With magic soakin' my spine

lights the birthday candles

diagon — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:20:36 GMT

Here in balmy NZ it has just passed midnight - it's no longer Jan 10: My darling Dad's 80th birthday - but it is now offically Jan 11, which is the birthday of the most awesome best friend a gal could ever wish to have.

She's a writer, she's a beta, she's an editor, she's an excellent cook, she's a generously empathic counsellor, she's a sucker for hot, tall, complex guys and for shows that sandrine uggests to her and she's really all-round awesome in every single way.

glitterburnhope you have an incredibly special day and I am incredibly sorry I can't be there to celebrate with you.

The hamsters and Wolfy have strict instructions to show you a good time, and I'll take you for birthday coffee the very minute we're in the same country again (allowing for travel north and jetlag, of course)

**************

Meanwhile, random trip to NZ is indeed random - I found out I have a cousin in Amsterdam I never knew about: I met both the new babies in the family (neice and great-nephew): I thought I'd lost my wallet in Singapore, so cancelled cards in Melbourne and then got notified that it was recovered with all contents intact at Heathrow: I saw just how hard-hitting my favourite bro-in-law's kindney cancer has been (he can still party hard, but the recovery takes all week); we've had floods and torrential rain and at one stage my computer told me it was warmer in York (middle of winter) than it was here in Southland (middle of summer).

I've managed to catch up with all four of my siblings and nearly all of the neices and nephews, including two who are at uni in Oz, and my Godfather who I haven't see in pretty much 10years, and sped loads of quality time with my Dad.

Ad I have been remided again that my Dad and the rest of my family are incredibly generous and loving and while we may be scattered and have more than a few skeletons in our collective closests, we sure do know how to throw a great party.

01/07

diagon — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 23:01:56 GMT

I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things

And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find

~ Roy Croft (abridged)

Squint a bit

diagon — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:49:30 GMT

Reading a Klaine fic that's a reworking of Legally Blonde made me want to watch the film again for the first time in about 10 years.

So we find it online and start watching and it's cute but something really bugs me about the ex-boyfriend Warner, apart from him being a massive arse for dumping Reece Witherspoon's character.

"I know him from somewhere" I say to glitterburn then I do what I usually do to age someone up and squint a lot.

About 20 minutes in I finally work out where I know the Warner actor from.... It's ALARIC from TVD!!

Nice work avoiding being type cast Matthew Davis - I don't know what he was doing for the 10 years in between but it aged him from dull, preppy college-type into rough, hardy, can-keep-up-with-Damon-no-worries-type. I'm impressed.

Apart from that we spent today in York where I had bulgoggi and bubble tea for lunch and later my favourite barista totally undercharged me for coffee and when I pointed it out gave me a very cheeky grin and a "I know". Flirting with young guys has more advantages than I remembered.

And then came home to check the Tumblr coverage of SMTown in Taiwan where we find it was very hot because the boys were very sweaty and making themselves very crossover-worthy - Donghae appearing to kiss Changmin's neck while being giving a piggy-back ride, and Yunho grabbing Sungmin from behind in a way that made glitterburn's week.

Noisy cough beast

diagon — Thu, 31 May 2012 06:04:01 GMT

Happy birthday to deltachild from the House of Ham!

My not-sure-if-it's-a-lurgy has moved from throat to bronchial tubes which is ace, because I know how to handle that sort of lurgy.
However, because of the lurgy yesterday's date was a bit of a wash-out. The movie was really quite dull and couldn't be bothered to get the frapp afterwards. So came home and marathoned three eps of NCIS. We is so rock and roll.

Today I will mostly be watching the Leveson Inquiry and still laughing a little at my boss who is spending his penultimate day at work at home because his wife filled his diesel car with petrol last night... or at least, that's what he's claiming. If he doesn't come in on Friday I'm drinking the wine we got him.

Chuffing Norah

diagon — Tue, 29 May 2012 18:19:13 GMT

I have a sorry excuse for a sore throat. It's practically nothing but it's sapped all my energy and I feel like shit. But because it doesn't feel like a real cold then I feel doubly rubbish for being so feeble over practically nothing. It's probably made worse by the fact it's so sunny and gorgeous here I just want to hang outside and drink rose. But I feel too ill for wine, so it must be more serious than the symptoms present.

