Daughter-blog misses the sea!

The title may not mean much to you until you are made aware of the fact that Daughter blog (aged 20) lives within a stone's throw of the sea in Aberdeen.

So what aspect of the sea is she missing you might be wondering. The rolling waves, the crashing surf, the soft sounds of the waves receding over the pebbles, the powerful storms that turn the sea an inky black?

No, none of these. All of them could be cured by simply walking ten minutes to the seaside.

Daughter blog went to the seaside last Saturday morning and picked up a stone to throw it into the sea ...and missed! :-)

Advancing years

Just saw a book on a book shelf, when I tried to read the title on the spine it was at a slant and sort of upside down. I read,

"Insure and cretin hope"

Strange title for a book? Of course it is my eyes going with the advancing years and it actually read,

" In sure and certain hope"

Chalet Guests

Sister-blog in Switzerland runs a business, part of which is a meet and greet service for people who have rented chalets in her village. She is the first port of call for complaints from any guests.Sometimes she gets a guest who is hell bent on complaining with the sole intention of looking for a refund. This one recently takes the biscuit.

First 30 minutes

There is no coffee machine 

There was a cafetierre as specified in the details. sister-blog went round within thirty minutes and lent them a coffee machine and gave them a packet of coffee filters to go with it.

First 2 hours

There are no curtains

There are shutters on all the chalet windows as per the details

There are no carpets

There is underfloor heating and the floors are polished pine as per the details

There are not enough dish-cloths

There were two but they wanted three, despite there being a dish washing machine which dries the dishes. sister-blog gave them an extra dish-cloth

and the piece de resistance......

The bed-side table does not have a drawer

There were ample cupboards and the details indicated a bedside table not a bed-side dresser.

We want a refund or an upgrade

They got neither.

Isn't is a shame that trip advisor does not allow establishments to rate the guests!!

Switzerland a funny place

Just back from a weekend in Switzerland. Sounds grand but I was in an official capacity being Godfather to nephew-blog-Ben. Flying into Geneva reminded me of my first trip there many years ago on business. I had a series of meetings in the centre of Geneva including a lunch in a charming restaurant.. Sipping a glass of wine I took in the surroundings and noticed movement outside the window. At first I doubted my sanity but after a second or two I could not deny that I was looking at an elephant.

Given that I was in the middle of a deep discussion with a guy called Cedric about the tax implications of UK non-residents investing in Swiss banks, it seemed inappropriate to say
"Cedric, is that an elephant out of the window?"
So I kept quiet.
Seconds later a second elephant went past, then a third, fourth, fifth. When the sixth elephant went past I was marvelling at the properties of Swiss wine and beginning to understand why almost none of it is exported.

Stuff the business

"Cedric is that an elephant out of the window?"

(Probably the most surreal question asked of a financial intermediary in the history of business.)

"Ah yes" he replied, "There is a circus in the town today".

As I sighed with relief I glanced out of the window again and saw the Geneva Municipal Street Cleaners - shovelling madly, keeping up appearances!

Kayaking

Last weekend we took a trip to the North West of Scotland to go sea kayaking with a group called Kayak Scotland. We, being me, Paul, Martin (Mad Dog, Duracell Bunny), Son-blog and Nephew-the-muscles-Harry.

No-one capsized, which given my track record with river kayaking was against the odds.
Me river kayaking,-

The plan had been to paddle to the Old Forge Inn, the most remote pub in Britain. However Hurricane Katia put paid to that so we paddled the coast around Arisaig and Loch Ailort. The hope was that we would see otters, seals or something of Scotland's wildlife. The nearest we got was a cow that decided to block the road while eating the grass off a verge.

Still Harry got a good workout.

Only the second and third joke

I had a racing snail. It got slower as it got older, so I removed its shell, thinking that it would be more streamlined and lighter. In fact it just got more sluggish!


And....
I once worked in an abattoir. The view was offal...just offal...



Mrs Blog gets gassed

Mrs Blog is a fan of my cooking, mostly. Today I offered her the chance to sample my ciabatta served with grilled Mozzarella, Parma ham, peppercorns, Basil and red chilli. We had all the fresh ingredients to hand except the red chilli. Not a problem, Mrs Blog keeps a supply of them in the freezer.

There I was assembling the ingredients and, being technically minded, knew how to defrost things in the microwave. In went the red chilli on "defrost" for three minutes. One minute later...BANG. The sound of an exploding chilli.

Not only did the damn thing explode, parts of it vapourised forming a highly toxic chilli-gas. There was Mrs Blog coughing her heart out, me coughing uncontrollably and neither of seeing the funny side of it!

Some days start badly and then go downhill

Woke up still suffering from the bad back that drove me to seek help from Mark the Physio yesterday. Following his advice I filled a hot water bottle, wrapped it in a towel and placed it strategically on the bed. Lying on top of it at just the right point would, I hoped, improve my aches, pains and problems. It was beginning to work when I reached for the cup of tea that I had next to the bed...and found a sock in it! Not an ordinary sock but a white sock from my gym kit, a super absorbent white sock! After fishing the damn thing out of my mug, there was only a quarter of my tea left.
Of course the hot water bottle has a leaky top so I cant even resort to going back to bed!