Rosalia Rambles

Tag: blog

  • Redundancy Review: Day 35, “Chasing Ghosts”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning spirits and geists, welcome to Day 35 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It was a fairly standard work day for me yesterday, got onboarded, started breaking things as is my want, and started to fight with the HMRC Self-Employment registration form which will probably also form a good chunk of my work today in between breaking things, needing to be set up as a sole trader in order to report my income.

    I can not tell if what I am suffering from right now is impostor syndrome or not. My brain tends to be a catastrophising one anyway so I need to give myself time to settle down into a routine, but part of me feels almost inappropriate where I am right now. 

    My heart still lies with my art, and whilst I feel comfortable viewing working in tech as a means to an end, there is definitely some part of me that feels that I should have left this life behind and kept walking in my own direction. I was not making any money in that direction but I felt a peace I had not experienced for a long time as I found my redundant rhythm.

    Admittedly, I did avoid doing some soul searching after I had been made redundant, choosing to focus on enjoying myself rather than thinking about what I want to do moving forward – which helped start to remedy my burnout, but did not end up addressing the root cause.

    If we consider my degree, the last eight years of my life have been in some form of hands-on role in the tech industry. I abandoned the idea of becoming a game developer shortly after my degree finished as I realised far too late that programming did not bring me any tangible joy, which led me into my current path as a QA where I have been for four years now.

    And there is no denying I am good at what I do. Even if I have moments of panic some days and have some fumbles, I am a bug finding machine with the ability to write clear & concise reports with appropriate supporting evidence…

    …I am just not sure I want to be that person anymore.

    Stay tuned as I slowly try to unfuck my brain over the course of the coming weeks, but in the meantime, time for the review – and it is Tuesday with me feeling a lot better, so it is time to review the Hololive song review!

    IRyS is a HololiveEN member initially debuting in July 2021 as part of a ‘group’ known as “Project: HOPE” before eventually joining the reformed Promise unit as their fifth member, having always been adopted by previous Council members for the purposes of collabs anyway.

    Project: HOPE initially started as a music-focused group and even after becoming a member of Promise IRyS has continued to focus on making incredibly good music across a range of genres, though one I find myself returning to often is the focus today: Gravity.

    A sombre song that speaks to me as someone who has had several experiences with depression, anxiety, and figuring out my identity, ones that persist to this day if my initial ramble is anything to go by.

    The lyrics give me the impression of what it feels like to be stuck in a rut as well, with the second verse really standing out to me:

    “Aim, somewhere along I lost my aim

    Thoughtlessly counting up my days

    I don’t know, I don’t know, it’s really tough to say

    I’ll probably be stuck here anyway”

    Ruts can often feel comfortable, and even if you are aware of the fact you have found yourself in one, it can feel almost impossible to pull out of it. But what overpowers both ruts and the theming of ruts in the song is that no one is truly alone – especially not in feeling stuck, with the bridge before the final chorus going:

    “Bet somebody’s out there, just like me

    Feeling all the same things

    I don’t know what I should do

    At least, though, you’re like this too

    I’ve found a bit of comfort”

    With the way the world is right now, with everyone going through degrees of their own shit, finding comfort in each other can be the difference between surviving and thriving, even when circumstances are not ideal.

    Also, obligatory screen grab for the thumbnail

    That covers everything for today, thank you for reading today’s Redundancy Review. You are not alone, there are those around you who can help, and the world is a better place with you in it.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 29, “Feeling Better”

    Redundancy Review: Day 29, “Feeling Better”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning doctors and nurses, welcome to Day 29 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Today feels a lot better for me, yesterday I ended up nursing a massive headache that may or may not have been related to caffeine withdrawal but still persisted after having coffee, only going away once I had taken some paracetamol. It could entirely be stress-related as well at the prospect of starting my new job.

    I have mixed feelings about going back into QA work so soon, on one hand it is something I know how to basically do in my sleep and my knack for finding bugs accidentally, so I feel happy to be working in something familiar so soon. 

