Doughnuts

Doughnuts are sabotaging me!

Or is it the people who keep buying them?

Greggle, Linda, Wilfy and I have this thing going on with morning teabreak. We often buy Krispy Kremes for special occassions, the obligatory 'birthday' doughnuts, the 'PAYDAY!!' doughnuts.

Recently a worrying pattern, or rather...non-pattern has begun to emerge. Since when has anyone heard of 'welcome back from your long weekend' doughnuts, or 'I feel like a doughnut today' doughtnuts?

Or, god forbid......'it's Wednesday' doughnuts.

This is the way it's been going recently.

Yesterday we indulged in 'Becki's back from holiday and I fancy a doughnut' Krispy Kremes, bought by the lovely Greggle. Or rather....paid for by the lovely Greggle who sent me out to get them along with his Ploughmans lunch Meal Deal for £2 from Tesco. I've been meaning to get back on the dieting wagon for some time, and I'd thought I could be good today after yesterdays Krispy Kreme based excesses.

I forgot about the coffee morning.

I walk into the Starling Room only to be confronted by four massive plates of doughnuts. They weren't Krispy Kremes, but they were soft, floury goodness filled with jam or topped with chocolate!

THEN!!

They told us we couldn't have one until 11am! It was 10:50am. How dare they do this to us! Two huge plates of doughnuts were placed directly in front of our faces, and we were explicitly ordered not to touch them for ten minutes!

As Linda suggested...cruel and unusual punishment...we must have done something truely evil in our past lives.

Of course as soon as the doughnut distributors walked out of the room, after we had promised to guard the doughnuts with our lives, Greg dove in. He then spent most of the next minute and a half trying to consume the thing as quickly as possible, paranoid that the doughnut people would come back to check on the situation.

Pre-11am, we staged a countdown, paper plates at the ready. We were truely a sight to behold.

They were delicious I must say...and not too stingy on the jam, which is always the main concern of a discerning doughnut connoisseur.

As more people turned up the doughnuts did start to disappear slowly. One thing we noticed is that people seem relatively calm whilst there are 5 or more doughnuts still on the plate. This changes once the all important fifth doughnut is taken away.

Beads of perspiration start to appear on upper lips, eye's dart nervously between unguarded doughnuts, empty paper plate and possibly sources of competition around the room, feet shuffle. And then it happens, three, four, or......sadly....five people simultaneously make a dash for the plate. Inevitably someone is crushed in the ensuing mayhem, one person, in their state of heightened doughnut lust, steals two, and flees the room pursued by a baying crowd of angry academics on a sugar-high.

Ok....that last part only happened once..but I can't let it go, it was too funny.

In summation, ladies and gentlemen...don't eat too many doughnuts, they're bad for your health.

p.s...don't bother trying to suggest that I may use my extensive self-control to NOT EAT doughnuts when they're put in front of me. That's just silly talk.

Epic Fedora Fever - Pub Crawl....The Pictures

Oh yes, enough of the misery and drama of the last couple of posts. I DO believe it is time for the photographic evidence of Fridays shennanigans.

Now, it wasn't quite the drunken extravaganza we've had in the past, I think partly because a couple of us had partners there...that does change the group dynamic somewhat I've found. But we didn't all have partners there because no matter how many times or how sweetly I asked Wilerf to 'be my boyfwand??' he wouldn't do it!! Gah!!

However!!! Poor Neil decided to turn up in a fedora that he'd bought in Madrid during the week (disclaimer, it may not be a fedora...but for the sake of ease...I don't care :D). Of course, at some point in the evening, this turned into the ideal opportunity for some semi-drunken photos:

This is Ann, Gregs long-suffering wife :D

Greg, looking decidedly less elegant than Ann

Wilf, looking cheeky

Neil, looking suave and happy to have his hat back....even if only for a second...

Linda, looking very cool!! She should have picked one up herself

And me...just being me! :D

Here's a pic of the lot of them, minus me of course!!

There are a few quite funny ones that I haven't put up anywhere yet! But maybe I should ask for permission first ha ha!! For now, here's a little selection of the crawl......

