Tuesday 15 April 2008

Oh the glamour pt 2: Bradford, Cambridge, London

I'm writing this post on a train, reflecting on how much this particular environment will be a feature of my life this week. The two projects I've found myself on lately (the Irish thing does indeed seem to have let me go... fingers crossed) are helpfully located in Cambridge and Bradford, so I've seen a bit more of Kings Cross than I normally prefer to of late.

Small mercies: the majority of the work for both can be done either at my home office near the city or the offices of a creative agency in Piccadilly, but nonetheless this week I'm in Cambridge this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon, Bradford Wednesday and Thursday and hopefully London on Friday but who knows.

Both are good, fun, broadening projects which I'm enjoying a lot at the moment, but the travelling thing does put a bit of a dent in my life and my cashflow (racking up near £500 in travel expenses every month can be tricky to manage). Still, I'm not complaining, it pays the bills, most months.

Last week I ran another wine tasting for the team at work, with attendees from various other parts of the business taking the numbers up to around 30 or so, an improvement on previous evenings and weirdly for some reason suggested that a room of 30 people is easier to control than 20 - or perhaps I'm getting better at it, I dunno. Still, they seemed to enjoy it, and for the Facebookers amongst you the photos are up on our company group somewhere should you wish.

The weekend which followed was great, if surprisingly brief, with E&T coming round for dinner on Saturday night, which involved a morning's barging round Borough Market and Tesco and an afternoon's increasingly frantic cooking. Most of it went well, with the notable exception of me screwing up a lemon meringue pie AGAIN - this is turning into something of a culinary nemesis for me.

I'm sure I've made it perfectly at least once, but for some reason over the past few years they won't hold their shape properly. It all generally tastes great, but it's just a bit runny. I set some of the curd separately this time, and it set perfectly, so I think it's my meringue that's the problem - I think I need to spend a bit more time making sure it's properly robust, otherwise it sags a bit and (I think) causes the filling to sort of unset.

The Kiwi has got tickets to the wrestling tonight. Can't wait.

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