iPoditis

Well...

That was a REALLY exciting trip!

I had been invited to go over to Southampton for the BAC's yearly xMas do.. ehm.. of course I had 'other' business to do as well (yeah right)

My visit was great, it was lovely to see all my colleagues, worked hard on Tuesday then chilled a bit on Wednesday because that was 'DO' day and we went to the 'DO' pub where we played 'skittles'. I hardly threw a ball though because I had too much fun just being with my colleagues, felt absolutely fine, had a few glasses of wine but was definitely not drunk or even close.

We had dinner (which was not nice at all which made me think later that that was already a sign) and after coffee and exchanging silly presents we all got an iPod Nano 2gb engraved with 'Team Award 2006' because we did so well. Never getting a lot normally from the BAC made us all extremely ecstatic, I wanted one for ages but could never come up with a valid reason to buy one since I haven't an idea when I would use it if not on the yearly visit to Southampton!

I don't know if it was the excitement that did it but I suddenly felt VERY weird, nauseous, I thought the food was not agreeing with me so I had the idea to go to the toilet and see if I could evict it before I was going to feel even worse.

Well... I reached the toilet, managed to sit down but got SO dizzy that I was terrified because I felt I would never be able to get off the toilet ever and was half worried about all the fuss that that would cause. After a few minutes the wave of dizzyness and nausea went down a bit and I thought that if I hurried I could warn someone to tell them I wasn't feeling too good.

So.. I sort of made a run (read: stumble) outside the toilet and could only sort of shout 'Pete (my colleague) I need help' before I fell on the floor.

Apparently there was a huge panic at that time but luckily Pete was being a rock, put me into the recovery position and had someone call 999 or whatever they call it here.

I vaguely remember answering all sorts of silly questions (well.. they weren't silly I suppose, things like is she diabetic, does she take medicine, does she have allergies that sort of stuff) and apparently within a few minutes they were there talking to me and feeling me all over.

The ambulance men were very quick to come to the conclusion that I probably over ate and over drunk (which so wasn't true in this case ;)) and I just tried to tell them that this was SO not like me, that I do not GET fainty like that normally at all and things. They then sort of said 'lets try and sit up' and I did but never made it to the chair they wanted to put me on, passed out immediately again, can't even remember that happened, I was still on the floor in my perception and felt quite nice actually, like all was right with the world and why would one want to sit up anyway ;-)

The waves started to subside a bit and I managed to get to the ambulance where they did things like take my bloodsugar (spot on apparently) and took my bloodpressure (126 over 67) which apparently was very very good as well.

They explained to me that my body probably wanted all the energy to go to the stomach which is why my blood pressure dropped which is why I felt so awful and why I was breaking out in cold sweats.

So I got the choice of either going to the hospital or staying in the hotel (where the do was held, I had a room booked there) so I opted for staying in the hotel. Didn't fancy being on my own just then though I felt I could 'go' at any time again so my boss (bless him) went with me to my room and stay with me until I felt a bit more stable. Once I felt 'normalish' again I sent him home... (1.30 I hear, poor guy!) Didn't sleep much that night, I bet it was some sort of subconscious fear of not being able to wake up again but I did survive it so that was good! :-)

Next day was quite horrific because I felt so out of it due to lack of sleep and whatever it had been what took over my body! My colleagues were all lovely though, I told them I would try and milk this for a very long time! ;-)

So.. flying back in the afternoon of Thursday was OK, J. picked me up and I zonked out on the couch at 9, only woke up to go to bed and slept until 10 yesterday morning which made me feel a bit better. Today another 09:30 morning and I am slowly getting back to my 'normal' self.

According to my boss I had 'iPoditis', I was so thrilled with it that he thinks that is what made me pass out. :-) And I must say it is GREAT, it is magnificent the sound it produces through our proper computer speakers, fantastic!

Orange delight

Yesterday was the monthly 'I cook for Gran' Saturday.... since our mother in law lives in our street we have fallen into a rythm of doing shopping on Saturday morning and then having lunch at Johns mums place who lives in our street. Very nice actually because she is a very good cook (even thogh she doesn't think so herself) and it is fantastic to be cooked for especially since she makes these 'old fashioned' dishes like kedgeree and shepherds pie and desserts like steamed pudding. Yam!

She is not so good herself in anything non British she always stays on the safe side so we have decided a few months ago that on the first Saturday of the month I make her lunch. I then always try to do something she would never make like pasta dishes and like yesterday vegetable curry (I don't think she was too sure about that one though, it might have been a step too far from the bland British customs ;-))

I also try to make a bit of an effort with a dessert and turned to lovely Delia. The idea was to do something with the leftover navel oranges I had lying around from a bogoff Tesco offer!
I fancied something like a trifle so..

What is needed if you plan to do this spiked caramelised orange trifle:

Sponge for 3 people (or check what I did)
Bit of liqueur (anything but orangy/fruity stuff preferred)
2 juicy navel oranges
2 table spoons of soft brown sugar
1 table spoon of brandy
1 table spoon Custard powder
1 table spoon sugar
250ml milk


I made my own sponge (since I had none in the house) by combining 1 egg, 60 gr self raising flour, 60 gr caster sugar and 60 gr flora butter and baked it in a cake tin on 180 degrees for 25 minutes. Since this amount is very small the 'cake' is very flat which gave it a lovely crunch all over, perfect for a trifle sponge.

I took 1 of the oranges and zested it, put zest aside. Then peeled both oranges and started on trying to cut the flesh out and leave the stringy bits. (Over a bowl) Well.. that totally failed so I gave up and just cut the orange parts in half making sure I cought any leaking juice from them in the bowl, I added the parts to the zest.

Then I took the brown sugar (well to be honest I didn't have any so I took 1,5 table spoon of demarara and added half a spoon muscovado sugar) added the about 1 spoonful orange juice in a small pan and heated it, first slowly to dissolve the sugar, then a bit more fierce until it really started foaming and waited until it slightly changed colour and got syrupy, then I added a splash of brandy and poored the mixture over the oranges.

Then I made custard, very easy to do in the microwave, 15 gr custard, 10 gr sugar, 250 ml milk. First add a bit of milk to the sugar custard mixture and stir to dissolve, then add the rest of the milk and put in the microwave for 2 minutes, then stir and keep on putting it back in the miccie 1 minute at a time check through the window constantly if it doesn't overflow, this should give a nice glossy creamy mixture which I left to cool a bit.

In the meantime I cut the left over sponge (oh ehm.. I forgot to say, careful if on a diet, it is impossible to not nibble the hard bits off and then have a gooey bit for good measure when the thing comes out of the oven!

Anyway, cut the left over sponge and divided it over 3 bowls, sprinkled liqueur over it then strained the oranges, set juice aside, added the orange and zest to the sponge then added the caramelised juice to the custard making the custard taste all orangy and luxurious because of the brandy. Then poored custard over sponge and oranges and put in fridge to stiffen.

It was a magnificent success! This will be an evergreen!

My Brother

is the funniest guy I know...

I might be biassed, him being my brother and all, but the things he comes out with are so off the mark that it always seems to tickle my funny bone.

I suppose that since he cracks them in Dutch and they are a bit intranslatable they probably don't come across as well as they do in Dutch.

His newest one yesterday:

Me: 'So, has living on your own made you slimmer or fatter than you were?' (yeah this weight obsession is a family thing)

He: Well I am not sure but every time I step on the scales they start screaming NO, NOT WITH 2 PEOPLE AT ONCE!!!!!!

Hahaha..

Still makes me titter, even when knowing the punch line :)

Busy busy busy!

Would you believe I have a new job?
Well.. more of an extra job really...

I got a nice new guy at work 'helping' me, which basically means that he does all the boring stuff (he doesn't think that it is though, that is lucky!) and I get to do the more in depth so for me more interesting stuff. Yay for me!

On one of the many conference calls I attend I made a few clever remarks and that same afternoon some hot shot called me and sort of begged me if he could ask my manager to help them implement something. Poor people had apparently tried to implement something for 7 months and I was the first one they met who actually seemed to know how to move on. Bless...

So.. my manager checked with me if I really thought I could handle this (YES YES I am EASILY bored, do give me more different things to do, PLEASE)

So now I am called a project manager and need to help implement a new thingy. Ooh.. the importance ;-)

My manager then sent the sweetest mail that has ever been sent out on an occasion like this, thought I'd share the bits that made me go 'ahhhh'...

Folks, we all know Tanja is a talented lady and it is only fair we share her talents with the rest of the organisation. We have received a plea to allow her to work with on the new . Her knowledge of is key to us getting a robust solution.
Tanja will continue to perform the while doing this.
This is a great opportunity for Tanja and I am sure you join me in wishing her well in her new adventure.

How sweet does that sound then!? Well.. anyway, it made me very happy :)

I must say I am busier than a busy thing now but enjoying every second of it!

Still managed to fit in a very nice way of making brussels sprouts pallatable even if you didn't fancy brussels sprouts!!

