Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Eighteenth

Cinnamon oaties and apple and mango juice.

I had an excellent idea for a blog post at lunch time today, which naturally I did not write down, and have now forgotten. If I'd remembered it, you might all now be tittering away at some amusing anecdote or other. Instead, you must endure these, the ramblings of a girl who ought long since to have gone to sleep. Do not believe the time-stamp of this blog. It's well past witching hour. I shall never be beautiful on this little sleep, not without the aid of a great deal of warpaint at least.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Seventeenth

Cinnamon Oaties and tea (I didn't eat the whole packet, honest)

The baby polar bears on Frozen Planet this evening were so incredibly sweet it actually pained me. I really thought my heart was going to explode. The more I watch of this series the more sad I am that I'm not Lyra Belacqua and that Iorek Byrnison isn't my friend.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Sixteenth

Cinnamony cheat's/cheats' (are the cheats many or one?) porridge.

I got a new phone about four months ago, so naturally I have only made it as far as the D's in copying over numbers.  Mostly everyone I should like to communicate with has by now sent me a message, or phoned, and I have saved their numbers.

Every so often though, I get a missed call or a message from a number I haven't got saved. This tends to be a source of excitement, as it's usually some lovely person I haven't heard from in a while. You can imagine my disappointment then when today's mystery caller (I was driving so couldn't answer) followed their unanswered call with a text asking me to "check their straighteners were off." Given I live with a chap, whose name is in the D's, this was, alas, nothing more than a wrong number.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Fifteenth

Muesli and apple & mango juice again.

I have only four more days until my servitude with Satan ends, and then I join the ranks of the self-employed. I suspect this may translate to under-employed for the first little while, which brings me to wondering whether I am too old to give people orange squash bottle flower vases adorned with macaroni for Christmas, or perhaps painted boxes constructed out of cereal packets? Are these things only charming when offered by the under 10s? Thoughts please.

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-and-Twelve-to-Fourteen

No. 312: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.

No. 213: Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and bacon.

No. 214: Muesli and apple & mango juice.

I very much enjoyed this assessment of the Snow White and the Huntsman trailer in The Guardian the other day.  I think I shall give it a miss. Though, I'm quite intrigued by Mirror Mirror. It rather pleases me to think that Snow White got up to more than housewife training during her time in the woods -- trumping Robin Hood it would seem. Apparently the Spice Girls' legacy lives on. All hail girl power (or something).

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Eleventh

Toast with apricot jam and green tea.

No milk this morning, so I opted for green tea -- which is caffinated. I know this because my friend was once telephoned by her friend who had drunk eight cups in a row, not knowing that it was, to warn her not to do the same as he had severe shakes.

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-and-Nine-and-Ten

Doppelganger Special K with red berries.

Cinnamon & raisin bagel with apricot jam.

I wonder, after this bizarre exchange, how long it will be before Robert -- peculiar emphasis on words -- Peston will be invited back to PM:

Eddie Mair: Robert, thank you very much, it's lovely to see you.

Robert Peston: Well it's lovely to be back again. Why did you cast me out into the wilderness again? I thought we'd had the rapprochement.

Eddie Mair: Well anyway, we have to press on, thank you.

All very peculiar if you ask me. Here's the link: it's 35 minutes 24 seconds in.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Eighth

Doppelganger Special K with red berries.

Oh my goodness, have just seen this in the sidebar of The Gruaniad: Spider Man is no more. Dear, oh dear, oh dear. Still, I suppose there's still Bananaman to keep us safe.  I am delighted to have discovered that Graeme Green and Tim Brooke-Taylor were the voices in the television series. (If you're interested in such things, I can also recommend a gander at Captain Planet's wikipedia page: you'll be amazed at some of the people who voiced characters in that...). And, for those of nostalgic bent, here's some Bananaman for you:

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-and-Six-and-Seven

Bread, butter and honey.

French toast and bacon.

