Oct 11

Life is a Rollercoaster…

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….I’m with Ronan Keating on that one…

A long time since my last post I know - so much has been going on, not least of which the last exams of my AAT course which, despite much worrying on my part, I did end up passing.  I had felt so un-prepared for one of the skills test that I was convinced that I would struggle to pass - and in fact it took me about three goes to get that one, but I did it in the end!  I have no idea how I managed to take all those exams in such a short period when I was at school, this last one was enough to have me so worried I was struggling to deal with it at the time.  Good news in the end though, and I am now embarked, for better or worse, on the final stage of the AAT course that could see me manage to get letters after my name.

What else has been happening?  Well the rollercoaster at the moment also includes preparation for WASH 2009, the flagship party weekend of Plus.  As a committee it may be that we have a very difficult decision to make after this years event, and the last few weeks leading up to it are not going to be easy for us I suspect.   Usually I can remain fairly positive whilst some of the others panic, despite the fact I am a natural pessimist, I am also a hopeful one - this year I’m struggling to find any reassurance to offer the others - still we are having hopeful moments only to get another kick in the teeth it seems.  Its so difficult for us all to cope with such ups and downs in such a short timespan and at the end of the day, only time will tell.

Work is busy as ever, I’m gaining responsibilities and work, but not an increase in wages unfortunately….something I don’t think is likely to change soon.  But at least I do have a job which at this time I do have to remind myself sometimes to be grateful for, as so many others have nothing.

There has been work on the cars, brakes on both the 2CV and the Smart.  The 2cv needed complete new rear brake pipes and shoes, installed with a lot of help from my dad, the Smart just went to the local garage for front brake pads - surprisingly only costing around £60 - I like those sort of surprises!

The most recent highlight was the Scalextric weekend which I organised - the second year of running now, a few more people, and such a fun event - made easier for me by the helpfulness of the landlord of the pub which we treat as our local even though it is about 20mins drive away!

I think the pictures will speak for themselves, so enough from me rabbiting on for now…

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Nov 25

WASH - and pre-WASH

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Its been a whie now since WASH was all packed away and finished for another year, but quite a busy time for me, so now I get a chance to look back at the event, and all the work that went into it.

The party weekend itself was, as always and particularly so this year, absolutely fab - such a great atmosphere, and added to this year by the return of some lively ex-members.  Being on the committee and having logistical problems to worry about (think birthday cake, moving, hiding, cutting and distributing - more about the cake later) meant I didn’t actually start to relax until after Saturday nights’ activities were over and I was able to kick off my shoes (literally!) at Lara’s shed party. 

And was I glad to do that!  Remember the platform boots from Camden?  Well I discovered after a french dancing session that I was perfectly ok to dance in the lower ones, but then realised that everything in moderation should be the key to these things - I spent all evening standing, dancing, walking, in them - and hobbled back to Lara’s shed for the party where one of the first things I did was find a spot on the floor to sit and remove them!  Surprisingly standing in them was the worst.

Not to be put off by sore feet (and blisters) I actually did wear the highest of the platforms to the casino afternoon (no dancing there!).  Will I never learn?

There was no one highlight of the weekend for me, although the casino was very good, and I am going to another one this Friday in King’s Lynn run by the same guy.  I would probably say one of the best bits was seeing the three King’s Lynn ex-members enjoying themselves so much, it was just like the old days and made everything worthwhile.

Ok - back to the cake then!  Some bright spark earlier in the year thought that a birthday party wouldn’t be complete without a birthday cake to cut and distribute to all the party-goers (that would be me then - doh!)  So, next problem - how to make a cake big enough to feed over 200 people…….Online research led to a choice between vanilla sponge or carrot cake so obviously I had to bake a test cake of each to find out.  Some of the sponge cake is still in the freezer, the carrot cake was taken to both mine and stephen’s work and went very quickly.   The carrot cake came out flatter and so would be easier to ice - unfortunately it wasn’t high enough so I would have to stack two high with a filling - meaning I would need to cook six 12″ square cakes.  It would then also only feed about 170ish people so I would make one sponge cake too which would hopefully feed another 70 or so.

Needless to say, I now know the recipe for a 12″ square carrot cake off by heart (I will post on here later!).  I used 6 kilos of carrots, and to ice and decorate both cakes about 6 kilos of fondant ice, and nearly 2 kilos of icing sugar for buttercream and piping icing!  I couldn’t have done the cake deorating without the help of Stephen for rolling out such large pieces of icing, and didn’t finish decorating both cakes until about 4.20am on Friday morning, needing to be up to pack for the weekend around 8am! 

Start the weekend as you mean to go on is what I say…..although did have an early night on Friday, about 3am when the party didn’t finish until aroud 6am!

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Oct 26

BEEERR!!! (Project 52 - Week 10)

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In preparation for the biggest event on the Plus calendar, I thought a trip to the beer warehouse was in order to stock up for that weekend.  In actual fact, it wasn’t really beer that I was after, but I remember that a mate bought some interesting caramel vodka in the summer that slipped down quite nicely….

So, some purchases were made, and a photo taken which now provides Week 10 of Project 52…(wow - I’m up to week 10!!!)

IMG_1650

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