Dinner went okay, though Frank didn't make it and Emma and Chris were clearly pretty weary from their travels (and Emma's been sick, so she was positively subdued). None of the dishes were particularly thrilling, which is a shame.We always like to try out something new for our dinner parties, but I suspect we might have been better off last night with at least one tried-and-true course. Never mind, was still heaps of fun.

It was ChrisT's birthday yesterday (unrelated to the timing of the dinner party, but a nice bonus). Amongst the swag were a couple of new games - Puerto Rico from us and Zendo from Linda, both of which come highly recommended from various sources and should keep his devious strategic brain ticking over – and a copy of the third season of Blake's 7 with what looks like a Ludo popper on the cover. Don't ask. Anyway, all of this should keep him occupied for a while.

Gamin'

While the World of Warcraft bug hasn't completely released its deathgrip on my vital organs just yet, I have been starting to think about considering the possibility of entertaining other forms of escapist distractions. Since we've been doing not much other than board games for the past few months of Tuesdays, Chris is obviously thinking along the same lines. He wants to run a D&D game that parallels his one-Saturday-a-month game, which I occasionally make but more often miss. After that, I'm thinking about a seventies spy thriller game, the details of which I have yet to commit to paper or indeed my forebrain. Keeping things simple and short seems to be the ticket, otherwise we all lose enthusiasm and interest trails off.

Workin'

Things are a bit stressful at work – while on the one hand Project Porkpie is moving along at a nice pace, there's a growing gnawing feeling that the timeframe is tighter than we'd like. This is pretty normal for IT projects, but it's particularly difficult given that there isn't much we can drop out of the scope in order to bring it in on time. Given my predilection for stressing about things that I can't do much about, like reality, I can see a long, long few months stretching out ahead of me. I know intellectually that at some point I'll just have to stop giving myself a hard time about the fact that there is more work to do than there is time left to do it in, but until I actually go through it and emerge with my sanity and job intact, I'm not really going to get there.

Travellin'

Did I mention how very very much I'm looking forward to the New Zealand trip? Probably not, since Mum didn't know about it, so here it is: I can't wait. Two weeks, six of us on the ski slopes at Mount Hutt (or five, since Fi sounds more and more resolute about not being arsed about skiing), then exploring South Island, looking at glaciers and fjords and canyons and wineries. It won't be exactly relaxing, but it will be a welcome break.

2 Comments:

The Dinner Party was fantastique, my compliments to the chefs. I really liked the eggplant- er... aubergine - dish, and am planning on stealing the recipe. (Although there is no chance of finding more than 3% of the ingredients without travelling more than an hour!)

By emmajeans, at 11:35 AM  

I quite liked the eggpla- er, aubergine dish too, but it was rather more work than it was worth, for mine.

However, I will definitely make you a copy. It may be that the recipe just needs the odd bit of tweaking to make it more exciting.

By Dave, at 10:42 AM