In brighter news, I managed to leave work on time today which was remarkable considering my immediate boss is on holiday. Yesterday I did 2,5 hours overtime, mostly stuff that he should/would have been chasing. Part of that was to do with our big boss leaving on Friday and not technically being replaced which will be... interesting. I asked him yesterday if he was leaving a forwarding number. He said "no, not a chance" - I pointed out that we could use Twitter instead and he offered to change his username!

Brighter still is that I don't have to work tomorrow, so I have a date to go see MIB 3 and try the new Starbucks cookies and cream frapp. (I'm a cheap date, what can I say?)

And still brighter - glitterburn keeps dropping delicious bits of her new Homin in my lap. It's completely out of order, but utterly brilliant. She's on a real writing roll, helped hugely by the fact I disconnected the LANS on her laptop so she is internetless for much of the day - it's been quite frightening how productive she is without the Twitter/Tumblr/LJ constant-shiny.

Okay, screw it all. It's barely 7.30pm, but I'm going to bed.

If I don't surface before Thursday: Happy Birthday deltachild. The hamsters send tiny hugs of much love to the island and we all wish you a really groovy day xxx

Ginger Judas

diagon — Wed, 16 May 2012 05:35:18 GMT

Tim Minchin is going to play Judas in the new ALW version of Jesus Christ Superstar. Yes, yes, yes and again I say yes. Snarky, Australian, back-combed, ginger Judas is just my cup of tea.

And if that didn't make me giddy with piano-thumping excitement, Chris Moyles (my totally inexplicable secret crush) is going to play Herod. Ohhhhh what a pity if it's all a lie - still I'm sure that you can rock the cynics if you try.

I don't care who the public picks to play Jesus (or that Mel C is Mary Magdalene) - I am going to see this show!

Just have to decide if it's more practical to go to Brum or Sheff.

In other news... I have no other news. I'm off to the beach on Saturday and I'm not coming back until it's properly summer and not fecking freezing every morning.

ETA: Last night I accidentally turned off the thing that sends work emails to my Blackberry. Coupled with IT idiots not telling either me or Howard (who are guinea-pigging the Outlook upgrade) that the old webmail address would no longer work for us, it meant that I didn't have a clue what was happening at work for more than 12 hours. Very liberating. I should try that more often.

I've still got it...

diagon — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 21:54:16 GMT

~~...although sometimes I still doubt I ever had it.~~

So my day was totally made this morning when my favourite barista, whose coffee chain shop we visit maybe only two or three times a month, confirmed in the most blatant terms that yes he was flirting me.

His name is Alex, he's no more than mid-20s, he's seriously cute and he makes excellent coffee. And despite the hundreds of people he serves every day (he's in a super busy store) he always remembers my slightly complicated coffee order (skinny vanilla latte, normal gingerbread latte, both large in takeaway cups but to have in) and today he asked me my name.

glitterburn has been trying to convice me he's been flirting with me for weeks, but I scoffed. However today, there really was no denying it. She thinks this is hilarious, but like a good best friend is totally chuffed for me.

If I was single I'd be working out how to best sharpen my cougar claws... but as sweet as Alex is, I wouldn't swap what I've got for him. Even if he threw free coffee into the deal.

Although if it was Changmin flirting with me like that and he had a milk steamer I ~~would be~~ might be slightly more tempted *ducks*

That was quick

diagon — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 01:24:43 GMT

The IT guy has just wandered up stairs with the remote control for the electronic clocks and set them all forward by an hour.

This means I only have to work seven hours instead of eight.

I have to confess that I like our overnight shift (10pm to 6am for seven nights and then the next seven off) - but logistically it's a bit of a nightmare to be effectively out-of-office for two weeks which is why I only do it twice a year.

However, there is one downside to the clocks going forward: both lixia84 and glitterburn have furnished me with new fics this evening and I owe them a wealth of commentary and have less time than usual to doss around.

In other news SHINee's Stranger and Sherlock have eaten my brain. I can't believe I'm considering a need for an icon of these ill-dressed children. Two of them were born in 1991 which is the same year one of my best mates at school had her daughter at age 16 and one of them wasn't born until my first year at Poly. That's ridic and verging on creepy. Stupid earworm-provoking K-pop talents. At least they make The Homin seem nearly as grown-up as me in comparison.

don't tell anyone...

diagon — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:50:29 GMT

..I'll let you in on a little secret.

This morning as I was walking in to work at 5.40am the sky was not black. There was actual sun-rise lightening of the sky!

