Purple Realm

Christmas fell upon us yesterday. I had such a hard time getting to sleep. I always do, even if there are no presents. It's just... inbuilt, I guess.
Got a good 4 hours of sleep though, and awoke at about 8:30. I had my green tea, cereal and a ciggie, then started on the gifts I was allowed to open before I got Mik up.
There were some from Mum and a "just-because" present sent to me from Rosie simply because she saw it and thought of me which I decided to save for Christmas day
I opened those with glee, then got Mik up so I could open the ones from him, too, and so he could open his gifts also. I spent a while playing with and sorting out my loot and then realised it was time to prepare the food, so I got all that stuff done and dusted so all we'd have to do would be to put certain things in at certain times, and then I took a nap
Dinner was lovely, by the way, and we spent the rest of the day in a food-induced, sleep-deprived mini-coma
Today came along and we were picked up by Dawnie in her car for our first visit to her house. Had a lovely time, another lovely dinner, and some more lovely gifts. It was great seeing everyone, especially as we've not been able to visit much at all since moving here over two years ago.
We just got back at 9pm and I took that opportunity to photograph all my lovely lootage

Here we have a book of 200 cookie recipes, a Hello Kitty underwear set, a Hello Kitty keyring and a magnet from Mum. We also have a Hello Kitty tin, some joss sticks and a joss stick holder from Dawnie. We have a great big Hello Kitty marshmallow pop from Rosie (which I now see is partially obstructed and is FAR too cute to be eaten ) and the rest of that stuff is a whole bunch of Soap & Glory toiletries from Mik - enough to last a very long time indeedie I adore Soap & Glory stuff in general, but I can't usually afford it, so this was great. And of course, I love Hello Kitty so freaking much, as you can see people know by now
So, for me, it was a Christmas filled with my favourite brands and types of thing - Hello Kitty, Soap and Glory, cuteness, sweetness, pampering and practicality. But mostly fun-ness.

There'll be more on the gift front posted once my birthday arrives, because I'm a pampered git
Hope you all had a good Yuletide and, if you're into that thing, some cool, heartfelt gifts from wonderful people who know you well, like I did. Thanks!

Right, I'm sure most of you have heard about Red Dead Redemption from a post Mik made a little while ago. We got it on release day and we love it. It's especially a high mark from me, considering I find Western times very off-putting and pretty much hate anything to do with cowboys and such.
But what can I say? They've designed the game so well. It's fun, interesting, challenging... It's also very miserable, though. Nothing ever ends well . So, I load my game when I'm feeling blue and push hookers down stairs, blow myself up with dynamite, shoot people when I lose at poker...
You can lasso and hogtie people in this, and I saw a woman and it reminded me of those old black and white villain movies where they leave a woman tied on a train track . Anyway, I tried to do it but she got away. I was feeling a little blue sometime later and so Mik chased down a nun and waited ages for a train to make me laugh...
Nun went splat, and there's a secret achievement for actually doing it .
Also, I found a glitch, I push random blackjack players and it teleports me into mid air, out in the wilderness where I fall to my death. Or sometimes it puts me between walls of buildings.
Funny.
It's a decent game.

We've had rather a busy day today - random gas service man came over to do something or other to the boiler. He was here for a good 45 minutes, and then Asda called to ask if it was ok to deliver our groceries 3 hours before they were due . Lots of people around then, of course, but you know.
Then finally I get a call from Nokia. I bought a game on Ovi store a couple of weeks ago, and it wouldn't install. They tried getting me to do certain things that can work for such problems, but none of it worked. I had no reply after the last suggestion failed, so I got angry and mailed them again. They phoned and said they'd look into it last Friday, and I got the call back today. Long story short, I was given an £8 Ovi Music Store voucher as reimbursement for a £1.50 game .

Gran visited a couple of days ago. We hadn't seen her in a good six weeks or so, so we chatted a lot. 3 hours flew by so quickly, but we enjoyed each other's company a lot. I also managed to go to just outside our house to wave at my favourite aunt

My dad is visiting tomorrow. I have decided to roast a chicken. We will have:
Roast chicken
Roast potatoes
Boiled potatoes
Broccoli
Green beans
Peas
Sweetcorn
Stuffing
and
Crispy Yorkshires.
And for dessert, homemade blueberry muffins with vanilla ice-cream... If we can fit them in our bursting stomachs .

The last time I ordered our groceries, I was browsing around the website when I saw a new product, which resembled a Screwball ice-cream.

A Screwball is typically defined as a plastic cone of flavoured ice-cream with a gumball at the bottom. Here in England, the ice-cream is usually vanilla with small ripples of raspberry sauce. A favourite among children when I was a kid.

Well, I like cold dairy products. I love mint and chocolate together. And a pack of four was only 97p, so I thought, "why not?"

When the groceries arrived, Mik and I "oohed" at the box.
Chocolate and mint mousse with small pieces of real chocolate, and an Aero chocolate ball at the bottom, it described. You're supposed to leave it out for thirty minutes so it's defrosted into a mousse.

Well, I got bored after about 15 minutes, so I ate it.

Nice enough, mild minty taste and unmistakable chocolatey goodness. Good size too - and the little bits of chocolate are a nice texture change.

The chocolate ball at the bottom though, well... It seemed out of place. The mixture of flavours in the mousse were divine, but eating that little ball of plain old milk Aero at the end ruined it a little.

I ate my second and last one completely frozen, and I enjoyed it even more. I prefer ice-cream to mousse, and it was nice as such.
Still with the crappiness of the bubble at the bottom.

I'd buy it again at the same price, but it'd be so much more enjoyable (and fitting for the flavours) if they stuck in a mint chocolate bubble at the bottom rather than normal chocolate.

I stoled that photo from here

I just made 73 dark chocolate chip muffins. And they cost £1.14 in total, which is roughly 1.5pence per muffin. Good value, eh?
(sorry, phone camera rubbish. And yes, there's five missing. We ate them.)

Anyone with vision better than that of a flying marsupial can tell that there's something different about the size of these muffins. Perhaps the big white kettle on the right gives it away? Or do I just have the biggest kitchen drawer handles in the universe ?

Yup. They're my very own Dark Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins. Look how cute...
I attempted tiny muffins for the first time a couple weeks ago, and now I've had demands... Even though my first ones spilled over the cases, they are sought after. And I bet even moreso now they are in good shape...
How many people remembered that I like tiny food?