New Year, Old Face

Hello! It's been a while - yet again. If I'm completely honest, I haven't really felt as if I had anything interesting/amusing/noteworthy to say, so I kept my golden silence over the holidays and a little bit longer. Here's a quick recap:

Christmas
Ahh, lovely Christmas. It truly was lovely. We ate, we drank, we had duvet days and generally spent a lot of time doing very little indeed. Mr. S was home after his 5 weeks at his father's place so we felt like we had to make up for lost time. I went back to work on the 27th of December to a very busy place indeed. There were a lot of people about, which helped me get back into the swing of things again. Mind you, going back to work after a very very lazy week off was a challenge in itself.

Roadkill
December is proving a very bad driving month for me. Remember last year, with the snow and icy roads I managed to mangle my pretty little car's back bumper? Well, this year, to balance things out I mangled the front bumper. And bonnet. And radiator. And few other bits. With the help of a ram in the middle of the road. That's right, a ram. In the middle of the f***ing road! It was dark as well, so didn't really see the little shit until he was on my bonnet. Thankfully I had slowed down a lot due to an oncoming car with it's beams and hazards on blinding me. The result of this little incident was a small state of shock, one dead ram and a bill from the garage totalling €2500 sent to my insurance company. Thank deities for no claims bonus protection, eh?

New Year
I was working, Mr. S was working, so we didn't really get up to much to ring in the new year. I was proud to have stayed awake until midnight, for one. For a brief moment we did entertain the notion of going out but then realised that would've involved getting off the sofa, getting dressed and actually leaving the house. We had wine, nibbles and generally a wonderful evening without being pushed about in a cramped pub by drunkards trying to get to the bathroom/bar.

Getting Older

moviedearest.blogspot.com

Yup, it was my birthday shortly after the new year as well. I'm feeling old this year, and have decided to do a Benjamin Button on my birthdays and turn 29 this year, working my way backwards until I'm 25 again, and maybe then I can start over again and try turning 30 again in 9 years time. Sounds like a plan to me. For my birthday Mr. S fed me until I was fit to burst. He knows what makes me happy.



Other News
There isn't all that much out of the ordinary happening here, if I'm honest. I'm using up my last year's holidays from work and only working four days per week for the next couple of weeks. Mr. S bailed out again for a couple of weeks, to go over to his father's and finish putting in a new floor upstairs. He's back next week. In the meantime, work has gone quiet, it is the low season after all, so we're all working shorter days. This means I've taken up knitting again and this time I'm going to tackle my greatest nemesis; the woolly sock. In my 31 29 years on this earth, I've managed to successfully knit exactly one pair of woolly socks, and that was under the extremely patient guidance of my third grade teacher. I found knitting the heel to be somewhat problematic and decided I didn't need to bother with them anymore. But how times change! After years of knitting hats, scarves and few successful attempts at mittens, I've decided to face my fears. I've gotten this far for now. I'll need to watch a few online tutorials on the subject but I'm fairly certain I'll be able to master it soon enough.

Exciting times, eh?

No Mistletoe, Just Wine

Apologies for my absence. It's been a busy run-up to Christmas this year. Buying and sending presents, cleaning, shopping, prepping food, filling the freezer and all that goes with it. Oh, and the little thing called work, as well. With Mr S being gone over to the neighbouring island, I was kept busy on my days off getting everything ready.

Work got wrapped up nicely last Sunday and we headed off to Galway to our Christmas party. It was a successful night all round. Lots of happy smiles, plenty of good food and more than enough wine and other beverages. Having said that, my decision to wear magic knickers under my party dress (eBay purchase, for 15 euro) somewhat hampered my ability to enjoy the food to my stomach's full capacity. The famous knickers were bought in Penneys and I really wonder why would you spend any more than the €6.50 I did on them? I mean, I've seen them go for well over €30 in some shops, but these ones worked a treat and even after a wash and a spin in the tumble dryer they seem to be holding onto the magic just fine. I'll report back after the next time I decide to suck everything in and not eat for a night.

