Squashed tomato...

I fell off the running machine today. Not a little stumble, not even a big stumble, but fell flat on my face. Imagine someone lying down licking the floor, well that was how much on the floor I was. My face, nicely rosy from running for 23 minutes suddenly turned from a light pink to a, I don’t even know what colour to call it, well I turned into a tomato.

If being a squished tomato on the floor was not bad enough, the gym was full to the brim so I couldn’t even pretend to myself that only a few people saw. No. One man shouted out “someone stop that machine!” but the rest, the whole gym, just stared, mouth opened. 

Once on the floor, my brain asked itself… Should Tasha be a trooper and pick herself up and go back to running on the running machine, or does she run...away. Fight or flight. Tasha: flight. I ran, like a tomato child, past T-Shirt James, to my friend who was equally standing there staring mouth opened. 

Tomorrow’s agenda: find a new gym. Or grow a moustache. 

Lonely Jumper

It’s officially less than one month until Christmas, and that got me thinking, when is it too early to wear my Christmas jumper?

My sister insists Christmas jumpers are so 2007 so to her it’s always too early. The thing is, I really want to wear mine. I have to admit my Rudolph jumper hangs in my wardrobe all year round even though I am definitely not cool enough to wear it in July in an ironic-cool sort of way. I feel sorry for it, hanging there all lonely, only being worn for a maximum of three weeks per year, so I feel I should wear it as soon as I can, for as long as I can. Either that or I regret paying good money for something I hardly ever wear. 

I really like these Christmas jumpers.

http://www.newlook.com/search/search_departments_list.jsp?_dyncharset=UTF-8&question=christmas+jumper&_D%3Aquestion=+&sfs_ss=Search&_D%3Asfs_ss=+&search.x=0&search.y=0&_D%3Asearch=+&_DARGS=%2Fglobal%2Fshared%2Fsearch.jsp

And these ones... Just awesome. 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleytalong/awesome-christmas-sweaters-hpz

Ooo fruity!

Today was full of revision and revision means brain food which today consisted of a delicious fruit, zesty and aromatic cake I made last night. My recipe has far less sugar than usual fruit cake recipes because I think the raisins make the cake plenty sweet enough.

Ingredients 

150 g plain flour

150 g self raising flour

150 g soft brown sugar

250g margarine

Grated rind of 1 orange

Grated rind of 1 lemon

5 eggs

½ tea spoon vanilla essence. 

500g dried mixed fruit

1 teaspoon cinnamon 

Method

- Grease a loaf tin with grease proof paper

- Sieve the flours and cinnamon in to one bowl. 

- In another bowl cream together the margarine, sugar, vanilla essence, orange zest and lemon zest until the mixture is pale and creamy. 

- Add the eggs a little at a time to the margarine mixture, beating well after you add each egg. 

- Fold in the flour into the margarine mixture. 

- Fold in the fruit mixture, making as few folds as possible to incorporate the fruit. 

- Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in a pre-heated oven at Gas Mark 2 for 2 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. 

-Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes. 

- Turn it out onto a wire rack and leave to cool. 

Enjoy with a large mug of soy hot chocolate. 

xxx

T-Shirt James

Do you ever see the same people everyday, like on your way to work and now you feel you know them even though you have no idea what they do or what they are called? Well, whenever me and my friend go to the gym we always see the same guys there, all time. I'm not sure if they never leave the gym and set up camp on the yoga mats or if they just happen be there only on the days we go. We went to the gym today and noticed something very strange... Where was T-Shirt James?

Ok so I need to give you a bit of background to these guys at the gym, me and my friend have made up names for these guys because actually asking them their names would be absolutely absurd. There's Lion Man, who has hair like a lion or a Beegee, who always gives us an urge to sing Stayin' Alive a bit too loudly on the running machine. Well, Lion Man comes with his gym buddy - aka Lion Man's Sidekick. Oh Lion Man has really white teeth too, I mean really white - more like glowing actually.

Then there's the Ron Weasleys. There's Ron Weasely who, to be honest doesn't really look like the Harry Potter Ron Weasley, just has similar hair. Then there's Fake Ron Weasley who looks a bit like Ron Weasely, and there's Fake Fake Ron Weasley who looks like Fake Ron Weasley but who has no resemblance to the Ron Weasley. 

Well, Fake Fake Ron Weasely always works out with T-Shirt James. James might be his real name, we're not sure, but he definitely looks like a James, and he always wears the same blue t-shirt. But T-Shirt James has not been seen for two weeks! Maybe he's on a gym holiday, eating cake. 

My sister made this Nigel Slater lemon and thyme cake for my mum's birthday yesterday, it is absolutely gorgeous! 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/lemon_and_thyme_cake_15394