you're the birthday, you're the birthday, you're the birthday... boy or girl

Bobbenblog is ONE WHOLE YEAR OLD (in 2 days) !! I would have waited until my first official post but I may forget and a pre-emptive post is way better than a belated one (same rule as birthday cards and buying a new diary - note to self: need to buy a new diary). Yes, so it turns out it has been 363 days since I created this blog. The background to starting it has luckily already been covered in my new year's resolutions post so I'll neglect that and focus on this being my first post of 2011! Happy New Year to the one or two people who read this blog (maybe an exaggerated estimate there).

This isn't a cohesive post and is really the kind of content I reserve for Bobbenblog lite but I felt the need to ring in the blogging birthday here. So firstly, I managed to kind of swipe right over Christmas and straight into the new year before the bells had even rang or the fireworks had kablamoed. I choose to now illustrate Christmas in photographs. My brother and I scrobbled Mum's camera when people were opening presents and got some delightful candid (aka stealthy) shots. So these illustrate the larks of Christmas day and will also introduce you to some of my family.


This is my brother, Jamie. He took a lot of pictures of me looking like a cow on christmas day but it was all okay due to the wonderful camper van slippers he got me.


This is me and my dear Mum posing for a photograph. Oh and my Dad not posing for a photograph.


This is Jamie and my Gran, who I call Jeer (since young). I don't know what was so funny but as you know candid photographers such as myself can't let such trivial matters take away their focus. Eye on the prize baby.


This is my dear Dad. He looks happy in this picture which I like but also a bit like Tony Soprano which is worrying.


Mum was very misguided to think she could lean her way out of a photograph taken by me.


This is my aunt Fran having present evny.


This is my grandad having crisp envy.


J and G Dudes


The group photo


Mum = brilliant.

I also would like to quickly update on my new years resolutions. So I have been trying to ride Mary-anne more... actually at all. Every time I try to go the weather seems to attack with freezng conditions, pouring rain, or snow. Thanks weather. I also have endevoured to run once a week. I have not. To be fair the gym at university only reopened from christmas on Wednesday and I've been housesitting, attending birthday bashes and working on my masters so y'know. I will go this week. On the plus side though I have continued baking bread not buying bread and today made a fine pair of spelt loaves.

Tomorrow I am invigilating exams all day for work which will be pretty fun. Not being on the 'please let this be over' end of an exam will make me fell pretty smug.

Anyway that's all, I'll make the next one back to old form, this patchy rambling style makes me feel uncomfortable.

a feast fit for christmas

yes, so tumblr is down today and i feel i must continue my advent of christmas activites so i will put such 'lite' issues on bobbenblog itself today. this one is about making a roast dinner. we did this yesterday - me and my husband. my husband who is stranded at work over night tonight due to 6 hours of non-stop snow blizzards today from 9-3. it's very odd being in the house with the girls and not him but i will cook and bake myself out of missing or worrying about him. last night we had a wonderful roast dinner of pork with crackling, oven baked cheese filled portobello mushrooms and roast potatoes. here it is...

pork - score the skin and add oil and salt. the salt features juniper berries. add marmalade to the bottom of the pan which will make a sweet sauce. cook for the appropriate time, the first 2/3 under foil and the last 1/3 without the foil to make crackling.



mushrooms - put portobello mushrooms in a pan and cover with oil. half fil them with breadcrumbs then fill with cheese. we used cranberry stilton. cook in the oven for about 30 mins

half new potatoes and put in a pan with a shallow layer of oil. add honey, rosemary, and chopped red chillies. cook for 1 hour. use a pastry brush to mix the marinade on all the potatoes as they cook.

the best kind of days

It's been a very odd, very trying weekend. And yesterday morning's wakeup was marred with the cold shivery-ness of still having to do that f-ing book review. I needed to sort out both of these things tout de sweet to keep my brain from jumping a level down on the happy-o-meter. What I mean is that when things are going well you advance up levels of happiness in your head and with every graduation, wedding and funding grant you bounce up another level. Problem is that once you get there you get used to it and it is also more instable each level you go up so little ruptures in the landscape tend to upset far more easily and you can fall down a lot quicker. So to remedy these problems I sat down first thing and wrote the arse out of that book review. I don't think Ian Cowan should expect a rave anytime soon. However, to solve the former was and is a lot more troubling. Without going into the detail of the weekend (hospitals, chinese commie-hackers, broken parties, people bending, expectations waning...) it was a lot harder to fix than doing the book review.

