Boy on Top

Goodbye, Farewell, Tara...

2008-10-06T09:36:00.002+01:00

You may have noticed I haven't blogged much lately. Well, blogged at all. On thinking about it this morning I realised it had been a long long time since I last blogged, and I'd even stopped trawling all those sites of you out there I know and love.

So, for the record, I haven't died, I am fit and well, the family is fit and well, even the building works are fit and well (though a bit slower than planned). Its just, well, life... Its all a bit manic at the moment, not overwhelming or depressing, just very very busy. As much as I enjoy blogging I have to admit to myself its a pleasure that I'm putting aside.

Probably only for the moment. I will still stop by once and a while out of the blue, or even post if something momentous happens. I just find myself not devoting the time to it I once did. So to all of you, I will be around. Offers of a cup of coffee or something stronger are always welcome. You are all a part of my life that I didn't expect, so do stay in touch. As I'll try to do.

But for now, on this website. Farewell.

The Pit

2008-08-01T15:25:00.002+01:00

For those that enjoy piccies, the hole in our garden. It will get deeper still, partially so I get a cellar to store my wine, partially because of the horendously over specified foundations we have to put in. You could build a scyscraper on these babies, I swear. Please notice the dilligently working builders. This is not a shame, they are actually dilligent. They show up on time, work hard, leave late and don't break for tea every 5 minutes. They are not even Polish, but are actual Englishmen!

Happy Campers

2008-07-30T11:10:00.002+01:00

If I look at the blessings in my life, perhaps the biggest is happy children. They are human, of course, and we get the odd arguements or stroppiness, but really not much. They get along with each other the vast majority of time. They seem to enjoy school and their friends and love playing outside and all that stuff. It is very very good.

Take last night, for example. I got home early enough to read to the boys. Call us old fashioned but we still read books aloud before bedtime more often than not. My oldest, the nine year old, has started taking the odd turn, but even he just likes to lay back and be read to. We're currently reading a very silly book about a boy viking and his dragon.

I love putting on all the voices and pauses and noises. They really get into it. We had laughter at the silly bits, boys curled into corners of the sofa at the exciting bits and groans of dismay when it was time to close the book and go to bed. I only get to do it once a week, maybe twice. To be perfectly honest its one of my favourite times of the week. I love it. Then its tooth brush time and big hugs as they get into bed. I know they'll grow out of it some day, but I so hope that won't be for a long long time...

Works Ahoy

2008-07-29T14:23:00.004+01:00

My second post in two days. I feel quite faint, must go have a lie down now. I don't promise to keep it going, but the mood has taken me so far.

So, just before our jaunty holiday to florida our Builder and team finally arrived. Three delays isn't so bad in these sorts of things. They got off to a grand old start. The garage was demolished in no time flat, and a good start was made on a moved stone wall and new bit of fencing we needed (some hedge had died away under a growing tree, the tree was definately staying so no replacement hedge).

Within two days we had our first complaint from our joyful neighbour I've mentioned before. They really are quite something. We often wonder what they do when they don't have anything to complain about.

Off then we went on holiday. No calls from the builder while we were away, though on comimg back looks like there should have been. Nothing serious but some confusion between the builder, architect and structural engineer that it took them all some days to sort out. I probably could have done it faster, but there we go. Our current house needed underpining, which our builder hadn't understood. Lost us a few days.

Still, good progress. The rainwater harvesting tank is now in, as is a new soakaway. All fences and walls are done and a new shed is up. Vast amounts of soil have been removed to make way for the cellar and foundations. Its all going well. Within the week the foundations should be down, then the real fun begins as the walls start going up. Overall? Still happy. We have a good relationship with our builder, and for once I feel he's actively working in our interest.

As long as we can keep happy with our neighbours (angry neighbour has now complained in a email at great length) I think its going to be good. I'm quite excited about it all!

Jus Checkin In

2008-07-28T11:59:00.002+01:00

No, I'm not dead. Yes, everything is fine.

