It's snowing. And it's even sticking. Heavy snow, big fat flakes and lumps of it. And it's cold.

Blech!

I just washed the windows - inside and out! and polished them to gleaming streak-free clearness. So of course there's a sudden hailstorm! Yowser!

I decided I had to to - something- about the apartment, so this weekend's project was the balcony. We have a berautiful view of the Duke of Northumberland's River/Silverhall park. But the balcony was dirty and dusty and unused and littered with stubbed out cigarette butts. So I cleaned up the litter, washed the windows, bought a really sturdy and comfy director's chair and bought a large rosemary plant in a terracotta planter. I need to add more planters of herbs and tomatoes and flowers and some hanging baskets and another chair and voila! It will be lovely and inviting very soon.

What's new here? Well, no point mentioning my work since it's still a 2+ hour commute each way which sucks up most of my personal time and leaves me exhausted - although my job and my workmates are still wonderful.

What's new is that Andrew is coming to visit for Easter weekend. He'll leave JFK Thursday night and arrive here Good Friday morning and return home on Tuesday. So a short but hopefully sweet Easter/Passover weekend together. The plan is to keep this visit firmly in the relaxed and leisurely category. Per Andrew's request, one whole day wandering aimlessly around the British Museum- yay! This is a wonderful thing to do. Other plans are for sitting on the terrace at the London Apprentice, overlooking the Thames, and drink and chat. A walk to Syon house, perhaps. Basically leave things relaxed and open to possibilities. No schedules, no rush, just float and relax.

Our friends Ginny & Nigel have sold their house and are about to leave for a new life in Spain. They have a posh new apartment on the beach near Alicante. We're going to a farewell do for them on Saturday. We're also dragging our friend Jude down from Leeds to be at the farewell bash since Ginny is her best friend and she needs to be there to say goodbye or more like aloha - till we meet again. We all plan to visit Ginny & Nigel and guest it in the sun. They're good people.

The chiller unit for the Data Centre build-out at work arrived on Wednesday. Great fun watching the giant crane hoist it into place on the new plinth outside the Alpha data room.

Same words - different food!

To start with, be aware that all your familiar brand name foods are generally made locally to a different, local tastes adjusted recipe. This means familiar comfort foods like Hellman's Mayonaise and Heinz Ketchup have a LOT more vinegar than you're used to in the US. Even old reliable Philadelphia Cream Cheese is not exactly the same. Still the best you can get here but not the same.

Two ubiquitous kitchen standbys to also be wary of are canned Tuna and Cottage Cheese.

They do not sell White (Albacore) tuna here. Period. End of story. Ain't available. The stuff they sell in cans here is more closely related to what we'd give our cats. It's not the lovely, firm, mild, and clean tasting Tuna we know and love. Don't even think of buying it. How I miss Starkist, Chicken of the Sea and BumbleBee's best solid, white, albacore.

The other gotcha is Cottage Cheese. I don't know what you'd call the dairy product sold here as "cottage cheese". It's nothing like Breakstone's", that's for sure.

Yes, yes, yes , of course there's scads of lovely food available here. The point is, it's different. And sometimes you just want the comfort of familiar tastes.

Alan and I are going out shortly to start taking photos of the lunar eclipse. It should reach peak totality about 10:45 pm or so here, so I should be awake enough to go outside and get some good photos then. I'll try to get a cycle of shots through the whole eclipse actually.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention - I bought myself a new camera. I love taking photos and I have not been happy with any of the cameras I've been given or used since my old wonderful Minolta 35mm film camera. This new camera is the first that is entirely my own choice. It's the Sony cyber-shot DSC-T50. In bright cherry red. I'm a happy girl.

I also paid off all the outstanding back bills I had except for 2 personal loans. I'll be starting to pay those off with my next paycheck.

Have I mentioned my husband and his lust//need for a new laptop? (For family members, think "Space shuckle" and you will understand everything.) The campaign for a new laptop began in early Dec 2006 with subtle murmurings about how long code was taking to compile. I'll spare you the remaining details.

The object of desire was a "Copper Toshiba" with a 17" wide screen monitor, full size keyboard with keypad, harmon kardon stereo speakers, blue LED lights along the front edge, and all sorts of cutting edge specs including a 200 GB HD, 2 GB ram, Intel duo core processor, top of the line Nvidea graphic card with 512 MG, etc. The people rejoice, the man is happy with his new laptop. We added in a new USB external HD - a 500GB red (lego) brick. Totally adorable - as cute as the laptop is sleek and sexy.

