Yesterday which was Saturday the 23rd the Hairy Bikers were doing a book signing at Waterstones in Bold Street.
I was so, so excited because I love watching their cooking show. I loved watching them go around different parts of Europe, cooking the local dishes, and also when they did the season of going around England, cooking dishes that were traditional to each town.
Just recently they have brought out a new cook book & tv show called 'Mums knows best'. Which is pretty true I think! Especially when it comes to cooking :)
I really love the book & tv show because the food they cook is alot more homlier, rather than fancy like Jamie Oliver does most of the time.
Anyway Jai & I went into town & I got to the book store at 11 & bought their Mums Know Best cook book for my sister & I. The guy working at Waterstones said it probably wouldn't be too packed so to come back after 11:30. So we went to the bank & Iceland and when I came back their was a huge queue!
I was so excited to see them but Jai not so much! So Jai walked home while I waited in line for an hour.
I was soo excited when I finally got in the store to see them. They were so lovely & nice. They both shook my hand and Si & dave started signing the books for my sister & me. Si asked me where I was from as my accent sticks out like a sore thumb in Liverpool, so I told him I was from Melbourne. I then asked if they would do a show in Australia & he said they really wanted to but it was a matter of the BBC letting them. I just joked that I couldn't think of that many great Aussie dishes except pavlova & lamingtons, but Si said he loved Melbourne & it was so great for food. He put it perfectly in saying that because there is alot of different settlers in Melbourne, that the food is really good & different.
Si was then trying to remember a 'great place in Melbourne where all the artsy people go to eat'. He couldn't think of the place & neither could I so its going to haunt me for the rest of my life trying to figure out where he was talking about!!! My sister said it may have been Brunswick street. *sigh* I probably will never know!
I asked them for a photo & they were more than happy so the kind Waterstones lady took the photo for me :)
Aww, they were so, so lovely. I can't wait to see their next episode on TV! So hope I get to meet them again one day :)
Dave on the left & Si on the right.
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- Mood:
pleased
We caught the taxi to Anfield & went to the best ever chippy ever. We usually go to one called 'Istanbul' but we decided to have a change & it was so worth it. We have both really missed having chicken salt on our chips as they always do in Australia, but we both swear that this place had chicken salt on their chips.
After that we went across the road to a pub called 'The Albert' so Jai could go get tickets off a guy who was selling them to us. After we got our tickets we had a couple drinks in the pub. It was soo packed so we left about half an hour later and went to go get a match program & then headed to our seats.
The seats were definatly not the best we have ever had, actually they were right up the very back, in the corner, but t was still really, really fun.
Luckily Liverpool won 2-0 against Tottenham so that made the night even more fantastic! :)
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We had dinner at home instead of going to the chippy in Anfield as we had a fair bit of food to use up. We caught a taxi in there & pretty much went straight to the ground. We had really close seats to the ground which was great because we could both see perfectly.
Unfortunatly we were quite close to the reading fans though!
It was 1- 0 to Liverpool in the 90th minute, but unfortunatly due to added time, Reading scored and equalised which meant that we had to go into half an hours added time as it was for the FA cup and meant it couldnt be a draw. My feet were about to drop off by this point so I wasn't too happy they scored as I was so ready to go home and be happy about Liverpool winning! Unfortunatly Reading won 2-1 in the 30 minutes added time, so we headed home.
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Or in English, as white as snow :)
The first week of January we saw our 4th day of snowing. This time it snowed more than the first three times and continued to snow for hours & hours, all throughout the day and afternoon.
This was the day that they were worried about all the public transport in Liverpool & heaps of flights and trains were cancelled. We heard of a number of buses and cars crashing in Liverpool the next few days as the snow turned into ice.
The ice was so bad this week, it was almost impossible to walk into town without falling and slipping over. You literally had to shuffle your feet along so slow so you wouldn't slip! I saw a couple people fall so hard on the ground when I had to go into town one day for grocerys! And what made it worse was Jai & I had to have to walk into town every day as all the buses were cancelled.
Nontheless it is very pretty to watch from INSIDE the house. Inside a nice warm house, sitting infront of the heater with some soup or a hot chocolate and watching TV. But unfortunatly thats not the case all the time! I dont know how people deal with snow for long periods of time for their whole entire lives.
