StewBlog

Yukari (apparently, Leon also helped a bit) made some excellent Japanese-style snacks to munch on with a few beers before we went out to Simple Simons to see in the new year!

Many people came over to the folks house in the afternoon for food and games. Mother had organised a pass-the parcel (with questions and forfeits) for the girls and a chilli chocolate Russian roulette game for the boys! Nobody admitted getting the chilli chocolate, but Carl looked very suspicious when eating one of his so I reckon it must've been him! Afterwhich, we had a game of boys Vs girls Singstar which the girls won comfortably (damn it!) Hannah had brought a card game round too called Them and Us in which the girls team had to answer boys questions and the boys team had to answer girls questions. The boys got their own back, winning convincingly (thankfully!)

Well, Christmas Day was brilliant! I had a quite a few things to take round to the parent's house in the morning, so mother came round in the car to collect me. Everyone was at the house when I got there, including nan. Dad was cooking soem breakfast, so we all sat down to bacon, eggs, sausage and beans... A bit of present-opening had already gone on by the time I got there. MJ had a shiny new external hard-drive as well as some devilish wooden puzzles. I bought Matty an indoor remote-controlled helicopter which was great fun and surprisingly sturdy given the nature of some of the crash landings! I bought Nan some Euros to take with her on her forthcoming sojourn to Spain - I put them inside a transparent little safe which requires the careful manoevering of a stell ball around a maze to unlock and release the contents! I took dad to work for 2pm and Lynn came to collect Nan as she was having Christmas dinner with Vicki and Jonathan. We had some goose pate and toast to start with followed by a very traditional turkey, stuffing, chipolatas wrapped in bacon, carrot and swede mash, sprouts, roasted potatoes and lots of gravy! Of, course a Christmas pudding an hour or so later as well. MJ found the 20 pence, which my mother places randomnly in the pudding each year! Later on, we watched a bit of TV. I had a go at one of MJs computer games and when dad arrived home at 10pm we all had a go at Singstar!

A few of the guys from the quiz were in The Cricketers so I popped down there to join them for a few Christmas Eve drinks... Pretty quiet in town, which was a surprise! Anyway, I didn't overdo it as I usually do on Christmas Eve so I felt pretty fresh on Christmas morning and ready for dinner...

We pre-booked a festive double khurzi lamb in the Kashmir this evening for Gav, Leon, Yukari and I and also Gav's Mum, Brian, Rick and Tara. So, after a few sharpeners in the Cherry Tree we went to meet the guys at the restaurant for our feast! We went for a few post-prandial drinks in Simple Simons afterwards too - Gav, Brian and I had a few pints of their excellent Yule Be Sorry ale!

My next door neighbour, Grace, invited I and some of the other neighbours over to her house for mulled wine and cakes, so I went round there for a couple of hours and met some quite interesting folks, including Jane from over the road, a long term resident of Lansdown Road, who won't eat rice!

Matt organised a Christmas meal in the Dolphin for all us guys who do the quiz on a Monday. There were 17 of us, I think! Nuala, Mirage, Marc, Jen, Vicki and Vicky all met up for a few pre-dinner drinks in Simple Simons - Probably the best winter pub in Canterbury! I tried one of their festive ales - Yule Be Sorry - and it was excellent! Marc tried the honey porter, which was equally nice. We had a great meal in the Dolphin. The stuffed turkey looked and taste amazing. I went for herb coated salmon - very nice indeed... After dinner we had a game of rude-word bingo, which descended into farce; all good fun though! A few of us went for a night-cap in Casey's before heading home in preparation for the last day of work before the Christmas break...

After a brief visit to the Kashmir to verify our booking for two Khurzi lambs on Saturday I walked down to Strada and was the first to arrive for our group Christmas meal - It's very unusual for me to be early for anything... After about ten minutes everybody had arrived, by which time I had already donned a christmas cracker hat, and we all started on drinks; I opted for Peroni beer rather than wine. We had lots of baskets of garlic and rosemary bread delivered to the table followed by large plates of classic Italian antipasti (grilled artichoke hearts, prosciutto, mozzarella, sun-blush tomatoes, baked garlic etc). I ordered a rare Bistecca di Manzo (rib-eye steak with rocket and shavings of parmesan) for my main course which was very nice and cooked pretty much how I like it although I'd say it was more medium than rare. For dessert, I had a little chocolate brownie cake with a warm gooey centre and a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top - Yum! I was also tempted to sample a Strega Liquore from the Digestif menu, which didn't go down well at all, in fairness!

