Brain Dust

So if I am being honest today I am a little frazzled. I’m generally a really calm person, well unless you sneak up on me in the house to which I will jump as if you are a ninja.  I know moving does that to people so I’m not overly worried it is abnormal but I have a bunch of other little things to sort out that make me feel like I am trying to juggle fire sticks (not technically the right name for them).

The best thing to do when really stressed out is to take a moment to breathe. There is very little in this life that cannot be sorted out and taking a second to think everything through will stop you from panicking or feeling overwhelmed.  I am breathing lots and lots today, all the time in…out…in…out and so forth. Ok so I would be doing it anyway so I could stay alive but this breathing is focused, it’s special breathing I promise.

Due to the insane amount of packing and sorting out I have to do, this is where this blog ends. …
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Haha ok, all my special breathing has caused dust to go into my brain and its making me silly. Today's picture is how I want my new apartment to look ...........It won’t :(
Love you all

Meryl xxx

New Chocolate News

So anyone that read my blog when it was brand new will know I was a little obsessed with consistency when I first started. For some reason I was truly worried that my, all over the place, topic choices would put people off continuing reading. To remedy this I decided as long as I reported sporadically on chocolate related news stories I could pretend that my blog was chocolate centric with other topics thrown in. I should point out I now see this is the thought process of a mental patient but have come to terms with it and have a brand new chocolate related story for you today.

Chocolate covered iPads. Yes it sounds mental but it is true. You can now get your iPad coated in chocolate and wrapped in nice looking chocolate wrapping to confuse and surprise the recipient of this cool new piece of technology.  So I wasn’t sure if I thought this was cool or not so I shopped the idea around the office, and I am not going to lie it split the crowd.

There were three main argument strains.

1.    That’s pretty cool I want one
2.    What’s the point?
3.    There are starving people in the world and we are putting iPads into chocolate really?

I have to admit I’m a little on the fence. It is cool, if someone gave me an iPad covered in chocolate I would just die. It would literally be the coolest thing ever, but on the scale of unnecessary indulgences it is hitting the big 1, 0. It goes along with gold plated iPods and Swarovski covered blackberry’s it is just an extravagant amount of money to spend on something so superfluous. (big word)

This is the time I wish I knew how to create a poll on blogspot. It would be cool to have one of those bar chart things which show what you guys think on the matter. I personally think the best thing to do is believe in number three and secretly hope you get one. That way you can be a good person and a person with a chocolate covered iPad, it’s a win win all round.

Alright hope you all have very exciting weekends planned, mine will consist almost entirely of packing so I can imagine yours will be somewhat less humdrum. 5 days till moving day…move-y move-y.

Meryl xxx

Frozen Vegetables

Obviously frozen vegetables are somewhat of a second class to the fresh vegetables that parade themselves pompously among the vegetable section of the supermarket, but they last a long time, they are all ready cut and you don’t have to worry that a bug might be living inside them.

Also when I was buying fresh vegetables I found that some went bad almost instantly, and they end up being quite expensive. When I switched to frozen vegetables I thought I had found my solution, the vegetables of my dreams if you will, and I am still of the same mind, except… runner beans.

I was trying to make vegetables sound somewhat sinister there and I don’t think I succeeded, but something that has started to irritate me is how difficult it is to buy mixed frozen vegetables without there being a somewhat majority of runner beans thrown into the mix.

It’s just like when you open a pack of starburst and you’ve got five green ones, what is the point? People live for the red and purple ones, green are just filler that you eat first before savoring the good once. In this analogy baby corn count as red and water chestnuts as purple, god I love a water chestnut.

You are probably wondering why I don’t just buy a pack of frozen baby corn, or invest in a bag of water chestnuts to cook up with my beef, but it doesn’t work like that. If I really just mixed in one type of vegetable the whole meal looks a little sad, not to mention individual packaged vegetables are almost double the cost.