This photo is just outside our house. Click the link below to see more :)
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We got in to Egham around 9:30pm and met Mel & Jason at the train station then went back to their house with our bags.
There house is so lovely now, we got to see the loungeroom all done up and everything and its beautiful!
We stayed up for a few hours, then Mel gave Jai & I our 'Aussie packages' from her and my mumsy :) We got loads of yummy treats! Jai has been very lucky & is very happy as he has got a parcel from his mum and also my mum for his birthday full of Australian food, and then we got this Christmas one too!
Then the next morning when we got up it was Christmas :D
We had some coco pops and opened up lots of nice pressies!
I got so many nice things, I feel very spoilt! My mum and sister know me very well when it comes to presents & they really shouldn't have gone to so much trouble!!
My mum got me lots of really nice gifts like a Paris 2010 diary with lots of nice black & white pictures, a 'Hello Cupcake' calander, a Womans Weekly cupcake recipe book, Jamie Olivers American cook book and some other lovely things, and my lovely sister and Jason got me loads of really nice things like a lovely 'necklace watch', lots of treats, a gorgeous blue ring, a gingerbread house making kit, a 'personalised cook book' with a photo of my head on the front page and she even stuck in some photos of the food I have made so I can write all my recipes in there! I also got a 'Kevin Bloody Wilson' cd from them which I thought was hilarious and so thoughtful as the cab driver put that music on when Mel & Jason came up to Liverpool!
Lovely Jai got me a new phone which I am so greatful and appreciative for as my old one kept turning off and wouldnt turn back on for hours on end. It is pink, white and black and has a slide out keyboard.
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Apart from it snowing not much else is new! Hopefully I can finish work abit earlier tomorrow as I still need to do a few Christmasy things before Thursday.
And we both need to pack our bags so were ready to go to London on Thursday night :D
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100. Make the most of Christmas and do the following things:
I have photographed a few more peguins as well but have not crossed them off yet so I'll do that soon. Anyway! Today (Sunday) Jai & I woke up to SNOW!!
We wern't snowed in or anything, but there was a fair bit of it to be excited and shocked at the same time. We got out of bed and went outside to have a look at the snow & took some photos.
Then after that we headed into town to do a few things and got snowed on quite alot! We got a few last Christmas things and got some orange crackle fudge to share from the Christmas Market.
I still have a few things to pick up after work this week so hopefully I wont be doing too much overtime, although I am coming into work early at 8am on Christmas Eve so fingers crossed I can leave early!
I was thinking of baking some Christmas cookies to take down to Egham but i'll see how I go with finding a good recipe :)
We are leaving Liverpool Lime Street around 5:30pm Christmas Eve & getting into Egham around 9:30. And luckily we both get the Monday off too, so we get to stay until Monday :D
I cant wait to see all the lovely food Mel has planned to have on Christmas day. It will be both mine & Jai's first time for having turkey on Christmas instead of Roast Pork which will be interesting! Mel has also planned to get pigs in blankets which I have never had before either so Im really excited about that :)
Anyway, under the cut I will put some photos of todays snow & such :)
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They have more then 45 wooden Christmas stalls with lots of food and craft things and such!
We saw stalls for coffee, crepes, kangaroo bugers, Spanish paella, garlic mushrooms, oriental noodles and much to Jai's horror....waffles and German bratwurst sausages!!
By the time we reached the end of the stalls near the waffles he was craving all the food so bad that we had to quickly leave. We would've got something but we had some sausage rolls at home that needed to be used by today! So hopefully we will go back next weekend and get a bratwurst in a roll.
And now I can cross one more thing off my 101 is 1001 days list.
100. Make the most of Christmas and do the following things:
- Find & photograph atleast 40 penguins on the Go Penguins Trail. [4/40] 63. Mr. Diversity, 64. Patch the Penguin,
- Skate on the Christmas Ice Rink.

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After that we headed to the ground and got our seats which I think are the best seats we have ever had. We were sitting in the main stand in the middle so I could see pretty much perfectly although I did put my glasses on for some extra better vision though!
Liverpool scored the first goal, but then Fiorentina scored two more after that.. so another loss unfortunatly! It was pouring down rain after the game so we got absolutley soaked by the rain while walk.ing away from the traffic from Anfield to get a cab. It is a nightmare getting home after a match at Anfield because all the buses are packed and its hard to actually get on one so we had to walk around 10 minutes away to get a cab home.