Ed asked if anyone at the table played computer games - He's quite a fan of on-line gaming, I gather, as are many other past and present employees of the company that I work for, I was surprised to learn! I mentioned that I had recently dabbled with my first on-line gaming experience with World of Warcraft, with some success. Anyway, he plays a game called Eve which is now available for the Mac apparently - It's subscription based, like WoW, but the style is very different. It seems they have a 14-day free trial available so I might give it a go over Christmas as I have one and a half weeks off work...

Before taxis arrived to take people home there was just enough time for a beer in the Old Buttermarket Inn. Don't think I'll be going in there for a while - The bar itself is badly organised, the bar staff are losers and the beer isn't very nice... I tried the Yule Fuel and it was awful!

Despite feeling much better by the end of Friday I still needed the whole weekend to further the recovery from my bout of illness earlier in the week. I feel like a battery that is, as each day passes, slowly being recharged, but very slooowwlllyyy... On account of this, I didn't do very much at all at the weekend apart from a little bit of Christmas shopping and some housework. It'll be a busy week though, so I think it's best to take the time to rest up and get back to 100%

In other news, MJ has had two offers from universities:

Edinburgh: BBB
Durham: AAA

He'd prefer Durham, I think, so just a matter of getting the grades now...

Finally felt well enough to head back into work today...

Felt pretty terrible on waking up this morning so stayed in bed...

Leon dropped me a text to say he was out with a guy from work (and his wife and brother) to see a band this evening in Scribes. Haven't been in that pub for ages but I like live music so I went and met up with them for a few pre-musical drinks in Simple Simons. they had a seat down right at the end of the bar in the sunken area by the nice big log burning stove. The band were called Electric River and comprised 4 young guys (all under 21, I'd say). Drums, Rhythm (backing vocals), Bass (lead vocals), Lead (lead vocals). They played a rock/heavy rock set including '(You Gotta) Fight for your Right (to Party)', which was brilliant; 'When You Were Young' a bit of Metallica and Pearl Jam and some of their own stuff. One of the best bands I've heard for a long time! Here's their website, anyway:

http://www.electricriver.net/

We moved onto the Cuban for cocktails after the band where we met up with a few other guys from work and I stayed up for hours to watch the boxing with Andy and Dazza at Welsh Matt's place.

A load of us went out the Ancient Raj in Canterbury this evening for an alternative Christmas meal as we were all pretty fed up up with turkey dinners already - and it's not even Christmas day yet! The place had chintzy decorations all around, which I actually quite like in the right setting. In some places, long strands of age-old gold tinsel is exactly right, and here it was, especially as the cheese/chintz factor was magnified by a guitar playing, crooning cabaret singer who ran through many songs while we had dinner...

We made our way to the Cherry Tree for Takin' Off - A night of northern soul and funk and after losing a few people to the Abode went on to Alberrys to finish the night off!

Went down for my second Christmas lunch at work this week just now with Dazza and it was much better than the one on Tuesday! I had the carrot and coriander soup instead of the smoked mackerel and although I had another turkey roast, I skipped on the terrible roast potatoes and had mash instead with lots of gravy. The vanilla torte with berries was great for dessert too! Just hope I haven't overdone it as I'm out for a curry tonight...

Test entry from the mobile phone

Hey, it works!

My group went down to the restaurant for our annual free Christmas lunch at midday today... There was quite a queue but it went down quickly. I picked up the smoked mackerel to start with followed by a turkey roast with stuffing, carrots, (badly) roasted potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy and a solitary sprout on my personal request. I had a nice slab of christmas pudding for dessert with lashings of single cream - I don't like that brandy butter stuff...eeirrgh! I guess it was okay for free, but it wasn't great... They have so many people to cater for so it's understandable.

I got a pink hat out of my cracker, no toy, and the following apalling joke:

Where do dogs do their banking?

Barklays.

Made this tonight - It's lovely!

Lasagne filling
500g minced beef
150g diced pancetta
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 green chilli, finely chopped
1 can chopped Italian tomatoes
1 lug of olive oil
100g tomato puree
100g sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
6 mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 tsp marmite
1/2 glass red wine
1 tsp dried oregano
freshly milled salt and pepper

Bechamel Sauce
50g flour
50g butter
Some milk (can't remember exactly how much I put in...)
pinch freshly ground nutmeg
pinch freshly milled pepper
loads of freshly grated parmesan cheese

Leon, Yukari, Vicki and I spent a leisurely evening in Bramley's