That’s All Fokes!

You have to laugh at typos – don’t you? But what about “brainos”? (Braino is a new term coined by my husband Chris.” Brainos are a bit more embarrassing than typos because they indicate a certain lacking in the brain department of the writer, meaning that eider she (me) can’t spell or she isn’t paying due care and attention to the subject. In my case, I have been burdened by letting a howler “out there” in the Internet, not once but twice in the same sentence! You could say that I have “egg on my face”, especially as my cracking braino was meant to be the word for the golden inside of a duck egg:

“With extremely white shells and yokes that are very orange, ” I interrupted with a tone that denoted there was something wrong with alien white shells and large orange yokes.”

Whoops!

Still on the topic of those particular eggs… Apparently Germans do like duck eggs according to our lovely guest Monika but when I offered her more of them she declined saying, “One was quite big enough for us to share!”

So this lunchtime I made some delicious Australian pikelets (like small American pancakes).

“These are wonderful – as light as a feather,” enthused Chris.

“Delicious,” agreed our friend Jo who, a little later, was on a flying visit.

The pikelets flew off the plate.

” What is in them?” queried Jo.

“Well, as I had all these duck eggs I thought I’d use one duck egg and one chook egg,” I said opening the carton with the seven remaining huge white eggs, several of which were smeared with duck business. Incidentally, a chook is what we Aussies call a chicken.

I detected a look on Jo’s face that told me he wasn’t sure about duck eggs.

“They have really big orange yolks. Would you like some duck eggs to take home with you?” I asked.

“No thanks, but the pikelets were lovely,” Jo had regained his composure.

So if you’d like some duck eggs or some left over delicious pikelets do let me know. That’s all folks!

 

Only yoking!

Only Yoking!

Light as a feather, naturally

Light as a feather, naturally!

 

 

 

 

 

Empty Chairs and Empty Tables…

When the rest of us were all having a day of rest a good fairy by the name of Lizzie (one of my nieces and sister of the recent bride) went out to the farm and spent five hours cleaning and clearing up after the wedding reception on the previous day. Bless her! And she also joined us in the final clearance yesterday.

At last the work was finished and we all partook of the left-over cheese and biscuits, and roast beef, which had remained untouched, along with numerous cheese cakes, ice cream and other delights, in the two fridges. We washed lunch down with Sangria and beer (for the menfolk) and ended with cups of tea and coffee. It felt like another party. While I was taking after-the-ball photographs I was reminded of the sad song “Empty Chairs and Empty Tables” from “Les Miserables” but I wasn’t sad of course – just a bit flat after the excitement. We had had a ball.  “After the Ball” seemed rather more appropriate until I looked up the lyrics…

AFTER THE BALL

A little maiden climbed an old man’s knees—

Begged for a story: “Do uncle, please!

Why are you single, why live alone?

Have you no babies, have you no home?”

“I had a sweetheart, years, years ago,

Where she is now, pet, you will soon know;

List to the story, I’ll tell it all:

I believed her faithless after the ball.“

”Bright lights were flashing in the grand ballroom,

Softly the music playing sweet tunes.

There came my sweetheart, my love, my own,

‘I wish some water; leave me alone.’

When I returned, dear, there stood a man

Kissing my sweetheart as lovers can.

Down fell the glass, pet, broken, that’s all—

Just as my heart was after the ball.“

”Long years have passed, child, I have never wed,

True to my lost love though she is dead.

She tried to tell me, tried to explain—

I would not listen, pleadings were vain.

One day a letter came from that man;

He was her brother, the letter ran.

That’s why I’m lonely, no home at all—

I broke her heart, pet, after the ball.”

Chorus:

After the ball is over, after the break of morn,

After the dancers’ leaving, after the stars are gone,

Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all—

Source: Many the hopes that have vanished after the ball.

Ah, Ambrosia!

“I think I’ve developed an aversion to milk”, I said, pulling a face.

Chris and I were having breakfast at the time. I was about half-way through a bowl of “Maple and Pecan Crunch” cereal mixed with bran flakes (a nod to my slimming diet) when a wave of nausea hit me (must be sick of that diet!).

“I can’t finish this,” I continued, “but I won’t waste it. I’ll pop it, with an egg, into an old jam jar and take it to the dogs on Rosie’s farm. Egg-nog for dogs – they’ll love it!”

“Here,” began Chris, “you can add the rest of my milk, too.”

So I poured the lumpy mixture of half-eaten, milk-swollen cereals into a jar, added Chris’s left-over milk, then two eggs… I shook the concoction and opened the lid – the egg yokes floated unappetizingly in the pinkish-grey fluid and, yet again, I felt sick.

“I know it looks disgusting…” I paused as I pricked the yokes with a sharp knife.

“Yes,” Chris interrupted, “but presumably the dogs will think it’s ambrosia – the food of the dogs!”

 

And here is a typo from yesterday’s blog post that made me laugh. Freudian slip or what?

The slip!

Just One Hitch – A Country Wedding for Katie and Javier

On Saturday my beautiful niece Katie got hitched to Javier (her handsome Spaniard) at Mamhead Church near Dawlish and had her reception in a place very dear to some of our hearts – Rosie’s barn! It was wonderful. The only hitch, it seems, (as I noticed when going through some of my eight hundred odd photographs) was a slight trip up on Katie’s hem; James appeared to find it hilarious, as did those naughty boy cousins onlooking behind them (to the left of James in the third photo). They remind me of the children in “Giles Cartoons” – do you remember Giles? Anyway, I’m still too tired to go through ALL the photos but here are some to give a flavour of the day…

Foxgloves and Wild flowers in the Hedgerows and fields

The sun was shining, beckoning us up the path and to the fields beyond the gate at the end. Inca and Malachi walked ahead of me and, from time to time, stopped and waited patiently while I took photos of the wild flowers, many of which were caught in irresistible spotlights of sunbeams. And when we reached the open fields my faithful companions ran freely to their hearts content.

