January 13, 2012 by Amy Hansford
For anyone that didn’t believe me when I said there were Segway-mounted security guards in Milton Keynes shopping centre…
Admittedly, it seems to be their First Aid unit rather than general security, but can you imagine the chase when a thug steals a scooter from the toy shop?
Category Comments | Tags: , Milton Keynes, photoblog, Segway, transport | No Comments
January 12, 2012 by Amy Hansford
This is fascinating.
Apparently, young babies (0-3 months) share a language. Five words or noises specifically. I plead that you watch this video. It’s brilliant.
Click here for the video.
(I’m not clever enough to embed it.)
In short, nah = hungry, howh = sleepy, heh = discomfort, eair = lower gas, eh = burp.
Brilliant.
Thanks to Sarah Giles for pointing this out.
Category Comments | Tags: , babies, language, talk | No Comments
January 11, 2012 by Amy Hansford
My memory is dreadful. I have no idea how long we’ve been doing this now other than it’s over a week. This I know because everyone had their weigh in on Monday and they were all very happy with how much weight they’d lost. Alex lost 5.5lb, which we were impressed by.
Last night we had spinach and mushroom cannelloni which allegedly takes an hour to prepare and cook. I started at 5.15pm and we at at 7.15pm. It tasted brilliant, but was a bit too much for me to be playing around with at the end of the day. I think I’ll need to prep it all in the middle of the day next time, give me a bit more time to breathe (and feed/bathe daughter, tidy for visiting photographers).
It was carnage in the kitchen by the time I’d got it all in the dishes. Slimmers World suggests that you pipe the spinach/mushroom mixture in or use a teaspoon. Sod that – get stuck in and use your fingers. It’s the only way to get it all done in less than two hours.
The finished product was lush. The highest aspiration I have is that my food be like a Marks and Spencer ready meal, and this wasn’t far off. We also have plenty left for another day – the recipe is for four, but we easily got six portions out of this and I still had some broken Cannelloni and mixture leftover.
Category Comments, Uncategorized | Tags: , cooking, diet, dinner, food, Slimmers World | 1 Comment
January 6, 2012 by Amy Hansford
Having spoken to a few of the Griffin Players on how they’re coping with the Slimming World rules, they were split pretty much in half: those who realise it’s fairly similar to what they were eating before and are happy, and those who resent not being able to have a full fat coke. To all the latter; don’t forget you can go wild in the diet aisle!
Day two wasn’t quite as successful as day one, but it did represent a return to the workplace for Alex so there were always going to be issues.
Breakfast was porridge. Not my favourite, which is why it was a good job Alex was eating it and not me.
Lunch was planned to be beans on toast. However, for health and safety reasons, toasters have been banned from Alex’s workplace. Beans on bread doesn’t have quite the same feel to it, but hey ho. It’s an easy option so he’ll be having that for work lunches from now on. This leaves me with a fridge chock full of salad to be used up. Somehow I feel Alex is getting the better end of the diet at the moment.
I ran out of time to do dinne before leaving for rehearsals, so left Alex to fend for himself in the kitchen. We had everything in for the Chilli Beef Noodles but, as I understand it, he left it cooking a little too long. It probably tastes better when it’s not burned…
Category Comments, Reviews | Tags: , diet, Griffin Players, Slimming World | 2 Comments
January 5, 2012 by Amy Hansford
Alex, like many of the Griffin Players, has started Slimming World. The theory behind this diet is that most meats trimmed of all visible fat, veg and fruit is ‘free’, while other things have ‘Syn’ points. For example, two tablespoons of light mayonnaise is 1 Syn, a Jaffa Cake is 3 Syns, etc. Alex has up to 15 Syns a day. I make up a menu at the start of each week (mainly so I can make sure we have enough shopping in), only now it’s run by Slimmers World.
You should know at this point that I dislike cooking. I don’t hate it, but there is a definite resentment at the amount of time it takes to grate an onion, chop veg, measure out spices etc. You should know also that whenever I’m preparing dinner I’m also feeding my nine month daughter whilst aiming to be out of the door as soon as Alex arrives home in order to make it rehearsals 20 minutes late. This means that these meals had better bloody be worth it, or I’m going back to sticking something in the oven for 40 minutes.
I thought it might be valid to have a real world look at someone on Slimmers World, so here it is.
Day one.
Breakfast was brilliant. Giant fry up. Lovely and took me through to well past lunchtime hunger wise.
For lunch we nipped over the marina to the Carvery. Nomilicious. Alex found he could eat pretty much everything on offer but needed to check Syns of a few things when we got back.
For dinner, I made meatballs and spaghetti. We used wholemeal spaghetti – I bought pretty much wholemeal everything in the last shop as it’s meant to be better for you, Syns or no Syns. You know what? Wholemeal spaghetti tastes fine, don’t fret it. It was a bit of a pain prepping and cooking everything simultaneously, but it came out pretty good. I whacked a salad on the side so my portions didn’t seem too small. I’m impressed at how good it tastes. I made enough to put two portions aside to ‘ding’ another day, so not a bad start.
