Katie Butcher

Last weekend we went down to Aylesbury as I had to try on my bridesmaid dress for Eve’s wedding to see if it would need altering. We drove down on Friday afternoon and arrived at my Nanny and Grandad’s just after 6:30pm. We had some tea and then Nigel continued on his way to see Neil.

It was quite an early start on Saturday as Eve, Rhian (the other bridesmaid) and I had an appointment at the hairdressers for a hair trial at 9:00am. Eve’s mum came along as well to watch and have her say (she was paying so I think she was entitled to it really). We were at the hairdressers for a good few hours but it was quite fun. Afterwards we went into Aylesbury town centre and visited Beatties department store. I had a make-over on the Clinique counter (I had, to my annoyance, left all my make-up in Bradford so didn’t have any) and then treated myself to £70 worth of Clinique. I hadn’t bought myself anything in ages so didn’t feel too bad about splashing out a bit.

We had lunch in Beatties and then headed off to ‘The Wedding Centre’ in Marlow to try on the dresses. We had chosen the style of dress earlier last month, but then the actual dresses had to be ordered in our closest size to be shipped from the USA. Unsuprisingly, my dress needs shortening a bit, but that’s nothing major, so I won’t need to go back to Marlow to try it on again.

After we’d finished with the dresses I called Nigel to come and pick me up. Eve, her mum, and Rhian left me in Marlow, so I could wait for Nigel.

I then had a second lunch in Henley with Nigel, Neil and Kirsty, and then later we went out in Eton. We got back to my Grandparents at about midnight on Saturday night. I had to get Nanny to get all the hairslides out of my hair, as I couldn’t really go to bed with it still up. There were loads of them.

Sunday was devoted to visiting family and then we drove back up to Bradford late on Sunday afternoon.

On the bridge over the Thames between Eton and Windsor

Stopped for a coffee in Henley on Thames – nice hair, shame about the outfit!

I’ve been disappointed that there appears to be a severe lack of decent sites on the web that you can download classical music from. I hear bits of music on the radio sometimes, and am reminded about how great they are and think – ‘I’d like a copy of that!’ . I’m not so bothered that I want to buy a CD, I just want to pay maybe a pound or two and download it so I can then do what I want with it. At the moment I’m wanting Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20 in D. I can’t find anywhere that I can download it from within the following criteria:

• I don’t want to download any software on my computer in order to make the downloads
• I don’t want to ‘join-up’ to a site and pay a monthly subscription
• I want to pay for the downloads using GBP, not USD

Basically, I just want to pay a few pounds (or even better a few pence) and in return, get a file of the piece of music I want. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be that easy.

This morning we went to Leeds Farmers Market, a must for foodies. It’s held on the first and third Sunday of the month. Apparently the 1st Sunday is the best one to go to as there are more stalls, but we did pick up a few bits at this one. There were sausages, game (partridge, pigeon etc.), bacon, vegetables, pickles, olives, herbs, biscuits and much more. See some pictures of the market here.

At the moment I’m marinading the diced venison we bought, ready to put into a stew later. We also bought some green olives (olives are something I’ve recently managed to acquire a liking for) and a tub of garlic cloves in oil and herbs.

Although it’s a bit of a pain to traipse into Leeds, I like to be able to have the opportunity to buy good quality and locally produced food. Many things there you just can’t get in Morrisons or Tescos and the quality of the produce just doesn’t compare. The sellers actually have knowledge about the produce they’re selling and are really helpful, and many encourage you to sample what they have on offer.

BigBarn is a useful website that has a searchable database to allow you to find out about the local producers in your area.

Well I had planned for my next book review to be on Jonathan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’, but unfortunately I’ve had to give up on it. I read about the first 150 pages but just couldn’t get into it at all. Usually I try and persevere when I’m not getting on with a book, but I was finding myself not wanting to read because I wasn’t enjoying this book. I may go back to it one day, so I’ll put it in a drawer and maybe try again another time.

So apparently they’re deciding who will be the next Countdown presenter, and the bookies have set Noel Edmonds and Des Lynam as favourites. I can’t believe it…. what is wrong with these production companies! I can’t think of anybody worse than Noel Edmonds to present such a show, he’s a most annoying, tedious little man……and Des Lynam….YAWN! Other names I’ve heard about is Terry Wogan (suprise suprise!)… will he never just give it up? Why oh why do the same rubbish people have to be on our screens all the time? Once you get in with these organisations (and the Beeb is the worst) you’re laughing… aren’t you Noel, Terry, Anne Robinson, and Graham Norton (to name but a few)? Countdown is an established show anyway and I’m certain there are plenty of talented people who are unknown but could do a better job than anyone who’s on that list.

What a absolutely ridiculous situation, and I blame the media. To me, it was so obvious on Monday when the media started writing/talking about panic buying and the fact that although there had been fears of it, it hadn’t happened, that it would cause people to panic buy. People are so stupid, and to me it’s a good example of the media creating a self-fulfilling prophesy. And people seem to be oblivious to the fact that there isn’t a fuel shortage apart from the one they’re causing!

