You've cooked your Christmas goose.

I am full. And not just the regular "I'm so full I can't eat anymore", I'm full to the "I need to unbutton my jeans" full. What a day of Christmas grub!

After a morning of sparsity that included only a bowl of cereal and a cup of tea, by 2pm we were chowing down on the most lovely, tasty goose ever. The blissful thing about cooking goose is that because the animal is covered in so much fat, there is no need to continually baste it as it cooks - it bastes itself. The only thing you need to do (other than stuff it with all kinds of tasty morsels) is remove the pooling fat that is continually draining from the top of the bird. Then a few hours later, voila! A perfectly cooked, all dark meat bird ready for eating.

Not only were we lucky enough to have goose, we had brussel sprouts and crispy potatoes to go along with it, accompanied by French wine, then followed by a selection of four very different cheeses. Phew!

But it didn't end there... after a brief interlude, we had fruit cake, lovingly prepared by Spencer and cooked in a wooden box that he brought with him all the way from New Zealand. It was very tasty, and perfectly weighted between the cake and the fruit and nut selection.

And I got presents. Awesome.

Adventure Schmenture

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to London. The local time here is 4:27pm and the temperature is 2 degrees celsius. Please remain seated while our plane taxis to the gate."

Indeed! What she should have said was "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Terminal 5 at London Heathrow airport. Although it looks like we arrived in the middle of the night, the actual time is 4:27pm and the temperature is 2 degrees above freezing and dropping rapidly. You will be lucky to get any kind of ground transportation as the recent snow storm has traffic at a standstill and trains are suffering massive delays. Good luck getting out of the airport - you'll need it."

Initially my plane was two hours late, but all that meant was that Jet and I got to spend an extra hour together. The landing into Heathrow was probably one of the smoothest I have ever experienced, and considering how much I have travelled, that's pretty amazing. After I disembarked the plane, where earlier an angry French steward told me to "go look in Club" when I asked him for help finding a place to stow my overhead luggage, I went through Immigration. Usually a long and boring wait, I was pleasantly surprised at my short wait time, and even more surprised at how friendly my Immigration officer was! I then continued downstairs to wait for my luggage and found that it was already there waiting for me. This, I thought, was Mercury playing tricks on me.

I made it to the National Express office, where I purchased a ticket for the 787 bus to Cambridge via Luton, due for a 5:45pm departure. The lady working there advised me that there were some delays as all the airports (excluding Heathrow) were closed, but to make my way outside to wait for the bus. 5:45 passed, 6:15 passed, 6:45 passed. At 7:15pm the bus arrived, loaded the bags, and then drove to the Central Bus Station that served as the coach stop for the other 4 terminals. And it was here that we lost our driver. He left us to drive another coach in the opposite direction, but he got permission from the control room and left the inside lights on, the keys in the ignition, but the heat off until our next driver appeared.

Other travellers waiting were getting very irate but I just took out my knitting and sat in a coach that was getting colder and colder. A very mad Greek man called me Madame Defarge - the character in Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities", who during the French Revolution would knit the names of the people she wanted killed into her yarn. Admittedly I was getting very cold and tired of hearing the people working for National Express tell me "your bus is leaving in 5 minutes", but wanting people dead is a little far fetched! It's all about asking the right question, and after 4 hours of waiting I finally worked out what that question was. "Are you going to get us to Cambridge tonight?" and when I heard the answer was "yes" I was fine. The night still had quite a few hours left - especially on the shortest day of the year.

After a 6 hour wait, our bus (still containing the angry Greek man who had threatened to leave several times over) left the terminal, bound for Cambridge. And at 1:30 am I reunited with my cousins amidst a flurry of snow and ice underfoot.

England / New England... what country am I in again?

We flew to NY last night and on the way to Dobbs Ferry (where we are staying), we passed a combined Costco and Home Depot. It was giant and in my opinion, the perfect combination. Not only can you feed your family, but you can build a house for them as well!

In the daylight, driving along the highway, it is just like driving in England but on the opposite side of the road. Rolling hills, true winter where the leaves have abandoned their branches, settled snow and picture perfect houses and villages. It's like starting my European vacation early but adding a desert respite in between! I'm hoping that the 95mph tail wind that reduced our flight time by an hour is still around when I fly to London.

Funny Quote

We have my cousin Emily and her friend Angela staying with us at the moment. The girls had travelled through New York and Angela had never come across Orthodox Jews before so she was unfamiliar with the black coats, top hats and payos. So as they wandered past a small collective of three Jewish men in "uniform", Angela turned to Emily and asked:

"I wonder what those guys are going to sing"

"Which guys?" Emily asked.

"The buskers [street performers] in the top hats" Angela said.

I laughed so hard when they told me this story I almost ran out of oxygen!

Playing Favorites: My Way

In last month's Elle magazine, they had an article called "Playing Favorites" and it interviewed five different Editors at the mag about what their favorite beauty items were. I have favorites too so I thought I would play this game, but on my terms!