We had time to do some shopping on Monday after the party, I got a lovely coat in a¦wear (that I can't seem to find online to show you), cream tweed with a faux fur collar, €37.50 down from €80. A colleague got a coat in Oasis for €62 down from €125 (website says original price was €95, I wonder what that is all about?), apparently now is the time to shop for a nice, comfy coat.

Then, Tuesday night, it finally happened. Mr S came home!! Those were the longest five weeks of my life!But he's home now and we're both on holiday! I'm not going back to work until next Tuesday, Mr S will potter about at the hotel doing a few bits and pieces there but not until after Christmas.

I spent all day yesterday baking. I need to have my Finnish Christmas treats, and Mr S is more than happy to go along with that, to be honest I think he'd be equally happy with a pizza on Christmas day than a massive feast. Anyhoo, I made the traditional little star pastries (puff pastry with plum marmalade), gingerbread biscuits, mince beef and rice pasties and mince pies with a twist. The twist being that we don't really eat raisins, so I made the mincemeat filling using fresh and dried cranberries, apple and liberal amounts of port and brown sugar.

Everything is ready. The tree is up, decorations dotted around the house. Presents wrapped and under the tree, cards posted and received. There's food and wine in the house, all is peaceful and quiet. Let Christmas come!

To all of you and yours, a very happy, peaceful Christmas!

Grey Skies

Today has been bloody miserable, weather-wise. At around noon I decided I wasn't going to leave the house at all, there's no point in getting soaked. I started the day with a winning breakfast of bacon and fried eggs. And liberal amounts of coffee, of course. The cats kept me company for all of half an hour before racing into the bedroom and taking up their assigned corners of the bed and went to sleep. Lucky kitties.

I got all my shopping done yesterday; more than I needed if I'm honest but I am actually buying bits ready for Christmas as well in an effort to spread the cost over a few weeks rather than doing a mad dash at the shops on Christmas week. I picked up a few bottles of wine over the last couple of weeks, seems like every shop is doing some sort of a promotion. I'm going to try this one out soon, mainly because it was so cheap I'm struggling to believe it can be in any way drinkable. Having said that, in Italy we enjoyed some really nice wines that cost at around €2per bottle. So there may be hope for this little Australian Shiraz.

It was also pointed out to me that the lizard in the label bears an uncanny resemblance to my tattoo:

As far as my anti-social experiment is going, all I can say is "So far, so good". I haven't started climbing the walls yet, I've not been reduced to tears watching the John Lewis Christmas ad nor have I been trying to converse with the cats. Yet. It's been a week and a bit and I must say I'm holding up remarkably well. That being said, I feel I must point out that I've spent precious little time at home, so maybe I haven't just yet realised that I am home alone. I even watched a scary movie by myself the other night, and didn't feel the need to sleep with our trusty baseball bat beside my bed.

This next thing is going to annoy some of you; I've started my Christmas shopping already. And for once, it's Mr. S's present that I got sorted first! He's so difficult to buy for, I'm usually picking his brain for weeks and weeks before an epiphany hits me as to what to get him. The epiphany-fairy must've been doing his rounds early this year, that's one present out of the way and dealt with. As for the rest, I know what I'm getting everyone else, so there's really no big panic. Now all I have to do is get off my arse, get down the shops and buy the bloody things. No panic at all.

The work Christmas party date and venue were announced the last day as well. Cue dress panic. I've had a quick look on asos.com and came to the conclusion that most of the dresses are ridiculously short! I don't like my legs all that much and parading them around in a teeny tiny dress in front of all my work mates isn't something I'm planning on doing no matter how much Morgan's Spiced Rum you pour down my throat. I do have a dress already that I haven't worn all that much at all that I could fall back on if all else fails. Still, the temptation to buy something new may prove too much to resist...

I'm off to fight the greyness outside with a nice big fire, some candles and some bad telly. And a drop of wine.

Home Alone

Hello, there! You may or may not remember my anti-social experiment form two years ago. I'm more inclined to think that you many not, so feel free to refresh your memory here. Done? Okay, then.