I cleaned and cut in half enough sprouts for 2 people and cut 1 big potato in chunks, then boiled them together for 20 minutes. In the meantime I chopped an onion and browned it slowly in a tiny bit of butter, then added a tin of ham (also in chunks) to it and browned it all nicely. Then added some chopped tomatoes and a few garlic cloves in bits to it all and stirred until softened.
Drained the sprouts and potatoes put them in an oven casserole, added some salt, pepper and nutmeg and put the ham tomato stuff over them, then let it stand to cool. (did this in my lunchbreak)

Then before I wanted to start dinner I made a roux (bit of butter, bit of flour and milk, all in a pan and boil, strangely enough it all comes together as a sauce :-)) melted parmesan and a few generous lumps of blue cheese in it, poured the mixture over the sprouts and tomato mixture and put the lot in the oven on 180 degrees (hot air oven, otherwise 200) for 20 minutes which made the top nice and brown.

Man.. what a FANTASTIC way to eat sprouts I tell ya!

Living healthily ever after

It's autumn.
Raining all day here and blowing gails making me very chilly all over AND inside.
So .. what to have for lunch?
The normal 2 slices of bread? A salad? Brrr.... all too cold...
Pancakes then? Hmm.. bit fatty and stodgy and not good for all sorts of reasons.
Even more because I am REALLY trying to get this 'eat more fruit and veg rule' into my daily routine.

So... SOUP

The day that someone showed me how to make soup I didn't realise it was such a special day. My father always said that they could wake him up for 2 things, soup. and snigger

Anyway, it must be hereditary! I looooooove soup... so in our family we always used loads of cans, my mum worked so opening a can of soup was about all she fancied doing some days. Bit of bread with it, lovely.

I am not sure though if it is that 'way back when' the soups were nicer or that my taste has changed so much but I think all soups from cans are absolutely horrendous. Maybe I should try the 'fresh' variety but since that one not so famous day someone told me how to make soup I have given up on ready made.

Here is how to incorporate an example soup in your life :-)

First, the most important thing, a blender, now... loads of people (even Saint Delia Smith) always tell everybody to use a blender like what they use in American soaps to make milkshakes in. Totally silly I think, since the soup will then not only be stuck to the pan you make it in but also to the blender plus if you make soup for more people you have to blend in batches, totally rubbish I say!

So.. please, believe me, buy one of these
It doesn't have to be that brand or anything, anything with a bit of wattage will do.

So, here goes:

Say.. you work from home and you only have an hour of free time to take care of lunch and have a 20 minute walk because that is so good for you?

Get for 1 person:
Bit of butter or oil
1 small onion
2 tomatoes
small potato
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
stock cube
250-300 ml hot water
blue cheese

Chop onion, melt butter, insert onion and glaze, in meantime chop potato in small chunks, add to onions and stir, then chop tomatoes in chunks and add with stock cube, water + bit of white pepper, no salt and bring to the boil while stirring.

Then turn heat down so it is just simmering and go for your afternoon healthy walk. (20mins)

Come back, turn heat off, stick blender in and whiz until it is nice and smooth without bits.
Add crumbs of blue cheese to taste.

So.. why is this such a good recipe?

• Dishes, only 1 pan, a choppingboard and knife and the blender stick all easy to clean. (okay to be fair all the plastic involved will turn into a nice orangie colour but eh!
• Licopene! Or Lycopene? Don't know really.. but that is the red stuff, apparently that is so healthy for one because this fights all sorts of nasty cancerthingies and is apparently especially very good for men to ward off prostate cancer...
• Low calories, even though there is butter and cheese involved, the butter is needed to deal with the vegetables and actually get out of them wat you can on the vitamine front, the cheese is so strong that you will only have a little bit but a huge taste experience so you won't need any extra salt.
  
• The texture of the soup is out of this world, so smooth because the blender also adds some air to it, the potato works in a starchy way and links it all together.
• Cheap, Tesco sells value tomatoes, onions are dirt cheap as well as potato's and even the blue cheese I bought for only 89 pence in Tesco and will last me for loads of soup experiences.
• It has all the major foodgroups, protein from the cheese, fat from the butter, carbs from the potato and of course the great things from the veg. How is that for a balanced meal!

And the great thing is that you can make soup in the same way with any vegetable you like, I think I have done a few in this blog already like broccoli soup with sunflower pits, cauliflower leek soup with bacon and such.

The trick to all soups is, butter, onion, potato and any vegetable you like, then cook for 20 minutes and when you are a smooth soup fan like me, whiz it all together and enjoy!

(Any other soup recipes always welcome!)

Back!

Well.... I can't say anything else but it has been LOVELY!

A whole month in Spain...

Before we went we were terrified that we would be bored out of our skull after 2 weeks but luckily the weather was so fantastic (4 weeks straight 30C) that it was enough to get in bathing gear and making the main event of the day getting in and out of the pool!

A bit sad though too... we are selling up so if you know anyone who wants to buy a house in Spain make sure to show them ours (www.elcalon.co.uk)

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with the house, it is perfect, we noticed that again when living in it for a month, there is nothing at all that I would like to change about it but..

.. we have changed so much...

The whole idea was to buy a house in Spain and then live there once we were retired, thinking we would have nothing to do so it would be nice to do the nothing in Spain for say 3 months a year over the winter period.

Then we found eBay and we love it, we like being busy and suddenly the idea of doing nothing was more scary than something to look forward to!

At the same time we would like to move to Norfolk to be closer to Johns kids and away from the Scottish weather which is slightly getting to us.

So, since our house in Scotland would not cover a house in Norfolk we have to sell the house in Spain, it is just to expensive to have all this money stuck there when we can use it so well here!

If we still want to have a holiday in that area we will have to rent a house, lots cheaper!

Now.. an impression :-)



This is me pointing to a mountain that we climbed, ever so brave I think :)



And dawn coming up (of course that was John, not me :-))

So.. now.. back to WORK (boohoo)!

Boxes and Blind Spots

Did you see the news the last few days?
About this 12 year old girl called 'Molly' who went to Pakistan with her father and sister without telling her mother?

Apart from the discussion about how stupid it is to just take off and go to a far away country and not even leave a 'TTFN' note to your mum, I was fascinated by something else.

Did you see the mum? Hardly able to speak, move or do anything else that seemed remotely 'normal', trembling all over, taking small steps out of the press room. Her appearance a mess with a haircut that has probably been applied by either herself or a neighbour with kitchenscissors. How did she come across to you?

Now.. I totally understand that in the midst of despair one does not think of how one might come across on telly. (Although I promise you no amount of distress would keep me away from applying a bit of make up before going on camera knowing that every news room desperate for ANY news in this time of the year will repeat my shiny red face and puffy eyes about, oh, 100 times a day for a week, ok, you can call me vain!)

Anyway.. then today.. the father... dressed in one of those, famous for Pakistan, male dresses which probably have a name which I don't know. He looked magnificent with his big black beard, a bit like this guy who sings 'if I was a rich man'. Saying that Molly can do whatever she wants.

And of course there was Molly, beaming, radiating love for her daddy.

So... did she get shipped out to get married in Pakistan? Do I really care?

No...

I cared about my own reaction which was 'If I had a say I knew which parent I wanted her to be with'

It would definitely be mr Rich Man.

So.. .I wondered, why...

Why on earth do I think I can judge someone by looking at them for 20 seconds and reach conclusions like 'very emotionally instable, not quite there, missing a few bits here and there, not capable to look after a child'

AWFUL!!!!

But.. it is reality.. I liked this guy with the beard saying that the girl can do what she likes and if I was her I would like to stay with him as well even if I wouldn't approve of his clothes choice.

But... after having stopped beating myself up over it I realised that people do that with me too, all the time.

They look at me and decide who I am, what I am capable of, or not and they put me in one of the boxes they have in their heads for that purpose.

And I can't help being so curious - where do I fit, how am I perceived?

Talked to John about this and he just says he doesn't care. And I suppose I should go there, I am what I am and what everybody else believes is not important.

And he is right, it isn't, it wouldn't change me but I would try and set the record straight if I felt they had me all wrong. (thinks.. why is *that* so important to me.....)

I would for instance love to know how my manager perceives me, does he see me as some sort of clever secretary? Or as a full blown member of the department capable of proper project management? Does he look at my face and thinks 'gosh she has a lot of confidence' when I constantly think that the reason they pay me pittance and don't give me a proper contract MUST be because they think I am stupid but just didn't tell me yet and am a bundle of insecurity about loads of things a lot of the time.

Is the picture I have showing on our internal HAL website saying 'nice competent woman', 'uptight bitch', 'nice try', 'looks like a librarian' or 'clueless'?

When I was doing my college education we were told that everybody had a blind spot, that you know certain things about yourself ,that there are things you DON'T know about yourself but are able to learn through the course of your life but also that everybody has their blind spots.

