Rosalia Rambles

Tag: soft

  • Redundancy Review: Day 51, “Obsessing Over Numbers”

    (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 statisticians and actuaries, welcome to Day 51 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Being a writer can suck sometimes, especially when you have self-esteem issues.

    I am someone who obsesses over the view count on my articles however small they currently are. I still want to write every day, as both practice and to keep this living record of how I feel post-redundancy, but, seeing low view counts definitely do hamper my enthusiasm sometimes.

    Especially when WordPress fucks up and I have an article that is currently displaying zero views on my dashboard, despite having testimony from a friend that they have read it.

    A thicker skin is something I definitely need to develop if I want to keep at this, or just, internalising that it is okay that my journey being written down is enough, and whether it is one person or one-hundred people who read it, I still wrote my story – even if it is glory-free.

    It is not even notoriety I am after when it comes to pursuing writing. I am a homebody who likes nothing more than quiet nights of video games, pizza, and cuddling my partner, fame is not something I aspire to. Do not even really want to say fortune is something I aspire to either.

    But, I would love to be able to make my way in this world with writing as my profession, even more so in the GenAI age where companies are implementing this useless technology into anything they can think of all the while promoting an anti-human sentiment. GenAI does not democratise art, only allowing those with a resentment for the creative process to “make” something of themselves.

    I still strive to make my personal brand of writing based on vulnerability and openness. Utilising emotions that a machine could never hope to understand to write a continuous tale of navigating a world dominated by slop.

    Unrelated, one of the working titles I had for this series was “Jobless Journal” which better fits what I am using it for, but also would fit worse considering I am employed as a contractor right now – plus Redundancy Review matches alliteratively with the website title which is so good considering alliteration is my favourite literary device.

    Anyway, I am getting distracted, and I need to do the review which was sort of requested by my friend Aaron again but not really, so I am not adding it to his tab with me.

    After I compared the M&S British Sparkling Apple to Apple Tango in yesterday’s review, he asked if M&S had their own equivalent to Orange Tango, a drink I have a much more positive opinion of due to it being a bit more natural as far as processed soft drinks go in it having real sugar.

    So, I went back to M&S today to see what they had on offer, and saw cans of “Brazilian Sparkling Orange” in the same spot I had found the other cans, so decided to give them a go.

    Same price as the apple cans at £1.25, and whilst the intensity of the orange flavour is lesser compared to how intense the apple flavour was, it is still cool, refreshing, and way more natural tasting than other orange-flavoured soft drinks on the market.

    What is definitely the positive common theme amongst the two M&S cans so far is how clean the flavour is compared to how reasonable the price is for a quick soft drink hit. £1.25 can get you a 500ml bottle of any leading fizzy drink at a corner or convenience shop in the UK which will hit the spot, but would nowhere near the satisfaction that the 330ml M&S gives for the same price.

    If you are somehow passing by an M&S foodhall on a hot day, I definitely recommend any of the cans I have reviewed thus far. There is also a Sicilian lemon can to try but I think I will hold off on drink reviews for a day or two.

    Thank you for reading this rambly, ranty, and refreshment themed edition of the Redundancy Review. Take the time to relax and walk away from the screen if you need it, nothing good comes from staying glued to a monitor if you are frustrated.

  • Redundancy Review: Day 37, “Getting There”

    (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 beavers and gophers, welcome to Day 37 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    Had a busy day yesterday, both for stuff in work and stuff outside of work. In work I had a long suppressed instinct come back to me as I was programming something in C# for making a Unity application – extremely basic systems mind, such as switch cases and using [SerializeField], but still knowing how I like to make things.

    It feels weird, I had long since disavowed going into any form of C# or Unity for professional roles, almost intentionally letting my skills atrophy rather than stay in practice by working on my own personal projects, but I guess the knowledge imparted to me can never truly die.

    Outside of work I needed to accompany my partner to a hearing check, which on the surface sounds pretty straightforward when it turned into anything but. 

    So the check itself was booked in error due to this hearing place not having my partner’s DOB on record which caused the system to assume he was over sixty and would benefit from hearing checks. We got it all settled out but the audiologist checked his ears all the same…

    …which revealed a pretty nasty infection in the left one.