I have thankfully found the solution. All too often do I present to you, dear readers, nuisances of life and then leave it at that, but no more. I don’t like runner beans fresh, and I certainly don’t like the water filled chewy version that are frozen but I have been introduced to a new kind of vegetable called stir fry mix. Now the creators of ‘stir fry mix’ have done a very clever thing and switched up the runner beans for sugar snap peas (everyone’s favorite green vegetable) and the results are delicious if I were you I’d run out and by some right now.

This makes me think of a great show called Archer, it is an animated show released by adult swim and it is truly hilarious.  This poor employee is chopping vegetables at work for a stir fry to serve to his girlfriend later and when he tells archer they have special name for Friday’s stir fry night Archer replies ‘is it stirfriday?’ to which Cyril looking glum says ‘wow, that’s way better that what I had’

I guess the whole world is talking about Stir fry related things and I’m on the forefront. Reporting to you from my bedroom side table I’ve been Meryl have yourself a great evening.

xxx

Triple Decker Sandwhich

Je suis tres desole pour my absence yesterday. Look at that, starting my blog in some strange French to English mix, how Canadian am I? I have been trying so hard to keep up with my blog but yesterday just got away from me.

More importantly today I wanted to talk about triple decker sandwiches.  You may have heard of triple decker buses (Harry Potter Reference anybody) or triple decker trains (Go Canadian Transport) but triple decker sandwiches is a phrase that makes sense only to my grandpa, my siblings and me.

Triple Decker sandwiches are exactly as they sound, a sandwich with three layers.  My grandpa used to make them for me, my sister and my brother when we stayed round their house. Most commonly they would run like this. Piece of bread (preferably toast) sardines (probably two) piece of bread (again toasted) egg (hopefully scrambled) piece of toast, tomato, piece of toast. Done. 

Now of course when you are 8 years old and you have a sandwich the size of your face in front of you it becomes somewhat of a challenge, but my grandpa didn’t mind if we ate them, I think he just liked that we liked them.

Other than triple decker sandwich breakfasts it was my grandma that made the food in that household, and she is an absolutely incredible chef! She would make lasagna from scratch, amazing porridge (which looking back was probably ready brek with honey) and the best cheesecake in the land! There was no way you were coming back from G&G’s household hungry. We used to have so much fun there!

In other news, excitingly I have been asked to be a bridesmaid by my very good friend Grace!!! I am so excited for her and so excited that I get to be part of her special day and her life in general! Congrats again grace-la, this is going to be amazing!

This week may be a little blog light but only because I am moving to a new apartment next week and have a crazy amount of packing to do, still exciting to be moving, change always brings new excitements, as well as massive amounts of stress and panic…right?

Meryl x


PS – I could not find a picture of a triple decker sandwich that met with my high standards, so I drew one. It didn’t all pan out like I thought it would.

Gregg's Bakery

So my mum sent me an article about Gregg’s bakery. The English people reading this know exactly what Gregg’s is but for you Canadians I will take a minute to explain.
Greggs, or Gregg’s bakery is like a fast food bakery shop. You will find them everywhere in England and they sell cheap lardy food like sausage rolls in flaky pastry. They also specialize in all these different types of pasty and every donut or sweet treat you can even think of and for the older folk they sell fresh bread that we will cut there.  It was also where I had my very first job. I was 14 or 15 around that age, and I started at Gregg’s doing weekends to make a little bit of cash. 

Gregg’s take their stuff seriously, and I dreaded every second I had to spend there. In England sausage rolls are the perfect hangover, or drunken binge snack.  In fact I am sure all of you out there can appreciate how delicious a hot sausage roll would be after a heavy night out. What you can also understand is that being a 15 year old girl having to serve drunken lads sausage rolls at all hours of the night was far from an enjoyable experience.

I think I would still take drunken customers over preparing the food. There were always the fun jobs, like sugaring the donuts or icing the pastries where you could eat your wages in sweet treats, but I was also in charge of mixing the tuna mayonnaise, which has a surprisingly small amount of tuna in it, and scraping the burnt pork mince off the oven.

