Life for one Woman in Windlesham

Imagining the lovely dresses, fantatic food and fragrances of the the Sunshine ball.
So budget is tight am watching 7 dresses on ebay... off to the spirit of summer at Olympia tomorrow to do a little bit of executive shopping and of course work.
Hoping the weather cheers up for saturdays village day, will be interesting to see what Bagshot does for village day

It's Eurovision time! That's right, brace yourself because the party kicks off this Saturday. Stock up on sequins, dust off the hair brushes and make sure your ready for Europe's cheesiest TV show. Check out your 'boom bang-a-banging' and grab a bottle of Lambrusco.

Here is chateau chaos, the limestone floor is down the optiplan kitchen nightmare is shaping up, 3am tuesday I was redesigning the units now colin the fantastic chippy has worked cutting them down and it is looking better but not WOW I wanted and I will having an interesting conversation with the granite supplier. Sinks are in and tap is central

So with still no cooker, kitchen electrics, dishwasher or table so a picnic in the main room infront of euro trash is this weekends plan.

Now if you really want to dance the night away to decent music get your tickets for www.sunshineball.co.uk.

Its not every Saturday i drag myself into the shower and off to a tasting, but Lee arrived on time and off we set to Ascot racecourse to at 09.00am taste the summer ball menu.

Escorted in the back way we head to the wonderful setting of the Ascot Grill, where Rebecca the executive chef shares with us her vision of a summer menu.

The Pate although smooth and tasty just to filling for a summer evening in june. The specially designed salad with wonderful little tomberries, light balsamic dressing and mozzarella balls. A Fusion of flavours.

Then at just after 09.15 we embark on the choice of main course, the presentation is a work art the portion size is filling enough for your average male. The potato gratin dauphenoise is straight out of roux brother repartis, melt in the mouth heaven.

All this followed by chocolate fountains.

If you have not got tickets yet, visit the website www.sunshineball.co.uk

£40 will get you a night to remember

I should be high as a kite, in 12 weeks working just three days a week I pulled off miracles, few mistakes some luck and 16 hour days. But I come home to stark reality a house and an atmosphere I hate. A husband who cannot even look me in the eye and kids who are not happy.

So I googled the post code I want to live in, and as anyone who reads my blog knows I believe in fate a five bedroom farm house I can afford on my own. I could keep chickens and would not have neighbours.More importantly I would not have the husband.

My happiest days were in my old house in Windlesham, with just me and the kids yes only me doing all the school runs and chores but decibels more laughter ok so maybe not so much cleaning. To be honest I have had it with the husband regime, he has a problem and it is getting worse.

The new kitchen will be lovely here but it will not mend all the things that are broken in this family just help sell it.

Just tired I guess, need to sleep, just wish I had someone to phone, my nan. Hey well done me!

Sorry bit low, cannot believe I am here in this house with this husband. Sometimes life is so unfair.

So I get up at 6.30am to speak to new colleague in Australia who wants to run through a presentation, please note it is 4pm in the afternoon there far more sociable than 6am in the UK. The sun is shining.

Dial in and four year old appears in the door way, mouthing who is on the phone. I mime go away, she does not want to go away, would like to sit on my knee. With my elbow I am controlling the slide deck and trying to talk about branding while, my meetings book is being coloured in and smiley faced out aggggghhhh. Where is my husband when he is needed!

Four Year old spots a big opportunity here, wakes up six year old sister, they both now appear in the door with a kellogs variety pack... I nod yes of course they can have this and off they go.

So call over I enter our kitchen, the kittens are on the table each with a bowl of cereal... smudge has cornflakes and smokey ricecrispies. All 8 empty packs are strewn across the table and six pints of milk has been divided been a variety of mugs, bowls and utensils for breakfast while mum works.

Teenager surfaces and finishes off the rice crispies the kitten did not eat... oh my god I am such a rubbish working parent!

If you read my earlier entry I was having a chocolate teapot of the day. Until I took the advice of one of marketing guru's Arjan Dijk. When under pressure, see who needs to work to take off the pressure and schmooze them. So actually three departments need to work together, the challenge was with no starbucks within 20 miles and on a business park with only fountains to look at I had to be creative.

Jump in the go get it galaxy of a vehicle and head to sainsburys. It turned my mood totally around leaving the building was like an adventure.

Hit the biscuit and cakes aisle, and begin 'biscuit' profiling people and this is what I decided:

Head of Legal- double chocolate fingers- branded - cadburys of course
Head of IT- 20 sugar donuts to share
Product- Chocolate digestives in the tube with reselable lid- they will like the design.
Website- chocolate finger.
Channel- rich tea fingers,no fuss ability to dunk and no guilt attached.

So armed with two sainsburys carrier bags and with a spring in my step i head to business park heaven.

Suddenly the two biggest problems were resolved over a cup of tea, the biscuits went down a treat and the mountain of a project feels human again.

Friday tomorrow, if your morning started like mine did then get off to the supermarket and do some executive biscuit profiling It works.

