Trivia

I got an excellent book for Xmas from Erin's boyfriend, Mike. It is full of information about animals. One interesting fact that I have learned is that most domestic cows are made to ingest a magnet. This then sits in their first stomach for their entire lives and attracts any piece of metal that they accidently eat thus preventing hardware disease. Sounds all rather unlikely eh? But if you google cow magnet the first thing that comes up is a company that manufactures them.
Mind you the entry for donkeys claims that female donkeys can be called a jenny or a donkeyess - haven't found any back up for the latter on the internet!

Book nomination....

OK, since J in PL requested it.....

Karen Connelly, One Room in a Castle

I was leaning towards Bruce Chatwin, and was undecided about which...I thought Patagonia as it is non-European, and beautiful, but with a French twist requested....

We have our nominee....

When is the due date?

March 1? How does that sound?

Book club

Hi there, I may have missed it, but do we have a book on the go? Just asking, because it might be fun to do again...

Anyone interested in giving it another shot?

Two things...

...first of all just a quick update on the diet. A few pesky pounds went on over Christmas (of course) but I'm not thankfully back on track and back to where I was before the festive season.

Second of all, I am thinking of doing a run for Sport Relief which is a charity related to Comic Relief (big annual telethon fundraiser event for those of you abroad): http://www2.sportrelief.com/. This year they are setting different distances of 1, 3 and 6 miles. So, linked to the above diet schedule plus the need to motivate myself I think having something to aim for would be a good idea so think I'm going to do the 6 mile run (it's just shy of 10km for those of you who are metric). The run is 2 months today (eek!) so I'm basically wondering; would anyone sponsor me if I do it?

And further to Boo's comments below I now like marmite, olives and anchovies which I didn't used to like, however I suspect I'm in a weird transitional phase where I still like Haribo sweets and Krispy Kreme doughnuts as well! Hence the constant diet :)

Love Kate xxxx

Changing tastes

On Christine's blog there has been a discussion on ham in which I contributed with a comment about pork scratchings - a hairy snack. I have to admit in my younger days I loved pork scratchings but I'm not sure I still would as tastes change as we get older. Sometimes our tastes improve - I now like things like anchovies and olives which I detested when younger.
Recently, I found an example of something that should have been left well alone in my memory.
In the two university holidays when I was 18 and 19 I went to babysit Christine and Joanne in Toronto. Aren't kids resilient? They've both turned into two well adjusted lovely women anyway. One of the activities we used to do was go to an outdoor swimming pool. It was about one tube ride north and then a bit of a walk East. Outside the tube station was a donut shop. I have to say, I found this donut shop rather exotic and exciting - this was before we had even Macdonalds in the UK. Anyway we would go to the swimming pool, the girls would have a great time and I would either have a swim or sit on the benches around the pool and read a book. Inevitably, the time would come when we would head back. I think Joanne was usually ready to go but Christine never wanted to. And she would be quite literally turning BLUE! Now I didn't know a lot about kids then but I could tell this was not good. At that stage I didn't understand about the stick part of child care (I am going to count to 5 by which time you are to be out of the pool and dressed!) I only really knew about the carrot. So what better carrot than that donut shop. Both kids were ready in the wink of an eye. We stopped at the donut shop and bought a variety of donuts which we would scoff on the train on the way home.
Now, I have imagined since that those donuts were fantastic probably better than they ever actually were. In the last few years in the UK Krispy Kremes have started a few emporia over here but not near us. Everyone raved about them, even the Guardian. Recently when somebody left work she brought round a tray of kripsy kremes to say goodbye. I was quite excited, thinking that I would be reliving my youth. I saved it up for my post prandial cuppa, bit into it and YUCK! Soooo Sweeeeet! What a disappointment. I felt a bit sick for the rest of the day! (Because I had to eat it all to make sure I didn't like it!)
Ah well, the moral of that story is that I had better leave the Findus Crispy pancakes safely in my memory!

Boxes and more boxes

Here am I at my desk at work. As you can see we are short of space and long on boxes and books. Christopher took this to show the health and safety officer - not really a safe working environment, but we've been there for 10 years and are unlikely to get moved anywhere better in the current economic climate.

Rather exciting news

For those of you yet to be phoned or excitedly emailed by my mother, I have some news. On new year's eve I proposed to Alice, and she said yes! I am rather excited, and very happy. Alice says she is also happy, which is a good thing really....