That unsettled me a lot, I thought I quickly had to find out all there was to know about myself because the idea that someone could confront me with my blind spot and me not recognising it was too scary to contemplate (no idea why, I suppose I still cared a lot back then :-))

Anyway, off I went trying to find out as much as I could about myself so I would be prepared for that day that someone would say 'you are such and such' and I would gently smile and say 'yeah I know' and have one up on them.

And now.. because of this experience today, I know that it is all out of my hands, that no amont of me getting to know myself will prevent people reaching their conclusions in 2 minutes flat and of course, not telling me! So I can't check if they are right and adjust any misconceptions they might have.

So... the morale of this story?

It is *all* in the eye of the beholder and I just *have* to let it go.

I thought I would share this insight with you.

:-)

BIRD

I had a bit of an unsettling day!! I am terrified of birds, stemming from an early childhood experience when my parents took me to Amsterdam to feed the pigeons and all those birds were all over me picking my hands and clawing in my head, when you are 5 pigeons are really big and somehow I have always been unable to get over this fobia!!

There is not a lot of need for me to get over it I suppose, as long as birds stay where they belong I am fine but this morning they didn't!!

Well, it didn't...

From my bed working away on my laptop (thank god for wireless) I heard a squeek from the kitchen and feared the worst, peeked from my bed through to the kitchen and yep... A FLYING THING. I totally panicked and ran to the bedroom door and closed it so I was safe.

After initial panic subsided I decided this was silly, I couldn't even go to the toilet so I was really brave and opened the door and peeked if I could see it just when I thought I couldnt' and thought of going into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee I heard another sound and a squeek so I threw the kitchen door shut giving me access at least to the bedroom, bathroom and back garden!

Still slowly de-panicking I decided to have a shower and review the situation after that. I know we have steps in the garage which I thought I could use to peek into the house from the outside. So.. that is what I did, started to look through the kitchen window and hooray, no bird, I really hoped it would have found its way out through the same window it got in!

But no.... when I looked into the lounge window I heard a bang and again a bang and it was clear that birdie was trying desperately to get out. Unfortunately time ran out... I had to attend a conference call for BAC and concentrate on that, so back into the bedroom and get laughed at by my Indian colleagues who just wanted to know what breed of bird it was!!! No sympathy there then!

After the call and getting really hungry and desperate for coffee I had another look from the steps into all the windows but couldn't see any bird, a lot of tiny bird poo droppings though.

Contemplating going in and it being stunned or dead or flying around frantically (can't decide which option would be worst!!) made me shiver so bad that I went to my last resort in the form of Johns mum who lives in our street. She laughed (of course pffff :-)) and came with me to slay the dragon.

So I let her go in all alone, while keeping the protecting kitchen door firmly closed and of course.. no bird.... nowhere... she was clapping her hands fiercely (as if her presence alone wasn't enough) but no moves at all.... all we could assume is that it flew out again.

And I know I should feel all better now, crisis averted, bird safe, me safe, all safe.

But of course with every 'strange' sound I think it came back to haunt me and it will take days before I don't get a reflex shock if a bird flies past our window a bit too close!

New shoes

Well, yeah, I know.. haven't been writing for ages.. don't really know what about but since Marije asked me if she could link to my blog I was reminded about it again :)

So.. yeah.. I've been busy, first been to our department 'do' which meant that I had to fly to Southampton, 'work' for 1 day, had the do all Tuesday and 'worked' again on Wednesday when I flew back again.

Well.. that was exciting!!
There was some sort of communication disruption (BT they said) on Southampton and they cancelled all !!! flights!

In itself minor crisis, I mean .. BAC pays for my flights and hotels so that was covered, BUT ,it turned into major crisis because the next morning I was supposed to fly to Amsterdam to be part of Kevins birthday! (My OLD kid is now 21 and officially a grown up!)

Anyway.. .it is was definitely a case of adopting the great BAC adagio of 'how am I going to project manage my way out of this one!!'

So... put down the strategic model of :

Current situation vs Wanted situation hampered by what helped by what.

(Did you know hot shots earn thousands by milking this model?)

It was easy to determine what hampered me getting to my wanted situation of getting my butt into Glasgow ASAP - Bloody Southampton Airport.

Luckily I had my mobile and the phone number of my favorite colleague and he directed me to the train where I found out how to get to Heathrow while he booked a ticket with BA to Glasgow for the pricely sum of 191.10 pounds! Dear me! So glad I didn't have to pick that bill up myself!

So, after 3o minutes train, an hour in a hot bus, a 2 hour wait on Heathrow and an hour flight to Glasgow I arrived home at 23:30.

Only to leave again on the Prestwick bus the next day at 13:09

How is that for having a pitstop!

Then.. Holland.....

Kevin was over the MOON with his present (notice the birthday hat that I specially brought for him) and all the attention and I am so glad I went after all, we had a brilliant evening.. I must say.. loads of wine went through my system lately!
So now.. I am trying to get used to living a stable less exciting life which is a bit weird after all this excitement!

The weather is threatening to get bad here for days now but it has been nothing than holiday weather and my system has enormous trouble accepting that I need to work!

How one suffers!

Big city

Well... I am here... in the middle of London..
I can't believe how not used I am anymore to a city.
Walking to where my course is is plain dangerous, cars everywhere!
And noise...

It is unbelievable what an assault a city is to your senses, screeching tubes, roaring motors, masses of taxis and buses, bad singing in the metro stations, so much to see, all that dust everywhere, I forgot how DIRTY cities are.

The area I am in is very close to 'Liverpool Street', which apparently is the heart of the financial part of the city, which means there are masses of 'suits' running around, and I mean running, nobody seems to just pootle along, it is all QUICK QUICK QUICK, frantic!!

For someone interested in food it is absolutely magnificent the amount of choice one has here. A lot of 'latte' factor.. I think half of all these running around people have either a big cup of expensive coffee in their hands or a mega big baguette.

My hotel is simple but SO exactly right. It has all I would ever want.. well... maybe a bath would have been nice but the powershower is lovely too! I even have a nice little couch in my room and a desk and a hair dryer and coffee and tea things and I get a showercap every day (which I then steal of course) - no cool shampoo and stuff to take home though, they have these dispensers with shampoo and showergel and other soap. Oh well... can't have it all I suppose!

Found the greatest little restaurant across of the hotel.. it is a pizzeria but the posh trendy version where they sell the pizza per yard. Quite nice.. they consider 'a glass of wine' to consist of 250ml.. thinks... how many units is that!!! It is a good thing I only have to roll 'home'. :-)

Oh and what is this thing about 'water'? Everybody is walking around with bottles of water, all the shops are overflowing with bottles of posh stuff and in my favorite restaurant they keep on asking if I would like some water and look really surprised and worried if I said, tapwater will be fine. I first thought it was because they can't really charge me for that but I think it is more that for them it it so rare to meet someone who dares drink tapwater. Interesting! Oh well. since they do know how to make good food I will let them off!

And the course is fun too would you believe! Almost forgot to mention that.. normally I am really really bored on courses, they are too slow in general.. this one is different, yesterday the teacher almost went too fast for me which is something that never happened to me. Today was a bit better because it is getting more difficult now and the rest of class is struggling so she needs more time to save them :). It is a bit unfair on them though, I have been working with all of this for about a year now and just lack the basic structure when they probably see all of it for the first time, it is fantastic to get all my blanks filled in!

Only 2 nights before I fly back again, then a month pause and then flying to Southampton again, pff.. .rains it pours and all that! Wish I had something like this in boring end of November or something... maybe I should try and steer in that direction :-) Having said that.. part of the enormous fun I am having at the moment is the lovely weather I suppose, can't really expect that in November ;)

It is also lovely to watch all my rubbish on TV WITHOUT feeling guilty :) Poor John has to suffer so much, from Strictly Dance Fever to Big Brother to xFactor Battle of the Stars etc... when he is more interested in the digestive system of the egyptian tigershark or something like that! Only downside is I miss him like hell.. it is just not the same without him snoring next to me on the couch and me trying to find the perfect balance between the volume just so I can hear it over the snoring but not so loud it wakes him up. :-)

The little joys in life eh... for now I will have to cope with a big double bed just for me :-)

How I suffer....

Wine and Dine

Oh joy... temperature is rising - Sunday morning I am flying off to LONDON
Big city girl - same girl, different city

I wonder how it feels, I thought Glasgow was overwhelming, wondering if I am de-city-ing without realising it.. maybe I am more a suburb girl than a city girl after all :-)

Anyway, it will all be good fun, leaving early on Sunday, going to the hotel and trying to get online (everything feels more organised if you have access to the internet don't you think? Me? Addicted? Neh!! :))

Then going to THE SHOPS I think... or just browse and see where I have to be on Monday to attend this cool Domino Designer course. Had to ask my boss person what it is I am actually doing. Bit embarrassing really. I knew I was working with databases and manipulating data and that I work with developers and have to tell them what to code (using the agreed processes).

Learned now that it is a database application that I work on, very educational indeed. And now I am going to be taught the fundamentals of designing one of those databases because I keep on feeling I have fallen right in the middle of all this code and miss the basics. So hope I will not be bored out of my skull. But eh.. I like the hotel experience in itself and the fact that I can choose which restaurant to use as long as I keep under 25 quid. Not sure if that is enough in London, I guess I will be OK as long as I stay away from the Ivy or Fifteen.