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We took some photos of the penguin statues in town in Liverpool before we headed to Liverpool Lime Street Station to get the train to Preston, then to Blackburn.
The train was packed with heaps of fans and such all singing Liverpool songs which was interesting..
When we got to Blackburn we got lunch then had a look in the Cathedral in town, then headed to the ground to get our seats.
After we'd been sitting down in our seats for 5 or 10 munutes, two guys I chat to from work Lee & Ian, sit RIGHT next to us. We all thought it was pretty funny that out of 7000 Liverpool fan away seats, all four of us sat together.
Unfortunatly it was a 0- 0 draw but it actually was a really great game, and quite a good experience for our first away game. We caught the train to Preston, then to Lime Street with Lee & Ian which was a nightmare because there were so many fans trying to get back to Liverpool, it took us a good 3 hours to get home!
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- Mood:
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WHO'S BEHIND GO PENGUINS?
The project is being delivered by Wild in Art - the company behind the hugely popular European Capital of Culture event Go Superlambananas - in partnership with Liverpool City Council.
WHY PENGUINS?
The council commissioned Wild In Art to create a mass participation event that takes inspiration from Liverpool’s Year of the Environment and animates the city centre at Christmas time. Penguins have been chosen as they are both symbolic of the environmental issue of climate change as well as having a resonance of winter.
As part of my 101 things in 1001 days list (which you can see HERE if you are interested) I have decided to try make it my goal to try find and photograph as many of the penguins as I possibly can. My aim at the moment is to find 40 out of 142 penguins but I am hoping to find many more than that :)
From the top of the wheel you are supposed to be able to see as far as North Wales and out to the Irish Sea, but because it was so sunny and glarey it was quite hard to see too far into the distance. It is hardly ever sunny so I guess we were lucky in a way to have some sunshine on the first time we have gone out and about and atcually done something touristy in town :)
It went around 3 times which took around 15 minutes and is around 80metres tall from the ground and weighs 365 tonnes. The photos we took arn't the best quality as we were taking them through glass.
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I am so looking foward to seeing my lovely sister in December!
I had quite an alright week at work, just because some of the people I did over time I really get along with and we crack some jokes here and there so it makes the day go heaps faster.
On Friday night after work I made a few purchases which always cheers me up abit! Abit of retail therapy never hurts :P Mum wanted me to buy some shoes as all my shoes at home get soaked whenever the ground is wet so its really, REALLY unpleasant, so I bought some new ugg boot style boots which will make me blend in with everyone else here as everyone wears uggs and slipper type looking boots! It isn't something I would have normally worn, but after wearing them into town and realising they keep my feet warm AND dry it is such a nice feeling coming not walking around town with puddles of water in my shoes.
I also couldn't resist buying a new line of ballerina shoes that has just come into work. At first I didn't know wether I was sure about the pattern, but after putting them on I really love them!
And then, I bought Ava some little booties for Christmas. I bought size 9-12 months so hopefully they will fit her by the time Australia's winter comes around. They have pink versions of both the booties I got but they sold out so we have to order more in. I just can't resist stocking the baby booties every morning and not buying them for someone, anyone!! Im almost tempted to buy some for myself and make Felix wear them or somehting, or put them on a teddy bear. They are just too cute not to buy!
Also on Friday night I got treated to the loveliest package from Mel!! I got the best ever Christmas tree decorations which she picked out for me from Accesorize. They are just soooo cute that I looked at them for ages & ages and had to take photos of them all!
So underneath are some photos I have taken of my purhcases and pressies :)
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Its strange as usually someone 'famous' turns on the lights in each city in England, but I guess Liverpool is either trying to cut down on costs this year, OR they are going for a more theatrical theme this year, and from some of the pctures I have seen from Thursday on the internet it looks very made up and quite fancy with lots of costumes so maybe they are just trying to be more creative.
I finished work at 5:30pm on Thursday, and by the time I got out it was quite dark. But it was quite pretty to see some of the things they had going on already prior to the lights being turned on.
When I walked out of the back staff entrance at work, the 'light switch' was pretty much just outside the back of my work at Primark. It was like what you see in movies sometimes, like a dinamite pump or something.
