House Sold December 15, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Loughborough, Money.add a comment
Woo Hoo! We completed on our house sale today. Thank God! We have almost 6 figures in our bank account (well, not so much if u take off the student loans) – should be a great deposit to use to buy our next house in Australia. We left the new occupants an information pack about the house as well as a bottle of bubbly to welcome them. It does feel ever so sad as that was our home for 6 years, but in the same way it’s about time that we moved on to pastures new. I hope that we can find a house and home we can be equally, if not more happy in.
Last Night in Loughborough December 11, 2008
Posted by graciek in Australia, Going Out, Life in General, Loughborough.Tags: moving house
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Oh how sad. Tonight was our last night in Loughborough. After over 11 years spent here it’s finally time to move on. We went out to a restaurant called Red Chilli with a few close friends. Was really lovely just chatting and eating (as usual) it all felt quite normal till it came time to leave. I was saying bye and as usual just said “see ya later”. Which was a bit strange as it’ll be a lot later when we see peeps again. Driving back home was strange as it’ll be the last time I come home (at least to this house). So in summary – I’m quite sad, I’m still partially in denial, and I’m also really excited about going (and finally finishing emptying out the house!).
Going Out for Lunch September 14, 2008
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General, Loughborough.Tags: the basin loughborough
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We went to The Basin again today. The last time went was the night before I went into labour. Took my sister and BIL as they were passing through after a wedding at Belvoir Castle. Had a mixture of dim sum dishes and some noodles to share. It was great to eat out for a change as since Evie was born 7 weeks ago we haven’t been out to a restaurant. She was good as gold just sleeping away in her seat, and looking around and making mouthing faces as we ate. She got a bit grumpy as we were paying the bill and we had to quickly bundle her out.
Here’s what we had:
- Beef Ho Fun (yummy, though beef a little dry, no proliferation of beansprouts or onions)
- Prawn Pad Thai (can’t comment as allergic to shellfish)
- Gyoza (crispy, gooey, yumminess)
- Chicken Katsu Futomaki (yummy, but only 2 pieces)
- Crispy Duck Roll (only 1 piece, not at all crispy really, mostly cucunber)
- Siu Mai (again, shellfish)
- Glutinous Rice in Leaves (tasted good, but not as moist as at dim sum restaurant)
- Char Siu Pow (average, not much filling)
Happy Birthday Rachy July 23, 2008
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General, Loughborough.Tags: birthday, friendship
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It’s one of my closest friend’s birthday today. Happy Birthday Rachy. We met on the first day at University. My little known fact about Rach is that I have known her since before she was gay!! (ha ha, well before she was out at least). Rach is one of those friends where it doesn’t matter what you do or say or how long u’ve been crap at keeping in touch, but when you catch up it’s just like old times. No nonsense, no crap friendship. Which is why I guess we’ve been friends for what is coming up to 11 years. I bought my first alcoholic drink with Rach! Rach introduced me to the joys of Mexican food! Rach and I are also the same age (less than a month difference) so next year we’ll be the big 3-0 together (although I’ll be in Oz by then)!
So we baked a cake a couple of night’s ago for her birthday and iced it yesterday. The last couple of times we’ve been over we’ve played Ticket to Ride board game and I found a fan site (David Millard’s Unofficial UK Version) where they have a UK version of the game. So I printed out a big laminated poster of it and the route cards for her birthday. We went out to The Basin in Loughborough which only opened at the beginning of this month. It’s kind of like pan-asian food and has Dim Sum (Chinese), Japanese and Thai food. It was actually quite reasonable and the food was really very tasty (even though they were not in portions of 3 as you would expect). The only thing I didn’t like was the furniture – v uncomfortable for a 8 3/4 month pregnant woman. There was the option of japanese style benches or these curved wooden seats which were also uncomfortable. But then again almost every seat bar my birthing ball is uncomfortable now – in fact everything is uncomfortable in general! But on the whole I would give it a big thumbs up and recommend to anyone else. We had 6 small dishes for starters (dim sum, sushi,gyoza, etc) and a rice/noodle dish each (4 of us) and it came to about £15 each inc drinks too so quite reasonable.