I saw this advert though, that you could go to the musical 'Les Miserables' including dinner at Planet Hollywood for 25 quid!! Now.. that sounds interesting.. decided to not book but see how it all feels when I am there though. :)

Apparently I am in the middle of the financial part of the 'City' - Liverpool Street is on walking distance.. so nice of BAC to organise a course in the middle of where things happen. Much better than in the middle of nowhere where I have to go when I visit my yearly do in July, lovely hotel but NOTHING around but country roads, this is a lot better!! :)

So tomorrow, packing, bbq-ing, wining, sleeping and go...

Exciting!

Release your inner bag lady....

This has always been my biggest fear:

http://wanderingscribe.blogspot.com

And I am not talking about how she got a book deal and all came good after all...

:-)

David Blaine and Magic

So, am I the only one?

Who does not just hate David Blaine and all his stupid undertakings but hates anything magical apart from Eurodisney?

It is supposed to be great, to be entertainment, we are all supposed to be in awe when they do their magnificent tricks but it just makes me very very very VERY uneasy.

Like... in the program about David Blaine tonight (Drowning Alive) they showed clips of him asking a person to think of a card and a minute later that person gets a call on their cell phone showing that particular card as the caller.

Very clever indeed.

So why does it leave me angry?

I suppose I feel fooled, embarrassed, left out, stupid, unable to work it out and I can't get ANY pleasure of something I do not 'get'.

It is probably very clever that he and all the other magicians are able to do these tricks but if I never ever see another magic trick again it will be too soon!

Sometimes... it *is* gorgeous here!

The picture doesn't do it justice really.... the dark rocks in the front, the houses on the other side but I think you get a good idea how nice it is when it doesn't rain for a little while :)

The joys of technology

Dear me...

What drama's! Remember I said my harddrive crashed?
Well... it sort of got back to working again after it moved its bootsector and I have been trying to get information of my old drive since the first sound of marbles jumping up and down in my harddrive...

Used Norton Ghost, created an entire backup image of my C: drive because I was told after that I could browse the backup and only put back the files I really wanted. Well.. when I finally received my lappie back with the new harddrive and the BACs standard image I first tried to browse the image I had put on an external drive (13gb image...) to pick out a few of the most important files and directories.... 'browsing this file is not supported'. Oh blow...

After trying a few more times I thought that it was probably because I did an image of my entire hard drive and had the brilliant idea to just put the entire harddrive back on my new one... Well... that resulted in a 'disk read error' and nothing else. Nothing I could do.

So.. lappie back to the BAC kitchen again for another refresh with the BAC image.

So yesterday finally I got it back and manually installed again all the programs I need to use to do my job.

And today.. normality returns... I am of course still searching all over the place for passwords and login names and I find it remarkable how many things you don't realise you use!

I have now installed the BAC's own backup tool and today after using most of my favorite programs and sites and therefore installing all cookies and passwords and things I will try and backup it in total. I must say.. it is nice to have such a fresh start, it is like having a spring clean but I am sure that over time I will realise all the things I didn't know were important until they died in the HD crash...

But.. all that is totally unimportant!

My mum had to go to a skin doctor because she had an awkward bit of skin on her cheek which her GP didn't trust, yesterday she got the result! It is 'just' sun damage and will be 'frozen' away on the 16th of June, not very nice but we are all over the moon that it is not skin cancer of the bad kind, hooray!

Who cares about lost data anyway!

The Da Vinci Code

Yes.. that is also something I did when I was in Holland.
Finally read the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, Karin had it lying around her house and I wanted to know what the buzz was all about. Generally these bestsellers are not bestsellers for nothing!

I didn't think I would like it, I am not very interested nor engaged where it comes to 'the Holy Grail' and such. It doesn't mean anything to me at all so couldn't imagine I would be attracted.

I have this sort of free religion inside of me (thinks maybe I should start one myself, Tori Amos always sang that 'I have got enough guilt to start my own religion' and I know what she means :)) I feel that God (or however you want to call him) is good and not such a bad guy as some religions let us believe and I am sure that Jesus was a very nice and talented man but I always have a hard time to believe all these miracles and holyness surrounding him.

When I hear people talk about their religion I always get this tight feeling around my chest because they want to stuff it all in a little box where I feel the more godding something is, the more space it needs. (Lost you yet? :-))

I felt this much needed space in his ideas in this book (that Jesus might have been married and have a child and not the saint he has been made into). I love the fact that the book describes it as a theory but also leaves space for your own conclusions and then leaves it all alone and turns into a riveting thriller that keeps you hovering between reading quickly wanting to know how it ends and slowing down because you don't want it to end.

And now.. the movie.. I want to see it now.. to see if it is true what the reviews say, that the film is even better than the book, I think this film might break all records ever made in film land, can't wait!

Oh and if you want to know what the buzz is all about, cheap 2nd hand ones at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/detail/offer-listing/-/0552149519/all/202-7002370-6273447

Update

Well... it has been a hell of a week and a bit!

• I have flown to Holland
  
• I went to the zoo with my mother (aren't we cute?!)
  

• Visited my brother and his kids and his girlfriend
• Went shopping daily (and therefore meet my son :-)) in my favourite supermarket
  
• Underwent a 90 minute massage donated by my friend (those are GOOD friends to have!)
• Watched masses of girlie movies
• Had nice long walks since the weather was fantastic - it felt like summer!
  
• Ate nice Dutch food like proper chips with fritessauce, kroketten and vlaflip
  
• Bought 1 kilo of drop
• HAD A HARD DISK CRASH (capitals because that was VERY scary!!!! My lappie kept on saying 'disk read error')
  
• Had the insight to press the 'access IBM' button while starting up and from all the icons I saw I thought 'diagnostics' sounded like a good start which thank God brought it back to life.
  
• Went to dinner with my dad, his wife and her daughter and partner (my stepsister who I hadn't met before, at least, not that I can remember)
• Did the 'anti stress arrangement' in the most fantastic spa I have ever seen and got a tan (well a red face really)
• Had a few drinks with my son, mum and my friend and closed the visit with a nice fulfilling shoarma with french fries (quite an event since I had been looking forward to that for quite some time.
• Flew back again
• Sent my dad a thank you note for taking me to the airport at sparrowfart and included the picture above.
• Got told off by return for doing so because 'that marriage is a closed story' and 'please do not send that kind of pictures again'.

Which was a very pissy end of an otherwise fantastic long week in my life. (Thinks... goodness you are 70, get over it, it is 23 years ago, it IS still my mother, you DID create me with HER, and I am on this picture too, but eh, he is 70 so I said 'ok, message received' )

Took it out on the garden. Have decided to suffocate the weeds since I can't win otherwise.

Luckily it is a lovely period, masses of sun and gardening is proving to be a very cleansing experience.

So why are these called bluebells?

Exactly!

Oh dear...

John and I were talking about how people always say the same thing over and over when they speak...

Like... Shayne always says 'to be honest' when what he says has nothing to do with being honest or not it is just something that is pushed in whenever he feels like it. Can't blame the boy really it must be a bit unnerving all these endless interviews.

Anyway.. of course we talked about what we say too often and we have discovered that John says 'Fantastic!' all the time and I am guilty of 'Exactly'. We have also now found out we BOTH use these words a lot :-)

Taking a bit of a distance and looking at those words I can see that we are very positive people who agree with eachother an awful lot!

So .. what happens now is that we have become very aware of these words which has made me very self concious, it is so irritating that only after it has escaped my mouth I think 'shit, said it again!'

I know with learning (or unlearning I suppose) there are 4 stages:

unconciously unable
conciously unable
conciously able
unconciously able

Which basically means that first you didn't know you did something, then you realise you do but you still can't do anything about it, then you are able to change it but it costs a lot of effort and then you become so good at it that it becomes so normal you don't have to think about it anymore.

Since I discovered my over enthusiastic use of Exactly! I hear myself say it all the time, but can I change it?? NO! I am definitely stuck in phase 2 and have no idea on how to go to stage 3.

I have tried to think about alternatives for the word in the hope that it would then be easier to alternate it a bit with other words but apart from precisely I can't really think of any other words which means exactly (!) the same :-)

There are of course alternatives like 'Bang on' or 'Spot on' but I think these are even worse than my 'Exactly!'

So when I muttered and mumbled about this to John, that I think the word is used exactly(!) right and that I struggle to find good alternatives for it (Fantastic b.t.w. is also a very difficult word to replace!) to which he said 'Darling, you can use exactly as much as you like'

But that doesn't feel right either, see... these stages as described above, you can never go back, I will now forever be stuck in the consciously unable stage and forever hear myself say 'Exactly!' and think 'BUM'!!

