FLOWER GIRL

Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 19.08.2008 – 20:40:34

Another 'I don't believe it!' moment today.

I went to the allotment - first time for a week. Plenty of beans to be picked. And an over-large courgette or three. And three leeks. And a butternut squash (I didn't mean to pick it - it broke off in my hand).

Then the sweetcorn caught my eye. Ye gods. Half of it was mown down. Nibbled cobs were strewn across the path, looking for all the world as if a crazed cartoon chipmunk had attacked them.

What on earth could have caused that? I'm sure I'd have heard if chipmunks were loose in Carisbrooke.

Actually, chippy did me a favour. Cos I wouldn't have thought of picking the sweetcorn yet - but I picked the remaining cobs rather than lose them.

They were in a pot within the hour. Before the sugars had turned to starch. Smothered with butter. And they were sweeter and more delicious than any I've ever eaten. Thus proving that last year's crops were antiques by the time I convinced myself they were ready.

I have a burnt tongue. But that's a small price for such delicious gluttony.

Red, not green, then blue

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 19.08.2008 – 11:31:38

That's the colour of my face.

It is a bright, shiny scarlet red from bending down and picking up paper that the computer has flung across the room.

It is supposed to be a nice, environmentally-friendly green. But the computer objects to recycled paper. It jams, flings, whinges and doesn't print unless you feed in a sheet at a time. Just because the paper has already gone through a printer - possibly a different printer - once before. Is it frightened that it might 'catch' some bug?

Call it picky. Call me irritated.

I think my pointed remarks to said printer have turned the air blue rather than green.

Hanging on the telephone ...

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 18.08.2008 – 19:18:21

... is too good for them.

My dad - who's 80 - is without internet at the moment. This is quite upsetting as he is stuck at home recovering from an operation. He has had a great deal of pleasure from it in recent years - particularly as he was initially scared and thought he wouldn't understand it. Now he enjoys sending and reading emails, swapping jokes and generally trying to make his computer crash by adding just one more bit of free software or seeing what happens if he unscrews the back.

The reason that he is currently without it, as far as I can gather, is because he received a tele-marketing call from someone trying to flog a combined telephone/internet etc. package. He thought it was someone from his service provider and that it sounded a great idea - until he realised the strings of 'the special offer'. He is deaf and he says the person spoke in a strong accent that made it doubly difficult to understand. As a result, somehow, his internet has been cut off and he has to wait for an unspecified period for a new package.

A couple of months ago, my mother received also a tele-marketing call. By an unhappy coincidence, it was someone trying to persuade her to make a will - on the day my father had his heart op. She put two and two together, made five and had hysterics.

So, two things. First, I am wondering if I should secretly just log their number with the TPS - they are worried about doing it themselves 'in case family and friends can't call us'. Or would going behind their back make me just as unethical?

Secondly, I just want to shout 'SCUMBAGS' at anyone who has tried to confuse, con, pressure older people this way.

Lazy sunday afternoon?

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 17.08.2008 – 22:49:26

When I first moved here, I can remember being both slightly put out and impressed that our village shop refused to open on a Sunday. Put out because I was used to being able to pop out and buy a pint of milk at virtually any hour when I lived in London. Impressed because I have long lamented the fact that Sunday is no longer a day of rest.

I'm not a church goer, but I find it increasingly irritating that there is no day of the week when you are not bombarded with the noise of power tools, the sound of traffic, the constant restless comings and goings.

Today, I have had a bench saw, a shed demolition, a power-hose-and-hoover two car clean-up, a hedge trim and a lawn mower to contend with. And a neighbour's newly discovered penchant for wireless internet in the garden, with an irritating ping every 30 seconds signifying that she is lurking in the undergrowth.

Peace, perfect peace ... just for one day. Please.

Mini Muffin Madness

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 17.08.2008 – 17:26:38

I thought I'd do some baking today. It's been ages since I attempted to slip into Domestic Goddess mode. And I thought it would be relaxing. Silly me. I should have learned by now that relaxing and baking are contradiction in terms.

Muffins, I decided, were the answer. A mere 15 minutes work to knock up a delicious batch that we could take outside in the sunshine for mid-morning coffee to accompany the sunday papers.

I got as far as measuring all the dry ingredients out and melting the butter when I realised we were short of milk. So I got in the car and nipped into the supermarket. Yet another contradiction in terms. Three heaving shopping bags and two conversations with neighbours later, I get home and resume muffin-making.

Only to realise that we have no eggs.

"But we always have eggs in the fridge", I wailed at my husband, who had rushed in on hearing my scream of "I don't believe it!".

"Clearly, we always don't" he sighed, abandoning the football section and picking up the car keys.

I eventually made them by lunchtime. By which time the sun had snatched off its hat and flung it into the dark recesses of the stair cupboard. And because I fixed my beloved with a steely-eye challenge, we ate muffins at lunchtime and ate lunch when it should have been time for a traditional sunday tea. But never mind that ridiculous notion.

Anyway, time to show off my small-but-perfectly-formed muffins. Well, I did warn you I had a new camera ...

Well, they tasted better than they look. So Dog says.

The Fly

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 16.08.2008 – 23:26:32

I've been watching The X Files tonight. As usual, I don't really know what was happening. Except it involved alien DNA and a prediction of the end of the world. You can't imagine the sense of dread and anticipation, the edge-of-the-seat, white-knuckled tension. Will they or won't they ...

... swat that bloody bluebottle that has entered the lounge, buzzing a hysterical dog, inviting frequent cracking thumps with a rolled-up newspaper and much tutting from the husband and shrieks of 'OMG, it's drinking my wine' from me.

