Tuesday Tip

Never stop learning.
No matter what your age, you are never too old to learn, it may take a while longer but please continue to persue knowledge. Be it books or a hobby, something creative, a new way of gardening perhaps, keep on searching and learning more. The mind has more than enough space.
My amazing sister, a lady of a certain age, decided to become a librarian, she graduates in June, I'm so proud of her.
One of our children was constantly asking questions and waiting for the right answer, he was never afraid to appear stupid (as he sometimes did) because he had a thirst for knowledge. As the other two grew to adulthood they followed his lead and all three have kept their enquiring minds active.
The love of my life often refers to himself as a student, no matter that he's 65, he hasn't sat back on his laurels and watched the world go by.
Keep finding out about new things, there is so much out there that even if you live to be 1000 years old, there will still be something new and exciting to discover.

Two ladies

I met two ladies who had met the Dalai Lama. Ordinary people, just like us. I have no idea of their beliefs. When they told me their story of the meeting they glowed with joy and seemed to rise six inches above the ground. It was clearly an amazing experience for them.

Tuesday Tip

Laugh every day. It's good for your tummy muscles, chases the blood through your veins and just makes you feel great. We tried a short bout of laughter yoga with Caroline (the best yoga teacher ever) and it's so much fun.
To help you along, go to dribbleglass.com and see some cheeky billboards, sure to raise a smile folks. One of my favourites "There are no hunting accidents, it's called Karma"
And still in the funny vein, it seems my quest for purple furry dice will come to nought. The aliens at the traffic lights seem to have dumped them in favour of -wait for it - Barack Obama key rings! Can you resist?

Staying afloat

Some months back an assistant in a bookstore at Canal Walk was very rude to me and in fact heckled me loudly for all to hear. I was annoyed so the next morning I faxed through a letter to the manager regarding the matter. Perhaps the fax fell into the shredder by mistake, who knows, but by the end of a week I had heard nothing so I mailed a copy of my letter. Sadly to this day I've had no response. I haven't shopped there since, nor even used the coffee bar. I am very disappointed. I stay away not because the assistant was rude but because management thought my upset too trivial to matter and couldn't be bothered to acknowledge what had occurred. I don't believe I should cut off my nose to spite my face so I continue to shop at that franchise and get my points but in Canal Walk I prefer the extremely helpful and friendly people at Bargain Books and Paperwight.
In these harsh times it's not more important than it was to keep customers it's just as important but perhaps more urgent. Some time back we lost a customer because his keyring was broken when we had his car in for service. A trivial matter you may think but to him it was important, we don't know what that keyring meant to him but despite our apologies we haven't seen him since.
Take care of the ones who keep you afloat, there are lots of people like me, the usually silent ones who don't complain, they just don't come back. I once saw a shoplifter being apprehended in a food store, she had packets of cheese stuffed up and down her dress - security put the cheese back on the shelf!! I haven't been back since. Little things!
That being said, when Paperwight were so kindly selling magazines at 4 for R10 I wanted a particular Doll House magazine. I don't do fluff magazines so it took me a while to pick out three others. One is a sort of travel mag and has a really interesting article about a man who provided a Himalayan village with solar power for their school. However, even more interesting is Where to Eat in London, a short paragraph, I'll leave out the restaurant name, I have no wish to be sued -
"I love nose to tail eating" (not for Caroline) "Which means that all parts of the animal make it into the frying pan. For me there is only one place in London that has mastered the art - the ..........Restaurant. They serve typically British food and lots of bowels too"
I'll pass.

Tuesday Tip

I really enjoy cooking and preparing food, just as well as Mr S seems to enjoy eating my creations. My latest foody tip is to buy baby cabbages to make Khol Slaw. I find that when I'm just making a salad for two of us I don't want big and chunky slices of cabbage and the baby ones (organic if poss) are just so dainty when finely sliced, tossed with some grated carrot, a handful of raisins and finely diced pineapple. A small amount of salad dressing and there you have it.

Lunch anyone?

I make rather good sandwiches, but we don't always want a sandwich at work so some days I'll make up a few small salads or perhaps tastefully arranged leftovers. I am humbled. Please go to this site - www.adventuresinbentomaking.com - this is truly amazing and she can make my lunch any day. I haven't yet had time to take in all of Pioneer Woman's "Blog" and this one is almost as big. I'm on the look out for the book "500 Bento Box Lunches" which I will no doubt read and then reverently put aside, knowing full well that my life is too short to spend 2 hours making work lunch.

