An Ode to the Humble Tomato

Tomato, tomato, why do you tempt me so?

Tomato, tomato, I love you, don't you know

Tomato, tomato, I can't eat you any more,

Tomato, tomato, you make my hands so sore.

Your juicy ripe red goodness begs to be consumed

Yet my love for you, I fear, is doomed
No longer shall I you dismember
I shall have to stick to...er...cucumber.

Stream of Consciousness

"Right, that's it, 12 o'clock, best get ready to go the chiropractor. I suppose I'd better just check my emails quickly before I go. Oh look, another letter about headlice in reception. God, I hope it's not my child. Must remember to check when she comes home. Funny how it's always in reception though - never seem to have a letter about DD1's class at all. Who are these reception children that ALWAYS seems to have headlice? 


Right, keys, purse, bag. Wellies or no wellies? I always look like a right muppet traipsing around town in my wellies. Still, at least I'll be a muppet with dry feet. Ah, what the heck,I'll live dangerously and wear my converse. 


Hmm, should have worn wellies. Serves me right. Should have remembered the park is wet and muddy. Hate walking through here when it's raining and there's nobody about other than weirdoes and winos. What's that bloke over there doing? He looks shifty. I hope he's not a flasher. Do flashers come out in the cold and wet? I suppose if they consciously go out to flash people then maybe they don't. Fair weather flashers? If they are opportunistic flashers maybe they might risk it. Still, probably won't see much if he does flash. Stupid hood, can hardly see where the hell I'm going. Must remember to laugh and be relaxed if I do get flashed. "Ha ha, is that all you've got?" 
Oh no, wait, that bloke's on the phone, and he's got a dog with him. Do flashers have dogs? I guess maybe not if they are planning to flash anyone. Might hinder their getaway if they have to round up their mutt first. Mind you, dogs are supposed to be on leads in this park. 


I'm sure it can't be normal to think all of these things all the time. I think I spend too much time on my own. What does it say about me that I appear to have an obsessions with mens' knobs in the park? Does that make me as much of a pervert as them? No, no, I'm merely undertaking a sensible risk assessment. Always watching out for danger, that's me. Not worrying or over-thinking at all, no sirree.


Right, out of the park, past school. Why on earth did I not have something to eat before I came out? I can smell the school dinners. They smell soooooo goooooood. Dammit I'm hungry. Must remember to use some of that lettuce when I get home. Would hate for it to go to waste. What was on the school menu today? Oh yes, pasta bake. Could murder a pasta bake now. Beats wilted lettuce anyway. 


Phew, nearly there. Oh look, it's cheerful receptionist lady. I hope the chiropractor is not running late, I'm not in the mood for small talk today. Just want to get in, read some crappy magazines and get back to my lettuce. 


Arse. Left my phone at home - can't even tweet while I'm waiting. Maybe I'll just mull over a blog post in my head instead..."

Stream of Consciousness by Chicago Art Department on Flickr

Memory Loss

I keep a little book in which I jot down ideas for blog posts when I have them, to write later. There's a title in there called "Memory Loss".

To be honest, I can't remember what it was supposed to be about.

So this is August...

...and what have I done?

With apologies to John Lennon, this is one of those "OHMYGODWHEREHASTHETIMEGONE" kind of posts. With less than a week to go before we finally go on our summer holiday (and believe me, it feels like everyone else has been and we've been waiting FOR EVER for it to be our turn), and then straight back into the new school term just after we get back, I am currently experiencing a strange mixture of holiday de-mob happiness and back-to-school madness.

Will we have packed everything for our fortnight in France? Will everything have been washed? Will my children have all their new items of uniform fully labelled before they return to the classroom? Will I remember that I am off on a business trip the week after we get back? Who knows... I like to think I'm doing a halfway reasonable job of remaining organised about it, but there may be an element of denial about the whole thing.

As the Germans say; Augen zu, und durch! (*roughly translated as Eyes closed, and through...)

Happy holidays!

In Need of Perspective

We watched Ratatouille with the kids at the weekend. There’s a scene towards the end, where the big restaurant critic comes to dine at the restaurant. “What can I get you”, asks the waiter. “Perspective” replies the critic.

If only it were so easy to order perspective like that. I could do with some of it myself right now. I find myself strangely down with no apparent reason. I’ve written before about my tendency to internalise. I’ve never been a big “sharer”, preferring to withdraw into my little shell until the mood passes.

The problem with this approach, of course, is that when, or if, something eventually gives, it can come as a complete shock to those around me, who had no idea of the thoughts or feelings that have been welling up over time. Case in point; bursting into tears when my husband came home last night. I couldn't even really tell him what was wrong. The truth is, I don’t even know why I am feeling sorry for myself at the moment – I certainly have nothing at all to complain about. 