:-)

Make Up and Over

Today a nice self obsessed blog, might as well be clear about it :-)

When John was visiting his beloved children I had a bit more time on my hand than usual and I don't know why but I suddenly had this idea to photograph myself through my routine of make up. Not that I use that much mind you but I am always amazed how different it can make me feel. I know that a big part of that is all in my mind.

I mean.. I know that make up most certainly helps to make me look better, I am not one of these women that can get out of bed and look nice and fresh and wonderful. I am more of the type of hair all over the place, shiny fatty face and bland, very bland.

I must say that working from home doesn't help, nobody knows what I look like when I am on the phone on conference calls and putting make up on often feels like a waste of good make up so a bit of moisturiser just has to do, if I scare myself with my blandness too much I might go as far as adding a bit of lipstick or kohl to my face but that is it.

So, 'gettng out of the house to see other people apart from the people walking their dogs in Wemyss Bay' is a bit of an event which requires loads of attention and make up. You can imagine that a visit to Glasgow was a perfect reason to do it properly.

And I don't know why but I suddenly had to think about all the 'make over' things they do in the magazines, you can't open a woman magazine without one of those in it so I thought I would try it myself and prove a point while doing so.


On the left is me, freshly showered (so not so shiny anymore :-)) and me on the right WITH make up - I think myself it is a pity that I didn't take a photograph of my wet fringe down on the left picture because now you can't really properly compare how much difference it makes. What I notice from these pictures is that I have a droopy mouth!! Wonder if that is old age? But why only on one side of my face! My right mouth corner has dropped dramatically I think. I do think I look better with the make up but the difference is not as spectacular as I feel it to be if you know what I mean. I feel I look a lot better than this picture shows me to look. Erhm.. hope you are still with me.. my point being... if you take a before and after photo with a sort of the same look on your face the effect is not dramatic at all. Interesting is that you can see that I almost smile on the after one.. I suppose that is the make up effect, feeling better for it :)

But now.. to part 2 of my experiment... the following picture shows another after picture which is more like the ones you see in those magazines:

And I don't know about you but this looks much more like a dramatic difference, not only by the smile (which takes care of the droopy mouth nicely) but also because of the colorful cardigan I am wearing.

So.. lesson here... don't believe those make over pictures in those magazines, if they would get these people to smile and let them wear the same clothes the effect would not be that dramatic!

Note to self: Smile more but keep mouth closed because of crown

:-)

House & Son

Ha!

House is brilliant television I must admit... can't choose today which remark was more brilliant 'babies are useless, they have hearts the size of ping pong balls' or 'Does it occur to you if you need that kind of friend you may have made some deeper errors'? :-) Can't even say WHY it is so funny, they just tickle me :)

And totally not interlinked, my son suddenly, out of nowhere sent me a link to a 1 hour 29 minute video of 'The Umbilical Brothers' - Now... I am way too busy and not patient enough to watch anything for that long but I am sure some of the 3 readers of this blog would actually enjoy this.

Isn't he cute? :)

Poor neighbours 2

Yay!!!

Remember that I said I enjoyed the music (and screaming at the top of my lungs) so much and that our speakers were not that good anymore (very bad actually)

When I was talking to John about how we deserve good music, good speakers and a good life in general (always a good way to pave the path to buying something new) he said he had thought the same thing!

Well... whaddayaknow!

So I went for a hunt on ebuyer, generally THE place to buy any new stuff with a plug and we really liked the Logitech Z-2300 - all the reviews I have seen were very good, maybe not high end stuff but then again we are not like my brother who is one of those high end hifi people and makes his own speakers with special wood and in special shapes to get a certain resonance and all that.
He once owned a car that gave you a back massage as well as ruined your hearing, all at the same time, boom cars they call those. I will NEVER forget hearing the Fugees in that, 'Ready or Not' was... organic!

Anyway, I digress...

The Z-2300... I already added it to my basket and was on the way out when I thought 'hang on, lets check if there is anything bad on google' and no, all good reviews so that was ok.. but I did notice they were a lot cheaper in the US on Amazon and of course from there thought, hmm... lets check Amazon, you never know!

And wahey! They are cheaper in total because Amazon doesn't charge any shipping if you are a patient old thing (which we are) so I just saved us a tenner.. and that feels good!

Can't wait to get the clarity of a tweeter with the richness and fullness of a separate midrange - always wanted one of those. (side note, do you know that site? http://www.iwantoneofthose.com)

So somewhere end of this or beginning next week the neighbours will really get it.

Note to self: 'Do not dry any laundry while testing speaker system'

:-)

Spring? Autumn? Oh no, spring! Huh, winter?

That is how it went today, gorgeous sunshine followed by masses of rain, cold, drab, murky. Then.. glorious sunshine again! This is when I nipped out and took this picture, I thought I'd better hurry and take one before the winter spell arrived!

And of course would you believe, only an hour or so later the hail started coming down... this is definitely one of those '4 seasons in a day' day in Scotland!

Glad to say John is all back in one piece and all is good with the world...

I don't think I aggrevated any neighbours this morning during my Miserables outburst, glad I got that out of my system.

So...tomorrow.. back to HAL again... Oh Joy!

Poor Neighbours

One thing I do when John is not here is listen to music he absolutely hates!

Doing this made me notice that I have a bit of an eclectic taste :-)

I went from Mathilde Santing (Dutch singer with a gorgeous voice) to Lori Carson (ok, not such a big jump) to the Fugees (bigger jump, sexy music, had to dance silly of course thinking of yesterdays movie pretending I was one of those sexy black girls) via Verdi's requiem (which brought me to tears once more - Libera me - does it every time) to the somewhat lighter Shayne Ward and Rowetta (yeah sorry, I have this xFactor thing going on and I needed something lighter after Verdi) to KT Tunstall with her cherry tree - live - very 'lekker'.

Made me ponder of course why I never do this when I am at home with John, I could always put the headphones on... and I know now why, I am unable to just listen to music. I need to sing and shout and dance and bop and apart from that it is a bit restrictive to do all that with headphones I wouldn't want to do it to John!

And.. oh dear.. I just went into our utility kitchen where we keep the fridge and washing machine and dryer... and of course I forgot that I was drying some clothes for which of course the window needs to be open. Oh dear... that means during my Verdi outburst (which was extremely loud - through bad (died and therefore making horrible noises from what should be serene sound) loudspeakers and me screaming at the top of my lungs that the window has been open. Only 5 meters or so away.

Poor poor neighbours.. I will now as a good girl go to my couch, under the duvet and watch 'a dragon of a movie' (as we call it in Holland) on ITV -

But.. tomorrow... I will check all windows are closed and I will belt out 'Les Miserables' in full.

In Dutch!

I mean... what are double glazed windows for anyway!

Fantastic!

I had such a good day!

Woke up in time to catch the train I planned to take (which was quite an achievement since I didn't set the alarm and John wasn't there to kick me out of bed!)

Browsed around a couple of shops but noticed I enjoyed it a lot more to take in all the goings on of the city - things I forgot about happen in a city, absolutely LOVED it... Saw at least 4 bagpipers (I am such a tourist, I love that), a man covered in gold pretending to be a statue, a fantastic jazz band, a few not so brilliant but still ok singers and a loud juggler.

I stepped into House of Fraser and went to the nice smells and creams department but I must admit that was too intimidating, all these people trying to sell you something, or when I wanted whatever they wanted to give away I seemed to be invisible. Always wonder what that is? Do I not look posh enough? Young enough? Old enough? Do they really not see me? I know the grumpy old women always say that, that over 40 you become invisble, maybe it has happened to me already. Not sure what I think about that but it did make me just want to run out of the place!

Anyway, after that shock I moved onto the main event and bought a cinema ticket. Luckily that process was exactly the same as in Rotterdam so it wasn't too daunting. :-)

Then.. went to TGI Friday... we have one in Holland but I never actually visited it, it took me about 3 years to realise that 'TGI' means 'Thank God its'. Hm... shows you how out of touch I am! Anyway... thought this was the perfect opportunity to have lunch.

I must say.. it was a bit of a culture shock and brought home to me how enormously I have changed since I am living here.. I looked at the menu and it hit me that you could only get masses of food on a plate.. I started to feel full just looking at the menu!

Every dish seemed to have things like 2 chicken breasts AND fries AND onion rings (the thought crossed my mind that they probably thought that those rings would make it a balanced meal (being vegetables and all that ;-)). Anyway.. I dithered about just going but there was this very cute waiter so I thought I'd sit it out and have something I would normally NEVER make myself.. spareribs.. the last time I ate those must have been 6 years ago when I had these sort of outings at least once a week....

That definitely changed! And after enjoying half of my ribs, fries and onion rings I decided it was a good change! I like my own cooking I'm afraid, even though the ribs were very nicely made (ring and fries were awful unfortunately) I now know I will not have the need to visit them again :-)

Oh.. and then he tried to charge me 6 pound more than was on the menu.. being a bit scared of any language difficulties I so hoped this would not happen. But it so infuriated me that I went up to the guy and put him right, saw he got scared, real scared and it was solved in minutes, phew! I really felt something stubborn happening, like they can drag me to the police if they like but I am NOT going to pay for this! It was all very exciting!