Those ovens. Not only did they make the back area of the store unbearably hot, they would beep two minutes before the pasties were ready, one minute before they were ready, and then every ten seconds until they were done. This was followed by one very long beep that persisted until you took the tray out the oven even if you did have a line of customers that you were serving. Sometimes I would hear the beeping in my dreams, just a sort of distant reminder that I would have to go back to work at some point.

On the plus side, Gregg’s Bakery treats their employees very well, even as a part timer I got a reasonable wage and an hour break. Plus the people were really nice. Management were kind of crazy though, they were just so into their jobs. In the article my mum sent they quoted an employee talking about Gregg’s recipe for Jam Donuts, and he replied 'We're re-evaluating it because we believe we can improve the mouth feel and flavor attached,’ It is weird isn’t it? Mouth feel, that does make me laugh.

I think everybody’s first job sucks, but it is an important milestone in becoming an adult. Unless you are babysitting, best job I ever had. You get paid lots of money to sit and watch television with someone else’s kids, in fact once I got a job looking after a dog.  Gregg’s was a typical first job, I learnt how to manage my time, how to run cash, how to talk to customers and how use a bread cutting machine without chopping off my fingers so all in all it was a great step for me and I look back on it fondly. Would I go back, never, but I would definitely stop in for a sausage roll.

Anyway, take a moment to read the article, it’s funny to see how serious they are about pleasing the customer and about what they feel the can improve. Hope all your Mondays go well!

Meryl xxx

Green Wing - Flying

Question and Answer

So I was sent a bunch of questions over the last few months to answer but I feel really weird doing a Q and A because it looks a bit pompous and tosser-ish (new word) but now that I have 11 of them sitting in my inbox I thought maybe if I do them really quickly it won’t feel so odd – like ripping off a Q and A band aid

1. What are you afraid off?

Ok easy one, birds. Its not so much a fear as a dislike, when I was very little my dad took me up to Trafalgar square to feed the birds and lots of them landed on me and I ended up with three on my arm knocking each other over and scratching me up.  City pigeons are the worst because they fear nothing, not even being trodden on but the ones in the country aren’t so bad. The only time I really got in trouble was in Venice when a million them took off at once and I ended up rolling in a ball on the floor while my friends laughingly picked me up.

2. What else do you write other than your blog?

Right now I am working on writing a television Sitcom, it’s so good that if I even shared a bit of it the universe would collapse on itself and we would all die. Although the peoples in suits seem unaffected by this and are happy to have me write it and rewrite it while they pitch it out for me.  I am also particularly good at writing lists

3. Why does every blog entry come up twice on facebook?

It is a very slow process making people check out a website, so I have my facebook set to import each one and show it as a note as well, that way if you can’t be bothered to click you can just read it there…lazy bastards

4. How much do you earn from your blog

You cheeky thing you asking about money, but if you must know, very little. As I have demonstrated I love to play with the algorithms for the advertisements along the sides of my entries and if people click them I get paid for it. Please don’t feel you have to click on them to help me make money, really don’t, but if you see something that interests you go crazy! I started my blog as a great way to showcase my writing, and when I do go to meetings for my sitcom I am able to present them with a website to show them my style, plus I have a feeling they are dying for new writers with detailed knowledge of the conker championships

5. If you were stranded on an island what three things would you take with me.

Easy – Jack, Sawyer and Desmond (he is my constant)

6. What is your favorite TV show?
Impossible question, there are too many good ones, not to mention I change my mind daily. I guess if it came down to the wire and I had to pick to save a baby Kawala from being shot I would say Gavin and Stacey. I think because it felt so real and sweet.  I didn’t pick Doctor Who, which came as a shock to me as much as it did to you. It is amazing and excellent and funny and clever and smart, but Gavin and Stacy is similar to something I would write, it is what I aspire to.

