Teething

If you have not yet evolved to the 'bearing children' stage - and many don't bother at all (who can blame them), you will maybe have heard the term 'she's / he's teething' without fully understanding the full horror of this process....

If you have older kids this may ring some bells, if you are in the 'slack water' between a baby and a teething baby standby!

One day your little darling is just about walking, perhaps responding well to various carefully applied stimuli such as 'in the night garden' (check this out, it will blow your mind, kicks such mindblowing wonders as the Magic Round-a-bout and the tellytubbies into touch) and crisps, sleeping through the night etc and the next...

Good grief... nose a constant stream of gravity defying bright green snot which is capable of transiting both down the face in the traditional manner but also 'uphill' to matt in the hair...

Added to this is a constant stream of goo from the mouth, bright red cheeks and a new and nasty temperament that would makes a hound of hell look like the Andrex puppy...and the nights....gone, to be replaced by hazy memories involving poo, medised, (Medised has something of a 'cult' status amongst many parents - is the closest thing to a sleeping pill you can give a child and not be arrested by social services) and screaming..

You just don't need this...

I do hope this evolution does not last too long because I will run out of reasons to sleep out under the stars before long...

Keria

Today I saw some pictures of Keria, and I thought I better get some thoughts down on the subject which is way more interesting then you guys might think..

Check these fine looking guys for instance..

These Kuih keria (a.k.a Kuih gelang) are sweet potato doughnuts. They resemble the regular ones except that they are made with sweet potato. Each doughnut is rolled in caster sugar - nice! This is usually eaten in Malaysia during breakfast or in the morning tea hours of the day, I have never tried them myself but they look good and given the use of sweet potato I imagine they would be perfect as part of a calorie controlled diet...

Somewhere in Greece lies the little known village of Keria, within whose confines we find a slightly more famous Byzantine period (13th century) domed church which is famed for the amount of ancient spolia that had been integrated into its facade. Old Roman gravestones and bits n' bobs of marble were put to good use by the medieval builders - who were no respecters of the stones' original purpose or orientation and put things in upside down or on their side. The result is you imagine akin to what would happen here in the UK if Wimpey Homes able to get planning permission in old grave yards...(clearly the walls would be a tenth of the thickness shown here and alot more bones would be used around the frames).

This is the Keria Rose, also known as the swamp Rose; it is said to signify the Decrease of Love, Jealousy and lost Joy all at once, which is mighty impressive for a little flower, even if it does live in a swamp, the only other swamp creature that can achieve this is, I think, Kermit the Frog, anyone who saw his impassioned pleas to win Miss Piggy could not possibly disagree. Ever since the fleeting succes of 'Its not easy being green' he has been in a downward spiral....

As for this Keria...

The smart folk at Heather Road tell us that 'The Keria Kidney table is the perfect shape to accommodate the keria bench (of course! How silly of me, no wonder I have had problems in the past matching my Keria bench to tables). The table is manufactured using mortise and tenon joinery (really?) with 100% plantation grown grade A teak (never except grade B) from the island of Java.

I cannot show you a picture of this wonder due to copyright issues so you will have to click the link but let me tell you it looks alot like what you imagine a kidney shaped wooden table might look like....

For information the mortise and tenon method is a nice alternative to nails...

However, these guys have taken it to a new level...

This is a clear statement to the kidney shaped table makers...involving their ass, their product and a bitch...

And so to Keria, or for those that have spotted the deliberately misleading spelling Keira..yes the one you thought..this picture caught my eye..

Okay so she is holding her breath and it looks like it could be pre-breakfast but even so...

It was created by these dudes I recommend you check out some of their other specials.

And to finish an actually photo of the beauty...

Well okay, a little altered about the chest (trying to help out), what about these to finish? A true English Rose...

The Cruel Return of winter

I do not normally have much affinity with Germans..

This picture was taken on a recent trip to Hamburg...it seems they never learn...

Accept one I knew, a Captain in the Army with a pronounced comedy German accented English...not only de he souzd like zat..but he had taken to answering his mobile with the immortal words....

" Ello? Ja? Dis iz Arzthuuur, king of ze Britons, ow may I help? Nine Nine, Entschuldigung Bitter - Ja, dis iz Heinz.....

However, I understand now how they must have felt when their jaunt to Moscow was cut short by unexpectedly cold weather...I had this, this morning when heading out on my bike...having stupidly hailed the start of summer last week it was a cruel blow to be peddling through a biting minus 2 degree wind wondering whether frost nip is an acceptable reason for a grown man to cry...

It is understood by the hog that the French suffered a similar fate on the way to Moscow..I will however never understand how a Frenchman feels...We English will never understand anything about our randomly hysterical, love crazed, drunken, beret wearing revolution starting friends across the channel...

Can anyone empathise with this....

Although the women are less hard to fathom...I am reading this chick like a book.