New Face of Iceland

I’VE BEEN TAKING MY VITAMINS AND TRYING TO STAY STRONG.....
EVERYONE I KNOW HAS A COLD THEY WANT TO PASS ON....
THIS WEEK IT GOT ME BUT WHAT COULD I DO......
WE ALL KNOW LADIES DON’T GET “MAN FLU”!

Hello again and how do you all feel this week? I am asking because I think everybody I have seen or spoken to recently all seems to have been ill!

In this modern day and age of new medical breakthroughs and research, it’s such a shame that there still is nothing anyone can do to prevent or treat the common cold. Or “man flu” as it known by certain people!
We have sent men to the moon, made it possible to reach the other side of the world in 24 hours, and have the technology via the internet to communicate with anyone at any time in any country, but still can’t defend ourselves against sore throats, runny noses and stinging eyes!

Anyway, the week started well; I had a lovely evening out with my brother. We went for a meal and then to see Adrian Edmondson’s band “The Bad Shepherds” in Bristol. They play old 70’s and 80’s songs, mainly punk, in the style of folk music on guitars, ukuleles, whistles, and bag pipes! My brother is only 25 and probably doesn’t remember Adrian Edmondson from ‘The Young Ones’ days, but I do and never realised he was also so musically talented. There is a 14 year age gap between me and my brother, but when he takes me out I like to think of it as a nice payback for all the times I used to take him out to the zoo, and to the play park when I was a teenager and he was a toddler! He says it is to keep me young and stop me from turning to bingo in my later years!

However well the week started, I knew that the time was ticking until the germs got me. I was optimistically taking my extra vitamin tablets and trying not to breathe when speaking to anyone at work, customers and staff, but it’s very hard to keep this up without turning blue in the face and collapsing! Especially when you have a job that involves a lot of speaking and contact with lots of different customers.

And sure enough, Rob’s man flu and my cold struck! To be fair, Rob hasn’t actually taken any time off work, but the difference is that he has been going home to his flat and tucking himself up with a lemsip as soon as he finishes, whereas I have been just counting the hours until the boys bedtime, so that I can finally clock off and go to bed too!

I have been making the most of early nights though and have worked my way through my John Hughes film DVD collection, tucked up in bed. Well it’s the best cure I have for feeling a bit cold and miserable! ‘Pretty in Pink’ still has to be my ultimate favourite.

I decided we all needed cheering up, so last night me and the boys had a special ‘Chinese night’. If you read my food reviews you will know that I recently reviewed the “Kung Po chicken” from Iceland and I loved it. I decided to buy this and a selection of other dishes in the Chinese range for the boys. Obviously it all worked out much cheaper than a takeaway and gave the boys a chance to see which dishes were their favourites. I also thought it might be fun to introduce them to chopsticks and see how they got on. Looking back now it was an odd idea, especially as I myself have never mastered the art and always embarrass my friends in Chinese restaurants by asking for a knife and fork!

Well the food was a big hit, especially the sweet and sour chicken pieces which they could actually skewer with a chop stick. Not authentic I know, but it got the job done! The chicken fried rice was also eaten very fast, but by this point they had discovered chopsticks actually make really good drumsticks and lost all interest in actually using them to eat with. I tried to calm them down by telling them that even Phil Collins didn’t drum at the table whilst eating or his mum would tell him off, but it didn’t have much effect.

In fact after the meal they held onto the ‘drum sticks’ and got the guitars out as well and had a full band practice! This is something Sam is particularly passionate about at the moment, as he tells me he has formed his own band with some class mates. Apparently they have actually recorded themselves but when I asked if I would get to hear the recording I was told that I needed to join the fan club and pay £1.50 for the CD like all the other “fans”! The cheek of it!

Thanks for reading this week, and to all those of you that have either a cold, bird flu, swine flu, or man flu or similar; I hope you feel better soon!

Ellie
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