Housemates dinner and Glasgow

Last week, it was my turn to make dinner for my 3 housemates. I was the first person to follow Rick's famous curry, desserts from Maison Blanc and movie 'Withnail and I'. I decided to go for my famous Creamy sweet chili chicken with pasta, caramelised peaches and 'Sherlock Holmes'.

I got home from work at 5.30pm and immediately started preparing the food. It was so great to cook for other people again. I used to do a lot of the cooking at home and here, sometimes I don't want to cook if it's just for me. I'm not going to give away my recipe, it's not that type of blog, just to say that it's quite tasty.

It was then time for dessert. I had never cooked the stolen recipe before so was hoping I could pull it off. Needless to say, it was a hit. It was simple, tasty and just enough after a big meal.

I then whipped out the popcorn for the film. Rick and Liz laughed when they saw the DVD box as they had rented 'Sherlock Holmes' the previous week. I had to admit defeat and scan the 'on demand' films and chose 'Date night' as a good compromise.

Then on Friday, myself and a colleague left around lunch time to go up to Glasgow for a joint event on Saturday. The Sat nav said that we would get to the hotel by 7.30pm, but we should've known better. We got caught in London commuter traffic, rush hour and road works. After trying to get a few minutes off our estimated arrival time by possibly going over the speed limit, it was time for a break. We got some food in the services and then it was my turn to drive.

For those who have read my previous blogs will know that I haven't had the best track record when it comes to driving the company car to events. Whether its driving with the hand brake on, driving on the wrong side of the road or not being able to get the petrol flat open; it's been an adventure. However, this time, the only real problem was the ever extending estimated time of arrival. The sat nav said to take a detour and you always trust the Tom tom. So we got off the motorway and headed towards Stoke-on-Trent.

Every time I've gone to Scotland, I've driven down this one stretch of motorway and this time, I got to drive it in the dark. It is before Carlisle but after the lake district. The road curves around, to reveal a valley. The other side of the road is on a lower level and the view is just indescribable. After this, I was ready to swop back and finish our journey to Glasgow. We arrived at the hotel after 9.30pm and crashed in our rooms soon after.

The next morning, I was treated to a full Scottish breakfast. You got to pick and choose what you wanted, so I cut out the things I knew would be baaaad and went for the safe option. (Accept of course a random square piece of meat, later discovered as Lorne sausage - full of rusk and wheat, of course!).

I got to the venue early and started to set up the stand as usual. I got to meet the others and I helped out where I could. Mike dropped our guest speaker to a relatives house and stayed for lunch. I was called to the stage to introduce the organisation, which I was not expecting. Later on, when Mike arrived for the later event, he was told "Sorry you couldn't make it earlier on, but your PA was brilliant".We both had a good laugh and were pleased with how the day had gone.

After a long day, it was time for bed.

The next morning, I got dropped to Glasgow airport. I checked in and decided to treat myself to a very Scottish meal before heading back home. Even though it was very tasty, it was embarrassing ordering it. It was very obvious that I was not a local as I leaned over the counter and spoke phonetically "Haggis, neeps and tatties and an Irn bru please". The waiter repeated the order back to me in a Scottish accent, which helped the words to flow better than the way I said it.

I landed in Birmingham, got the train to Oxford, then the bus home. After dropping my bag off and getting my clothes ready for work in the morning. I headed out to the cinema to see the newly remastered "Back to the Future" with Becki. Even though I've seen it so many times, I really enjoyed seeing it on the big screen.

Then it was time for bed and the start of another week.