I find myself in the same situation as I'm typing away right now. Mr. S has gone off to England to do some work on his dad's house. He went last Sunday. Today is Wednesday. I'm already a little bit bored of being home alone. Saying that, compared to two years ago, I'm working a full five days a week rather than the three I was doing back then. Today and yesterday are the first two days I have had off since he went.

The house has been cleaned top to bottom, all the washing has been done and dried outside (I'm determined to use less electricity), I've thrown out loads of magazines and newspapers I was holding onto for lord knows why etc. etc. I find I can be very productive when left alone and in need to fill my time with something other than TV.

I'm saving my visitation rounds for later. For all I know, Mr. S may be gone for four, five or even six weeks. He has promised me he'll be home for Christmas, but that is all I'm working on at the moment. Last week we bough a chest freezer (I know, exciting, right?!). Mainly because I've been nagging to get one for what seems like forever but what probably is a few months. Seeing as we're here for Christmas, I want to start prepping things well in advance rather than facing the horrible Christmas Shop sometime during the few days before the big day when every shop is packed, people are cranky and there's no parking anywhere!. Seriously, it was like that in Galway last Wednesday and I pretty much promised myself that if I have to go there again, I'll head out at 7am and have everything over and done with by 11am.

So, I've been baking and buying things to get ahead of the game. The freezer is looking nice and full with cakes, pastries and breads. I also got a few bottles of wine which I stashed away discreetly to wait for the holiday season to be upon us. I already know where I'm getting my Christmas ham (we don't eat turkey) and I've picked the place to put our Christmas tree.

Just in case we get another bloody Big Freeze this winter and I won't be able to leave the house, I'm safe in the knowledge that it'll take me quite a while to eat my way through the contents of the freezer, even if I have Mr. S to help me. Which reminds me, I must bake another loaf of rye bread. You know, just in case.

Cabin Fever and Other Anxieties

Firstly, I've been stuck in the house more or less since Saturday. Stuck here with very little to do. Pretty much by myself with the cats. Mr S continues to go into work which adds to my stress levels as I keep picturing him and his car in a ditch, slowly being covered over by falling snow. So far so good and he's been able to do shopping and other bits but my OCD seems to flare up whenever I look in the fridge and see the wrong kind of cheese. I say nothing, it would be ungrateful, wouldn't it?

I've been defiantly packing my bags for our Christmas holiday. Defiantly, because every couple of hours there seem to be reports of the Dublin Airport being closed due to ice and snow. I spent most of yesterday compulsively checking both Dublin Airport's website and Scandinavian Airlines' website for information on our flights. I ended up ringing the airline and spoke to a very friendly lady who told me that while she couldn't give me a definite answer on whether or not our flights would be able to take off, she was being optimistic. Poor woman, she had had her ear chewed off by irate passengers over the phone for the last two days or so. As if the airlines just got together and said "Right, let's mess with all those thousands of paying customers and cancel all the flights, yeah? We'll tell them it's because of the snow, make them sleep at the airport, we'll take a huge loss in profit and face the paperwork to refund them all afterwards. Mmmmkay?" Yeah. Because that makes sense.

I do feel for anyone stranded at the airport, especially this time of year. Mr S and I, even if our flight does get canceled, we'll be able to at least go back home and spend christmas here. I heard they'd been telling people with canceled flights to leave the airport as they were running out of room. And where were these people supposed to go? Many were heading home for christmas, not living in Ireland and therefore had nowhere to go. They sent out a plea in the news for taxi drivers to go to the airport because the people who did have somewhere to go, couldn't get there because there weren't any buses or taxis to take them there.

In any case, I'm determined to get there. The roads may prove a challenge, though. We'll just have to head out early and hope for the best.

Obsessed

I've definitely turned into my mother. I'm obsessed with the weather. Every news bulletin on the radio, or telly, I have to catch the weather. And in between the news I keep checking the web pages. It is quite cold here for Ireland, anyway. -4 this morning and the ground is white with proper snow.

