Mother's Day Assembly

Sunday is Mother's Day in the UK. (Yes, I know this is different than the USA. Don't ask me why. It just is.)

Today was the Mother's Day Assembly at Sebastian's school. All mother's were invited. The children sang songs, read a poem and told all of us mothers why they loved us.

Seb told everyone he loved his mother because she makes pancakes for him every Sunday. Afterwards, I pointed out to him that I don't do this. Daddy does. He said it didn't matter. He just wanted everyone to know he gets pancakes every Sunday.

When we got home I asked him why he did love me. He can't quite come up with a reason. He said he just does. That is good enough for me.

No Bath/Shower

In our home we have a bath and shower at the top of the house (loft conversion). On Sunday the drains clogged. On Monday, Marc attempted to fix the clog himself. This did not work. At all. On Tuesday we called out the drain specialists (who are owned by the company I work for). He informed us that he needed one of his colleagues who had the equipment he needed to unclog our drains and would return on Wednesday. On Wednesday they returned and the drains are now unclogged albeit at twice the original quoted price.

However, the anarchy that ensued during that period was immense. We have a bath/shower on the first floor of the house. This is the tub that the children use every night for their bathing ritual. The shower has never been that great and over the last 2 years the shower has ceased to work at all. The tub is very small. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday saw our morning routines thrust into sheer panic as we raced up and down the stairs trying to get clean and keep from freezing.

Wednesday was a crazy day. I had early morning meetings and Marc had to be in Wales for the day. Our neighbours pitched in to give us a hand. Emma kept the keys until Gill returned. Gill let the drains specialists in the house and supervised their work. She even made them a cup of tea. She EVEN took our dog for a walk. I have the best neighbours in the world!

Calm has now been restored to the household. Everyone is clean and warm. Phew!

Now at the top of the list of household chores is to get that first floor bathroom in order. Does anyone have a project plan for renovating a bathroom?

My Son Teaches Me

Serious wake up call: The children's TV in the playroom finally died. I've owned that TV since I moved to England 11 years ago and I bought it second hand. Previous owners had the TV for 3 years before I. So all in all this TV had far outlived its useful life. The new TV had been in our bedroom for the last 3 years but was never used because we could never figure out how to turn it on and off. Besides, a TV in the bedroom is never a good idea unless you are bed ridden and we aren't (yet).

Bad news was the children knew how to turn off and on the old TV and associated cable. How in the world were they going to master the new TV. Tonight Marc went off to the shops to get some light bulbs (they are blow at once). I had a moment of panic when I realised I did not know how to work the new TV. Sebastian calmly took the remote control from my hand, pushed a series of no less than 8 buttons and voila, the TV and cable was on.

I felt like an idiot! Still do!

Why is Bad News the Only News?

One would believe reporting a reduction in drug usage would be something to scream about.....from the rooftops. Celebrate good times and all. Apparently, not. Guess this doesn't sell newspapers. Or the editors just didn't feel it had that get your attention vibe going on. Or Good News ain't news at all.

Drug Usage Drops

This is a good thing, no?

A Hobby Too Far

I've got loads of hobbies, far too many hobbies for a woman with my schedule some might say. but I just can't help myself.

Reading: This is my first and foremost passion. I will read everything and anything. When I was little I wanted to be a librarian because I just thought I could read all day and never run out of reading material. Then I realised they don't make any money - ever a capitalist....or greedy. I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was about 12. Not sure I understood it then (or now for that matter). The stacks of books either unread or half read or 3/4 read next to my side of the bed threaten to fall over every time I get up in the morning. I finish 2-3 books/month and it would be more if I didn't have to work. Blasted greed thing again!

Cooking: I read more cookbooks than I cook (an odd habit picked up from my grandmother). But I do love cooking. My husband has caught this disease and we both love to whip up a great meal, for friends, for family, for each other, for fun. In addition to my world famous Tuna Noodle Casserole (which is simply wicked - unless you are my son's mate, Jamie, who doesn't hold it in very high esteem) I make a wicked Chili con Carne which will sweat just about any cold right out of you. And baking.....desserts used to scare the daylights out of me. I took a pie making course last year (seriously) and loved it. I now feel comfortable doing pies, cookies, cakes! Marc makes the best creme brulee I've ever had! I love desserts.

Quilting: This was a hobby I picked up between having my 2 children. I lost a baby when Sebastian wasn't quite 2 years old and I felt the walls of my world crashing down around me. I would spend entire morning crying before going to work, days at the office hiding in the ladies room trying to stem the flow of tears, and evening sobbing uncontrollably on the sofa. Marc suggested I try quilting after seeing my admiration of his Aunt Mary's quilts. So I contacted Green Mountain Quilts near our home and signed up for a class. I was the youngest in the group of 4 women (by about 10 years - or more) and the class was dedicated to hand piecing which is very time intensive. I stopped crying and I've never looked back. I love quilting and always have one on the go, sitting on the side of the sofa, ready to be picked up when I get bored with whatever Marc is watching on the television (usually a program about airplanes crashing).

Blogging: Writing this blog helps me satisfy my deep seeded desire to be a writer. I used to keep journals. I kept a diary from the age of 10 until the day after my son was born. After that I struggled to fit it all in. Then I became the Newsletter Editor for the Thames Valley American Women's Club for about 18 months. But I was dependent on lots of other people doing their part. And it just simply took far too much time (more than I was willing to give). Then I started Blogging. This seems to meet my inner needs to write down everything and anything that happens to me and those around me. Strange dysfunction that! And I can fit it in around everything else I do. Not only does writing a blog count as a hobby but so does reading blogs. I love reading what others are doing and I have some favourites that I must visit everyday.

Gardening: OK, not so much gardening as vegetabling (I know that is not a word but....). I love growing my own vegetables. I love the experience it gives my children. They love watching the seeds they bury under the dirt break through. They love seeing the veg grow. They love eating the veg. It's a great way to get them eat their 5/day. It's a great way for them to appreciate that food is grown not just magically appears in a supermarket. I save money and I get a real sense of accomplishment when I can put something on the dinner table and know precisely where it came from. I do not like weeding the garden and wish it could water itself but the end result of a carefully nutured vegetable plot is well worth the investment.

Knitting: OK, not exactly a hobby yet insomuch as I don't know how to do it. I have all the stuff and I pull it out occasionally to try try again. I am a pitiful failure but I sure like trying.

Sailing: Marc was a sailor when I met him and one of the reasons I agreed to a second date was so that he could teach me how to sail. He did and I loved it from day one! Not bad for a girl from Colorado - a land locked state! It was one of the few things I've done in my life that allowed my brain to go blank and focus solely on the task at hand. I couldn't think about 100 things at once (like I normally do). If I did, we got wet. But if I focused and Marc focused we sailed rather well and we had loads of fun! We sailed Catamarans - Dart 18s - every weekend until we had children. It is not exactly a child friendly hobby. We know people who continued to sail post-children but they have family close by and dropped them off for the weekend which isn't exactly my idea of family life. So we gave up sailing....at least until the children got older. Now they are that much older and we have managed 1 sailing trip with the children which was great fun. More are planned for the future and I expect this hobby to rise to the top of the pile.

Running: Hard to believe by looking at me but I really love running. It allows me some quiet time to mentally take stock. I can run to music and really get the heart rate going or I can run to the thoughts in my head and well....really get the heart rate going. I just wish I had more time for this hobby. This hobby always ends up at the bottom of the pile because I have leave the house to do it and without on demand childcare, I find this extremely difficult.

What are your hobbies?