    But on the other hand, I was actively looking forward to developing a new career in something away from the tech space, even if it would have taken a long time to reach some form of sustainability.

    In a way that is why I took the contracting role. My intention is to save a lot of the income I make from that role to build my runway further than I already have, so once it concludes I can navigate myself back on to the path of writing as a career with extra stability.

    Hopefully I will also be able to take a break after it is done because god why am I so tired lately, struggling to keep my eyes open right now. Feels weird to say when I am unemployed but the tiredness and sleepiness has been really getting to me lately, even when I am not really doing much in a day.

    It will probably improve once I am back into my work routine, rather than just living as a drifter who makes her own schedule – as much as being a gaming NEET has had me catch up on a lot of games I had been meaning to play.

    But as I gear back up into the new life of contracting, it would be awesome to take on contract writing roles. If you are reading this and want to hire me, consider getting in touch. I have experience working on training scripts, proposal presentations, and the massive variety of work hosted on this website. Infinitely adaptable, I can apply my expertise to any situation.

    It is going to be a bit different of a food review today, as I am reviewing a sauce, but not just any sauce.

    A takeaway inspired sauce from Hellmann’s. 

    Hellmann’s is my personal favourite brand of mayonnaise in the UK, having got me through a lot of different situations and forming one of my core life philosophies when it comes to food: never cheap out on sauces, learnt that the hard way as a student where I used to emaciate cheap mayonnaise with unreal amounts of garlic to try make it taste good.

    The sauce they are specifically trying to mimic here is the KFC Supercharger Mayo sauce, a contender for the crown of best sauce from a takeaway right next to Papa John’s special garlic sauce. 

    So to compare, I set up a side-by-side taste test… not blind unfortunately but you get the idea.

    We have Supercharger on the left, and Chilli Charger on the right. To start I can definitely tell them apart based on visuals, whilst Hellmann’s does a very good job of capturing that processed orange look the original has, there are specks of herbs and spices in the Supercharger that set it apart.

    As for taste, Supercharger tastes like Supercharger, an incredibly creamy sauce with a good hit of spice. The creaminess likely comes from the fact that KFC mayonnaises are usually made with both eggs and buttermilk – a fact that plays to its advantage in enhancing the flavour at the downside making this not safe for those with dairy intolerances.

    Hellmann’s version of the sauce tastes less creamy with around the same kick of spice, I can definitely tell the differences but there is enough similarity that if I were to try it on chicken strips or attempting to make my own version of the Zinger Stacker (my KFC main of choice) I feel it would be a perfect substitute. Unfortunately though the Hellmann’s version of the sauce also contains milk as an allergen due to the cream powder used, making this unsafe for daily intolerances.

    The main perk I can see with the Hellmann’s version is accessibility and cost. At time of writing it is 50p to purchase a pot of Supercharger dip which is around 30ml of product, not including the price of awkwardness of buying a bunch of pots of dip. At Asda (not sponsored, just a fan), Hellmann’s Chilli Charger is currently £1.98 for a 250ml bottle, meaning that for the price of one bottle, you could only get 120ml of real Supercharger.

    That does it for today, and a more in-depth slash energetic review than yesterday. Thank you for reading today, considering a heatwave is on the way in the UK I hope you can stay cool and hydrated in these coming days.

    For more information on both Chilli Charger and other fine Hellmann’s products (not sponsored, just a fan), visit their website here: https://www.hellmanns.com/uk/home.html

  • Redundancy ‘Review’: Day 28, “The Long Haul”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)

    Good morning clocks and watches, welcome to Day 28 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Sitting here trying to think of the semantics of what doing this for a month is – technically I could say today is me having done it for a month since I have done it for four weeks, but my mind is thinking more on the side of Day 30 being the official month milestone as that lines up with my redundancy date.

