Video Thursday

Angel Corella isn't my favourite Romeo, but I can't get over how in love they look. And Alessandra Ferri blows my mind.

The cuteness!

I made the girliest noise evarrrr when I saw this. Seriously. I'm glad I'm home alone.

(Katia Figueroa on Smug Mug via Happy Notions Round II)

Video Thursday

I've been singing Puttin' on the Ritz for days, then came across this video of the great Fred Astaire. Truly amazing, especially the last section.


I think I might make this a regular Thursday feature. We'll see.

A very social week

K-Bear, Matt (known as Cookie to precisely no one) and Yuddi at the send-off

Whew! This week has been crazy, and it's not over yet! We've had houseguests, a boys' trip to the cinema (I was invited, but took advantage of an empty house to have some quality girl alone time), and a damn fine birthday party/goodbye party for the lovely Yuddi, who is moving to Germany for a year today. Bon voyage, Yuddi!

Tonight, The Boy and I are off to a Malaysian Curry Festival by Liverpool Street. We get free curry, and all we have to do is give the dishes marks out of 10. Such a chore!

On the cooking front, I've got chickpeas soaking in the kitchen to make hummous tomorrow, using this recipe. I occasionally get serious hummous cravings, and drive The Boy mad until I find one that satisfies my tastebuds, so here's hoping that this one hits the spot!

Weekend round up

The weekend was very quiet for The Boy and I. He'd had a stressful week at work, and just wanted to relax. The whole thing can be summed up in two words: food and films.

Friday night was fish pie and Ocean's Eleven (the George Clooney one) - Fish pie better than I'd feared (you should have seen the colour of it when it went in...), Ocean's Eleven quite entertaining, but not as much of a romp as I'd been expecting.

Saturday was our usual poached egg on toast with awesome coffee, leftover fish pie and a day spent pootling round the kitchen making muhammara, mutabal, and tabbouleh (lots of charring of vegetables and frenzied chopping!). Films watched were Antitrust (truly awful, and woefully dated) and Catch Me If You Can ( LOVED this, I think it was when Leonardo DiCaprio started to shake off the teen heartthrob burden and become awesome)

Sunday was the scoffing of food made on Saturday (with massive amounts left for weekday lunches), and watching The Incredibles, Toy Story 2, Die Hard and the new Sherlock thing for the BBC. I liked it, though the plot was ever so thin. Maybe now I'll have an excuse to fancy Benedict Cumberbatch...

So much relaxing over two days, so why was I tired when Monday came around?!

Tea with Fergus, or why I love my friends

I had the most decadent day on Friday! I spent the morning watching an old BBC adaptation of Wives and Daughters, then tootled over to West Hampstead to have tea with my friend Fergus.

Fergus isn't one to do things by halves. This was the table when I arrived:

(That's homemade cherry cake, along with still warm scones)

And that was before we got on to the green tea, the shisha or the G&Ts whilst watching Beautiful People... I had to send The Boy a text saying, "I am a terrible slattern, I am drinking gin and not making fish pie".

I also had the opportunity to admire the tapestry he has been working on for months. He embroidered funny things that have been said by him and his best friend and flatmate Tristan over the years, in all the languages they speak. I spent ages looking at it, every time I glanced over I spotted something new

(I love the 'People like us don't use mugs' in the bottom left corner)

Several hours later, I wobbled home and proceeded to rustle up Nigella's fish pie from How to Eat. I find that in all of her recipes, there's always one error. This time it was the amount of liquid needed to make the sauce, but after I subbed and tweaked, it was very tasty.

All in all, a perfect start to the weekend. 

Argh!

Anyone who knows me knows that I am terrified of wasps. Just thinking about them makes my skin crawl. I'm lucky enough never to have been stung, largely because I either freeze or run for the hills at the first sighting.

Imagine my horror, then, as I noticed a steady stream of the little blighters coming and going to the eaves above my bathroom. No doubt about it, we have a nest up in the loft. Hundreds of them, waving their antennae in that menacing fashion. Probably plotting how to make me join the "I was stung once, it was horrible" club. (As a separate point entirely, why do people, as soon as they hear you're terrified of waspies, then launch into their top 3 stinging stories? I don't tell my sister about sharks, or my mother about snakes!)

I've been looking up nest removal companies, who all seem to suggest that poison outside of the entry point will do the trick. But that still leaves a dead nest in my loft, which frankly makes me feel ill. I want them gone!

Post edit: The Boy poisoned the nest last night, all on his own. I hid behind the door, pointing at the spot I saw wasps and whimpering. He let me swoon over this new (to me) talent of his for a moment, then sat me down to talk "expectation management". It will take a couple of applications, and there'll be dead and dying wasps a-plenty to deal with in the next week. Bet you can guess what my nightmares last night were about...

Quote of the day

"If Helvetica is Julia Roberts - pretty enough - then Univers is Uma Thurman - really cool."

Bruno Maag, managing creative director of typeface studio Dalton Maag, on the BBC News site this morning

A good day

Today has been a good work day. One where I actually feel like a curator. There's some new stuff in the pipeline, which will really stretch me, and deepen my involvement in my department. I don't want to jinx it, so for now I'm just crossing all of my fingers and all of my toes.

And today, as with most days, I am struck by how awesome The Boy is. On our way back from the tube, we had a good discussion about feminism, and the difference between one's personal beliefs and law. I am so proud of his outlook, and so so proud that he is mine.

Weekend and Friday pic

It's been a wonderful end to a nigglesome week.

Today I met Michael, friend and former colleague (he's one of the amazing curators behind this exhibition), for coffee at Loafing by Victoria Park. As we drank our (very tasty) flat whites, he used his gingerbread man to tell me about Francois Ravaillac, the fanatic who assassinated Henri IV of France. The picture you see above is of the torture he experienced before his execution (quartering, with the sugar cubes doubling as hot coals). It was hilarious, seeing such a mild mannered chap breaking up his gingerbread man with glee. The looks we got from other customers as they overheard snippets of the conversation!

On the subject of Henri IV, I recommended one of my favourite films, La Reine Margot. Have you seen it? It's indescribably beautiful, and Isabelle Adjani, who plays Margot, is stunning.

And so to the weekend! What are your plans? I'm helping my friend Heaths shop for furniture tomorrow, and there will be some more anniversary celebrations with The Boy at some point - probably Malaysian food at Makan by Portobello Market, unpretentious, cheap and seriously tasty (it's one of my favourite secret spots for food!)

Have a great weekend, all!