Am just back from a two week trip to the wonder of the world that is Orlando. There is a mound of work to get on with, nothing drastic, just a lot of it. All is well with the world. The kids terms ended with a grand round of sports days and assemblies. Pirate Pete got one of his class prizes as well as a stellar report card. He was marked above average in all but a smattering of subjects, sometimes well above average. This in a selective school where the average is already high. He was chuffed and we were well pleased. The other two got great feedback as well, though they are too young to be so formally marked. It is a fine fine thing to have happy kids, it is a finer thing to have happy kids who are getting along well with life.

Orlando was quite the experience. Not necessarily a relaxing holiday, we were out doing "things" every day. It was an enjoyable holiday though. Hard not to in that mecca of entertainment. We did ride after rollercoaster after ride. We did movies, we did a safari and watched whales behaving very unwhale like. We saw men joust on horse back. We saw
pirates fight on a pirate ship. We saw some absolutely fabulous clowns and acrobats.

It was my princesses fifth birthday, and it being Disney she got to wear a badge saying it was her birthday and I swear to god had more than 50 people stop and say a cheery "Happy Birthday" to her. She also got to have dinner with her favourite fairie tale princesses. Though she made her mother very happy when she also rolled her eyes and said in perfect sarcasm "That one gets to live happily ever after, how sweet!" Then she got to see a big fire works. She was one utterly happy five year old.

We got to go to a truly amazing water park with five story high slides and a wave pool that generated eight foot high waves every two minutes on the dot. That place we went back to four times. We had good food, and truly crap food. And it was hot, meltingly hot with thunderstorms every afternoon.

Still, it was America. Do they really truly need to serve a five year old a portion that would normally feed a family of six? Does everything, and I mean everything, have to be sweetened? I began to get paranoid and checked the ingredients on everything I could. With the expection of some (not all, just some) crisps (chips), I don't think we ate a single thing other than fruit that hadn't had sugar or sweetener added. And does everyone have to call my little girl "princess"? That's my word for her, I just never call her that to her face. It wouldn't be right!

Despite those minor griefs we really did have a fine time. Our kids (and ourselves) are exhausted, but content. Thankfully they don't need to go back next year, but they did inquire if they could just possibly go back when they were teens?

Identity Thefting

2008-06-30T18:14:00.002+01:00

Breaking the summer silence for a mo. My identity was stolen! Well, a small part of it anyway, just a credit card number. It is rather disturbing all the same.

I got an email from a particular bank I use for the card I restrict to use on the interweb. Appearently my online password had been change. I certainly hadn't changed it. A quick call to said bank showed that a whole host of charges had just been rung up. Large items for big amounts of money, other than a pizza, had been spent using my name and credit card. The total was a large number of thousands. Thankfully the bank is honouring their fraud protection promise and I won't have to pay for it. But... blimey...

Now, being in the business I guard my web presense very carefully. This is also a card that I had only recently been sent a new one. I can not, for the life of me, figure out how they got my details. To order they would have had to have had my name and address, the card number and the little security digits on the back. It must have been hacked from somewhere I had bought something from.

Very disturbing.

Blogging vs Life

2008-06-19T17:07:00.004+01:00

Hi, I haven't been doing well at blogging lately, have I? So, a couple of pictures. These are "life", our garden. One of the timesinks at the moment, albeit a very worthwhile one. We lost our gardener at the start of the year. He'd been with us for ages, but at the fine age of 72 had a heart attack and decided it was time to retire.

LL loves her gardening, so it didn't feel like a hardship, but a garden like this, it takes time! A lot of time. Thankfully I've now found someone to at least do the mowing, so it should return to acceptible levels. But... there will be other things to take up time.

Lots of things. Kids take time, a joyful time, but time. Keeping up with my lovely and sexy if sometimes moody dear wife takes time. Work in particular is taking a lot of time. I used to be able to better blog during the commute and at odd spare moments during the day, but the train has become very crowded of late and blogging then just doesn't work. Work doesn't work either. I'm really enjoying myself at the moment, and feel like I'm making great progress, but boy does it take time.

Thing is, I've rather enjoyed blogging. The funny bit, I've started to not to need to post. I don't miss it so much. Yet I've been feeling guilty about not posting. You see, there's a lot of you out there, that in a very real way have become friends. There's the Count, the lovely Z, the wonderful Lady in the Smoke, that Angry guy, one who was a bug, the irrascible Punk, a very peaceful empress, that boy, the man with the abreviated life, she who commented first, and many others. There's a whole lot of you out there I really like. I don't want to loose touch.

