Trauma revisited

Argh so I am very jetlagged and very tired so not sure if this entry will make sense. Here it goes. Have I ever mentioned my relationship with Carob? It’s a hate/hate relationship. In so far as I hate it and it hates me.

When my parents first divorced my mother decided she was going to introduce health eating into our life (mostly due to a few intermittent trips to weight watchers) As if the trauma of a divorce wasn’t bad enough she tried to make me eat culinary delights such as whole-wheat pasta and brown bread (actually now I love brown carbs but then I was a white bread and butter girl all the way) Anyway by far the most offensive of these foods was carob. Has anyone ever smelt carob? Or seen carob let alone tasted it, it is foul. Foul doesn’t even describe it, it tastes like mouldy sock chocolate. The best way I can describe it is as if someone has farted in your mouth.

one trip to the hell hole that is Glenfield mall and Mum refused to buy me a crunchie bar and instead went to a health food store and bought me a carob and peppermint flavoured chocolate bar. What? What? I hear you ask, you can’t replace chocolate and honeycomb with fart tasting carob. The irony of this is that my mum has always been very budget conscious (i.e. tight) and the carob bar was three times the price of a crunchie and was a gigantic waste of money because about 10 minutes after eating two squares I vomited it back up.

And I have never gotten over it. I have only just began to eat after dinner mints for god’s sake. And did I say that the carob and then peppermint filling was grainy? It tasted off and stale and like carob, which was of course the root of the problem. And that is why I vomited because my stomach was expecting chocolate and what did I get? carob. I have strong stomach as well, so obviously the carob was an assault my stomach could not handle. If you haven’t ever had carob do me a favour go out and buy yourself a bar it will be an experience you will never forget.

So I hate carob and that’s why.

Anyway we were on the h-moon in Hawaii we went to a vegan restaurant. I know warning bells are already ringing. But in fairness to the hippies my meal was delicious and we had nice hummus. Vegan’s always do a nice hummus, it’s all they’ve got really. And then I ordered dessert and this is where it all went wrong. I order chocolate and raspberry fudge. Guess what arrived? chocolate looking fudge. But you guessed it, it was carob. Two things offend me about this one they called it chocolate on the menu which is false advertising and because I am practically allergic to carob I could have sued for a million dollars. (like the lady who burnt herself on a McDonalds coffee because it was not labelled hot and got $30 million dollars) and secondly it looked like chocolate and the rancid carob smell was disguised by the raspberries and I ate a piece of carob fudge and then vomited into my mouth because the trick with carob is that it starts out sweet tasting so you think that it’s just a funny recipe but then the after taste, oh dear god, the after taste is like a rat has died in your mouth.

So there I was with a plate full of carob fudge and worse I had eaten some. My face screwed up like I had been punched in the gut. Jamie wet himself with laughter I was too caught up in trying to wash my mouth out with wine to yell at him for making fun of my allergies.

And to add insult to injury I had the carob aftertaste for three days, that’s the thing about carob it’s like curry you burp if up for a week and you sweat it out your pores the next day.

And don’t give me any comments about how carob can be yummy if you jazz it up with the right recipes, there is no way in the universe to make carob taste good, not even Jesus could do it. In fact if forced between eating a piece of carob every day or starving I would starve, gladly.

So there are a few lessons that can be learned from this
1) parents if you are going through a divorce don’t start introducing new foods into a child’s diet we need comfort food.
2) never, ever trust a vegan anyone that can’t eat cheese is missing an essential human chromosome.
3) If I ever come to your house and even smell carob I will have to leave please don’t take offense, carob is my kryptonite.

xxx

Jamie and Andrea official wedding pictures

So I have uploaded all off the wedding pictures and I mean all. There a 500, so wade through at your pleasure. I have uploaded them all because I am too lazy and jetlagged to sort the good from the bad and also because hey they are all of me and Jamie, there are no bad pictures.

Also if you were a guest at the wedding more than likely there is a picture of you at the end a reward for looking at endless pictures of us.