As well as some pretty lights around my work, there were a few men dressed as elf's and an irish leprechaun who were riding bikes and covered head to do wrapped up in colorful fairy lights. I managed to take a couple photos on my camera phone but havn't been able to find the cord to transfer them to my computer yet.
They have also set up a big ferris wheel called 'The Big Wheel'. It looks really quite big and is 82m above sea level and weighs more than 450 tonnes.
I want to find out if it is bigger or smaller than the London Eye, its abit hard to tell seeing as though I havn't been right up to the wheel for a good look. I have just seen it in the distance on the way to work although its only about a 5 minute walk from my work if that.
In one of the squares they have also set up an Ice rink, and an Ice palace which is quite cool :)
I will probably take some more photos of the lights soon and also of the Big Wheel. But for now, here are a few :)
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We went into town on Saturday and got a few grocerys then chilled out the rest of the day. I've been watching alot of Ugly Betty Season 1 on my laptop which is good.
Today we didn't really do anything either. I guess because it is my first pay in a while so it mostly went towards the council tax which was 144 pounds, and we have to pay for our tickets to London for Christmas, but luckily they are half price now! yay :) So instead of being 140 pounds return for both of us, Its going to be around 76 pounds return for two which is good.
I also found out the Monday after Christmas is a public holiday here so I will get to spend an extra day down in London with Mel :)
We did a few more grocerys today as well as I find it abit draining having to carry all the grocerys home mid week by myself when I finish work at 6.
I didn't do over time last week though as I wasn't feeling that well, but hopefully i'll get some over time next week so i'll have some more spending money for Christmas.
Im suprisingly over my cold! :\ I have no idea how, seeing as though when I get sick its usually like once a year, and when i get sick i get SICK. So I wont be suprised if i get a second round of this so called cold at Christmas time! Fingers crossed I dont, although i've never had a 'white Christmas' before!
I got some ingredients to make my mums famous curried sausages recipe... mmmmm! So I hope I'll be able to make them as yum as hers always are! I also made some chocolate and condensed milk truffles, just made from those 'marie' or tea biscuits, condensed milk & cocoa powder.
Jais been wanting a photo of this Toxteth sign for ages so we finally took one today!
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Havn't really done much at all lately as when its so cold its hard to get out and want to go do things! I have crossed off a few movies I wanted to see so I have crossed them off on my 101 things in 1001 days list.
I loved all of the movies I watched although The Proposal was really quite funny and I really loved Sunshine Cleaning. Its more of an alternative type of film. Its from the same directors as Little Miss Sunshine so it is almost along those lines of abit of laughs here and there, then some drama and emotions thrown in and such. Its about two sisters who go into a business of cleaning up peoples houses/ mess after they die which sounds quite morbid but I had a few good laughs every now and then.
We didn't do much for Halloween. Actually I dont think we really did anything at all! Then came Bonfire Night (Guy Falkes Night) which we watched the fireworks from our house as we didn't make it to the main ones in Sefton Park.
It almost takes away the magic from fireworks though as everyone can buy them here so on Bonfire night there were about 7 or 8 different spots surrounding our house who had big fire works going on. It was quite scary walking home actually as people had back yard fireworks and the fireworks would burst right above my head in the sky which I am not used to!
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I started working at Primark Monday through to Friday this week. The past couple days I was on the floor putting out stock but today I got till trained which was good.
We have finally got our modem but just as we got our modem, the cable for my laptop broke. Because the wires have snapped, it keeps turning off and on again, so we have had to order a new cable.
I have been really tired lately as I am not used to getting up when it is dark outside. It seriously is not fun! But I guess thats what the real world is all about.
I walk to and from work each day which is good, but my legs arnt used to walking 1 mile in, 1 mile out, and then up and down numerous flights of stairs. The Primark in Liverpool is the 2nd biggest in the world after Manchester so we have 5 floors. But the lucky employees have the joyous fun of being banned from the lifts and so we have to walk from the ground floor to the 5th floor through a spiral staircase. Atleast hopefully it will all make me fitter. And thats my 30 minutes of exercise well and truly done for the day!
Anyway it takes us about 20 minutes or so to walk in to town. Its just a walk down Park Road but its not too bad because we get to walk past the Anglican Cathedral, China Town and St. Lukes bombed out Church.
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