Fashion advice

Strops: I'm having my hair cut on Saturday, what do you think I should go for?

Colleague: I quite like your current old English sheepdog look.

Strops: Guess it's a bit overdue.
22.10.05 21:09


How appropriate that we should do our token celebrating of the 200th anniversary of Trafalgar at the Admiral Nelson pub in Whitton, drinking Fuller's
Trafalgar 
(I am not sure why I linked to the reviews actualy as they appear to be
reviewing a different pub to the one I have had a few drinks and I
won't even say what they said about my local - only that once again
they must be reviewing a different pub).


beer pumps

There
are a few more pictures available on flickr, including the Lord Mayor
of Richmond and Twickenham, the horse and carriage carrying the news of
Nelson's victory and The Boy feeding the horse a polo mint. Just click
on the Stroppycow logo in the Flickr badge at the top of the page if
you want to have a look.
22.10.05 21:42


I never thought I would ever say that but food bores me at the
moment. There is something about the tedium of working out what the
next meal should be day after day which is quite off putting after a
while.

I still enjoy making the occasional out of the ordinary meal but the thought of preparing one of the  recipes:

  1. I can cook almost with my eyes closed
  2. in the required time to be ready and eaten between coming home after work and before The Boy's bedtime
  3. yet suit my family's tastes
  4. and fits within our budget
makes me sigh a huge sigh.

I
have tried avoidance techniques like asking Him Indoors to do the
cooking, but that means the washing up becomes mine and i am not a big
fan

I have tried banking a few things in the oven in the morning
with the timer on so that the bulk of it is ready when I get home, but
that only transfers the problem to the morning

I have tried
asking Him Indoors and The Boy for their menu suggestions in case they
came up with something a bit different, only they like what they get
and The Boy would happily eat chorizo risoni and salad and something
with custard everyday so no luck there either.

*sigh*

So
the challenge is finding something to cook for the next few weeks which
isn't any of the following and yet still fulfills all the above
criteria:

  • lamb burgers, koftas, beef burgers, bolognaise, chilli, lasagna (ie something dull with mince)
  • fishcakes, tuna pasta, nicoise salad, tuna melt sandwiches (ie something dull with tinned tuna or tinned salmon)
  • pasta
    with cream, peas and flaked salmon, pasta with tinned crab, pasta with
    ratatouille, pasta with chorizo and tomato sauce, chorizo risoni or
    macaroni cheese.
  • Courgette soup, leftover couscous meat and veg soup, butternut squash soup, dhal, noodle and veg broth.
  • Chick pea curry, saag paneer or pao bhaji
  • slow roasted pork, roast chicken or boiled ham
  • baked fish with steam veg or spinach and potato rosties.
  • bangers and mash, saussage casserole
  • prawns and glass noodle salad
  • pancakes
Suggestions welcome.
24.10.05 21:46


Tell me there's a special place reserved in hell for bad designers and bad user testers, please.


Or, how to make updating data an even more mind numbingjob than it already is.


Nobody I know likes doing data entry, however we all accept that occasionaly databases have to be updated and somebody had to do the job. Where I work we do a "big check" once a year and then we do ad-hoc changes when we are informed of changes. Anyway there is a great big pile of amendments on the desk and my colleague and I are ploughing trhough it at a speed not dissimilar to that of a speeding slug


Now I have this idea that it wouldn't be so slow if amending a single phone number did not require the following (not counting opening the person's records in the first place): 1x single click to get to the correct part of the records (or a long scroll down); 1x double click to open the contacts screen, 1x double click on the number which needs amending to open another sreen, 1x single click on the ok button once the new number has been keyed in, 1x single click on the save button, 1x single click on the other ok button to apply the changes, 1x more single click on the record's save button.


Yep you have read this right, 9 clicks for 1 amendments.


If you know who is responsible for saying "yeah, it will do, let's release it!", please feel free to thump them on my behalf. I'd do it myself but my right hand is a bit sore from all the clicking and I fear my baseball bat wielding wouldn't be quite as accurate as it should be.
27.10.05 14:14



We are going on a bear hunt, well not quite but you get the picture


Bushy Park at dusk One of the great things about having children is they provide a great
excuse to drop the ironing and go to the park instead.  Instead of
using the free time between an early finish at work and pick up time at
the holiday club to do house work, I put The Boy's bike in the back of
the car, picked him up early and we went to Bushy Park to soak in the
fresh air and the autumn feel. The Boy greeted the idea with enthusiasm
and declared his new found courage with regards to riding bikes in
bushy park (the scar on his eyelid is fading but not the memory of his
fall and yes my heart still feels like it's missing a beat if he looks
wobbly on his wheels and yes this time i had dressings in my mummy bag
and the mobile was with me, charged and switched on).


deer in Bushy ParkWe
had a great time. The Boy told me all about mallards, we laughed at the
crew cut some of the ducks were sporting, played spot the mushroom.
Best giggle? When a spaniel found a crane hidden in the fern and made
it fly away only for the bird to drop a makeshift bomb (a bomb of the sort pigeons normally drop on cars
and statues), only narrowly
missing its target, to the dog's great surprise. I had taken the new toy Him Indoors got me as an early
Christmas and Birthday present wrapped up in one, to try and see if with more
practice I'll get used to the feel of a "proper" camera, only to find
in true stroppycow fashion that I had left the memory card at home and
had to revert to my usual camera which is not
quite so quick off the mark. There were less deer than usual because at this
time the mothers are keeping a low profile in order not to attract
attention to the youngs they have hidden in the bracken. Still we found
this character who was happy to pose for me and keep still long enough
for the camera to capture him, and even to show me his best profile. On
the way home we had a very deep conversation regarding the possibility
of finding paint which would reproduce the pink glow of the sky.

What about the ironing? What ironing? *Hides the boxes under the dining room table and grins*
28.10.05 20:29


Chuckle

Message in bottle capAs if I needed yet another reason to feed my
current addiction to Polish cherry and apple juice drink. I have just
noticed that their caps contain the guilt inducing equivalent of a
fortune cookie message. No two ways about it, it's the drink for me.

Pssst,
we went to Bushy Park again today and this time the memory card was in
the new camera. I have uploaded the first few attempts with the new toy
if you want to have a look at them. For easy reference they have been
very imaginatively tagged "Bushy Park".
30.10.05 11:11


[first page] [previous page]

Home
www.flickr.com
Stroppycow's photos More of Stroppycow's photos

Guestbook
Archives
Contacts
Subscribe
About

100 things (last updated 2nd January 2008)

Ye old blogroll

for the archive (and the occasional updates)