Who said anything about a diet??

As you know I'm a crisp addict rather than a chocolate fan, but this is well worth getting excited about.

The other week one of my friends at work introduced me to Thorntons Ginger and Chilli chocolate, which is pretty amazing. Especially if you like your chocolate with a fiery kick, this will be right up your street. Yum.

Goodbye CRT, hello LED

It was the end of an era this week at EuropeCrazy HQ, as we finally took the great leap forward into the digital TV revolution. Our trusty old 28" flat screen CRT TV...

which was once state of the art back in the day, made way for a 37" LED TV...

It wasn't a spur of the moment decision but it's been researched for ages, and whilst I'm in 'life's too short' mode, now is as good a time as any to take that step.

It's not just a flat screen TV, it's one of these "smart tvs" which you can get BBC iPlayer and YouTube on. And it's got Freeview HD as well.

It is extremely fab and I hope we get as many happy viewing years out of our new TV as our old one gave us. I'll just need to tear myself away from it to write a few blog posts now and then :)

This time, we'll get it right

For some bizarre reason, I'm borrowing the post title from the England World Cup Squad football song from 1982. They weren't singing about Christmas shopping of course, but I thought it was an appropriate title tonight.

Today saw part 2 of my Christmas shopping bonanza. In 2011, I have decided to be even more organised than ever and get as much Christmas shopping done as early as possible. Today, like last Saturday, was very productive. A jewellery blitz in Next was followed by a card/gift bag blitz in Card Factory and then it was on to Boots for a 3 for 2 on Champneys spa stuff. Finally. I've moved on from all the Sanctuary goodies to something new :)

It's been a good weekend all in all. Last night, we finally made it to our favourite local Indian restaurant for my birthday meal, 2 week later than planned as I hadn't been too well around that time. Happily the work-stress is finally starting to ease off, but it's still the worst time of year for that....roll on January!

October

As months go, October is probably one of my least favourites. It really hasn't got much going for it: the holidays are over and there's not much to look forward to, the weather gets colder, the days get darker, Christmas is being foisted on us by every high street store before it's even Halloween, the fireworks start going on sale for all the anti-social low lifes to let off every night between now and 5th November, making our streets even more of a no-go area than they are already. My mood sinks so low that I end up comfort eating, getting fat, gaining weight, getting angry that I'm getting fat. And don't start me about work...

Anyway being the optimist I am, I'm trying to think of something good about October. Then I remembered that this is probably my favourite time of the year for clothes. I might have said on this blog before now that I love autumn fashion, and that's still the same. You can forget all the trendy designer shops - my favourite clothes shop is the magnificent Matalan. Good quality clothes at reasonable prices, you can't go wrong.

One of my major autumn/winter obsessions is boots. When you live in a country with a climate as utterly dire as this one, you can't have enough boots of course. On Saturday I headed for Matalan with my birthday money and bought not one but two new pairs of boots for the winter. One of them is a knee-high dark grey pair, the other is a mid-calf brown pair (pictured above). Today was like a winter's day, so I wore the brown pair to work, and they passed the test.

Last word on my birthday - I did very well this year...two pairs of boots, a new skirt, a Father Ted DVD box set, a crystal bracelet, two bottles of red wine and still some money left to spend. Result!

Seamus the Sheep

Meet my new friend from Dublin :)

Hilarious Irish TV ad

This is an ad for One Direct car insurance which I saw on TV whilst over in Dublin, I still think the guy's singing is side-splittingly hilarious - can we swap him for the Go Compare guy???

Wacky Woollies!!

If you go to Dublin (and probably anywhere else in Ireland I guess) and go into a gift shop, you won't be able to avoid the various souvenirs featuring a multi-coloured array of mad Irish sheep. They are called Wacky Woollies, and I totally love them! Yes I know I'm probably far too old for what is probably a 21st century Irish update/variation on the Mr Men, but who cares? They're fab. The picture you see above is of a Wacky Woollies shopping bag which I bought whilst in Dublin two weeks ago.

You'll find everything wacky and woolly at Carroll's Irish Gift Stores, there are tons of these shops in Dublin and they're online at http://www.carrollsirishgifts.com/category/COLLECTABLEScollectables/COLLECTABLESWackyWoollies