I’m glad that I’ve not needed to visit the petrol station, I filled up over 2 weeks ago and shouldn’t have to again for at least a week and a half. Hopefully by then everyone will have calmed down.

Perhaps people in marketing should take note. Make an announcement that stocks of an item are perfectly okay and there is no need to panic buy and you’re onto a winner, it appears.

On Friday I went down to London for the GBdirect associates get-together. Took the GNER train from Leeds just after midday and arrived in London King’s Cross less than 2.5 hours later. The journey didn’t seem long on the train at all and the ticket was just £19 return, which I thought was pretty good value (I’d booked it about a month ago). After checking in at the Hotel Russell in Bloomsbury, headed over to our partner company I-train’s offices to say hi to the people there. Duncan, who deals with most GBdirect related things took me and my colleague Graham to get some food at St John Bar and Restaurant in Smithfield. We ate in the bar area which has a smaller and (and apparently much less expensive) menu than the restaurant. A lot of the things on the menu were unusual, not for the faint-hearted and certainly not for vegetarians – ‘warm pig’s head with beans’ and ‘bone marrow and parsley salad’ are two dishes I can remember were on the menu (and I didn’t really fancy). I did try ‘Smoked Eel and Potato Salad’ which I have to say was absolutely delicious although very small – 2 slices of eel and three leaves and 3 of the tiniest potatoes ever. Not exactly filling (particularly since it cost £8). I also had ‘cold roast lop and chutney sandwich’. Lop turned out to be a breed of pig, not a rabbit that I initially though. Again it was very tasty and this time quite large and filling. Although I’m not usually a massive fan of sandwiches there wasn’t much else on the menu I really fancied (although I’m usually pretty adventurous with food, a lot of the cuts of meat weren’t one I was quite in the mood to dare try that day). I drank two pints of Black Sheep and a bottle of the most wonderful ginger beer I’ve ever had.

The hotel was really nice. My room was lovely and had a large bathroom. I didn’t sleep particularly well though as it was quite noisy- cars, buses and sirens going past all night. I suppose you have to expect that in the middle of London.

The associate get-together took place at I-train on Saturday morning and went well. Afterwards we went to the Dovetail for food and beer. Again, there was a number of unusual things on the menu. I had an ostrich burger. Very nice and very filling. Also had cranberry beer and cherry beer.

Got the train back at 4:30pm and arrived back in Leeds just before 7:00pm.

Now on the lookout for ostrich burgers, smoked eel and Fentimans Ginger beer. Think we might go to Leeds Farmers Market next Sunday and see what’s there.

That’s 2 bad days in a row I’ve had in the office. Yesterday was a nightmare, I was trying to find an eatery in Clerkenwell, London that would accommodate about 18 people for lunch on Saturday. It wasn’t the 18 people bit that was difficult – it was finding somewhere that was actually open on Saturday lunchtime! After a day of trawling the internet and lots of phonecalls I finally managed to find out about a little Belgian pub that was open, served food and was happy for 18 people to descend at 12:30pm on Saturday. Amazing! I just hope ‘The Dovetail’ turns out to be nice.

Just after I successfully booked the lunch, the internet suddenly broke in the office. As it was 4:00pm I just left it, I’d had enough for one day and I hoped it was just Pipex having problems and it would be fixed in the morning. Unfortunately not. Today the office had no connection to the outside world which meant I could hardly get anything done. Another wasted day. Pipex denied it was their fault and said they suspected we needed to perform a firmware upgrade on our ADSL router. The weird thing was that Techtran, the company in the office opposite GBdirect were also having problems which started around the same time as ours. They spent the day fiddling with their router and ended up having to go out and purchase a new one, whilst apparently an abnormally high number of other companies had had to be let down to the basement to push the reset buttons on theirs. Hmmmm.

Anyway I left the office at 6.00pm leaving Dave furiously trying to configure a spare ADSL router that he had at his house and bought in to the office. I hope he succeeded!

This weekend I finished reading ‘Good in Bed’ by Jennifer Weiner. I partly bought this book because of the good reviews it has from Amazon customers, but I have to say I was really quite disappointed. It’s about about a 29ish American woman who has issues with her weight, career, men, blah blah… BORING, been done a million times before… Bridget Jones for one. It was okay if you don’t mind reading ‘just a story’ like you find in episodes in ‘Womans Weekly’, but I much prefer books that make are a bit different and make at least require you think a little. I found this book to have absolutely no depth and reminded me of reading Sweet Valley High or something similar when I was about 11 years old. Girly and shallow. I’m sure that suits some people, but not me.

I did quite like the style it was written but it was similar to the style I write this blog which doesn’t really require any special writing talent. Very standard and ordinary prose. I feel I was meant to be a lot more sympathetic to the main character than I was (her struggles with self-esteem etc.), but I just found her constant worrying about her weight got a bit tedious. I just kept thinking ‘Get a grip!’, ‘Deal with it!’ and ‘Stop eating all those cakes then!’. Perhaps I’m too hard-hearted.

Not my cup of tea at all. This one can go in the charity bag, I’m not going to be recommending it to anyone I know anyway.