The Double Cream Debacle

Honey nut cornflakes & doppelgänger shreddies.

 I found five biros in my handbag this evening, a pair of chopsticks, countless receipts, three ibuprofen  packets (all partially used), some ballet tickets, but not the iPod charger chord I was looking for. One of the biro lids bore some of the remains of the incident I like to think of as the double cream debacle: an episode wherein I thought it was a good idea to transport a pot of double cream (amongst other sundries) in my handbag. It was not. A goodly portion of the cream leaked out of its pot and -- perhaps due to the motion -- churned itself into a diabolical half-cream, half cheese, sludge which covered most of the possessions in that pocket of my bag...

In other news, I went climbing this evening, for the first time in yonks: and, unusually for me, mostly stuck to the colours, rather than opting for the rainbow ascent, as I usually do... I did not, however, attempt the overhang below. Another time, perhaps, when I grow Popeye arms:

Something Afoot

Banana; a raspberry bun; boiled egg on toast;
doppelgänger shreddies (the astute amongst you
 will notice a breakfast is missing;
it was a fishcake with a poached egg & hollandaise

Either shoes are getting bigger, or my feet are getting smaller. Time was, I was a dependable size 6. These days, a 6 is like wearing a pair of clown shoes, and a 5 is just that little bit too small -- length-wise at least. (Britons, by and large seem to be a spade-footed, short-legged species, and I've yet to find a pair of shoes that didn't slop off my heels, and a pair of trousers that didn't need letting down.)

It's an odd position to find myself in: almost-dainty-footed-ness. I've always thought of my feet as somewhat flipper like. Perhaps because growing up my father always told me I had hands like feet and feet like fenders, oh and tombstones rather than teeth. I've long considered my extremities rather outsized for my height -- all legs and arms and fingers and toes and not a great deal of torso -- or head, as it happens (I once borrowed a five-year-old cousin's bicycle helmet; I was not five at the time. More like 25.).

I feel like I've wandered into an odd kind of a fairy tale, and I can't yet tell if I'm the heroine, or just a vanishing-footed curiosity along the way...

Do Vampires Have Passports?

Doppelgänger shreddies and raspberries

I am not proud of this admission, but tonight I watched(ish -- part of) the third, fourth? (I don't know!), Twilight film and I found myself asking, "do vampires have passports"?

Based on R-Patz's waterfall antics, I'd say no. That vampire can shift it. But how did they get to Brazil for their honeymoon? It seems unlikely Mr Vampire checked his Mrs on to a Delta flight after the ceremony and teleported (or whatever vampires do) to Sao Paulo, but on the other hand -- in these times of TSA patdowns and biometrics, where does a 200-year-old undead type get a passport from?

My Happy Place

Doppelgänger shreddies
(what was left of them by the time I remembered a photo was required)

I have found my happy place and it is the lobster shack in North Berwick. Give me a garlic butter drenched crustacean and I am one contented lady. I have nothing else to say except Mmmmmmmmm!

Literary Beverages Part Two

Doppelgänger shreddies and plums

Considerably more embarrassing than my Peter Rabbit inspired fondness for chamomile tea is my gin and orange phase -- inspired, of all things, by a Maeve Binchy book: Circle of Friends, to be specific.

Oddly, for a catholic establishment, the school library was stuffed with Maeve Binchy's and Rosamund Pilcher's -- ripping yarns involving lapsed catholics (in the former's case at least) getting up to all sorts of no good in abandoned cottages and summerhouses. Even to this day I remember vividly my incredulity that a hot bath and a stiff gin offered the sort of dogmatic loophole that a prescription for Microgynon simply couldn't -- but then I always was a contrary sort of a person.

The postlapsarian girls of Circle of Friends drank gin and orange, and in my early days of sneaking drinks, this -- mortifyingly -- was my tipple of choice. The phase was mercifully short-lived, but a phase it was.

Literary Beverages Part One

Doppelgänger shreddies and plums

Some of you may already know that when I was little I thought that chamomile tea must be a sweet-tasting miracle drink, more delicious than horlicks, or ovaltine (back when ovaltine was still delicious), or hot milk and honey. I was desperate to try it. It was the drink given to Peter Rabbit following his misadventures in Mr McGregor's garden -- how could it not be delicious?