You know what that means kiddimalinks? It's SUMMER!!!

Not only do the clocks go forward next week, but I actually put the lawn mower battery on to charge yesterday (which means it will rain tomorrow, but never mind)

I'm such a sucker for sunshine that I'm going to bouncing on the "nearly summer" thing all week.

Also I made really kick-ass chicken noodle soup in the slow cooker overnight and it's proper moreish and works out about tuppence a serving.

That was a week

diagon — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:48:28 GMT

Well, what a week that was.
There was a birth, a birthday, brownie, new boots (sadly the b's end there); plus Shropshire, a new cocktail, a new Homin fic, marathoning a most excellent new US drama and indulging in my favourite Korean rom-com thanks to a gifted boxset.

The best part of the week was that our lovely Val gave birth to the most beautiful baby. A seriously handsome boy and not remotely squished or red like the majority of new people. That was the best-ever txt message to wake up to on Wednesday. We're so proud of you Val!!

Second best bit was that it was my birthday and I got hugely spoiled (again). I was secretly hoping to have a baby born on my birthday, but I'm happy to make do with new boots, the Paradise Ranch boxset and some other lovely treats plus glitterburn wrote me a fabulous Homin fic called The Seaweed to your Sashimi after telling me that she didn't have time to write me a birthday fic (sneaky, sneaky) AND she baked me chocolate brownie.

Third best bit was watching all of Homeland in a week. A really brilliant US thriller that was proper edge-of-seat tension with both great writing and great acting. If you like tense drama you should really watch Homeland. It's on Channel 4 right now, but I wasn't patient enough to wait for it to play out each week so I found another source :D

I'm going to give up on the ranking now because the rest of the week was all awesome too - we had a few days in Shropshire, Wales, and Birmingham and just chilled. I also invented a new drink. Ginger wine and Pepsi Max - incredibly sweet, but I love it - and it has been named a Ginger Shim for reasons I'm not going to explain because I'll look like a fangirl.

Moving on (haha) I'm introducing S to Paradise Ranch with the superbly grumpy Changmin - and every single time he throws a strop on the show we turn to each other and say "poor Yunho" because I don't think there's much difference between his acting strops and his real strops and the only person who can grin sunnily in the face of that? Jung Yunho.

Which reminds me of the only less-than-good part of the week. Bloody 2am having a comeback means the Changmin tumblr tag is full of ugly. Not as bad a clash as is going on in the Sherlock tag (laughs hard) but annoying to have my pretty Korean lad diluted with the pure grim that is the 2am version.

Hope you all have a wonderful March - I plan too xxx

Muchly snow

diagon — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:46:03 GMT

So yesterday I was wearing flip flops and complaining about my sunburnt feet.

Today we had to delay getting off the plane at Manchester so they could throw grit over the snow-laden steps.

Luckily I'd traded my flip flops for my boots before departure.

Came back to a freezing house because I thought it would be mild enough to leave the heating off while we were away (in my defence it was incredibly mild for all of Dec and Jan). We are now sitting in S's room catching up on life online with the halogen heater oscillating between us and I may just be wearing fingerless gloves and a scarf.

But it was worth it to have some Spanish sun, and Malaga was as lovely as last year. Plus we had the added bonus of a couple of nights in Granada which turns out is an alpine town just like Queenstown in NZ which I didn't realise until my lips totally dried out after about 45 minutes. Living on the flats of Yorkshire I had completely forgotten what mountain climate does to me. It was in Granada that I also made the morning of about 27 people who did a double take at me wearing flip flops on our morning walk out for cafe con leche.

S is going to do all the proper holiday highlights and historical references over in her LJ, so I'll just settle for my favourite bit of today:

We took an early run over to Calle Larios to get Pan & Co for the plane since the airport sandwiches were vile last year, but they weren't open til 10am, so we tried Larios Centre instead, which was also closed til 10am - but on the way back to the hotel to get the case we were stopped (I should point out the whole city was pretty much deserted, despite it being 9am on a Saturday morning) by a tourist asking for directions, and she was South Korean. Handily, where she had to go was pretty much on our way back so we walked with her halfway and managed to surprise the bejesus out of her by saying that we liked South Korean music.

Turned out she was more a fan of TVXQ than Super Junior because her response to Yunho and Changmin was pretty much *girlish giggle* "mmm very hot guys". Turns out that girlish giggles over very hot guys is a universal language...

viva l'espania!