Yet feeling guilty and doing crap posts doesn't make sense. So, I'm not going to close down exactly, but the posts will likely become few and far between. There's things I still want to say, but I'll say them when the mood and time allows. I want to spend more time posting recipes, for example. Bizarelly some of the ones I've posted have had thousands of hits. People seem to like the way I describe cooking, so I'll keep that up. I'll still try to stop by and comment at yours, but even that won't happen as much as it should.

Yet I do want to stay in touch. So, for those in London, or passing through London, those that I've met or not, there's a drink and a meal on offer. You can find the email on the page, and that's open for just chatting too. Friendships should be able to survive the virtual world.

So, its not good bye, but it is adieu

WarChild

2008-06-17T11:20:00.002+01:00

Peach and a gang of bloggers have done a fine fine thing. A book has been put together, one of posts from a wide range of people. Different backgrounds, different issues, humour, seriousness, love, loss. Its all there in a wonderful compendium.

Best thing? Buy it and most of the cash goes to charity.

So, go here, go now and buy. I have.

I'm melting I'm melting

2008-06-12T12:03:00.002+01:00

I don't do well with hot, especially humid hot. Its upper 30's in New York at the moment, and very very humid. Leaving an air conditioned building is like hitting a brick wall. They've had to tune down the air conditioning because the power company has restricted power to avoid an outage there's so much aircon pumping away. There is something quite perverse about cooling rooms down so much I've even seen people wearing sweaters when its that hot outside.

Anyway, a worthwhile visit. Much important things done, a couple of nice meals had. Another day of meetings today, then its back to the airport for the red eye home. I am, as usual, very tired, but such is life.

What a weekend

2008-06-09T12:59:00.002+01:00

A bit of a stream of consciosness post this, but better to post something than nothing. It was such a lovely weekend, hard not to enjoy oneself. Yet there were lots of other bits of niceness in the weekend. I seem to have my wife back, which is such a relief. I've learned to live with her moods, but its quite something the way they can hit and retreat like that. That time of the month has decended, which is clearly part of it. Yet this wasn't just the normal pms. I shall gently probe and see what else there was.

I've also had excellent news in that a former boss, one who shall remain nameless but was, frankly, a sadistic son of a female dog, has been fired. For gross misconduct, which is even better, as it means he won't get the usual polite pay off to disappear. I had lost count of the number of lives that man had darkened or even ruined. It was a lot, and though this isn't karmic justice, he'd have to live a life of a snail to deal with that, it is small justice.

Our builder is now confirmed to start with only a short delay. I'm quite excited about that. Not so much about the building, that will inevitably be a pain, but about the finished product. It will be great. We have also found a new gardener, so I don't have to spend 3 hours every weekend dealing with the lawn.

Then, we just had a nice weekend. Saturday we had our old now retired gardener over for lunch. It was just a really nice visit. Then Sunday we went over to visit some dear friends. They have kids the same age, and a swimming pool. So with that fine weather it couldn't help but be a lovely day.

And so I fly off to New York for the week. I'll stay in touch, promise!

Blankness

2008-06-04T14:20:00.002+01:00

Here I am, a few spare minutes in the day, and I can't think of anything to say. I'm sure there's a million things to say, heaven knows a day seldom goes by when I think to myself "That would be good to blog about", but not today.

I'm oddly tired, a combination of lots of work, hayfever and a wife in an odd mood (borderline depressed and I can't think why or how to help, I've even asked, but I'm not sure she's sure, or wanting to tell me anyway).

So, not much else to say really. I'm sure I'll think up something clever or interesting soon, just not today.

Neighbours

2008-05-30T10:29:00.002+01:00

We get along well with most of our neighbours. The couple across the drive are amongst our best friends. However, there is one couple that we seem to have fallen out with. They are natural complainers, planning permission for anything to change in the village, they complain. A farmer spreading manure that smells, they complain. The watercress farm using a bird scarer that bangs on the half hour, they complain. You name it, they complain.