But, I am proud to announce, I might not have a clue what was happening in The X Files. But the producers might want to consider my alien-busting skills when they film the next one in the series.

If aliens can be so easily despatched by a judicious swipe of a magazine, that is.

Smile, please

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 16.08.2008 – 20:18:23

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I've been feeling shattered lately. More like my winter self. I've been pretty busy these last few weeks, rushing here, there and everywhere. But that's not the the problem. Oh, no. The problem, I reckon, is a neighbour whom I meet every morning, when I am heading off for a dog walk and he is returning from the village shop with his paper.

It took me some time to work out that Mr. N. is, to a large extent, the reason for my downbeat mood. And that this is because we only seem to talk about the weather and he is determined to dwell on the negatives. So that when, yesterday, I rejoiced in the blue skies and absence of gales, he replied glumly 'Make the most of it ...'.

As a result, I realised this morning that the urge to nut him is now threatening to get the better of me. So I've been studying positive thinking all day. And the answer, it seems, is to smile a lot.

This is the advice offered by Professor Jane Plant. Smiling is a way, apparently, of tricking your brain into thinking everything's okay, even if it's not. So I have decided that henceforth I will become a grinagog: someone who is always grinning, especially foolishly and without reason. If this doesn't work, and Mr. N doesn't take to walking instead to Newport in an attempt to avoid his idiot neighbour, then I have a plan B: I am going to roar with laughter at the people who trip over the loose paving stone by the Post Office and then turn and look reproachfully at it.

And, just to ensure that depression is totally sent packing, Plan C will see me fling myself on the verge and scream hysterically with paroxysms of laughter when Mr. N goes through his daily comedy routine of trying to reverse safely into his drive in less than 10 minutes.

There! Au revoir the blues, methinks.

Love is blind - really?

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 15.08.2008 – 20:28:05

I saw an article in the New Scientist that reminded me how much I ~~mock~~ admire people who succeed in getting paid to spend their lives doing ~~pointless~~ important research for the advancement of society.

Apparently, according to a study at Florida State University, for people who are settled in loving relationships, the sight of attractive members of the opposite sex tends to be more repellent than alluring. Which begs the question, how can they be categorised as attractive if they are repellant? Which also begs the question, how can a survey sample of 113 people prove anything other than the researcher is ~~a lucky git who probably gets a grant for conducting research in the student union bar~~ in love and therefore blind to reality?

Yes, well. A career in science became a firm no-no for me on the day I was asked to dissect a bull's eye in the science lab, so what do I know? Except I have a question for Florida State University. How is it - despite being extremely lucky to be in a loving relationship - that I can quite happily spend hours ~~drooling over~~ studying a picture of Johnny Depp for evidence that supports this theory. Or not.

Man! I feel like a woman

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 12.08.2008 – 22:22:34

I just bought a new cookery book called Sweety Pies, by Patty Pinner. I saw a review in a magazine recommending it. It was, admittedly, a brief review and I think my brain must have only registered fruit pies, delicious, anecdotes on family life and not much else.

Which might explain why I was expecting a book on pies written by a farmer's wife from Somerset with country lore to impart and instead got An Uncommon collection of Womanish Observations with pies, published by The Taunton Press, which is written by an employee of the US PostService who lives in Saginaw, Michigan, USA.

The author's introductory statement that "I am a descendant of that generation where a woman's appearance, manner and domestic prowess were synonymous with her feminine identity." initially gave me a deep sense of foreboding. Particularly when she claimed that keeping a spotless home didn't even come close to matching the kudos of the perfect piemaker.

But though I blanched at the number of times the words 'womanly', 'womanish', 'womanhood' or 'Mama says ..' it has some great recipes: Dezarae Trilett's Mixed Berry Pie, Sister Baby's Buttermilk Pie or my favourite: Coral's Blueberry-Peach Cobbler.

Not least because 'Coral Raines is the kind of woman other women despise - not because her legs are perfect and her beautiful cat-colored eyes have a hint of wickedness in them .... but because she is a woman who feeds her man from store-bought mixes." Apparently, Ms Raines is not averse to doing her shopping in "black stilettos and tight leopard-print dresses that she pours herself into". She "struts into one of our community gatherings" and proudly sets her "semi-homemade cooking" down beside "the homemade delectables" that other women have slaved over, and, what's more, "there's always some good-looking man who'll walk right past our tables of home-made delectables" and buy up everything Coral Raines has to offer. The intro to this recipe concludes with the words "I honestly believe most men take one look at Coral's cat curves and her cat eyes and are convinced everything about her is purrfect." She ends with a quotation from Mama: Infactuation tells us a lot of things that just aren't true.

I am hooked. I can't wait to find out if Coral gets her own back on the perfect pie-makers. Oh, the joy of a cooking book that has developed the perfect womanly euphenism for a female dog.

Picture this

by EllieGant ^Pro @ 12.08.2008 – 11:07:31

I finally cracked last week and bought myself a new digital camera. I've had my old one since 2002 and it has been a faithful friend. But it has been showing its age.

So when I clambered precariously onto the mud flats of the estuary, to photograph an interesting formation of driftwood and seaweed, only to find that the camera was completely dead, I resolved to buy a new model. I know I could buy another new battery, but I've got through three quite quickly and they don't seem to hold a charge for longer than half a day. Not much good if you're on holiday. Or even a walk to the estuary, distance one mile or so.

So now I have a manual about the size of War and Peace to read up on. And I am busy seeking photo opportunities. You have been warned.

Here is a picture of a chalk downland flower that I think is knapweed but could be something completely different.

And some before and after close-ups of thistles.

And you will be relieved, no doubt, to learn that I have only read as far as the macro page, so that's the lot. For now.