HNT

Apparently it's Half-Nekkid Thursday today. So, as someone said once, I am a game gal, so I will enter a picture of myself here. Of course most of the people who read my blog are my friends so as a result I am not going to reveal anything scary (sorry boys!). So, here goes...

Money, Money, Money

I am overcome by the urge to buy things at the moment. I don't really need them, but I want things. I think that Ebay has a lot to answer for. So, I thought, to make my life less urge-filled, I will list the things I really want to buy at the moment:

1. A House - currently I'm renting and kind of feeling like my money's being blown on a house that has some serious problems with me actually living in it as not only did the heating die, so has the bath.... nooo
2. A Breadmaker - I still don't know why I want one of these, but it would be nice to get fresh bread in the morning. I am also inexplicably drawn to the one with the raisin/nut dispenser, although whether I'd ever use it is another question
3. A(nother) Hoya - I'm obsessed with hoyas at the moment. They're vine-like plants with large leaves and flower beautifully. My favourite is the "Imperialis"... watch this space!
4. A Popcorn Maker - I love my kitchen gadgets, I could probably fill the whole kitchen with an assortment of random things that I only use once or twice a month if that. This one, however, would stop me from making nasty burn marks in my pan...
5. A Laptop - so I could have the programs I need on my computer at work. And Windows XP. This one I use is rubbish. This would, however, cause major procrastination (probably looking up the items above!) so not sure whether it would aid or slow down the work I do.

I feel better all ready. I feel like standing up and saying "My name's Hilary and I'm an internet shopaholic!"

How's your weight doing at the moment?

Not very well, actually. I've decided to include this on my blog in order to do something about my weight. Maybe if I write down how much I weigh every week it will help me on my way... it's worth a try.
So, currently I weigh 15 stone and 5 pounds. This is 215 pounds or about 97kg. For a tall person this may not seem very much, but I'm approximately a stone/14pounds/7kg overweight.
In order to start losing weight, I must try and make some changes. These are going to include:
1. Eating less crap - this includes chocolate (although I've given this up for lent anyway), cake, crisps, biscuits etc.
2. Eating more fresh fruit/vegetables.
3. If there is cake at work (which, inevitably there is), I will try my hardest not to eat it and if I do, I will only have one (or a small slice).
4. If I HAVE to go to the fish and chip/pizza/generic burger joint/curry house shop, I will only have the fish (or the hamburger) and no chips or have one less slice of pizza/no rice.
5. Drink more water.
6. I will try my hardest to get up the hill in the morning and the evening without getting off my bike and pushing, even if I have to switch down to the lowest gear.
7. I will go to at least one sporting activity each week (this includes swimming for half an hour, aerobics or at least 3 games of badminton).
8. I will go for a walk on Saturday and Sunday (or go shopping at Asda (believe me, this is hard work, I have to get all my shopping home on my bike, at least a mile and up a hill)) and not sit around all day watching telly. Even if it is raining.
9. I will try and cut down on the amount of pasta/rice/tortilla/potatoes etc. that I eat with my dinner
10. I will report every week how I'm doing and what my weight is this week.

Wish me luck...

More Madness At Work

Ok, this may need a little explanation. We are having some problems at work with a protocol we use called Western Blotting (which lets us see which proteins are being expressed in our cells and who they interact with). These problems are now so bad we don't know where the fault lies so are desperate to come up with any fix we can. Hence the pixies. So, last night, in a bid to tempt the pixes out, I made some fairy cakes and renamed them pixie cakes...Mmmm they look good... I'll let you know if they solve our Western Blotting dilemmas!!!

Howl's Moving Castle (Review)

So last night I went to visit the SciFi group for the very last time. This is because they're all strange and I can't cope with their far-weirdness any more. Even if they do have good books, and show cool films sometimes.

However, I did get the chance to watch Howl's Moving Castle as a result. I've been wanting to watch this ever since I saw the trailer since I was such a fan of Spirited Away, which came from the same studio. Basically, my impression from the film was that it was all a bit random and didn't make much sense...

So, the good bits: I loved Calcifer (a random flame that kept the castle moving),

The dog was cute too, although reminded me a lot of Mutley as it kept wheezing...
Here's the dog, along with the kid that wasn't explained and the really random scarecrow...

The random bits: The girl in the film would go from young to old and back again without much explanation, apart from when she put herself down she would get old.
The ending was extremely fast and definitely did not make sense.
The bloke spent the entire time wearing these really horrible earrings (Men with earrings = Nooooooooooo!)
Take them off! Please!