Earth Hour

As you no doubt know, Saturday 28 March 2009 at 8.30 p.m. we're going to turn our lights off for one hour. At first it seemed a bit odd to me as countries are on different time zones but now I wish I could be up in space. It's going to be like an electric light Mexican Wave, how exciting.

Free at last

It's six weeks ago today that the love of my life had his shoulder operation, lots of muscle and tendon torn off the bone due to a major electric shock. He's a brave lad and I really should have given him a lollipop after the doctors visits. There's still a way to go with passive exercise and such but he's tough and I'm really proud of him.
My dishwasher is broken (no not Rowland). I've always counted it as the least important household aid but it gives you time. We eat at 8pm and I would be finished in the kitchen by 8.35/40. Now that I have to do the dishes I only finish at 9, not good enough.
Last night (Wednesday) I couldn't help listening to wrestling, his twice weekly dose of violence, and of course the eyes do creep up to the tv screen - yes we capitalists do have a tv in the kitchen. There was a guy who's face was a cross between David Bowie and an African death mask. I believe he's a Hardy boy. Well, Sion read all but one of the Hardy Boy books and I'm pretty certain they didn't look like that. Later - dishes, dishes etc - After fighting Hobo boy in a beanie he appeared in a restaurant dressed like a Chippendale, surely there's a dress code? although he was wearing a bow tie. More dishes, then I pricked a hole in my glove with a sharp knife, most annoying because the water seeps in, like Titanic slowly going down but without Leonardo. I've realised why the dumb girl in a bad bra and granny knickers, in a horror movie, goes down that lane when we all know she's going to be killed, mauled, maimed etc. It's curiosity, so I had to look again at the dinner party where to my surprise the "ladies" present had what at first appeared to be Kibuki masks (is that the term? ask Sandra, she's also a granny and we know things) but turned out to be custard. How? Why? Who cares?
And so the dishes were done and I went to sit down with my latest book "Straight from the Horses Mouth", so interesting and just the right thing to while away another half hour until I could watch The Mentalist - I just love that programme!
And so goes the sand through the hourglass in the days of our lives - or words to that effect.

Tuesday Tip

Take a road trip, we just did. Cape Town to Bloem and back, it was great. Too many trucks on the road, lots to say on that! Broken towns off the "National" Road and will someone tell me why the only food available at the fuel stops is either Steers or Wimpy? Please, please Kauai open at least one country branch.
More later.

P C

It used to mean Police Constable but in this irritating age of achronyms it also means Politically Correct. Some countries seem to be overwhelmed by the need to do and say the right thing, let's not offend anyone, which of course causes them to offend many.


I read that a pole dancer was kicked out of the Sexpo (not in SA) because she was too raunchy. Hello! - Pole Dancer! I don't think they get notes in their knickers just for smiling. An article in a newspaper slammed Bono for striking out at Chris Martin in a radio interview. I listened to the interview and if that was striking out I don't know what the expression would be for something stronger. I don't imagine Chris is sitting with little Apple on his lap, sobbing because Bono called him a cretin (and another unprintable word). I hope he's focussing on the fact that Bono put his composing skills up with the likes of Sir PaulMcCartney. The interviewer was a total woos (?) it was like a parody of the Bernie Mack interview in Love Actually only not as rude, or funny.


I see a man has solved the mystery of belly button fluff. Well, mine's broken because I've never had any fluff but my amazing sister interviewed the man who owns the biggest belly button fluff ball in the world - how PC is that?



No Sandra, it wasn't a Spar trolley (actually I'm lying to protect your feelings, the Lion's head hid the brand name but I think it had a red handle). Is it PC to ignore the fact that the world over, probably even in Switzerland - people liberate shopping trolleys from the trolley bay. What makes stealing not stealing. I am homeless and I need somewhere to keep my stuff - OK. I am homeless and I need food so I'll take some - not OK.

I listened to an atrocious "song" on the radio today, the lyrics were so explicitly sexual they would have made a sailor blush (are sailors all that bad?), my grandchildren get to listen to this stuff! Would BBC1 have apologised to sensative listeners or don't they do that stuff?

So, who are the PC police - or PC PCs?? and why should we listen to them?

Tuesday Tip

When applying your face cream use your non-dominant hand. You'll focus more on the moment as you try to make circles and be far more gentle with the application.