Before I started, I was told by a number of people that medical admissions would be pretty much unbearable. "It's no picnic," (query: why are picnics so frequently invoked as images of ease and delight? Also, why the comparison between a job and a picnic, two activities difficult to conflate, unless you are some kind of picnic basket reviewer, or perhaps Yogi Bear. And also, I would describe even Yogi's interest in picnics as strictly more of a hobby.)
The end.
But it turns out, as I suspected all along, that I much prefer working a couple of 12 hour days (that, true to reports, were no picnic) and then having a couple of days off. It gives me time to bake. Bake things like this:
As you can see, I may have already eaten 3 mince pies by the time I took this picture. Perhaps.
Also possibly a slice of beetroot brownie.
Which before it went into the oven, looked like this!
Yes, truly disgusting. Also a disagreeable reddish/purple/brown colour (due to the beetroot) with a lumpy texture (beetroot, plus good-natured aid from walnuts) which strongly put me in mind of something, let's call it work-related, that you and I would probably both rather not talk about.
Luckily, it baked fine. And it tasted fine. And everything was FINE.
FINE
(aka the end)
Oh, I'm so witty, I kill myself laughing sometimes. Anyway, moving on. Here is a picture of me pouring chocolate into the mixing bowl, because I've always wanted to take a picture of me doing that. Why, I don't know, but I have at last achieved one of my lifelong ambitions.
Look at that beauty go. I only wish I could have done it without getting chocolate all over the worksurface and oil all over the front of my camera, which I only discovered later while taking arty shots of me eating large amounts of baked goods. (See Fig. 1 and 2:)
Fig. 1: blurry
This is in fact what my vision is usually like after a glass of wine, so I am pleased to have a visual record of that. However, the more cunning amongst you may have noticed that the glass of wine is still full, and thus the blurriness is not due to me somehow psychically transferring my inebriated state onto photo, but in fact due to a cunning piece of butter on the camera, which I had not noticed until I took this picture.
There was butter everywhere yesterday. Beautiful, beautiful butter.
Fig. 2: blurry, continued.
Beautiful, apparently pointing to the left, butter.
Look at those lights!
Anyway, I cleaned the butter off with a bit of washing up liquid, probably irrevocably damaging my camera in the process.
Thank goodness I have not yet fulfilled the 25 before 25 list achievement of actually buying a proper camera.
Thank. Goodness.
Anyway, I put the butter away again. What's left of it. After this. (See Fig. 3, 4 and 5.)
Fig. 3: Carnage
Fig. 4: Look, the rest of the worksurface was filled with bits of beetroot, ok? I didn't have room except on the hob, and it was CLEAN, so I don't know what all the fuss is about, except, yes, well, you can see there is butter everywhere. Also even though it looks like a margarine tub there is in fact butter inside, because I like to keep my butter in a margarine tub for ease of access. It did mean we had to eat a tub of margarine before getting to the good stuff, but life is all about sacrifice after all.
Fig. 5: I took this picture because it kind of reminded me of a starry night. Van Gogh style. Yeah that's right. I'm an artist.
Anyway, this is what came out of it all, so it was all worth it in the end. And now the hob is clean again, and all is right with the world.
Mince pies! Is there anything more Christmassy than mince pies? I think no.
Apart from a knees-up with some old friends that is.
Note that Kirsty is holding a far more expensive camera than mine, and that there is no butter on it. And she's two days younger than me.
Sigh.
The meet-up on the weekend in London was really lovely, and a much-needed chance to catch up and relax, and eat a lot of junk food, and relax. It's still hard for me to realise just quite how far north I am now.
So far north.
So thanks, friends. Thrends.
Tim has got his ITU Christmas do today so I will be alone in the house all day (sobadob) which actually I am quite looking forward to because it means a whole day of doing things that I want to do and catching up on things that I want to read and also not brushing my hair all day (strange that I look forward to doing this. Hmm.) I have also been becoming lazier and lazier in the mornings and not getting up when he does (which to be fair is 6 O'CLOCK and when you have been working until 10PM and getting home at 10:30PM and then falling asleep by 11 is STUPID O'CLOCK) only sort of blearily opening one eye and murmuring, "have a lovely day at work darling" and then getting up at 8am which feels very decadent, and then that combined with all the baking and now not even hair-brushing has made me feel like some kind of extremely slatternly hausfrau (though I understand the current term for such ladies is 'domestic engineer'?)
I have showered though. That must count for something.
It is a beautiful day outside today and I feel I must go outside (which may mean hair-brushing after all, so you see I have escaped the thin end of the wedge! Ha-ha!) The air is crisp and lovely and we have our Christmas tree up and decorated, and I have even made a snowflake, Kirsty, though it did take FOREVER and as I was doing it extremely cack-handedly and getting tape stuck in my hair (again with the hair! maybe I should cut it) I was thinking, "eyes. Can they really be this fiddly? Surely nothing can be as fiddly as THIS." But I have no doubt I will become a TOP ophthalmic surgeon. Also, they don't really use sticky tape in eye surgery (do they??) so it will probably all be FINE.
Happy Christmas! (almost)
