Everybody Wants To Pet Puppyyyyyy!

On Friday evening, Wolfie and I went around to Adia and Soma's for a takeaway and anime night. We had intended to go to a local pub, The Traveller's Rest, but I has forgotten there was an England football game on, meaning the bar was rammed. I couldn't get there until around 7.30pm, which was far too late to get a table, so consequently we opted to get a takeaway and sit with Adia's delightful rats, who kept a sniffling and a snuffling in my general direction, not to mention eating my shoelaces and trying to climb into my T-shirt. Adia has four ratties and they're all nice, although their snake-like tails did cause a few heart palpitations on occasion, I just had to remember they were attached to something fluffy. I was constantly paranoid about sitting on the rats as they buried under the pillows and throw on the settee but thankfully Adia was always on hand to rescue them and while we were having dinner, they were put safely in their cage, eyeing us hungrily as we ate. I like Adia's rats, they all have their own character but they are very mischievous too, like a puppy.

I was surprised to see that one of the local takeaways did a Parmo, a Middlesbrough delicacy that is slowly making its way across the north. It's not very healthy - chicken escalope coated in cheese and bechemal sauce - but I hadn't had one in years and with Wolfie's encouragement, I decided to go for one. To be honest, it wasn't as good as the parmos back home, but I feel that may have been because the takeaway was ten minutes from us and the condensation in the box may have made the chicken somewhat soggy and the cheese coagulated. It was a pretty heavy meal and I couldn't really taste the garlic, while Wolfie's hot shot wasn't hot at all. I had mine with doner meat, which worked, and the chips were exquisite, lightly spiced in peri peri. The Parmo was at least cut up for ease of eating but it was a bit of a disappointment, I'll have to see if anywhere else in the area does them.

We saw two animes in the end, the rather silly Bottom Biting Bugs and the more serious Dog Days, the latter being a show about two countries at war (the classic dog people versus cat people), one of whom summons a "hero" from the human world. We accidentally started watching from the second series so it didn't make much sense, but after the first two episodes of series one, things were a lot clearer. Meanwhile, BBB stars a bottom biting bug of that very name and the bugs do a silly dance whenever they bite a bottom - of course I bastardised this to a puppy song. The show is really just five minute silly shorts from NHK but they were good to watch with food and provided some light entertainment. Due to Adia and Soma's early bedtime, we left pretty early, around 10:30pm, but we agreed it was a great night and we hope to do it again. I am always up for more anime and it also helps with my Japanese, which is definitely improving as I could recognise many more words and even sentences in the anime than I could before - a real confidence boost ahead of my writing assessment (which I have the Easter period to compose) and an influence on whether I do the course next year.