Stripper

Last week the Pirate and I were given a load of second-hand furniture by the parents of some friends of ours. They are moving and downsizing from a 5K square foot house to a 2.2K square foot mansion flat. So, naturally, some furniture had to go. For the £130 we spent on van rental we made out like bandits.

We are now the proud owners of a 7 foot-long sofa, 2 chests of drawers and matching beside tables from Habitat and accompanying mirror, 4 teak folding patio chairs, and two solid wood bedside tables.

It's these latter bedside tables which are of interest. They were in the shed in the garden (the shed in this case being larger than our dining room) and we were told, "Oh you don't want those; they're awful and full of mold and woodworm. We're going to burn them." They were painted white and while plain and in need of some TLC, were discovered to be rather sturdily built.

"Oh please let us have them!" we begged. Since they were marked for the woodpile we were told we welcome to them, but it was implied we were more than a little silly for wanting them.

We got them home and went to work on them. It's amazing what you can do with a can of Nitromors, a pair of neoprene gloves, and a week of Olympic TV coverage.

I should have the last bits of the decorative molding I'm adding on this afternoon, and then i'll put the pics up. I think you'll agree: I've got a new carreer cut out as a stripper.

Dances with Worms

I saw the most amazing thing yesterday. It was a seagull.

No, that in itself is not amazing. I moved away from Bristol to escape the fucking seagulls. (Don't tell Pirate; I'm just using him for his low-seagull lifestyle.)

The amazing bit is what the seagull was doing. It was dancing.



Pirate explained that it was creating vibrations in the ground which the worms perceive as rain, which inspires them to come to the surface. (You wouldn't think this would be necessary in a country where it rains every fucking day anyway, but there you go.)

I love this. I love this on several levels.
1. It's cute. No doubt about it. Seagulls suck. Dancing seagulls are cute.
2. It's seagulls doing what seagulls were meant to do, ie, act like birds. In nature. Not tear apart my garbage bags and squawk and shit all over me.
3. It's industrious. They're earning their lunch. I'm down with that.

But mostly, I love it because I love the idea of a universe where you can do a little dance and you lunch magically appears at your feet. How brilliant is that!!! I want to live in that universe! I want to, whenever I'm hungry, do a little dance, and look down, and *poof!* LUNCH!

*sings* Do a little dance... Make a little worm... Get lunch tonight! Get lunch tonight!

Now every night when I fix dinner I make Pirate stand in front of the serving hatch and do a little dance. Then I give him his dinner.

Sleeping the Plank

The plywood did the trick.

I went down to the lumber yard (1/2 mile walk), picked out a sheet of plywood, got them to trim it to the right dimensions for me and deliver it that afternoon. Whacked it on the bed with the help of the Pirate when he got home from swashbuckling, and lo! A (mostly) firm bed!

It's still a bit spongy, but eliminating the give from the box spring has done a lot to firm it up. The big change is that now I can turn over at night, which I couldn't before. That helps a LOT.

So this will get us through at least until the New Year. Pirate has finally been persuaded that we need a new bed anyway, if only to upgrade in size. After I spent three nights on the floor* and he had room to stretch out, I climbed back in and he declared the bed too small.**




*In my nest. I slept on my camping bedroll between the bed and the wall, a space about 2 feet wide and 8 feet long. I had 3 pillows (two for under my head and one for hugging***) and burried myself under 2 down duvets (one of which was king size and folded in half). It was a proper little nest. I quite enjoyed it.

** Which I told him when we registered for the duvet on the wedding list. I insisted on getting a king size because I knew we'd need a king-sized**** bed as soon as we could afford it. He scoffed. Ha!

*** this is critical

**** A king size bed in the UK is equivalent to a queen size in the USA*****

***** I'm trying to beat GSE for the Most Footnotes In The Footnotes Prize

Short Human

One of my teammates just announced she's pregnant, so I had this printed up for her at the T-shirt place up the road.
Well what the hell else do you get a knocked-up rower??? (Someone better get me one of these when I start spawning, that's all I'm saying.)

Fringe Bingo

After last year's storming success, Pirate and I decided to go back to the Fringe this year. It's not a cheap 3 days, but is seriously good fun. There is loads to see, but inevitably there are dead spots during the evening when you are between shows, have already eaten dinner, and need to kill an hour when the museums and galleries are closed. This is where the real Fringe entertainment happens.