Greg swigging Sam Smiths wheat beer at the Princess Louise

Wilf looking decidedly unimpressed at his cognac being served in a wine glass, at the Seven Stars

Very orderly arrangement of bottle at the Wellington outside Waterloo....I couldn't resist a picture

The Bunk-Bed-Booths at the Bangalore! Yippee!! Did feel slightly for those dining below us though....blessem.

Epic Diet FAIL!!!!

Oh the horror the horror!! This should go on saladcake really but what the hey? :o)

I knew the pubcrawls would be my downfall, I knew it from the start. To give myself credit though, I think I did rather well considering, I did, however, consume more than half of my daily points over the top....in alcohol.

*shame*

It was going ok on the beer front, 2 pints and 2 bottles, 9 points in total and I'd been purposely saving during the week for this event, so I'd saved up 9 points already. Then in the last pub I had a pint and the Wiluf said he was hungry...this set my tummy rumbling too. Then he uttered those all important seductive words....'there's a Pizza Express round the corner'. Images of Legerra Gustosa flitted through my brain and I was beaten.

Linda went home at this point, not wanting to drink anymore and spoil her afternoons horse riding today, very sensible. The Wiluf and I pootled along to Pizza Express. We get strange looks in restaurants when we wander in together, the same strange looks that my dad and I get when we eat together. Those 'so what's going on here then?' kind of looks! You can see nosy ladies sneaking glances and trying to fathom out whether I'm a money-grabbing, gold-digging hussy, or if I'm a kindly young lady accompanying daddy out for dinner.....never occurs that it might be neither apparently.

I got a pizza cutter with my pizza! Result! I'm not sure what they do with these Leggera crusts but they're exceedingly tough. In my excitement at eating pizza and my impatience to stuff it into my gob I almost broke myself trying desperately to saw chunks off last time. We shared a bottle of vino....oh the points the POINTS!! Think of the points.

Just to top it all of I had a bloody pudding too..all was lost by that point anyway...whats the harm in a little frozen low-fat yoghurt eh?? After all....low fat dairy binds to fat and makes you poop more fat out....oh yes, I learn from telleh...yes I do. Fatty, alchoholic poop for the win!!


View Southbank crawl in a larger map

It was a fab night though, we started off at the Tattershall Castle, which was...as Linda suspected...a bit of a zoo on a Friday night. It's the one at Embankment on a boat. I looked it up earlier in the day on a pub website and under description it had 4 words:

'Pub on a boat'

Well done the editor.

We then moved on and wandered across the river, finding joy in walking through the pictures of stupid people trying to take pictures on a crowded bridge. The next place was the National Theatre Bar where Linda and I perved on barmen whilst Wilf bought some drinks. We hadn't managed to find a seat so we propped ourselves up at a standing table outside near the entrance, where we proceeded to pass judgement on the garments of passing innocents. As if we could talk, Linda and I aren't known best for our fashion conciousness.

Pub numero 3 was Doggetts, this place is now like a milestone, no matter what crawl we're on we have to pop in for one. It was uber busy and there were no seats outside again, until a troupe of drunken old dudes got up and wandered off. We made a rush but still got there at the same time as a bunch of others. Wiluf, being the gentleman that he is, stood whilst Linda and I threw ourselves into the 2 remaining seats...I'm not actually sure he had much choice, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt. They were serving some strange green stuff, which we were later reliably informed was named 'Green Beer'...imaginative. We were also told it tasted like shite...which probably explained the half full glasses littering many tables.

Next was the Founders Arms, Greg would have approved as it was a Youngs pub. We sat inside here, but it felt outsidey as all the window-walls appeared to open onto the decking outside. It were lovely it were, Wilf had a grump because the music was too loud and he didn't recognise it /insert age funny here :o). It was another zoo and we moved on pretty quickly from this place...even though the music was quite good.

The last pub before naughty pizza was The Anchor, it had all fairy lights on the outside, and I like sparkly things, oh yes I do. You had to walk for what seemed like forever to get to the loos, hidden away in a back room. We finally found a table here with 3 guys, who ran away about ten minutes after we arrived, I can't remember what we were talking about...but it's usually that which drives people away.

Twas lovely, lovely! I am now contemplating walking from home to Oxford Street on Tuesday, pre weigh-in :o)