15

Mini-me turned 15 today. I don't know how he did it but I congratulated him on turning into this enormous creature that I could hold in one arm not so long back. And now he has left me for another week of adventure. This time north Wales at Blue Perris.

It seems the boy is an artist.

Stellen-bish-bash-bosch

Using my trusty Pinotage wheel (ok, so this is the first time I've used it)www.wynboer.co.za/imagesart/aroma_e.html I have decided that this South African, Beters Truter 2005 Stellenbosch is plum or perhaps red cherry - I'm doing this in real time folks...and now I'm going to turn over the bottle and see how it is described....BLACKBERRY!

Well, I tell ye, given that it's GRAPES first and foremost, I don't think that's a bad stab at getting it right.

Anyway, I think it is the most unusual tasting grape I've had so far. This is a straight Pinotage without any other grapes and compared with other wines it is very ... savoury and full bodied. Rich and substantial. Very good.

Rats & Rakings

As I was clearing a load of bricks and rubbish from my garden this afternoon a large rat ran down length of the garden and climbed the trellis on the wall before kicking off and presumably spread-eagle parachuting into the neighbouring garden. I didn't scream and managed to keep rooting through the bricks without having to run in, stand on a chair and breathe into a paper bag.

I was preparing a space for my new 'composter'. It's terrifically exciting. I have spurned current trends and have bought a plastic bin instead of a soho composter. (no such thing exists, I just mean something for 20 x the price of my plastic bin that does the same thing) I took an old BBQ fork, heated it on the gas and made breathing holes in the base and lower half. Hey presto, a composter with a lid. Ten quid - although in fact I didn't even pay because my Dad bought it for me! It's already got a heap of stuff in it and I feel strangely at one with the planet. Excluding rodents.

hi-de-hi

Sunday afternoon I decided that as I had another couple of days off there was nothing stopping me from booking myself in at a campsite for a couple of nights. I planned to stop half way to my parents and back either side of a visit there on Easter Monday. It is now Easter Monday and I'm back home. EGADS!

So yesterday afternoon I went and set up camp at a site about 1/3 of the way over to my parents house. My tent is ace, the sun was shining and the promise of sleeping out with my hound made me a very happy girl.

Until

I tried to get to sleep. It was very cold and Monty wanted to lie on my bed with me...which wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't have been on a campbed that's about as wide and as forgiving as a bean pole.

Add to that the fact that over and above the bird song and general happy outdoor noises, the A14 thundered past at very close proximity. I felt like I was on the hard shoulder. But it's going to get less busy as the night draws on isn't it?

After lying awake for a long time, Monty decided he wanted to go outside for a bit. No problem. He is on an extended lead that I hook round my foot so that he has a decent circle to trot around before he comes back in.

However

this field had rabbits and Monty loves rabbits. He loves them so much he wants to run after every single one just to be friends. He does this at considerable speed. So just as I'm dropping off to sleep he shoots off after the aforementioned bunny, hooking the lead over the top of the tent as he goes. As the lead tightens it pulls down on both my collapsable tent and ankle causing me to go from sound asleep to having my leg torn out of bed, wrenched through the open door and the tent simultaneously collapsing on my head. This happened more than once.

I continued to persevere. I put on jeans and another 2 pairs of t-shirts and waited for the traffic to ease on the A14.

It didn't.

By 4:15 I was seriously toying with the idea of packing up and doing a runner. But this kumquat is made of tougher stuff! 15 minutes more of tougher stuff to be precise. By half four I was legging it to and from the car to chuck in all my stuff and get the blazes out of there. Even if my parents were still in bed when I arrived and Norfolk was covered in snow then at least the madness inducing roar of traffic would have stopped and I could be cold in quiet.

They were up and about and I went straight to bed when I arrived!

HEY BORROWER!!

...& all other Bedford friends who don't have such

eye-catching monikers.

Anyone interested? I'm going.

My church have organised it.

Just bands and a bar - no Bible bashing this evening!

Baklava

oh my goodness

why must i share?

General Pintoage...everyone's favourite dictator.

My blog has been visited by someone who really knows about wine and doesn't just pretend - like I do!

So PM, welcome :) How did you find me?

This is the Pinochet that beat me into servitude.

