Friday Round Up

chicken dinner anyone? - a packed arena for elbow - a pair of goons

a frosty bathroom window - eggs! - mulled fruit juice, yum

an unwelcome visitor - i bake, she licks the spoon - new fringe!

In a break from the norm, this week hasn't flown. Not at all, in fact it's dragged a teeny bit. Maybe it's because I've barely seen Matt due to us both working so late at night and I've spent all week looking forward to the weekend. You may have noticed it's been a bit quiet on the blogging front this week, again because I've been crazy busy at work and getting home late on cold, dark nights doesn't make one feel like blogging, it makes one feel like eating lots of food and collapsing into bed. Or is that just me??

We had a night away last weekend to see Elbow in Manchester as I mentioned in this post. The gig was great and despite the fact that we thought we would be late due to a slow restaurant service and late taxi, we made it in time to get to the front and have a good view. Because they weren't promoting a specific album they did a range of tracks, new and old, mixed with their trademark chatty, intimate atmosphere. It may have been the best Elbow gig I've ever been to. If you've never heard any of their music, give it a try. It's like nothing else out there and Guy Garvey writes the most beautiful and abstract love songs you're ever likely to hear, as well as joyful, soaring celebratory melodies. I adore him. Do a little YouTube search and treat yourself!

You may remember that we were having chicken problems last week and I can report that we did eat three of our flock! Of the four eggs that hatched from our last batch of babies, they all turned out to be boys. Unlucky! Whilst we love our hens like pets, they are officially egg machines, so we agreed beforehand that any boys would have to go. To raise four gorgeous little babies and find that all of them were boys was a bit heartbreaking to be honest. We let one go to a neighbour and hung on to the last three  for a while as Matt had grown particularly attached to one of them but they caused havoc - fighting constantly and creating such bad feeling in the flock that all the hens stopped laying. You'd expect some of them to stop when the days get shorter but ours are usually fairly reliable and I was sure it was because they were unhappy. They all looked miserable. So I put my foot down and did the honourable thing. And you know what? The next day we found an egg in the box. And since then we've had two every day which I think proves my point. Even one of our young Buff Orpingtons has started laying for the first time so we have little brown eggs to contrast with the Pekin's white ones! No sooner had we got rid of our boys than a neighbour's randy rooster invaded the garden - I had to chase it off with a rake and have a word with the chap who owns it. 'Sorry', he said 'my daughter won't let me kill it. Shoot it if you want'. My reputation precedes me.

On Monday night we went to my sister's for one of our annual family traditions - Mulligatawny Night. My dad makes the most amazing Mulligatawny soup and around this time of year we all get together for a good old family chow-down. I took some Gruffalo books for my little nephew Finley-Joe which he loved, now he's two it seems like he's become a proper little boy and will chat away to us like mad. It's so lovely to hear him saying our names and being excited to see us, I love it!

I'm not feeling Christmassy yet so I got our Christmas decorations out this week and did some baking whilst listening to my Christmas playlist (and in keeping with tradition, left my sister a voicemail of myself singing along to 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' at high volume - our favourite!) Hopefully we will go and get the tree this weekend and I really need to get on with card and present buying, I'm usually far better prepared than this!

I bit the bullet yesterday and took my knackered hair to the hairdressers. I've been lightenening it for a while now and it's reached the point where it says 'No. No more'. The ends were like straw and it was really bothering me. So off I went and had four inches off the long layers and a little trim elsewhere as well as a new side swept fringe! It's been a while since I had a proper fringe and I gave myself a headache yesterday trying to keep it out of my eyes, what a plum. It feels short but not terribly so and it definitely feels and looks better. I just need to decide on a colour now as I'm abandoning the bleach for the last time. I've told my colourist not to let me do it again.

Last night we went to visit some friends for dinner and to coo over their now almost three month old baby, Jacob. We last saw him when he was about a week old and absolutely tiny as he was born five weeks early. He's come such a long way and is a really cute baby now he doesn't look so fragile. We had a gorgeous steak and stilton pie for dinner with lots of red wine and a good old catch up by the fire, I loved it

This weekend will be another dull one painting my new kitchen windows. I don't mind painting walls and celilings but window frames take so long, I hate it. But once they're done the sink unit can be installed so I'm trying to focus on that and just wade through

What will you be doing this weekend?