Vista Upgrade

In the spirit of trying to be an early adopter of new technology and avoid being labelled an old fuddy duddy, same trick dog kind of person, I gave my husband the green light to upgrading our home PC from Windows XP to Vista. This sounded like a good idea at the time. Hasn't quite worked out 100% as planned/hoped. To be fair, my complaints are miniscule compared to my complaints about my Mac. (Sorry, Glyn, still struggling with that technology.) This blog pretty much articulates all the reasons for switching but I still just don't get it. I'm slow though and I will not give in or give up. The Mac Will Not Win!

Back to the Microsoft upgrade: During the upgrade to Vista, I clossed my eyes and held my breath. When I opened my eyes (I'd had to start breathing. the upgrade took hours and hours to complete), I'd lost all my favourites and links. Not good when you are a blog addict like me. GOOD: I found Technorati before I upgraded. BAD: I didn't add them all to Technorati before I migrated.

I had to upgrade all the software that I work with. AOL for Vista isn't quite up to scratch and somehow someway somewhere some of my addresses hve gone mysteriously missing. Marc is working on reloading but this cuts into my blogging time.

Scanning software is not compatible with Vista so scanner sits on counter tops and takes up space. No plan for remedy.

This is one man's take on the whole upgrade journey. But honestly, I'm not one of those Configuration Freaks that want control of everything. I have no desire to configure my own computer to death. I want to turn it on and I want it to work. Not very high expectations but it works for me. Well it did before Vista. It looks good but the substance behind the form doesn't feel much like an upgrade.

My advice: oh just do it and get it over with.....make sure you have everything backed up and plan to transfer everything over.

Horse vs Man

Watch this Horse Race.

A Book Finished

Phew - I have at last finished reading that epic, My Name is Red. The last 30 pages took me over a week. I normally read twice that in a night. I'm still not entirely sure what it was all about and I need some time to digest before I decide if I liked it. Roughly, it was a murder mystery set in 1590 Turkey as art was moving away from the tradition of the miniaturists (everyone painted according to a style/standard as dictated by those in conversation with Allah, Master Miniaturists) to the European style of painting what you see, open to individual interpretation and style.

The Cost of Success

I haven't reported previously on Sebastian's spelling successes. This is largely due to the fact that he is simply a spelling genius. He has had 7 spelling tests and in all but one he has scored a perfect 10 out of 10. The only week he missed this perfect score was the week he cracked his head open and we spent Monday evening in the A&E which had a knock on affect for the remainder of the week. Although I have to say it proved a point about proper preparation leading to excellent performance. What a nightmare mother I am!!!

This afternoon's success somehow got tarnished.....Seb informed me of his spelling success. We did our usual celebration and I gave my usual speech about how proud I was of him and how his hard work all week paid off yet again - blah blah blah! Then he informed me that I owed him £1. I asked him what for. He said for the perfect score on his spelling test. I replied that I had never paid him for his previous perfect performances. He said that I owed him £1 for each of those as well. I said we don't pay retrospectively. He said you do now (not sure he understood the term retrospective). I said that we don't pay for school work. And then came the kicker. He started his negotiation with the fact that one of his mate's mother's is paying her son (his mate) to do well on the test. I quickly changed the subject and started talking about the fish and chips he had for lunch. OK, I ask you, what is my negotiating position?

Definitely Art

You have got to watch this!

Then think about what Digg does.

Then do Digg!

Art or Not

Is this art?

Digg for Dummies

Do you know what this is? Do you care? I'm trying this out....may abandon it all together. Consider this an experiment and you all are my giuinea pigs.

If you don't have a digg account, go to Digg and get one. Whilst you are there have a look around at what other people are finding interesting on the net. Then you can digg things you think are groovy. Or you can bury things you find exceedingly dull. Most importantly (to me anyway) you can submit my blog posts to digg and tell what online world you digg my posts. Since you won't comment maybe you will digg.

If you have a digg account, ignore everything I just said and you just read and get busy diggin' on me!

Progression of my Disease

I am afraid to report that my disease, far from being cured, has actually progressed. I'm afraid it might be terminal.

1. My first response to events in my life (big or small) is "I can blog about this." I tend to say it out loud.
2. My second response is where is the camera. I need a photo to post on the blog.
3. My draft blogs (waiting to be published) are now in double digits.
4. My friends/family start conversations with "Are you going to blog about this?"
5. Instead of saying "Tell it to the hand" my husband says "Tell it to the blog."
6. I start mentally composing everything I see/do/hear/feel/smell/taste into a post.
7. I check my sitemeter in the morning before coffee. Nothing ever came before coffee until blogging.
8. I've asked friends to write guest posts since they won't start a blog of their own but something interesting has happened to them that I want to post on my blog. Not quite right taking credit for it though, or is it?
9. I'm offering Blogging courses to friends and colleagues.
10. My husband and I now argue over blogging time, ie who's blog gets higher priority for computer time. My argument is I have a bigger and better established audience who is depending on me for posts. His argument is he is new and is trying to establish his blog in the blogsphere. His is clearly the weaker argument.
11. I check Technorati daily to see how many blogs have linked to mine. Before Dec 2006, I had never even heard of Technorati. If you haven't either and you love reading blogs, go to http://www.technorati.com/, get an account and enter your blog URLs to your favourites. What magic!

What is the cure? Do I want to be cured? Can I learn to live with my disease? How will I cope? How will my friends and family cope? Do I care? Blog On!

American Idol

OK, OK, OK.....I have a confession to make. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. I am addicted to American Idol. If you don't want to be my friend anymore, I understand.

Husband Banned at Video Store

If you recall, my last trip to the video store ended in disaster. That might be a strong statement given the results of Marc's latest trip to the video store. He got Borat which I thought would be good. I'd read all the reviews and thought this would be funny. It wasn't. It was mean, unneccessarily so. Coren (aka Borat) treated people disrespectfully and then tried to make them look bad. In the end, he just looked like a bully. We won't be supporting Coren's future film endeavours.

The second film Marc got was Snakes on a Plane, a strange choice from any perspective. I'm afraid to fly and not so keen on snakes. So I skipped watching it and sat in the corner reading it. When I asked marc what it was about he replied "Well, there's this plane.....and there are some snakes on it." Duh!

OK, so Marc can't go to the video store unsupervised either. This means we will now have to send our children in. They couldn't possibly do any worse than we've done!

Pancake Sunday

Every Sunday Marc makes pancakes for the family. He makes the best pancakes in the world. He has tried loads of different recipes and through trial and error has perfected his own recipe. They are divine. Abigail likes bananas in her pancakes. Seb and I don't. Seb and Abby like maple syrup on their pancakes. I like mine with just butter. Seb eats 3 pancakes. Abby eats 2. I eat 1. Marc gets all the rest. Yesterday morning's pancakes were a cut above. They were supreme. A great way to start a Sunday.......Thanks, honey!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

My dad was a jockey. How cool is that? I used to be embarassed by this because it meant we were all short. But then I learned that short was cute and cute was good. My dad is short and cute.

Then someone once told me that him being a jockey also meant that he used to be a professional athlete. Now that is seriously cool. Especially to a child. This boast brought me lots of street cred.

He was a good jockey. He was the leading apprentice jockey and I've seen some of his trophies and awards. I've read the newspaper articles out of the sports sections extolling his genius. (I already know that - don't need a newspaper to point out my father is a genius.) I've seen the photographs of him in the winner's circle. I'm even in a couple of those photos usually wearing matching outfits with my proud mom (complete with hats, gloves and matching shoes). This was the 60s.

