Quelques arpents de neige

I broke out the winter coat for the first time this season. I haven't even gotten around to having it cleaned yet so I'm walking around with last winter's mud splattered up the back. Very stylish. But it was -3 C when I got up this morning and I wasn't taking any chances with Mr. Jack Frost, who nips at a lot more than my nose, if you know what I'm sayin'. When you work up on the border of darkest Markham, close to the "Snow Belt", you have to dress for it.

I'm certainly eating for it. When the weather gets like this, I want to eat fattening things. Like chocolate cake. And chips. I was all about chips this weekend. But all I've got in the house are Goldfish crackers (Atomic BBQ flavour) and vanilla yogurt. Such is the pantry of an unmarried, childless woman. I'll have to post photographs of my fridge soon - Maria did. Mine doesn't look that much different, except I tend to store perfume in there. Right now I have a bottle of Shalimar, some L'Air du Temps, and Nantucket Briar cuddling up to the left-over black bean soup and the vanilla yogurt. There was a bottle of L'Heure Bleu in there too but I use it every day so I've moved it out.

And you thought librarians were stodgy!

Hanging out with the horsey set

I wore my camera battery out in the Horse Palace at the Royal Winter Fair yesterday. But I think it was worth it.

True Christmas Confessions

The Boston Pops arrangement of Sleigh Ride is, like, one of at my absolute favourite Christmas songs. That cracking whip? Classic. And the trumpet/horse at the end - could that be any more perfect?

I have never tasted a figgy pudding, nor any kind of nog, egg or otherwise. And I'm not about to start.

When I was little, about four or five years old, I could sing Jingle Bells, in both official languages (in French, it's Vive le Vent). But in the English version, I didn't get the line, "Bells on Bobtail ring." I heard and therefore sang, "Bells on Cocktail ring". I didn't know from bobtails, but cocktails? No problem! Give me another Shirley Temple and make it a double this time.

Note to self

Remember to blink. Seriously. And look away from the damn monitor sometimes. My eyes are so tired. Everything's kind of fuzzy. Yeah, so I'll just do some more work on the computer and make it worse. Brilliant. Thankfully my office looks out onto a garden, so I actually have something to look at when I tear my eyes away from the monitor. At the moment there's not much to look at as the trees are not in bud and the flowers haven't come up yet, but I did see a squirrel in there once and I can always amuse myself by counting the smokers. When I remember to look away.

Random jokes

A friend of mine was struck off the other day, for sleeping with one of his patients:
Damn shame, he was a really good vet.

Two fish are in a tank:
One says to the other "I'll man the guns, you drive"

My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli:
He was pulled in by a strong currant.

I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf:
And he said, 'no, the steaks are too high.'

Two cows standing next to each other in a field, Daisy says to Dolly:
"I was artificially inseminated this morning."
"I don't believe you," said Dolly.
"It's true, no bull!"

Two fish swim into a concrete wall:
One turns to the other and says "dam"

Tilesey's blog, high brow entertainment at it's best

Shoulder, shoulder, shoulder

I have recently taken over the role of player/manager for work’s 11-a-side footy team and my second match in charge went well last night. My reign has even brought about the return of the groupies, admittedly they were nothing to do with me and they spent most of the time on the phone, but I’m the boss so I take credit.

Although I enjoy it (ohhh the power, the chicks etc), I’m not too keen on the managing side because it diverts my attentions away from the game as I think about who to sub next, the benefits of the diamond formation, where I should hang my graduation photo in the flat etc, etc. A typical example of this was when a high ball was coming in and I volleyed it away – which meant that all my weight was on one leg and because I wasn’t paying attention to where the opposition were, I didn’t have my weight balanced on the same side that the opposition player would run into me from.

Result: He ran in taking the leg with all my weight on clean from under me. I landed with all my weight on my right shoulder - The impact broke the skin on the top of my shoulder blade. Needless to say, it FUCKING HURTS today so I want loads of sympathy, thankfully I have Tilesey Clan bones tho. Out of my 7 cousins, only 1 has ever broken a bone and we all reckon he has his mum’s (non clan) bones. Plus he’s the only accident-prone cousin, the rest of us tend to cause more accidents than we get into. I was pleasantly surprised although slightly confused to find that I had full rotational movement in the shoulder when I stood up, although slightly gutted because it meant I would have to come into work today.

Now where’s my nurofen….?

Note to self

When applying Radian-B (a nicer smelling form of deep heat) to your affected shoulder, heed both Will's and the packet's warning: Do not apply to broken skin.

Thinking, "Well my skin isn't broken anymore, it was broken yesterday, today it's healing" and, "well, so long as I don't spray any on the bad bit" is all very good. But spraying the hot, hot, burny, stingy stuff on the bad, red, very red bit of skin - is really not the cleverest thing to do and can lead to you pulling funny faces in the bathroom mirror and uttering the time tested pain relieving phase, "fuckfuckbloodybollocksfuckshitbadger".

I'll turn the woosey button to "off" soon. ;-)