The Edinburgh Fringe is, no doubt, one of the best places for people-watching on the planet outside of NYC. There is some serious variety, and some proper weirdos.

But Pirate and I, being competitive by nature, found a way to make people-watching a contest. Enter Fringe Bingo, stage left. Plonk yourselves outside a pub or cafe' on the Royal Mile, pull out your FB cards, and go to town. I have provided a sample card below. (Obviously if you are going to play you need to print out 2 copies, but cut one up and rearrange the squares to make the second copy.)


From the Fringe veterans I would love to hear your suggestions for adding to the card for next year.

Most refreshing cocktail ever conceived

I'm drinking this as I type, and it's lush as Eden. Goes down a little too easily, to be frank.

In a pint glass add:
juice of 1 sweet, ripe grapefuit
several splashes of gin
top up with tonic water.
Drink like it's goin' outta style.


Now it needs a name! Suggestions in the usual place.

The next time you're making squash soup

or pumpkin soup or soup of that ilk, lob a generous splash of scotch in it, along with a dash of either ginger or cinnamon. Something about the smokiness of the scotch and the sweetness of the squash just works. Oh man does it work! Bubble it for a few minutes until the alcohol cooks off, and serve it with a squirt of cream.

Do it. Do it now.

Detailed instructions:

Ingredients:

1 large butternut squash/sugar pumpkin/other orange cucurbita
4 Tbs olive oil
cracked pepper
2-3 cups chicken stock or 2 oxo chicken bullion cubes
1/2 tsp cinnamon OR 1/2 tsp ginger (if you want to use both, make a fucking pumpkin pie)
1/4 cup good scotch (if you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it you Philistine)*
single cream or half-and-half to taste

What to do:

• Cut the cucurbita in half, scoop out the seeds, cover cut side with oil, sprinkle with cracked pepper, and put face down on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350 F (175 C) until the skin is brown, shiny, and bubbling off the flesh.
• Remove from oven, allow to cool, and scoop out flesh. Discard skin.
• Whiz flesh through a blender with the chicken stock (this will probably take you 2 batches, depending on the corpulence of your chosen cucurbita). The texture should be nice and smooth, but a little thicker than you would want your soup to be. You still have the whisky and cream to add, remember.
• Pour in saucepan, add spice and whiskey. Bubble for a few minutes until alcohol is cooked off. Or not.
• Ladel out a bowl, add a splash of cream,** swirl it with your spoon so it looks like a photo in a cookbook, and eat it. You will like it. It is good.

If you really want to show off to your friends at a dinner party, toast the pumpkin seeds after you've removed them and save them for garish, sprinkling them on the surface of the soup right before you serve it. Your friends will hate you.




*my feeble attempt at imitating First Nation's delightful abusive cooking instruction

** Don't add the cream until you are ready to serve it. Leftovers keep much better in the fridge or freezer if you haven't added the cream yet.

Tasty snack (and so simple even Ziggy could do it)

5 ingredients (6 if you count the oil as an ingredient, which i never do):

2 Tbs olive oil
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 can chopped tomatoes
dozen or so fresh basil leaves, coarsely chopped
2 big handfuls baby spinach
1 egg

• Heat oil in shallow pan
• Add garlic, sizzle 1 minute
• Add tomatoes, basil, simmer on med-high until tomatoes are thick and much water is gone (about 5 mins)
• Add spinach, stir until all spinach is wilted.
• Dump into serving bowl
• Add 1 more Tbs oil to pan, heat, and add egg.
• Fry egg (I like my yolks runny.)
• Slide egg on to spinach/tomato stuff in bowl.
• Eat (remember to blow first, it's hot.)

So there I was thinking, If eggs and spinach go well together, and eggs and tomato go well together, and spinach and tomato go well together, how bad can this be???

Answer: not at all. In fact, it's awesome. The vitamin C in the tomato helps your body to get the most out of the egg, the egg is full of protein and vitamin E, the spinach is full of iron, and the oil and garlic are both good for your heart. This is the most nutritious thing you will ever eat! And if you want to make it a full meal, dump it over some pasta and *boom* Robert's your father's brother.

You're welcome.