I once asked my dad if he ever got hurt riding. He said yeah. Then I asked if he had ever broken any bones. He said yeah. Then I asked which one. He said "Pretty much all of them."

That's when I realised this is a dangerous sport. Not like football, basketball, or baseball. I mean really dangerous. A very small person (the smallest you can find) gets up on a large powerful beast. This person then encourages this beast to run as fast as it possibly can around a whole bunch of other people encouraging their beast to do the same. This is madness.

He once fell off the leading horse and just rolled up into a ball hoping that none of the horses behind him run on top of him. Luckily, he escaped without any serious, permanent injuries.

Riding was a good living. Dad was real proud of the fact that he bought a brand new car with cash at 21 years old.

He stopped riding when I was about 6, I think. Riding is a hard life. You have to travel from race course to race course. Not an easy thing to do and still raise a family. He had friends who stayed in the business. One of his best friends, Brad Rollins, just recently passed away. He had stopped riding but was still training horses.

When asked if he had always wanted to be a jockey he would tell you "No, it's just that I was good at it and I was so small no one would hire me to do anything else."

Dad decided to try his hand at owning and training once. We bought a horse called Tommy Rock. He was a bum horse but he was beautiful. Couldn't run to save his life. Dad did try real hard. We sold him on and I think he became a successful show horse (like I said - he was beautiful).

My son Sebastian is a natural in the saddle and today if you ask him what he wants to be he'll tell you a jockey. We watched a film called "Dreamer" about "Sonador" a filly with a broken leg who went on to win the Breeder's Cup. Here is the true story. At the end of the film, Sebastian announced "That was a fabulous film. I bet I'll ride like that some day." I know his popa did!

UK Cost of Living

Other than the weather, I rarely complain about living in England. I just found this on digg and thought it was so true it made me cry. Read it and weep!

I think I should consider a move back to the motherland.....then again the cost of healthcare keeps me put.

Why do I read magazines?

Is there some kind of intellectual faux pas I am committing by reading magazines? Why do people seem a bit disappointed when they find out I read about 12-15 magazines/month?

I don't read just magazines. I also read books. I read 2-3 of those/month. I must confess I rarely read newspapers. Rarely is defined as once/month max. With the single exception of the local village paper (which is free), I buy a newspaper for the sole purpose of using it to light the fire in the fireplace. All my daily news I get on the Internet. I can get the news that interests me without getting my hands dirty (although RSI can be an unpleasant side effect).

Why would I buy a paper? The ink gets all over my fingers and furniture. There's no convenient place to read a broadsheet. Ever tried reading a paper on a train or in a car? The ink spreading gets even worse when you have to fold and refold it to get it into position to read. Then I realise I'm not actually interested in anything on that page and the folding exercise begins again.

Quite often, particularly if I buy a Sunday paper, large sections go unread for weeks and stack up in the corner of the lounge. Inevitably, I try to read them but find myself skimming them more than reading, as if to give the impression that I have read them. This eases my conscious of the guilt I feel for buying and then not reading. So then I just throw them away (or burn them, depending on seasonal requirements).

Magazines are different. Very rarely does what a magazine have to say go out of date. They can give stories much more in-depth coverage and provide multiple points of view. They can compile all the facts and give a comprehensive account of the event/person/place/thing. And the pictures are so much better!

Do you read newspapers?

LATE EDIT
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." --Thomas Jefferson

A Penguin & A Masked Pop Star

Sebastian is a penguin (from Happy Feet) in honour of World Book Day today - although he does look a bit more like a duck but don't tell him that! Abigail is the next pop sensation! Don't you just love her Dora nightie?!?!? And the microphone isn't actually plugged into anything.....she doesn't care!

My Husband is a Mad Scientist

Marc has become obsessed with the idea of making his own bio-diesel. I now know why he wanted to buy the BMW estate. It is a diesel. He can make his own fuel.

The idea of him making his own fuel is just an opportunity he can't pass up. This appeals to his very primal urges to really be a scientist instead of an IT professional. He would much prefer doing experiments in the garage, especially experiments that have the potential to blow things up, than just about anything else.

Last evening I bore witness to him using my kitchen utensils including a roasting tin and the cutlery (forks/spoons/knives) to cleanse (with boiling water) and then cook (in our oven) some sand. He then taped my prized kitchen funnel to the top of a thin cooper pipe and poured the sand into the pipe. He then coiled the pipe around a can and these coils are now sitting on my kitchen counter.

I am afraid......very afraid. Stay tuned. Unless we have to call the fire brigade. The number is 999 in the UK.

LATE EDIT
PS Link to his blog here

What is IKEA?

How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you tell someone who has never heard of IKEA what IKEA is?

I got a comment from Janell on a previous post asking me what is IKEA? Janell lives in the Heartland of America that is also known as Nebraska: lots of corn fields, I mean LOTS! And NO IKEAs for miles and miles and miles (we're talking thousands). She doesn't know what IKEA is.

I thought answering this question would be as simple as a return email which stated that it was a low priced but good value furniture store. But it is, oh, so much more! It's a lifestyle!

The company originated in Sweden. All the furniture is flat packed and you have to assemble it at home. It is a bit like Legos for adults except it is more expensive, the instructions aren't always easy to understand (and the pictures can make it worse rather than better) and sometimes parts are missing. They do have an easy return policy if you can be bothered to drive back there and stand in the queue again.

The stores are huge and you walk through rooms designed using all IKEA products which demonstrate the art of the possible (and the what were they thinking?) in big and small spaces. Neither of which generally represent any space that I've ever lived in. They use a lot of colour and imagination. The stores are crowded and the car parks are impossible especially on weekends.

But it is very easy and some of it is very good. Marc and I furnished our first home with all IKEA furniture. Both of my children are sleeping in expandable IKEA beds with IKEA sheets. Book shelves are what they do best and we've got loads of IKEA book shelves scattered about the house. I've got blankets from IKEA and cushions and blinds and curtains. My kitchen has glasses and pots and plates. All my children's dishes, cups and cutlery are from IKEA.

One of the best things about IKEA oddly is the cafeteria and their Swedish meatballs with sauce. My children love them and I love them. The restaurant is very very very child friendly.

One of the worse things about IKEA is that no matter when I go there or what I go there for I end up walking out of the store with loads of things I didn't really need but felt compelled to buy and felt like I was missing out if I didn't just snatch it up.

This last visit was a case in point. Found nothing there that was actually on my list. Somehow still spent £200. How did that happen? What did I buy? Why didn't I know I needed it before I got there?

So Janell, what is IKEA? An incredibly useful and useless shop all rolled into one. Go check out the web page: http://www.ikea.com/ and be amazed

Springtime

For my convenience and peace of mind, I get through these horrible, grey, dreary English winters by focusing on the arrival of March! March means springtime which is brilliantly beautiful in England.

Spring has sprung,
the grass has riz,
I wonder where all the birdies iz....

Not exactly ee cummings but I like it!

The sun is shining, there are no grey clouds in the sky and I'm hoping my day at the office will be better than the last 2 days!

Book Group

My monthly book group met last night. We had agreed to read My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. Despite our best intentions it didn't quite work as planned. In our defense this book is long (500 pages) dense and complicated. OK, maybe not War and Peace long but no working mother in her right mind is going to take that on. In defense of the book it is beautifully written and captivating. It won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006 so not your run of the mill chick lit choice. Given the difficulty I had in getting the book out of amazon, I thought we did rather well. K* excelled by getting the farthest through the book (about 1/5 of the way). S, B, and I managed about 200 pages. M is expecting a baby in the next few week and didn't get much beyond the first 50 pages or so. Hard to read when you gotta pee every 10 minutes.

