Pub Crawl

My boss is on holiday and work is a terrifying place as I am responsible for everything. Consequently I have been stressed out a bit and so yesterday we decided to get the bus into town so we could both have a drink, and do a bit of mooching about.
Left home at 3pm and went to Waterstones, where I bought a book about Lynyrd Skynyrd and that Excess All Areas book about Status Quo. Then we went to The Sawyers on Deansgate and had a pint. Then we went to a South African place called Barracuda, then to The Salisbury.
Here is a picture of our pints. And another of the alleyway outside.


















Then it was off to the Lass O Gowrie for another. And then we WERE going to go to the Old Monkey, as we used to spend a lot of time there many years ago, when it was new. Except we changed our minds and went into the smallest pub in Manchester, The Circus Tavern. Its REALLY small but very nice and we met some Danish blokes who were going to see Stiff Little Fingers.
Then we were getting hungry so we thought we would head into town. We almost walked past a little Italian resteraunt but then changed our minds and went in and I glad we did because it was lovely! We had a bottle of wine and I had a blue cheese pizza and him indoors had a seafood one. It was proper pizza, nothing like Pizza Hut or any of those places, and soooo garlicky. And I cannot for the life of me think what it was called! Its either Don Antonio or Bella Roma, and I would like to get it right because it was very, very nice. Small and a bit poky, and the waitresses didn't speak much English (in fact they were Chinese!), but the service was good and the food was lovely and it wasn't too dear.

Its on Portland Street if anyone knows it? There are more pictures but they are on my phone and the blue tooth wotsit is at work so I can't get them off until tomorrow.



Then it was last drink in the Bulls Head before getting a taxi home and realising it was nearly 10 o clock.....

Down Mexico way....

We have just been to Chiquitas, a psuedo Mexican place that has as much to do with Mexico as one of my cats, but its a very nice place. Sombreros on the wall, pictures of mustachioed bull fighters all over the show - you get the idea. I had sizzling chicken and steak fajitas and him indoors had chargrilled swordfish. Mmmmm. I also had a Mai Tai. Double mmmmmmm.
What WASN'T mmmm was the tshirt worn by one of the hoards of 17 year olds waitressing : "Famous for Fajita's". Fajita's WHAT? Grrrrrr.
What else have I been up to? Not a lot really. I won the whole Malory Towers series of books off Ebay for £4 and I am up to Third Year at Malory Towers. They even have the same covers as the ones I used to have but which got lost somewhere along the way.
I never, ever liked Daryl Rivers. For someone who went about losing her temper and slapping people/shoving them in swimming pools, hurling them over chairs etc, she seemed to be far to well liked for me. Alicia was much better. And Mary Lou. And Sally. But no, I don't like Daryl.
Ooo I tell a lie - I HAVE done something. The new drummer we auditioned was a) good, b)not an idiot or a serial killer and c) seems to like US, so we are on a roll again. Had a rehearse somewhere in Wigan and it all went very well indeed. Hopefully gigs will be on the horizon soon, unless he turns out to be awaiting sentence for drug dealing/has a psychotic girlfriend that will burn his drum kit/get run over by a bus. Fingers crossed guys.

More snow

And it looked like this....
It also looked a lot like other things but I didn't want to bombard you all with pictures so I stuck them all here
We (Born Idle) went to meet a potential new drummer today. He seems ok and we are off for a rehearse this week. As you may or may not know, we are like Spinal Tap when it comes to drummers, and this one seems far too normal, so he is bound to turn out to be an axe murderer or something.
And I have finally ditched Internet Explorer.Its Firefox on the laptop and Netscape on the pc. I got too fed up of its bad behaviour.

Poorly

Blimey, have I been poorly this week. I have got this stupid cold type thing that has turned into a kind of debilitating fug that has descended on my head. I feel rubbish. My poor mum and dad have got it too, especially my indestructible dad, and he's dreadfully poorly, so nice thoughts in his direction please.
More photos uploaded to Flickr if you want to see the inside of Faery Towers. And some new ones of the pussy cats.
That's about it really. I am listening to Northern Lights (Phillip Pullman) on audiobook and reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Susannah Clarke), and I just won the entire set of Malory Towers (Enid Blyton) books on Ebay for £4!
Off to suffer on the sofa. Bye. Cough. Sneeze.

Let it snow

It took me two hours to get home from work yesterday because of the snow. It started snowing in the afternoon, and by 4pm it was getting quite heavy.It wasn't so bad in central Leeds but coming down the M621 to get on the M62 was a different matter! Although it had been gritted it was coming down so heavily that it was sticking, and there was a good inch or so on my back window. It was freezing cold and just like something off a Christmas card. Although its a motorway, its quite scenic, and what little I could see of the countryside was very, very pretty. And I had ample time to admire the view because going at anything above snail's pace was a risky business. By the time I got off the motorway it had almost stopped, but the snow on the ground stayed where it was. Morrison's car park, where I stopped off for provisions, was like an ice rink, as by the time the snow was beginning to freeze. Everyone was wrapped up like Eskimos (do I have ti say Innuit now?), apart from one mental woman in flip flops and a short skirt. You always get one...
I made lovely chicken casserole and crusty bread for tea, and the evening was spent hibernating...
This morning it was all bright and sunny :in fact THIS is what it looked like.....