More Jurassic park

I don't know what it is lately...
Heres my girlfriend as Dr. Ellie Sattler sifting through Dino poo, Shes currently doing a dissertation on equine fecal matter, so I thought this scene was pretty apt.

Oh and if you don't get the reference... It's here

New year, Christmas and Dinosaurs

Ah ! Here it is! i wondered where the hell I had abandoned my blog allowing it to gather metaphorical tinterweb dust.
Millions of probably amazing things have more than likely occurred, but the most prominent of these occasions has indeed been Christmas and New Year.
My Christmas has been a fairly laid back and simple affair, after Heathrow decided that it was incapable of dealing with frozen precipitation, it decided to call it a day, and so mine and Annas trip to Denmark was subsequently  called off, but hey it meant i had £200 surplus so we went off and bought epic amounts of food, made a den and hibernated for a few days surviving on chocolate, marzipan and duck, devoid from family members that had consumed too much or children bouncing on your head proclaiming that 'Santa has Come!' repeatedly.
This was also our time to test our culinary skills, as neither of us have ever cooked duck before, but a few guesstimates later and we ended up with this badman!

Its basically a miss-match of Danish and English Christmas cuisine, and even if the idea of Yorkshire Puds and raspberry salad do sound a little 'experimental', there is absolutely no doubt that it filled a hole.
Christmas morning saw the appearance of 'Mike the Enigmatic Dinosaur' whose expression was dependant on the angle in which you gazed at him...

Mike also has the uncanny ability to act as a transportation device (in the form of a space hopper) and a seat, which comes in handy! :D

So after Endless films had been broadcast, it was time for new year.
It may be because i wasn't invited to any amazing party or something, but i still maintain that new years celebrations are horrendously overrated. It just seems to me that new years is a night where partying is mandatory, and it forces people out that don't really want to be there. I don't want to be told when i have to get inebriated and kiss people, I'm more than capable of doing that on my own thank you! One day I will be all ready to go on a 'Mad One' but until that day comes, or Russell Brand/Rolf Harris invites me to a 'Banging new year rave' I have no intention of going out because some Anglo Saxon decided 'Every year on this night we should get wankered'
But because we try to minimise how dull and boring we are, and slow the aging process we decided to embark on a day trip, and where better to feel young than at a mueseum?
So off we trundled to the laaandon tawn's natural history museum, armed with dinosaur biccies and ham sandwiches!

My fave bit was by far the new Darwin wing which was full of specimen jars, and being a bit of a nature geek and a massive steampunk fan, I may of wee'd a little because i was so excited,

The octo's  where gorgeous to look at but me and anna had to wait roughly 4 years to see them because some dick  Art student sat there taking photo's, if you turned your flash off woman you can take perfect pictures, you penis, but as you can see it was well worth the wait  :D

I don't know why i love stuff in jar's in reality its a pretty morbid practice, but i think its a lot more tastefull then traditional taxidermy, for one the specimins can be used at a later date for dissection ect, so the animal may not of neccesarilly died in vain. Additionally pickling prevents mishappen faces, so foxes don't look like they are staring in to the lost arc  

Also it allows for accidental poses, as seen in the crocodilian below that appears to be singing in the shower, he looks so happy, propping himself up on the jar like that.

The fish bones were uber pretty after being dyed the little plaice thing below is simply gorgeous and the shark cartillage below is equally as awesome

I think what I really alike about collections like this is the sense or 'organised Chaos' essentially is some biologist showing stuff in jars and writing on a label everything he can possibly  think of, yes there is a standardised procedure, but looking at the menagerie of labels and stickers its clear some individuals have disregarded these codes of practise as worthless. There are no standard Jar sizes, labels, fonts or preparation techniques its a scientific free for all, with the curators solely responsible with trying to create some form of order in the chaos that is a scientific collection.

Although i love all of this stuff my highlight of the day was a 5 year old girl in the line to go in, how after being left to her own devices by her mother found some 'working girl' leaflets, with their funbags all hanging out, attracted by the bright colours picking them up and proud as ever revealing her find to her mum, who promptly snatched them from her embarrassed and quickly disposed of them, meanwhile me and anna were a chuckling with amusement

Like this only more pornographic Via

What I failed to see was a kid on a scooter shortly after whizz down the expansive ramp that leads up to the main entrance with his mum having kittens running behind...

Pic unrelated Via

Let it Snow

After travelling down to Maidstone, the weather decided to bring the whole of Britain to a complete stand still through the provision of frozen flakes of joy, and Britain being being Britain was powerless, power cut out, transport came to a standstill and Facebook was barraged with Snow related statuses.
When it snows there are 2 main groups of people; those who despise it with a passion making it the immediate cause of all that is wrong with the world and those that relish it.
 Yes I have grown up (a bit) and I can see the inconvenience that it can cause, but what's the point of moaning? Especially if you've been wishing for it all year long... sometimes we can learn from children, who seem to develop an instant immunity to the cold when it snows...
I took notes (children are bloody epic at times), and then took the opportunity to make a snow sculpture, the initial plan was a camel, but as my girlfriend pointed out halfway through construction, it wanted to be a dinosaur...

yeah we totally cheated, and utilised a bench and the pictures don't really do it justice, but hey, we had fun :)

If You Go Down to The woods Today...

The girl came down on Sunday and we ate vast amounts of Chinese, bakery products, and overpriced milkshakes (as is the fashion at the moment), but our main even was going into the woods and having a bit of a forage, because at the heart of it all, we are both nature bods... 

our main haul was these little fella's...

 Chestnuts :D these things remind me of my childhood where me and my Grandad used to collect them and eat them all :D Omnomnomnom:D so we stashed up on these , so we can cook them up and add them to salads, and maybe cous cous? i don't really know I'll probably just end up eating them all :D

But chestnuts were not the only highlight, we found loads of cool fungi...

and these,

and my personal favourite....

It's funny how my favourite looking one is the one that screams 'DEATH TO ALL!', and yet we all have that urge, niggling at the back of our heads what it tastes like... burning. Probably.

I would love to know if the others were edible tho, but I cant seem to find a decent resource online that looks reliable enough to use...

OH WELL!

I asked anna but she Didn't have a clue...

My presents :D

After the AES I trundled off to anna's where she has a surprise in store for me, knowing that i love a good bargain, am a serial collector of junk, love old things and am decorating my room she bought me these beauties.

and 

they are both massive and wiegh roughly 5 times the weight of the sun, and whilst i think they are ducking awesome (and consequently think my bird is bloom'n fabulous) what she failed to remember was that i had to 1. carry these home on a 3 hour train journey across perilous ravines and Clapham junction 

2. that after getting off my last train i have to cycle up hill.

effectively she tied a ball and chain to my leg hindering my journey...somewhat , but in a way where i couldn't detest at all (as if the ball in the metaphorical ball and chain was made of cake or filled with tropical fish.

this matter was made all the worse by the fact that it was monsoon season here in Surrey and i had to drag my cargo (and bike) upstream, against the flow of water, fish and fragments of building. In reality i just got a bit wet had some tea and the world was all well agin (and then i watched a BADMAN  programme of submarines being used to smuggle cocaine into America... but that's far too interesting for this blog)

Basically, in short

I love my Girlfriend because she is a massive nob (it's ok i tell her this everyday ) and she gets me cool stuff