Someone hates me...

I'm quite disturbed. That's 'disturbed' in the 'I'm fairly perturbed' sense, not the 'where's someone put my straitjacket?' sense.

It seems that someone hates me, and moreover that they have fairly good reason. I am currently contemplating crawling under my desk, but that would put me in close proximity to my footwear and at the moment that makes me writhe in shame. (Hard to imagine, I know). Let me fill you in on the background...

Sunday night I received an email from persons unknown stating "You are a thief". I had no idea who the person was, the only clue was that the email was cc'd to an old friend from Uni. I emailed said friend who insouciantly responded "Oh yeah, she hates you - you stole her shoes".


?!??

I don't remember this.


According to reliable sources, a few years ago at Uni I got rat-arsed in the bar, ogled this girl's shoes, then later in the nightclub hared off with them. What happened to the footwear post-nightclub is a mystery. Certainly they haven't remained with me. What I don't get is how I managed to snaffle them in the first place. I mean to say, how can you not notice someone removing your strappy shoes? (I'm making an assumption here, I can't imagine I would steal a pair of trainers or such like).

I've sent a tentative email back offering to reimburse the cost of the missing tootsie-warmers but so far its been a frosty silence.


This is perhaps not (embarrased little cough) my finest moment.

Well Slap me with a Spoon and call me Mrs. Beeton!

I had an unexpected burst of literary and culinary creativity the other night. It may have been due to the welcomed bank holiday break and the knowledge that my snotty, cold-infested state would prevent me from going to work the next day, allowing me to stop obsessing about NHS targets and actually unwind a wee bit.

Whatever the reason, I had a bit of a Conran moment in the kitchen (though I feel more spiritually akin to Floyd) and came up with a dish so spendiferously, lip-smackingly good that I spent the evening in a warm fug of Smug.

Now what I usually do when this occurs is think "gosh, that's tasty, must remember how I made that" then promptly forget and spend many heart-breaking hours in the kitchen trying to recreate the glory of that lost dish. I seem to do this on an alarmingly regular basis. Early senile dementia, one supposes...ho hum. So, several months ago, I bought a journal for the express purpose of noting down the receipe of anything tasty I make.

Then lived off 3 minute noodles and muesli bars for a couple of months while my work went into the stratosphere.

Anyway, this distressing state of affairs came to an end with the aforementioned culinary moment (Prune and Flaked Almond Wood Pigeon Tagine, for the interested) and I opened the virgin pages of my journal to jot down the receipe.

2 hours later I was still writing, having penned several pages with titles such as 'The Difficulty of Woodpigeon', 'Cream: A Tale of Unrequited Love and (tummy) Trouble' and 'How not to eat Oysters' grrr...

As a consequence, its less of a standard cook book than an odd gallimaufry of strange foody opinions, receipes and anecdotal tales. Incrediably user-unfriendly, but since I'm the only one who will read it, it doesn't really matter does it?

And it makes me giggle.

Specially the bit about the oysters.

er, Hello?

Um, noticed I've been a bit on the absent side. Right, this is to, um, well, y'know...