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A Ghost of Christmas

Every year I buy myself a Poinsettia at Christmas. The shelves of pot plants with their brilliant red bracts (see all you doubters…I knew they weren’t proper flowers) in all of the supermarkets is a sure sign that Christmas is nearly here.  Lets face it though, within a week of purchase, most of those poor plants are languishing and wilting in our overheated, too dark, living rooms.  Mine are really no exception.  Normally I can barely manage to keep them alive until Christmas day.

However, this year I bought a hardy little blighter.  Believe it or not, It still looks as good as the day as I bought it and…yes, we’re halfway through February!! It is a first, so I thought I’d share this little reminder of the festivities with you. 🙂

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Thirsty Thursday – Won’t you join me?

DSC_0484Having a nice, proper, cup of tea today. By proper, I mean not from a manky old teabag, and not spoiled by the addition of milk.  As you know, I love tea, and have a pretty big selection in my cupboard, but more often than not I just grab a bog standard teabag like everyone else.

When we visited the tea plantations in Sri Lanka, we were told that the tea in our Western teabags pretty much consisted of the sweepings from the floor in terms of leaf quality, and I must say that when I do make the effort and opt for something like an Orange Pekoe, that does become pretty obvious. ‘Real’ tea is light and refreshing and not in any way bitter.This morning’s cuppa is made with tea that my daughter brought back from Malaysia for me.  It’s described as ‘An exquisite flowery Pekoe with a delicate aroma’ and it is, and there is no need for anything else in the cup, just pure tea. Lovely.

Many people I know find it hard to take tea without quantities of sugar.  I’ve seen people heap three of four teaspoons of the white stuff into just a small cup.  Ok, hands up, I used to do the same, that’s how I was brought up. As a child mum put sugar in my tea, and it was all I knew.  But many years ago now, I came to my senses, cut out the sugar (it wasn’t easy at first, but worth the effort) and got my taste buds back. I can now appreciate the infinite subtle nuances in the flavours between different types which makes it worth the effort of making a proper brew.  It’s just like the differences you find between wines.

Mind you, I cheated with this one, instead of getting the pot out, I just put a heaped teaspoonful of leaves in a tea strainer and poured the boiling water over it and into the cup. Probably not the perfectionists way, but is ok when it’s just me.  You’ll notice I did drag the posh china out for the occasion though. Well….you can’t drink proper tea from a mug now, can you?

Cheers!

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Wake up, it’s Wednesday!

Here’s a bit of Soca to get you going with a smile this morning.

I first heard this in Tobago a few years ago.  We were at a beach party drinking copious amounts of rum punch and dancing in the sand on the most beautiful secluded beach you’ve ever seen. I was particularly happy as, somewhat amazingly, I’d won the limbo competition (prize….more rum…) It was a perfect day and hearing this reminds me of how much we danced and laughed and generally had an amazingly good time.  It’s been making me dance and laugh and sing along ever since, I defy you not to do the same!  Enjoy…

Scientists Should Start Working on a Way to Make Travelling Cheap and Instant
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Scientists Should Start Working on a Way to Make Travelling Cheap and Instant

Someone after my own heart here! No leaves on the line nonsense…

Forbidden Jungle's avatarForbidden Jungle

This morning I awoke with a spontaneously fiery ambition to travel. I wanted to experiment with the nifty new camera I’d received as a gift at Christmas but the area I live in is grey and monotonous so I decided that I wanted to embark on a train journey to the wild Highlands of Scotland and capture some of the rustic winter landscapes. However, after researching train times and fares on my phone, I realised that my wallet capacity and the amount of daylight in these winter months would make it impossible. Train fares to travel up North towards the Highlands exceeded £100 and the journey would last over three hours. Oh well, it was back to the Flix of the Net for the day.

Everyone’s life goal should be to travel the world, and then fall in love. A lifetime is squandered for every human that decides to reside…

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A ho hum week in song…

Written as part of the Daily prompt challenge – ‘Playlist of the Week’

Well, I saw this prompt and thought ‘yeah, that’s doable’, although when I came to think about it, last week wasn’t a particularly cheery one.  Nevertheless, I think these five songs are fairly representative, in a rather literal way!!

  • Walking the Dog  – Rufus Thomas: well, I do that every day, rain or shine, bad foot or no, otherwise Suki starts climbing the walls!
  • Give me Novocaine – Greenday:   Had an injection in my foot on Friday, and I now have an attack of the Shingles, not in anyway related but both really ouchy!
  • At the Car Wash – Rose Royce: Yep, went there with husband in his car, not mine.  Mine is still mangled after the prang I had the week before.  It needs a bit of Novacaine too 😦
  • Born to Lose – Ray Charles:  Sat and watched the Australian open final in its entirety on Saturday morning (well, I had a badly foot!).  Was really hoping Andy Murray would do it this time, and he was playing superbly for a bit, but eventually had a melt down, and was ‘bagelled’ in the last set (6/0) d’oh!
  • So Tired by The Kinks – works on two levels – I am indeed very tired, thanks to the Shingles virus and some strong painkillers, and also tired of waiting for a parcel to arrive…

Hope your week was a better one!

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Luscious Words Wednesday

My occasional series of delicious words (ok, I’ve only done it once before so maybe not a series, but I’ve got good intentions…) taken from the Oxford Dictionary.

Luminescence pic

Cheeky glowing fishy photo from Google Images.

My yummy word for today is:

‘Luminescence’ 

Meaning ‘The emission of light by a substance that has not been heated, as in fluorescence and phosphorescence:’

Say it slowly, and feel how it starts with a pout, has a smile in the middle, and ends with a soft sigh.

Just the idea of something that produces it’s own light is fantastical and mysterious.  It makes me think of deep sea creatures and glow worms (not that I’ve ever seen a glow worm, but I’m sure Disney uses them a lot in his films).

I do know a few people that have a certain glow to them (in a good way, not the ones that work in Sellafield or somesuch, like Homer Simpson) My friend Barbara, who died some years back, and who I miss a great deal, always seemed radiant from within, and had a glorious naughty twinkle in her eye. I wonder if she still keeps her hat on to go to the loo….. ahh..that’s another story..

I’m not sure if I glow. I try and be warm and smiley. I’m probably a bit cheeky, and sometimes I am definitely incandescent with ire, which doesn’t seem to be a good thing. Perhaps it’s something I can work on, or perhaps it’s something some lucky attractive folk are just born with, or perhaps even, it’s not something I should aspire to anyway.  Maybe you can enlighten me!