Can't come soon enough

diagon — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:34:44 GMT

The problem with having a holiday booked for the end of January is that I've pretty much wasted all of January waiting for the holiday. January isn't supposed to be about waiting... it's supposed to be about getting started.

I can't quite believe it's the 20th already, but at the same time I'm figuratively dying for it to be the 29th, around about 10am, when we step into the sweet sun of southern Spain and get immersed in the beautiful historic fabulousness again.

Great way to start Chinese New Year, by visiting a city chocked full of Moorish architecture.

Before that I've got 4.5 days of work, 1.5 days of a knitting convention (you have to love my life, you really do), a dentist appointment and a pressing need to spend less time cruising the Tone tour tag on Tumblr.

In other news, I have a very lovely new pair of boots that were delivered yesterday which means I should be wearing them today, but I'm not allowed to until I've either lost a stone or my birthday - whichever comes sooner. *cries*

Oh well, c'est la vie :)

goms

diagon — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:30:51 GMT

Happy Birthday glitterburn

To the best best friend a girl could ever hope to have - hope you have a wonderful day and that the year ahead brings you inspiration for all the stories you're meant to write and that the muses are always hot, hard-working men with gorgeous smiles and complex back stories... *hugs tight*

Getting your facts rights

diagon — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:27:30 GMT

Corrections are pretty much an occupational hazard for journos like me - expected, but best avoided if you want to keep your reputation (and your job) - but occasionally there's a gem that makes the mistake-making almost worthwhile. Have a look at this from the New York Times:

Corrections: December 30 Published: December 29, 2011

An article on Monday about Jack Robison and Kirsten Lindsmith, two college students with Asperger syndrome who are navigating the perils of an intimate relationship, misidentified the character from the animated children’s TV show “My Little Pony” that Ms. Lindsmith said she visualized to cheer herself up. It is Twilight Sparkle, the nerdy intellectual, not Fluttershy, the kind animal lover.

New York Times My Little Pony correction

No fact is too trivial to get right. Plus, it's a really interesting article about how much we rely on physical and instinctive clues when dating that some people on the autism spectrum have no access to.

Good times

diagon — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 22:09:19 GMT

It's been a good night.

- I have a new LJ friend: needsmoregreen who wrote the Klaine fic for me that I raved about in my last post.

- I got a massive delivery of yarn for more knitty fun and I actually have patterns for 90% of it, which is rare for me as I'm such a sucker for pretty colours without specific purpose.

- Sian's very secret birthday present was delivered. *shhhh don't tell her*

- I finally spoke to my Dad after playing phone-tag since Christmas Day. His social life is busier than mine, it seems. His bit of NZ is suffering under drought conditions - but he could still appreciate how bizarre it was for us in the UK having 14 deg C on Christmas Day.
He spent the festive time with his newest grandchild (Isla, five months old) so he's chuffed to bits.
He also asked if we were still going over for his 80th (I'll be 79 next week, he told me - as if I could forget!) and sounded so happy when I said of course we were.

- And... I got ANOTHER fic gifted to me. Talk about greedy!

It's TVXQ RPS - but honestly hilarious and sweet and hot enough to enjoy without knowing the fandom (it's the two guys in my icon for those who haven't been playing along)
Come Fly With Me.
Last month glitterburn said I could challenge her to write a HoMin fic each month of 2012. (like I said, I'm greedy). The idea was to put all the challenges in a hat and pic a random one out. The really crack-tastic part of this challenge was that all of the prompts would be Mills and Boon trope-esque. We ruled out hospital romance because the glittery one has a medical squick, and I think I left out cowboys because that's more my thing than her (save a horse, and all that) but the rest of the prompts should be based on all the best romance archetypes.

The January challenge was "celebrity" and glitterburn outdid herself. It's a rare writer who can combine jokes about Carl Jung with enough UST to light several forest fires. I'm now impatient for February!

Happy New Year

diagon — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:57:37 GMT

It's almost midnight in New Zealand, so that's good enough for me!

Wishing my flist a safe, happy, prosperous and healthy 2012 filled with everything you need and a sizeable chunk of the things you want.

I'm off to find someone to snog.

Such a weird time of the year...

diagon — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:14:50 GMT

...The bit between Christmas and NY is always a little odd as it feels like I shouldn't be doing anything. Not helped by the fact I only had a couple of days at work and they were deathly quiet.

