Champagne and me get on

Friday was the usual quick sandwich for lunch and then off to the pub for some beers. I went down Asda's after work and did some very basic shopping.

I was intending on buying myself a roast chicken, but the queue was too much for me - so I opted to pick up a kilo of "buy me whole" applewood smoked turkey. At a tenner, I thought it was a bit expensive - but when I ate a slice I realised it was money well spent - that's some tasty shit right there. Especially in a wholegrain bread sandwich with some salad. Ace.

I had a quiet night in on Friday, on account of the fact I was aiming to go out early on Saturday morning for some day time binge drinking as it was me mate Matt's 30th birthday.

Things went exactly to plan, I had a quick sandwich on Saturday morning and then headed off to town. We went to Lloyds Bar One and my mate Chris ordered 2 bowls of chilli (buy 1 get 1 free) - so I ate the "spare" one. Great.

We then got stuck in to lots of stella and champagne, I got so drunk that I missed most of the Scotland v England 6 Nations match (probably for the best!!). I can't remember anything from then on, but needless to say I probably had a great time.

Sunday I woke up early with a proper hangover and a horrible feeling of guilt. I then discovered that I had lost my phone battery and had to order one from eBay. I almost made myself one of those amazing sandwiches, but my parents called and offered to take me out for a meal. We went to the Fox Den and I had a starter of tomato soup and a main course of sirloin beef. I drank a few stellas and some wine to help kill my hangover, and it seemed to work - so Dad and I went and met some of my mates in the Patchway Sports and Social to watch Man Utd win the Carling Cup.

I may have had another one of those great sandwiches too, when I got home - but I can't remember.

Today was OK, found out I hadn't been too crazy on Saturday. Which was nice. Went to the Bradley Stoke for lunch and I opted to try the roast vegetable lasagne. It was very nice, although seemed to be lacking a crucial ingredient..

I went to the gym after work and then went round my parents for tea and watched the last Life on Mars in the series. Tea was nice, pork chops - which I haven't had in a while. Pancake Day tomorrow, dunno what I'm doing yet.

Coming Soon :- The Weekend

Not ate much of interest this week. Monday night I went to the gym and then went round my parents' for tea and watched Life on Mars. They cooked me up the same chicken meal that I had last Thursday.. only with fresh veg and roasters this time.

Tuesday I had a rather forgettable mushroom curry for lunch and I probably went to the pub after that. After work I picked my car up from being serviced. Cost me 320 quid, which just about eats up the surprise bonus I'll be getting this month :(

When I got back, I had a marmite sandwich and went to the Patchway Sports and Social with Carla and Lee. We watched Real Madrid get beaten by Arsenal in the European Champions League 1/4 finals 1st leg. I got very drunk and when I got home, I discovered that my keys were missing from my pocket (with my only car key on there!) - luckily I retraced my steps and found the keys in the local skate park (??).

I had to have myself a bit of a fried breakfast on Wednesday morning to recover, seemed to do the job and then a few hours later I battled through a roast turkey dinner too (it was was Wednesday, after all).

Today's lunch was excellent, I had cajun beef or something - it was amazing. For dessert, I had broccholi soup. Proper.

Stella - the one constant in life?

I guess we should pick up from Thursday evening, it seems like so long ago - let me see if I can recall..

Ah yes, I was unexpectedly sans la voiture due to some Toyota specific parts being ordered from factory, I was forced to spend the evening in (not so bad, won the Premiership and FA Cup with Bristol Rovers on Football Manager).

My Mum had given me some food earlier in the week with the strict instruction of eating it immediately - but my fridge is super cold and it still smelt OK, so I cooked that up and ate it.

It contained 2 chicken breasts with stuffing wrapped in bacon and some sausages in a kind of barbeque type sauce. There was also some cheese and potato dish I had, so I bunged it all in the oven and ate it with some salad and loads of ground pepper and some of that pizza style ground chillis and spices.

Friday I had a sandwich for lunch so I could have more time in the pub, then in the evening Sarah came down from Surrey for the weekend and we ordered in a large cheese and tomato pizza, garlic bread and potato wedges from Dominos (too plain a selection to even bother with a picture). We then went round Carla and Lee's and watched Stand By Me and Napoleon Dynamite (which was fucking funny!) and drank some more beer.

On Saturday, Sarah and I went to town to meet Sarah's friend for lunch. Despite going to Corn Street, where there was a massive selection of different restaurants (Lebanese, Italian, Mexican, etc) - we ended up going to the Commercial Rooms (Wetherspoons).

It wasn't all bad, though, as they do 2 meals for 6.29 or something - so I had a bowl of chilli and rice and a lasagne with salad (and obviously several cheap Stellas).

That evening Sarah and I ordered in some Chinese from my recent personal favourite :- Golden Oriental. We had lemon chicken, spicy beef, soft noodles, mixed vegetarian fried rice, chicken satay and a spring roll.