I must say... Glasgow has enough shops to keep a woman happy for days and I don't know if it is the protected life in a village with 1 Spar but I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the choice and happy that it was movie time.

I know.. 'Take the lead' is not one of those filmhouse films and will not get an Oscar I am sure, however I loved it, absolutely every minute of it. It was quick filmed, I absolutely love to watch Antonio Banderas and sexy dancing, it was all there.. and of course it was a great feel good movie. I had forgotten how nice it is to see a movie properly, on such a big screen, there is something so intimate about it even when around you are a bunch of strangers.

Note to self.. need to do this more often, it was great!!

Oh.. and when I bought myself a lovely proper Easter Egg because I felt I deserved it (and because it has been tradition in my family since I was small to get one) I bowled over the cashier of Sainsbury who commented on its beauty by telling him I bought it for myself. "Really? But it has a bow and everything" he said, hovering my change in mid air "You're pulling my leg!". "Nope! I said, it is for me!" and he said "people who feel they are worth enough to buy themselves nice things are confident people" and I saw him thinking "need to give myself some of that".

:-)

Enjoy Easter!

Big City

And.. my prayers have been heard!
Ok.. it hissed down in places today but Eric (ehm.. our version of 'God' or 'The Universe') was being nice, it just happened to only piss down when I was actually in the car!

Good stuff...

Actually felt some sun today and ripped some weeds out of the garden. Nice feeling.

Now all I need to do is pray for it to be like that tomorrow when I plan my yearly trip to Glasgow.

Bad isn't it... I have been living here now for over 5 years but I can still count the times I went to Glasgow on one hand, and I haven't even been once to Edinburgh.

Also, there is this ferry going back and forth in front of our window all day, all the way to Rothesay... and we keep on saying 'we should take that ferry one day'

Yeah right.. chances are we will die without having seen Edinburgh nor Rothesay.

And then I think.. does is it matter?

Why does everybody say 'Oh REALLLLLYYYYYY?' When I say I hardly ever visit Glasgow. Am I missing something and if so, what? Can someone tell me? Because apart from a few shops they don't have in the Oakmall (like Debenhams, Primark and Next) I can't think of anything that I need to visit Glasgow for. Sometimes I wish that someone would invite me on a 'let me show you Glasgow' sort of trip, maybe they can convince me ;-)

For now.. I will visit my favorite shops tomorrow and squeeze in a visit to a big cinema, I miss that part of city life.

Along with a proper sauna :-)

I need spring!

OK... I am fed up with this winter!

It has either been ice cold and dry or mild and very wet and even though there are nice juicy green buds on some bushes here, today for a change it was very cold, wet AND windy!

I am dreaming of having a nice cup of coffee in the sun on the back terrace - I don't mind if I have to keep my coat on or anything, just feeling the sun.. I look like a ghost in the mirror unless I use my very very expensive Clinique foundation.

We have had springs here that John had to take his top off because it was too hot in the garden in March! And now it is half April and it is not even pretending to get nice any time soon!

Looking at the forecast it will be another 4 days of mild but wet - mutter mumble.

Ordered a compost bin today - only 6 pound in Inverclyde, not bad eh? If you fancy one, have a look here

I looked at the animation on how to deal with the bin and I did notice that it is for patient people. It takes 1 year!!! for nice earth to compost out of the bottom.

It *is* probably better than the 'just chuck it on the cliff' attitude we have adopted so far :-)

We will miss the 'banana tree creations' though!

Why we fit together so well

Conversation on the couch tonight watching someone make a chocolate sandwich and me salivating:

John: "I bet you would fancy that, it is like asking 'Do crocodiles fart in the water' - which - as a matter of fact is the new generation of 'Do bears pooh in the woods'.

Me: "Well, how do you know that crocodiles fart in the water"

John: "Good point, why don't you look it up on Google 'Do Crocodiles fart'

Me: "nope, no results"

John: "What, you? Not find anything? Maybe under 'Crocodiles flatulate'

Me, all Pollyanna "Well, I can't find Crocodile flatulate but apparently Cockroaches flatulate every 15 minutes"

:-)

How to make money at a carboot :-)

Wait until you get at least the 3rd offer from one of those catalogues companies. The one where they promise you AND money off AND give you a present. (La Redoute was really good this year). Then buy a few t-shirts you would have bought anyway for the summer and get the money off *and* the free present which in this case was a bag on a trolley with a matching vanity case, then put a tag on saying '£5 brand new' and see it grabbed before you can say 'seen my nice trolley?'

:-)

Bird Flu in Scotland

Well.. I am not worried :-)

It could be that I am not worried because the one bird that has been proved to have the strain was found on the other coast.

It could also be that I have adopted the same attitude as most Brits - stoical.

What I have noticed since I have lived here is the almost total absence of drama connected to these kind of issues.

It is one of the most surprising discoveries for me living here. When Diana died I was in awe of the amount of people who went to her funeral or who put flowers down and all the display of emotion. I had always been told that Brits are reticent and do not like these displays of emotion at all!

What I have learned is that there is a lot of emotion going around in this country, births of babies of MP's are shown on the national news, deaths of famous people (hero's like George Best) seem to be shown for ever and loads of display of emotion around these subjects.

Compare that to the emotion about the London bombings, I was so impressed with the way that was dealt with, how quick the police got onto the leads of the people who did this. Awful to see all these hurt people but somehow there wasn't that much emotion nor drama attached to it, not by the media and not by the victims. It was all about 'OK, this happened, it is absolutely horrific but we now have to move on and not let it get to us'. 'We are British'.

And now..the bird flu...

Did you know that in other countries the poultry consumption has gone down dramatically? And that France for instance still is 20% under the normal level?

So not in the UK, mind you, sales have not been affected at all, there were even more eggs sold than normally (well.. thinks.. it *is* almost Easter I suppose :))

I saw a short interview on the TV asking a woman 'Are you going to still eat chicken?' and she answered 'Of course! I am British'!

Which made me think where that remark came from? What does it matter if she is British? Bird Flu doesn't seem to care a lot which country it lives in! Then I realised.. it is not that, it is the fact that in times of aversity this is how to behave. You DO NOT give in, you defiantly go with the flow and do what you would normally do and at the same time 'combat' whatever it is that is threatening you.

I bet there is huge historical reasons for this :-)

Televangelist

Televangelist You are 0% Rational, 71% Extroverted, 14% Brutal, and 57% Arrogant. As the Lord as my witness, I swear upon the good book that you are indeed the TELEVANGELIST! Characterized by extreme arrogance, self-assurance, and extroversion, you would make a very charismatic leader (or a very despotic one). On top of that, you are also more intuitive than rational, predisposing you to a more spiritual or emotional outlook on life. Thus, you are thoroughly irrational. You also tend to be rather gentle and considerate of others' feelings. Clearly, you would make the perfect televangelist. You could easily fleece people of their money and their dignity like so many sheep. Emotional, extroverted, arrogant, and gentle, you annoy the hell out of people who have to listen to the feel-good, intuitive shit spewing from your mouth. Not only that, but people may look down on you as a self-centered asshat. So while you are gentle and genuinely care about others, it is quite clear that you still care about yourself MORE. Why is your personality flawed? Because you are too damned extroverted, emotional, and arrogant. So preach your irrational message, brotha-man! I assure you, no one will be listening. Except for a few bums. But they just want you to feed them crackers and wine.

Gosh.... interesting test indeed, stolen from N's blog ;-)

If you want to try it yourself: http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=4741219933576750506

Fun actually ;-)

Bacon & Spinach

When I was with K. last year she introduced me to one of her sisters favorite recipes. It involved pasta, cream AND blue cheese and loads of butter combined with smoked raw ham and lettuce. I loved the combination of the smoked ham and the cheese but if I would eat a meal like that once a week I would gain weight faster than you can say 'Ham & Cheese pasta'.

So, time for an adapted version and it was so good again today that I had to share!

Ingredients:

6 rashers of smoked! bacon cut in bits (with scissors goes best and quickest)
150-250 grams of fresh (baby) leaf Spinach roughly chopped
2 red onions in bits
half a tub of extra low fat soft cheese with garlic and herbs (like philadelphia)
Few spoonfuls of low fat creme fraiche
25 grams of pine nuts (roasted in a dry pan)
Pasta

Cook the pasta with a bit of salt and a drop of oil.
While pasta is bubbling away heat a bit of water in a frying pan and add the bacon bits and let them sizzle for a minute or 3, then add the onions and stir and fry for about 3 minutes until onions soft and bacon pink.

Stir in the soft cheese and creme fraiche until blended (add a little water if too thick)
Put all spinach on top and stir in until just wilted.
Serve immediately on drained pasta and sprinkle with the pine nuts.

Absolutely wonderful I tell you and not tooooo bad for ones body!

Beetroot day

Well, have you heard that beetroot is SOO good for one?
Also a very easy vegetable if you buy them ready made and vacuum saved in Tesco value plastic! Mostly because you can buy it and then have about 3 months to think about using it up.