I haven't been to work since last Friday (it's now Monday). We got a good bit of snow on Friday night but that didn't stop me from heading in towards work on Saturday morning. I was about 3km away from work when my phone rang and I was told I was a lunatic for driving in the snow and was ordered to go home. Fair enough, boss' orders and all that. Not that I really minded getting an extra day off. My phone had been ringing before that, colleagues telling me they couldn't make it in because of the snow. Another one wondering was it worth it trying to get in. We all got a lovely duvet day, I spent mine watching bad movies. Namely Wrong Turn and Wrong Turn 2: Dead End. Great trash.

Later on on Saturday I got a text telling me I didn't need to show up for work on Sunday, either. Making sure I had a good supply of more trashy movies to watch, I settled into my couch-based nest and got all nice and cosy.

More news on the work front followed on Sunday evening; we were to close for Christmas anyway on the evening of Tuesday 21st but seeing as Monday was still supposed to be very cold, it was decided that we'll close early for the holidays and open again on the 28th. Which means I don't have to go to work until the 30th! Extended holidays = win.



We're just waiting to hear about the Christmas party. After all the headache I went through to get the bloody outfit and everything ready, there had better be one! If we can make it into Galway for the night, that is.

I don't mind the cold or the snow. It is inconvenient, we have no water most of the day, but it does thaw out enough for a shower and washing up at some stage. Probably not today, though. It is set to stay well below zero all day long. Ah well, let's conserve water, shall we.

The travel disruptions are worrying me, though. We're set to fly out of Dublin to Helsinki via Oslo on Thursday. Firstly, travelling to Dublin from here is a challenge. Snowy, icy roads all the way into Galway and there's no guarantees the motorway from Galway to Dublin will be any better. We'll head out early and make sure we'll have plenty of time. I'm just wishing the airport will be open when we get there. Like I said, I'm obsessively checking the weather forecasts. Just in case.

And just in case we get stranded here for Christmas, I have a freezer full of food and plenty of wine to keep us nice and warm. Just in case.

Dressed for Distress

It seems to be that time of year again. Time for the Christmas Party. Ours is being very generously organised by our boss at one of his hotels, free of charge to all staff members. Pretty good deal considering so many companies have cancelled theirs. In fairness we had a very good season, so it seems only appropriate to treat everybody to a night out after all this years' hard work. And work hard we did, but it has been well worth it I must say. Let's see if I still feel the same way after Monday's monster do at my work but more on that later. Let's just say I have so many paper cuts, hay fever and other hamper-related injuries I think I need to take some time off just to recuperate before I start again.

Anyway, Christmas Party. And I have no idea why I've felt the need to capitalise Party, either. The usual panic has started to settle in. The Dress Issue. I have a vague idea what to wear, I've even found this lovely dress on Marks & Spencer website and was thinking of wearing that with black tights and grey ankle boots. The problem is that I don't know if they have that dress in the M&S in Galway, so I really don't want to get my hopes up too much. I had planned on going to Galway on a little shopping spree on Tuesday with Teresa, but the roads were still like an ice rink, we postponed it to next week. Another possible issue is that I will end up looking like a bag of spanners once I put the dress on. Has happened before, folks, just to let you know. Morto. I found the perfect pair of boots in the New Look website but once again, it's the UK website and I have no way of knowing for sure whether of not they stock them in Ireland before I actually get there. Please please please, get your asses into gear and get your Irish sites up and running, I have a credit card that is in need of abusing!!

So, ideally I would walk into the shops, pick up those items and they would look good, yes? Obviously the dress needs accessorising, I'm thinking sparkly black and silver; clutch, belt, and all the cheap jewelry Penneys has to offer! That is the plan and the ideal situation for me to find myself in. However, these things usually never go to plan so I need a plan B. Which I don't have. So the "bag of spanners" may well be the look I'm going for on the night. I suppose after a copious amount of Morgan's Spiced rum and coke (the drinking kind, not the snorting kind) I won't care what I look like. There's also going to be karaoke, I hear. Awesome.