We do all agree that what we've read is good (albeit very confusing) and worth the effort if only to figure out what the hell is going on. (I'm 200 pages through and I still don't know what the book is about - perhaps this is all a bit misguided.) We shall carry on reading and hope to finish this one and one more before March. Maybe we are gluttons for punishment. Next month's selection is The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld. Anyone read this?

* Names have been shortened to protect the innocent. At the request of some members of the group I have not included their full names to respect their privacy. (Their English and a bit odd really.)

The Fat Duck

A work colleague of mine has done me a huge favour and as a BIG thank you I took him for lunch at The Fat Duck in Bray. If you are unfamiliar with this restaurant, let me clue you in. This place has been named THE best restaurant in the world. The French Laundry in northern California held this distinction for a few years but last year they were usurped. I was very pleased to hear the news as Bray is just down the road from our home (about 7 miles). Having never been to The French Laundry I was curious to see what the food taste like at the BEST restaurant in the world.

The restaurant is the brain child of Heston Blumenthal (what a great name!). He takes a very scientific approach to food and mixes colours and flavours in ways you never imagined (hoped?).
The first time I went with Marc for Valentine's Day last year. This was a wee bit of a disaster. My husband is not known for his culinary adventurous nature. He hates fish (unless it is sushi and even then only certain sushi). When we turned up and found that the tasting menu (12 courses of bizarre offerings) consisted of a lot of fish, Marc took a dive and insisted on ordering from the a la carte menu. It was enjoyable but I still had a deep seeded desire to try the tasting menu.

So when the opportunity arose to go with my colleague I was well excited! We nearly had a disaster when my companion seemed almost as unenthusiastic as my husband did about the tasting menu but when he saw my disappointment he agreed to give it a go.

He approached each course as if he was playing chicken with his food. To be fair, he only balked at the snail porridge (which did have snails on the top and really was green porridge on the bottom). Everything else he ate. He only spit one thing out.

My favourite was the surprise. I had heard of the famous scrambled egg and bacon ice cream. I had felt nauseous at the thought of it. I was regretting the end of the dinner mostly because it meant I had to put my money where my mouth was (literally) and eat this final course for dessert. Surprisingly, it was my favourite of the afternoon.

We got a copy of the menu detailing everything we ate. They are major fans of using liquid nitrogen to cook with. Do Not try this at home!

The restaurant isn't really about great food. It is about food as a scientific experiment. It is about experiencing food less like sustenance and more like art. I have to say I focused solely on the food which probably isn't true of any other restaurant I've ever been to (one possible exception is Caviar Kaspia in Paris). I was fascinated by the experience and recommend it to anyone.

PS Don't go if you are very very hungry (possibly even a little hungry). Despite spending more on this meal than any other in my entire life, I was still hungry when I left. Wish I'd eaten more bread......

Charlotte's Web

Charlotte's Web was one of my favourite books when I was a child. Despite the recent film taking a bit of a hit with the critics we took the children to see it on Sunday afternoon. I thought it was cute. Abigail wanted to fall asleep midway through. Sebastian enjoyed it although he thought it was sad that Charlotte had to die. Equally, he grasped that dying is part of living which I suppose is the whole morale behind the story. I still prefer the book to the film and have made a mental note to ensure that the children add this to their childhood reading list.

Quiz Night

Every year, St George's PTA hosts a quiz night. If you are not British, you are asking yourself what is a quiz night? So let me explain. If you are British, you can skip this part. A quiz (typically set in a pub) consists of people forming teams competing against each other by answering a series of questions. Questions are organised into rounds which are themed and are generally about historical events, current events, pop culture.

Marc & I formed a team with some other parent's from Sebastian's Year 1 class: Joy and Trevor (Jamie's parents) and Jane and Rob (Ben's parents). We had done no preparation (some take quizzing very seriously!). When we turned up we gave our team the Know Hopes. Our single ambition was to not embarrass ourselves (and our children) by coming dead last.

Last night's categories included film clips (which we did well at) and TV theme songs (not so good). There was one category about computers on which we scored a perfect score (10) surprising ourselves!

We weren't really paying all that much attention to the scores, feeling quite confident that at least we weren't in last place. We took a break halfway through for dinner and enjoyed some more wine and beer with a curry. Upon returning from our meal we realised we were in 5th place (out of 17 teams!) We thought, well, that's nothing to be ashamed about!

But then things became all a bit surreal as we found ourselves at the top of the leader board. We were in 1st place! For the last 3 rounds!!!! the last round started with all of us staring at each other with our mouths gaping open in disbelief. Here we had been thinking we would be lucky to not finish last and instead we found ourselves in first place.

The last round was was a hard one and whilst we didn't perform badly, we weren't at our best and we got pipped at the post. We missed first place by 2 points. If only I'd written down Matt Willis and Crime and Punishment.......But we don't care. We are soooo happy to have come second. We had a great team and each individual brought a vast array of obscure knowledge to the team. We plan on reassembling for next year and this time we won't be beaten.....or at least we won't come last!

Well done to Head Master Mr Roger Jones for MCing the event. He did a fabulous job of making the questions very clear. Martin Stanford (of Sky News fame) who is a parent at the school, did an amazing job of setting up the multimedia. Sara, his wife showed incredible dedication in handing out and collecting answer sheets. She even took a tumble to the floor. What a trooper!

Mostly, I want to say thanks to the our team, Know Hopes! We really enjoyed our night. We discovered hidden troves of knowledge and talent. We got to know each other a bit more (Metamorphosis, Joy?). And we laughed. It was a great night for all!

Class Mum

I am Sebastian's class mum at school and share the responsibility for his class with Sandy. The other Year 1 class has another class mum, Lucinda. We help out at PTA events and typically organise a couple of coffee mornings and evenings out during the term. It is nice to catch up with the mums and have a chat about what they are up to. They are a great group of girls and we always have a fab time when we get together.

The other night a few of us met up for dinner at a restaurant in Windsor, Thai Square. This little place is a bit deceptive from the outside. It looks really small with seating for about 12 people. Then you enter and go down these stairs. A "courtyard" of gold and terracotta opens up and there are loads of tables, usually all full. The food is equally surprising. When I normally go to Thai restaurants I get the standard Pad Thai Noodles. I've been some dodgy Thai restaurants and been disappointed whenever I stray from the standard.

This restaurant has one of those menus that you could read for hours and want to order everything. I got a starter of chicken wrapped in spinach leaves which were then fried to make crispy with a side of sweet chili dipping sauce. For a main I got "Weeping Tiger" which are thin slices of marinated beef grilled and served with a spicy BBQ sauce. The meat was so tender it melted in my mouth. I also got to try the dish that Joy ordered. Not sure what this was called but it was equally divine. We enjoyed several bottles of wine and some great conversation.

We've got a busy weekend ahead of us!

New Cars (Again)

Veda, Marc's mum, bought a new car back in December after crashing hers in Southampton. She didn't like the new car very much after owning it for a while. It had a couple problems and she just went off it. Marc spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of weeks hunting down a new car for her. And this is what he's found. She came up yesterday to pick it up and will drive it home this morning.

