Saturday, 20 July 2013

Creative plant containers

Here are some cool plant containers. I'm too hot to think of a more complicated post!








Friday, 19 July 2013

So sleepy...

My friend Dominique sent me this video. There are cute bits and funny bits, something for everyone!



Thursday, 18 July 2013

Dark in here

View sent us this joke, which is very nice after yesterday's post... Thank you, View.

A woman is having an affair during the day while her husband is at work. Her 9-year-old son comes home unexpectedly, sees them and hides in the bedroom closet to watch.

The woman's husband also comes home.

She puts her lover in the closet, not realizing that the little boy is in there already.

The little boy says, "Dark in here."

The man says, "Yes, it is."

Boy - "I have a baseball."


Man - "That's nice."

Boy - "Want to buy it?"

Man - "No, thanks."

Boy - "My dad's outside."

Man - "OK, how much?"

Boy - "$250"

In the next few weeks, it happens again that the boy and the lover are in the closet together.

Boy - "Dark in here."

Man - "Yes, it is."

Boy - "I have a baseball glove."


The lover, remembering the last time, asks the boy, "How much?"

Boy - "$750"

Man - "Fine."

A few days later, the father says to the boy, "Grab your glove, let's go outside and have a game of catch." The boy says, "I can't, I sold my baseball and my glove."

The father asks, "How much did you sell them for?"

"$1,000"

The father says, "That's terrible to overcharge your friends like that... that is way more than those two things cost. I'm going to take you to church and make you confess."

They go to the church and the father makes the little boy sit in the confession booth and he closes the door.

The boy says, "Dark in here."


The priest says, "Don't start that sh*t again."

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Venting

We seem to be terribly unlucky with neighbours in our building. The apartment similar to ours, but at the back of the building, was bought by a person who rents it out. The first lot were a couple of teenagers with a baby. They had horrible fights and all the screaming, shouting and throwing of stuff terrified the baby (and us). I had promised myself that I would call the gendarmes if it happened again, when the girl informed me that they were moving.

Then came the nice ones, a middle aged couple, friendly and considerate. They were here for about six months. We miss them...

The latest tenants are the neighbours from hell. It's a couple around 20 years old, with one of those ferocious dogs. We can tell that it's not a pet, it's an attack dog. It belongs to the girl, who we assume made the guy get rid of his own generic (but nice) mongrel in favour of the beast.

The dog looks like this one

The dog is left alone in the apartment all day, howling and banging against the door. When the guy comes back from work, we suspect he gets furious about the destruction (and perhaps some fouling) and all hell breaks loose. The other day he shut our access door, meaning that our cats couldn't come and go. I opened it and saw Pirouette sitting by the door with her hairs all fluffed up, so I took a peek outside and the dog was sitting at the bottom of the stairs (they're outside the building), foaming at the mouth. He had fouled the road just outside the building and had puked in front of the first step.


I saw red and went to knock on their door (being careful to shut their access door behind me, as I didn't want to become a dog snack). I gave the guy a piece of my mind, said they're too lazy to own a dog, don't take him for walks and don't clean the mess he makes. He apologised, took the dog back in, left it there, then went out with the girlfriend somewhere. I had to leave them a note about cleaning the sh*t and the vomit. They half cleaned it and were lucky we had that storm the next day, because it finished washing the mess away.

This morning I woke up to incessant barking that didn't appear to come from their apartment. I went downstairs to investigate and found the dog shut in the cellar! It's that same cellar where Madame Precious had stashed all her rubbish, which she then proceeded to padlock. It's a common area housing the water meters and all residents may need to access it at any time. The girl came back after a while and took the dog upstairs to their apartment. I went down to see if the dog had fouled the cellar. I'm not sure if he did sh*t anywhere, but he ripped all the expensive insulation Peter and I had put on the door.

I've been reading about the laws regarding dogs in France, dangerous ones in particular. This afternoon we're going to the mairie (mayor's office) to ask a few questions and might end up having a chat with the gendarmes. As far as I could gather, if this dog is not pure bred, but a cross of any of the attack dogs, they've been banned since 2010. People who owned one before then need to apply for a special permit and abide by some very strict rules. As the girl is barely 20, she would have been a minor in 2010 and not allowed to own this kind of dog. Whether it's cross-bred or not, this young couple have broken a number of rules and are not responsible dog owners. Even if they had a little poodle, they would still have to clean after it!

I'm also going to talk to Madame Mim and to Dominique, who still owns her apartment, so we can call a meeting of all the owners and vote on banning this kind of dog from the building. The guy who rents the apartment out would have to vet his prospective tenants and make it clear what the rules are.

Enough is enough.


END NOTE:

I had finished the post and gone downstairs for lunch when the girl came out with the dog. I thought she was taking him for a walk... but no, she shut him in the cellar again and went out on her bike!

Tuesday, 16 July 2013

Uh-oh...

Billy shared this picture on Facebook and I thought it was quite funny!


Saturday, 13 July 2013

Ahh... to be a baby!

Amy sent us this fun video. It's really charming and refreshing. Thank you, Amy.

Friday, 12 July 2013

Lipstick competition

Tumbleweed came up with an idea for a competition. She found out that the shape of your lipstick as you use it can tell a lot about your personality...

Please send me a photo of your lipstick with your username and I'll take it from there. The photos would look something like the ones below:



Men can send a photo of their partner's lipstick.

Let's see how it goes... Tumbleweed thinks this it's a great idea:

"I think this is an outstanding idea. Of course...it's my idea....and I am always partial to my own ideas. Ask anybody."