So, not as good as Spirited Away. Even more random (as Spirited Away involved what appeared to be a young man going out with a small girl, Howl's MC seemed to be about a young man going out with an old biddy). Bizarre.

Yes, It's Spring!

When I went out into my itsy bitsy garden I saw these, and thought it would be appropriate, since today is the first day of spring, to show you all what a lovely suprise I had out there. A beautiful day, and some pretty crocuses...

Oh, and by the way, the cat is still visiting (cheering me up after the boy left home) and the finger is almost completely glassless. Yay.

It's Official: I've been adopted!

Last night I came back from Asda (generic supermarket) to find the naughty cat at my doorstep. Of course, trying to get bags into the house and stopping the cat from trying to get into the house was not going to work, so the cat made a break for it into my house. Once I'd parked the bike and dealt with the bags I found the cat circling round my sofa shouting at me, just like my cat at home shouts at me when it wants me to sit down so it can sit on me. So I sat down (I've definitely been cat trained). Stupidly I sat down without turning on the TV and then the cat came to sit on my lap. Of course since I love cats and am a big softie when it comes to friendly furry things that want attention this was a great moment to end my rather lovely day (I was in a good mood all day apart from the bit where i left work and had to go to Asda). However I was a little bored as I had nothing to do apart from be something to sit on so I was rather pleased when the cat decided to climb onto my shoulder so I could stand up and turn the TV on. All this time, my frozen stuff from Asda was slowly defrosting so I was a little preoccupied with needing to put things away and how I was going to get the cat back out of the door (much as I like the cat, it's not mine and I don't like leaving it to run around my house causing gentle havoc). At least this time it did leave on its own and I didn't get scratched again...

Mad Scientists

I've decided to add random things that happen in my lab that are weird and you guys probably won't find funny, but it has to be done

Scene:Main lab. H. is standing in the way of the cupboard
E: Can I get in the cupboard?
H: Yes, of course you can get in the cupboard. Are you going to be able to fit?

E has decided that "yay" and "woo" are the ultimate answers to everything. This is because I say yay a lot when things work, and whenever a band asks a question to the crowd, the answer is always "woo". Example being "Hello Bristol!" Crowd answers: "Woooo!" Now we've gone a bit further and decided that the opposite of "woo" and "yay" are "woah" and "nay".

Scene: Tissue culture lab. H and E are in the hoods.
H: You're funny
E: But sometimes I can be patronising, but only to blokes.
H: I'll have to remember not to become a bloke then.

Recipie of the Day: Lamb Rogan Josh, Hilary Style

This is a great way to finish up bits of roast lamb leftover from the weekend.

Ingredients:
One tablespoon vegetable oil (not olive)
One fat garlic clove, chopped finely/crushed
One thumb-size bit of ginger, chopped finely
One onion, finely cut
250g (ish) lamb, cubed
One teaspoon curry powder
One teaspoon chilli powder
Two tomatoes, chopped (or half a tin of chopped tomatoes)
Two tablespoons plain yoghurt

Heat the garlic and ginger in the oil in a wok until the oil starts to bubble.
Add the onion and cook on a moderate heat for approx. five minutes until the onion is translucent
Add the lamb and cook until brown on all sides (if lamb is allready cooked, cook for about 10 minutes)
Add the curry and chilli powder and stir in.
Add the tomatoes and stir.
Turn the heat down to minimum and place the lid on the wok. Cook for as long as you can leave it (minimum 30 minutes, is much better if left for an hour or so).
Stir occasionally and add more water if it gets too dry (the curry should be dry, so don't add too much water!)
When ready to serve, add the yoghurt, stir around for a couple of minutes and place on a warmed plate. Eat with rice (and naan/paratha/chapati if you like).

Karaoke or Dare

It all started so easily, as I'm sure most things do. Sue, in Cambridge got a SingStar package on her Playstation and we went round and sang a bit on it. Then again, earlier this year, we got round the new Singstar 80's and sang our hearts out. I wasn't bad (well, I only got the occasional boo and gained a few superstar points! (this is good by the way!)). Then I discovered that Sam, in Bristol, also has a karaoke machine. I loved it! There were songs I could sing and even not sing (well, sometimes you really don't care when you're drunk). We sang again on Saturday night, everyone was singing and it was fun. I don't know what has happened but I've become a real karaoke fan. However, my enthusiasm is tempered by the lack of songs that I truly love, for instance I still haven't found Dream a Little Dream of Me on a karaoke machine, but I'm sure I will do in time. This is why I found myself going for the Dare option in the Karaoke or Dare competition. I mean, you can sing karaoke any time, but rarely do you get to do something silly like a headstand (which, seriousely, does not work with a tall slightly overweight woman!) in front of your friends. Then again, karaoke can be a bit of a silly option anyway.
So I've discovered I love to sing. This should not come as much a surprise to me as I've spent most of the last 26 years singing. Be it round a campfire or a microphone I guess it doesn't really make a difference. I'll even do it sober, and I'm quite good at sending a small child to sleep or making it shut up from crying (this may be good in the future, you never know!). The biggest problem, however, is that I now want a Playstation so that I can get Singstar. I really don't need another way to waste my time, though. I should just get my generic mp3 player and sing round the room instead.

