What's Happenin'
If you are not bored by this already or writing a letter to FHM recommending me to james.carter@emap.com for a position as a staff writer you will be by the time I am finished with the Toronto and living in Costa Rica full time!

I have been back in San Jose for a little over a week now, although it seems like mere seconds have passed, unfortunately I'm back on a plane to Canada tomorrow. Not that I have anything against Canadians, I'm just wholly unsure of this winter thing of theirs. The moment the Boston Tea Party was over, England should have given everything north of The Great Lakes to the people that would later name themselves Americans and kept the juicy bits from New England down to the Mexican border for the mother country.

Anyway, I'm back in CR and have stayed half my time at the Hotel Jade and the other half in the company apartments. The company has offices in the top floors of a shopping mall. So lunch is often spent in a stroll through the laberynthine mall walkways trying not to return the glances of the beautiful latinas, their bums seem to follow my eyes all over the place! The company apartments are quite nice, tastefully appointed, with showers big enough for a safari adventure. The maids come and clean the apartments every day and routinely remove any item of clothing on the floor for washing and pressing, returning it the next day. This is all fine, but recently I have noticed other people's pants appearing in my closet. That's underpants or briefs for my American readership! I could deal with this if they were little lacey numbers that had recently encompassed the firm tight buns and moist wonderousness of a hot latina babe. Even better still if the maid had forgot to wash them, but oh no, these are mens pants. Which is always horrific and a shock unless they are your own. Or you are gay, which I am not, but I do have very normal lesbian tendencies. I only ever sleep with women. More distressing still is the fact that my pants must end up travelling through another company apartment closet, discovered by the occupant and returned to the maid or like as not thrown from the 8th floor apartment windows.

I had a marvellous meal the other day with some new friends, quite possibly the best I've had in years.
There was a great amuse bouche of smoked salmon pate' made with soured cream, horseradish and cayenne pepper served on little discs of lightly toasted french bread with olive oil.
The starter was a salad of endives, walnuts (pecans), grapes, celery and feta cheese in a balsamic dressing which arrived with a garlic bread ciabatta topped with pesto and parmesan.
The main course was a Thai Green Prawns with boiled rice and an alternative main, which was king prawns in a pico de gallo on tortilla chips.
The desert was natural greek yoghurt, with pecans, almonds and honey alongside a little sliver of dried orange.

I will of course take this opportunity to thank Emma for assisting me with the cooking and Nicky for the loan of her kitchen and gorgeous little bewooded cottage. The six present had a wonderful time and as ever I massively over did it on the portions. Apparently Nicky finished the pate' and curry today. I think she wants me over to cook again when her freezer is empty and she can load it up with gormet ready meals prepared by yours truly.