Food, Craft, Medical Procedures, Indie Night and More Crafting

So I've had a very eventful and extremely stressful week.  The beginning and end were certainly better than the middle, which I can't go into here, but hopefully will be able to share in the future as a totally horrendous and almost seemingly impossible fictional story.  

So I started off the week in Angel as a very grateful guest of my friend Kate who was putting me up on Sunday night as I had to meet with a client in London on Monday to discuss a candidate short-list.  In payment I took her out for dinner at a gorgeous French restaurant which we went to the last time that I visited.  I highly recommend this restaurant - Le Mercury.  

I had poached pears with walnuts and blue cheese to start. For my main I had some really rich duck breast with some incredibly well cooked cabbage and beautiful creamy mash.  And for dessert, I had a very decent crème brulee. 

To burn it all off the next morning we got up bright and early and went to Virgin Active Angel, met one of my other friends Rachel and did a hardcore session of Circuits for 45 minutes.  It certainly woke me up and I felt much more energised for the day (although I did end up aching muchly afterwards).

On the train ride to and from London I occupied myself by practising the embroidery that Hayley had been teaching me last weekend and I started to make up the kit that she had bought for me (for 50p from Embroiderers Guild).  I used my friend Gemma's blog post who had also made the same kit up  as a guide to help me know what I needed to do.  The train guard was very confused by how I had managed to avoid stabbing myself.  The kit was based on a child's drawing and reminded me of this amazing post about children's drawings made into toys

Here are the finished results which I gave to my husband instead of a birthday card.

On Friday I had the not particularly pleasant (but at least not painful) experience of a Colonoscopy.  (I'm writing this in reassurance of anyone that might have to experience this in the future) There is thankfully nothing wrong with me, but more of a check-up, but I deliberately didn't google this before going in as I didn't want to scare myself.  

The reality was that I was fortunate enough to be referred by the NHS to The Spire which is a private hospital in Roundhay.  I don't believe that I received any particularly higher medical expertise or treatment, but I had my own private room and after the procedure was served a very tasty tuna sandwich with a garnish and a pot of tea.  There was also free wifi and a TV.  

I was given two Enemas which weren't as scary as I thought and certainly less painful that some things I've experienced in hospital examinations.  What was more painful was the embarrassment of having to walk up to the theatre in my dressing gown (fluffy and with stars all over - not embarrassing  and my only pair of slippers - a horrendously kitsch pair of elf style Christmas themed slippers - mortifying!)  The procedure itself was not painful, but more uncomfortable and probably the most off putting thing was lying on my side and being able to see in real time an Embarrassing Bodies style view of my own insides.   I have to confess that I did shut my eyes at  some points.  The good news was that I wasn't given a sedative before the procedure and so I was able to head out to join my colleagues on a night out leaving do.

We started off our night at Lazy Lounge where I was warned by helpful bar staff that a Gin and Tonic would cost £8, so I opted for a nice glass of Prosecco which was on happy hour offer at £3.50.  We then walked up to BRB on Call Lane and had pizza and a few more drinks before heading to Elbow Rooms for a few games of pool.  I'm *awful* at pool, but do have an odd ability to sneak in the occasional fluke shot and managed to pot 2 balls at once in opposite pockets at one point.  A few people started to drift off home and so some of us walked over to Mojo (where my WI Buns & Roses  originally used as their meeting place) and I had one of my favourite cocktails an Amaretto Sour.  We made a swift exit when a couple of over amorous ladies were chatting up some of the guys and we went next door to Verve.  Both bars played some really good music varied Indie and rock music, so I made the suggestion that as it was getting later (about half midnight) we could head over to Leeds Met Student Union and go to Fuel which seems to be the new name for Star which I went to every Friday night that I possibly could when I was a student from about 1999 through until I graduated in 2001 (in fact I discovered evidence of my frequent attendance when tidying through some boxes yesterday evening in a scrap book with 13 old tickets stuck in for posterity)  Impressive that it's only gone up to £5 from £3 in the last 10 years!  