I am trying so hard to succeed with this current project I know it means being willing to fail; I am trying not to let a fear of failure hold you back. But today so many set backs, a boss who totally disengaged and deluded we times are suffering so many setbacks due to his total incompetence. I do remember, it takes commitment and persistence to achieve your goals. I'm not going togive up, I can succeed no matter but there are so many in my way.

While my current boss swans about talking about painting a wall I am managing every other aspect of this global project.

I would like to go home and never come back, but I won't!

Off to make tea or coffee, or find vodka.

I dont watch much television but I wanted to see how Heston the perfectionist would approach the Little Chef demise.
I have fond memories of Little Chef, cups of tea and as a teenager the ultimate hangover cure. What a treat little Chef was, I don't remember a 4 fold menu with ridiculous sudo european offerings, it was just platefuls of comfort food.

Now having a family of my own we have dived into one for a meal, and found the staff miserable, the restaurants filthy even though they are empty. Heston you are so right they are serving up the cheapest food, it may be fast but it is tasteless.

Ian Pegley has supposedly been given this second chance to help the ailing chain, from what I saw last night he is hammering nails into the coffin of Little Chef. Where has he been for the last five year, some one should send him the DVD's of Gordon Ramsays kitchen nightmares, as his chain is perpetuating a great number of mistakes. The menu is to big to ambitious, the ingredients cheap and the settings miserable.

Little Chef food, is overprocessed muck. Start again, serve real chips, good sausage see what Jamie Oliver did with Ministry of Food. Send all your staff on basic cookery courses, put in ranges so they can cook. Hoover, clean up and repair restaurants.

Jamie Olive or Gordon Ramsay may have turned this around, Heston deserves a prize for taking on the challenge as Ian Pegley really is out of the retail loop.

Old School Cafe Longcross

Ian get in your car go down to longross, to the Old School Cafe, I worked with the fabulous owner Miepe Boyd to market this small cafe where she serves the best bacon sandwich in Surrey, dare I say south of England. She keeps it simple the ingredients are local, fresh, the specials are on the black board and you can have your eggs anyway you want.

Ian and team, my advice:
Visit Fego's chain
Visit Old School Cafe
Make you restaurants more welcoming- stay on brand, red booth seating for families, table for grown ups.
All of you to work one week in a Little Chef and talk to your customers, eat from the menu every day! Maybe then you will concentrate on what is important.

I will be watching tonight, how can a management team not have their ears on the customers.

Good Television, shame the it may completely kill off little chef, Ian Pegley you are the weakest link.

Loupie

This weekend we had a Sunday lunch party for Auntie J, the girls and I pinked out the kitchen table, pretty table cloth, very kitsch kitson table runner, lilies and candles and pink balloons. The final touch was the bunting which we hung from the uplighters looked fantastic.

Lunch went well the freerange, had a very nice life saw sunshine chicken (that had a security tag) tasted great the gloopy chestnut and mushroom stuffing tasted suprisingly good.
The candles on the cake ingnited and extinguished in a birthday fashion.

We all retired to the sitting room to play Britains got talent the chocolate version that is now £1 in M &S well spent £1. I had to play mercy on a saucepan, Uncle J had to an irish jig while singing happy birthday the teenies had to do a cha cha all very lively.

Then Scarlet save the day, literally the house, she goes into the conservatory and rushes back in there is a fire... well as she has spotted badgers and deer in out 10ft square courtyard the husband gets up to check really to keep her happy. Oh yes the lightbulb was now on it had burnt through the bunting and the flag was on fire. Scarlet is the heroine.She is saying it was the kittens that alerted her. The smell is still with us, but luckily so it the house.

Husband now has to put a smoke alarm this week on the ceiling of the utility room as this part of the house is remote and this could so easily happen again.

Update on weight loss, I took the weekend off so I did eat Chocolate Caterpillar cake and the gloopy zillion calorie chestnut stuffing and I didn't exercise so today it is back on track. Monday is Special K Monday.

I don't want to be bah humbug, but why did the snow wait until the day we all have to drive to work. The M4 grinds to a single lane of hell. My Galaxy takes over 40 minutes to start to warm up so have resorted to a blanket on my lap, my ski hat and fleecy gloves so I can get off my home drive. GREAT just loving this snow.

Shoes, even my sensible heels become a death trap on the slippy bits that appear just out side the office window so the whole of development can witness me fall on my amply padded bottom region.

Snow should stay in Europe, where they are used to it. I love ski-ing, well lets just say I am very good at apres ski, quite possibly not so hot on two planks of wood facing downhill.

Also this flaming cold is not helping my diet one jot, a piece of celery on a cold day has no worth whatsoever. A hot cheese and onion pasty from the cornish retailer however would go down fantastically well at this moment. Happy to say I am 20 miles from any such
retailer on a business park in reading.. so those cornish calories cannot get me.
Signing off now and hoping for a defrost.