We staggered into a restaurant for lunch afterwards since we left the house only having coffee this morning. The happiest thing besides getting exactly, precisely what we wanted (and for an excellent low price) was that we paid for it - didn't put it on plastic, not going to have to pay it off. We agreed to wait till we set aside enough to pay cash for what we wanted - and we did.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I just got a Samsung 20" widescreen LCD monitor. Can you believe this is my first brand new monitor ever and what's more, the first one I have picked out for myself. I really hate when people give me something technological or push me into buying it (even worse!) but it's not what -I- want. (Yes, my husband in Mr #1 for things like that.)

I really needed a monitor because otherwise I just had the standard little laptop screen as my main monitor and recently a 3rd hand 8 year old cast-off 17" LCD wit5h major brightness issues. (As in dark and murky and belongs in the trash bin which is why the other 2 former owners dumped it.)

So, I survived the install and configuration and adjustment process (You do know that "Plug and Play" is one of the 10 Great Lies, right?). Now I just need to get a new computer or laptop - of my own choice, to my own tastes. I would get one now except my nearest and dearest has been putting on a "Space shuckle" scene daily for the past 3 months and I'm so worn down by it that I'm letting him buy a new laptop tomorrow. His former laptop will go to my son Andrew whose laptop died recently. What I realty wanted to do is get a new laptop for myself and give Andrew my Thinkpad which is less than a year old (no, I'm not happy with it because I did not choose it and it hasn't the features I want, but I got it for free so I've used it) I think it is powerful enough that Andrew would have found it very useful.

But my aim at the moment is to pay off debt not buy optional new equipment.

Anyway, I like the new monitor.

Health report - I'm still feeling exhausted and achey. I wish I had a real idea how long this post-flu whatever will take to go away, recover from. Useless to ask a doctor here since most of them seem to have become idiots following the politically correct line. According to them, I probably had a mild cold and my anemia is negligible and I am focusing too much attention on my high fever, heavy lung congestion, low hemoglobin test results, etc. The NHS has spoken. All hail the NHS.

Back to work, I think.

OK, someone asked for the recipe I used so here it is...

2 cups butter                                
2 cups sugar                                       
2 cups brown sugar
            
4 large eggs                                                     
2 tsp. vanilla
                                    
4 cups flour                                         
5 cups blended oatmeal*(see note below)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda (also called bicarbonate of soda)

24 oz. chocolate chips (or more, more is good, I used more)
3 cups chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)(yes, I used more of these, too!)

*Note about what blended oatmeal is...Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender or food
processor to a powder.

Also note - most civilized people with a well equipped kitchen will have a sturdy
mixer to cream the butter and sugar and then mix the dough and a blender for the
oatmeal. We still have a basically bachelor kitchen from Alan which I am slowly
upgrading. So I made these cookies using nothing but a food processor to cream the
butter and sugar and a bowl and big spoon to hand mix the rest.

Cream butter and both sugars. Take time to make sure it is light and fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda. 
Add chocolate chips, and nuts.
Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Lightly flatten balls
with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 10 minutes at 375F. (I baked them for 9 1/2 min at 170C in a fan convection
 oven.)
Makes a LOT of large cookies - like about 100 or so. You can halve the recipe but why?
They will all be quickly eaten and everyone will be very happy and grateful. Nah,
they'll be happy and ungrateful and demand more cookies!

I've been slogging in to work each day, making it barely, clawing my way through the day to get home and collapse from bronchitis or whatever it is I have that the NHS refuses to take seriously. Luckily I survived. There would have been a morbid satisfaction in Alan suing them as - She Told You She Was Sick and Needed Antibiotics- but alas I was strong enough to survive. However, this is NOT how modern medicine should be. This is medicine on the same level as 1 million years ago. Yep, that's about right for the NHS. Bastards!

Anyway, I'm Project Manager on a major data centre buildout for my company. It's to be the showcase model for all our corporate data centres worldwide.

Moving along, Alan's dat took the train down from Leominster to visit London for a few days and see some art exhibitions. We had dinner with him every night. Lovely to see him again but we are now all restaurant'd out and just want to eat home cooked dinners for a while. Which we are doing tonight - shoulder of lamb roasted with applies and shallots and cider and finished off with double cream. Yum!

Alan has 1 week left at his old job and then it's on to his new job - Infrastructure Director for a new Massively Multiplayer Game company. He's really happy to be going back into the Games industry and out of gaming. So to say goodbye he announced he would be bringing into work a huge pile of fabulous American cookies his wife wouldbe making for everyone.

Umm yeah- I'm making them now. The infamous Million Dollar/Neiman Marcus/Urban Legend cookies. I'm in luck because they came out georgous. Perfect. You would die just from the lucious smell. Let alone the taste.