    Regardless, I have been at this consistently for a good length of time all the same, and even though it looks like things are about to change for me I want to keep up with this daily habit I find myself in.

    There was a lot of doubt and weird feelings around taking this contract opportunity, specifically because I have been trying to style myself into something new, to move away from almost eight years of being a tech-focused person and shift my energy into being a creative type like I have always dreamed of.

    But being a creative is a difficult career, and I want to prove I am in it for the long haul by keeping up my creative efforts even when working in a different sector. My ultimate driving force is still those words I heard so long ago:

    “Don’t let it die in your head”.

    I want to tell stories.

    I want to share my voice.

    I want to put something positive into this world.

    Even if this whole endeavor turns out glory-free, I will be satisfied that I wrote it down at least, to keep a record.

    But if you are reading this and want to help out my career, why not consider hiring me? Scripting, stories, and Redundancy Reviews on request, I want to create each day.

    It is Tuesday, which means one thing: today is a Hololive review day!

    Although, honestly… I am not feeling too great, just went out for a walk and some food which normally helps perk me up, but if anything I feel even foggier after doing so.

    So instead, I am just going to share a Hololive talent covering possibly my favourite Vocaloid song of all time, Rolling Girl by wowaka – rest in peace dude.

    And to make sure I have a thumbnail, I am going to include a meme I made about my ability to make memes.

    Thank you for reading this shorter review. I am going to go lie down.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 24, “Crybaby”

    Redundancy Review: Day 24, “Crybaby”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning snoozers and sleepers, welcome to Day 24 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Being rejected by Poncle yesterday hurt.

    A lot.

    So much so it threw me off my mojo for basically the entire day once I had got the review out of the way in the morning. I know it is okay to have days like that, especially when I am still dealing with the emotional fallout of the whole catalyst for why I am writing today.

    But it does not stop me feeling the hurt, and I am someone who feels emotions very intensely because of my estrogen treatments. I always got told by doctors in the leadup to starting that my “emotion range would open up” and “you might find it easier to cry”.

    I was not anticipating how much both of those would happen – even three years past the start I still get caught by surprise on how much I can feel and how much I can cry.

    Even before estrogen though, I have always been a bit of a crybaby, being able to cry very easily. Nowadays though it does not take much to set me off, sometimes I have even just looked at a picture of an axolotl and that is enough to make me want to cry a bit.

    That said, I do not consider my emotions or my ease of crying a weakness by any stretch of the imagination. They might be vulnerabilities for me, but I can utilise them as a strength as well, usually within my writing work. In general I hope that is the vibe that comes across with the Redundancy Review thus far, weaponising my vulnerability in the wake of disaster to try make something positive come out of it.

    And as much as I do feel doubt creeping in some days, I will always be here. Rain or shine, happy or sad, awake or asleep – I have my rhythm, and I have a job to do. 

    Promoted this website on my LinkedIn yesterday, as part of a general headline update which included a very professional way of advertising my anti-AI sentiment. On a platform dominated by AI content from GPT-speak copy to obviously incorrect images, promoting myself as a “human-focused creative” definitely makes me stand out a bit more in the opposite direction.

    If you would like a healthy dose of human-focused creativity, I would love to work on your writing projects! Do not settle for the myth of AI-generated copy being “good enough”, whilst it can convey a message it does not convey any emotion, especially when you are trying to market something. Find a human who can get excited about your product and pay them to write about it! (bonus points if I am that human)

    Speaking of getting excited about things, today’s review topic is one that has been considered long overdue by my partner, and a game I followed the development of for a long time before taking the plunge myself.

    Plus, with the big announcement yesterday that Helldivers 2 is coming to Xbox Series platforms in August, now seems like a good time to talk about it – it will be admittedly hard to cover the heights this game has reached over the last year and a half, but I will try my best.