7. Pirates or Ninjas

This one was sent anonymously, which is so sad because it is my favorite question of the bunch, and I gave it some real thought.  I think Ninjas, it is because they could be anywhere, literally you could turn around and there would be ninja standing silently behind you. Of course you would then be dead, but you last thought would be ‘Oh my God a ninja’. Pirates are mostly at sea, you are less likely to see one and if you did you may be able to get away.

8. Do you have any secrets?

Lots and lots and lots and lots.

9. When do you normally write your blogs?

Sometimes I write them in my mind first while I am walking somewhere, and then write down as much as I can remember once I get to the computer. This is my favorite way of writing anything because I feel like you allow your thoughts to come to completion without being interrupted by getting it all down. If I do write them off the cusp it will normally be late at night, or on my break at work all depending on whether something has sparked my interest. I’m a little like a goldfish though, so I have a short period of time before I forget what I am thinking of have moved onto something else.

10. Is everything you write true?

I worry from this question that Danka (from Persia) you are assuming what I have written is so manic it might be made up. Unfortunately everything that I write actually happened or is happening or I think may happen. I don’t imagine my life to be any weirder than anyone elses but I do realize the way I write is. Introspection can be a blessing or a curse but I am off the belief that if you can laugh about anything that happens to you life is a little more enjoyable and a lot more fun. I should add that my entire blog about being afraid of padlocks wasn’t true but I hope from the tone of it you realized I was purposely lying to you readers to get out of trouble for not blogging in a while.

11. Do you want to become an internet star?

I would love a hundred billion people to read my website everyday but it isn’t why I write. I once heard an interview with David Sedaris and he said that everybody has an idea to write about but only very few people put pen to paper. I wanted to make sure I didn’t fall into that category and started a blog to force myself to write, it worked. As long as I get to write all the time and keep my focus I’d be happy even if no one read it.


Ok and we are done, feel free to send me anymore questions you have, or just leave them in the comments box. In fact I demand more comments, my special counter of page impressions is up to about 100 a day now and if you all leave a message it will make me happier than a kitten in a cat nip castle.

Love to all of you

Meryl xxx

Facebook Friends

This topic was actually a suggestion by my very intelligent friend Zina, and when intelligent friends offer you blog topics you bloody well better take ‘em. What she was saying is something I have heard a lot of people discuss which is what exactly it means to be someone’s facebook friend.

From previous blogs you probably know that I’m very pro facebook, this is partially because I moved country and it is a very convenient way to keep up with long distance friends but it is also because I personally believe it encourages social interaction.

This is a sticking point for people, turning genuine social interaction or ‘face time’ into technological interaction or ‘facebook’ (see what I did there) is really a reduction in human interconnectivity or mingling.  The best example that I’ve seen of this is a commercial for a phone. They have a gentleman sitting in a café and opposite him keep flashing different people who he is talking to, in the end you see in fact he is having a cup of coffee by himself texting away on his phone, the resounding message being ‘keep up with your friends’. It is difficult to know if that is what you are actually doing, or if in fact you are isolating yourself from the real life human beings sitting around you. Being on your phone certainly isn’t going to result in meeting someone new or feeling part of society so maybe technology is inhibiting social networking?!

Why do I think facebook is different from this?  I think facebook is different from this because your friend list tends to keep growing. Normally when you meet people at a party you don’t get to know them well enough to ask for a number or to suggest another meeting time, but adding someone to facebook allows you to explore the possibility that a new friendship could be forged. Zina said it best when she says it allows someone who is interested in finding out about you, to, well, find out about you. 

I really believe it is also useful for finding a relationship. By no means do I think facebook is a dating website, nor do I allow the lovely gentlemen from Egypt to add me after telling me ‘I have nice picture’. What facebook does do is eliminate moments such as those described by James Blunt where you meet someone you really like and then they are gone. Facebook enables people to stay connected after that first glance, reducing the crazy statistic that proximity is a discriminator for relationships. Socially it allows us to get to know more people, to reduce acquaintances and add more friends.