    We finished up and headed over to the GP to see if he could get a same day appointment to try to get everything checked over. We could, but we had to come back at twelve to grab an afternoon clinic slot…

    …which potentially would clash with his working hours yesterday.

    This meant we needed to go over to his work, and try find a duty manager to explain the situation. After doing so we looped back round to the GP and got an appointment booked, capping off a marathon journey across town on my lunch hour.

    Got my steps in though, and I will always do anything I can to help my partner out, he has helped me in more ways than I can describe.

    Today’s review topic will be what my partner used to help recover himself from that walk, one of the UK’s leading soft drink brands, Lucozade.

    In this case specifically, Lucozade Energy Orange. A carbonated glucose-based soft drink that also contains a decent amount of caffeine per 100ml, but not enough to be registered as a “high caffeine content” drink.

    I even view Lucozade as a recovery drink myself, a healthy dose of sugar and sweetness hits the right spot after a long walk, a hard day, or lack of sleep entirely, but due to family tradition it is my illness drink of choice too. 

    When I am sick I am usually a difficult bastard, very rarely taking the amount of rest I actually need unless whatever is afflicting me quite literally takes me off my feet, but in either case a healthy dose of lucozade either keeps me going when I should not or lets me feel somewhat comforted as I stay in bed.

    The ubiquitousness of Lucozade in the UK means it is also easier to find than my true poison of Relentless – every corner shop, off-license, and vending machine will have it in stock meaning you are never far from a quick energy boost if you need it, and with a decent variety of flavours beyond orange too.

    That does it for today, I did receive a delivery yesterday that will act as a review in future, but I need to test the product further before I review it properly. I hope you have a great day, and can relax wherever you are.

    For more information on Lucozade products, visit their website here: Official home of the UK’s favourite Lucozade soft drinks brand 

  • Redundancy Review: Day 25, “The Call of Yesterday”

    Redundancy Review: Day 25, “The Call of Yesterday”

    (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 knights and squires, welcome to Day 25 of Rosalia Rambles Redundancy Review.

    A later start today, but it feels nice to be relaxed for the first time in a while. This whole experience I am going through puts me under varying amounts of stress day-to-day, so having an afternoon yesterday and a morning today where I do not feel that as hard as I usually do is an incredibly liberating feeling.

    I do not think I have used that word enough in regards to some parts of this journey: “liberating”. It is a weird one to use considering how redundancy has completely upended my life, but it has also brought benefits to me.

    There was no denying I was going through some degree of burnout in my old job. I was still delivering what was needed of me on the daily but I also struggled to get out of bed some days in the lead up to the end times – dragging myself to my desk and putting on my best face.

    It was honestly the people that kept me going a lot of the days, I worked with extremely talented and personable people who made even the hardest times go by quicker. The culture, even with all of us working remotely, was what kept me in till the bitter end.

    (god getting woken up at 3am has thrown me off today, struggling to keep my mind on track)

    But now that I am out of work, there definitely is something positive from being away from the tech sphere and doing my own things. I have struggles but I also have runway, leading to me existing in this flip-flop of zen and panic, but ultimately letting my mind recover from the experiences I have been through.

    Writing every day is helping with that too. Being able to sit down and express myself through the written word is a peaceful feeling even on the days where my brain does not want to co-operate with me, and I remain ever thankful for anyone who takes time out of their day to read my words.

    The dream is still to be able to make some form of living off of writing, be it being hired as an in-house copywriter for a company or freelancing my way around, always finding something new to work on. Is this a lofty goal in the age of AI? Of course, but what I am building for myself is an identity of human creativity, what I aim my “brand” to be in a way.

    If you are looking for someone to write something thoughtful and emotional, consider hiring me. This project is but a fraction of what I am capable of, I would love to prove my worth against a wide range of works.

    Eating my way around Shrewsbury

    Yup, that is right. Welcome back to another exciting edition of talking about somewhere to eat in Shrewsbury!