So first I cleaned the house. I don't know if it's the same for anyone else but cleaning is kind of theraputic to me. I like to clean. You don't need to use your brain in any real way to do it. It is menial work, yet it's not wasted on the slovenly public but cherished on my own humble abode. It's light exercize and I am a firm believer that a tired mind needs a tired body or the balance is all off, and rest will be bi-polar. It is satisfying to the n-th degree. Your house is messy and you clean it and it makes everything feel more at ease, in order and lacking the disarray that inhibits calmness. So yes, first I cleaned the house.

Secondly I went to the gym. I had to go to work for 1.5 hours first but then I went to the gym . Infact I invested in the university gym membership that morning (it only took me 5 years) so I didn't have to find change. Also I was out in my Van Morrison t-shirt which is a bright yellow neon type one and instantly makes you feel of sunny disposition. At the gym I ran 5k and for some reason it was on the crazy hill climbing setting so I had to climb hills too. This made me sleep very well which is all part of it.

Thirdly and finally I came home and watched tv for a while, ate warm food and hid under blankets with mollycat for a couple of hours which is always good.

Despite all my efforts yesterday though I still feel a bit off and I always tend to brainwash myself. Sometimes this is by watching television and sometimes it is a bit more introspective. Here it is: I worked out one of my favourite days. And I'm going to describe it.

22nd December 2009

It was 22nd December 2009. It was me and Stuart's four year anniversary but that wasn't the point. It was a week or so into the crazy snow. Well, the crazy snow that had covered most of Scotland, lots of England and even bloody London - all except Glasgow. And this 3 days before Christmas. So I was angry and frustrated at the lack of snow and I was waiting on Stuart getting home. I can't remember if he was at work or if he was doing something else but I was waiting on him. Anyway we had been planning to go to the Christmas market at St Enoch Square with Jamie and about an hour before we were heading out... it started snowing!

So by the time we left there was a covering of snow. We donned our winter items, hats, scarves, gloves, coats and boots, and headed out.

We walked into town and hit george square as a myriad of horizontal flying snow, traffic and fair ground rides.

We were meant to be going ice skating but it was snowing heavily now and not exactly being experts we settled for drinking mulled wine in the tent they have. The tent has picnin benches with rugs, blankets and cushions on the seats and a disco ball inside.

Then Jamie arrived! And we headed to St. Enoch Square.

We got to the Christmas market and it started hammering it down with snow. It was like fog and you could hardly see the other side of the stalls.

We proceeded to make some crazy faces then headed in to the new Hamleys store for some snowy respite.

We wandered for a while then Jamie left (i think he was working?) and Stuart and I headed home via Georege Square again. They had turned on the lights and everything was perfect.

Then we walked back to Jobe and made a snowman in the back before heading inside to drink sherry and bacardi with cats and hotwaterbottles.


I don't think theres anything wrong with wishing for a white christmas. I don't think theres anything wrong with emulating a Victorian style christmas either. Last year I was worried I was getting into the christmas spirit way too early and limited myself to not doing anything Christmas prior to November (including shopping). This year this isn't as much of a problem - it is already mid October. Stuart and Dad's birthdays are past, Halloween is around the corner and my birthday too. From then on out it's Christmas time. If something is so important, so great and so fussed over you may as well extend it and enjoy it. I'm so anti grinch this year.