When eventually I did taste it, I was quite underwhelmed. This was no tasty elixir: just a watery, slightly nose-tickling insipidness… My impressions otherwise stemmed, I think -- like many things in my early life -- from a fatal misunderstanding of the text: Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail supped on bread and milk and blackberries, after all; it was only my hero, naughty Peter, who was sent to bed with camomile tea to be taken one spoonful at a time…

Still, I'm increasingly fond of it these days. Maybe it's the mug:

The Turnip Princess

Doppelganger shreddies and muesli.

New fairytales, huzzah. Strangely, I had turnip for supper this evening. No princes or princesses have since materialised.

I Always Wear Wellies

Doppelganger Shreddies.

 Sometimes I wonder whether I ought to don my hiking boots like a proper walker person; but wellies are so much better for standing in the sea in.

Messing with Facebook

Doppelganger shreddies and an apple.

I discovered the other day -- through Miss Ramsay -- a new and childish delight: messing with Facebook's advertising feedback. I like to think that by flagging an advert for Manolo Blahniks('s?) as "against my views", and labelling "Get paid to type" "sexually explicit," I am distorting some algorithm or other. Perhaps   I need to get off the island. Or Facebook.

What if...

Whilst looking for a photo of a Robin I came across this on the Beeb. Didn't know that about postmen and Christmas cards...

Yesterday I was watching a Robin bobbing around under the bird table when a Blackbird came along and chased him away. Then I wondered how the poor Robin would have felt if an Eagle had come along. It's incredible really how there's such variation in size across the same genre of animal.

Imagine if that were true for humans; if one day you could encounter a person who was to you as an Eagle is to a Robin. I suppose that happens on a metaphorical level from time-to-time, like when you meet someone of towering intellect who is also about a hundred times better-looking than you, and ten times as funny.

Still, at least there's some room for denial here. If, however, you were genuinely to encounter someone forty times bigger than you, there would be no deluding your way out of it.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I was on holiday and then injured (shoulder all messed up); computers have been (and remain) something of a challenge--most especially use of the mouse, because I am absurdly right-handed, and this is the not-really-functioning side.

P.P.S. I forgot to take a photo this morning. You merely missed a bowl of doppelganger shreddies.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Twentieth

Doppelganger shreddies and banana.

Go and see this. Go and see this. Go and see this: Flynch. Looking. It is perfection. I LOVED it. So much in fact, that I will most definitely be going to see it again.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Seventeenth

Doppelganger shreddies and strawberries.

Dear universe, please could you deliver unto me a modest sum that would allow me to live comfortably for long enough for me to write a book -- which will hopefully become a best seller -- so that I don't have go to work in a windowless office anymore. Especially not when I have a(NOTHER) stinky cold and just want to stay home with a hottie bottie and a BBC costume drama box set.

Breakfast the Two-Hundred-and-Thirteenth

Doppelganger shreddies and strawberries.

Those of you who read Miss Ferguson's blog will have already seen this, but I couldn't resist reposting it:

Breakfasts Two-Hundred-and-Six to Two-Hundred-and-Twelve

No. 206: Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.
No. 207: Forgot to photograph this one; I had muesli, followed by martmite on toast. I love the milk jug.
No 208: First breakfast on board - so yummy I almost forgot too photograph this one too.
No 209: Another fry-up, cooked by me, whilst sailing.

No. 210: Another fry-up effort by me, rather easier this time as we were not yet underway.
No 211: Doppelganger Shreddies.
No. 212: Doppelganger Shreddies.
And lastly, me cooking breakfast (not my best photo!)

Golly, it's been a whole week since my last missive.  I've been off sailing with friends. And *hangs head in shame* it's taken me this long to actually connect camera with card reader with computer.

I had a completely fantastic time and am now more sure than ever that I need to become some sort of pirate. Note the appropriateness of the head gear in the last photo (a necessity given this was day 4 sans shower - yum!). Also, my nose is requisitely red -- though in this instance due to over-exposure to the sun/wind, rather than rum.

