Too Hot To Handle?

Colindale, London, England // 4.55 pm // Mostly cloudy 7ºc / 45ºf

It's once again getting to the point where every weekend in the foreseeable future is completely jam packed with stuff to do. From now up to at least mid-March, every weekend that Elle and I have is spoken for, mostly meeting up with people and doing social stuff. Not a complaint at all, but I do hope I get to do a bit of resting and recouperation every now and then too.

It all started this past weekend around 3pm on Friday afternoon when I finished work and headed across the road to the pub to meet up with my friend Shuv and his other half, an hour after I gave them a tour around my place of work. We had a good few drinks there on Carnaby Street before I headed up to Chalk Farm to meet up with Stu and Jenn for a few more, by which time Elle arrived back from work and we went for a meal in Camden. It was still early by the time we got back to the flat, but I'd already been out for 7 hours and it was time to call it a night!

The following morning, for the second time, I put on my £1 accumulator bet on the outcome of 4 SPL matches (not including the Celtic or Rangers games). I was listening to Radio Scotland's coverage of the games while getting ready to leave for Dan and Hannah's wedding reception later that evening in Warwickshire. Just before we left, the three of those games being played on Saturday were all the complete opposite of the results I had bet on, and with only 10 minutes to go I decided I had lost.

On the way to the wedding we picked up my friend Pete at Leamington Spa train station. The venue for the wedding reception itself was absolutely in the middle of nowhere. Elle + (B roads x sudden dips in the road x complete darkness) = much praying. That's all I'll say.

But we got there in one piece, and it was good to see quite a few people from uni that I hadn't seen for ages. And for Elle it had been even longer. We were at the wedding from around 8pm till 1am before driving back.

Pete came back to London with us as there was no way for him to get back to Oxford at that time of night. I had to wake up early to regulate my sleeping, and as Pete was asleep in the living room I sat in bed reading my emails in bed. I thought I'd just check on the final scores from the previous day's SPL games, and was absolutely astonished to find that those three games I had bet on had completely turned around in the last 10 minutes, and all of a sudden I had three out of three results correct! It all rested on the one final game later on Sunday afternoon, and I had bet on an against-the-odds result.

Stu came round in the afternoon and we watched the Arsenal game on Setanta. This was after I had finished compiling the radio magazine for the weekend. During the latter part of that game I was keeping an eye on the Kilmarnock v Hamilton score. I had Hamilton down to win, which wasn't likely. Part way into the 2nd half, Hamilton scored! And it was a tense wait till the final whistle, but the game ended 1-0 to Hamilton! Logging into the Ladbrokes website confirmed my success - my return for a £1 bet? £39.30!!

On Sunday night Elle and I went to our local Wetherspoon's on Edgware Road to have, of course, the annual Burns' Supper! The haggis was probably the best I've had for years, although the whole thing lacked a bit of gravy. Nonetheless, the meal was great and fantastic value for money complete with a pint of lager.

My day off this week was Tuesday. In the morning, our handyman finally came round to fit a new extractor fan in the bathroom. However, as he predicted, it has made no difference - there is still far too much moisture from the shower but it looks like it is simply something we need to deal with.

Later on Tuesday I went to Asda to pick up all the ingredients for the latest meal that I was cooking - lamb phall, the hottest kind of curry money can buy/make.

And my god was it hot! Still, it's nothing new to me and I finished it all, as did Elle. It was really really good - another success :-) Next time I'm cooking will be two weeks time, in fact it'll be around my birthday/Valentines Day. But from yesterday I now have a big tub of ghee that I need to use up in 4 weeks, so I'll need to pick my recipes around that.

Recently Walkers Crisps have brought out certain flavours of crisps that members of the public have designed. I think there are 5 in all, and they are limited edition. The idea is that you try all 5, and then vote for your favourite on their website. In the end, the most popular flavour will be retained as a long-term Walkers flavour. So far I've tried "Fish and Chips" and "Builders Breakfast". "Fish and Chips" was ok. It's always a bit odd having a potato snack tasting like fish. I couldn't distinguish the "chips" very well, but I could taste what I assume is supposed to be vinegar. "Builders Breakfast" was ok, but the overall distinctive taste was fried egg, with a slight hint of beans. The only place I've seen these so far is the shop inside Colindale tube station. I think they only other one they stock is "Onion Bahji"...so it might be tricky to track down the "Cajun Squirrel" and "Chilli and Chocolate" varieties!