I'm working tomorrow from 2pm-10pm which should at least provide some fun as we'll be liveblogging the dawn of the NY around the world (starting in NZ at 11am GMT)

But there have been some highlights over the last few days

* The Andalucia trip is now all booked and paid for. We're going back to Malaga for half the week since we had such a great time last January, but also tacking on a couple of days in Granada so there's no chance of us missing Alhambra this time. I'm stupidly excited about this because Malaga was such a surprisingly good holiday last year that I felt I wasted the first few days finding my feet, whereas this time we'll know exactly what we're doing and where to go.

* I got the best story in the kb_holidays exchange. It's packed full of all the Kurt/Blaine characterisation I love (and much better than canon): All I Really Want For Christmas Is New Year's Day" (great title too - from a Kills song, if anyone wants a blast of faux-80s Manchester-miserablism)

* And if that wasn't enough, glitterburn is writing me a purely indulgent Poseidon fic set after Eun Chul takes off to Japan where "things are different" and he meets a law student called Max (see what she did there, K-Pop fans?)

I've read the first two parts (sort of). It's glitterburn at her best. So fecking hot I don't know how to breathe.

The fic idea comes from the slightly random, but incredibly welcome TVXQ intro vid

,
complete with Rammstein-esque soundtrack and Yunho in black leather waving a gun. This was shown on the SBS pre-New Years show last night. As soon as I saw it I thought "oooh hello Eun Chul, does Sun Woo know you're having walkie-talkie sex with someone else?"

* Odd thing Korean TV, the three main networks all get a pre-NY show on successive nights so that all the singing stars don't get double booked. This gives us three sets of new TVXQ and SuJu clips. I approve.

* Meanwhile, Yunho and Max seem to be flying to Japan every day in between these evening events for J-Pop award shows and "national treasure" concerts. This leaves them looking knackered in a succession of fine-looking tuxedos and stage outfits, and again provides more tumblr fodder for me to drool over. Apparently they're being given a generous few days off in the New Year before they start the Japanese arena tour.

* I'm test knitting a sock pattern for someone, but it's going a bit slowly because while the pattern is straightforward, I hate the yarn I picked for it. I also need to finish toes for another set of socks, and that was going to get done tonight while I rewatched a few more eps of series one of The Vampire Diaries - but instead I've been reading Klaine fic while listening to Shinee's Lucifer on repeat. I swear I didn't like that song the first time I heard it. I have no idea why I suddenly love it now.

* Talking of TVD, we've now finished season two and it was excellent. Actually, beyond excellent and that's mainly due to Damon. He's incredibly well written. Also love Caroline and Tyler and Elena and Alaric. Such a strong ensemble cast. I'm still kicking myself for giving up on it halfway through the pilot ep, and simultaneously thanking my lucky stars that sandrine brought us copies.

* And somehow, I seem to be rewatching Paradise Ranch for a third time. I have no explanation for this. None whatsoever. ~~Stupid Max and his stupidly sexy angry face~~

Hope you all have a lovely end to 2011 and a really special 2012 ahead of you. xxx

There goes Christmas...

diagon — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 11:53:58 GMT

...Someone just got her TVXQ calendar a day early (well it is Christmas Day in NZ already)

It came in its own presentation box. We've seen most of the images on tumblr, but not December... trust me when I say Sian's going to have December on show for pretty much all of the year.

These boys write their own fandom, I swear!! The UST that comes from Yunho being head over heels in love with Max and Max still thinking he's 95% straight but inexplicably wanting Yunho despite him being all man is what all Hallmark movies of the future should be made of.

Merry Christmas everyone, everywhere (from not-remotely-snowy Yorkshire)

10 years, baby

diagon — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:10:51 GMT

Leaving it right to the last minute to mark my 10th anniversary on LJ.

Nov 20 2001 I was head-over-heels in love with F1 and some of my tech-savvy fandom friends like Karen and Claudia waved LJ codes in my direction and so one night (a Tuesday) I came home from the movies and set myself up using my brand new shiny desktop computer.

This was two years before Facebook was invented. One month after the first ipod was made. I used to save photos onto 56mb floppy discs so my hard-drive didn't get overly full (it was a 256mb drive, I think??) and getting online meant a distinctive squeal as the dial-up connected and a careful eye on the clock as BT made you disconnect every two hours for some unknown reason. My mobile phone could only make calls and send txts... heady days!