Of course this was all washed down with another of my personal favourites - Stella!!!

Carla and Lee came round and we all watched Donnie Brasco and drank some Stella. Now that's a recipe for a good evening.

Sunday, Sarah and I were supposed to be meeting one of her friends in Weston - but as luck would turn out, we met up with them down on the Waterfront instead.

This is good because Weston is a shit hole.

For some reason I can't explain, possibly just to torment me, but all that fine cuisine in the area to try and we ended up at the fucking Commercial Rooms again!! :)

As I knew I was to go round my parents in the evening for Sunday tea, I didn't opt for the 2-4-1 offer and instead had steak and ale pie. Which I washed down with lashings of cheap Stella.

Sarah and I went round my parents after that and were treated to a tasty meal which included breaded camembert for starters and roast beef for main course.

We all then sat and watched Crash before Sarah went back to Surrey and I met up with Higz and Lee back at my gaff and we watched a few more episodes of Lost (and, possibly, drank some more Stella).

I love Lasagne. She's so damn tasty...

Well the working week is drawing to a close, which means the weekend is on it's way. Woo!

Monday evening I went to the gym, worked really hard for an hour and still only managed to burn off about 700-odd calories (less than 4 x 550ml cans of Stella!), ah well. Still weighed 107kg.

When I got home I had myself a cheese, turkey slice, salad and pickled onion sandwich (yes, it works!).

Tuesday (Valentines Day) was great (even though I only got one card!!) as the canteen was serving lamb lasagne!! Ruddy fantastic.

In the evening I went and watched Rovers lose 1-0 at home to fellow play-off contenders Cheltenham, all was not lost though because I got completely wasted afterwards.

My car is currently being serviced, so I had a lift to work (cheers Trew!) and this enabled me to eat some Muesli to try and stop any type of hangover kicking in.

Being Wednesday, I should be telling you about the roast lamb the canteen was serving up.. however this was not to be, as my work mates fancied a visit to the Bradley Stoke (and I didn't take much convinving, especially after getting a second meal free last time).

I opted for half a roast chicken and it was well worth the fiver it cost.

I went to the gym for a bit after work today and managed to sweat some of last night's booze out. Afterwards I went round my parents' and had some chicken wrapped in bacon with veg and roasters. Tasty!

Pie!!

Well I remembered to bring my chicken sandwiches to work last Friday and, frankly, I'm as surprised as you are. I munched them all over the course of the day and it meant I had more time for drinking in my lunch hour.

I don't think I got up to much on Friday evening, I went round Mike + Michelle's to feed their cats and then went home, ate pretty much the entire barbeque chicken and then slept for a bit.

I was on-call last week and Saturday I was rudely paged out at 8.22am (which is before the "weekend rate" threshold too - so I wasn't all that happy), once I had fixed the fault I had another kip before watching France vs Ireland in the 6 Nations. I got up and made myself a muesli breakfast before proceeded to tidy the house up.

I had Lee, Carla, Nathan and my Dad over to watch Italy v England and drink some beer. My Dad went home soon after the rugby at my Mum's behest, but the others stayed and we ordered some Chinese from the Golden Oriental (over an hour and a half delivery time, must have been busy - even for a Saturday night).

My meal of choice was honey roasted spare ribs (very nice), sweet and sour duck (could have been sweet and sour anything for all I knew, still nice tho) and Singapore style rice (spicy). The order was quite extensive and I was under express orders from the guys to request some free prawn crackers (even though they always give you free prawn crackers!) - anyway, a good meal nonetheless.

Sunday I got up in time for roast dinner round my parents, roast beef and yorkshire pudding to be precise. Sunday dinners have got to be my favourite meal of the week.

Today I am no longer on-call, so will be going to the gym in a minute - which will be good considering the pie I had in the canteen today. Steak and mushroom - not bad at all.

I'll leave you with a link to an up and coming blog by my mate Trew, it promises to analyse the evolution of spam (not the food type.. the annoying, yet often amusing, tripe that lands in your e-mail inbox without invitation). Please have a ganders, and possibly bookmark, what must truly be an entertaining journey through Trew's junk folder as it happens… http://spamcritters.blogspot.com

Magnificent Work Roast and Double Salmon Treat

Phwoar. Check that out for a roasty. This is yesterday's roast pork and it was bloody lovely.

I know I always get excited about Roast Dinners, but the canteen roasts are never normally that great. However I was quite pleased to get a very generous helping of pork and the veg was actually quite nice too (I am starting to get a taste for sprouts) and the gravy was thick (very rare in our canteen).

I have also started using the canteen pepper grounder, which just about capped this treat off.

Anyway, I think I only had muesli for tea yesterday. Not bad, quite filling.