They've decided to start complaining about us. Take last weekend. One of the cars has a fault, an admitadely anoying fault. The alarm has started going off randomly. Not a lot, maybe once or twice a week, yet it does go off. We run to sort it out, and its never for more than a minute at most. Hard to figure out what to do with it, electrics in cars are bloody awful to figure out, and its been in the shop once already.

Last weekend though, it went off twice in a morning. A ruddy nuicense, I know. Yet that morning, while my wife was in the kitchen, a bit of paper was pushed through the door. "YOUR ALARM HAS GONE OFF TWICE THIS MORNING. GET IT FIXED. X, Y, and Z."

Now X and Y are the couple in question. Z is another neighbour who has just lost her husband to catastrophic cancer, I mentioned the funeral a few posts ago. She is the one we think about when the alarm goes off, and I actually had appologised when we'd been over to see her. She was surprised, said she hadn't heard anything. She's a lovely lady, and I really don't want to put her out when she's in such pain.

That just really hacked me off, using her name like that. Then we find out they've talked to everyone else on the drive, complaining about the alarm. I just don't get it, are their lives really so empty that the only pleasure they get is bitching and moaning about a broken car alarm? Its really annoyed me, and quite upset LL who hates the thought of people thinking badly of her.

Such is life, I know, and in the scheme of things completely trivial, but... Grrrr...

Rain rain go away

2008-05-28T10:13:00.000+01:00

I know Bank Holidays are supposed to be wet (did you know there's a scientific basis for that (has to do with a reduction in polution due to a lack of cars driving (appearently))), but that was an extremely wet one. There is always the Surrey County Show in Guildford that holiday Monday, and we always like going. Its a proper country show with livestock competitions, sheep dog trials, and horse jumping.

Needless to say it was a bit of a wash out. We didn't go, more's the pity. Everybody was bummed, so I made Canadian pancakes and broke out the Maple Syrup. It helped.

We then let the kids decide what else to do. They decided on kiddie decadence. A day in pjamas. You've got to love kids minds. So we let them laze about the house playing games, doing some painting, gameboys and even a movie on the telly.

I, however, cleaned out the garage and cooked three meals. Sigh... Sometimes being a middle aged dad with 'responsibilities' is a drag. When do I get a day in PJs watching a movie?

Simplicity

2008-05-27T11:34:00.003+01:00

So, we have the in-laws down visiting at the moment. I'm lucky that I like my in-laws. I get along famously with my FIL. If it is possible to have a typical British ecentric, he's one. Wild hair, can speak on just about any topic, and as a former forensic scientist, occasionally had the most interesting dinner conversation. I'll never forget the night he lept from the table, hauled over his briefcase, and plopped a picture in front of me.

"Just doing this case, and I can't help but think this picture's been doctored. You know computers, how can we tell?" The picture was a close up of a male face with an axe sticking out of it.

Any way, food is a big part of my wife's family, so I love rowing the boat out when they visit. Some meals very fancy, some the opposite. I did one this weekend that, if I do say do myself, was just spot on. Good ingredients done very simply can not be beat.

So, this was wild salmon fillets, steamed in white wine and fennel, served with fresh new potatoes and sprouting purple brocolli. Then put a tasty little chilled white on the side.(a secret wine I won't divulge as it sells in limited quantities and I don't want to miss my next case). Very hard to beat. Finish it off with a Rhubarb Crumble with home made Vanilla Ice Cream, and you have a fine meal indeed.

A funny old day

2008-05-23T14:44:00.002+01:00

As a day it started out quite sad. One of our neighbours, a delightful old guy, passed away last week. All quite sudden, he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and died all within two weeks. His wife brought him home and cared for him throughout. All very sad. She wanted a small funeral, no fuss, so it was only immediate family and a small handful of friends.

Then it was straight off to watch Pirate Pete in his school swimming gala. He was one of a few chosen to represent his house. For those not of the British persuasion, schools here break the kids up into "houses". Think Harry Potter and Gryphindor. Represents the old school concept of literally being part of the house you dormed in. This was no big event, but its important to him, so I was glad to be able to show up and watch him. He won his race, so was a very happy little boy.