So.. today is the day.. I always had a problem with the 500 grams of beetroot in the package, it is a bit too much for 2 people, even when I love beetroot!

Gently browsing through a 'gluten free' cookbook we picked up somewhere for little money I saw this 'Beetroot risotto' recipe. A perfect weekend recipe because it has the luxury things in it like butter and red wine. (things I would normally NEVER have uring the week!)

So.. the recipe means I can divide the beetroot in 2 portions and make beetroot cake for lunch (which I have done, it is unbelievable how nice and light that is without even a taste of beetroot once it is cooked) and will close the day off with the beetroot risotto!

First, the beetroot cake, very simple if you have a kitchen machine!

Ingredients:
75 grams cocoa powder
180 grams plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
250 grams caster sugar
3 large eggs
200 ml corn oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
icing sugar for dusting

heat the overn to 180 c and lightly butter a 20cm round or square cake tin.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder into a bowl and mix in the sugar.
In the food processor puree the beetroot and add the eggs one at a time, add vanilla and oil and whiz until smooth. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add the beetroot mixture and mix it all lightly. Poor into prepared cake tin and bake for 50 minutes, cool and sprinke with icing sugar.

Lovely!

Then.. the beetroot risotto, absolutely yammie!

Ingredients (2 people)
50 grams butter
1 red onion
175 grams risotto rice
200 ml red wine
400 ml stock
250 grams beetroot

Melt 2/3 of the butter and soften onion. Add rice and stir for 1 minute. Add red wine, season and simmer 5 minutes, add stock and simmer 1o minutes, add beetroot and simmer 10 minutes, add rest of butter, season and serve.

Having said all that, I got that primevil (?) urge and just had to add some bits of chicken which I quick roasted in my George Foreman grill, absolutely lovely!

The party is over now

It was fun :-)

Even did a bit of karaoke which was a bit embarrassing since I didn't have a drop of alcohol to drink. However, since almost everybody else had it didn't really matter.

It got a tad cringy when a 'kissogram' arrived, goodness, if I had friends who did that they would be ex-friends instantly. Let me just say there were handcuffs involved and a kissogram delivering person wearing not a lot more than thong and bra. Oh well.. each to their own I say!

John had his first shot of tequila, we will have to wait until the morning to see if that had any negative effects, somehow I was glad that I was the designated driver, the faces everybody made after getting a shot didn't make me want to drink it!

I stayed with the chocolates myself, very nice..now all I have to wait for is the breakout to happen to my face!

My hair is nice though, I think anyway ;-)

And the winner of today is

Mr D, for finding a solution that was so easy that nobody before thought of it :-)

Special mention for J who then finished it off.

You know.. today I thought that you don't really have to know or be able to do anything as long as you know who can!

I have wasted so much of my time trying to do things I have absolutely no talent for (but could achieve by mere tenacity) when people I know do it in 5 minutes flat!

Doesn't mean to say I will never try and achieve anything again but today when I was not feeling to productive (since it was Friday and I had overdone it the rest of the week of course) I thought it was allowed.

And now.. it is weekend.. tomorrow morning THE hairdresser visit and then P A R T Y

Well.... that can only be an anti climax after all that build up :)

Light at the end of the tunnel?

Who knows...

I am always terrified of imposing on people so try to be pretty much on my own. Also I am very lazy at heart and the couch, laptop, television and cuddling Johns feet is a great combination. Who needs a social life anyway!

But... I lack social interaction.. in my past I was working with long term unemployed people, asking them about their life story and see if I could find links to the real world and devise a career path with them sending them to appropriate courses, education etc. Sometimes it was really depressing because so many people are not happy with their life but are actually not motivated enough to change anything.

Sometimes it was lovely though, I have had people giving me messages through ex colleagues saying that I saved their lives because they went to particular courses and found a proper job, sometimes for the first time in their lives.

Apart from that I was hired as 'supervisor' for the Rotterdam college for human resource management and labour mediation. This meant I had to have weekly sessions with 3 students in this field and talk about their behaviour at work and the feedback they got and how they can improve their attitude and guide them through a process of 'how to become a professional HR manager'.

So much fun.. confronting them with their beliefs, helping them to form opinions and take positions on what sort of professional they want to be.. basically forming them.

Also giving class room training in 'presentation skills' and other 'soft' stuff like communication training. So lovely to see them improve and hear that they want to be you when they finish. :-)

And here I am, different country, different job.

It feels like in the years before I went to Scotland I have used up all my social interactions in one fair swoop since I don't seem to have any at all!

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love John to absolute bits but as an individual I need more interaction and share things with other people... 'flow' with them.

I suppose because I have always got that from my work I was initially thinking of changing jobs again but ... today I thought.. maybe I should do it differently this time... maybe.. I should think of starting to do something social outside of the house and workplace.

Shock horror!!

I know why I never thought of that, it is the 'single mum' syndrome, it is just too much hassle to find a sitter for the evening you want to go out but since my darling boy is now almost 21 AND lives in Holland I think he is ok with me going out :-)

So..

always wanted to go to dance classes again.. when I was really young (16 :-)) I was quite OK at ballroom and latin dancing and all these programs on telly makes me want to do it even more. Mind you I don't want to be lifted at any point ever but having a nice dance on great music.. can't wait..

Apparently it IS possible, even in Greenock, and I have vowed to pursue this and see if I can combine healthy exercise with new contacts, who knows.... watch this space, I am in danger of really having something to talk about.

:-)

Gratitude

Goodness.. been so busy again today!

And just when I was about to have a nice moan about that my mind flew back to the first months I worked for BAC.

Every day from 8 till 17 I was sitting on an office chair 'on the phones' (which means wearing a headset connected to a telephone device) creating service requests for BAC's customers.

This means literally that you need to sit on that chair until it is time for your official and planned 15 minute break, your 60 minute lunch or 15 minute afternoon break until it is time to go home. YAY! It also means that if you are desperate for a wee because of healthy drinking of 2 litre water a day you need to check if someone else is 'covering the line' and if you are not back in 2 minutes you get angry glances from your colleagues.

It was fun though, I like the dynamics of being in one space with about 500 other people and the hustle and bustle really attracts me. It didn't stay fun for long :) - boredom kicks in pretty fast, luckily I got to do more exciting things.

But.. I never forget how I looked at those other members of the call centre, the ones that had been there a bit longer, the ones that got to walk around the centre looking like they owned it. Knowing everybody and knowing how to get things done and most importantly carrying their own laptop.

It was immediately clear that that was the pecking order. OK, it was nice to become a trainer for your team or even a team leader but everybody knew that the next step was 'getting a laptop'. I even once had a teamleader who bought his own version and got it set up with BACs software just to pretend he was on the next step. Little did he know that we all knew that he would never reach that step :-)

Anyway... those 'laptoppers' were perceived to be top of the bunch.

I discovered that there was even a next step when I heard a BACcer talk about 'yeah I am working from home today can you connect me to the US' I was so impressed. Not only because of the fact that he wanted to talk to someone in the US which sounded way far away (being used to working for the local job centre in Holland and never ventured further than the UK), but I was even more impressed because he said 'I am working from home'.

I had read about people 'working from home' but I always sort of had this idea that those were selfemployed people, it felt soooo out of reach.

So... here I am.. I have been promoted to laptopper AND work from home AND talk to the US and loads of other geographies on a regular basis and still moan?

Shame on me!!

Bubblet

Phew... I have been BUSY today.
Shock horror!

Some lunatics have cocked something up so badly that it is now up to me to make it better (at work that is) and it will take me a few days to get on top of that.

Apart from that we bought some new stuff to put on eBay which keeps me busy in the time I do not try and fix other peoples mistakes.

So now.. 21:50 ... it is time.. for a tad of Bubblet... do you know it?

It is the most lovely shareware ever made I think... I went through spades (spates?) of Tetris and Bejeweled and all that sort of very nervy games but they just agitated me.. at this time of night I want to do something very light and dull, not to excited to just get my brain back into a normal gear.

Something to do with A and B flows I think? Have you heard of that, that if you are in a state of sort of hypnosis that another part of your brain gets a chance to come to the forefront? Well, I don't know the technicalities of it but it works for me.. if one part of my brain concentrates on this silly game, the other bit gets to gently float and seems to renew itself a bit. :)

nice...

You should try it! My highscore is 2176 with an average of 384 - it also shows that I have sofar done 3584 games. Oops ;)

See..when I started it I cared what my highscore was, now I just do it because it organises my brain so nicely!

Anyway... you can download it here.

There is no end

to the pleasure!

Not only did we get our beloved Welsh Dresser, today I undid the xMas lights (see post below) and added a lovely very tactile suede light. Very cute indeed!

We are using (of course) long life bulbs and they are supposed to use close to NO energy but man... they are a bit too fierce!

So exciting new task for next week, find a little less enthusiastic light bulbs!

See... I did say .. there is no end to this pleasure.