All this new car hunting got Marc a bit motivated to rid our family of the gas guzzling adolescent attack of a car that he owned for the last couple years. The gas mileage was atrocious. It was uncomfortable to sit in (although you did look good sitting in it)! The children hated sitting in the back of the convertible with the top down. You begin to ask yourself, what's the point of having a convertible if you never put the top down? There was no place to put the dog. And no place to put groceries. This was a wholly inappropriate purchase of a family man. I think he has outgrown this as evidenced by his very reasonable purchase of the diesel estate. The boot is big enough to live in should the need ever arise.....like when he decides to buy a new car.

We now have a very grown up, very sensible, dog friendly, child friendly, holiday & IKEA friendly automobile. Ta Da!

Groucho

Tea at the Bastow's

Afternoon tea in England is a fabulous tradition. No where is it more fabulous that at the Bastow house. On Sunday we were invited round to the Bastow home for afternoon tea. Hurray, say I!

John is Marc's Uncle. He is Veda's big brother. Sebastian is incredibly fond of John mostly because he is very good at building things with legos. On Sunday, John and Sebastian constructed the most amazing garage complete with a (non working) generator on the roof. You can see how Sebastian might be particularly smitten with John.


Mary is John's wife. She is very talented at just about everything she undertakes. She is a fabulous golfer and very crafty. For Christmas she knitted clothes for Abigail's dolly. She also made beautiful quilts for both the children when they were born. Sebastian's quilt is still in pristine condition. Abigail on the other hand can't make it through the day without taking her quilt just about everywhere she goes. On Sunday, Mary took the opportunity to make some emergency repairs to the quilt. She was even patient enough to try teach Abigail how to make her own repairs. that's a good thing. Abigail will need that skill when she needs to make repairs after she has left home to go to university.

Dorothy, Mary's mum, lives just round the corner from them and she came round for tea as well. Dorothy will be celebrating her 90th birthday in April. She used to be a school teacher and is still just sharp as a tack. She gets a bit frustrated though because her hearing unfortunately, isn't as good as it used to be, and she struggles to keep up with the conversation. this is particularly difficult when 2 children are running around like crazy maniacs!



Mike, Mary's brother, lives with Dorothy so obviously, he also had a cuppa or two with us. He keeps up with all the sporting news and keeps us informed of all the latest stories from the newspapers. Few things happen in the world without Mike bringing them to our attention!

Tea was delicious! Biscuits were Divine! Thank You for the conversation!

Storytelling

My family has a rich tradition of storytelling. Not the novelist type of storytelling but the kind of storytelling that starts with a real event and then throughout the years gets told and retold so many times by so many people at so many events it evolves into something only barely resembling the actual real event. By that time, the story has been told so many times no one is entirely sure what did really happen. And does it really matter?

Worse than that we tell the same stories over and over and over and over. I watch my step-mum's eyes roll back in her head each time one of these story telling sessions begins. She has heard these stories sooooo many times she must be eternally bored with them. But not us.

There's the one about my grandfather (aka Pop) putting dynamite down the outhouse hoping it would clear the blockage at the bottom. He didn't anticipate that it would blow up and out rather than down. Nanny would tell you how the sh*t and paper hung from the trees for a 2 mile radius and no one came to visit due to the stench. Or the time family went to pick my Uncle Bob up at the airport when he was returning from war. My mother had a few too many drinks and got into the back of the station wagon and was leaning on the back window (which was rolled down). Someone complained it was a bit windy so he rolled it up with my mother's fingers trapped. I love listening to these stories no matter frequently they are told. Each person can tell the same story but somehow it becomes their own by the way they tell it.

Nanny ran over one of her sons, my Uncle Ed, when he was a boy with her car, twice. She was telling him to stop playing with the door handle or he would fall out and get run over. Well, guess what? He fell out. She ran over him. And in her moment of panic, she put the car in reverse and did it again as if to make the point. We all learned our lesson. Listen to Nanny. She can foresee the future. Of course, the story evolved into she did it intentionally (which of course she didn't).

There is a rather rude story about my sister and my cousin, Valerie, torturing my grandmother on one of their road trips from Colorado to Nebraska for the annual family reunion. I won't tell it here for fear of embarassing her but it never fails to make us bust a gut laughing when it gets told.

I miss those big family gatherings where these stories got told. We would gather around my grandmother's kitchen table and play games: Farco, Rummikub, etc. My Uncle Bob would always cheat so you had to keep an eye on him. My cousin, Chris, Bob's son, would cheat too and if Bob and Chris were playing at the same time, well, you might as well fold and take your game elsewhere. The games got loud and could go on for hours and hours. I remember first bringing my husband home and introducing him to Farco....and the stories. He thought we were all just a bit eccentric. The stories would come out and we would all end up laughing. But he too has grown to love the stories.

But we would talk as much as we played. About everything and anything. And the stories would evolve. This is where we learned about each other. We learned to look at our grandparents and parents as fallible humans rather than omniscient super humans.

I am getting older and my memory is fading. I can't remember some of the stories and it makes me sad. The annual events at Nanny's house used to remind me of all those stories and I didn't write them down. Oh, how I regret that.

What are your family stories?

If you fall off a horse......

get right back on. Well, Sebastian learned that lesson on Sunday morning. He had his very first fall. Manni was trotting and Seb must have been day dreaming because he was soon on the ground. He landed on his bottom and was not injured. He jumped right up and got right back on the pony. No fear, no tears, just stubborn determination and a keen appreciation that he must pay attention. All important lessons for life.

We went to IKEA on Saturday which is sooooo much fun. My sister loves IKEA and they don't have one in Colorado. She is sooooo jealous of me! I hate to admit it though....on Saturday we were wholly uninspired or shall I say, IKEA was uninspiring. We have a long list of desirable items but IKEA had nothing that captured our fancy. We left having bought nothing on the list. Of course, that didn't mean we left empty handed, which is even more frustrating!

Sunday we had afternoon tea at the Bastow's. I have loads of photos to share. Unfortunately, I made the leap into Windows Vista yesterday. Marc is upgrading our operating system and has not loaded all the programs I need to import photos from my camera's memory chip. As soon as that is complete I will update my post. ETA=Sometime tonight before he goes to bed!!!!!!

Look Mum: I'm a Wizard pretending to be a Chicken

Which Brings Me Home

Which brings me back home. The return trip was wholly uneventful! I knew better than to even try to carry on two bags so I smushed everything into my briefcase and put the handbag in the checked suitcase.

I'd like to introduce you to my two co-stars in this adventure: Rod (on left) and Glyn (on right). Rod and I enjoyed the food and our clumsy attempts at speaking German. Glyn enjoyed his chips (french fries) and bread rolls.

Marc and the children were waiting for me at the airport. The children ran towards me screaming "Mummy". Great big cuddles and kisses refueled me.

Hopefully now, I am all caught up on my blogging and can give it a rest. I feel like someone who has been out in the desert and has finally quenched their thirst.

European Microsoft Sharepoint Conference 2007

I've been to a lot of conferences during my professional career. I mean a lot of conferences. This was one of the worst.

I had very high hopes. I had never been to a Microsoft conference but had a great deal of hope and high expectations. maybe this is where I went wrong.

I attended the Gartner ITSymposium Expo in Cannes, France in November 2006 and this was easily one of the best (if not THE best conference I've ever attended so maybe my expectations were unfairly high). I now compare conferences to the gold standard. this was not it.

You judge for yourself:

1. The first morning of the conference started well enough. The conference venue was a bit outside of the centre of Berlin. Not necessarily a bad thing. It was just a short (20 minutes) taxi ride for us. Check-in started at 8:30 which seemed a bit late to me. Most conferences you can register for the night before to avoid the rush and get started early in the morning but this didn't matter to me since I wouldn't have made a special trip to the venue just to register. However, it should be noted that some conferences have warm-up sessions on Sunday evening so you don't just sit about in your hotel. That's OK, though. This was going to be a bit of a slower pace.