    With my redundancy payments coming in, and after putting money into both bills and savings accounts, my partner and I resolved that we would go out for a proper meal at a restaurant. We tour cafes and small eateries pretty frequently, but it had been around two months since we had last gone “out out” as it were – for obvious reasons.

    Considering I was going to pay, it was my choice as to where we would go, and I picked one of the best places for burgers in town: The Beefy Boys.

    The Beefy Boys is a small-scale chain restaurant with only four locations across the UK: Hereford, Cheltenham, Bath, and of course, Shrewsbury. Very good going for a group of four friends who came together over a love of cooking, a wholesome start that reflects in the quality of their food today.

    After we got seated by the extremely friendly staff, we got to work on deciding what we wanted. Beefy Boys is one of the few venues I have seen today that offer free refills on soft drinks, a very good offer considering the asking price of £4.25 with both myself and my partner getting three glasses worth out of it.

    With food though we decided to be a little more indulgent. One of the main differences at Beefy Boys is that you can decide what kind of burger patty you want:

    • You can go for a standard smashed patty, which comes with two thin patties on the burger
    • You can go for a thicc patty, cooked pink in the centre
    • You can go “Oklahoma-style” smashed patty, which has onions pressed in during the cooking process
    • Or you can go for “Cali-Style”, which is a thick patty grilled in mustard – mimicking how the fast food chain In’n’Out do their “animal style” burgers

    Everything beyond a smashed patty incurs an additional charge, but having the freedom to upgrade your burger however is a very nice touch on the menu.

    For myself I got what is known as the Pizza Boy with smashed patties. This is a burger topped with pepperoni, marinara sauce, a big lump of breaded mozzarella, and served with a garlic and herb dip on the side. I am a lover of all things cheesy, and this hit the exact spot I was looking for when coming back to Beefy Boys.

    My partner got the Bacon Boy with the thick patty and an egg added on top. Unsurprisingly, this burger contains a large amount of bacon, coming loaded with crispy bacon strips, bacon jam, and baconnaise. A solid choice for any porcine purveyors out there.

    When it came to sides, we know from past experience to only order one portion of fries, as doubling up with the absolute majesty of these burgers leads to feeling extremely bloated… that said, an old special has now made a permanent home on the menu in the form of chicken kyiv fries – fries topped with chopped chicken strips, garlic mayonnaise, and garlic butter. 

    These are an extremely indulgent treat, but are oh so worth it. We finalised our sides with an addition I specifically wanted in the form of mac and cheese balls, which came with a little side of chipotle ketchup. These were crunchy, creamy, and absolutely divine when paired with the sauce, perhaps a little overkill considering everything else on the plate.

    To finalise, we decided to get milkshakes as our dessert, which is where “indulgence” started to slowly eek into “overkill”. They were absolutely delicious, extremely thick and a very generous portion, but I had to stop at least twice during mine to contemplate what I had done.

    Now, for the price breakdown:

    • Two refillable soft drinks: £4.25 each for a total of £8.50, where we both got three glasses each out of it
    • Pizza boy with smashed patties: £13.70
    • Bacon boy with thick patty and an egg: £16.15
    • Chicken kyiv fries: £12.50
    • Mac and cheese balls: £7.70
    • Biscoff milkshake: £8
    • Banana milkshake: £7

    Total cost of meal: £73.55
    8% service charge: £5.88

    Total cost overall: £79.43

    A very expensive meal overall, but hopefully the price breakdown shows the general impression of what you get for your money at Beefy Boys. Additionally, the service charge is discretionary, and you are able to remove it from the bill if you want.

    But you should not. Not only because service staff definitely deserve the extra boost where possible, but also because every time we have gone to Beefy Boys the service has been immaculate. Staff are friendly, the food comes out promptly, and the overall atmosphere inside is fantastic.

    It was a worthy date night out after two months of stress, and whilst the current situation prohibits doing it on the regular, I will definitely be returning to Beefy Boys.

    Thank you for reading today, hopefully I have not made you too hungry – but if I have, I hope you can treat yourself to something indulgent today too. It is Saturday after all, and the week has been a long one.

    For more information on Beefy Boys, visit their website here: The Beefy Boys – The Burger Experts