Summary of the day: Had another estate agent visit for a valuation, Had chippy for lunch (v naughty), Sat on birthing ball playing Guitar Hero III, Beat Lou in the battle playing Devil Went Down to Georgia (only in Easy mode though), Got Guitar Hero RSI in my left hand!!, Went over to Rachy’s and then out to dinner, Got chopstick RSI in my right hand! Went back to Rachy’s to eat birthday cake and play TIcket to Ride – UK
Summer Fete July 5, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Loughborough, Under the Weather.add a comment
Yikes – I survived today after having woken up at 2am! So exhausted! Today was our local parish church’s (Good Shepherd) Summer Fete. It’s a bit of a community day and raises money for the church (repairs, etc). We promised to make some cakes this year (which we did on Thurs evening – yummy Choc Bramble cupcakes) and hubby made a buzzer game. It’s like one of those old games you remember where you have a wire ring on a handle and have to loop it around a wire course without touching the ring onto the metal – I don’t think it was the most popular stall and was quite loud with the buzzer and flashing lights. Seemed to be most popular with 10-15 year olds (I guess the older generations have shakier hands, and the younger ones couldn’t reach the table properly). So I managed to stay awake long enough to go to the fete and help “man” the stall. The weather was gorgeous considering it was forecast for rain and gales, we ended up with a bright sunny Saturday and the ice cream stall was very popular. Got home at 5pm and was even more knackered.
I don’t think I ought to have pushed myself so much today as by dinner time I was feeling terrible. Kept seeing twinkly stars around my peripheral vision and getting double vision (although strange as the images were not only separate but also twisted at angles to each other – v psychedelic). My hands and feet kept going numb and I was beginning to think something might be wrong with me. In the end I think we realised that it was probably a mixture of dehydration (yes our stand was one of only a handful that didn’t have a gazebo and we were baked all afternoon), low blood pressure and we had forgotten (run out of time) to have any lunch so I guess blood sugar was also low. Not good.
Summary of the day: Couldn’t sleep, Got stuff ready for fete, Went to fete, Got baked, Felt terrible, Managed to get a 20 min nap, Watched Dr Who finale, Had dinner (at around 8.30pm), Sat in nursery with hubby listening to classical music, Felt much better
Booking Train Tickets Online June 25, 2008
Posted by graciek in Family, Life in General, Loughborough.Tags: booking train tickets online
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With the impending new arrival, my parents are going to come visit Loughborough for a week or so in August. As they’re getting on a bit and don’t like driving long distances I booked some train tickets online for them. They get free off-peak travel in London (being over 60 you get a free travel pass) so all I had to do was book the St Pancras – Loughborough leg. Sometimes they have some cracking Advance deal tickets. Last year I think it was £7 each each way (so £28 for both of them return – it would cost 3x as much in petrol to drive up). It only takes about 90 mins on the train from London so it’s not too bad a trip.
So first I went to Network Rail website and started to put in the journey partculars. Excellent, there’s some tickets at £7 again from London to Loughborough – but hang on the Loughborough to London ones are £46! So I started to try different dates. It’s most frustrating as you have to keep going back and forth changing the dates and waiting for it to recalculate. I noticed a button near the bottom that helps you to find cheap seats over a range of dates – but that’s useless as you can’t seem to add more than one date anyway (no matter how many times you try to add more). Eventually I worked out that any time from 23rd August onwards was going to be expensive (I guess lots of families off for 10 day holidays what with the Bank Holiday at the end of the month).
So that’s the days sorted then – 14th August to 22nd August, now to work out which trains to get them on. Now they can’t get to St Pancras till at least 11am because they have to get off-peak trains from Beckenham first. Hmm there’s tickets available for £7 at 11.55 – excellent that’ll do. Now 22nd August, there’s plenty of tickets for £9, but they don’t want to hit rush hour on the trains when they cross London, so need to be at St Pancras by 15:30 ish. Excellent – there’s a £7 ticket that gets in at 15:14. Now make my selections and try to book – oh I seem to be being redirected to East Midlands Trains website (hmm they’re not Midland Mainline anymore). It’s allocated some seats for those trains – but the parents need to travel forward facing – hmm Network Rail site didn’t give me that option so I start all over again on the EMT website. Putting in the same details only to find that the tickets for cheap trains are different, but at least I can allocate forward facing table seats! End up with train from St Pancras at 12:30 and return from Lboro at 13:44. Hmm, hang on, isn’t Loughborough a short platform and have I not had to run down the train at the last moment before to be able to get off the train somewhere other than a 4ft drop! So thought best to give the station a call – can’t for love or money find a direct number for Loughborough and end up talking to Customer Services in Derby (after getting through the various recorded options) – good the seats autoallocated won’t be in the wrong carriages. Now, finally time to book. Damn it wants my login and password (what, this is a new site, not Midland Mainline anymore) and now I have to trawl through my old email trying to find out what these details may be!! Everything is paid for and confirmed and I try and print out the confirmation – funny they’ve made it open in a new window with no File Menu on it so I can’t save it.