Facebook does a tonne of other crap too, like let people know what you are thinking about 24/7, share with others your likes and dislikes. It also sells most of your information to marketing companies for lots and lots of money. I guess sometimes you have to take the bad with the good, and marketing companies have always managed to get their hands on your stats way before facebook took off.  You have to be careful what you put up in a public domain but I have no sympathy for those who complain about it. If you pinned a picture of yourself onto a cork notice board in a community center and it was gone you would realize that it was a risk you were taking, posting stuff up on the internet is really the same deal.

I have this great link you guys should check out, it is from a hilarious show called the IT crowd, they do a whole episode on a new social networking website called ‘Friend Face’ and here is the clip. If you have time check out the whole episode here.


Anyway I must dash, things to do people to see, mostly on facebook in the farm I’m cultivating…just kidding I’m a nerd not a loser. (debatably)

Meryl xx

Shot – A – Palooza

When my friend decided to throw an event based around drinking many many shots I think we were all aware it may end a little sloppy. We were right it did. It was however huge amounts of fun. There were pudding shots and root beer float shots, and peanut butter and Jam shots, the rest of them kind of all blurred together in my mind, I can’t imagine why? See that wasn’t sarcasm the shots literally have decayed the part of my brain in charge of imagination. Only kidding, three quarters of my brain is taken up by imagination hence why I woke up yesterday morning laughing because of the dream I had.

It isn’t always easy to describe a dream but this one was so clear I wonder if perhaps it happened. It didn’t. In my drunken haze I fell fast asleep and dreamed I was in an elevator. It was pretty standard but had two full length mirrors on either side. The elevator stopped at the first floor and in walked this little round monster with one large blinky eye. It was actually very cute and it turned and looked at me give me a blink and turned back towards the door. The elevator continued to go up and on each floor more and more of these little monsters started clambering in. Now as anyone who has stood between two full length mirrors know when you look in one you see it’s reflection in the reflection of the mirror and inside that you see the reflection of the other mirror (you’re still following right) anyway it creates this endless hallway effect which goes on forever.
Once there were about 25 eye blinking monsters and me reflected in the mirrors we looked like a small monster army and for some reason they all kept blinking in perfect unison. It got too much for my drunken brain and I started laughing so hard in my dream I fully work up disorientated and a little disappointed. I was missing my blinky friends.

I actually re-told this dream to Jen the next day and she asked if the monsters were green. I should point out they were not, they were rainbow coloured, like skittles. Actually more like iPod colours. They were rainbow iPod monsters.

As a special treat I have drawn a picture of the dream – please note it is a reconstruction and I cannot draw.

They are cute aren’t they! I also want to wish my brother HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Today is his birthday, and it is the first one in which he will be married yay!! I am very lucky to have him and I hope that this year is amazing and exciting and full of successes!! Love you lots.

And to everyone else happy Monday, thanks for reading, I am a grateful grapefruit. If you need cheering up click here

Superbug

So remember SARS? and bird flu, and swine flu. Yes mostly because they are reminder of what happens when the whole western world gets itself into a flap about nothing. It is also a great way for an economy to make money. Scared people will buy lots of things to make themselves feel safe including investing in vaccines.

So today I read about the new ‘superbug’ that has made it’s way from India and Pakistan, which ironically I could have brought back with me when I was there in January. Not only is it immune to our usual antibiotics it is also able to spread very quickly from person to person, which is weird because that would be exactly the same as bird flu, SARS and swine flu. Spooky coincidence. Obviously one shouldn’t be flippant when lives are at stake but scare mongering has become cliché and creating general panic to generate income seems to be a common strategy the government employs. 

I guess we will just have to see how things progress, but I would slap a couple brown skins down (I’m so Canadian) that the whole thing spirals out of control. At the end of the day you just got to accept that we are very rarely in control of what is about to happen, so relax enjoy knowing there is very little you can do.

Alright, short and sweet today!