    Helldivers 2 is a third-person shooter online cooperative shooter developed by Arrowhead Games released in 2024. The main objective of the game is to fight back against the three factions vying to destroy Super Earth:

    • The Terminid Swarm (standard sci-fi bugs)
    • The Socialist Automatons (standard sci-fi robots)
    • The Illusive Illuminate (standard sci-fi aliens)

    The main way this fight is driven forward is through the regular deployment of “Major Orders” (MO), community-wide objectives that need to be completed or fulfilled within the time given, sometimes within a couple of days or over the span of a week. Players are free to engage with the MO or they can fight whichever faction they prefer.

    I personally love the Major Order system as an example of live service done right, especially when Arrowhead have let players decide what new content they want by offering it as an incentive for doing the MO a certain way… even if it did result in it taking four MOs to unlock Anti-Tank Mines.

    The gameplay loop is fairly straightforward, dive onto a planet.

    With the coolest loading screen ever.

    After which you are presented with your objective, which can range from collecting geological samples, destroying enemy supply lines, to the most important task of them all: raising the flag of Super Earth to bring democracy to all.

    One of the most potent tools in the Helldiver arsenal are stratagems, powerful pieces of equipment that are activated by inputting the correct arrow code. These include but are not limited to:

    • Orbital barrages
    • Vehicles and mech suits
    • Jet fighters carrying ordnance 
    • Defensive turrets and sentries

    After completing your objective, it is time to go to the extraction point, with it taking some time for the shuttle to reach you – this is where shit will really hit the fan, especially on harder difficulties.

    Enemies will lay siege to your extraction with relentless fury, calling in more reinforcements as time goes on, making you rely on all the stratagems at your disposal to get you out of there alive. These moments are where a lot of Helldivers get their most intense stories, and it is no surprise to see why.

    Upon returning to your ship, you get your experience points and any currency collected which can be used to unlock new stratagems, upgrade your ship to access potent passive buffs, or spend on the “Warbond” system, a set of premium, non-expiring, battlepass-style collections of equipment and customisation options.

    That said, Helldivers 2 does not mandate the spending of additional money on top of the price of access. The premium currency of Super Credits is able to be earned entirely in game through missions, so whilst it will be a bit grindy premium content is accessible without spending more money.

    Additionally, upon reaching Level 10, you gain access to weapon customisation. A recently added feature as part of the game’s massive “Heart of Democracy” update that allows players to change how their favourite weapon handles via changing the scope, muzzle, or even the magazine size.

    Whilst this is a very cool feature, there is one major issue currently in-game at time of writing: when going to customise your weapon’s pattern, it is entirely possible for the game to crash to desktop, which leads into one of my main criticisms of Helldivers 2 – it is a technical debt nightmare sometimes.

    For context, the game is built on Autodesk Stingray, an engine that had support discontinued for it in 2018. This means that Helldivers 2 is working on very outdated tech, which can lead to a lot of bugs, crashes, and performance issues depending on your hardware. Quite often bugs that have been quashed in previous updates will reappear at random, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

    It can be a reason not to buy the game, but personally coming from a QA background I recognise how hard it must be to keep a game of this scale working on a regular basis, so whilst I criticise, I can not in good conscious condemn the team knowing full well the patches I have suffered through.

    And with everything the game has accomplished with real, permanent changes to its world as part of the ongoing storyline, I am more than happy to accept some game-breaking bugs along the way.

    I said I wanted to talk about something that excites me, and nearly two whole pages of content before adding in images is definitely that. Thank you for reading today. I hope you can have a relaxing weekend wherever you are. Take it easy, it has been a long week for some and you deserve some time to unplug.

    Helldivers 2 is currently available on PS5 and Steam, with it coming to Xbox Series platforms August 26th.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 23, “Rain Clouds”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning berries and cherries, welcome to Day 23 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    It took a while, but today I finally got some closure on my application to Poncle from weeks back to be a QA engineer. For all the heart and soul that was put into my application, it has ended in rejection.

    This hurts more than I anticipated – especially in the wake of my QA declaration yesterday.