There are a few people at work I haven't seen on a night out. I cannot wait to see our Finance Manager let her hair down. She recently told me she'd been to a christening and had had a good 20, maybe 25 bottles of beer on the night. She'd gone home, gotten to bed and felt the room spin faster and faster as she laid down on the bed, beside her snoring husband. She had quite unceremoniously leaned over the side of the bed, gotten sick on the floor and flopped back down thinking to herself "I'll clean that up tomorrow". She woke up the next morning to a particularly hideous hangover and a smell wafting up from beside her bed so bad, she nearly got sick again. The smell was in no way made any better by the fact that the house has under-floor heating. I'm gagging as I'm typing this.

This was just to illustrate the type of people we're gathering together into a secure hotel environment, plying them with free food and wine, and making them sing karaoke. My boss said she wants cameras and camera phones banned from the party. She didn't particularly like the photos I put up on Facebook last year. They weren't even that bad, if I'm truly honest. Majority of them was taken early on in the night when everyone was still in a relatively clear state of mind. At least my drunken singing and trying to talk Kevin the Barman into joining me was never caught on any type of a camera. Not even a CCTV. I checked.

Party time

It certainly seems to be THAT time of year again. Time to dress up in clothes clearly unsuitable and insufficient considering the weather/temperature, drink mulled wine and tolerate the company of people you spend most of your days with anyway. It is, of course, the office Christmas party time. I know I say office, I mean work in general. I don't work in an office. We do have an office but it is a little more than a glorified cupboard, really.

See, we thought we weren't having a Christmas party for staff this year on account of it having been a bad year all around as well as our company having been leased to an outside party. I'm not saying the new "owners" aren't the type of people to deny their staff a party, but it has been a transition with quite a few characteristic teething problems to say at least. It hasn't been an easy year, so we thought maybe they were going to spare us the trouble of getting dressed up and spending time with people we're only getting to know as it is. Secretly we were all just a little bit relieved. This meant no wardrobe crisis, no shoe crisis, no hair crisis, make up crisis... well you get the point. You can tell I'm a girl, right?

Anyway, I returned to work last week after 6 glorious days off, sat down in my glorified cupboard and was met with an email from our newly-appointed GM informing me of a Christmas party this coming Sunday. (which I now realise is the day after tomorrow) The party is at a quite a lovely hotel in the city, a hotel owned by our boss, hardly a coincidence there. We're all invited to eat, drink and stay free of charge. Having gathered my jaw up from beside my feet, I read the email again just to make sure I had got it right. I had. Free of charge. In a 4 star hotel. Fantastic.

At this very moment the " Christmas party crisis" -part of my brain went into overdrive. I'm sure there was a little puff of smoke rising up from the vicinity of my left ear. It meant I had less than a week to find an outfit, sort out my hair, book an appointment with my beautician, organise lifts, colour co-ordinate my outfit of choice with my make up bag and SO MUCH MORE! All of this was obviously on top of the usual Christmas arrangements such as Christmas cards, shopping, wrapping and this year, since Mr S and I are staying in Ireland, sending the bought and wrapped presents to my friends and family.

Office parties are tricky to say at least. It really is a lose-lose situation to many people. If you decide to be sensible, not have any alcoholic beverages and in general just to behave yourself, you're running the risk of being perceived as a bit of a bore. And there's of course the added disadvantage of having to listen to the drunken rendition of "Fairy Tale of New York" for the umpteenth time, grinning manically and trying to pretend it's just as hilarious as it was the first couple dozen times. If, on the other hand you're one of the people singing said much loved classic after your ninth glass of mulled wine and a few shots later, you probably will be considered a little bit of a liability.

I usually fall on the latter category. There is a degree of drunkenness at which I will inevitably start singing. I cannot help it. I have gotten up on stage in pubs and clubs, informed the actual artist performing that it was MY TURN and proceeded to sing a song of my choice. I know I do this, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I can sing, by the way, so all is not lost I suppose.

Wardrobe crisis was averted after chatting to a few colleagues. Blaming the recession, I have shamelessly recycled an outfit worn to a party earlier on this year. Few new accessories later it will look appropriately seasonal without breaking the bank. Maybe new shoes. I could do with another pair of ankle boots, I'm sure. See? Some things never change.

