Laura's Little Bakery: Cupcakes for the win!

So I met a lovely lady named Laura (how is that for alliteration, high school english teachers) a few days ago. She has just (as in yesterday) opened a new cupcakery shop in town and it's super awesome. There's something really nice about a city that truly embraces and supports a local business owner and really, you have to be a villain to not appreciate a cupcake.

So... I met her through Saif who knows through her through the weird connectedness of twitter. He asked her if she was hiring and she asked if I could drop off my CV the next day. Yes Please! I can't actually describe how perfect this sort of job is for me, my waist line notwithstanding. I told my Mum and my friend Hillary and they were both like, "Wow, that's perfect for you". Here's hoping. The espresso machine is different to the one I'm used to but I should be able to handle it.

The place is called Laura's Little Bakery, and Laura herself is really lovely. It was one of those weird times where you meet someone for the first time but it's kind of deja vu-like, like you've met them before. I don't feel so dorky saying that, cos she commented on it too. I felt pretty comfortable fairly fast around her which is unusual for me, as everyone knows.

She offered to give me a trial at first and I was all butterflies in my tummy about it, but she had to get back to her baking as it was the evening before she opened shop. Saif and I went for groceries next door at Tesco and I kept feeling guilty because she looked like she might have needed a hand and she was there by herself, trying to pull it all together. Pretty impressive, but I just had this niggling feeling and I told Saif, who told me to just go ask her. I went back and asked if I could help with anything and she let me. : ) I felt like a weirdo and I was worried she'd feel I was trying to force her hand in hiring me, but she told me she appreciated it and that it showed initiative. Well, I'll be.

I hope I was helpful in the end, I washed up the dishes, mopped the cafe floor, washed down the counter tops... trying to also keep out of the way cos she seemed to have about 8 hands doing 8 different things at once.

She dropped me off at home with some cupcakes and I settled down with a cup of tea to see that she had tweeted about me. "A very lovely girl offered some help this afternoon which was truly amazing and one way to get yourself hired on the spot! :)" Sounds promising. Did I pass the trial? : D

I guess I'll have to wait to find out.

All in all, I'm pretty excited to start on Thursday. 

This is Laura. If you're in Liverpool please stop by and support this super worthy little cupcake cafe.

Why I, Very Understandably, Don't Like Geese

When I was a wee one, we went to Westwood Lake for a day. I was happily splashing about and spied some of the EVIL EVIL geese that make a home of the lake and a toilet of the beach. I was SUPER excited and wanted to feed said geese cos that's just how a toddler brain works.

So I grabbed whatever food I could get, I don't even remember what. It could have been a stick or some mud to be honest, but let's pretend it was a peace offering of some yummy bird friendly bread. I marched up and gently gave the food to the nearest, and as I remember, biggest mega goose ever.

The goose was at first surprised.

Then this happened:

It HISSED at me with it's tongue vibrating indignantly, it spread its wings and then this happened:

I must have blacked out cos I don't remember anything but running away forever.

The End.

Benedict Cumberbatch

Is a very British name.

He's playing Sherlock Holmes in a modern interpretation on the BBC. It's pretty good, guys, check it out.

Memory # 2, or, One of the Best Christmas Presents Ever

There was this Christmas when I was about 10 and Alex, my sister, 2.

She was old enough to be sad about there being no snow on Christmas, which we were used to cos at my Gran's house, we usually have at least a little bit. When I was wee, my Gramps used to tell me it was my job to shovel one of the following off the roof: a) the snow or, b) reindeer poop or, c) both. I was mostly sure it was a joke so I'd laugh big along with the adults but secretly I'd wonder, heh.

So yeah. We had the green Christmas blues.

This is us being sad. Or maybe we didn't have vertabrae.

But in any case, my Dad and my Uncle disappeared for a few hours while we moped about, probably being quite annoying.

They came back in the late afternoon with a truckload of snow! It was awesome. They'd driven the truck up some mountain, I don't even know where, and shoveled it into the back, came back and shoveled it all into an amazing waist deep pile of snow in the front yard.

Alex and I played and frolicked and ate as much snow as we could. We came in when it was dark, rosy cheeked, exhausted and happy. So thanks Dad and Uncle Lee.

(Also, I didn't do a great job of expressing the wonder of my Uncle Lee's mullet in those days. I am sorry.)