Be good

Meryl

PS Gustav – contact me by owl, it’s the only way I can see of communicating. Unless you have any better suggestions?!

xxxx

Tennis

I wish I could say I was exaggeration when I tell you me and my friend Katrine spent the entire tennis match admiring Rafael Nadal’s bottom but I’m not. I don’t really think we were to blame, it’s a perfect arse made better by some perfectly fitting trousers.

Anyway, to find myself in the gold seats of the Rogers Cup center court watching the world’s number one tennis player was pretty amazing. We also got to see Peter Polanski play, or POPO as we affectionately nicknamed him and really the Canadians took the night.

It is always good to see a country come behind its athletes and to say the Canadians had the crowd last night was an understatement. It must be great to have the home advantage but it doesn’t take away from the fact that two of Canada’s most excellent Tennis players took down the world’s number 1 and number 2 in the doubles opener. Tennis is lots more fun that I had thought.

Ok so doubles is a lot more fun than I thought. Singles was kind of what I expected, lots of head turning, but doubles is lightning fast and really exciting, it makes you want to shout things out and cheer people along, which you can’t because tennis is posh. Yes ladies and gentlemens there is no cat calling or heckling in tennis, you are allowed to clap and you have to wait for a point to be over before you leave your seat to go pee.  It’s all very civilized and nice but I think part of sport is being allowed to shout mean things at the opposing team. Well it didn’t faze us too much and after a few drinks we weren’t exactly adhering to the no shouting policy.

I also had the pleasure of going to the Black Keys last week and they were just wicked. Plus the morning benders opened so all my dreams came true in one show. I love love love the morning benders but the black keys totally blew them out of the water. My roommate said it best when he sauntered up to me wide eyed with a big smile on his face ‘Dan Auerbach eh? He is just such a showman’. And he was right, there were a couple of truly magical moments where the crowd were totally into the show, they are brilliant live. The only downside to the show was the venue. I like Kool house, it’s really big and the sound is good but by George was it hot. If we had been in a cartoon we could have watched a thermometer’s level rise to the top and have it burst open, it just got hotter and hotter and hotter until you couldn’t move let alone dance. For a venue called Kool House they should really invest in a better AC system

Ok peoples onwards and upwards. I hope the week is treating you well. Here is a little treat for you just because it’s Tuesday. I’ve found a bigger Doctor Who nerd than myself…check him out here :)

Century Blog

 Welcome to blog 100, I honestly don’t think I have celebrated doing a 100 of something before ever. I’m sure I’ve done lots of things a hundred times, but I guess this is the one I shall momentously mark by giving you a Sesame Street style list of 100 things I like:
 
1.    People who are silly
2.    People who are serious
3.    Umbrellas
4.    Snowflakes
5.    Witticisms
6.    Laughter
7.    Puppies
8.    Kittens
9.    Speeches
10.    Falling in Love
11.    Protective Friends
12.    Ghostbusters
13.    Ice cream
14.    Sunshine
15.    Rainshine
16.    Chocolate
17.    Colours
18.    People who are relaxed
19.    Smiles
20.    People comforting others
21.    Selflessness
22.    Selfishness
23.    Butterflies
24.    Toffee Apples
25.    Rollercoasters
26.    Going to the Movies
27.    The Theatre
28.    Street Art
29.    Live Music
30.    Alcohol
31.    Vitamin Water Dwnld
32.    Intelligence
33.    Knowledge
34.    Star Signs
35.    England
36.    Canada
37.    Warm and Breezy Days
38.    Ice Lollies
39.    Hot Chocolate
40.    Fireflies
41.    Autumn
42.    Buying Presents
43.    Getting Presents
44.    Moonlight
45.    The Smell of Petrol
46.    Fresh made bread
47.    Days that feel like Holiday
48.    Actual Holiday
49.    Being in a crowd
50.    Being part of something
51.    The NEWS
52.    My Bloggywog
53.    Doctor Who
54.    My Friends
55.    Being naughty
56.    Being good
57.    Free Stuff
58.    Snow Angels
59.    Cotton Candy
60.    Lists
61.    Chestnuts
62.    Tim Horton’s Banana nut muffins
63.    Winning money
64.    My Blackberry
65.    Charlie
66.    My new sister in law
67.    My original sister
68.    Family in General
69.    Walking round the City
70.    Looking at photos
71.    Writing
72.    Reading
73.    Facebook
74.    Streetlights
75.    Solar Power
76.    Gadgets
77.    Gizmos
78.    People falling over in the snow
79.    Snow at Christmas
80.    Zombie movies
81.    Clouds
82.    Fairies
83.    Daydreaming
84.    Travelling
85.    Information
86.    People checking to see if you are ok
87.    Barbeques.
88.    Blue tack
89.    Love
90.    Fresh Baked Cookies
91.    Anyone that reads my blog
92.    Scones
93.    Jam and Clotted Cream
94.    India
95.    Indian Food
96.    The like button on facebook
97.    Panel Quiz Shows
98.    Pubs
99.    Life
100.  The number 100

