This is today's quick post because my connection is a bit iffy...
Thursday, 11 July 2013
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...
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...
Labels:
France
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!
Labels:
food
Monday, 8 July 2013
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.
Labels:
art
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...
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...
Labels:
interesting,
weird stuff
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
Sunday, 30 June 2013
Whistling in the kitchen
I often find myself whistling this when I'm chopping onions and veggies for dinner...
Labels:
weird stuff
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:
Enjoy some good music:
And I hope this custom made cake will please you:
Have a lovely birthday, dear friend. We love a party here at What Time and hope to make your day very special!
Happy birthday!
These friends would like to send you their very best wishes:
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| Peaches |
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| Belle |
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| The What Time crowd |
Enjoy some good music:
And I hope this custom made cake will please you:
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| 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!
Labels:
birthdays
Friday, 28 June 2013
Still distracted
We're still a bit over-excited with all this business of going to England to buy a car. The new one was checked and double checked, the guy will hold it until Tuesday, so it's all looking good. I even searched for a supermarket in the area so Peter can buy his tea bags...
Now, just to have something nicer than pictures of cars, here is an aww inducing one:
Now, just to have something nicer than pictures of cars, here is an aww inducing one:
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Madness
We definitely went mad and decided to go to the UK to see (and hopefully buy) a Honda CR-V.
The Toyota Rav4 is on hold until we get back, in case the Honda is not what we're looking for.
The pluses for the CR-V: It's 2 years younger than the Rav4, with less miles on the clock. It also has a full service history, which the Rav4 doesn't.
We're going on Tuesday, so keep your fingers crossed for us...
(I'm feeling dizzy after a crazy morning on the phone to the guy, booking and printing various tickets and just dealing with the sudden madness!)
The Toyota Rav4 is on hold until we get back, in case the Honda is not what we're looking for.
The pluses for the CR-V: It's 2 years younger than the Rav4, with less miles on the clock. It also has a full service history, which the Rav4 doesn't.
We're going on Tuesday, so keep your fingers crossed for us...
(I'm feeling dizzy after a crazy morning on the phone to the guy, booking and printing various tickets and just dealing with the sudden madness!)
Labels:
cars
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
A double dose of cute
Another rushed post...
We're still going a bit mad about cars! We may have found a decent Toyota Rav4. The Volvo was a bit heavy on the juice and the insurance, so we widened the search.
*****
Aren't these babies simply adorable?
We're still going a bit mad about cars! We may have found a decent Toyota Rav4. The Volvo was a bit heavy on the juice and the insurance, so we widened the search.
*****
Aren't these babies simply adorable?
Tuesday, 25 June 2013
Funny picture
This is a rushed little post because we've been distracted by the possibility of buying a larger, safer car at a bargain price...
Labels:
funnies
Monday, 24 June 2013
Happy birthday!
Today we have a triple birthday: Sleuth, Queen of Sheeba and MariaT. We haven't seen MariaT in a long time...
Happy birthday, dear friends!
Happy birthday, dear friends!
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| Sleuth |
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| Queen of Sheeba |
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| MariaT |
Labels:
birthdays
Sunday, 23 June 2013
Saturday, 22 June 2013
Friday, 21 June 2013
Silly hats - Ladies Day at Ascot
I have a favourite program called Countdown, involving words and number games. Whenever there are any race meetings, they pull my program and we have races for days on end.
If you can't fight them, join them! So yesterday we watched Ladies Day at Ascot, which also has the biggest race of the week, the Gold Cup.
Here are some of the outlandish hats on show:
See more hats HERE.
The big surprise of the day came when the queen's horse won the Gold Cup. It's the first time in at least 300 years that the reigning monarch has won the cup. The thing is, the queen is the person who presents the cup to the winner, so they had to rope somebody else in to present it to her!
The queen was clearly excited when her horse, Estimate, crossed the finishing line:
Prince Andrew presented the cup to his mother:
Estimate is a magnificent horse, there's no doubt about it...
If you can't fight them, join them! So yesterday we watched Ladies Day at Ascot, which also has the biggest race of the week, the Gold Cup.
Here are some of the outlandish hats on show:
See more hats HERE.
The big surprise of the day came when the queen's horse won the Gold Cup. It's the first time in at least 300 years that the reigning monarch has won the cup. The thing is, the queen is the person who presents the cup to the winner, so they had to rope somebody else in to present it to her!
The queen was clearly excited when her horse, Estimate, crossed the finishing line:
Prince Andrew presented the cup to his mother:
Estimate is a magnificent horse, there's no doubt about it...
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