I'm sure I'll get to be a great rum-drinker though. Or failing that, whisky. Now that I've gotten over my reservations about it's oesophagus-warming properties (it is an odd sensation), I'm rather developing a taste for it...

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Ninety-Three-and-Four

No 193: Doppelganger shreddies & Special K.

No 194: Bacon, eggs and tomatoes.

I'm going to have to be rather careful about my desert island disks. I caught the last ten minutes or so of Meet Joe Black this evening and the sound track turned me all tearful. I'll doubtless have to avoid anything from a Bond film too. I banned myself from listening to Bond theme tunes years ago after a journey on which I found myself compelled to "lose" the red ford fiesta behind me after I half convinced myself that the kindly looking OAPs in it were in fact Russian baddies...

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Seventy-Five-and-Six

No 175: Banana, wolfed down on the run.

No 176: Doppelganger shreddies and a nectarine.

I had an early start this morning so no time to post Monday's rather pathetic breakfast offering last night.

Today's nectarine became the first casualty of my new bicycle commute. I popped it in my bike basket, looking forward to gobbling it at the other end of my bike ride. Instead, it fell out of the basket as I was wrestling my bike down the stairs -- missing the steps altogether and falling straight down the stairwell. It was remarkably unsplattered, though no longer edible.

The stairs are the worst part of my commute. So far, I have two bruises for heaving my bike up and down two storeys. No doubt I will accumulate more.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Seventy-Fourth

Doppelganger shreddies and a nectarine.

Glorious, glorious sunshiney day here today. I slathered myself in sunscreen and ventured out to the Botanics for lunch. I had to stand on the peddles of my bicycle all the way, rather than sitting down, as my bottom is still sore (damn bicycle seats).

Later I joined my friend in one of the Queen street gardens. She, being English and accustomed to warm weather was in jeans and a cardi, whereas I, a scot, was in a little summer dress. Though, unlike most of my fellow countrymen, I was actually taking steps to avoid turning into a lobster.

Breakfast the One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Ninth

Doppelganger shreddies & strawberries. 

Most likely you're all tired of hearing about my peculiar dreams, in which case, look away. If not...

Last night in my dream there was a snake that was somewhat furry, and a red panda. They were in a menagerie in a strange abandoned loft, along with various other creatures. Mostly birds. And I was watching, with some friends. We hadn't seen the snake at first. Then it suddenly went for the red panda and I tried to stop it by banging on the sides and giving it a fright; but it didn't work. The odd thing about the snake (in addition to its being furry) was that it took bites out of the panda, rather than swallowing it whole.

I really wish I would stop dreaming about snakes.

Also, there was someone else there who said it wasn't a red panda (I'm not sure who). But it was. What can it all mean?

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Sixty-Six, Seven and Eight

Doppelganger shreddies & strawberries x 2 and cinnamon & raisin bagels with apricot jam and orange juice x 2

Oh dear, I've been rather a hopeless blogger this week. My stinky cold has turned me into a narcoleptic.

I'm almost all recovered now (though still sound ever-so-slightly like Marge Simpson).

This evening I saw almost all of the parts of "Ghost" that I haven't seen before. (It's seems to be one of those films that's always just ending, or half way through, whenever I encounter it).

Susie the architect and I watched (most of it) together and fell about laughing during the advert break when the title card popped up and she said "good font," and I said "I was just about to say the very same thing." I suppose we must be font fiends or something.

Breakfasts One-Hundred-and-Forty-Five, Six and Seven

No. 145: Doppelganger shreddies and strawberries.

No. 146: Doppelganger shreddies and banana.

No. 147: Muesli and banana.

I'd like to attribute the absence of recent posts to being off adventuring; instead, I can account for it only by citing alcoholic over-indulgence and narcolepsy.

The most exciting thing I've done all weekend was to remove a decomposing mouse from behind a friend's washing machine. (It's stench gave it away.) I'm afraid I was entirely girly about the exercise. I approached it armed with rubber gloves and bacon tongs (for grabbing).

I was rather concerned it was going to disintegrate on being disturbed. Happily, it was surprisingly rigid. Poor old mousey. I almost think we ought to have given it a better send off than being bundled into a Sainsbury's bag and binned (along with the tongs).