My day off November 20, 2009

Good evening!

I’ve been off work today, which always is a blessing. I spent my day without doing much really. I stayed in bed until noon (aah),  I was reading and drifting in and out of sleep… got to love that! At the moment I’m reading a book called Girls of Riyadh. It’s a very nice and girl book, like some kind of arabic version of Gossip girl, but a book. Basically, it a girl who sends out an email every friday, revealing the secrets going on with four upper-class Saudi girls. How they try to look for love and enjoy life, at the same time as conforming to the traditions of their country. I wouldn’t say it’s interesting, eye-opening or even controversial. It’s just a girly book in a slightly different setting. And the setting creates certain complications… oh well. That’s not what I sat down t write about.

In the afternoon I went into town to run a few errands before meeting with the BF around 6-ish. It’s late night shopping on Thursdays, so we spent a really nice evening out. We even went to an Italian restaurant for some dinner. And after dinner we realised that Debenhams had some kind of even so they were open until midnight, so we went in there and shopped a bit as well. They had lots of great offers. Amongst them we found a pair of pillows for £8. I hope they’re gonna be nice because the pillows we have at the moment aren’t really the greatest – and sleeping well makes such a difference to the satisfaction of life! At least it does to me…

..oh God, this post is boring!

I used the bake machine!! I’ve told you that my parents got me a bread machine as a graduation gift? No? Yes? Anyway, they did! First I used it a couple of evenings ago with a simple bread mix, I figured that I’d start of with something simple… and it was! Oh am I happy or what?! I’ve hated the English bread for some 3 years now, and FINALLY!! I have an option to toast! My parents always tried to make sure I had breakfast while growing up, so having breakfast is pretty essential to me. But the longer I’ve stayed in this country, the more often have I skipped breakfast. I hate toast! It’s not bread! Why can’t they make bread that doesn’t have to be toasted? Surely, toast can be nice once in a while, but every day? Thank god for the bread maker!

So yesterday night I decided to be a bit more bold in my bread making, so I mixed my own ingredients and set the timer so I would get the bread when I woke up. I wasn’t entirely sure of how to mix the ingredients, but I figured I’d just have to try my way.

Woke up this morning around 9-ish from a beeping bread-machine. Stumbled out in the kitchen to turn it off. I vaguely remember taking the bread out of the machine and onto a tray. And then went back to bed. I thought the bread had turned out really bad, because it was only half the size as the last one. But I realised (a couple of hours later when I had woken up) that I only had half of the ingredients, and the bread was actually really nice. It’s a bit heavy, but OK. I’m happy. The bread maker can also make just dough, jam or cakes so I’m sure it’s gonna bring me lots of happiness in the future. All I need now is lots of seeds and flour

I’ve been promising pictures for quite some time now, so here’s a selection from the last couple of weeks…

Bread no. 1

Bread no. 2

“Assemblying” the mirror

Graduating

I shall leave you and love you now

Good night

Cityboy August 6, 2009

Nobody could accuse me of rushing around all day. I woke up around 10-ish today. I could hear my mum doing something in the kitchen. Interesting. I went up to have a look. She was making blueberry muffins. Yummy. Completely worth the effort of getting out of bed. I had breakfast and then we went down to the ocean. I had a quick swim. It was terribly cold, but still somewhat nice. Check out the view I had from my rock. It was perfectly shaped like a chair, so I had a really comfy seat.

This was my view today

I finished reading the book ‘Cityboy – Beer and loathing in the square mile’. It was OK. It clearly wasn’t targeted towards me. It’s written by Geraint Anderson who used to work in London as a stock exchange analyst (can’t remember the proper term, but I hope you understand what I mean). He finally went into some nervous meltdown, quit and wrote a book about the system that rules the market. It was quite interesting, but it didn’t really change my idea I had about these people anyway. If anything, it confirmed my prejudice. Also, the book is written by a man, about men, for men. The language is quite harsh and there’s a lot of sexist. At some point he writes something like “I don’t have a sexist bone in my body, or maybe just one”, which clearly shows that what he might not be completely aware of his own sexism. Of course, the point of the book is to describe the harsh macho jargon that HHHH the whole business, but still. There were numerous times when I didn’t feel completely at ease. Either way, I would recommend the book. But maybe mainly to men. Or perhaps to a friend of mine who’s boyfriend works in a similar environment, haha. Apart from that I don’t really know what to say about the book. I can’t say that I can give it a fair review as I’m clearly not the target audience. Of course, I have the right to my opinion, but I remember how annoyed I would be when some rock-fan would give the Backstreet Boys a bad review when I was in my teens. I think the scenario is a bit similar here. But to conclude, the book was OK. I’ve read better, but I’ve also read much, much worse.

I’m off to have dinner now… Cheerios!