Winter Gardens

I knew there was something I’d forgotten to write a bit about. Over the weekend, we all went over to Sheffield to see one of the new developments there, the Winter Gardens. I must admit, I actually really liked them – they’re a lot smaller than I’d expected from the site and so on, but they’re still an exceptionally pleasant addition to the city.

When it comes to Sheffield, I hadn’t really been there for many years. It’s actually a place that’s linked in my mind with visits to the Grandparents, and all the joys that involves. Just thinking of the place made me simply think of grotty power-station cooling towers, grimy city and generally not that pleasant. But over the last five years or so, it’s undergone a huge revamp, what with the Winter Gardens, the Peace Gardens, and much more besides.

I think I’ll have to make a couple more visits to Sheffield before I can make a full re-assessment of the place, but it’s already gone a long way towards improving my own perception of the place.

Meme of the Galactic Toss Monkey

And yes, just to keep on with a theme, there’s even something on Blogpsot now – I’m amazed Gordon didn’t think of it first….

Text message abbreviations

A very quick kudos to Vicky for her comment in Green Fairy‘s website regarding some of the nastier abbreviations.

Tw@ is going into my own lexicon and dictionary for phone texts, that’s for sure…

Scotland

Yes, it’s taken me some time to finish and upload (and in fact there’s still one day’s stuff to be written), but the tale and photos are finally uploaded and sitting pretty in the scotland section. Enjoy…

Interesting points

Watching Jonathon Meades’ new programme on Britons and their food was a complete joy. His observation that the more cooking programmes we watch on TV, the more pre-prepared ready meals we eat made me laugh out loud.

Day of Weirdness

Yes, I’ve been very slack on the blog front since returning from the wilds of Scotland. Truth be told, I picked up a dollop of flu (again – it’s the clean air that does it, I swear) and have been feeling truly vile since returning, in conjunction with having guests (and a dog) until yesterday.

But today, despite the fact I’m still coughing like a laboratory beagle, I’m almost back on form. And (via Mike at Troubled Diva), the saga of How to cook a Goose Egg.

And in my own email today, spam about terrorist attacks in the US and how to survive them.

Some people are just dafter than others

What a welcome back to society. The news that some idiots are going to try replication a 200 year old endurance challenge might not seem all that relevant. Until you realise that what they’re doing is actually attempting to walk 1000 miles in 1000 hours. That’s about six weeks without proper sleep, just sort of napping between miles.

I wish them all the best luck in the world – but they’re definitely totally insane.