Category Comments, Reviews | Tags: , cooking, diary, diet, food, Griffin Players, menu, Slimming Word, Syns | 3 Comments
January 3, 2012 by Amy Hansford
You may notice that ye olde blog looks a little different. I thought it was time for a little update and change of colour, plus changing to a theme that gives me a little more breathing space on the blog side of the panel compared to the last one. You like?
According to Google Analytics, someone came to my website last month using possibly the most amusing phrase ever as a search term. “how to touch a girls butt without her finding out while she is awaket”. Brilliant. Certainly tickled me. The answer is here for you kiddo: don’t. You’ll get the most amazing slap if you do.
And finally, I did say that I would make a hat to go with the washing-up themed pantomime dame dress below. That I did. Using baubles hotglued to a base and kept on with elastic, it’s meant to look like washing up bubbles. Unfortunately, given the rigorous nature of the dance routine involved, the hat had to be retired to the dressing room. Mind you, it still looked bloody good up to that point!
Category Comments, Costumes | Tags: , analytics, blog, comment, costume, funny, Griffin Players, Luton, panto, pantomime, photoblog | No Comments
December 9, 2011 by Amy Hansford
I am absolutely loving panto this year. I am going to be gutted when it finishes tomorrow night. My character, Ruby the Fairy, is a bit rubbish but does try to help, honestly. She is so much fun to play, sending people up, upstaging others, slapstick tomfoolery, near pratfalls and plenty of gurning. I don’t think there’ll be another part like this in panto for an age, so I know I need to relish each show.
Brilliant.
Hannah (chorus) and I backstage during a rare moment of serenity. Picture used with thanks to Abby McHutchinson.
Hannah, John (Dame Delia), Ben H (Prince Charming) and Faye (Sapphire the Fairy). Picture used with thanks to Abby McHutchinson.
The traditional panto singalong with Ben J (Prince Mario) and Debs (Pearl the Fairy). Picture used with thanks to Cherrylynn Cheney Gibb.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: , 2011, acting, December, fun, pantomime, Ruby, Snow White | No Comments
November 26, 2011 by Amy Hansford
Good news and bad news.
The bad news is that the dress arrived and, while the label does indeed say it’s a size 16, it’s an old size 16, meaning really a 12-14. Not big enough for a dame dress, unless you have a very skinny one.
The good news is that I was able to pick up a size 18 Laura Ashley dress from the charity shop this morning in a deep royal blue. It’s a little heavier than I’d like (I am notorious for worrying about principals dehydrating) but otherwise perfect. I popped in a modesty panel at the back (what is it with the 80s and random bows on backless dresses?) and pretty much stuck to the original design, ending up with this.
I’m going to add another stitch into the front pink glove to make it a little more centred, but it should look great when the dame turns. I’ve not put the sponge pad squares over the boobs as I wonder if it’s a bit too much. Thoughts?
Now I’m just waiting for a little construct to dry in order to cover it with white plastic baubles, i.e. washing up bubbles. It’ll make a great accompanying hat to nestle in the wig. If there are enough baubles left over, I’ll make a chunky necklace too. One day I’ll learn when to stop!
Category Uncategorized | Tags: , costumes, dame, panto, project, Splat Costumes | No Comments
November 25, 2011 by Amy Hansford
I’ve given myself (or rather Splat Costumes) a small project.
I’m starting off with a basic dress and seeing if I can turn it into a dame dress. The outfit intself is in the post so I’ll have a couple of days to turn it around. I’ve designed it so am off to Asda for supplies. It’s not going to be Biggins standard, but hopefully will turn out better than a basic fishtail dress in a horrific fabric. So, here’s the plan – let’s see how it actually works out!
Category Uncategorized | Tags: , costumes, dame, panto, project, Splat Costumes | No Comments
November 22, 2011 by Amy Hansford
After various friends having Facebook friend culls, I thought I’d do my own this week.
For anyone who doesn’t know, you can end up with a lot of friends on Facebook. It starts off as one or two old school friends, the ones you used to share a desk with Then their school friends find you and add you, the ones who never really spoke to you. Then their school friends find you and add you, the ones that used to bully you. But you can’t say no – it’s impolite, isn’t it?
Then there are the friends you used to see every weekend, ten years ago. The ones who, after an initial ‘So great to see you on here!”, forget to ever speak to you again.
Not to mention the ones that drive you up the wall with their gullibility (“Facebook are going to start charging £3 a month – I’m not paying! Join this group if you agree”), copy and pastes (“Post this as your status, if you have someone keeping an eye on you from above”) and incessant shouting/use of text speak (XFACTOR 2MO NIGHT).
And so I culled my friend list.
My criteria? Those who I’d not communicated with (or visa versa) for over a year or made me want to punch them in the face. I figured I’d go down by about thirty or so. EIGHTY. Eighty people, gone. That’s one in five. And I shouldn’t think any of them will miss my updates.
Me? It’s not made a huge impact on my feed, but there are less irritating posts and I see more of the people I frequently catch up with. People who weren’t kind to me at school have gone – I feel happier knowing that they don’t get to see my happiness now. And it’s refreshing to have done.
So, does your friend list need to be so big?
Picture care of Doug Savage from over at www.savagechickens.com
Category Uncategorized | Tags: , communication, ettiquette, facebook, friends, privacy, school, social media | No Comments