I wonder whether I haven't been a little remiss in not considering thievery as a money-making option. That's not to say I have a particular talent for it: other than some childhood raids on stores of sugary foodstuffs, my cat burglar potential has gone largely untested. However, what I do know is that I do not look like a thief. I regularly set off shop alarms (I am at a loss as to explain why) and yet no one ever suspects that the alarm going off is anything other than a fluke. I simply have to shrug my shoulders and move to open my bag before I am waved on by a security guard. Maybe it's the hair. Perhaps curly-haired girls don't look like larcenists.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Fifth

Mutant cinnamon and raisin bagel with apricot jam (it has no hole in the middle).

Tonight I go to bed full of smugness at having performed a ruthless wardrobe cull. The bags are in the hall. All I need to do now is make it to the charity shop/clothes collection bin without being tempted into granting amnesty to any "oh but I used to wear this lots" garments...

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and Fourth

Cinnamon and raisin bagel with apricot jam.

Most likely this is the only time I will ever write anything about FIFA, but amongst all the hoohah about poppy-wearing, I have to say I really don't know what they're so fussed about. I've never held on to a poppy longer than five minutes.

In all likelihood, the players will lose their poppies before they make out of the changing room. The few that make is far as the pitch will almost certainly fall off there. And given we live in these dark days of pin-less poppies, there's little danger of them posing any risk of injury.

Not like in my school days when one ran the risk of impailment if one wasn't wary about where one flung one's poppy-adourned jumper: I must confess I once sat on one... Still, the encounter wasn't enough to make me scorn prickly poppies. I was bemoaning their loss the other day when my father told me that in his day poppies were attached with wire that you passed though your jumper etc and twisted to keep them in place. Now that is a cunning idea: limited risk of being scewered, and harder to lose.

Breakfast the Three-Hundred-and-Third

A banana: the inevitable result of hitting snooze too many times.

This has been bothering me for some time... What on earth is the Twinings tea advert about? It starts out as some bizarre pastiche of a Winslow Homer painting, with some bedraggled woman taking out a row-boat in really not the right weather at all. After some agnsty rowing, she loses her oars, is rescued by some weird watery bird things that turn into massive bloody fish and finally washes up on a beach where she embraces a slightly less bedraggled version of herself... I have no idea what it has to do with tea. If anything it seems like an advert for PMT (though where's the appeal in that). Or some form of personality disorder.

Breakfasts Three-Hundred-to-Three-Hundred-and-Two

No. 300: Muesli.

No. 301: Sesame bagel with damson jam.

No. 302: Fruit and Fibre.

The time of year when my feet turn into blocks of ice is nigh. I don't expect to feel my toes again until April. No matter how many pairs of socks I wear, or how many hot water bottles I tuck under my feet, they remain resolutely glacial for most of the winter. My fingers are generally similarly super-chilled too, which -- this evening -- may well make for a short post, as I am having a great deal of trouble striking the keys that I actually want.

Come winter time, my motivation to do the washing up often has more to do with a desire to feel my fingers again than any house pride.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Ninety-Ninth

Porridge with brown sugar.

I think this may be my first porridge -- which is sort of incredible given I am rather fond of it, especially when swimming in cream (or at least full fat milk as it is here).

I've been Guy Fawkes-ing tonight at Dunvegan castle -- where we saw an amazing fireworks display. It's difficult to beat pyrotechnics reflected in a castle window.

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Ninety-Seven-and-Eight

Sesame bagel and damson jam.

Blueberry wheats and muesli.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bob Diamond's grilling on the Today program this morning. Huzzah for Eddie Mair. Huzzah for the Today program (except for the interminably long sports bit at around 8.30 -- boo to that).

Makes me proud to be a licence payer. Even if they do send me threatening, quasi-Stasi-ish notices about being "under investigation" despite the fact that I have renewed my licence.

Now that I think about it, the Stasi probably weren't in the habit of issuing red-letter printed warning notices about their "interest" in you...

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Ninety-Five-and-Six

No 295: Sesame bagel with damson jam.

No. 296: Blueberry wheats.

I can't help wondering whether Germany and France are feeling rather like the ant in Aesop's fables to Greece's grasshopper amongst all this bailout furore.

I've never really liked that particular fable. Surely there must be some middle ground between singing all summer and slaving. Part singing, part slaving perhaps. We can't despise the grasshopper for being creative, can we -- even if he was a little financially short-sighted...