2. The welcome packet came in a paper Microsoft bag. It had a different piece of paper for each session schedule for each day and another page with a map of the venue. Not connected. Not in a little booklet. Phew, that's a lot of paper to keep track of. The other items were some very hefty catalogue and brochures. Don't know what they were because they were all in German. Wasn't this the European conference? Wasn't this supposed to be in English? Did they want me to carry these heavy items which I can do nothing with around with me? Fat Chance!


3. The delegate badges were not bar coded or have metallic strips. There was no way for Microsoft to tell which sessions I had attended. The supplier partners could not swipe my delegate badge and get my contact details. Not a good thing. Very inefficient.


4. The first session of the morning was the welcome and key note. We started 30 minutes late. And the welcome address started in German. Now we had confirmed that the conference was going to be in English and I was starting to get worried when the speaker was still speaking German after 10 minutes. He did switch to English and proudly announced that over 50 countries were attending. At this point, I couldn't help but ask myself, if that was true, why in the world did he just spend the last 10 minutes speaking to us in German? He must have made the decision about what would be in the welcome pack. By the end of the welcome and keynote sessions, I was a bit bored. Not inspired, not excited about being here. Just waiting to get on with the real stuff.


5. Every session for the rest of the day started late. I walked out of one due to boredom. I think I might have fallen asleep in another. I hope I didn't wake any of the other delegates with my snoring. Many times, people just got up and walked out.


6. Lunch was scheduled for at least 2 hours each day and on the last day we were allowed 2 1/2 hours for lunch. This seems a bit slothful to me. I like a bit of buzz and any buzz I might have gotten was quickly subdued by the 1/2 hour coffee breaks between each session. At the Gartner conference, I remember trying to pee and drink a glass of water at the same time so I wouldn't be late to the next session.


7. At the Gartner conference I had trouble picking from the vast choices of interesting sounding sessions. At the Microsoft conference, I struggled to find one for each time slot.


8. Day 2 didn't start very well. The keynote was the worst I have ever attended and half the attendees walked out. Can't even begin to tell you who was speaking and what they were speaking about. I can still tell you that the CEO of HP spoke at the opening session of the Gartner conference and the CIO of HSBC spoke at the closing day. That keynote made me want to work for HSBC and him. It made me want to change my work environment. He made me want to be better than I was. He was fabulous.


9. The keynote on the last day was cancelled altogether. Hmmmmm, this is not good!


10. The very last session that I attended on the very last day was the one that I learned the most from. it was about migrating from a Sharepoint 2003 platform to a Sharepoint 2007 platform. This is extremely relevant to me. I got some sound advice on what to do and what not to do. I can use this.


11. The supplier partner stalls all the looked the same and there was no compelling reason to step up and make an inquiry. Oh and some of the staffs displayed only in German. Wasn't this the European conference?

I picked up some little nuggets of useful information from various sessions in the conference. I got to see what Sharepoint 2007 looks like. There were some extremely knowledgeable Microsoft professionals on site who were willing to discuss at length the answers to any questions. I could have gotten the value of 10 (above) by going to the Microsoft campus in Reading, just 20 miles down the road from me.

The language thing doesn't really bother me. Although I almost wrote that if we had been in France it would have all been French but that wasn't true at the Gartner conference or a Project Management conference I attended in Paris some years ago or so.

I don't think I'll be going to another Microsoft conference anytime soon. and I don't think I'll be approving anyone who works for me to go any time soon.

Hotel Reservations....or Perhaps Not!

My colleague, Rod, very generously offered to book the hotel in Berlin for us. He had the inside on some good deals on some good hotels in Berlin. I trust Rod. So I trusted him with my hotel reservation. It also meant I didn't have to do it myself. Always a good thing.

I became a bit nervous when he announced very excitedly, that the hotel was on Freidrichstrasse. This is the famous home of Checkpoint Charlie. Last time I was in Berlin was in 1991. The Berlin Wall had fallen just a few years before (1989) and this area of Berlin certainly was a bit run down, particularly the east side. Not something to get excited about and certainly not THE place to stay. But I trust Rod.

I turned up at the hotel and was pleasantly surprised to find that this part of Berlin had been completely rejuvenated. There were shiny new buildings everywhere, including our hotel. I was very relieved and a tad bit excited to be nearing the end of the day's trials and tribulations. Ah, but not so fast.

In my best German (by now my confidence was way up), I asked for my room only to be told that my reservation had been cancelled by my company. Now this was odd indeed, since my company didn't make the reservation and had no idea where I was staying. I am a bit paranoid, however, and thought maybe this is their way of telling me where I am in the recent reorganisation: on the street. Oddly, Rod's reservation had not been cancelled. Glyn, our other travelling companion, had also had his reservation cancelled. Maybe Rod wanted to be alone. Maybe I didn't trust Rod so much after all.

Common sense prevailed and I convinced the front desk that clearly there was a mistake. Since I was standing in their lobby, the reservation should clearly not have been cancelled. Fortunately, they had a spare room (and one for Glyn).

The hotel was nice and not expensive especially considering we were in a European capital city. The restaurant wasn't all that good (and extremely over priced for what you get) so I recommend you eat at the Beer Cellar across the road. The weinerschnitzel was to die for! The Alterwasser Beir was also very good!

As a side, Tony Blair was visiting Berlin at the same time. Not at the same hotel. They probably cancelled his reservation.

Immigration Procedures

I have not yet applied for my British citizenship. I should. I have been living in the UK for almost 11 years and I am married to a Brit. But I have to take a test. And I haven't had time to study. So I travel on my American passport. Which is a pain when travelling in the European Union. I don't get to go in the fast aisle when I get to the immigration desk. I have to go in the "other" aisle.

Typically this "other" aisle has only 1 person on one desk and the queue is long. Upon arrival at the Berlin airport, I got into the "other" queue. And waited. And waited. The EU queue had emptied and only one person had been processed in my queue.

I did what any impatient foreigner would do. I switched queues. Luckily, I used to live in Dusseldorf and my German used to be pretty good. But this was a long time ago and I was nervous about remembering my vocabulary. Luckily, it all came flooding back to me. I explained to the immigration official (in German) that the other queue wasn't moving. And that my passport wasn't really expired. There was an extension stamp. And that my last name wasn't Smith anyone. There was a name change. And that on yet another page there was a permanent residence visa for the UK. Not sure how much of my German he understood but he got very tired of me butchering the language and I think he just stamped the damn thing so I would shut up.

I got my suitcase. (Silent Celebration Alert: BA did NOT lose my suitcase!!!) I unpacked my one big bag back into my two more manageable bags and set off in search of a taxi. German efficiency meant I didn't have far to go or long to wait and within moments I was hurtling at speed through the traffic on my way to Freidrichstrasse. (Warning: Germans drive fast!) Phew, I have survived. Ah, but not so quick. I still have to check in at the hotel.

PS I left my copy of Time magazine on the plane. I hadn't finished reading it. It was a old one all about the fascinating machinations of the brain. Anyone know where I can get an old copy?

Fear of Flying

I was soooo worried that British airways was going to lose my suitcase. You see British Airways has lost thousands of passenger's suitcases over the last 4 months (that's lost each day). We had a bad deep dark fog for about 4 consecutive days and they blamed the lost luggage on the fog. That has since proved to be untrue. I had momentarily toyed with the thought of not checking my suitcase but then after the whole carry on fiasco I am glad I had come to my senses and decided to take a risk on BA.