    Something I would like to emphasise is how difficult it is to maintain self-esteem in the wake of redundancy. The initial blow of being made redundant, even when it is through no fault of your own, does a massive amount of damage to your faith in your abilities. This gets worse when you try to pick up the pieces and get applications sent off, wondering if this time it will be enough.

    Committing to Rambles is honestly the main thing keeping me going right now, even when things hurt like today. I committed to do an article a day and I am going to stick to that commitment no matter how the world makes me feel.

    In all honesty my mood has been foul the last couple days, being really irritable about the smallest things and feeling reluctant to be sociable. I feel better when I actually push myself out there, but I am falling into the trap of comfort as well, preferring to close myself off to avoid any other pain.

    On the plus side, you would not see an AI having this kind of vulnerability – yes I am taking a dig at AI out of pettiness in my current mood, it fits the vibe of today.

    If you want writing with soul, lived experience, and a unique voice in today’s crowd, hire me. I am gaining experience every day, and I would love to work on your projects.

    Building on the theme of vulnerability, today’s review is going to be one of the few poisons I allow myself to imbibe on a very infrequent basis.

    Relentless is a brand of energy drink in the UK, carrying a wide variety of fruity flavours such as Passion Punch, Apple & Kiwi, and Watermelon.

    None of those flavours matter here today, as the only one I can stomach drinking is the originator of the brand, now titled “Origin”. I have had a difficult relationship with energy drinks in the past, developing an outright addiction partway through my degree which compounded with other issues at the time to make me a not very pleasant person.

    I strived to make myself “clean” in 2021 as part of a general recovery plan, but old habits die hard, and Relentless Origin is now the only energy drink of its ilk that I can enjoy drinking.

    It is on the cheaper end of 500ml cans, especially when compared to Red Bull or Monster, with the price-marked packaging variants usually being around £1 each, and a four pack generally retailing for £3.50 for a pack of four. 

    One thing I always struggle to communicate with energy drinks is what they specifically taste like. I can convey the general idea of drinking a delicious form of battery acid, but nailing down details is difficult. 

    The main detail I can point out with Relentless, at least for me, is its distinct lack of an aftertaste compared to other leading brands – the primary reason as to why I can still drink it. Not often of course, I keep myself in check by limiting my intake and making alternative picks in the wake of having one, but some days just call for that little hit of chemicals once more.

    That will be all for today, I am going to relax now. Thank you for reading this slightly shorter Redundancy Review with a bit more of a straightforward delivery than usual, I hope you have a good day wherever you are and can also find the time to relax.

    For more information on Relentless Products, visit their website here: https://www.relentlessenergy.com/en-gb/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 20, “Road Trip!”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning drivers and racers, welcome to Day 20 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    The main thing on my agenda for today is taking a journey with a very close friend of mine. She needs to go pick up some pottery directly from the factory and asked if I wanted to come along, which I gave an enthusiastic yes to. I find myself oddly excited at this prospect, partly for the chance to hang out with someone I resonate a lot with but also the chance to talk in person about how I am feeling.

    It has been mentioned a lot throughout this series but the support my friends have given me has really helped see me through some of the darker days. They help remind me why I am here and to keep on keeping on through the pain, uncertainty, and anxiety that has come with being made redundant.

    On the subject of purpose though, I feel the purpose of the Redundancy Review has changed somewhat since I started. Initially these mental check-ins were only supposed to be one segment of the review followed by an update on my job search, finalising with the review. 

    Talking about the job search has fallen by the wayside, if just because having to write constant reminders of what I am applying for makes rejection feel all the worse due to having a detailed record written down. Applications still go out each day, and I am working on a “living CV” page for the site right now, so there is that.

    But it is time to make an adjustment to the Redundancy Review’s mission statement, and iterate what my main goals are with this daily series.

