A martini is a terrible thing to waste.

Deer Chasing Dog

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Nov 24, 2011 4 Comments

I was explaining to Matt over the weekend that in Central London we have a large park with wild deer roaming around.

Enjoy Fenton and his owner!    Happy Thanksgiving.



Happy Thanksgiving.

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Nov 23, 2011 5 Comments

I am grateful for my family, my friends, my boyfriend, and for all 30 of you who read this blog.

…and for the big gigantic martini I just drank.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours  (your martini, that is.)

 



New York Weekend

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Nov 23, 2011 7 Comments

This last weekend I headed over to New York for a bit of a weekend break, but I have come to think that these weekends are very dangerous. Each time I visit I fall in love with the city a little bit more and I leave wondering just how easy it would be to quit my job, sell my house and move across.

The weekend was fantastic and the only thing that very slightly tainted it was the flight there and back. I love flying and country hop throughout Europe quite regularly, but flying Continental Airways is a whole different story.

Is there a huge retirement park where cabin crew from around the world go once retired and where Continental go to recruit their crew? At one point I thought Betty or Fanny or whatever the crew members name was, was about to climb on top of the food cart and take a nap. The poor love looked exhausted and as if she was due to retire when the Wright Brothers took to the skies. I’m pleased to inform you though that she made the complete flight safe and sound – Probably only to go and change her teeth and fly off to Japan or something.

Once in NYC it was probably less than 30 mins before Matt was plying me with alcohol which, naturally as Matt is such a good host, didn’t stop flowing until about 5 hours before my flight home.

Living in London I am used to city living and the fast pace of commuters, but coming out of Penn Station after my train from Newark I felt like younger (white) brother of Eddie Murphy in Coming to America. I literally stood on the sidewalk clutching my bag on my shoulder and being bounced around like human pinball as all the commuters were rushing home in their suits and white trainers – What’s that about??

I then attempted to call a cab whilst only being able to wave like an over excited child having had too many e-numbers. I will never be the coolest kid on the block, but I must have looked like I had just escaped from a care home.

I only really have two observations from this little trip:

Firstly, I spent the entire weekend not knowing what the hell I was eating. Is it not possible to go into a bar for breakfast and just ask for some scrambled eggs on toast?  How can that be so difficult.

“Sure, do you want, monkey bread, arabic virgin bride rye bread slightly toasted in one corner, breast milk with soya pinch sesame seed loaf, etc ….”

“Um, do you have brown bread?”

“Sure, and what eggs do you want, we have albino dodo eggs, Alaskan golden eagle eggs hatched 2 hours ago, tap dancing and show tune singing duck eggs…..?”

“Um, is it possible to have a chicken egg?”

This went on for most meals I had. Don’t get me wrong, the food was delicious, and it helped that Dana ‘Chef Superstar’ was there, but still the next time I come over I am going to hold up pictures of the food I fancy eating and hope that the closest match gets laid in front of me.

Secondly, lets talk about White Noise.  White Noise, WTF is white noise? 

For those who are unfamiliar with it, white noise is a noise that you play to block out background noise. 

I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it.

So you drown out the sound of birds singing and people walking past the window talking by playing a high pitch screaming which can only resemble an I-phone being raped by an Apple Macbook. It seems to work a dream for getting Matt to catch up on his afternoon nap, but I found trying to recall the names of each of Justin Bieber’s hits as a much better tool to fall asleep.

However, having said that, I would have sacrificed my entire future sex life to have some kind of white noise on the flight home to try and drown out a very overexcited loud redneck behind me on the flight back to London, who I can only assume has never been on a plane before, or is allergic to watery ravioli plane food, which causes her to scream like a crazy woman on a 10 minute cycle or when she got another free drink.

It wont be long until I return to the hussle and bussle of New York, and I am already counting the days.



Living Social deal.

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Nov 22, 2011 6 Comments

Photo above by camera deity, Pete Corcoran.

 

So, I am entering into uncharted territories.  We signed up The Olde English Pub for Living Social dot com.

Those sales people are RELENTLESS.  (I’m talking to you, Chris ;)

I’m not sure how I feel about it, as part of the deal, we basically give away $20 worth of food and in exchange, Living Social gives us $5 for each deal purchased.  (wah wahhhhhh)

It’s supposed to be great exposure, and since we’re a relatively new business, we thought it might be good for business…. so we’ll see.

Check it out if you use Living Social.

or… just come to The Olde English and actually spend $20 :)



“Out to dinner…”

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Nov 22, 2011 23 Comments

 

That’s what my family calls it when we go to a restaurant, like… “Do you guys want to do Out To Dinner tonight?”  It’s always a huge YES!! from myself and my two kids,  while my wife occasionally nixes the idea since she always annoyingly has one eye on our checking account.  Frugality can destroy a good meal before it even gets started.

But so can so bad service.  The idea of what I expect from a restaurant as proper and acceptable service was on display during both of our family’s  dining experiences from this past weekend.  The topic had been breached by my friend who told a story of how he opened his menu at a very respectable restaurant lately and in it was stuck  a piece of bubble gum.  During the same visit  another waitress was vacuuming around their table while they were still having coffee.  Both indefensible service infractions.

At two separate meals this weekend (at two nice but not-high-end restaurants  that I love going to by the way) these things happened.  On their own I’d be an asshole to make a fuss, but put together they became pretty aggravating (in no order): (more…)