Thursday, 11 July 2013

Visual gag

This is today's quick post because my connection is a bit iffy...


Wednesday, 10 July 2013

Thunderstorm

We woke up this morning to clear skies, but it was very humid and hot. We had our lunch and observed clouds gathering. Then all hell broke loose: Thunder, lightning, hail, you name it. It has been very hot and dry for days, so the rain raised a lot of steam off the roofs, resulting in very thick mist all around us.


There is an entrance lobby leading to Dominique's and our front doors, which partly flooded, as the rain was almost horizontal. The power went out, so Peter and I just sat in the kitchen, waiting for the whole performance to end. That was the moment I remembered opening the roof window in my bedroom this morning, to air the room a little bit. Peter had done the same in his bedroom, but luckily, he opened his just a little, unlike me... My bed is completely wet, the carpet is wet, clothes in the laundry basket are wet. I'll be sleeping in the spare room tonight. Peter was lucky, only the carpet directly under the window got wet.

Pirouette kept running around, tearing her hair out in a panic. Pirate was out at the time, but he has just arrived, looking very slim, wet to the bone. Peter dried and fed him and now he's getting ready for a nap on Peter's computer chair.

I thought all the rain would cool things down, but it's still incredibly hot and humid.

The silver lining is that our plants had a good drink...


Tuesday, 9 July 2013

Yummy flags

It's incredibly hot and humid today. I found some foods from around the world that I could manage to eat even in this weather!


Monday, 8 July 2013

Incredible drawing

I found this on Facebook and it really impressed me...


Sunday, 7 July 2013

Garden pests

The slugs and snails are still lurking in the garden. Monsieur Soup said he uses some new pellets that have a repellent to cats and dogs, but we haven't had a chance to buy some yet.


Saturday, 6 July 2013

Human canvas

Peter found these amazing pictures. The artist, Johannes Stoetter, uses the human body as his canvas. The first one made me think of View.







Friday, 5 July 2013

Paper fashion

Jum Nakao is a Brazilian artist who designs very weird dresses made of paper. The dresses are destroyed after each show as a reminder that fashion is just “a medium and not an end in itself.”

Fashion shows tend to feature very impractical outfits, so it doesn't surprise me that Nakao's models are instructed to rip their dresses apart at the end of show.







The Playmobil hairstyle of the models is quite interesting...


Thursday, 4 July 2013

Would anybody like a cup of tea?


We're back! We're still exhausted, but very happy with our new car, which took nearly 3000 teabags with plenty of room to spare...


One of the nice things about travel from England is the Channel Tunnel. If you have a reservation, when you arrive at the check-in booth, some gadget reads your car number plate, your name appears on the screen, you touch the screen to confirm everything they ask and a ticket appears with the letter corresponding to your crossing (in our case it was "N"), you hang the ticket on the mirror, have a cup of coffee (or tea) and wait for your crossing to be called. When that happens, you proceed to loading area, queue for a few minutes, then drive into the train, sit there doing all the bits they ask you to do, in another few minutes the thing starts moving and half an hour later you're in France! [Reverse the process if you're going from France to England, of course.]



The not so nice thing about travel from England to our neck of the woods is finding your way. I printed driving directions from Google maps and they were useless.  All we need to do is get on the A20 and it's plain sailing from there. So I got directions from Calais to Vierzon, where the A20 starts. The big problem is the Paris bit. We followed all the instructions to the letter and it all went very well until we had to get on the "peripherique," which by-passes the centre on Paris, a place ONLY Parisians can negotiate by car. The sign we were waiting for never materialised and we were thrown off course, ending up on the A6 going to Lyon. As soon as we realised that we weren't where we were supposed to be, we stopped at a service station, asked for directions and had a couple of the several cups of coffee we consumed during this trip. It all went well after that and here we are, no thanks to Google maps!

All we need now is to obtain all the documents necessary to register the car in France. It's a laborious process, but very doable... if you're patient. When we registered our old Volvo, we met the local dragon, a very "charming" lady who deals with registrations at the prefecture in Tulle. She barks, she throws your papers back at you, things fall on the floor, she tells you you need stuff you don't, so you go back home to get whatever she asked for, return, "Why did you bring me this, it's not necessary." You have a nervous breakdown and count yourself lucky for barely surviving the experience, but you get your registration and new plates in the end.


We heard that she went a bit too far with the wrong person. She barked and threw the documents at some chap, he wasn't impressed and asked to see her supervisor. She tried to bark a bit more, hoping to intimidate him, but he identified himself as the captain of the local gendarmerie and she had no choice. Apparently, she's now in a back office, where she has no contact with members of the public.

It's been an eventful couple of days, with more to come with the registration and all that.

I think I'll make a cup of tea...

Oh, and happy 4th of July!

Monday, 1 July 2013

Double cat?

Here's a quick photo to keep things going, courtesy of View_From_Here. Thanks, View.


Sunday, 30 June 2013

Whistling in the kitchen

I often find myself whistling this when I'm chopping onions and veggies for dinner...


Saturday, 29 June 2013

Time to party!

Today it's the birthday of our good friend Shapeshifterbelly, who's 10 days younger than me...


Happy birthday!

These friends would like to send you their very best wishes:

Peaches

Belle

The What Time crowd

Enjoy some good music:




And I hope this custom made cake will please you:

Chicken, bacon and Brussels sprouts cake

Have a lovely birthday, dear friend. We love a party here at What Time and hope to make your day very special!