Holiday Toes

Bright and colourful for holidays! 'Nuff said!

Flower Power

I've had my toes done again - this time all spring flowery!!!!

Can't wait until I can break out my open toed heels for work. Still a bit chilly for that at the moment tho!

Zebra Toes

Carrying on the animal print theme, I went and had Zebra print put on my toes last night...

 

Cool!

Hypnotic little website(s)

I know it's more of a 'Dan Style' blog entry to write about a cool thing on the web - but this is a very hypnotic little web page. I think it must be the computery equivalent of popping bubble wrap!

Trace - Thomas Petersen

Now, that's just reminded me of a lovely web page where you tried to get dancing stick men to dance in time with each other.

Dancing Stick Men

 

(You need Adobe Shockwave to play this - you can get it from here)

Oh, and talking of the calming nature of bubble wrap...here's the online version!

Virtual Bubble wrap

Chillax man!

Leopard Toes

A few weeks ago I blogged about a new nail treatment I'd discovered - Minx nails and I also posted a pic with my new jazzy toes.

Well I've been back - and this time I've come over all "animal"!

 

Aren't they fab???!!!!

  

 

About the trains

This post follows on from a previous one - click here if you want to read it first!

Eithne and I were on the train, sat in a 1st class compartment, awaiting our cooked breakfast. We were on a day out which had been bought for me by the lovely Dan, for my Xmas present.

I'm a closet trainspotter. Well, let me qualify that. I've never sat on the end of a platform waiting for trains to go past, and I don't have a dogeared notebook with a list of engine numbers, BUT, I do LOVE steam trains. I remember going on a school trip back in the 1970s and seeing the Flying Scotsman (I think it may have been at the York Railway Museum but I'm not sure) I fell in love with the shiny brass fittings and the green livery! It looked like my Hornby train set, on steroids!

The journey we were on today was a special excursion from the Tyseley Locomotive Works in Birmingham, to the Didcot Railway Museum in Didcot. The train was pulled by 2 vintage engines...

4965 Rood Ashton Hall 

and

5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe

Both trains were attached at the front of our 1st class carriages - the Rood Ashton Hall at the front, and then Earl of Mount Edgcumbe behind it. Each had a coal wagon behind. It's not the best pic (some trainspotter interference!) but you can see the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe behind the coal wagon with Rood Ashton Hall in front.
 

The top two pics were taken after the 2 engines were unhooked and then brought into the Didcot rail Museum sidings to have their mid journey maintenance done. The bottom pic was just after we arrived at Didcot, whilst they were still attached to the train.

After we arrived in Didcot, and took a few photies of the train, we then went over into the Railway Museum to have a look at the other engines over there.

Our day trip continues here.

 

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (well just the Trains, actually)

Eithne and I got out of the car in the car park of the Tyseley Locomotive Works in Birmingham. It was 7:45am on Saturday morning. We looked around.

I'd not seen so much brown corduroy since the 1970's...

What on earth was going on? Why were these anoracked individuals huddled together in the corner of a car park, early on a Saturday morning?

Actually it was my Christmas Present!!! Dan bought me a luxury trip on a vintage steam train and this was the beginning of the journey!

We were called to board the train almost immediately, and got ourselves settled in to our 1st class seats.


The carriages were all restored and the first class ones dated from the 40s and 50s. They were lovely!

The steward came around with the Menu - it was going to be a great day!!!

Next installment here...!

 

MTV's response to the controvosy after Jersey Shore (I think!)

Lots of swearing!!!!

 

Brother Dan

Dan was cold and so I wrapped him in my Snug-Rug blanket and took a pic - it looks like he's joined the Franciscans.

 

 Amen to that!

 

 

Guilty Pleasures and Guidos

We've confessed before, in several posts on this blog about the fact that we quite like some trashy TV shows which allow us to switch our thought processes off when we've been at work with brains at full tilt, so it's probably only right we tell you about our new Guilty Pleasure.

There's a new show appeared in recent weeks on MTV called 'Jersey Shore'. It's a reality program about a group of 20 somethings who are put in a house (at the Jersey Shore) together and are filmed.

Photo Courtesy of MTV

"Nothing new there", I hear you say.

The house isn't shut off from the world, like Big Brother. The TV producers don't organise them or give them tasks. In fact, they all have to work whilst they're there. It's just normal life.

So, what is so compelling about the car crash TV that this has turned out to be?

Well, these youngsters self-identify as belonging to the group called 'Guidos'.