Then I had to drop the Smart car off for its annual service before having to head back in to work. Normally I would have worked from home on a day like this, but this was the one day this week my new boss had free to meet since he stepped into the top job. I know it will be fine, but until you meet under the new circumstances, and get a feel for how the relationship will play out, its a bit unsettling. So, I blog to clear my mind and focus. Wish me luck!

History

2008-05-21T09:14:00.002+01:00

There are so many interesting things on the web, its hard to keep track and find them all. I must declare a bit of an interest in this place, but I won't go into why. Its just cool.

Go here.

The Times newspaper is the oldest still running English language newspaper. It has been at the forefront of the news for a long long time. Even today, with declining revenues, it has a massive editorial and journalistic base, with some of the best writers around. If its of interest, its probably been covered.

The link above takes you to a new venture for the newspaper. They have put the entire archive, back to 1785, online. It is all scanned and transformed into text. There is a full time editorial team now diving through it to find pieces of interest, and to update the landing page each day. In there you'll find interviews with Hitler, pieces by Dickens, reportage of every major scientific discovery, on the spot pieces of any conflict you can think of. It is a treasure trove, and a serious time waster.

Go, have fun, and please tell me what you think.

The Corporate Trough (continued)

2008-05-19T11:31:00.001+01:00

Last week I was in Beijing for our annual corporate conference. These can be dire or wild affairs, sometimes both at the same time. This one rather fell into the later category. Because my former boss had been let go just a few days prior, it was bound to be weird. So it was.

Lots of corporate back patting, as we’d had a storming year in 2007. There was also my new boss out there making sure everyone thought he had a good vision for taking the company forward. Which will be rather like the old vision, but with a new face. Such is corporate politics.

There was also lots of networking, usually lubricated with large amounts of alcohol. That’s perhaps the best bit of these events. They really are just big drink fests. But that’s OK. A company that knows each other and enjoys each other, is a good place to work. That lubrication is a necessary component.

There was one quite sparkling moment though. The last evening is always the “gala” dinner. Rumours abounded about this one, and none of them did justice. It was really a once in a life time event.

I, being a timely sort of bloke, got on the first bus. We manoeuvred slowly through the city, it really has appalling traffic (at the moment 3,000 cars are registered every day in China). However, we finally pulled up at the outskirts of the Forbidden City (the ancient imperial palace). We transferred to smaller busses and dodged back and forth into the palace complex, pulling up in front of large ornate gates. They opened as we approached into the outer courtyard of one of the main temples. We walked over small bridges, and up to another gate. This had two blokes garbed in ancient warrior armour. As we walked up, they saluted, and the gates began to open.

What a sight. There was a long red carpet leading up to the main temple. Standing on either side had to be 50 warriors. Behind these was about 20 women in full imperial court costume banging away in a complicated rhythm on drums. At the top of the steps leading to the temple where two “Imperial Lions”, each made up of 2 men in Lion costumes. They began a complicated dance down the steps to welcome us. Utterly awe struck we walked up the red carpet and up the steps to find an array of people in black tie serving drinks and canapés.

It was stunning, just stunning. But that wasn’t the end. Once all of the delegates got up to the terrace the last of the drumming went quiet and the doors to the temple opened. Inside ten women played the temple bells, a set of over 100 ancient brass bells, offset with two huge drums. This was the queue to find out tables.

In we went, to this ancient temple, to have dinner. Very nice it was too, and over the course of the evening we were entertained with acrobats, Chinese opera, traditional ballet dancers as well as traditional Chinese dancers, and a martial arts troupe.

Talk about a night to remember. I’ve been to many “gala” dinners over the years, some in stunning locations, some with fantastic entertainment. This one, without a doubt, topped them all.

Beijing

2008-05-14T01:10:00.002+01:00

I've been here many times over the years. Its been fascinating to see its evolution and to get to know people here and how they think. Its curious, they see themselves as capitalists, but not democrats. The former is hugely important, the latter not much to them really. So long as there is a rule of law, and at least a pretence of freedom of opportunity, they feel free. Isn't that what really matters in the end?

I remember back in the early nineties, this felt like a communist city. Large grey buildings, not much different one from the other. Streets full of bicycles, and the sight of a tall white foriegner something that would evoke double takes on the street.

