Time to party!

Another year gone... Out with the old, in with the new!

These fireworks were a lovely welcome to the new year in Melbourne:

Let the party begin! Happy 2014, my very dear friends!

Two fairytales

View sent us the first one and I found the second of these fairytales:

Once upon a time, a Prince asked a beautiful Princess, "Will you marry me?" The Princess said, "No!!!" And the Prince lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and dated skinny long-legged full-breasted women and hunted and fished and raced cars and went to naked bars and dated ladies half his age and drank whiskey, beer and Captain Morgan and never heard bitching and never paid child support or alimony and dated cheerleaders and kept his house and guns and ate spam and potato chips and beans and blew enormous farts and never got cheated on while he was at work and all his friends and family thought he was friggin cool as hell and he had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up. The end.

**********

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a beautiful, independent, self assured princess happened upon a frog as she sat, contemplating ecological issues on the shores of an unpolluted pond in a verdant meadow near her castle. 

The frog hopped into the princess's lap and said: "Elegant Lady, I was once a handsome prince, until an evil witch cast a spell upon me. One kiss from you, however, and I will turn back into the dapper, young prince that I am, and then, my sweet, we can marry and setup housekeeping in yon castle with my mother, where you can prepare my meals, clean my clothes, bear my children, and forever feel grateful and happy doing so." 

That night, the princess dined sumptuously on a repast of lightly sautéed frog's legs seasoned in a white wine and shallot cream sauce. The end.

Bed & Breakfast with a difference

There's a B&B in Marseille called Au Vieux Panier where each of the five rooms is changed every year. Each room is a work of art.

Here's an example, by graffiti artist Tilt:

I think this particular room would give me a headache...

Animals in awkward places... and they fit!

Amy sent us a load of animal photos, where they seem to find the most awkward places to sit... Thank you, Amy.

And we're back!

We have arrived back from dropping Billy at the airport about an hour ago. I meant to write a post straight away, but stopped by the kitchen to make some soup for our dinner. I must confess to being very scatterbrained these days - I've stopped smoking...

Peter is watching a program about antiques and they showed this fantastic castle. The presenter said that construction started in 1268 and the bulk of it was built in only 3 years!

Keep the conversation flowing

We've been out and about, with little time to produce a proper post. As we don't like extra long threads, here's a nice photo to keep things going...

This is a first!

This is my very first post written on the i-pad. I'm not terribly clever with new gadgets and was doing the posts on the old computer because I had not realized that I needed to get the Blogger app for the i-pad until Billy told me...

It seems appropriate to inaugurate Blogger on i-pad with a huge thank you and very best wishes to all my What Time friends. 

Happy Christmas!

Exquisite Japanese balls

Queen of Sheeba sent us a link to a collection of photos of these strange but delightful balls. They look like a cross between knitting and embroidery.

QoS wrote:

They are a collection of about 500 temari balls, a type of Japanese folk art. They are spectacular. The artist is an 88 year old grandmother who began this project when she was in her 60s, which is a good reminder that it's never too late to create! The entire collection is HERE on a flickr account.

Thank you, Queen of Sheeba.

A really cool pen

Billy found this video. I suppose a pen has to be a lot of fun to compete with all the electronic gadgets out there!

Ssssh...

Fun food for all tastes

I'm sorry I didn't post anything yesterday. Billy arrived on Wednesday and yesterday we went shopping for ... food!