Just goes to prove that it isn't the big price presents that mean the most.

The Sunset A Few Hours Ago:

Better than T V. Except British TV that doesn't have censorship. Would have blown 14 year old me's mind. Late night Showcase has nothing on British Television. For reals.

How I Moved A Fraction of my Stuff to the UK.

So, I had a huge dilemma when I was packing to move country.

20 kg limit on checked baggage, 5 kg for cabin.

My suitcase weighs 7.9 kg (which is light for the size, trust me. I weighed quite a few.) and my carry on was 3.1 kg (ugh, should have used a backpack I guess) That took away 11 kg of my allowance, so I really only had 14ish kg to work with.

My carry on hit its max weight as soon as I put my laptop and laptop accessories in it. I seriously would have looked like a tool when I had to open my bag to be scanned cos now you have to take your laptop out of your bag and have it scanned separately. So. The laptop would have gone through the X ray machine... followed by an empty suitcase...

Also, I would have looked like I was 3 and my Mummy had let me pack one of my bags all by myself so I'd stop whining that I wanted to pack my own stuff like a big girl.

I started by sorting down my clothing big time. I wanted to take things that would work for the winter cos that's what I was going to be moving into which meant I was packing all my heavy clothing which meant fewer items. Then I had to consider any valuables I had to take like letters and cards, photos, sketch books and journals, important papers, my expensive face wash and cream, etc. In the end, only a 3rd of my suitcase was clothing.

And the rest was all heavy stuff. I'll draw you a diagram of the situation I had at hand.

Soooo, I came up with this frenzied plan.

I would dress myself in as many layers as I could manage without killing myself through suffocation and without tipping people off. I would be my own suitcase!

This is what I came up with.

I even had another dress and a shirt stuffed down the sleeves of my winter jacket.

I should mention here that on this day, we had the hottest day of that year. It was something like 30 or 32 degrees and I was wearing a fur lined winter jacket over multiple layers.

I looked like a crazy bag lady lugging her home behind her in her suitcase. I guess now that I say it out loud/on blog, that is sort of what I was doing.

I also had my camera bag, my purse and a laptop bag in addition to my carry on which were dangling off one of my arms. I got to the check in, they weighed my bag and I still had to pay an extra $100 for the over weightness of it. I don't want to know what the price would have been if I hadn't taken my precautions.

I was feeling pretty faint after that from being over heated and probably dehydrated in addition to the undercurrent of hysteria at leaving my homeland for a pretty new adventure. I went to the bathrooms and I stripped down to the comfiest combination from my many layers, stuffed it in my carry on bag and draped my coat over my many extra bags to go to duty free to buy a chocolate bar and some water so they'd give me a big bag to put it all in and make me look legit. :D

At the gate, they reiterated that it was important that no one's luggage be over 5 kg and I guiltily shuffled around avoiding eye contact and going quietly insane at the thought that I'd have to put all the layers back on for a 9 hour flight stuffed into the economy section of an economy flight. But the lady hefted my bag in her hand like she was she hulk, she gave me a look and she shrugged. Thank. Goodness.

I realize they have restrictions for a reason but come oooooon. I just wanted my stuff. We didn't fall out of the sky, so it's all good. : D

PS. I feel I should also mention that the only other thing I had packed in my carry on was a fuzzy blanket that my Aunt Valerie had given me for my birthday a few years ago and I have taken on every international flight since. I am the actual coolest.

Drawred a picture of my sister.

I kinda likes it. 

The UK tricks me - Part 1

Dear Everyone that is Used to Showers Working Just cos You Turned it on,

When you want to take a shower here you have to deal with a hidden, but candy red, switch not located in the bathroom or around the shower but usually placed outside. (The correlation didn't occur to me, the switch looks too important and self-destruct-like. I had to be shown.)

You have to turn it on and wait for water to be warmed up. Then you get in the shower and there's some kind of console in there with more than one dial and a few buttons, depending on the console. Most of my showers are spent with me turning one dial and then the other SO SLOWLY because if I turn it one mm too far it's either ice or skin peelingly hot.

The sweet spot is like the deactivate button in Sylar's head/body long after the Heros writers started phoning it in: In a different place every time.

I miss dill pickles.

They don't have dill pickles in UK supermarkets, they have gherkins and they're sweet. Gross.