    1. Primarily, this is to get me out of bed and working on something each morning. Even if I do not feel like it, or even if my brain is foggy, something goes out to keep the habit
    2. This is a story of my lived experience. The homepage emphasises that no Generative AI content will be hosted here, and I will stick to that always. A machine cannot replicate the emotion behind my words, and I will strive to champion human creativity above all else
    3. Whilst the title includes the word “review”, I am not a critic – there are far better people than me to do that job. I am here to spread joy about the things I love and to try make the world a better place through my words

    I am also going to divert my call to action today. Normally I would be asking people to hire me for writing work, but this time I want to give a spotlight to a colleague of mine.

    https://www.behance.net/jordancollins16

    Jordan was the Art Director and 3D Generalist at Immerse, responsible for the look & feel of many projects along with creating some of the most insanely detailed and complicated assets you could come across. His expertise always shined in planning calls, where production would present the idea and his creativity would run wild of what he could accomplish.

    He is an incredibly easy going guy, able to act as a steady presence whenever projects hit that inevitable rocky stage, persevering through the hard times with the goal of laughing about it once it was all over. With how long he had been at the company, he was part of the foundation, and it showed through his dedication to the craft.

    If anyone reading this is in need of a 3D artist, get in touch with him. You will not regret having him involved.

    Time for today’s review, and we are staying in the usual territory of food & drink, but a newcomer into the category.

    Yup. I am talking about a brand of boxed stuffing mix. 

    It came into my mind as I was initially supposed to make a roast dinner yesterday but ended up getting too overheated, changing the plan to a more homely sausage, egg, chips, and beans instead. The stuffing is usually the star of the show when it comes to my roast dinners, and I have Paxo Sage & Onion Stuffing Mix to thank for that.

    I have tried supermarket’s “luxury” range of stuffings, I have tried people’s homemade stuffing mixes, and I have even tried Paxo’s other offerings – but it always comes back to the default to me, possibly out of nostalgia.

    That said, I do not just mix it with hot water, put it in a dish and call it a day. “Rosa Stuffing” as my partner calls it has two main defining features. The first being an addition to make Julia Child proud: copious amounts of butter, added at two different stages – first a healthy amount after the hot water has been added, and then a few small knobs on top once placed into the dish.

    The other is less conventional, an addition that comes from my experience with stuffing growing up. My granny and my mother would always add mushrooms into the mixture to add some extra body and difference in texture, with this small addition now becoming a staple of my own stuffing too.

    Mushrooms are a divisive foodstuff, but it is one I can not get enough of in any dish, with the inclusion of sauteed button mushrooms mixed with a rich sage and onion stuffing giving me comfort beyond compare, even in the context of a comforting roast dinner.

    With that new esoteric addition to the list of things I have reviewed, I will call it there. Thank you for reading today, please keep yourself cool today, at least in the UK it is supposed to hit between 29-31 degrees in some places. Stay hydrated everyone.

    For more information on Paxo products, visit their website here: https://www.paxo.co.uk/ 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 15, “Patch the holes, change the parts”

    Redundancy Review: Day 15, “Patch the holes, change the parts”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning teas and coffees, welcome to Day 15 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    After having a somewhat terrible Monday, Tuesday was… up and down.

    One of the high points was getting to take care of my parent’s axolotl, Dottie. He is the second axolotl to have been in my family, with my axolotl Cedric being the first.

    Cedric was a very interesting character, she was quite upfront and social with me, even trying to jump into my hand on a few occasions when I was feeding her – doing so by hand as I had always done. Dottie is a bit more of an introvert though, he did not seem too interested in food and did not fully come out of his log while I was visiting.

    Yes, the axolotl with the male name was female and the one with the female-coded name is male. There is a metaphor in there somewhere.

    But in between talking to this not quite there salamander I was dealing with shit relating to my redundancy payouts, primarily around my unpaid wages and holidays. The company handling the administration is very opaque and obtuse, very rarely providing advice in advance, instead choosing to react whenever myself and my colleagues light fires under their arse.