"I have given instructions that I be informed every
time one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in the
middle of the night. When President Nasser leaves
instructions that he is to be awakened in the middle
of the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there will
be peace."
-- Golda Meir

I managed to make it thru today at work - barely. I definitely sounded like I was spreading plague with my awful deep congested cough. I definitely would not have wanted to sit next to me. And I knew it wasn't as bad as it sounded.

The awful strength of addiction (and the morbidly ironic amusement) was brought home to me as I was leaving to go home. I had managed to fairly painlessly reduce a 40+/day cigarette habit down to about 4 (yes, really!) a day. It was working, I was holding at 4 or so a day, month after month. Not even buying any, just using up the American cigarettes my sons brought over before Xmas. Then this -illness- hit me on Friday and I was just too ill to even consider smoking or eating or even drinking coffee. Basically made it through the weekend sipping hot sweet mint tea or spiced black tea.

So I'm back at work today and people are going out for a smoke break and even the thought of it sends shudders of horror through me. And I'm thinking, wow! it's been 4 days since I smoked so maybe I might as well not start back again. The day passed and I was getting my coat on to go upstairs and wait for the cab to take me home (I'm really still too ill to be at work, no way could I make it thru my usual 2+ hour commute each way) - and I find myself thinking - not bad, I have enough time before the cab comes to smoke a cigarette. And a part of my mind was reacting with pleasure looking forward to it! And I thought, am I nuts? With me still hacking away like Typhoid Mary? And why not just give it up anyway since I haven't smoked for 5 days now. And then I thought, yeah but I still have a full pack of Virginia Slims Lights in my pocket! And that mattered to me.

This is nuts. This is addiction. Luckily I am far too ill to seriously consider smoking anything at the moment, no matter my addicted brain's yearnings. My body is digging its heels in saying OUCH! No! HURTS!

Back to sipping Pellegrino water, for me.

I had no idea that ...Land of Hope and Glory was sung to the Pomp and Circumstance tune. Yes, Pomp and Circumstance, known to most of us Americans as "The Graduation March".

1911 performance sung by Clara Butt from www.firstworldwar.com

The tune is much better used for graduations. It was first used at a graduation in 1905 when Yale invited its composer, Elgar to accept an honorary doctorate of music. It quickly spread to become the ubiquitous choice it is today.

I'm working from home today - feeling better than I did this weekend but then, I felt close to death much of the weekend so it doesn't take very much to say "feeling better" than that.

Anyway the fever seems to slowly be drifting down, the congestion is slowly breaking up , and my voice is starting to slowly return although I sound exactly like a croaking frog. I even managed to keep down a cup of coffee and 2 slices of toast this morning. Not bad considering that's the first food I've been able to manage since Friday night.

Of course, in the US, I would have called the doctor Friday to say I was feeling worse and it felt like my cold/flu was slipping over into bronchitis (because by this point in my life, I do know when that happens) and he'd have called in a prescription for antibiotics for me. I'd have started them Friday night so I'd never have gotten as sick as I did and I would have been up and lively by Sunday and back to normal (and back to work) on Monday morning.

But no, this is the UK where a call to the local NHS health practice got me the cold comfort of a suggested stop in to see the nurse - NEXT WEDNESDAY! When I asked for a prescription for antibiotics to halt the rapidly increasing infection, it was pointed out they don't believe antibiotics are necessary. Really! The NHS is psychic and able to tell this over the phone. So despite the NHS taking taxes out of my wages every week they are good for NOTHING. This is soviet socialised medicine at its best. NHS - the 3rd world standard for heath care.

It's not just me, either. The NHS decided modern medicines were too expensive so they would roll back prescriptions to older, cheaper medications. The promise was that if the changed prescription didn't work or had bad side effects they would restore your proper prescription. (Didn't medical experimentation on non-volunteers get addressed at Nuremberg?) So my husband's medication was changed to some vaguely related but totally different chemical. Too bad because it not only didn't work, it had horrendous side effects. When he informed his doctor of this, she switched him back to his original medication - but only for 1 prescription, no renewal. That was just to give the NHS time to come up with some other cheap alternative chemical for him. So he tried the 2nd cheap NHS stuff and again had major bad side effects. Now, in the US, we'd have been sitting in a good lawyer's office by this point and the issue would be settled because harm was knowingly done. But would the NHS accept that their 2 idiotic attempts to save a small amount of money were a failure? No, today we were informed they want to try a 3rd strange chemical. Obviously I told my husband to just say no and get a private prescription. What this country needs is a good major class action lawsuit - no, actually it needs a lot of major class action lawsuits. ::sigh:: No, even that won't help. People get the government they deserve. And it follows they get the institutions they deserve as well.

