Being reminded of the 'good old days'...

...sometimes opens up a can of worms...but if you use those worms to catch yerself some fish, you can have a rather hearty meal.

Back in the day I used to have penthoose parties fairly regularly - lots of fun, plenty of memories - both funny  & embarrassing (usually slightly more of the latter for me) which prove to be a great way to meet new people, as friends of friends would come along and before you know it you are right in the middle of a bunch of random buggers who are challenging you to drink straight vodka with them!!

Aberdeen has a transient aspect to it due to the amount of people who come here to work in the Oil Industry.  The people arrive, often hate it - being surrounded by all the grey granite, the cold & miserable weather and perhaps not knowing very many people...but slowly but surely they start to notice the sparkle of the granite (the 8 days of the year when the sun shines) and discover the beautiful parks and beaches; they learn to appreciate the good weather when it is here (because of it's rarity!) and hopefully they start to meet some good people and realise that this is what makes this city and it's not quite as bad as they first thought (of course there are always exceptions to this path but for the sake of simplicity this is the story I'm going with)...before they know it they are being told they are being transferred else where and BAM it hits them, they actually quite like it here ~ mwahahaha.

One of the many benefits of this transient population is the opportunity one has to meet people from many different countries, cultures and races - and that is why throwing a party and having your friends take along friends can create a really interesting and fun (& sometimes messy) party.

Last weekend a friend of mine, Miss Mills, arrived over from Germany, she used to live here and came to visit for a few days.  To help her see as many people as possible whilst here she asked if I could throw a wee party.  When she lived here Miss Mills also used to throw a lot of house parties - we were discussing it when we took a walk out to the lighthouse one evening, looking for dolphins and seals and enjoying the beautiful weather after eating a ridiculous amount of haggis, neeps (turnips) & tatties (potatoes) - of course about half way round the heavens opened and we got soaked to the bone, but that just added to the fun...!  She had hosted parties and dinners as a way to build up a social circle as she knew no-one when she arrived and so she took a pro-active approach and created herself a social life.  It's not an easy thing to do - parties take a lot of work but usually all the effort is worth it.

So I hosted a party and it was brilliant (she says modestly!! haha) - what I mean is that I really enjoyed the people who turned up; my friends were there (you know the ones who either video you doing stupid stuff, or are encouraging someone else too...you know who you are!!) but also a lot of people that I didn't know were there.  It was when I was emailing a friend telling her about it that I said I felt like it was a UN convention (but I imagine a lot more fun!), with the following countries being represented....

France
Germany
Norway
Russia
Ukraine
America
Kazakhstan
and the UK
(apologies if I've missed any country out).

Miss Mills & I managed to get the last soul out at 4am (he appeared to be having something along the lines of a sit-in protest, but rather he stood propping himself up with his forehead on my front door).
Whilst we were cleaning up we talked about how the party had felt like the good ol' days....which could possibly have been partially due to the fact that I, of course, ended up doing stupid, embarrassing things that I still proudly go round telling people about (eejit!!), but mainly because it felt great having all those different people, with their different stories interacting and mingling in my home - also, it didn't hurt that there were a few hot men in attendance. 
(In the spirit of transparency, I perhaps didn't quite have the same warm, glowy feeling the next day, but once I had successfully survived Sunday & cleaned up, I managed to appreciate all that again)

I suspect that I may end up starting to host parties on a more regular basis (like the good ol' days) OR if I'm clever...finding another sucker to host them at theirs!! :D

Do we really need...

fridges??

So my trusty fridge/freezer checked oot.  It has chosen that it no longer wishes to serve, even though it was beautifully decorated and very much appreciated.  It's time had come.

Of course it didn't give me a month's notice or anything useful like that, so I improvised....

Introducing an original 1980s cool box!!

Woooohooo...I LOVE this cool box, lent to me by my parents.  It doesn't take up much space & it looks cool - what more do you need??  "Not a lot" was my conclusion after the first day.  A lot of stuff that I kept in my fridge doesn't actually need to be kept in a fridge - it can be stored in cupboards, and I've got quite a lot of cupboard room.  All of a sudden the possibility of cutting back on my electricity went dancing through my head...it was exciting times.

Then day two came along...

I must admit, that it would be slightly more useful if it kept stuff cool!  My neighbour Jude kindly let me freeze the freezer packs in her freezer, which certainly helped, but this cool box doesn't really keep much cool and it certainly doesn't keep frozen stuff frozen.  But then again, it doesn't pimp itself out as a Freezer box - so I have no right to complain.

One of my colleagues relocated to Houston with her family, which is sad because I like her and I like working with her - but on the flip side, she very kindly donated to me her old fridge/freezer :)  So after I roped in some friends (with the promise of being fed & watered) I got my replacement fridge/freezer in place...and as much as I like the design classic~ness of the cool box, I have to admit that I am rather delighted to have a working fridge/freezer.

I have returned the cool box to my folks, but am determined that I shall go on a picnic this year so that I can have an opportunity to use it - of course the picnic will probably be in my parents back garden as it's not v.convenient to carry about...but the thought is there!!