Today we decided to go to the Bradley Stoke pub, I thought I would have some steamed salmon with some salad and a jacket potato (not bad for a fiver).. my day, however, was made a million times better when they accidentally brought another salmon and salad out - I didn't complain, the salmon was even chunkier than the one in the pic. Brilliant, 2 meals for a fiver. Spot on.

Went to Asda after work to get Sarah a Valentines' Day card, as I was there I made sure I bought a 24 pack of Stella, 2 fresh of the spit chickens (1 x barbeque and 1 x garlic - tasty), salad and some Innocent Smoothies. That pretty much sums up my average shopping trip really?

I devoured the garlic chicken when I got home (used some of it to make chicken and salad sandwiches for work tomorrow.. if I remember to take them, that is!)

Friday tomorrow, my favourite working day of the week.

Holmzy Special

Thursday I resolved to cook myself some tea, I was rather running out of ingredients - so had to be slightly creative with my masterpiece. My parents had given me some sausagemeat stuffed ravioli, so I boiled that up with some old carrots. Then I bunged in a load of pickled onions, gherkins and cauliflower and then opened a tin of spaghetti hoops into the mix. It kind of looked edible, so I went for it. OK - I had to spice it up with lots of chilli, mixed herbs and black pepper - but it was perfectly filling.

In fact, I had the leftovers of that on Friday. Although I went round my Aunty and Uncles in the evening, got quite spannered in fact. Always a bonus.

Saturday I woke up around 1pm and went down the Patchway Sports and Social with Chris and Lee, got very trolleyed whilst watching England trounce Wales in the 6 Nations (Rovers beat Bury too, so quite a good day). Unfortunately, I was too drunk to do much else and went home to bed around 6pm (not before putting some prawn toast in the oven.. and promptly forgetting and burning them to charcoal).

Sunday I went round my parents' for tea and had a splendid roast lamb and watched Scotland out-muscle France in the 6 Nations.

Today was my Great-Grandmother's funeral. She died aged 98 (born in 1908). The wake was at Parkway Tavern and the food was all paid for by my late Great-Nan.

Clearing the backlog...

Nearly a week without an update, I am most ashamed. Although I am sure you'll be happy to hear that I have plenty of scran to tantilise your tastebuds with in today's posting.

As the Grandmaster Flash once said, "taking you back (way, WAY back)" to last week (Thursday, in fact). I went into the posh area of Clifton in the evening and had lots of drinking.

My housemate, Higz, kindly came and picked me up around 11pm and took me to Asda. I did a very poor week's shop (I bought a massive bottle of skimmed milk - why?) - as I hadn't eaten that evening, I also got some kind of pre-cooked chicken wings. They were probably quite tasty.

Friday was the day of the "Christmas" party. I was excited all day, enjoying some kind of chicken in an alcoholic sauce for lunch and building myself a chicken tikka sandwich when I got home (using the multi-grain loaf, tikka'd chicken, mayonaise and salad that I had bought the night before). The sandwich was great, washed down with lashings of Stella (naturally). In fact, I had caned 6 cans before I even got the bus to the party.

Apparently there was food at the party, but I don't recall..

Skipping to Saturday, I woke up early (as I usually do after a skinful) and tinkered round on my PC until I was well enough to drive to Surrey (the trip to Wales was postponed, so I decided to go and visit Sarah and her family instead).

Saturday evening I was treated to my favourite type of meal an all you can eat buffet! The joint in question was Pete's Palace and the food was grand, but the place was rammed. I didn't really do myself justice, I felt, and only managed to eat 2 heaped platefuls of Chinese goodness. Something must be wrong.

Sunday I woke up with a tremendous cold. Sarah dubbed it man-flu, but whatever it was it knocked me a bit for six (I am never ill, so probably over-react to a slight cold).

To try and sort myself out, we went to Staines (Aiii) and had a meal at Nando's. I had a quarter of a chicken, spicy rice and coleslaw. Pretty cool. We then went and watched Jarhead at the pics, was pretty good - I reckon.

I drove home on Sunday evening and made myself a cheese, salad and pickle sandwich when I got there. That was all that nice, fresh bread gone.

I was still feeling quite ill on Monday, but I had quite a nice lunch in the canteen - some kind of spicy vegetable noodle dish (I also added some extra veg - for goodness). I went down the gym in the evening, to try and sweat my cold out. Afterwards I went round my parents' for tea - chicken breast in bacon, stuffing, roasters and lots of veg!

Yesterday I had some hotpot (too boring a pic to include..) in the canteen for lunch and then went to the footy with Gale in the evening (a 3-3 thriller against Leyton Orient). I had a proper Cornish Pasty from the ground for my tea (and, of course, lots of beer). Unsurprisingly this hasn't really helped my cold.

Today is, of course, roast dinner day and wouldn't be complete without the obligatory roast image. The featured meat was roast beef.