Pity I have this overwhelming feeling of DON'T WANNA WORK TOMORROW!!!!!!!

:-)

Fulfilling one's destiny

When Kevin was about 13 he watched me fit a new top that I bought that afternoon and was particularly pleased with. He looked at me and said 'that is nice mum, it looks like you have always had it'.

Strangely enough I often think back to those words when I am fitting clothes. If it doesn't look/feel like I have always had it I know it is not going to be my favorite piece of clothing, it works...

Thursday I went for a walk to the Spar for a change and had a look at the notice board. All sorts of course, old cars, tables, beds, a car boot announcement, all sorts. Also in the top corner there was a colour print out of a Pine Welsh Dresser for 70 pound ono (= or near offer, took me a while to get that one!)

Since we are ALWAYS suffering from lack of space due to our tendency to hoard I was really interested because it looked like a great thing with loads of cupboards and drawers, my mouth watered with the idea of how much STUFF I could cram in it and still have some space to display some of our favourite items.

I didn't give us a lot of chance, I know those adverts go up and are then never taken down again and generally when calling they are long gone. So not this one, John gave them a call to save me the embarassement of any language issues and yesterday we had a look.

Wow.. that was a surprise, it is even better than I thought! It was a bit dark in the room where it was but it was very clear to see that the quality was a lot better than expected and it even had extra little drawers in the top bit that I hadn't spotted. And still John had the audacity to say 'you say ONO, to prevent us bartering, how low would you go' :-). And she said 60! Hooray!

So... late this afternoon we made place for it in our house and luckily in the light it still looked as nice as I hoped it would be.

And again I had to think of Kevin, it feels like it belongs here, like it was waiting for us and now finally found its destiny :-)

Need to still sort some lighting out so ignore the xMas lights but meet our Pine Welsh Dresser:

Doesn't it look like it has 'arrived'?

I love this feeling of 'knowing' something is meant for me. Like this house, we stepped inside it and just 'knew' it was ours. I can't ever imagine selling it, just like I can't ever imagine getting rid of this dresser (wonder why it is called a dresser though :-))

Gosh..

Dooce did it again...

I don't know why so many things she talks about ring a bell in me. This time she wrote about an aunt of her who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, an excerpt:

Finally, today my mother’s sister, my Aunt Lola, is having a mastectomy. She was diagnosed with breast cancer only a few weeks ago, and this has affected me in truly surprising ways. I am of course deeply saddened and torn apart that this has happened to her and what this means for her body, for the way she has to live the rest of her life, for the years that may have already been cut from her life. At the same time this is bad news for the rest of the women in my family who have up until now enjoyed the luxury of telling our primary care physicians that no one in our family has ever suffered breast cancer. The magnitude of what this means for us is still unknown, and that frankly terrifies me in almost indescribable ways. It is that terror that surprises me, but it is also that terror that has renewed in me a devotion to keeping myself healthy, a devotion to celebrating my heritage while at the same time fighting what that heritage could possibly mean.

Not only do I love her use of the English language but the feeling.. is SO recognisable.

I felt like that, my grandparents of my mothers side both died of heartattacks, my grandad at 72 and my grandmother at 86. My fathers parents I never really knew, if I remember correctly granddad died in a road accident (which is unfortunate but not hereditary :-)) and my grandmother I believe at an old age but suffered from rheuma. Which thank God doesn't seem to have gone down the gene line. Phew!

Anyway... I recognise the terror... About 7 years or so ago one of my mums sisters was diagnosed with what the doctors thought was an appendix. She was treated in the same hospital as she worked in a PR position and was loved to bits by everyone there. I never forget my mum calling me in hysterics when I was at work saying 'Ria has cancer'. They operated on her and could do nothing more than close her again, there was nothing they could do for her and within a matter of weeks she died, colon cancer. It is horrific what the disease does, absolutely excruciating to see someone you love succumb to the pain, being pumped with more and more morfine to stave off the pain until the body finally gives up. Awful.

WHY? For months I kept on thinking that.. and I felt the same terror as Dooce describes. The feeling I always had of 'oh well dying of a heartattack can't be fun but at least it is quick' and the satisfaction of crossing out all the awful illnesses which can run in a family when I had to get a new GP was gone. Cancer happened in our family.

And WHY? She seemed healthy, she seemed aware of food and what was good and bad for a person? She didn't share her feelings with anyone though, maybe that was it, maybe she... I ran through all of these things in my mind for years until I reached the only conclusion I could reach.

It *can* happen to me. It can happen to all of us. And I can only do what is in my power which is trying to take care of my body by brisk walking at least 5 times a week and eating 2 fruit and 3 portions of vegetables, eat more fibre, eat less fat, eat more fish, eat less red meat, eat only wholegrain.

And failing miserably some days, of course ;)

As you know, I love being this age but sometimes... I long back to the days of way back when when I didn't even realise 'these things' could happen to me, because youth prevents you from seeing any danger and 'what am I going to wear to this weeks party' is a lot more important.

Can't walk? Learn how to surf!

Hey!

What do you think of that as my advertising?
Or do you think that the over 70's won't know that it is called 'surfing'?
John had a few other ideas:

Surf at Eighty; Surfing for the over Seventies; Get Granny online; CyberGran; GET out more - GET online; GET GRANDMA out more - GET HER online; You are never too old to surf; You are never too old to......... (see the world) (Surf) (tune in) (etc); POLIS (Pensioners Online in Scotland); Pensioners Byte Back;

Fun what?

This idea is really starting to settle... but of course I suffer from what I always suffer and that is that the ideas start rolling in hard and fast, I never have to be told to think out of my box, I wouldn't know there was a box :-)

It is hard to know what to focus on first...

I could just put an add in the local 'village news' but what do I say? 'I am great hire me as a tutor' - or 'give me 1000 quid and I will install wireless broadband all included' - If I was reading that I would feel yeah right, who are you?

So... I feel I can't really do that without having a website ready (for all those rich children who would love to just hire someone to get their parents online) and maybe even a simple leaflet SHOULD someone give me a call and says 'can you send me a brochure please'. :-)

Well.. it most certainly de-bores me and since that was the object of this game I suppose I will just have to try and enjoy this period :)

Oh and if you can think of a good name for this venture or a great tagline, do let me know!

Boredom

leads to eating.

We all know that.

So.. it is extraordinarily important to me to not get bored or when bored to de-bore myself as quick as I can.

Problem is though that with 'bored' also the 'can't be bothered' kicks in.

Is it any coincidence that the word 'bothered' can be split up in THE BORED?

Ha!

Anyway, being aware that staying bored can only lead to mischief of having too many gingernuts (28 pence from Tesco, best cookies in the world because of their taste AND consistency being sweet, spicy and rock hard which makes you feel you had something to eat, much better than any spongy things :-))

I need to get my brain into gear and think of possibilities instead of making songs on 'I am so bored, so bored, so bored'.

So.... possible career change (don't panic, I will not do anything rash :-))

is...

pom pom pom....

Tutoring elderly in Scotland in simple computing.

Does that make sense?

In fact.. it is my mother in law who gave me the idea, she decided I had talked her into it and bought herself for her 79th birthday a wireless laptop and router when I promised to set her up (in a merely positive way of course) with broadband and would give her the basics of 'how to work with a laptop and an internet connection'.

Since we came really close to bullying her into it instead of talking her into it, I was really scared that she would totally not like it and blame me for making a dubious purchase.

But no.... except for some router issues which were caused by a lightning strike it all has gone extremely smooth.

I got the broadband for her (did all the calling and administration), ordered the hardware (laptop, router, printer), took reception of it all and last April she got connected.

I have spent a few hours with her slowly trying to explain Outlook Express to her, Internet Explorer, a bit of Word, some basic Windows file and folder handling and she is absolutely over the moon!

She is now emailing her grand children (and children) regularly, types out her notes from a weekly meeting she attends in Word which she loves because of the red squigglies it gives when she types anybodies names , watches life sport events online (BBC Sport), thinks google is so clever that it comes up with an answer for everything, and is addicted to 'Spider' (a standard game that comes with Windows).

She is a bit worried about it because now she says when the internet connection is not working for some reason or other she feels 'cut off'. She is also very miffed that 'the computer doesn't come with a user manual, just a little book where you can look up how you can copy and paste and things'. And asked if it wasn't possible to just download the internet

Generally though, it has all been a doddle, I have so much fun trying to make her understand things like how email works, to try and get her to see that Microsoft programmes really all work the same with copy and paste (failing miserably so far) and I know I am not known as a patient person but I never get tired of explaining it, I think it is fun.

So... I suddenly thought.. is there a market here? Are there more over 70's that would like to be connected but are a bit daunted by it all? And would love to get the personal one on one attention? Or carehomes, would they be interested to be 'connected' and getting training on 'how to contact your grandchildren'?

And how do I start?

Well... the idea certainly de-bored me!

Please, tell me why it is a rubbish idea? Or tell me why not? Or give me the name of your grandparents who would be interested (and live in Scotland preferably :-))