I heard a story recently of a friend of a friend of such anguish and heartbreak; involving a severely disabled child, broken homes, domestic abuse that really made me think about perspective, and my seeming lack of it. To paraphrase and garble that famous saying beloved of all parents; I can’t believe I’m stressing about not finding a holiday when there are children starving in Africa.

Today, I’d like a healthy dose of Perspective please. With a side order of Count Your Blessings.

On Being the Old New Girl

I may have mentioned a while back that the company I work(ed) for was about to be taken over. For various reasons, this never happened at the end of last year, as originally planned, but instead happened at the beginning of last week.

I therefore now find myself in the rather strange situation of working for a new company without actually having changed jobs. Of course, the first working day of last week was a bank holiday in the UK, so really I have only been employed by NewCo for 4 working days.

In a lot of ways nothing much has changed - I still have the same team reporting to me, I still have the same manager etc. The changes are much more subtle. There's a whole new intranet to find my way around. To say the organisation structure is complicated is an understatement. I need to apply for a new corporate credit card. Expenses are handled different, and there's a fancy new employee discount scheme - all those small, seemingly insignificant things that end up taking up too much time and detracting from the business in hand.

Still, a change is as good as a rest as they say, and I'm looking forward to learning and discovering again.

Move Along, Nothing to See Here...

I want to write a post.

I neeeed to write a post.

And yet... and yet... somehow I have nothing I want to write about. I seem to be in a state of limbo that leaves me restless, fidgety and unable to concentrate on anything for more than five minutes at a time. This translates into blog posts of a few sentences at best.

I'm sure it will come again. I just wish it would make it quick.

I need a holiday.

I Heart Me, Week 5 - How Do You Blog?

This post is for Notes' weekly "I Heart Me" Linky. This week's question is "How Do You Blog"? Click on the image below to see what everyone else has linked up:

It is probably painfully clear to anyone that has been following this blog for a while that I am not the most consistent of bloggers. Phases of great enthusiasm follow deep troughs of apathy. Life is often busy enough - I simply don't have the time, or perhaps the discipline or inclination to blog it as well! (Last week's question being a case in point - simply didn't get round to it, sorry Notes!)

To me that is ok - the last thing I want is for blogging to become a chore - there seems very little point in putting something up half-heartedly for the sake of it. By definition then, blogging is something snatched and random - a moment when I have a few minutes to think, either when the kids are watching some TV, or in my lunch break at work.

Some posts will have been brewing for a while, whereas others are spontaneous and written down in seconds flat (and usually tagged with "rushed post" in the hope that anyone reading might forgive its slightly more rough and ready nature!). Some posts will have a very defined purpose, a point I wish to make - more often than not, however, they end in a random, meandering sort of wondering as my mind flits on to the next subject...

Compatibility Dot Com

Miki, via Flickr

The husband and I were sat watching telly last night when an advert for one of those online dating websites came on. Spurred on by the promises of true love and real compatibility, Mr B looked at me and said;

 "I wonder if we would have come up as compatible if we had joined one of those dating websites?"
"What would you have put as your interests?", I wondered.
He had a think, and replied: "Skiing, Cars, Hockey, Slouching in front of the TV".
"Well, on that last one I guess we would have been ok..." I pondered; "...but I guess it's probably a bit more complicated than that these days. They probably use sophisticated algorithms based on multiple choice questions like whether you like animals...or stuff..."

As you can tell by the conversation, I've never had to use a dating website (ah, the delights of meeting your partner in the days when all it took was a drunken snog in a bar), but it did get me wondering on two counts; firstly, what sort of questions do get asked on dating websites to determine if you are compatible with someone (I was unable to ascertain this without registering on them, which seemed a little excessive even in the interests of research) and secondly, what compatibility is all about anyway.

It's fair to say that I had little or no interest in either skiing or hockey when I first met Mr B. He has since reluctantly dragged me onto the ski slopes (the things you do for love, eh?), and gave up playing hockey a long time ago. To be fair, he probably didn't share my love of women's shoes or yoga either. However, there's more to compatibility than the same hobbies - it's about a shared outlook on life, an ability to make each other laugh, and shared experiences. Physical attraction can never be of any harm either I suppose!

I guess at the end of the day a dating website (or newspaper ad, or any other form of matchmaking) is only a way of bringing people together - what people then do with that is up to them. Maybe it is just the modern equivalent of kissing a few frogs before finding a prince...

Answering Service

This post is inspired by my Twitter friend Mr Drop4Three, who is much better at these vlogs than I am and is attempting one a month as part of #vlomo10...




I thought I'd at least trial the technology - next time I might even make an effort...