We were out quite late and the night got mixed reviews as it's not the usual haunt for a bunch of recruitment consultants.  Star was a pretty straightforward formula cheap entry + cheap drinks + loud music + dark dank room + students and Fuel was similar with an addition or  Cirque de Soleil style rope acrobatics, pyrotechnics and more video screens.  Nonetheless I think that the general feedback was positive (I certainly had a good time) and in summary I remember dancing to Rage Against the Machine, Blink 182 and even this...

PS. Check out the lyric translation here - it's amazing!

Saturday was a much lazier day of crafting on the sofa whilst watching repeats of Sex and the City and The Bill.  I managed to finish off my Pumpkin Head Felt Zombie from the workshop that I did at Buns & Roses last year so the Standard Zombie has a friend.  

I then put my skills to good use - my boss has 3 boys and they all wanted the same cuddly pig toy for Christmas so I offered to help them differentiate by sewing their names in their favourite colours.  I suggested the ears, but she reckoned that (as they are boys) this location would be better - what do you think?  

Living La Vida Cocoa!

So I might just have mentioned before that I'm on the committee of Buns & Roses WI which is a lot of work, but really good fun.  This evening for example we had a chocolate making workshop courtesy of York Cocoa House which was brilliant.  Unsurprisingly our workshop was fully booked and so we had 34 lovely ladies together to make and enjoy some lovely chocolate.

First of all we got to taste the chocolate we were using which was gorgeously creamy milk chocolate.  This was then made into a ganache (chocolate + butter + double cream heated to boiling point, poured over and mixed together).  We piped out the ganache into what can only be described as "dollops" and then they went to be cooled.  We then tempered some more chocolate for using to make chocolate lollies and dipping our ganache to make truffles.  What do you think we used to melt the chocolate?  I can bet that you weren't thinking hair dryer!  Surprisingly this worked really well and we used melted chocolate to make lollies which we decorated with orange, lemon and strawberry flavoured chocolate buttons - yummy!

After making a lot of mess "shaping" the ganache and then dipping in chocolate we then put our creations into  plastic presentation bags (sampling quite a few along the way thank you very much!).

Laura from York Cocoa House was a great presenter, really engaging.  And I think it was great value for money - £12 for members and £15 for non members.  My friend Jenny also started off the evening really well by giving me some fudge that she'd made for me to try.  

I also have finished my embroidered art picture and so Hayley very kindly stretched and stapled it onto a frame for me - here is the finished article.

A day of stitching and motor bikes

This morning I was supposed to get up very early (about 5.30 am), load up the car and do a carboot sale near Leeds Bradford Airport, but when I finally woke up my phone said 9.40 am which was far too late.  

I got up (eventually) and then headed over to my friend Hayley's house for a day of stitching and crafting.  On the way I picked up an apple pie milkshake and a pineapple, strawberry and cherry smoothie from Shaky Jakes, some Bakewell Tart from Costellos and some porridge with raisins from Love Rouge Bakery strangely served to take out in a coffee cup.  All of these things were yummy (although can't personally comment on the milkshake because that was for Hayley as part payment for personal stitching tuition.)  

I first met Hayley at Buns & Roses which is an amazing WI Group based in Leeds City Centre (I might be slightly biased now as I'm on the committee, but I do believe it's awesome).  I was very disappointed that I couldn't go along to one of the workshops in August which was called Night of the Living Thread and the blog post is here if you want to read about it.  Hayley very kindly offered to teach me and so I took up far too much of her Sunday learning how to do some English Paper Patchworking, Fussy Cutting, Blanket Stitch as well as lots of other hints and tips like how to sew on sequins and spray paint fabric.

In between stitching, Hayley and Flower also introduced me to Moto GP (apologies Hayley if it wasn't, but I think this is what it was called) which I found far more interesting to watch than usual car racing.  The riders go around corners with their knees literally on the floor to take the corner as tightly as possible - this is not something that I have ever seen before!

Anyway, I've not yet finished my stitching project, but here it is as a work in progress - Hayley is going to help me stretch it over a canvas when I've finished it.  It's very orange, neon and covered with owls and skulls.   Thanks Hayley for all your help - I had a really lovely day.