What this meant was that I had forgotten all about one very important factor:

I am afraid to fly. Not so much the flying bit but the landing and taking off bit. So I count. And breathe quickly. And squeeze the arm rest (even if a stranger's arm happens to be there). I feel very sorry for people sitting next to me. When I feel the thrust of the engines on take off, I start counting to 100. If I make it to 100 I feel safe. If I don't, well, that's never happened.....yet.

Landing is a bit different. I never know when to start counting. If I can see the ground I can sort of guess when I think is an appropriate time to start counting. If I can't see the ground, I start counting way too soon, get to 100 before we are even close to the ground, find myself bent over in crash position, crying hysterically. I squeal when we hit the ground and sit up to find the person next to me is holding their arm as it drips blood from my finger nails being driven into them.

I used to travel a lot for work before I had the job I currently have. Flying often meant that I had less and less anxiety about it. Although now I do tell myself that statistically if you fly often, it is more likely that your plane will crash. Now I just insist on sitting at the back of the plane. Statistically, I have a greater chance of surviving the crash, I delude myself.

My husband loves to fly. One of his favourite programs is Air Crash Investigations which he watches frequently. I try to make sure I am not in the room but you can't help picking up the sounds and tiny details which taken out of context makes my condition even worse!

I very rarely fly without my husband and children now. In fact, in 6 years, I have only flown twice without them. Both of those times have been in the last 4 months. Marc and I have flown lots all over the world together. He is very good at explaining to me what all the different noises are and if I should be afraid (he always says no but I'm not sure if he would tell me I should). I always want to ask at check-in if they could assign me a travel buddy who could do the same.

Flying is always the worst part of a business trip for me. Funny thing is......the flying wasn't the worst part of this last trip. Oh now, that was just the beginning (or the middle bit - or simply one more thing).

PS Airplane food sucks! It used to be bad. Then it got better. Now you get a sandwich thrown at you. You have to ask if there is a choice of sandwiches. This causes the flight attendant to scowl. There is a small chocolate biscuit with the sandwich and you get a lukewarm cup of tea after your sandwich. I just love British Airways.......

Air Travel and Luggage

You cannot fly anywhere without any luggage. Well, unless you go for just a day but I can't imagine doing that. You would have to start off way too early in the morning and travel home late at night. Or just fly a short distance. Even then you have to carry a book, or iPod, or in my case a Passport. Perhaps a camera, wallet (with cash and credit cards), oh and do not forget the good old mobile phone. Quite frankly, I am still not sure how men are coping without hand bags these days!

Ever since 9/11, the airlines and more specifically, the companies subcontracted to do airport security and who run the shops in the airports are making loads of money. Sorry, I might get blasted for this but I just don't care.

On my trip to Berlin, I turned up at the airport 2 hours before departure time. Good thing. I might have missed the flight otherwise.

I got into the queue of over 25 people. There were four other queues I could have joined. they were all longer than the queue I joined. I suddenly had a moment of panic that I was in the wrong queue and asked a BA employee if I needed to be in this queue. No, he told me. I could self-service check-in at some kiosks. I got out of the queue, relieved although slightly wary of what I was supposed to do with my luggage after I "self-serviced". I stuck my passport in the designated spot. It was rejected and I was instructed to go to a service desk. I had to rejoin the queue I had been in. Now there were 30 people. No one had actually finished at the front of the queue. 5 more people had joined.

After waiting a very long time, I got my bag checked and thought, hurrah, time to shop in duty free. Carrying my hand bag and my briefcase with my laptop in it, I set off to go through security. I was rejected. I was told that I could not carry a hand bag and a briefcase. I can have 1 piece of carry on luggage not much bigger than a postage stamp. (ALERT: That was a slight exaggeration. Actual size restrictions here.)

So what are my options here? I am not going to leave my hand bag or my briefcase here to be left behind and thrown away. Nor am I going to check either one of these items. I tried to combine them into one but that was a losing battle. And I can't put anything in my suitcase because I have just stood in a very long line for a very long time and checked the darn thing!

So off I go. I stop at the first place that looks like it might have some luggage on sale. They wanted £115 (~$230) for a small duffel bag. Somehow I don't think I can expense that. I carry on looking well aware that my time for shopping is quickly dwindling. On the verge of tears, I find a canvas bag for £15 and snap it up. I cram everything into it.

As I start to pass through the same security zone, the man is yelling something about liquids, bottled drinks and lip gloss. I reply that I don't need anything, thanks! Somehow I don't think that is exactly what he meant. But I am running out of time.

Now I am at the x-ray machine. I have to unpack the canvas bag to get the laptop out to put it through the machine. Then repack it. Then unpack to put the laptop back in. Then repack it. Was this one bag thing supposed to be saving time? Or is it just a way to get under my skin? One queue had to remove their shoes but my queue didn't. Some had to remove their coats. Some didn't. Somehow this whole security thing seemed rather random to me. To make matters worse, there were many women carrying 2 bags: 1 handbag, 1 other bag. Annoyed does not even begin to describe my feelings at this point.

By the time I have finished the security workout, I am sweating and thirsty. I race to a shop to grab a diet coke.....no time for shopping! As I go down the concourse, I pause on the moving sidewalk, open the diet coke, and start quenching my thirst. I reach the end of the moving sidewalk. There is a sign. "No unsealed drinks beyond this point." I have drank exactly 1/3 of my bottle of diet coke and I am now being instructed to throw it away. I am not the only one. A man and woman are standing in front of me, chugging their hot coffees. I drink the whole bottle of diet coke, burp really loud and chuck the bottle into the rubbish bin. They aren't even recycling!

My arm and shoulder is aching because what was nicely balance in 2 bags is now killing me in 1 bag. I have to pee because I've just chugged a whole litre of diet coke and they have already boarded most of the plane. And I'm in a middle seat at the back of the plane.

I am not in a good mood.

Back in the UK

I have returned from Berlin and am back on line. I can only hope you missed me half as much as I missed you. I have loads to tell you about but am struggling to find the time to get it all down. For now, let's just say that I couldn't believe that at a Microsoft Conference in Berlin (a European capital) I could not get my laptop to connect to do a simple post. No connection was available at the hotel and even the conference venue had insufficient bandwidth to cope with the conference delegates. Worst of all, Microsoft had not provided free kiosks with Internet access at the conference. Bad Bad Bad!!! But that is just the start of it! I have a litany of complaints!

Stay tuned for all the details.

I'm Off

Thursday we got a new sofa and chairs. We ordered them way back in November and at one point I had forgotten that we had bought them. The middle foot stool and cushion are movable so you can move it up and down on the sofa and even move it to the chair. I am sooooo relieved to get rid of that blue monstrosity. Although I am not rid of it completely. It is currently in the garage until the charity shop can pick it up. the only downside to the new sofa is that it is not a sofa bed. but I don't know anyone who liked sleeping on that sofa bed and besides we now have a guest bedroom. Any more guests and the futon will be once again called into service!

Yesterday we celebrated a friend's new job offer. He had been interviewing for quite some time but couldn't find anything he wanted. He just got a verbal offer from Apple here in the UK. We broke out the champagne and made him a cardboard iPhone. We had chili orange chicken (a new recipe) which was easy to make and tasted quite good. We got this amazing banoffee pie from this shop in Windsor called "cook". They do frozen ready made meals using only fresh ingredients. I highly recommend the puddings/desserts.