I'd spend 90% of my time on the GF1 forum and the other 10% was spent raiding websites for F1 news and photos. There was no tumblr and YouTube was still four years away.

But the advantage of the lesser technology at our disposal meant we could spend loads of time on MSN. I logged hours on MSN with Dot and Steph and Nikki and Karen and Sian and Petra and Aafke and a whole bunch of other F1 fans.

We'd share photos and fic and make each other *thud* *wibble* and *bang* and I would write flash fics in chat windows and get sneak peaks of what the others were writing.

Live Journal opened that world up even more - I started to connect properly with the "other" slashers (them from ff.net, whereas I was in the Desiderata group) - Chrissy, Claudia, Val, Sian and others.

I am horrified by some of my earliest postings. Heck if I'm honest I'm horrified about some of the postings I made last week!

But even when I don't have anything to say I love LJ for connecting me with my friends, with fandom and all the wtf-ery and fun they all bring.

I can't believe that so many of those wonderful people are still on my flist. And I really regret not being in contact with some of those I lost.

Back then I lived in a town that's four miles away from the village where I live now. That makes me sound slightly hickish, but I did manage to move hemispheres twice in that time!

I've never had a Facebook - I liked the movie, but I didn't like the sound of the privacy settings from the get-go and now it's just a source of pride not to be on there - but I've always come back to LJ even when it has annoying attacks and downtime. LJ is familiar and I know where and who my friends are.

Thanks to everyone who has followed along - especially those who have put up with me from the start.

Claudia, who I think gave me my sign-up code, is coming to stay with us in less than a week.

Meanwhile, the very first person to comment on my LJ (any guesses? Lol) was a mere acquaintance back in 2001 - but now she's my best friend - that's got to be the best indication of what LJ has done for me.

Where I over enthuse about food...

diagon — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 17:58:28 GMT

We went into York today which was kind of dumb because York on a weekend is crowded and pushy, but on a weekend in the main shopping period before Christmas is super crowded and super pushy.

But it was all worth it when we had lunch and FINALLY tried

Seriously, one of the most delicious lunches I've ever eaten.

Dukbokki is Korean spicy rice cakes and we saw Wookie make it on one of the Taiwanese variety shows and it looked a lot nicer than kimchi.

There's a little place near where we park in York that looked like just a takeaway but had some Korean writing on the window, but the menu was mostly bento boxes, so we thought it was more Japanese and while we'd always meant to check it out, we seem to tend to fill ourselves up on coffee from Nero and not bother.

But today we were determined, and on the way into town I saw they had a sign for dukbokki and tables tucked right at the back so when we had all our shopping out of the way we went in.

We ordered a plate of dukbokki and a teriyaki chicken bento box just in case the dukbokki was mank or too spicy.

The woman who cooked for us asked if we'd been to Korea (I've been through Seoul airport but I don't think that counts) because we knew how to say dukbokki - and I said "No, we just like K-pop" which seems like the randomest reason to request a dish, but I didn't care.

They cooked it all fresh for us and my God it was good. We used to regularly go to a Japanese restaurant in NZ called Bonsai that had the best teriyaki salmon and udon and bentos, but this was just as good.

The teriyaki chicken was tender and sweet and came with loads of sticky rice and a great salad of eggplant, black beans, carrots and broccoli.

The dukbokki is finger-shaped cakes (like gnocchi, but made of rice flour) stewed in a thick chilli sauce with vegetables and a sort of thin fish-cake type thing which we used to get at bonsai as part of the kitsune udon (fox noodles). The little rice cakes soaked up the sauce flavour and it was spicy, but not too spicy and had really complex flavours.

We were SOOOO full afterwards and it was an utter bargain at just £5.50 each.

We'd already been to York or the outlet twice this week before yesterday, but now I want to go back tomorrow and eat again.

Shopping and lattes

diagon — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:46:52 GMT

First post-surgery latte happily consumed!

There is now officially no down-side to having my gallbladder out.

Going to the York outlet on a Sunday is always a slightly dumb idea because it's so crowded and while I'm normally standing tall and elbowing tardy folk out of the way, I've found I'm weirdly protective of my midriff and actually waited for people to move and for there to be space around me. That's so odd!