Now it has a completely different feel. The streets are full of cars. Bicycles have almost completely disappeared. Even the little motor Rikshaw has essentially vanished, though a few are still about.

Where once there were either tangled streets of old old buildings, or row upon row of Stalinist concrete blocks, now there is every shape of modern building. They are developing a unique style of modern architecture, which evokes the old vernacular. Its interesting. There are also some striking examples of far out modern styles. One just going up has two twisted spires topped by a box. All in glass and steel, its going to be gorgeous, though I can only hope the engineers got the box on the top rigtht!

Its a city in the middle of a huge construction boom. What is odd is many buildings are occupied, but still have bits uncomplete. Like the builders got bored and left, or the owners ran out of money. Also, though the streets are scrupulously clean (litter is not allowed), maintenance seems an afterthought. Some completely new pedestrian pavements with fresh paving stones have bits missing, or are already sunk in subsidance. New buildings of glass and steel desprately need a wash and bits are falling off. I have no doubt they'll get this right at some point, but they have to watch that in the rush to get new things built, the bits already built don't fall appart.

The city has a real bustle to it. Streets thronged with people. Shops with every type of consumer good are everywhere. You can buy the latest luxury item or its cheap knock off, sometimes in the same store.

Its a city also getting more used to foriegners. I've been here at times when my walking down the street would cause people to stop talking and look. Where I've felt extremely uncomfortable and unwelcome. That is gone, though I still noticed heads turn to follow me as I walk. They are more used to foreigners, but that doesn't mean we're common here. I still spent time walking down streets with hundreds of people, and I'm the only European face.

The politics are also self evident. In London, a countries embassy says a lot about the country of origin. Where it is, and how big it is, has much to do with the size and wealth of its owner. Here, it can be the exact opposite. I walked down Embassy row here, something I often like doing. Here Gabon has a massive granite building, and the US a modest rather boring modern one.

Like New York, its a city I love visiting, but I'm not sure I'd want to live here. Still, while I am here, I intend to enjoy it.

When I was a boy...

2008-05-11T15:27:00.002+01:00

It's Pirate Pete's birthday this week. He's turning nine. I can't quite get how I ended up with a little boy who's now nine and not so little. I mean I know how, its just I still feel nine, so how do I have a son who's nine? Nine is a great age, lots of adventures, things are still new yet you are at the point you can do them too. Adulthood starts to feel close, but isn't yet either an atraction or a burden.

We did his party yesterday, him and five mates (one, his brother), at an indoor climbing centre. A climbing party, I kid you not. They didn't do things like this when I was a boy! What a hoot, they had a whale of a time (well other than the boy who was a bit chubby and never made it past half way (except once, and all the other boys cheered him on as he beat the thin wiry boy to the top (I was very proud of all of them for cheering))). Needless to say Pirate Pete was the fastest and bestest, and the only one to make it to the top every climb. He was even able to cope with the climb up around the horizonral cliff in the way. Then a party tea of pizza and crisps and cut up vegtables and the cake of a boy climbing a mountain that his mother had made.

If you're nine, this is a very good birthday party.

Even better, he got home and one boy had given him a chemistry set, another a hovercraft kit (the rest to be opened over upcoming days so that they are all special). His brother had given him some Pokemon cards, agonizingly chosen and paid for out of his own pocket money (how did I end up with boys that buy each other presents out of their own pocket money and actually think about it?) and his parents telling him he gets a new bike and the new game for his game boy he's been wanting. He went to bed a very happy boy indeed (though we still made him take a bath (poor thing)).

Today has been absolutely divine. The outdoor table and chairs have been cleaned after much back breaking effort on this boys part. It meant we got to have breakfast out on the terrace. Not much better than homemade marmalade on fresh bread, outside on a balmy morning surounded by the birds chirping and your best beloveds happily chatting around you.

But even this passes. I'm just about to hop on a plane to Beijing for the week. Blogging will be spotty (what's new with the boy, you say). I will try to drop in and leave some remarkeable comments on China, but then again, life might intervene. Its going to be a very busy week.

Discombobulation

2008-05-09T14:30:00.002+01:00

A lovely word that. Discombobulation.