    This was most prevalent in them not sharing the information/formulae used to calculate what holiday we have taken and what our weekly rate of pay is. Once presented with the information it made sense, but it feels weird that none of this was communicated upfront. There is a chance I will name and shame the company once this process is over, I do not exactly have “clout” or anything to make change, but it is part of my story.

    Main thing is I am finally getting paid what I am owed, which will help with finances for the foreseeable future and keep me in a position where looking for my next job does not make me too stressed out.

    If you reading this would like to make my next job working for you on a writing project, please consider getting in touch! My skills are slowly improving every day and the ability to work on real projects would only accelerate my personal growth.

    So, regular readers of the review know I am a big lover of food with many of my reviews taking me around various Shrewsbury eating spots. Today’s review is about food, but something a bit more closer to my original home.

    I have mixed feelings about my hometown, a very quiet village known as Codsall. The quietness and quaintness still have their appeal, especially living in a very busy town nowadays, but at the same time there is very little unique there for me now, highlighted further with the local butcher shutting down due to rising costs.

    However, one place is still around for me, and it is a place I will always make a pilgrimage to each time I need to return.

    Birches Bridge Fish Bar is one of two local chip shops, and in my opinion the vastly superior one. Both have been around since I was little, though Birches holds a special place in my heart as it was the regular haunt after my usual Saturday Warhammer 40k (later just card games) club for a filling lunch.

    One menu item in particular always draws me back, and it is in the picture above: the Birches Burger. A double cheeseburger topped with onion rings and the salad & sauce of your choice, my usual picks being onion, cabbage, jalapeno, and garlic mayo for an almost spicy coleslaw-like topping – paired with a regular sized portion of chips to give me a throwback to being fifteen again.

    It is your standard chip shop burger. Thin patties with a slight crisp to them due to being cooked in a press, topped with plastic cheese, and placed into a lightly toasted bun. There are no illusions, no fancy additions necessary, just a dense sandwich that brings immense comfort.

    However, I do have to highlight the chips though. Birches’ chips always hit hard for me, maybe partially out of nostalgia but something in my chips yesterday sang to me. I forgot to check the signage before I went in but it is around the time of year when chip shops start to serve new potatoes for a short while, and they definitely tasted like it. An almost buttery taste to them, only amplified by the addition of salt and vinegar.

    Now for the price: a Birches Burger sets you back £5.50 for the burger alone, and adding on a regular portion of chips is £3.40, bringing the total cost of my meal to £8.90 for yesterday. Looking both at local Shrewsbury chip shops and other takeaways, I would actually struggle to get a meal of that quantity for a similar price…

    …of course I have to factor in a £13.50 train ticket in order to get to Birches nowadays but I am purposefully choosing to ignore that in this context.

    Even outside of the very reasonable price for the one meal I had yesterday due to the sheer size, the familiar comfort that eating a Birches Burger once more brought to my soul helped ease the wounds of the last couple days, refilling my morale and letting me tackle the challenge of unemployment once more.

    That does it for today, hopefully I have not made you too hungry after writing all that (I certainly have made myself hungry). Whatever you get up to today, remember to eat hearty meals that bring you joy and keep you going throughout the day. I hope you have a good day, and I will see you tomorrow.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 8, “Too Damn Hot”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning lizards and wizards, welcome to Day 8 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Summer is here in full force in the UK, and especially the humidity here is not doing me any favours. Makes it hard to focus during the day amidst everything else going on.

    Not sure if it is because of the heat, but I am struggling to write this morning. Everything I do for the redundancy review is off the cuff, nothing is written in advance so it is all my personal thoughts and feelings written out online.

    I think today might be a shorter one nonetheless. I took pride with how much I wrote yesterday but right now I just want to rest a bit more.

    On the days I am doing well though, I can smash through writing like nobody’s business. You can find out how if you decide to commission me for writing work – would not exactly use this as a shining example, but you can check out other pieces in my portfolio if that would interest you.