But it was a super successful trip as I got a bargain new wallet at Fossil to replace my lovely Istanbul Grand Bazaar which is now falling apart. (Actually wrote Grand Bizarre and then had to stop for a minute to work out why it looked wrong)

My old wallet was awesome because it cost me just $20 US after much haggling five years ago and I trashed it by over-filling it with coffee shop and supermarket loyalty cards until the point where it was stuffed like a pin-cushion (but in lovely leather with a fake Gucci detailing)

Then my Lindt shop had the 1kg boxes of Lindor balls back in for under a tenner which is even more awesome now I don't have any problems eating them (and I've officially lost a whole stone since the night I came out of hospital - although most of that will have been post-surgical body-in-panic bloating).

And finally, Gap Outlet was having a massive sale on everything so I got a top in the most gorgeous apple green (it was such a great colour I picked it out from halfway across the shelf and there was only one and I didn't actually care what size it was, as it was mine!!) plus a super snuggly logo hoodie and I got smaller, but just as snuggly logo hoodies for my nieces in NZ for Christmas.

Did I mention my baby sister had another baby in August? Isla Grace, which is a name I find much nicer than her sister's (Madeleine Kate) but also seems to have been picked from one of Bridget's favourite romance novels. For a tomboy my little sis has quite a girly streak about her.

That now makes 11 neices and nephews (plus one more via marriage) with a staggering age gap between oldest and youngest of 29 years!

My family is odd.

Time to go and make lasagne now. It's going to be super yummy because I no longer have to skimp on the red wine or cheese sauce.

It's just a car

diagon — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:16:31 GMT

So I should be pleased that this is the first time in six days I've spent more than an hour out of bed, but being curled up on the sofa under a blanket instead probably doesn't count...

But the good news is that my surgery went well and apart from a slight pulling on the staples that are holding four bits of me together I'm painfree although still quite tired (this is the first day in six days I've not had a nap)

I should be using this extra free time to write my Klaine Christmas exchange fic, but I'm a little caught up in the semantics of American teenagers, albeit one who is a staunch atheist, giving and receiving of blowjobs in or around a Catholic church. There's bound to be an anthropology research paper in that likelihood of that little pickle.

So to distract myself I seem to have formed the "Yunho's Poseidon Car" fanclub for no other reason than the car has had more screentime than the man himself and I'm missing him as much as Siwon is. Although Yunho did get a name-check in the last episode. He's apparently been lost in Japan. As if he could step foot in Japan without a thousand fangirls tracking his every move. His bad gangster daddy should get on tumblr more often.

Meanwhile, I've changed glitterburn's twitter password to something coded which combines the words JaeJoong and twat (not in that order, I'm cleverer than I look). Really she's too trusting.

It's also Suju's sixth anniversary since debut today and the word for the SS4 rehearsals is that Min is no longer ginger but is very tired from dancing so much. If he's gone back to black he can have a rest; if he's gone blond he has to keep practising to make up for it.

Hmmm reading back on this entry you'd think I was still on the kick-ass painkillers, but no... this comes from a totally lucid mind.

Ah well...

My day at work

diagon — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 14:15:10 GMT

9.45am: I arrive at work for the first time and sort a couple of small managerial admin jobs before I'm due to start my sub-editing shift at 10am

10am: H arrives at work thinking she's doing my 10am shift, when in fact she's due in at 2pm. H lives an hour away from work by car. I live a 7-minute walk away so I offer to go home and come back at 2pm for the late shift.

I have been in work for 30 minutes.

2pm: I arrive at work for the second time. S also arrives for work at 2pm which puzzles me as she's down for an 8am shift on the rota in a completely different department.
Head of completely different department is off getting married and his deputies didn't realise they were a sub down for six hours because they are idiots.

I offer them S for the last two hours of her 8am shift which they accept with grabby hands.
But that means S is back on my desk from 4pm which means we have an extra staff member we don't need on a Friday afternoon *touch wood*

So I'm going home at 4pm. My work day will have been 2 and a half hours with 28 minutes of walking to and fro on a lovely autumnal day.

And I don't have to pay those hours back because my boss loves me and I've already accrued five days worth of extra hours in the past four months (which means I get an extra week off in January)

Even better, tomorrow we're off to the beach for the week.

October and British beaches don't really mix, except that we're going to our tiny Victorian fishing village at the bottom of a really steep cliff and we're staying in our tiny cottage which looks out on the sea where we can be cocooned with books and knitting and box-sets and only leave the house for long beach walks on gorgeous moody coastlines.

