Saturday Round-up [inspired by slugs]

(24th Jan, Sat)

Just thought I'd write something down to sum up this week's happenings, which might be continued if the weeks continue to be happening. Coz I meant from the start for this to be a general-purpose blog, my personal storybook. And I dun wanna keep it in limbo as I write them long travel posts. There are still all those small everyday things worth remembering, and I think I've given too many of them a miss. [The slug story is below, if you can't wait haha]

With Oslo 2014 cleared, there's still the Winter post, Bath+Bristol, and Cologne 2015 to write about. Haven't started on any of these even though the temptation is high for Cologne. Just know there was lots of beer, pork, and haribo involved.

Monday we had a good meal at Da Mario (again), as well as a great REP catchup. Other stuff and news to do with REP came in as well this week. Some were overwhelmingly positive, but others... I'm not quite so sure.

I've been climbing with sore wrists but it's not too bad. The right one keeps clicking away.

Made egg tarts ytd night! Been excited about this for quite a while, and I enjoyed it. I think it's not the baking that I enjoy, it's the baking with friends. I wouldn't bake alone. Interesting how the custard and the pastry bakes at the same rate - I'd nvr thought about that. There were a few drunk ppl in the kitchen we were in, so I was surreptitiously moving the tray of unbaked egg tarts around so that flailing hands wouldn't upset them. The tarts turned out awesome, prob coz we made them hahaha. After that we just talked and talked... just us 3/4 of Table 3. All the way until I realised I wouldn't be getting much sleep that night.

And this morning 5am (after just 2 hours of sleep), I was heading to Billingsgate fish market. The variety of seafood omg. You just ask for what you want and the sellers pick and pack them for you. No need to choose personally, but I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. I'd intended to buy salmon and sotong, but came away with prawns and a seabass as well. Finally proper prawns! I have plans for them. xD And today I found out that my body can't tank 2 nights of severe sleep deprivation in 2 weeks. Took 2 naps today, which made up my sleep count to 4 hours, but was still pretty disoriented the whole time I was awake.

Just ended steamboat at Beit, had my first fishballs/tofu in 8 months! ^^ Skipped the post-dinner cards and drinks coz I dun think I can tank a 3rd night of too little sleep haha. Early start again tmr.

[I'd actually started thinking about writing this ytd night, when J and I were somehow discussing about slugs. Yep, slugs. They were a very real menace to us in the RR days. But I'd nvr blogged about this for some reason, even though it's an epic story we still love to tell. So here it is in its full glory!

Sometime in the summer, we came back and found what we first thought were a few (~4) mouldy pieces of pasta scattered around and in our pots, some of them slumped over the edges. Although we did recently cook pasta, to our horror, we saw that the "pasta" had antennas (or stalk-eyes whatever they are). And thus began a long-drawn battle with the slugs occasionally winning. Amusing on hindsight, but at that time...

This kind.

Due to the lack of proper racks/shelves, we kept our washed utensils on the counter top beside the sink. Not ideal, but it was fine until They started seeking shelter from the nighttime cold. Basically, we couldn't figure out where and how they were getting in and onto our pots. This was also the point I thought we were damn suay to have a superslug family in our backyard. Not just smart, but speedy too coz within an hour or so (while we were distracted by the TV), they could scale the 3m wall from the outside, squeeze through a non-existent gap in the window, and climb back down another 1.5m to the counter. It would be a long time before we figured out their way in - through a sink pipe leading directly to the ground outside, a shorter and more sensible route.

With this knowledge, we put up many defences, like salting around the sink hole, or covering it with a salt-soaked rag, and the ground outside, and leaving out plates of alcohol to attract them. Salting the sink happened every night (we had that much salt to burn). Even then, just a bit of lax (like when we went out for dinner) would give them an opening and they would invade our pots. I'm a squeamish person - just looking at the slugs made me want to bolt. But still, someone had to throw them outside. It is in such times where I feel most thankful to have at least one guy around haha! This went on for the rest of the internship period.

Turns out this is a common problem in the UK. Think it was esp bad for us coz we nvr groomed the overgrown grass at the back of our house. Nowadays, in face of trivial issues, we like to say "at least it's not slugs :)".

The End.]