That there dinner...

I've found a picture of my table where you can see an example of my outrageously large surf and turf meal at the Stock-Yard! YUMMMMM! (Although this picture doesn;t represent the huge starters and additoinal side orders we also had!)

Back home

Well, it's been an interesting week. The hotel was as mad as it looked, several large linked themed areas all with gigantic glass roofs. It was an amazing piece of engineering which I swayed between liking and thinking hugely vulgar throughout the time there. The convention centre alone felt a similar size to the NEC too. Luckily my room was close to the convention centre so I only had a 5/10 min walk to breakfast, and then a further 10 mins to the meeting room. Some people were 30 mins from breakfast (which given the meeting started at 8 meant a very early start to get there in time!)

One evening we were taken out to for a meal at Stock-Yard Restaurant. I (along with several others) chose the surf and turf option as I was struggling to decide between steak and lobster. It was amazing - to the point that people with cameras took photos of it. If I can get hold of a copy I'll post it sometime...

Another evening there was a mass exodus to the Wild Horse Saloon where we were all given cheapo bandanas and cowboy hats and enjoyed participating in line dancing! Nice!

All in all it was one of the more enjoyable meetings I've been to in recent times, but it's still good to be home.

Off to Amerima

Tomorrow I head off to Nashville to the sales meeting. Yes, that's right - on a Saturday - hrumph!!! We are staying in the amusingly named Gaylord Opryland Hotel, and it looks absolutely insane!

It is HUGE, has 2881 bedrooms, and bizarrely also has indoor gardens, waterfalls and you can even "take a scenic boat tour down our winding indoor river". How an indoor river can be scenic is anyones guess. Still, we have some free time on Sunday (how unusual at these things) so maybe I'll get to try it out...

New Washing Machine continued...

Well, the new washing machine turned up as promised. Eventually 2 days later we got round to fitting it and it is now fully operational. Except, when we came to put the cupboard door back on the flipping attachment bits are in a completely different flipping place to the old one! Grrrrrr! Why the bleeding heck don't the stupid manufacturers make things the same????? And it's not going to be easy to make it fit, as there's a big hole in the door where the screw will need to go to fit for this one.

Time to call in the professionals. (Plus, I need to get an electricain in too whilst we are about it as half our house is in darkness - 3 light fittings aren't functional. And it's not just that I need to put new light bulbs in either before some cheeky person puts a comment up to say as such.)

Fish Pie

Tully and I made a really yummy fish pie to help us celebrate New Year. It looked really good so I thought I'd take a picture of it! As an aside it tasted even better than it looked.

New Washing Machine

Typical! Every Christmas some major electrical item seems to break, and this year it is the turn of the washing machine. Now the problem with that is that we have a stupid integrated one, which whilst looks very tidy is just a pain! Firstly there is incredibly limited choice (both in appliance and shop to buy them from), and then there's the whole having to fit the cupboard door on part too!

When we bought the house the previous occupant wanted to take all the existing appliances with them meaning we were in the market for fridge, freezer, washing machine and dishwasher, but could I find anyone to sell them to me??? None of the high street electrical shops did, and nobody I asked knew where I could buy them from. Eventually someone recommended I try Range Warehouse which proved successful.

So this time I didn't even bother looking around we just went straight back to Range today and bought this Indesit WD12X.

Lazy couple of days

Mark and I both finished work on Wednesday, and have enjoyed a relaxing couple of days whilst Tully was in nursery yesterday and today.

Both days we had big lie ins which I'm counting even though I got up and took Tully to school before going back to bed. Yesterday after hearing so many good reviews we went to see Casino Royale. It was as good as I'd been told, and I really enjoyed it. I think it's my fav Bond film to date - certainly from the recent ones anyway.

Sadly today school finished at 2, so we had to look after our daughter ourselves this afternoon (cuh!) so we walked to collect her for a change, and stopped off at the park, before walking into Sale and then heading on home. Whilst in Sale we bought her a gingerbread Christmas tree, which due to it's solid nature kept her busy for the entire journey home, and she was still eating it 5 this evening! The most entertainment value we've seen out of 49p in a long time!

Productive Day!

I'm taking a couple of days hols as I seem to have loads left over that I lose at the end of this year. So far today has mostly been used in writing Christmas cards (almost done although not yet posted...!), and choosing some photos...