More Accident, Less Emergency

Yesterday was a stupid day. I had to clean out the hood, a piece of equipment we use to look after our cells. Unfortunately this seemed to have collected a large amount of broken glass and, unsurprisingly a small bit of this decided to lodge itself in my finger and didn't want to leave. So I had to go off to the Accident and Emergency Department of BRI (that's the local hospital) to get the damn thing removed. Oh what a fuss for a little bit of glass, I tell you I will get so sqeamish over the stupidest little bit of blood. The staff at the hospital were lovely to me, even letting me have a look at the x-ray of the bit of glass in my finger (they have digital x-rays now, very snazzy!) and although I did have to wait for a while, at least I had a TV to watch while I waited. The extraction did not go well, I shall not go into it too much but they didn't manage to get the whole thing out and I was feeling exceptionally woozy and faint by the end of it. I went back to work only to pick up my bag, grab a bus home and get a fish and chips on my way home. So I still have an excruciatingly sore finger that is not even the result of a UDI, but from work and I'm going to get a bit of an infection soon.. nice!

So here it is, one sore finger and one allmighty pain in the arse. Work's going to be fun on Monday...

Virtuosity Almost Intact

I once told somebody that patience was a virtue, and they said that they weren't very virtuous then. I can now kind of understand that. This is because for the last month and a half I have been waiting quite impatiently for my orchid to flower. So you can imagine my joy the other day to come home to this:

We say oooh pretty... And this is just one flower, the others are coming out slowly. I am hoping that, since it's taken so long to flower, that it will now flower for a long time so I can enjoy pretty yellow with red spots flowers for a while...

Top Train Delay Excuses

10 Track replacement (hopefully not in front of our train...)
9 Somebody's jumped in front of a train
8 There's been a rockslide (oops)
7 We are behind a slow train
6 There is a signal failure
5 We are waiting for the Train Manager (apparently he waves flags)
4 We are waiting for the train driver (or one to replace the one who didn't bother to turn up... sigh)
3 There are high winds (what, did they feed the train crew beans again?)
2 The front carriage is no longer working (well it was five minutes ago)
1 There's a cow on the line (mooo)

Deja Vu

Once upon a time I went to the Southampton Oceanography Centre as I thought maybe I would like to be a Marine Biologist. I was told that it would involve lots of travelling by boat (I get terribly sea-sick) and I spent a day counting small bizarre creatures and seeing whether I could break the counter. I decided that this life was not for me. Luckily the bloke there suggested that I could do Pharmacology, and, so they say, here I am.

However, I seem to have gone back to the start. I have started having to count stuff, AGAIN. Now I hate microscopes and I don't like spending lots of time counting things. My current job seems to entail me having to do this a lot. I am not amused.
If you had to count the number of cells that looked like the top picture, and compare them to cells that looked like the bottom picture, over approximately 200 cells, with a few blank spaces in between where there is nothing, you would probably also feel like screaming gently. However, if I manage to cope with the madness, I do get a nice graph at the end. So I can kind of say yay. And hope I don't have to do it too much. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, we grow cells that have been donated from various creatures. These we then manipulate so that they will glow green (or possibly any other colour you may desire) with our protein of interest (I hope). This makes us able to cure cancer (ha ha).

Recipe of the Day: Fajitas with Homemade Salsa

I love to make this dish. It can be very messy but is quite good fun. You can of course buy salsa ready-made but I like to make my own. I also tend to make the salsa first, then wash the pan out and do the chicken.

Homemade Salsa (makes 1-2 servings)

Tablespoon olive oil
Garlic clove or two
Half an onion, chopped finely
One small fresh or dried chilli (add more to taste)
Half a can of chopped tomatoes
Tablespoon tomato puree
Handful of sweetcorn
Handful of Coriander leaves (or a squeeze of coriander paste)

Fry garlic and chilli in olive oil for a minute until it starts to bubble. Add the onion and fry on a low/medium heat until onions are translucent. Add the tomato puree, stir, then add the chopped tomatoes and cook for a further 5 or so minutes until the liquid has reduced to the required consistency. Add the sweetcorn and heat through (3 minutes ish). Finally, stir in the coriander and pour into a useful bowl.

