“It’s in a cup so you don’t look weird” – Dad. I was drinking apple juice. Everyone else was having tea. Black tea. The English sort with milk. The sort the sanity of the country, or at least my family, depends on. The sort everyone makes and offers you whenever anything happens, big or small, […]
Once upon a time, I soldered something together in school. At some point between then and now I made some stained glass windows and some small Tiffany style pieces. That kind of involves soldering, but with a huge soldering iron and a reel of lead/tin you could probably knock someone out with. Since then, my […]
This morning I bought 10 chocolate catfish. They are small and dark brown and incredibly cute. The saleslady at the fish market said they’d grow to approximately 4-5cm long – perfect for my tank. I had no signal in the salesroom, so I couldn’t check anything online. I bought the fish, based purely on sight […]
I went out for coffee with a guy from school and his wife today. I’d borrowed some books for him and he was returning them now that school’s over. It was too cold to stand outside the library for long so we decided to find a café. Most cafés don’t appreciate cards, so I went […]
(posted on the 1st, but somehow got stuck in the works) One of my customers brought me a chili-pepper plant today. He wanted to thank me for getting his glass stuff finished so quickly. I didn’t actually have very much to do with his glass, my colleague did 95% of the work, but I do […]
Usually, the radio goes on when my colleague gets to work, and goes off when I leave. He can’t stand adverts, so we listen to ‘Deutschland Radio’ and ‘Deutschland Radio Kultur’ which generally makes for a good mixture of news and interesting information about a huge range of topics. Anything from book reviews to current scientific […]
There was a festival in my town today. A whole street full of small market stalls in celebration of local root vegetables (!!). The butcher sold special sausages and other people sold various other things. I had a hot one when I arrived, and planned to buy a packet of raw sausages to take home, […]
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat on the edge while she waved her hands about. “…your body wants to flow, you see,” she said, “it’s being held in place at the moment, but it isn’t happy. That’s why you have so many stressed and tightened muscles. You’re more like […]
My younger self spent many (MANY) hours sitting on benches in various parks and town squares, eating icecream. Sometimes by myself, sometimes with friends, sometimes (and probably most often) with my siblings. This was such a common occurrence, that we each kept an emergency spoon in our bags or wallets. Yesterday I found myself alone […]
I’ve just been jolted out of an uneasy sleep in an uncomfortable aircraft seat by a food trolley. The absent minded trolley pusher rammed the trolley into my knee. I can only imagine it wasn’t intentional, so I can’t really be cross, even if it a) hurt, and b) woke me up. It seems like […]
The first session starts in 14 minutes. I feel totally unprepared, but I hope it won’t matter. I am also quite sweaty, which is worse than unprepared. The 18 degrees they promised us this morning when I put jeans on, have turned into at least 25, probably closer to 28, and the leisurely walk I […]
Kate asked me earlier if I would prefer a partner who would cheer me up when I was down, or one who would cheer me on when I was doing well.
I don’t agree with Ronan Keating – I think life’s more like a pinball machine than a roller coaster..
I don’t remember the last time I waited until this close to Christmas to start making mince pies… Last night, a friend came over. She’s German and had never even heard of mince pies, let alone thought about making one. That obviously had to be rectified. Here’s the process of rectification: 🙂 🙂 🙂 I […]
(Warning: contains a small amount of blood and a great deal of frustration) *** On Sunday I admitted failure. I had failed to finish the book in time to send it to the printers before leaving to catch the plane, despite staying up all night to work on it. I was quite miffed (ok, a […]