Now then, when Mark first moved into his houselet in Alty almost 9 years we picked out a couple of pictures to 'make do' until we found something we really liked, and again after decorating downstairs over 4 years ago we did the same thing for an extra picture (and this one is truely hideous - a £5 IKEA special that seems to reside in every ski chalet we've been to since!) The problem is we are never really sure what we like, and the second one is that many of our photos from recent times were only stored on the hard drive in the loft and, well, going up there to retrieve it required 10 seconds worth of effort!

Anyway I've spent much of the afternoon going through the archive of digital photos from the last few years, and finally picked out 3 examples from our hols in New Zealand to get enlarged. Just going through the 1300 (!) pictures from NZ took well over an hour, so since I went back as far a 2002 it took rather a lot longer. It was however a very enjoyable way to pass a few hours, and brought back some fantastic memories. There's so much I'd completely forgotten about!

(Actually the picture below isn't one of the ones chosen, but I do rather like it!)

Birthday plans!

I know, I know - it's ages away yet! But I fancied havig a weekend away with friends, which means I need to get them booked now! (Our friends seem to be incredibly busy these days - I find it hard to believe we ever had so much of a life even before Tulster!)

So, I've booked to go here for a long weekend, along with Jon and Mand, and Stu and Amy. I don't think it might be a bit too chilly to use the pool though!

It's Christmas!

Not come early as you might expect, but come very very late.

Our Christmas present last year from Jonny and Mand was a night out with babysitters thrown in! We finally got round to cashing it in last night... Liz and Chris came round to babysit (thanks!) and we went into Manchester for scrummy food and wine in Evuna. It was very tasty, and it was lovely to have a night out with the Hills. We really do need to make more effort to see all our friends than we do. Strikes me there's a good New Years Resolution in the making...

Prague

I've been in Prague for work this week. There was a bit of a mix up with hotels, and the one where my meeting was ended up being overbooked, so some of us got transferred to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel for the same price.

It was REALLY lovely. I was given a room in the spa, which was just over the glass bridge in the photo here. There were 32" LCD tvs in both the bedroom and the bathroom, plus a DVD player. MAybe I just normally stay in rubbish hotels and this is normal for everyone else, but I was well impressed!

And, although it was a 20 minute walk to where the meeting was each way, it was over Charles Bridge and through the old town and really pretty. I'm exhausted now though, I need a rest this weekend.

Ummm

Upgraded my blog to the newer version. It seems to have got confused and think I'm Tully! Ho hum, no obvious way to sort it out at the moment but it's annoying me so I'll endeavour to fix it. :(

Films I've watched far too often!

Grosse Pointe Blank - I'm not sure why but this is a film I come back to again and again. I think it's because it's such a good combination of drama, comedy, romance and John Cusack! It's got to the stage though where both Mark and I pretty much know the script off by heart though, so maybe it's time to find a new film to take it's place. And even though we've almost worn the DVD out it's the film we've chosen to watch tonight out of the entire selection across all Sky Movies channels... Mmmm.






10 things I hate about you - even less sure why we watch this so often, but it is definitely worthy of mention when talking about DVD's we've nearly worn out. Although it's very much a teen movie, it has sligtly more depth than some as it's adaptation of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew set in a modern American high school. It's where I first came across Julia Stiles, and I have to admit I've since become a bit of a fan.




Moulin Rouge! - I love this! It's crazy, colourful, vibrant, funny, poignant, and (I think at least) very cleverly written. And stars Ewan McGregor!!!!! Richard Roxburgh is brilliant as The Duke; the 'Like a Virgin' scene cracks me up every time!


Bizarrely, with possibly the exception of Moulin Rouge, these wouldn't make it onto my list of top 5 films (I sense that could be a whole new blog entry sometime). But all are very enjoyable and worth a watch if you've never seen them.

New York part 1!

Mark and I went to New York for a long weekend to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary, leaving Tulster behind to be spoilt rotten by my parents! As we’d both been before and ‘done’ the main sights it was really lovely to relax and not feel obliged to run around doing lots of official sightseeing. Below is a selection of photos from the weekend!