I shall also be watching rugby (and F1) and if it's not a NZ v Wales final in Auckland next weekend I shall probably cry (a little) and then stoically remind myself that I support the best rugby nation in the world as long as there isn't a World Cup on.

Sunday is also the 10-year anniversary of my Mum dying so there may well be non-rugby tears but also a lot of time for reflection on what an amazing and rewarding and truly wonderful 10 years it's been since then.

Fandoms collide

diagon — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 18:21:02 GMT

So here comes a Glee spoiler that won't mean anything to anyone who doesn't like Korean boy bands but for safety's sake

Mike is going to sing Mr Simple by Super Junior (the K-pop group that now fills up most of my icons) in ep 3. Now that song doesn't make much sense in English but since Harry Shum Jr's parents are Chinese and Korean is a bit of a translation jump (pointedly not as "easy as eating" as Eunhyuk keeps proving) I can't see how he'll sing it in Korean.

Actually, if Mike just dances to it while the Korean original plays out that could be pretty cool and Siwon can tweet about watching it and then I can do my Chris Colfer/Wookie crossover and it wouldn't have to be crackfic because they'd have a reason to get their thin, pale, gorgeousness on. (Yes, I know it's sad that the two hottest guys on my radar are both gay and much prettier than they have a right to be but that's sort of the story of my life *waves to Ralf*)

So here's the Mr Simple vid (13 million hits in less that two months) - skip over the first 40 seconds of weird jazz and get straight into the colourful stuff and then tell me if you can see it fitting into Glee?

This sort of US exposure might be bigger than Super Junior being number 1 in Taiwan for 62 straight weeks (seriously, Asian music scene is scary).

However they do it I hope Kurt and Blaine get to join in at the start of the number, shaking their wrists and telling us they're both naughty, naughty.

And now I'm trying to work out if I can take the Wednesday after the third ep off work so I can watch the Tuesday night livestream.... *fandom continues to erode my sanity*

So yeah, only exciting to me and glitterburn because lixia84 is a serious academic and won't be watching Glee (even if our SJ addiction is all her fault)

In other news - life is going ace. I finished the week of overnights and was rewarded with a fab week down in West Sussex and finally, finally made it over to the Isle of Wight which was a lol-tastic trip as we arrived with 90% of the Bestival crowd and seemed to be the only people on the island not wearing wellies.

I've also got at least four and a half weeks off before Christmas, which is an accidental but fortunate thing.

Granted two weeks of that is recovering from surgery, but we're also getting a week in Robin Hood's Bay and possibly another in Cornwall - if I pull out of the pantomime, which I think I need to do because thigh-slapping five weeks after general anesthetic doesn't seem like one of my best ideas.

In other fandom news, I'm still not writing... but there's always yuletide

Head hurty

diagon — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 18:52:46 GMT

I'm in the middle of a three day weekend and it sure is nice to know I don't have to get up for work tomorrow.

So I'm currently lying on the sofa nicely sozzled from cava and cardamon syrup and I just spent 30 minutes out on the deck drinking and talking and snogging in an entirely delightful way.

But now I'm trying to ignore a headache which for once isn't caused by alcohol, but comes instead because I've had henna on my hair since lunchtime and the heaviness of all my stupid hair coiled onto my scalp plus a towel turban on top has made my neck ache.

I should go rinse it all out now, but the longer it stays on the redder my hair gets and God knows I'm a sucker for hair compliments which always tend to multiply when the henna has made it all shiny and soft. I should get a photo taken of it all soon - it's tailbone length now, which is probabaly "terminal length" and if it goes any longer it's likely to get too impractical to manage, but it does look remarkably good considering I used to have an urchin cut.

And I'm also feeling a tad nostalgic because doona_rose just made her 500th LJ post and I checked my stats and I'm not too far off my 1,000th, which isn't bad considering I stopped posting for a couple of years.

My first post was last November 2001 - about a month after my Mum died and I was hurtling very quickly into a very horrible depression that took almost a year to get out of. I sounded like such a knob back then, but I can see it was 90% an act...

But the best thing of reading back through those first entries was seeing that the very first comment I received was from oreitheia ... we'd only been talking on msn for about six or seven weeks at most (having been introduced by Rahalia) and hadn't even met in person.

Six months later we were sharing a house and she's now my very best friend and someone who I absolutely couldn't live without.

I've got a lot to thank LJ for.