I know next to nothing about wine, truth be told but at the beginning of 2007 I decided to hone my wine skills beyond "Of course, I like it, it's red" so I started a wine journal, as modelled by the lovely Moleskine notebook here. I rate my drinking experience from Low 1 through to High 3. This Pinotage got a high 1 which is very good. Only my favourite Chianti regularly scores higher than that! (Tonight I'm drinking a low 3 and I don't know if I'll bother to finish the glass)

I write up a short review of the wine after drinking such as 'Actually perfect. Dark and meaty with hardly any bitterness...' and 'Really bad. Had one sip and had to throw the glass out.' Then being the geek that I am, I enter each wine at the back so I have a page for each rating and can see what types of wine keep coming up higher than the others. Oh, and I have a final page of countries where I tally off the bottles to make sure I'm drinking from all over the world and not just going back to favourite places all the time.

PM, please add whatever comments you like here - anything you can teach me about wine is great.

No-one needs to tell me what to do with this glass I'm on now though. It has a bouquet of urea.

Stuck in

The new job is bonkers busy. A couple of the girls had a leaving do this evening so I had 2.5 hours to kill between the end of work and the meal. So I stayed at work. Even working all that extra time I only got a fraction of the work done that needs doing. Even so, for some reason I am LOVING it. I have quite a few days off over Easter so hopefully I'll get some rest then before launching back in.

The rooster and penguin are pics I took a couple of years ago at the zoo but I still think are worth showing.
In other news; I am getting almost zero reading time and I'm still on Amaniti's 2nd novel, 'Steal you Away.' Seems ok but not as good as his first, 'I'm not Scared.'
I have decided that Pinotage is a good grape and that you can judge a wine by it's label!

hipporaphs & kangerillas!

'In with the lemurs' at Whipsnade Zoo wasn't exactly what we expected but this level of meditation can't be interupted with a cuddle!
However....end of the day and the zookeeper out of sight...!

Baby elephant - 10 weeks old!

See that pile of leaves? The one with the eyes...

brum

A very pleasant stay in Birmingham.

Particularly pleased with the four poster bed and three course meal.

Town Mouse in the Grotte de Glace.

The organ at Notre Dame des Neiges. A symbol that started an interesting discussion.

oh yeah, that.

Suppose I should blog about the new job...whilst interspersing my account with pictures of what is really on my mind.

(vin chaud)

So I'm now a manager and as such, probably a proper grown up but I'm still not convinced. I have my own branch which is tres cool and 3 days into the job I'm still enjoying it!

It's a cute little shop with about 2.3 members of staff there at any one time and occassionally less but it has a fun atmosphere and lots of things for me to get my teeth into.

First day at the new branch was stock take day. Deep joy!

The results came in today with a surprising **company sensitive information ** of stock and an encouraging **company sensitive information** in stock level. So I'm sure that puts you in the picture.

try not to hate me

but this holiday rocked out!

At the bottom of Chemin du patre.
La Sarenne.

At the bottom of Signal de l'Homme.

Another of my favourite snaps. Me having a quick rest on the Sarenne run - longest black in europe. Watch this space for more!

nous sommes de retour

One of the best for starters.

4 days...

...until this

" The domain covers an area of 10,000 hectares which includes 248 km of linked pistes extending over an altitude range of 2,230m. The top station, Pic Blanc ( 3330m ) offers breathtaking views of the Alps including Mont Blanc, Mont Cervin and the Meije and on a clear day a fifth of France can be seen from this point.
The Alpe d'Huez slogan is L'ile au Soleil or Island of the Sun and this reputation is well deserved with almost all slopes south facing. The national meteorological office further confirms this with average figures of 300 sunshine days a year consisting of up to 7 1/2 per day in December and 11 per day in April. "

My Hero

TONY HARRISON is going to be reading in Cambridge to coincide with a newly released collection of his poems. I am beside myself with excitement. AND what's more, a rep promised me a finished copy today. You can keep your celebs and sports stars, TH rocks my world.

ecriture

Today I bought some splendid 'Fold and Mail Stationery'.

I am already the proud owner of Emily Fold and Mail

Something I have only ever seen at 311.

Pick your design and I will write you a hippy trippy peaceful message or a downright grouchy letter with attitude.

Kasper

The Enigma of Kasper Hauser.

Werner Herzog.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,,96504,00.html

A most extraordinary film I watched last night. Real brain food about socialisation and a host of moral questions.