Tuesday, May 29, 2007

 

Accompanied by ---

A hail of a storm (to be pronounced in a southern American accent as in "hayell"
The peonies, iris and little pink bells survived though.
Must get back to emptying and schlepping boxes!

After that resounding response to my poetry I will have to find you some more!




 

Electricity


Like you've never seen before!
Simultaneous flash and bang and the lights went out. Almost as scary as that time in Knowle when it struck the tree behind our house and blew it to smithereens all over the place.
The most vivid fork lightning I have ever seen.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

 

Floral update

In the shadow of OUR 42 inch plasma TV and of course THE fireguard (look in the archives if you want more about the fireguard!)
Iris from the garden - the bulbs I planted in the autumn (fall)
have grown a lot!


See what I mean?

Can anyone explain the "lavender" comment?

I never had a red bicycle until I was 50! - the one Gill is talking about was blue! and it is a bit more than 4 miles from Shustoke to Marston Green!

 

Dinner Menu

In no particular order!
Grilled lamb chops with baked potato and broccoli

served under the shadow of the flatirons

For those who think we live on pizza!
an appetizer of grilled artichokes with a lemon butter sauce

 

Also Found in a box!

First writing class assignment - from 2002

The task was to write something including as many of the following as possible:

Chardonnay
Faint
Pawn
judgemental purse
overturn logic
confess.

Here is what I wrote

The chardonnay,
Instead of initiating one of her judgemental outbursts
made her arms limp
Then she fainted
Overturning the chess board
Which had only one pawn on it.
She revived quickly though,
Turning to me to confess
That in her purse
She had some new, sexy underwear
That I would not be able to resist

I surreptitiously took a large swig of chardonnay
hoping that I too would faint
and be spared
what I knew was expected of me

 

Where have I been?


To Denver to watch the ice skating of course!
Sasha Cohen was the star - very small in stature but big in performance - second row back second from the left I think.


Really I have been opening boxes 24/7 most of the time.

I now have all my tools, so can get all those jobs done which have been waiting - like plastering the closet where all the pipes burst in the winter.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

 

It's a Guy thing!

bikes that is!
Here is the latest addition - Moots titanium stem


Cateye wireless computer - tells speed, time, distance, average speed, time and other stuff you don't want to know. Also a top view of the stem.

Shimano make high quality bike accessories in Japan and they make different qualities - based on weight and types of bearings etc.
This bike had an XT Derailleur - the thing that changes the 9 gears on the rear hub. XT is slightly inferior to XTR and I found a new XTR Derailleur on Craigslist for half price.
I also learned what "low normal" means when I found, after installing it that the gears now work the other way - the "normal" position - ie the gear that would be selected if the cable broke - is the lowest gear. This is said, by Shimano, to be best for "shifting under load" because the chain moves onto the larger sprocket under the influence of the spring, rather than the rider's shaky, impatient hand. They seem to have done away with adjusters at the lower end of the gear cable too - well if they haven't I have!


I hope you can see that by Sunday night there were fewer boxes in the garage!




 

Friday Night is??

Pizza night!
Mozzarella, goat cheese and Fontina - from Val de Aosta in the Italian Alps where a teenage William and I once spent the night


This one had roasted tomatoes, mozzarella and salami.
And for dessert blackberries, raspberries and blueberries.
Anyone who has had pizza with me will say "same old same old"

Thursday, May 17, 2007

 

Iris everywhere!

After the tulips came the lilacs then the iris






and just a few boxes - I know the car is in there somewhere!



Wednesday, May 16, 2007

 

At Morning There Came a Rumbling

Buddha heard it first
The moving truck arrived
With four men
All a-thirst.



The Flatirons almost hidden
there came a great avalanche
of ----------


Boxes,
big ones small ones
short ones tall ones
NOT made out of ticky tacky and NOT all the same.

All the stuff from California has arrived just about a year since we left it.
Have almost learned to live without it now and we have to learn to live WITH it again - 400 boxes - to be emptied and places found for the contents and places found for the boxes and the paper.

All the talk of retirement on William's little world - I have never worked so hard as I have since I didn't have a job.
The only things I wish had been destroyed are undamaged. The damage, of course, is only to the things I love.












Monday, May 14, 2007

 

Poem for the Week

Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

From 'The Barrel-Organ' by Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

For those who don't know - Kew Gardens are in London - with plants collected over hundreds of years from all over the world.
So There!

 

Rhubarb Rhubarb

My first dalliance with American rhubarb. I made a strawberry rhubarb pie - popular here in spring but I think it is better without the strawberries actually.