The reason this year's party will be different is the fact that we don't know everyone there as well as we'd like. In the years gone by, our staff has been a bit like a family. A family of over 80 members in the high season, with about 35 permanent, full time staff. We all know each other well enough to be able to make complete fools of ourselves and then laugh about it together the following day while nursing one of the hangovers of the decade. This year will be different, however. Everyone seems to be feeling like we're going to be judged based on our behaviour on the night. Maybe we will, maybe we won't. I, for one, have already decided on my song. Bring on the wine, good people!

Comfort and Joy

Oh, my poor neglected blog. I'd be lying if I told you I've been busy doing things as I've done very little since my last post. Right now I'm halfway through a stretch of 6 days off and I am being decidedly lazy. And being lazy has never been easier.

First of all, the weather. It has been truly horrid over the last week or so. Gale force winds, horizontal rain teamed up with sub-zero temperatures don't exactly encourage me to venture out of the house. If I can hear the wind in the morning when I wake up, I find that an excuse enough to roll over and go back to sleep for a bit.

Second of all, Mr S is still away, so I have nobody to kick me out of bed. Or to come up with things to do. I am missing his presence, I really am but the fact that I can just arse about in PJs all day long doing nothing is really quite wonderful.

I don't think I could do this any other time of year, to be honest with you. It's something about the long dark nights that make me want to stock up on good books, red wine, bread and cheese and just ride it out until spring. The only thing stopping me from doing this is Christmas.

Yes, THAT C-word. I hate Christmas shopping. Really hate it. And I'm sure I'm not alone. I mean, who likes going into over crowded shops, which always have their air-conditioning set to "inferno" for some reason, so as you walk in from the cold air outside, you're met with a balmy heatwave. You end up taking off your hat, gloves, scarf and opening your coat, and filling your hands with your own clothes even before you've started shopping. The heat in the shops makes me very irritable and tired of the whole experience before it's even started. This really isn't helped by the hordes of stressed out fellow shopper, 70% or whom seem to have a cold or a flu judging by the amount of sneezing and coughing around me.

For a season entirely focused around joy and cheer, people are very very rude around Christmas. People out shopping bump into you, knock you in the back with their trolleys, push their way through you to get to the perfect Christmas present just out of arm's reach. All this done either accidentally or on purpose, never once have I heard an "I'm sorry" uttered not even over their shoulder on their way to plow through another unsuspecting victim.

So, this year I decided to avoid the shops at all cost. I shopped online instead. I bought all but two presents online, all of which are currently residing in our spare bedroom waiting to be wrapped and sent to family. The two presents I didn't get online however, were purchased the old-fashioned way. In a way of making up for such stress-free Christmas shopping experience so far, I headed out with my friend and her 4-month old baby boy.

I suddenly have new-found respect for all those harassed-looking mothers pushing prams and buggies around the shops around this time of year. I never realised how hard it was to do the simple things you normally do when you're out shopping by yourself. Take trying on clothes, for example. No fitting room is big enough for both you and the pram. How are you supposed to work that one out? Leave the door/curtain open so you can keep an eye on your little one while at the same time really defeating the purpose of using a fitting room at all. You might as well go and try the clothes on in the middle of the shop floor. Everyone is going to see your wobbly bits anyway.

It also seemed as if the shops were stocked up to the maximum capacity, thus making any space between the aisles/racks even narrower than usual. Getting through with a buggy required an impressive amount of maneuvering. It would've made any driving instructor swell up with pride, I'm sure.

And then there's the bathroom issue. If you need to go to the bathroom, what are you going to do with your baby? Leave him outside? All alone? In a world full of weirdos? I didn't think so. Seeing as all the cubicles are too small to take the baby with you, you end up using the wheelchair accessible bathroom. And to me, that seems like a completely acceptable option until I heard another friend of mine who had done just that tell me that on her coming out of the bathroom she was met by a very angry man in a wheelchair outside the bathroom telling her that "Having a baby is not a disability, it's a choice. You should be ashamed of yourself!" I don't know about you, but I thought that was a bit over the top.

In any case, I have all my Christmas presents bought in good time. With minimal stress. Until I remember someone I should've shopped for and never did. Thank god for internet!