It certainly wasn’t simple booking online at all. Last year seemed to be so much easier! I imagine that a lot of people would get fed up and just give up after a while. There’s no way my parents could have booked it themselves. My mum asked what she would do next year when we’ve moved to Oz and she won’t have me to book the trains – I said, well you won’t need to get the train to Lboro anymore as we won’t be there!! ha ha
Summary of the day: Went onto Campus to drop stuff off and collect prescriptions, Went to Aldi to get some food (lots of reduced stuff in there today), Went to Merlins to pick up some arrows and other bits and bobs for hubby, Went to chemist to drop off prescription, Had lunch, Tried to book train tickets (2hrs of my life), Made steak and jacket potatoes for dinner.
Isn’t it Almost June??? May 26, 2008
Posted by graciek in Life in General, Loughborough.Tags: lousy weather
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Hmm today’s max temperature was 12 deg. It’s almost June FFS! Feels like it’s gone back to being February again. It was actually warmer in Sydney (in winter) today than it was in UK.
Hubby and I had a fairly relaxed Bank Holiday and went shopping in the morning. It was dead in town guess everyone else must have been hungover somewhere! We had to return/exchange our baby gate to Argos as they had a product recall. Popped into Poundstretcher just to see what el-cheapo stuff they were selling (actually I was reading on the Bounty Pregnancy forums about the little bits and bobs other ladies had got there). Bought 300 nappy bags for 99p and a selection of random cleaning products. Then we wandered off to Subway for lunch (2 meals for £5.99 – mmm Meatball Marinara) and then off to Wilkos to get some Cocoa Butter (no sign of stretch marks yet, keeping fingers crossed). On the way back to the car park the wind was really getting strong and I was waddling along, stupid Braxton Hicks coming on, trousers trying to fall down off my hips, top trying to ride up above the bump, cardigan blowing off my shoulders. I think I needed about 14 hands to carry the stuff, and hold various bits of clothing around myself. I was sooo angry and irrational I was telling the weather off (I don’t think it worked as the wind didn’t die down at all).
Summary of the day: Went shopping, Relaxed, Did a few chores, Had a lovely afternoon nap, Comforted the dog after hubby accidentally dropped her down the stairs (oh dear, what will we do when he gets butter fingers with the baby?).
Beer Fest & Old Friends May 4, 2008
Posted by graciek in Going Out, Life in General, Loughborough.Tags: lufbra
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Considering we had nothing planned this weekend, we seem to have had a jam packed time anyway. Got a phone call early afternoon from an old friend (in fact an ex from ages ago) and some other mutual friends from student days who were back in Loughborough for the day. They wanted to know if I would like to come on a campus wander around to see what’s changed (hmm, passed on that seeing as I drive through campus every day). Met up at the Students’ Union (yikes haven’t been there since October) for a coffee and found out there was a beer festival on. John was happy as he got a tankard and quite a few 1/2 pints of various tipples. I had a soya mocha decaff yum (wow the Ritazza is so cheap at the SU – £1.50).
Summary of the day: Played piano at church, Went shopping at Aldi, Went out to see old friends, Folded clothes (oddly therapeutic), Watched Family Guy Blue Harvest (it rocked)
Farewell 2007 December 31, 2007
Posted by graciek in Loughborough, Musings.Tags: 2007 Retrospectacle
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It’s the end of yet another year. Time to look back and see what I did…
Main events of this year for me (at least those I can remember from the fuzziness I call “my brain”):
- applying and getting a permanent residency visa for emigrating to Oz
- cousin Steve’s wedding
- having lots of building work done
- not going on holiday at all (first year we’ve not gone anywhere as tourists)
- big conference trip to San Diego
- finding out about facebook
- starting my blog (of course!!)
- buying my first laptop (all the previous ones were work owned)
Roll on 2008!
Summary of the day: Didn’t do much at all, Went to Aldi to pick up some laundry liquid (came back with £50 worth of crap), Relaxed, Thought about doing some work (didn’t!)
Stormy Weather! December 28, 2007
Posted by graciek in Loughborough.add a comment
Drove back from London today. Bloody awful weather. Rain, rain and more rain. It took us 4 hrs to get back cross country. Of course it wasn’t helped by the fact I dozed off after about an hour and when I woke up we appeared to be heading TOWARDS London again!! 30 mins of chastising driving hubby and we were back on track (didn’t go back to sleep again after that).
Summary of the day: Packed car and tidied room, Had early lunch, Sat in car (and sat and sat), Got home and put heating on (brr), Unpacked car and made fish with mash for dinner.