Hopefully they are good enough quality for prints because they took about 5 hours to upload in retrospect I probably should have edited them. But I was too lazy. Link below
the never ending wedding album

xxxx

leaving los angeles

Argh we are leaving LA in a few hours to go back to cold, cold London it is about 2 degrees there at the moment. So something to look forward too. We had a fantastic time on our honeymoon and I am not looking forward to sharing my new husband with his job again. We saw some amazing things on our honey moon including:

A massive sea turtle eating off some rocks and about 3000 Americans taking photos of him. It was like the paparazzi stalking Britney spears.
An endangered monk seal hanging out on the beach and a white American woman who looked like a monk seal. I took a picture of the seal but Jamie wouldn’t let me take a picture of the women.
The waterfall from Fantasy island (without the midget yelling the plane!, the plane!)
A transsexual posing in her bikini in the lobby of our LA hotel, Jamie thinks she was a working girl because she has ‘that vibe’ I didn’t ask how he could recognise the vibe. I didn’t want to know.
Also the most amazing we saw a man add sugar to his water! Sugar to his water! I said it twice because it is so unbelievable. Water is water you can’t make it sweeter, it’s water. Got to love those Americans.

Full write up of wedding day and honeymoon to follow once I have returned home and can’t leave the house because it is too cold to breathe and my boogies will freeze if I leave the house.


xxxxx

Mr and Mrs Bennett

So I got married yesterday! We had such a lovely day, no stress no dramas just lots and lots of love and sunshine.

Here are some pictures from a friend’s camera. And looking at my wedding pictures is now my favourite hobby.

Highlights from the day were saying our vows Jamie almost cried and I almost cried.
Walking down the aisle with my Dad, and seeing all my friends and family around me.
Seeing my beautiful sister in her lovely outfit.
When Dan and Julia spontaneously lead the crowd in a sing a long version of edelweiss. I was so happy I even sang out of key and very badly but quite loudly.
And of course marrying my new husband. Will write more later am off now to spend time with the old ball and chain (that’s Jamie)

new arrival

So i was back in my dads house about 3 minutes before my diet went out the window. I arrived at 6:00 in the morning and by 7:15 I was stuffing white bread rolls down my throat. White bread! And then it make matters worse it was filled with salami and cream cheese. Don’t look at me weird this is what they have it for breakfast in Austria and it is delicious, don’t knock it until you have tried it.

And then for dinner I had pork schnitzel fried the Johann way in about 5 centimetres of oil. It was delicious but very fattening. Pork schnitzel made by Johann is my all time favourite meat dish. When I go to heaven that is all I am eating. That and coca-cola and banoffe pie. That’s all. I will be a fat and happy angel.

Also I slept last night from 10:00 to 6:30. up yours jet lag!.
xxx

farewell

Right this is my last blog from London. I am off tomorrow to go to NZ and get fricken married!
See you in NZ if you live there and if you live in London see you where I get back armed with a 5 hour wedding DVD and 600 photos.
xxxx
ps still have not packed.

on the case

I hate packing. I think it’s a hangover from when I used to pack every weekend to go to my dad’s house and then unpack every Sunday.
I hate it , it takes ages and I always have the panic that I have left something behind. Usually I do leave my hairbrush behind. In fact on the last 4 holidays I have been on I have had to buy a hairbrush, so now I have an extensive collection of hairbrushes from places I have been on holiday. I have been around the world in 80 hairbrushes.

Anyway so I started packing on Saturday (chucked random things into a suitcase) and then did nothing on Sunday apart from watch bad tv and look angrily at my messy suitcase and here I am on Monday, still not packed. And tonight i am out, Tuesday night I am out, Wednesday night I am out and that only leaves Thursday which means I will be packing under time constraints which makes it even worse. And I haven’t written a list and I haven’t ironed anything. And I have decided I hate all my clothes and because we are saving for the wedding I am poor so I can’t buy any new things. And the house is a mess. Jamie tidied it on Sunday while I was out and I came home at 3:30 and it was a tip by 3:45. He is a lucky man.
And Jamie is not flying out with me so I can’t shove the heavy things into his bag and now I have to carry all my bags by myself, lucky I have been working out at the gym.
In other gym news my personal trainer made me hop from one side of the room to the other. Six times. It was humiliating.

That’s all. Xxxx

ps on the upside only 4 more sleeps until I leave for NZ.