The Perfect Sandwich

So, there I was this morning, listening in to an apparently endless series of conference calls, whilst simultaneously keeping an eye on Twitter (multitasking of course being an incredibly important skill that I need to practice to keep me sharp for the workplace), when I spotted a tweet from Jay, highlighting her latest blog post. I popped over, and promptly regretted the fact that I had not yet eaten lunch. It prompted such a rumbling in my tum that I started fantasising about food...

All I had time for today, however, was a sandwich. This did not bother me at all - in my eyes, the humble sandwich is a wonderful invention, and has been a regular meal for a lot of the British population since it was invented.

So it got me thinking - if I was only ever allowed one single kind of sandwich to eat for the rest of my life, what would I choose? First, I thought of tasty Scandinavian open sandwiches - maybe a bit of smoked salmon on rye bread...

...but much as I love them, I had to dismiss them purely on the grounds of practicality - sadly, they're not really great in a packed lunch. The rye bread is not soft enough to absorb the topping, and a sandwich needs to be "closed" to keep it from falling apart.

I would therefore like to sing you the praises of the humble cheese sandwich. Not just any cheese sandwich, however - there is a definite art.

The bread has to be fresh, cut by hand from a loaf. I don't mind if it is white or wholegrain, as long as it has the right amount of softness in its bite. The cheese has to be a thick chunk of mature farmhouse cheddar - smooth and creamy, yet with the right amount of nutty bite and crumble. Add to this some juicy tomato slices, and a crispy lettuce leaf. No pickles, no sauces - I wouldn't want anything to spoil the cheddar.

Perfect.

Go on - tell me; what's your favourite sandwich? I'd love to know!

(By the way, to work out the dimensions of your perfect cheese sandwich, try the Cheddarometer! )

I Need to Learn To Say No

source

- The vomiting bug has entered our house. It has taken out the two smallest members of the household, and is bound to come looking for the adults some point soon.

- I'm washing and ironing like it's going out of fashion (see above)
- I'm trying to do a day job whilst spending 90% of my time being asked questions for "integration"  due to co. takeover
- I've just agreed to take on the departmental newsletter
- I have a tonne of blog memes I am probably never going to get around to doing (sorry to anyone that has tagged me)
- Still haven't worked out what to buy husband for his 40th and time is running out fast (any ideas for the ultra-fussy man who has everything?!)

To say life is a little hectic at the moment is an understatement. Half term holiday?! Ha.

Quick Plug For A Good Cause

This is just a very quick post to point you in the direction of something called the "Mona Lisa Million" being worked on by Dave at Mister Good Guy. This is a project that is trying to combine Website Promotion with supporting good causes. At the moment Dave has a limited number of free spaces going for anyone that would like to link their website, so if this is something that interests you, head over to Mona Lisa to check it out, where it is all explained much better than I could do! 

Just Wondering...

1) Why I bother having a window cleaner coming to clean the outside of my windows when the inside is so filthy you can't see out anyway.

2) How the greenfly got onto the basil plant in the kitchen

3) Why I can't get rid of the headache I've had for the last three days

4) How much each strawberry from our strawberry plants has cost us (answer: approx. £1.20)

5) Why I booked a whole day off tomorrow for DD1's Sport's Day and what I am going to do with myself in the afternoon?!

6) How I am ever going to write a coherent blog post again after being so in awe of all the fabulous ones that were read out at Cybermummy!

Mwah!

Source: markfftang on Flickr

I won't bore you with how excited I am to be attending my first ever blogger conference - Cybermummy - tomorrow. I think I've done that enough. However, it has got me thinking about the etiquette of greeting people in Britain - especially those you have never met.

In Germany, it is customary to greet people with a strong handshake. The more Mediterranean cultures go in for kissing - although even this is not necessarily standardised. Even in France it differs by region as to whether the norm is four kisses or two. I am told the Polish compromise with three. Eskimoes rub noses (or is that one of these horrible stereotypical myths?)

What, however, do the British do? Some friends I hug. Others like to go in for air kissing (differing numbers thereof). Some very good friends are not really the kissy type at all and are merely greeted with a cheery "hello".

Trying to remember who likes to do what - for want of a better phrase - can be a bit of a minefield. Invariably it all descends into an awkward shuffle, much blushing and apologies.

Maybe that's the answer. If you meet an English person, just greet them by saying Sorry.

Stupidly proud of my handiwork

I have always loved baking. My cakes normally taste great. What I am not so good at is cake decorating - despite my best efforts.

DD2 was 3 over the weekend, and she had seen a giant cupcake mould in one of the catalogues I had through.

To cut a long story short, I gave it its first outing for the birthday party, and I think it turned out rather well for one of my efforts!