tayles

It was so nice to have a long weekend. 

Friday we just went to a farm shop for coffee and cake and some goodies for the weekend, followed by a trip to the garden centre. In the afternoon we started putting stuff in the allotment — cabbages, brussels, kale, broccoli, celeriac, kohl rabi, and romanesco cauliflower in the brassica bed, plus tomatoes and sweet peppers in the tomato bed, and parsnips in the planter. 

Saturday we went to London! We went to Serpentine Gallery to see an amazing exhibition by sculptor Barbara Chase-Ribaud. Her work was beautiful. 

We had brunch in the restaurant next door, the architecture for which was designed by Zaha Hadid and was beautiful. I had shakshuka which burned the fuck out of my mouth but was delicious. 

So... holiday has been a weird little limbo for two weeks. I don't really feel like I've had a holiday, it's a bit strange. So have a horse update first. 

Cape Liberty managed to pop her foal out the morning before we flew out — an utterly gorgeous looking colt we've nicknamed Calippo (Mohaather ex Cape Liberty). Apparently very like his brother, he's curious, friendly, and full of energy. I can't stress enough how good he looks. Gorgeous thing.

1. Spend an entire night in A&E

Ugh. Past few days have been a bit pants.

We went out on Tuesday for a meal for G's birthday, and it was a very large, rich, OTT meal, and I definitely ate too much. Woke up just after midnight with the worst acid reflux, basically didn't sleep all night, between the throwing up and the chest pain. Called in sick on Wednesday, managed to sleep a few hours, ate what I thought would be an innocuous dinner (microwave shepherds' pie) and it immediately started again. G suggested we go to A&E, I didn't want to, so I called 111. 

If you know you're not suffering a heart attack but have chest pain DO NOT CALL 111. The minute they heard I was having bad chest pain they despatched an ambulance. 

So we waited two hours for an ambulance, they showed up around 10ish, did an ECG and other things which all showed heart was normal, but strongly recommended I go to A&E for blood tests to check there was no signs of clotting (because when I took deep breaths my chest hurt, which in retrospect was probably just bruising from the throwing up). So G & I got in the car, arrived at A&E around 11:30pm. 

But I just elected to have Our Flag Means Death be the media of choice for Q1's Pride Media Club, and I regret nothing about trying to make my entire office as crazy about the stupid gay pirate show as I am. 

Is this an abuse of power as the Pride Alliance lead? Yes, yes it is. Do I feel guilty? NOT EVEN REMOTELY.

I am fucking obsessed. 

Seventeen days til holiday, yaaaaaayyyy!! Off to Thailand in February. On the one hand, yay holiday, on the other, FiL and his wife will be with us the entire time. So. Could be a long two weeks. We've got three nights in Bangkok, three nights in Hua Hin, then a bit of a road trip up north to Udon Thani. We may spend a couple of days up by the border and the Mekong. It's my first time in Thailand and I am so looking forward to it. 

I'm not looking forward to packing. Why is packing always so stressful?

Spending far too much money getting ready for the holiday. Whoops. But turns out I don't have enough warm weather outfits, or wash stuff, or ANYTHING. My wardrobe has been needing a bit of an overhaul for years, so at least I'll have lots of lovely clothes come summer. Roll on payday, since I can apparently now claim cat-sitting fees on our Wellbeing Allowance. Oh, and I got a little bonus for my work on the thrice-cursed Onboarding project, so that's something. 

Now that project is closed, and I've completed a couple of other mini projects, I'm being moved onto a new one that should give me some great experience and exposure. It's been a good couple of weeks having some free time, but be good to have another project to get stuck into. 

In other news, I finally got round to watching Our Flag Means Death, and I am officially fangirling. It's so well done. It's incredibly inclusive, it's daft and funny, it's actually loosely (VERY loosely) based on historical truth, and it's just wonderful. And so gay. My lovely gay pirates. I wasn't expecting to end up fangirling so hard, but the ending of season one did me in and now I'm trawling AO3, and alarmingly attracted to Taika Waititi as Blackbeard. Especially with the beard. Maybe only with the beard. Either way, it's not what I expected going in to this show. I'm here for it though. 

1. What did you do in 2022 that you’d never done before?

Sold some foals. Went to Dubai and Greece. Made sloe gin!

Last week before Christmas, whoo!

We managed to nab the last Christmas tree at the farm shop on Thursday, and I got the last bits I needed for Christmas presents. Thankfully the last tree was a good-looking one, and we prettied it up with some new decs and lights. Which meant we had extra lights, so our potted palm also got some prettying.

We had MiL and her partner over on Friday. We ordered a delivery from an online UK butcher of a cushion of venison, which was a little later than ideal (thanks DPD), but did eventually arrive in time for us to have dinner. G did an AMAZING job cooking a full roast, including a celeriac puree using celeriac from the allotment. It was delicious. And then he finished off with poached pears, which normally I would say is not an acceptable dessert, but they were incredible. I take back all my misgivings about cooked fruit. 

And it was actually a pleasant afternoon! C managed to only say one mildly homophobic comment, and one mildly xenophobic comment, which has to be some sort of record. It went pretty well. 

Fuuuuuuuu how is it so close to Christmas already??

We sold the foals :( It was sad to see them go, but they sold well, and are both going to great new homes, so I'm happy.