A "Guido" according to Wikipedia, is a pejorative term for a "working class Italian-American".

However, in an interesting example of linguistic reappropriation, where the insulted group reclaim the word for their own use, these people wear their Guidohood with pride.

Italian pride.

With gelled hair, fake tans and loads of gold chains.

And that's just the guys.

I kid you not.

It's kind of like the worst of the 2 cultures, smashed together, and it makes compelling watching.

First, there's the fashion sense.

I always like Italian men for being well groomed and looking good. The guido culture takes it one step too far - the guys are primped to the point of ridiculousness - daily gym sessions, tanning salons, waxing, not a hair out of place.

You'd think this was a good thing, right?

But like any subculture, certain looks are 'in' and that tends to mean they all look the same - check out these online images for guidos!

Guido girls, known as Guidettes, are no better. Fake tan, gold and loads of makeup. Usually fake boobs too, and lots of their body parts hanging out!

Then there's the egos. The guys & gals have typical HUGE Italian egos. It comes from being part of Italian families who worship you & tell you how wonderful you are, all the time.

I should know!

In Italy, this seems to work fine though, as the rest of the culture (respect for your elders and a sense of community) keeps the egos at bay. However, set that against a backdrop of American culture of excess and instant gratification, and somehow it spills over into aggression and means that the guidos & guidettes are permanently getting into fights and arguments with everyone around them.

We spend the whole show with our jaws open in shock at the things they say, do, and how they dress. And the fact that they seem proud to be who they are.

Like I said; Guilty Pleasure!

Guido Links

The Jersey Shore phenomenon has spawned a whole load of interest in the Guido subculture...

Do you know what your Guido names are? Our guido names are Connie Mortadella & Danny Salami.Take The Jersey Shore Nickname Generator today! Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.
 
TV.com interview Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino - the guy on the far left in the cast pic above
 
 A funny sketch with little kids playing the characters from the Jersey Shore

Neigh

We have some bizarre people out there in the world. I read this article and thought WHY ?

It's c..c..c..cold out there!

I've just been out in the lean-to to get a bottle of wine. We use it as an enormous fridge in the winter as it's not heated and so tends to be close to the outside temperature.

The bottle was really really cold.

Because it's the sort of thing I do, I wondered how cold the wine actually was.

So, I measured the temperature of the wine in the bottle using my milk thermometer (the gadget that I use for making sure the milk doesn't boil when making my morning cappuccino). It's an American model so counts in Fahrenheit, (see photo) but nevertheless I was quite impressed to see the gauge read at 38 degrees F. That's about 3.3 degrees C. (Note, photo taken after the wine, thermometer and I had been sitting in the superheated lounge for about an hour!)

3.3 degrees is pretty cold on any scale, especially given that the wine was kept (a) indoors and (b) not in the fridge!

I then thought I'd check out what water kept at room temperature in the kitchen measured. (Nothing scientific here, it was just because I spotted a glass of water on the side which had been there all day!)

It measured 50 degrees F which is 10 degrees C. Brrrr. That's cold for room temp in our kitchen isn't it? My excuse is that we'd only just come in from work and the heating hadn't been on long!

Finally I thought, I wonder what the temperature is of the wine in the fridge? This is where the experiment was *really* headed.

I watched the needle go down, down, down, and then stop at 41 degrees F which is 5 degrees C.
 
1.3 degrees warmer than the wine out in the lean-to!

Amazing!

 

What's on top of the tree?

Grace and Harry spotted this lovely pengy just as we walked in to Tong Garden Centre yesterday to get our tree. They know about my pengy passion and so they headed straight for the little scene of polar creatures set up just by the entrance - there were fluffy polar bears, penguins, and various other creatures placed unnaturally together in the same environment, but in the name of Christmas festivities, we'll forgive their Zoological faux pas!

Anyway, when it came to putting the star or angel on the top of the tree - Harry suggested that we put the pengy on top of the tree.

I loved the idea!

In fact - I remember that there's a type of penguin called a 'Fairy Penguin' so it seemed very appropriate to be the fairy on top of the Christmas tree! 

OK so I know *this* one isn't a Fairy Penguin - looks like a King or Emperor - but hey ho with the semantics. 


I've got a fairy penguin on top of the tree!!

Celia Imrie, eat your heart out...

Friday dawned bright and breezy - and so after a coffee to shake off the fog formed due to the lateness of my arrival, we were ready quite early to head out locally into town. With nothing specific on the agenda today, there was no pressure to do anything so we just wafted around Ealing looking at the shops and making a few small purchases.