Back on the path homewards I ran with them – they didn’t have to stop once to wait for me – and they arrived home panting and thirsty, whilst I wasn’t even out of breath. I had a chuckle to myself.

Preparations For a Real Country Wedding

My beautiful niece Katie and her intended Javier (also beautiful in a dark and handsome Spanish way) are going to be married next Saturday but it’s not going to be a big affair in a grand hotel; they will be married in a tiny church on a grand country estate and have their reception in a nearby barn. Of course, it’s not just any barn, it is the most charming, colourful and characterful barn you could imagine; and it’s on Rosie and Slav’s farm (so it couldn’t help be lovely!).

Everybody has had fun mucking in (not ‘mucking out’) painting the floor, arranging flowers, revamping chairs, shining the copper pots and kettles, cutting the grass, putting up the marquee and making everything spic and span – but not too spic and span as Katie fears the country charm would be lost. She thinks the barn is perfect as it is. And so do I – almost – think I ought to make some more bunting. I have some pretty pink material and some white net with sparkles on it… not too grand.

As Beautiful as a Michelangelo Statue

“If only I had a spare five hundred pounds,” I said wistfully in bed recently.

At the time I was wearing my reading glasses and staring at my ankles. Now normally I don’t look at myself whilst wearing glasses (ignorance is bliss) but for whatever reason on this particular morning, such was the case.

“Oh, why’s that?” asked Chris, perhaps suddenly worried that I wished to take money out of our savings.

“Well, if I had five hundred pounds – I know it’s expensive – I could have my veins done,” I said pensively (if not searchingly).

“But you don’t have varicose veins – do you?” Chris tried to remember.

“Not exactly varicose but there are broken capillaries, especially on my right ankle. Haven’t you noticed them?” I queried.

“Not really,” said Chris, “but we all get a few blemishes as we get older. Anyway, I think you look like a Michelangelo statue.”

“Truly?” I simpered at the thought.

“Yes,” Chris paused and added, “and even some of those have veins!”

Writer’s Block?

“Sally, you’ve been a bit uninspired recently (or are you too busy to blog?),” wrote Lorelle on Facebook yesterday.

Lorelle knows me very well – she should do – we have been friends since I was eleven or twelve years old, when we lived across the road from each other at Mountjoy Terrace in Wynnum, Brisbane.

“Uninspired?,” I thought to myself and chuckled.

Of course, it might seem that way when my blog posts are few and far between or they consist of mainly photographs, but the truth is that I’m far from uninspired and desperate to get back to writing every day, not only my blog but also serious writing, especially after last Monday.

It was the day after the bicycle event that my brother Robert had organised, and in which Chris and I participated (also one of the busiest days in Dawlish owing to the Radio 1 Roadshow coming to Powderham Castle), and we were painting the table and chairs out in the studio garden. The weather was sunny and warm, the perfect day for catching up with outdoor jobs (after the long wet winter that had encroached upon spring), and we would have felt guilty just lazing around or staying indoors, on the computer. Now I enjoy listening to audiobooks, plays or interesting things on Youtube while I’m painting so we opened wide the French doors of my studio that we might hear better a recording of the writer Ray Bradbury speaking at UCLA in 1968.

The next best thing to being creative is listening to someone who inspires one to be creative and original. Ray Bradbury was witty, clever, interesting and an inspiration; and it was fascinating to note that this particular speech was given one year before Neil Armstrong made his “leap for mankind” with the Apollo 11 expedition to the moon.

I remember as a schoolgirl being enthralled by Ray Bradbury’s “The Illustrated Man” (what about the suspense of  “The Veldt”?). I didn’t know that Bradbury was so prolific a writer or that my husband had read every one of the author’s books. Chris says he has them all if I want to read them but I’m a multi-tasker – I still have so many mundane yet necessary things to do that I think I’ll stick to Youtube audiobooks for now. Yesterday, whilst at work on my sewing machine, I began “The Martian Chronicles”; this afternoon I shall be helping with painting the floor of Rosie’s barn and tomorrow I’ll be back on Mars but thinking of humanity – I can hardly wait. Maybe I’ll be painting pictures at the same time. And soon, hopefully, I’ll be back in the flow with regular blogs (not blocks!). In the meantime, as you can see from the photos, I can always find a few minutes to repair a flower fairy with a broken head…

Just click on the link below for easy access to the inspirational speech.

 

Ray Bradbury speaking at UCLA 1/17/1968 – YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Q0k1k43-Y
12 Mar 2014 – Uploaded by UCLACommStudies

From the archives of the UCLA Communications Studies Department. Digitized 2013. The views and ideas …

Doh! A Deer

Our old friend Roland in Brisbane must have had a tune in his head (now it’s in mine, too). And they say that men don’t like sissy films such as “The Sound of Music”!

Pants

“That’s rather strange,” says Chris, looking at the words printed on the flower box that I’ve just put into the shopping trolley.

I hadn’t taken much notice of the printing – I just thought that the box of flowers looked pretty – but now that it had been brought to my attention…

“I suppose it is a bit funny, considering that it’s obvious what they are,” I agree with my astute husband.

“Well I think it would make more sense to paint out the ‘L’ and hang a little pair of pants on a line beneath the box!” laughs Chris.

 

No reasonable request is ignored in our household so, a few days later, a tiny pair of purple and white polka dot pants appeared. You may think we’re an odd couple….