I'm flirting with the idea of a twitter account to go with this blog. My last encounter with twitter didn't last long because I was worried that people might read my tweets and think, "Who is this idiot and why on earth would we employ her?" Got to at least pretend to be a professional.
I realised the problem when a colleague friended me on facebook, and a few weeks later my feed informed me that he was a fan of rough sex. Kind of hard to see someone the same way after that. That and having my boss, in-laws and teenage nieces and nephews on my friends list rather puts me off posting any silliness myself.
It makes me sore tempted to do some Rosa tweets, or at least post some one liners here now and then. Who knows, I might even start writing again.
Yeah, maybe not.
31 March 2010
27 March 2010
New layout
Blogger just updated their templates and I decided a change would be nice, since I know no code and rely on others to do it for me. I rather like this one.
Cute moment at about midnight last night. While I was standing in the hallway watching, the Boy got out of bed still largely asleep, picked up a fleece blanket and tried several times to put his arms into non-existent sleeves. I took it off him and put him back into bed, and he went back to sleep without ever properly waking up in the first place. He didn't remember a thing about it this morning.
Cute moment at about midnight last night. While I was standing in the hallway watching, the Boy got out of bed still largely asleep, picked up a fleece blanket and tried several times to put his arms into non-existent sleeves. I took it off him and put him back into bed, and he went back to sleep without ever properly waking up in the first place. He didn't remember a thing about it this morning.
Say it how it is
From The Boy this morning, after The Old Git left with our youngest dog surgically attached to him as usual:
"If Daddy went to heaven, Buddy would be flying after him shouting, 'Wait for me!'"
"If Daddy went to heaven, Buddy would be flying after him shouting, 'Wait for me!'"
15 March 2010
Lost for words
I enjoyed a rare sight last week: The Old Git lost for words. It doesn't happen often so it's something to be savoured, especially when something nice has caused it.
Actually, cancel that. Make it a unique sight. I've never seen it before.
He has been working to get a new restaurant set up in Chalfont St. Peter, Hertfordshire for the last few months. As usual, he went in to do one job, the heating, and turned into Mr. Fixit, the man who can think around corners and fix everybody's problems. Unusually, though, he didn't do that many late nights. Just one to keep some machines working and another on standby before the engineers could get there. We've seen more of him at home than usual.
When it was all set up and the place was running, he took the family there because he wanted us to see it. We went on a midweek night because we had a seven year old with us, all dressed to kill in his smart suit and tie that we got for a wedding last year.
A quick note here on the subject of fussy eaters. I had never thought of tapas as a solution to eating out with children, but it surely worked. Little portions of lots of things:
Look, we got you some frittata to try. You don't like it that much? Okay, no problem, try these ham croquettes. They're nice, aren't they? Yes, very nice. Ah, is anyone else going to get to try the ham croquettes? No, that's fine, you can eat them all if you like them that much.
Actually, the frittata was excellent, and the fish croquettes were even better than the ham ones, but it's all good; if he liked them as much I wouldn't have gotten any. Homemade lemon sorbet to die for too. And the Boy did a very good job of being grownup in a grownup's restaurant. No bedlam or glares from the adult diners.
After a lovely dinner The Old Git went to pay the bill and they wouldn't give it to him. Instead they gave him a thank you card from the owners and all the staff.
He was speechless. I think there might even have been a lump in his throat.
Yep, even tradesmen have feelings. A thought to take away with you. We would have been happy to pay the bill, but that thank you gesture was worth five times the cost of the meal.
Go try the food at El Boncena. They're nice people, and they deserve to be a success.
Actually, cancel that. Make it a unique sight. I've never seen it before.
He has been working to get a new restaurant set up in Chalfont St. Peter, Hertfordshire for the last few months. As usual, he went in to do one job, the heating, and turned into Mr. Fixit, the man who can think around corners and fix everybody's problems. Unusually, though, he didn't do that many late nights. Just one to keep some machines working and another on standby before the engineers could get there. We've seen more of him at home than usual.
When it was all set up and the place was running, he took the family there because he wanted us to see it. We went on a midweek night because we had a seven year old with us, all dressed to kill in his smart suit and tie that we got for a wedding last year.
A quick note here on the subject of fussy eaters. I had never thought of tapas as a solution to eating out with children, but it surely worked. Little portions of lots of things:
Look, we got you some frittata to try. You don't like it that much? Okay, no problem, try these ham croquettes. They're nice, aren't they? Yes, very nice. Ah, is anyone else going to get to try the ham croquettes? No, that's fine, you can eat them all if you like them that much.
Actually, the frittata was excellent, and the fish croquettes were even better than the ham ones, but it's all good; if he liked them as much I wouldn't have gotten any. Homemade lemon sorbet to die for too. And the Boy did a very good job of being grownup in a grownup's restaurant. No bedlam or glares from the adult diners.
After a lovely dinner The Old Git went to pay the bill and they wouldn't give it to him. Instead they gave him a thank you card from the owners and all the staff.
He was speechless. I think there might even have been a lump in his throat.
Yep, even tradesmen have feelings. A thought to take away with you. We would have been happy to pay the bill, but that thank you gesture was worth five times the cost of the meal.
Go try the food at El Boncena. They're nice people, and they deserve to be a success.
11 March 2010
The end of winter
Picture from freefoto.com
It's spring. We have snowdrops and crocuses, and afternoon sunshine.
It seems strangely fitting that Teddy spent the coldest winter for decades sleeping on my bed and dining on pate, fresh liver and any other delicacies I could think of for him, then went to sleep on the first day of spring, after a gentle walk in the first true sunshine of the year and one more tub of ardennes pate.
He was my Winter King, and he left spring in his wake.
02 March 2010
22 February 2010
You know you want to do it
Photographs from thisisphotobomb.com
When I finally get around to writing, I find myself fascinated with the primal parts of human nature; the parts of us we can't control. Fear, lust, desire for power, parental love, photobomb.
Yep, photobomb.
A deep, primitive desire, a base urge that screams into your hindbrain the moment you see a camera pointing at you by accident.
I was sitting in a coffee shop in Knightsbridge today, steaming slightly and complating the meteorological misfortune that had governed my site visits all winter. My last three site surveys had gone: snow, sleet, thunderstorm, and I was stuck in a touristy part of London paying inflated prices for a lunch whose main purpose was to entitle me to get out of the rain for half an hour. Okay, the tea and tuna melt were to get me out of the rain. The almond croissant was down to sheer bad temper.
So I sat on my tall stool facing the window, expecting my pocket to get picked any minute and glaring at the sullen grey sky that London does so well as I shoved overpriced calories into my mouth disguised as flaky pastry. My attention roved around the crowds, playing 'spot the worker' among the tourists--you know them; the fast walking ones whose body language says, "I wouldn't dream of saying anything because that would be rude, but please be so kind as to read my thoughts and get the hell out of my way because I actually know where I'm going"--when I realised that a woman over the road was pointing a little white camera right at me.
My first thought was: is any London tourist's experience entitled to pictures of a tired, grouchy daylight consultant looking like a waterlogged hamster? My second was: she's not actually pointing it at me. I'm in it by accident. She's pointing it at her man, who's standing outside Costa Coffee under a union jack umbrella.
I don't know what made a picture of Costa Coffee with an umbrella so appealing, but whatever floated their boat. Much more rain and they would be floating down the Thames on it like Winnie the Pooh, but that was beside the point.
And it was at that moment, staring into a little white camera belonging to a stranger, that I realised photobomb occupies a place next to rage and lust and hunger. A building block of human nature. A basic need to respond.
They'll find out when they upload their photographs whether I gave into it or not.
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