Pikelet macaroons

Phewph! I'm exhausted. Our lack of cupboard space in the kitchen has been bugging me lately, so I jumped into action this afternoon and spent six hours doing something about it.

We had a huge cupboard stuffed full of dishes, glasses, cups, pots, plates, jugs, trays, etc, etc, etc that came with our house despite the fact we'd asked the landlady to remove them. I'd packed them into as small a space as I could, but they were still taking up valuable storage space. This afternoon I boxed them all up and reorganised the stuff in our second bedroom and hall closets so there was room to pack in the seven boxes of kitchen stuff. (Yep - 7 boxes!!!) Now we have heaps of extra space in the kitchen and we can even start using the dishwasher which we had been using as a glass storage facility!

As a reward for all my hard work and for getting up early this morning and trudging to the gym in the freezing cold, I thought I'd try my hand at making macaroons. Note to self - you can't whisk egg whites into "stiff peaks" after roasting pumpkin when there is so much water in the air that it is running down the windows in rivulets. I perservered though, and Phil nicknamed the results "pikelet macaroons" - they tasted like macaroons, but were a little flat and floppy. Just call me Iron Chef Disaster-san!

London's forecast is for snow tomorrow. Can't wait!!!

Update: Here's a piccy:

Happy Australia Day!

Happy Australia Day to Aussies worldwide!

I hope you are all celebrating in style. For those of you joining Perth's Lotto fireworks festivities - fire up the barbie, turn up the music and enjoy the party for us out-of-towners!

Aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi!!!

Change of style

This was part of the "welcome pack" we were all issued with after my
company was taken over. I appreciate the sentiment but I'm not really
sure about the style...

(oh - it's a jukebox containing info with a record shaped mousemat in
case you can't tell from the picture)

The thing I miss most is the Benfield desktop background. Someone
needs to mention to the designers of our new one that a grey
background - even with a funky record image in the middle - is quite
depressing :(

Engineering 101

Well, my holiday in Oz came and went way too fast and it is with some surprise that I find myself in the third week of 2009 already.

Phil and I had a wonderful time away doing a whole lot of nothing but relaxing with family and friends. I found coming back to London harder than normal - partly because we had a couple of days recuperation before we had to start work, so I had time to mourn the fact that everyone is so far away. Returning to freezing temperatures that didn't get above 3 degrees for a week didn't help either! Now I'm back at work and in the swing of things again so I'm looking forward to the adventures this year holds.

My most significant achievement of the year to date is that we changed the washers in our kitchen sink tap yesterday. (How exciting my life is!) I had put it off for months because we couldn't find the tap outside to switch off the mains water for our flat. It turns out that our mains stopcock is actually under the kitchen sink (thanks YouTube!).

This is the first time I've ever changed a tap washer - hence the sense of achievement! I think that my engineering degree should have had a practical unit where you learnt how to do such important tasks as changing your spark plugs, fixing a leaking tap, building a computer from scratch, servicing your bike - things that everyone expects you to know when you say you are an engineer. (Even though I did electrical/electronic engineering which has nothing to do with taps or bikes but would be handy nonetheless).

Phil is in serious training for the London Marathon now with only 14 weeks to go. He has officially joined the ranks of the crazies who run around in the dark in sub-zero temperatures with only lycra leggings and a long sleeved shirt to keep them warm. At least he's invested in some contact lenses now, so he can see where he is going!

That's all for now. There are some fun things coming up, but I'll save that news for later :)