Yesterday I had one boss, and a number of peers. Today I have a different boss, and some of my peers have changed. I am fine, my job is fine, I'm told I'm doing fine and are being counted on to do much more fine work. Its all fine.

Though I quite like my new boss, I rather liked my old boss. Plus one of those peers is a mate, and I really feel for him. And though my job is fine, no doubt my priorities will change.

So, I can't help feeling just a bit discombobulated.

Spring Lovliness

2008-05-07T09:18:00.002+01:00

This isn't the greatest picture I've ever taken, but we're in one of my favourite weeks of the year. The apple trees are in bloom, plus its warm and sunny. Other than the love of one's family, hard to ask for much more really. I had my breatfast standing on the terrace looking out at this. The birds where tweating, the kids laughing as they picked some grass for the Guini Pigs. Life is good.

That time of year

2008-05-06T11:27:00.002+01:00

In our garden we have some very venerable Rhubard. The parent plant came out of my wife's Grandfathers parents farm up in Fife via a couple other locations. Heaven only knows how old it was then. Needless to say it is a good strong plant, and grows near perfect Rhubard. Now is the time of year when its at its best, tender and young. We place pots over the plants in the winter, so that when it grows, it does it without light, and stays very soft and red.

I love Rhubard. Family lore has it that my mum first fed it to me when I was just a babe. I'd screw my face up at the taste, then open my mouth for more. I've certainly loved tart things ever since, and it remains one of my favourite vegtables. Right now is when I get to bake one of my all time favourite dishes, Rhubarb Crumble. There is little better than a pot full, straight out of the oven and served with Vanilla Ice Cream.

I also like experimenting, and this weekend tried out a dish that will become a new favourtie. A Rhubard and Lemon Soufle. It was incredibly yum, and the family ate it all down until not a crumb remained. The recipe is here in case you want to give it a go.

Any way, wasn't that just a fine bank holiday weekend? Most of it spent out doors, and even the long list of chores didn't dent my enjoyment of it. The garden is looking just fine, with the apple trees in blossom, and Blue Bells everywhere. How was yours?

Too Short

2008-05-02T08:40:00.002+01:00

I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but that flight was too short. I had the overnight flight from NY, and its only a bit over six hours. So, by the time you deal with take off, and have a drink, and brush your teath, sleep, then get up and have a small bite to eat before you land. Its over. The sleep bit in the middle is maybe three or four hours. Its not enough.

Especially when you have a nice lady with a very cute baby who, well, didn't like flying much. I generally don't complain about people flying with children, as god knows I've done it enough. Its just, when you only have a few hours to sleep, you want to be able to sleep. No such luck this time...

I'm veeery tired.

Interuptions

2008-05-01T18:51:00.002+01:00

Been in New York all this week. Busy busy busy, but worthwhile. I'm absolutely knackered. Unless I'm going for more than a week I try to keep my clock somewhat alighned. That means going to sleep at 9 and getting up at 3. Its enough sleep to survive, but does tend to leave me dragging my feet.

Weather has been lovely here, really nice. However, I miss LL and the kids, so I'm flying back tonight. Won't see them tomorrow, and have the always pleasant duty of removing someone from their job. Been building for a while, and time to act. A part of the job I do out of necessity, rather than the enjoyment of building something that I've been doing the rest of the week. Needs must.

Tag, you're it

2008-04-25T09:54:00.002+01:00

The Venerable G, on being tagged himself, and having determined he needed a token male in his list, and that I was the one nearest and most often about, tagged me. Having never been a token male before, and despite my reservations on being tagged for hanging about, will comply. So, with no further ado...

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

The rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people

This is not necessarily an easy task. In my life there tends to be vast quantities of reading surrounding me. Even a work there's a nice shelf full of fulminating and not so fascinating business logs. The question is, which book to pick? Having thought long and hard I decided that I would choose three sentences out of three books and see what the resulting mashup provided.

"My ideals, my political imperative. For IT maxims and IT investments and priority decisions, it was critical to have top-level, enterprise business involvement in both input and decision making. Consumers were assumed to notice an advertisement; become engaged by its overt promise or proposition; and thereby consciously persuaded to buy."

Quite scarily, it almost makes sense. And there you have it. Now, I don't tag, but if you care to take this little snippet up, do tell!