Blurry Baubles.

The project is wrangling on. It's hard to stay focussed on something that is constantly shifting but the team I work with are awesome, so we'll get there in the end. Tomorrow I think I'll go to the gym before work, sometimes that can give you a kick-start to your day.

Today we had a really interesting lunch-and-learn based around the separation of oil, gas and water from reservoirs. The man lecturing works for the company part-time and lectures at University other days, so he's very engaging and knowledgeable - it's easy to listen to him. I never come out understanding or retaining 100% of the information, but even if I 'get' 10% of it, it's a bonus.

I haven't had a cookery-related-distaster in ages and I was commenting to M this weekend that I was probably due one soon - and tonight it happened. Last night I'd layered lots of tasty veg in a dish with stock and passata and baked it in the oven for 3 hours... Tonight I discovered everything was still raw. Undeterred, I made a white sauce for it, tipped it over with some cheese and baked it for another 45 minutes at a high heat. Yep, still raw. And I mean REALLY raw, not just al dente. There was a little cottage pie left from yesterday for M to have, but I ploughed my way through a really disgusting plate of food through sheer hunger - how disappointing. I blitzed it into soup afterwards and then boiled it to try and soften up some of the potatoes and aubergines... But it didn't really work. I'm so loathed to throw perfectly good food away!

In the hope of gaining some inspiration, M and I watched Masterchef: The Professionals - wow, some of the stuff they were producing was fantastic.