Scent

I've favored many over the years, but no matter how many different ones I try and buy, I always come back to Giorgio Armani. Acqua di Gio is fresh, not overly fruity and not overly citrusy and every time I put it on, it transports me to the beach.

Skin Saver

So not only did I need new body moisturizer, but I needed new face and hair moisturizer as well. I had previously been using skin care for oily skin in a humid environment and in such a dry climate, it just didn't cut it anymore. I also thought that maybe it was time to switch to some anti-ageing creams, so I use moisturizers from RoC Complete Lift. The day cream contains an SPF 30 which has been working really well, protecting my skin from the sun and glare. And the night cream has vitamin E, glycerin and some new technology called Protient which works miracles while I am asleep.

Hair

I was complaining to my new hairdresser in Vegas that I felt bad for my hair. I was washing it every other day, and then straightening it with a hot iron, and it was drying it out in an already dry environment, and making it brittle. So she suggested that I wash it less, and to try dry shampoo to absorb the oil. So I did and it is the best thing I've used on my hair for a really long time! I really like the Ojon Rub-Out Dry Cleanser To Go. You just spray it on at the roots, rub it through your hair, and voila! Revived hair! It's still straight without having to use extreme heat, it smells lovely, the oiliness has disappeared and it only took about 20 seconds.

Morning Must

Even if I go out wearing no make up, I still use YSL Touche Eclat. I am blessed with big, deep set eyes that can sometimes look dark. Touche Eclat works by gently camouflaging the darkness and blending with my normal skin tone. And it comes in a handy pen with a brush on the end so apart from a little blending with your pinky fingers, there is no mess.

Pre-Party Pickup

This has been my favorite for years now, and I haven't yet found a product that does the same for me as the Clarins Beauty Flash. I will admit, that I don't really know what it does, but every time I use it, at least 1 person will comment on how radiant I look! So I will just keep using it until the compliments stop.

Obsession

I have two. Can I even do that? It's my blog, so, yes. I can! My recent obsession is the Australian brand Mor Cosmetics Marshmallow body wash and body souffle. It smells just like the real thing without being sickly sweet. And the Sorbet flavor by Mor is really great too! But long before Mor even existed, an Italian brand called Perlier did. They make a Honey Body Cream and a Honey Bath and Shower Cream that smell so fabulous I carry the hand cream around in my handbag so I can take a whiff whenever I want.

So where do you find these items? Check out:

Strawberrynet - they have all kinds of goodies, and the more things you buy, the bigger discounts you get on each consecutive purchase!

Sephora - great source for dry shampoos in a variety of brands.

1st Perfume - good source for all kinds of perfumes, easy to find or otherwise.

Ulta - has the full range of RoC Complete Lift products

As for the last two products on my list - you may need to do a little digging to find these ones!

MAC vs PC

In December 2007, I decided I needed a new computer, and because of my artistic pursuits, Jet convinced me to get a MAC. I had trained in graphic design on a MAC computer, so I wasn't unfamiliar with the way it operated. I was so excited when I got my laptop and Jet and I became like the MAC vs PC ads on the tv! I was totally pro MAC and he was pro PC.

I never thought for a minute that the MAC ads and the sales people were portraying anything but the truth. "They never freeze or crash" they said. "They never get viruses". "They are made for last for 8 years" they said. About 2 months ago, my MAC started to run slowly so I downloaded Onyx which is a software that cleans up your hard drive, but before I did that, I bought an external hard drive to back up my files. Onyx needed me to do something with the start up disk, so it was my intention to go into the Genius Bar and get their help.

Last Thursday, when I had just finished my first writing assignment for my new teacher, and the day that Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson passed away, my MacBook hard drive died too. It was so fried in fact, that it wouldn't even boot up from the initial white screen. I thought these things only happened when Mercury was in retrograde?

I called the Apple Store to make an appointment and the earliest wasn't until the next day at 1pm. I took it in and the guy was pretty much like "there's nothing we can do except replace your hard drive". Hmph. They did so within a day, and I made another appointment with the Genius Bar to reinstall my back up from Time Machine. An hour later, it still wasn't loading, so I checked my MacBook in again for them to do it and find out what was wrong with my Time Machine back up. It's been 2 days, and I haven't heard back, but they said that I should hear back within 3 days.

This post was not just intended as a rant, but also a warning to other MAC users! They are not bullet proof - don't believe all the propaganda that they feed you. They do crash, they do freeze and mine had a faulty hard drive at only a year and a half old. Back up your stuff! I am going to invest in a Time Capsule which backs up our entire network (including both PCs and MACs and also my iPhone) every hour so that if anything ever happens again, I have everything up to the last hour. It wouldn't have helped my assignment, but it would have saved me a lot of work.

Daisy in Action!

Jet's cousin Vanessa came to stay with us last week, and she took some videos of Daisy in the rehab tank! Daisy looks much happier than she did when we first started taking her. The first video is her running on the tready, the second is of her swimming!