Fajitas (makes enough for 1)

4-5 tortilla wraps
One chicken breast, chopped
One pepper, chopped
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cayenne pepper
lime juice and zest from half a lemon

If you have time, marinade the chicken breast in the oregano, cayenne and lime juice. If not, fry these ingredients together with the pepper until the chicken is cooked through (about 15 minutes) on a medium heat, stirring to make sure it doesn't burn. Once the chicken is cooked through, you can either place the tortilla on top of the mixture to heat through or place in a microwave on high for about 10-15 seconds until hot.

To make the fajitas, you will also need some sour cream/yoghurt and some salad leaves/avocado slices

Place a few bits of the chicken mixture in first, in a straight line in the middle of the wrap. Make sure you leave a clear 1/3 of the wrap so you can fold it. Then dribble some salsa on top, followed by the sour cream/yoghurt and finally garnish with the salad/avocado slices. Fold from the bottom of the tortilla and then wrap the two sides.

Enjoy!

Lost about Lost

I'm sure everyone is talking about this at the moment, but I for one just really don't understand. What is going on? Am I really interested? Who cares what's going to happen next?

Maybe it's because it just doesn't seem real to me: there's too much going on and not enough explanation. They want to make more action because I guess they think that's what's interesting. But I get bored instead. They get attacked by a polar bear, was it the only one on the island cos they haven't seen another since? There are other people on the island that want to steal small children - why? do they really want to cope with screaming infants that are not their own? I certainly wouldn't. Why have they not bothered to try and find the others camping site to see how many people there are - then throw all those nasty bits of dynamite at them?!?

I guess it doesn't help that I've missed a couple of episodes but to be honest I don't think I will be watching the next series. I don't want to know what the hatch does, or in fact who they're going to kill next in another ridiculous storyline (sinking in the sea; falling off a cliff in a plane; being dynamited). But, you never know, come 10pm in "spring", I may be watching Channel 4 on a Wednesday. Who knows. I'm more looking forward to the next series of Desperate Housewives and CSI:Miami (I really like Horatio, he's really cool).

Anyway, back to work...

Hi there!

Hello and welcome to my blog. Here you will learn a little about myself, my life, the universe and everything. Well, maybe just the first two.

So where do I start? My name is Hilary, I'm a 26-year old female in Bristol who works in a laboratory. That's the scientist bit. I'm 6'3, which is the tall bit. If you think that's bad, my boyfriend is 7'5. Yes really.

This weekend concerned the tale of the bad cat which invaded my house on Saturday. This particular cat is incredibly friendly and comes and says hello to me often. The only problem is that after a certain amount of time it turns on you and decides you're suddenly a scratching post. Ouch. This led me to muse this morning whether there would be a mathematical equation about the amount of time it takes to be scratched after starting stroking a cat. Probably, but not something that I'm going to figure out... Anyway, due to the fact that I had just started this blog I wanted to take a picture of said cat, so left the door open while i went inside. Cat came in, of course, and started to wander round the house. This was all nice and lovely (I love cats, especially friendly ones) until it started to scratch my furniture. Unfortunately it did not take kindly to being removed from the house (much yowling) and my hand was well and truly scratched. Ouch.

This morning, as it was raining, I spied the cat again. Of course now I was a bit wary but it was being very friendly so I guessed that as long as I didn't let it in the house again (which is difficult when you're trying to sort a bike out and make sure you have some waterproofs on) it would be OK. The only problem was I left the poor thing sat under a car, which I felt bad about. But it was just too bad, it's not my cat so there's nothing I can do about it. And I didn't get scratched. Hooray.

Recipe of the day: Risotto

Risotto

Tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 smallish mug risotto rice
dash white wine
stock cube (chicken was mine)
2 mugs water
4ish button mushrooms, sliced thinly
Tomato, diced
leftover cooked chicken bits, chopped into edible chunks
Worcester Sauce
some cheddar and parmesan

Fry the onion in the oil on a moderate heat until translucent (about 5 minutes)
Turn the heat down and add the rice, stir for a couple of minutes.
Add the wine and let reduce for a couple of minutes
Add the stock cube and the water and stir. Cover, bring to the boil and simmer for approx 10-15 mins with some stirring until water is soaked in and the rice is almost cooked.
Add the mushrooms and tomato and cook for a further 3 minutes.
Stir in the chicken and cook til cooked through.
Add Worcester Sauce, season with some salt and pepper
Grate cheese on top and eat. Mmmmmmm