Readers in the US, no matter how bad you think the US heath care system is, it's heaven compared to the UK.

I am sure I will be able to find a private doctor who is willing and able to give me the quality level of health care I'm used to in the US. But it will cost me and it will be more than it cost in the US. No question about it.

I shall now return to my medieval level medical care - crawling into bed under a pile of quilts.

I spent almost all yesterday in bed, sweating and ill. This cold or flu turned into bronchitis and breathing was painful and difficult. Same through the night and all of today. I'm just drinking clear fluids like mint tea or sparkling cranberry juice.

Thanks, NHS - you run a perfect 3rd world country medical system. They tell me antibiotics are unnecessary. So now I've got a full blown 2ndary infection. No private doctors with weekend hours out this way or I'd pay and get proper medical treatment.

I haven't eaten at all since Friday night so I need to think about that

Blech! I have the most incredibly awful cold or flu or something. So bad I don't want to eat or drink anything except hot mint tea with lots of lemon. Sleep- that's what I want to do. Except I'm so ill I ache too much to sleep very long. An hour or so and then I'm awake and miserable again.

By sheer force I kept going all week and worked through each day, tho I'm definitely paying the price now. Even with the snow on Thursday where it took me 3 hours to get to work in the morning, I did it. Needs must. It's not just the money, tho that is a BIG part of it, it's that I've just been handed a major new task - I've taken over the Alpha Building Data Centre build out. My manager Gordon is off to Houston to repeat his magic with their data centre so this one here in the UK is being left in my delicate hands - must be the dark red nail varnish does the trick.

First project team meeting is Tuesday the 13th. I worked like a madwoman Thursday & Friday to get all the vendors, contractors, and staff committed to the time and date and prepped with the questions I need answered and details they are expected to commit to.

Other than that, it's been all blah!

I really, really wish we had a TV. I could flop out and veg in front of it and relax. As it is, I can use the computer or go to bed and read. This flat is way too small even for 1 adult, let alone 2.

I think that's enough moaning, back to shivering under the duvet.

In the news- before I end this - last Saturday I went with Hilary to The Sanctuary Spa. Woah - total luxury, total pleasure. Full body aromatheraphy massage, pedicure, manicure, foot massages, jacuzzi spa, steam room - way too much to mention it all. Total indulgence. Worth it for 1 day for hard working women.

Next Saturday I'm going with Asti to see a play called Sit & Shiver. Black comedy about a family sitting shiva. Good reviews, I'm looking forward to it.

Andrew built his own white box PC. Clever kid.

Alan starts his new job on March 12th. Game company - multiplayer games - massively multiplayer games.

For real now- back to bed.

Happy New Year 2007!

I see the holidays have come and gone since my last post. Yep, that's about it.

Well yes, all things considered they were reasonably nice holidays. Incredibly lovely to be with Adam and Andrew again. Incredibly frustrating not to have enough time to sit down for a leisurely meal and long chats with them. Next time I will send them tickets to come over, one long weekend each. Then it's the Kew Steam Museum, Syon Park and several long leisurely meals and visits to local traditional pubs.

We did New Years Eve at Ron & Hilary's with Ron, Hilary, Laurie and Pete, Alan and I as usual but this year I did the meal. A sort of Communist/Russian theme - Borsht with blinis and smoked salmon, dim sum (tiny chinese dumplings - yes, of course homemade!) beef stroganov with rice, onion and tomato chutney (with great thanks to Richard for the recipe. It was a complete rave! Everyone snapped it all up.) Dessert was Leningrads - a creme brulee made with kirschwasser and black forest cherries in the creme bit. The brulee bit was perfect and crackled and shattered deliciously. Watched fireworks on the telly - amazing display we want to watch live next year.

So the holidays have come and gone.

We definitely need a house. This flat is impossibly small.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm going out with Alan and some friends for a late Sunday lunch.

Pancakes. Must have pancakes. Must. Must.

I cleverly made sure to add Canadian maple syrup to my shopping list and bacon and little sausages. This is the grocery shopping I have Waitrose deliver every other Saturday morning, the heavy stuff I don't want to drag home and up the stairs. Things like tonic water and household cleansers and canned chick peas. The fresh food I mostly pick up on my way home from work.

The only thing I was not clever about was milk. I should have ordered another liter of milk. So now I'm trying to figure out how to make the pancakes with npot enough milk but I do have cream. I do have a container of milk in the freezer but that will never defrost in time.

And yes, I -AM- too lazy to go down to the corner show and pick up more milk now. Especially because it is cold and raining and gray outside.