So nice to see cross-polination between commenters!
San Fernando Valley meets Ringsted
love you both MK and Di

 

What I Did Over The Weekend

Boulder has more lilacs at this time of year than I have ever seen anywhere.
BUT there was none in our garden (don't anyone dare to say I should have said "were none")
So we bought three and here they are.
This one is called Moscow midnight white I think - it is actually the faintest hint of pink.

Remember Buddha from the snow days and when she fell over? her wounds are healed now and she gazes serenely over the purple lilac which is her new neighbour.



This lilac is called Fantasy and has very large florets with white borders to the petals.

Friday, May 11, 2007

 

Theme for the day Pedals and Petals

Just about the sexiest tulips you ever did see!

Here in my deep purple dreams.


These win the sexiest pedals award - No silly clips for me to worry about - have enough trouble pushing the things round and round without having to worry about aligning each foot precisely before you can start.
Also I don't have to pre-meditate the need to put a foot down. The price of failure being to end up with both rider and bike parallel to the ground still firmly attached to the pedals.
The final feature - which I would think was obvious since pedals were invented is that both sides are the same so you don't have to fiddle around with your feet to get the right side up. A process not unlike picking a lock with a banana!
No I didn't know Selle Italia owned Brooks.
Yes the deliberate errors in titles are to evoke comments. Orthithology is a well known spoonerism here!
The down time was the same on both rides - improvement of THAT requires psychological help rather than physical prowess.
Have a great weekend guys - we are having hot weather at last.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

 

Multimedia message

Forty eight minutes is that better ?

 

Forget me not

What is he on about now I hear you say!
Here are the forget-me-nots growing by our own seasonal waterfall - a small payoff for seven months of snow - which is still melting in the mountains




Forget me not Smethwick



In Birmingham's beautiful 'burbs






(shades of "come friendly bombs and fall on Slough" J. Betjeman"
And the Smethwick connection?
who would have thought in the 1950's when everybody's saddles were brown leather made by Brooks that one day I would be waiting on the other side of the world for a package from said dump near Birmingham.
The only difference being the rails on the saddle are made of Titanium.
For my US readers I am not talking Alabama.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

 

Orthithology Lesson


This is a Northern Flicker - saw one walking around the garden which makes it more difficult to identify.
The book (well Google actually) says it is an ant eating Woodpecker.
I did an 11 mile bike ride today with quite a lot of ascent. I am "working on" the times as William advised me to!
People are supposed to be amazed that I swim a mile every morning AND do strenuous bike rides not tell me I am too slow!
It is all because of MK's dad Bent - who is older than me and can speed up vertical hills!
You would love it here Bent! I don't have the Trek you rode any more though - just the Moots mountain bike.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

 

Up to the top again

Still tough - it took me 55 minutes to get up there - 4.15 miles and 15 minutes to get back down.

 

Fine Bunch of Babies!



All a year older now!

But not this young lady! She is only a few weeks older.


Wednesday, May 02, 2007

 

Book Reviews

" Treatise on the art of Bread-Making" written in 1805. Surprisingly interesting - talks about worldwide bread making - using soda water instead of yeast and dried fish instead of flour to make bread using what is available. Surprisingly scientific for 1805
"Medicus" - Ruth Downie's first book - it is about a doctor in Roman occupied Britain - a good idea - amazing that the Romans did a lot of surgery - not just Cesarean sections but Cataract surgery as well. I was irritated by, what I thought were, irrelevant references to dogs on almost every page. Reviews liken it to MASH
"Spot of Bother" by Mark Hadden - the guy who wrote "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" not as good as the "Curious Incident ---" but relevant to ageing baby boomers.
"Tailor Of Panama" - after reading, and thoroughly enjoying "Mission Song" and "The Constant Gardener" I couldn't get enough John LeCarre - This one was a bit too much of a spy novel for me - too demanding on remembering characters and allegiances for me.
"United States of Arugula" a very limited appeal - really only for an American foodie - hardly a mention of anything outside USA but dealing with the history of the American restaurant industry and it's roots in French immigrants.
"American Prometheus" this one is ongoing - probably for ever! a biography of Robert Oppenheimer - who built the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The book deals with building the bombs in New Mexico and all the things that happened to him afterwards - when he was accused of spying. Good, interesting but very long.

 

Jamie's Latest

Macaroni Cheese - Jamie Oliver style (did you know his daughter is called Poppy?)
Easy but expensive to make, very unhealthy and very good! No need to make bechamel sauce.
Parmesan, Mozzarella, Mascarpone and Fontina cheeses - about $20 worth of cheese altogether.
Fresh marjoram or oregano and nutmeg.

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