mr X Client.

How did it go? Well as a date, it was ok, we had fun. But I seriously doubt that he's the one for me. I need a little more sophistication in a man. This guy is the traditional Cornish Yokel: which makes him very very sweet, but the sad thing is we have nothing in common to talk about. We went to the Isobar because he'd never ever been in there - how innocent is that? - and then he dropped me off home in a taxi.

Actually the highlight of the night after I started flagging at 12:30 am in the Isobar was standing in the taxi queue singing along to the tunes on my Ipod with a strange guy in his 40s..... very badly .... and very loudly.... at 1 AM singing.... Cliff Richard's "Summer Holiday". lol he probably appreciated it because he was an Emmet (what the Cornish call the Tourists). The bad singing continued all the way home in the taxi with Mr X Client, surprisingly, the driver did not throw us out. ;-)

So I'm home at 1:30 and wide awake and hunking for some intelligent male company... and Dr Daniel Jackson won out. I started watching some Stargate Episodes on DVD.

And then I was struck by a realisation.... My boss is Jack O Neil. The same irrelevant attitude .... the same reverance for authority..... the same twatisms. And the truth is that if they can actually be bothered to do something, then they can be completely brilliant, but most of the time they can't be bothered. They even have similar catchphrases Jack's is "for crying out loud", while the twat always says "it's all f****** bo*****".

Sunday morning I cycled to Marazion, singing along to my Ipod along the coastal causeway cyle path had an hour or so laying in my "grassy knoll" spot before it clouded over so I headed back to Penzance and lunch at my favourite pub. Lunch and two pints just about killed me off after the busy weekend I've had, so I was all fit to take a nap when I got home, but ended up watching Junior with Arnie on TV before I finally succombed to two hours sleep, before I woke up at 8:00 for a few hours of Dark Angel on DVD before I went to sleep properly at 11:30.

And Bank Holiday Monday? Well, I woke up, spent an hour or two holiday surfing, then took my laptop out into the garden (wireless networks are great here) surfing and sunbathing, who can beat that? and continued holiday surfin' until the battery started to die. I came in, had some lunch and continued on my pointless quest. Still can't find anything within my budget, at least not flying from Exeter. GRRR a whole day wasted. I feel cheated somehow..... and still no stitching done.

Cottage Needle Crafts

I had quite a productive Wednesday afternoon off yesterday. I went back to Hayle to pick up a prescription from a chemist, spent about two and a half hours in a couple of travel agents trying to find a cheap holiday to go away in June (didn't find anything for my budget though), and I found some local stitchers.

This happened almost by accident. I had saw an advert in a magazine that there was a cross stitch place that was advertising in Gulval. Gulval is a little village only about a mile or so outside of Penzance. I didn't remember the exact address, but Gulval is only really a few houses so I thought "how could I miss it"? Well I did. In the end I had to ask in the local post office if they knew where it was. They directed me to a row of cottages near a pub.... but no shop signs were visible... so I went and made further enquiries in the local pub. Yes it definitely was there, the last cottage in the row and they had only just started up so I figured that's why there was no signage outside.

With no trepidation I knocked on the door and asked the lady who opened it if she was called Linda and if she sold cross stitch. I was in the right place - they did - but made designs for kits only. So there was me standing on the doorstep hoping to buy DMC 798 and 799 (running out doing the sky on Venice) and it wasn't a shop - just a designers house! Ooops.

Nevertheless, they invited me inside, sat me down, made me a coffee and showed me their designs. Very cute, loads of designs based around alphabets and children. One of the designers was adapting one design on request of a customer, changing a little boy into an elderly golfer. It was interesting that Joy, the designer was doing the main part of the designing on a computer and then was stitching it up to test what it looked like in the flesh.

We talked about setting up a local stitching circle. They had run a giveaway competition in Cross Stitch Crazy a few months ago and had quite a few entries - many from local people, which surprised me, so it seems they have the contacts and the resources to get a local stitching circle off the ground. I was very pleased, I'm sure that they will be in touch. In the meantime, if you would like to look at their designs, click the icon below:

And to finish off the weekend.... how about a spot of water sking? They were doing this in the sea on the prom about 500 yards from where I live.... you've got to love Cornwall!

Fish & chips and the ever hopeful seagulls. Bloody things.....

There's something so romantic about riding a horse along the beach.....

St Michael's Mount... with a horse complete with mounted rider. There's got to be some symmetry there?

Whooops photography entry.... I was trying to take a picture of myself stitching on the dunes above the beach... using the camera's timer. As you can see, it didn't quite work!