That was actually a quite easy list, in fact I sure there are thousands of things I like, I’m a very like giving person, I give my like to all things, except silence. In fact my list of things I hate is much smaller. It is mostly things like war and poverty and all the normal stuff, but it does include silence, whispering, George Stroumboulopoulos and Terry Fox. Grr Terry Fox.

So 100 yay! Thankyou to everyone who reads my blog, extra thanks to those that share it! It really means so much to me in so many ways!  All my love and more importantly all my like

Meryl xx

99 with a flake

Today is my 99th Blog Post, which I think we all know is seemingly less important than what will be my 100th Blog post, but 99 is a cool number. It was the age of the first house I ever lived in, Hawthorn Cottage. It is what we English call ice cream when you stick a flake in it and it is also the amount of people that read my blog yesterday, spooky. Although I should assume a good ten of those were probably my mum.

Back to a 99. My grandma and grandpa used to take us Grandchildren to Valentine Park in Essex and I can't tell you how cool this place was. It had everything, one of those zip swings, a climbing frame and tiny train that ran the length of the park. It had places to run around in, a tire swing and those weirdly shaped animals you sit in and just rock back and forth. It was paradise. What Valentine Park also had was a tiny cafe, which had this one window leading to the outside and they would sell 'whippys' with a flake in it. It was idilic, I can't tell you how well behaved me and my brother would be to get one, it took everything in us not to run ahead or throw bread at the ducks instead of to them just so we could earn our 99. Looking back I'm pretty sure we were always going to get one, but when you are young you are bamboozled into thinking there is a chance that you won't, so you do what you are told.

Not to throw back to an old post but my Grandma used to collect Conkers too. Not so she could take her place in the Conker leagues like we were hoping but because she would crack them and give them to us to feed to squirrels. We used to take the cracked Conkers down to Valentines and if you stayed still enough the squirrels would run up grab them out your hands and run of to a safe distance to break them open. It was fascinating to watch because until then I didn't realize conkers were nuts, you may yourself only be finding out from this blog...BREAKING NEWS Conkers are nuts. God I'm so BBC. 

So tonight I am off to see the Black Keys. Oh yes that's right you heard me, could I be any cooler? Yeah maybe if I hadn't written that sentence I could already have been cooler. It's going to be great! Morning Benders are opening so I'm more excited than Augustus was in the chocolate factory.

I hope your slightly odd feeling short week is going well, there should be more four day weeks I think people would be happier. I'll get right on it. I look forward to posting my 100th Blog sometime this week and by george it is going to be good, you can't even imagine the goodness of the good that the blog will be... yeah.

Also an irritated shoutout to my brother and sister in law - I have started watching cake boss and now can't seem to stop, god you were right about it being addictive. If you haven't see it buyer be warned it's Jersey Shore addictive, there is just no going back.

Love to you all

Kisses Meryl xx