Our hotel – the Westin New York Times Square – was really good, and in a really good location (until you want to walk about just as all the theatres kick out!)


On Friday evening we went for a wander around Chinatown – neither of us had ventured there before, and it’s definitely an area I’d recommend people go and have a look at. Still, the pre-requisite Starbucks on every corner (albeit in a Chinese style) means you never forget where you are! J



We had fabulous dinner in Joe’s Shanghai on Pell Street (well done to the Rough Guide for another excellent recommendation) – the pork soup dumplings (the house speciality) and the crispy spicy whole yellow fish were particularly good. On the walk back to the Subway we spooted Mark’s shop!


Last time I’d been to New York was prior to 9/11, so going to visit Ground Zero was the only thing on my list of things to do this visit. It’s a very sombre place – hard to believe we caught the subway down there last time…


A couple of the photos from the (very well done) memorial section captured my imagination – the expression on the man’s face in the centre really says it all.


How cool was that?

New York part 2!

It still seems to be messing up so I've published this in two parts to make sure I don't lose it all again!

The Staten Island Ferry - another first and quite frankly tight way to get good views of the harbour and skyline as it's free! We did the 'proper' tour last time of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, which was wonderful. I just wanted another look see of the views...


She never fails to impress me. Although I was a little relieved not to take the vertigoiferous traipse up the spiral staircase inside her this time... It did make my tummy go funny...


My favourite bit of Times Square - look at all those kisses! :) Pity Hersheys chocolate is so disgusting. (With the excpetion of cookies and cream, although I've not found it for ages! Does ayone know - have they stopped making it?)


We went for a look around the USS Intrepid - very interesting, but the video in particular was very well done.


Also included in the display is one of the BA concorde to look round - it's tiny inside!


We went for lunch at Katz's Deli - no photo's but it's the place where THAT scene from 'When Harry met Sally' was filmed. Scroll down towards the bottom on this web site - we sat one table to the right, just behind Harry...

Argh!

Just spent ages writing an entry on our trip to New York and it's just vanished for no good reason! I can't be bothered to write it all again now - will maybe have another go tomorrow... Grrrrr.

Maybe leaving Mark in charge of Tully is a bad idea?

So, as I said in my last post I've been away a bit recently with work. I think Mark is getting his revenge though. Whilst I've been away he has taught Tully a new 'What noise do xxx make?' question and answer... Mark says 'Tully, what noise do mummys make?', Tully answers 'Nag nag nag'... Mmmmmmm...

Off again...

As most people'll know I have to travel a reasonable amount for my job, and whilst some trips are better than others I generally enjoy the variety that going out and about brings. (I'm also very lucky that I have a husbad that has never ever grumbled about the fact that he is left at home holding the baby...) And normally traveling for work is within the working week which is fine.

However it feels that work is enchroaching somewhat into my/our family time at the moment. Last Sunday I had to fly to Sweden for 3 days and although the flight was quite late, by the time I'd sorted out getting packed and allowed extra time to check in given current travel restrictions, all of Sunday afternoon had gone. Then in the middle of last week I was instructed to book flights to go to the US office next week, flying on Bank Holiday Monday. So I have to be at the airport for 9 tomorrow morning . Nice.

Ok, grumble over. Especially as I've demanded next Monday off to compensate! :)

Hooray for Boston!

Whilst hanging about at Boston Station yesterday waiting for the (delayed) 16:06 train to Nottingham to arrive I spotted an advert for Stickney Farm Park. Sounds like a possible day out for some time in the future. Blimey, what's Boston coming to having tourist attractions and the like...? It certainly wasn't like that in my day!

As an aside, what does it say about my home town that the station had no shop, no cafe, no snack bar, or indeed anywhere where I might purchase a bottle of drink for the journey. But it did have a pub, which was surprisingly full for a Tuesday afternoon! Nice!

New York, New York!

I'm very excited. Mark and I decided we deserved a treat, so we've booked to go to New York for a long weekend for our wedding anniversary. Luckily Mum and Dad have once again volunteered to look after Tulster for us -I think that in their old age they forget each time the trauma that involves - so we can have a lovely relaxing time. Well, that's what Mark thinks anyway - I've already started planning... :)

We decided to splash out and stay here, which is within a block of Times Square so right in the middle of the action. Woohoo!