We decided we needed something to eat and Janey's fave bar/pub is a nice spot on the corner of Ealing Common called 'The Grange'. It was fabby...and we had a couple of their shared starter plates and some glasses of wine.

As we'd been wandering round Ealing, we had been into a lovely cookware shop and bought some Christmas themed wine glass identifiers - silly shapes which stick to your glass so you can see which one is yours at a party. The (rather super) salesgirl in the shop came over as we were looking at them and said "See the Christmas Tree? His name is Norman" - it's true - see the picture.

How could we leave them in the shop after knowing that?

They were really cute! We got them out in the pub and put 6 on one glass and 6 on the other. They looked so funny we then decided to take a picture of them.


I held up my phone and looked thru the lens to get the picture right. Janey was sat behind. As soon as I saw what was framed in the viewer, I started to giggle. Memories of "Calendar Girls" and of Celia Imrie holding up her iced buns!!!

What do you think?

I could hardly hold the camera up for laughing!!! In fact, I think you *may* be able to detect a teeny bit of camera shake!

Janey didn't know why I was sitting there hyperventilating into the table, so I just said, take a picture of me - and handed her the camera.

Her shoulders started to shake in that 'laughing so hard you make no noise' kind of way.

I felt really sorry for the people sitting near us as we sat there for about 10 minutes squeaking and squealing, trying not to laugh, but because all we could see of each other was a view with wine glass boobs, every time we looked across, we cracked up again! And this was BEFORE the 1st sip!

Totally brilliant!

I think I may have needed another glass!!!!!!

Oooops!

We were making our tea last night and just as I was squeezing the tube of tomato pure (very hard) into the pan - it squirted out at an angle - all down the front of Dan's trousers! Ooooops!

He wouldn't let me take a photo for the blog tho. Booooo.

So here is a picture of my lovely coffee from this morning.



The double skin glass mugs are really cool, act like a thermos flask, and only cost about £4 from Sainsbury's!

Son of Cedric - "Spiros"

Cedric's love child is living outside the lounge window.


He's called "Spiros" and Dan has been catching flies and putting them on his web for his tea.

Yum.

Flying High

It's a bit of a pity but Dan didn't get any pics from the air when he went gliding at York Gliding Club 2 weeks ago. I took a couple just when we arrived - looking out at the gliders on the airfield.

Dan took the camera up in the plane...but then forgot to use it. Another guy who'd done it all before, took a vid and has put it up on YouTube.





Pretty cool huh?

A big poo

I came out of work yester- -day and this
was on my window.

Two of the biggest bird(?) poohs I've ever seen, on the driver's side.

There had been some very very heavy rain in the early afternoon which would definitely have washed this off - so it must have happened afterwards.

I'm thinking maybe this was an eagle or possibly an incontinent pterodactyl.

A Ghostly Encounter

So, we were sat in the Gardener's Arms the other night. We're not 'regulars' as such; we probably go in once a month, but nevertheless, we're getting to know the, staff and landlord, and on quieter nights, they will sit and chat with us.

So, it was quite quiet the other night. I was sitting at the end of a table, furthest away from the bar. Dan was at the side of the table. The landlord was playing darts with a couple of guys at the far end of the room. There was a couple of guys chatting at another table, and the barmaid was chatting to us, leaning over the bar.

We were just chatting away when a stool which was at the far end of our table just tipped over. There was a huge thump as everyone looked towards us. Dan leaned forward to pick it up.

"Did you knock it over" I asked.

"No!" He was most put out at the thought he might have done it. "My feet were under the table" he said, wiggling his feet under the table to prove it.

"It's the ghost" said the landlord.

"What? It's haunted in here?" I said. It was peculiar that, now I think of it, I'd been getting quite cold sat there the previous few minutes (I'd even untied the silk scarf I keep tied around my bag strap and draped it round my shoulders)

The guys in the bar were adamant. They said that there was definitely something there. Strange things happened in that bar. The landlord's dog would go beserk at nothing, Beermats and glasses would go flying - and there'd be noone in the bar at all!

So anyway, that's our 1st real ghostly experience!

The Fire

After cutting up half the garden the other day, we decided that the best way to get rid of the garden waste was to burn it.

Pics of the fire are up on Picassa ...HERE!

All the scraps you can see on the patio (and no I'm not talking about Dan!) were burned. All that's left is the bin full of ashes. Great and better than taking it down to the tip which is fraught with traumas!