This afternoon I am going to a Microsoft Sharepoint conference in Berlin for a few days. Not sure what my blogging ability will be whilst I am there. I am hoping that the hotel will have connectivity. At the very least there should be a couple of PCs around the conference with internet connections so I should be able to sneak in a moment here and there. But be warned: If I can't post for the next few days just pretend you are at my sister's site. She doesn't update for days on end!

In the meantime, everyone say a little prayer for Marc who will be left home alone with the two tornadoes, I mean darlings. To make matters even worse, it is half-term so they aren't in school next week. Once again, I say "Thank Heavens for child minders!"

Global Warming

It scares the living daylights out of me. I find the whole idea that we've ruined the planet for our grandchildren incredibly frightening. Unless, of course, I don't have any grandchildren. Both of my children could grow up and decide that children strips you of your identity, money, and free time. So they don't have any of their own. But this is the subject of another post I fear.

I confess. I am one of those. I drive to work. I do live close to my office (about 4 miles) so I'm not one of those people travelling over 60 miles to get to and back from work five days/week. I could take the bus, if only it went anywhere near my office. I could ride my bicycle to the office but honestly how practical is it for a woman to bring all of her work clothes (including hair and makeup supplies) to work in her backpack along with her laptop and briefcase? Not very I say. I can hardly fit the stuff I carry back and forth in the boot of my car. Luckily I do work for home 1 day/week so there's my bit done, right?

Also, there's the school run. I work flexible hours so I can pick up my son at school. On my way home I pick him up. Except 1 day/week I take my daughter to ballet. My childminder drops of Abigail since she is already out and about doing her school runs. So we combine trips. not bad, eh?

I run the tumble dryer probably < 6 times/week in the winter and hardly ever in the summer. Not bad, I say, for a family of 4.

I run the dishwasher just once/day.

Lights are off in the house in the rooms unless we are in them. Even in the lounge we only turn one overhead light on unless I am doing my quilting. We have a number of energy saving lightbulbs in the house where I can cope with the blue light they give off.

We keep the house cool unless I light a fire in the fireplace but that is a carbon neutral heating source, right?

OK, I keep the computer and TV on standby which I probably shouldn't do. But that might be our only energy extravagance. And now I feel so guilty just admitting that to my devoted blog audience that I will stop doing that at once.

We recycle. We compost. We grow (to the best of our abilities) our own vegetables.

And still the planet melts. What are you doing to stop the melting? What more can I do?

Dispatches from the Edge by Andersen Cooper

At the urging of my sister I have just finished Dispatches from the Edge. She was deeply moved by the book. Read her Review

I had picked the book up a while back on our last visit to the states and hadn't quite gotten round to reading it. I must confess it was towards the bottom of the pile. I mean honestly, what possessed me to buy a book written by the spoilt little rich son of Gloria Vanderbilt? But I trust my sister. I really trust her book recommendations .

The book moved me but not in the same way that it did Stephanie. For me it was more thought provoking causing me to reflect on how my life has forked from my family and my country. I haven't lived in the USA for years and years. People ask me questions and I have to say I don't know. It has changed so much over the last 15 years. And the book brought home the cold hard reality of how much the media influences what we know and don't know.

I was deeply disturbed by the events of the 2005 tsunami which was widely covered here on television news. It is a big tourist destination from this part of the world. We had even momentarily toyed with the idea of going that New Year's Eve.

I was less disturbed by the events of Hurricane Katrina. Not because it was any less tragic. But because I just didn't see the huge media coverage. After reading Dispatches I realised what a huge failure this was. On every level.

Anderson writes in a matter of fact style but you can see him mature as a human being and a reporter as his perception and perspective changes with each different war, genocide, ethnic cleansing, natural disaster.

I'm glad I read it and recommend it to anyone. But be warned, it is sad. Good one, Steph.

Snow

It snowed in at our house last night and during most of the morning. We still have snow on the ground. I was tempted to keep the children home from school and play in the snow. We didn't.

Bailey didn't know what to think.

We are hoping for more snow overnight. Bring it on!

Poetry in Nicknames or vice versa

A few days ago I blogged about nicknames. Nicknames

My third cousin twice removed by marriage (or something like that....I'm related to her anyway) is a talented writer and poet. She took the time to translate my meandering prose into a great poem.

Check it out here.

In Memory

Joyce Elaine (Carson) Smith

October 3 1921-February 7 2005

The Source of All Wisdom

Two years ago today my Nanny, my father's mother, passed away. Her name was Joyce Elaine (Carson) Smith.

I've written about her in previous posts and if you know me at all, you will know that she was a very influential person in my life. When I was at university, I lived with her. She beamce a friend in addition to being my grandmother. She cooked dinner for me and my friends and was always in my life. She helped guide me through the rocky waters of growing up and gave me the benefit of her wisdom. It was not always what I wanted to hear but always what I needed. She encouraged me to work hard at school and my career. She praised my little successes. She held my hand through my disappointments. She never judged me and encouraged me to find my own bliss.

She was an generous woman who worked right up until the last month of her life as a carer for others. Others who were younger but less strong. There was always the meal you were craving in her fridge and she wouldn't hesitate to fix it for you. After my grandfather died she never remarried, never even looked at another man. She hated Saturday nights because she said these were the loneliest. She played pinochle and I regret not having her teach me this skill. She taught me loads of other stuff though and nearly all of my cooking skills are thanks to her. She made the best rhubarb pie in the world and was never afraid to surprise her family with new culinary adventures which tended to become family favourites.

She travelled extensively and we were quite surprised to learn during a family road trip that she had travelled to more countries than any one else in the family (including me) and nearly all of the 50 states.

She learned how to work a computer and stayed in touch via email, webcam and we had even set up a Skype account for her (which regrettably we never got to use).

Having grown up during the great depression, she saved everything. But then again if you asked her for something she usually had it.....and she could find it. She was amazingly organised!

She wore a bright blue dress on her wedding day she told me the year before she died. I was "interviewing" her just trying to capture some of the details of her life. She had trouble remembering things. But her eyes lit up when I asked her about her wedding. She told me she got married in the morning. Apparently, it was bad manners to get married in the afternoon because people had chores to do on the farm and you couldn't waste a whole day at a wedding!

She was due to visit me the week after she died. She had called a few days before this and said she thought she would probably have to postpone her trip. We got busy talking about the next best time and agreed September would be best and that she needed to concentrate on getting better (like she had done every time before).

When my father called to tell me she had passed on, my world tipped off its axis and I stuggled to breath. The next 2 days (whilst we sorted out flights) were some of the hardest days of my life. I was so far away from the family I needed to grab a hold of. The flight to Colorado seemed never to end . The grief would just sweep over me like a dark night with no stars or moon. There was no controlling the tears flowing from my eyes, down my cheeks, on to my neck, wetting my shirt.

My sister and I wrote a eulogy which we read at her funeral and I still read it when I want to feel close to Nanny. It is undoubtably the best thing my sister and I have ever done.

Nanny held our family together. Every Christmas Eve she held a big party for everyone and the family would gather. That tradition has died with her sadly and it breaks my heart.

I miss Nanny every day. She is still on my telephone speed dial and listed on my Christmas card, webcam and skype list. She is still in my telephone book (like I could ever forget her telephone number!) Her birthday is still in my birthday card file and diary. I come across problems and think to myself I need to call Nanny and ask her opinion. Now I call someone else.

I would not be the person I am today if she had not been in my life. I am sad that my children will not know her and that more people in the world didn't know her faith, enthusiasm and kindness. The best I can do is as she taught me.