    The review section will also be shorter, but it will be covering my current favourite breakfast item.

    Right now there is nothing better for me to start my day than a delicious buttered crumpet, and when it comes to branded bakery products in the UK my pick tends to be with Warburtons. A pack of six is relatively cheap from most leading supermarkets here, and they crisp up extremely well with my toaster on its “3” setting.

    Whilst my preference is salted butter, my partner has a bit more of a sweet tooth and chooses to top his with Lotus Biscoff spread, making it a very decadent treat of an afternoon but one that tastes incredibly good.

    In my opinion, crumpets are also versatile in their applications outside of being eaten on their own with a spread – several recipes exist for crumpet pizza online and I have even gone as far to use crumpets as the bread for a breakfast sandwich at one point in time, shunning the conventional muffin.

    Short, sweet, and to the point. Sometimes it is good to stay in the habit even if you do not have much to say.

    I hope you have a good day, please try to stay cool and relaxed wherever you are.

    Warburtons Crumpets can be found in all good UK supermarkets.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 4, “Uncertainty”

    (for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: https://rosaliarambles.wordpress.com/2025/06/11/redundancy-review-day-1-a-new-beginning/)

    Good morning friends and foes, welcome to Day 4 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Yup, I am going to be writing this even on a weekend, even if I did slip a little bit on my wakeup routine and slept in an extra hour.

    There is not going to be any job search update news on weekends, specifically because I intend to try and keep weekends to myself unless a seriously good role appears that I will make the extra effort for.

    Got plenty of mental state stuff to ramble about though, so I will launch straight into that.

    What is taking its toll the hardest right now is the waiting, or as the title suggests, the uncertainty. Currently I am waiting to hear back from a handful of jobs I am pretty excited about, but also waiting for the government services to get back to me with news of either my redundancy payments or my unemployment benefit.

    I have never been good at waiting personally, the sense of anticipation that builds when I know something is coming usually puts me into a state of limbo until the thing arrives.

    Uncertainty is not just coming into play when it comes to waiting though. In general recently I have had a lot of self-doubt creeping in, both in regards to jobs and my writing. It usually comes as a result of tiredness and my brain becoming overactive in regards to how I perceive my writing.

    In the end, I am doing this for myself more than anything else. Writing is a passion, and one of the best pieces of advice I have ever seen in relation to art in general was “don’t let it die inside your head” – which is my intention as I get back into the groove of things.

    That said, I continue to be available for writing work. If you want fiction, fact, or fun topics covered with my writing style, please do not hesitate to get in touch. I would love to get involved with people’s projects.

    So yesterday I reviewed some local food, and today I will be reviewing another local place but instead covering a cold, refreshing drink.

    During lunchtime yesterday my partner decided to treat me out for a milkshake, and in Shrewsbury there is only one place we go to for it: Simply Sweet.

    It is actually a fairly recent addition to the lineup of independent businesses in town, having only opened a year ago, but in that time it has become a firm favourite place for its varied offerings in terms of both milkshakes and desserts.

    Specifically I usually go for what is known as an “Out of this World” milkshake: Milkyway, Mars, chocolate sauce, and coal dust. This goes down extremely smoothly, the mix of chocolate bars and ice cream blended together make a rich but not stodgy drink – especially welcome as the weather heats up.

    I also have to give a shoutout to the owner as well, he is an incredibly genuine guy who always seems happy to see us as regulars, chatting happily about what we have been up to and how he is going with the business. His attitude about working for himself shows through in the quality of his work.

    In terms of price, Simply Sweet does position itself more at a higher end, with my regular sized milkshake being £6.50, however I feel this price is extremely worth it given the quality of what you receive.

    That covers everything for today, more concise for weekend reading. Thank you for taking the time to read today, and whatever you get up to today I hope you have a good one. 

    For more information on Simply Sweet, visit their website here: https://simplysweetshrews.com/