Morning Mists

Here like small, misguided clouds, the mists blow down
From the mountain which hangs above our town
And which whispers every morning to our valley
Into each and every tiny medieval alley
It is a new day
Come out and greet me
Come out and meet me
Face new challenges that may
Make this the start
Of a different part
Of your life
But I am driving through the mist
And though I get the gist
Of what the mountain is trying to tell me
I still have a problem trying to see the traffic light at the end of the road

Best of Three

When I was in my early teens, the last thing I was interested in was boys or even pop stars. However, to have any credibility, you had to have a pin-up hero. If you wanted to appear normal, you basically had 3 to choose from: Donny Osmond, David Cassidy and Marc Bolan. (Never mind that Marc Bolan was a cross-dresser).

Every single girls' comic and magazine had a pin-up of one of these guys every single week. At school, you would constantly be stopped in whatever you were doing and confronted with "Who do you like - Donny, David or Marc?" That was your choice. It wasn't an issue that I liked Mr. Marks the Science teacher - he wasn't one of the Big 3 (which is actually what many of the magazines called them).

I didn't feel the slightest attraction towards any of them but I had to pick up one so I chose Donny Osmond. At least he was about my age! David Cassidy seemed kind of too old and Marc Bolan seemed kind of too weird. I hung every Donny poster I could find on my wall and his practically luminous teeth would keep me awake at night. I taught my little sister to sing "The Twelfth of Never" with me (actually I quite liked that song).

Fortunately this phase only continued for a couple of years. Marc Bolan crashed his car into a tree so he was out of the running and as we grew more sophisticated, we were allowed to like David Bowie, Elton John (little did we know), Alvin Stardust and Bryan Ferry to name a few.

Coming Up For Air

Phew, just coming up for air here!
Most of my customers were a little bit asleep in January and half of February. I guess they were all still on their hibernation holidays. Anyway, for the last 5 weeks they seem to have woken up and have been sending me lots of work.
This week has been a record, with everyone deciding to come at once. I am just peeking out from behind my PC once in a while to fetch a cup of tea and make sure that I'm still here myself!
Nearly popped out of comfy seat this morning when called up one file that I had received and it was 5 times longer than I had been expecting. Was just thinking, well that's it, no room for anyone else now, when PC went ping! and another file from other regular customer appeared in mailbox.
However, it is all leading to a jolly good turnover. If I carry on like this, then I might well be a millionaire by oh... April 2024!
I have only my own greed to blame.

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones

Went to the orthopaedist today for my knee injection and there was a lady in a wheelchair in the waiting room who was 103!

She looked better than I did! Perfectly coiffed hair, smart makeup, earrings and snazzy glasses - and a stunning smile. I could hardly take my eyes off her.

Again on the medical front, had a massage this morning with a new lady masseur. I was very pleased to have a lady, as I have always had male masseurs and they never seem to stop asking questions about your private life. So when I saw this lady, I thought oh good, just the massage this time. Although she did in fact talk non-stop she was very nice and gave a thoroughly good massage. The old shoulders were cracking and crunching away so am obviously very tensed up. But was very impressed with the treatment.

Too Much Culture

Have been given 2 free tickets to a classical music concert in our local Palace this evening. It is a posh do. And as the Palace is only about 75 seconds' walk from my front door, it will require no effort to get there.
However, don't want to go on my own as I think you should always be accompanied when you go to the theater. And all my friends are either too far away, already busy or reckon it is "too much culture".
It might even be too much culture for me! It would not be good if I found I was bored out of my brain and had to sit through it for an hour until the interval.
Am thinking of going and taking my I-pod just in case.

Super Market

Have discovered the joys of Aldi! I used to go to an Aldi a few years ago and found it quite depressing, not to mention untidy and strangely quite dark (that just might be me remembering it that way because it was a long time ago and the recesses of my memory are fairly untidy and dark, a bit like an old attic).
However, decided to venture in once again on Saturday as there is one just around the corner from us or more precisely, about 5 minutes drive in the car.
It was like Christmas! Large, bright, tidy, FULL of food and other really good goodies, and especially the food sections contained lots of bio products, gourmet products and products that you normally only dream about being available here (such as Earl Grey tea).
It was as if 50 helicopters had landed with care packages in an airlift action.
And the prices! I filled an entire basket for 17 euros.
If you are reading this, it is not an advert for Aldi, nor it is one of those product promotion things they write into sitcoms these days - but if Aldi is reading it I wouldn't be averse to a large voucher.

Age of Aquariums

There is a döner parlor around the corner from us. It is run by a Turkish family, the sons have grown up here and speak fluent German but the parents not so much.

I often pop in to get something and have a little chat with the father.

A few months ago a friend gave them a gift of his aquarium with exotic fish because he was moving and it didn't fit in his new appartment. It's not very big but it is very pretty and well-kept. When it arrived it had 23 quite large and exotic fish in it and I admired them a lot.

One evening I went in and the father was looking even more depressed than he normally does and wasted no time in telling me "Thirteen dead!"

I looked inside the aquarium and sure enough there were only ten fish left. Apparently all thirteen had died overnight. I guess it is pretty obvious they all ate something that wasn't good for them.

Apparently schoolkids come in at lunchtimes and while he's busy making koftas and yufkas and the like they're busy feeding the fish bits of döner.

So now he wants to get rid of the aquarium as fast as possible as he says he can't be watching all the people all the time. He has offered to give it to me for half the price of new. And he wants me to take it really soon. I'm still considering it as it would take up quite a lot of room and is a considerable amount of work.

Also I would be worrying about the fish all the time, giving them names and counting them twice a day. Maybe not such a good idea.

Spring Clean

Spring has inspired me! It is as if I have awoken from a deep sleep (otherwise known as hibernation) and some of my senses have started to return!

Possibly it is due to a warming of the environment (not to be confused, I hope, with global warming), after all it is 19° C here! Have turned off the heating and the balcony door has been open all afternoon.

Have cleaned most of the appartment with help of son (who hoovered all carpets) and will finish up tomorrow morning. (Almost) everything is gleaming! Son even purchased new mop.

It feels pretty good.

First Ice of Spring

It is Spring in our city! Our innovative city, in which so many things were invented and discovered, has found Spring 2 days early. Met up with a friend this evening and we had intended to sit inside a café but as it was so warm (14° C) we decided to sit outside in an ice café and ate our first ice of Spring - one Spaghetti Ice and one Banana Split.

The Dearly Departing

It is sad when a friend moves to another continent.

Unless you're going to skype them every day with a webcam, you will probably not see them for a long time, if ever again.

One of our Specs is departing for foreign shores and even though I haven't known her very long, I will miss our little lunches.

Attention Spam

I have noticed that some people have difficulty concentrating on one topic of conversation for longer than about 8 seconds, and are continually branching off onto non-related subjects. It's sometimes preceded with "Can I just interrupt?" and you think there might be some informative supplementary data to your mainline stream of thought forthcoming, but in fact it's more likely to be so off-topic as to make you wonder if you're so boring that any other topic would be a relief to the ears. Other times the off-topic is not preceded by any introduction but just hurls you into a parallel universe. I call this little nugget of observed behavior "attention spam".

Specs and the City

Lunch date tomorrow with The Girls! It's Girls' Lunch in a restaurant, a bit like Sex and the City. Except that we are not quite as glamorous as they are, nor do we talk about men and sex. Mostly we discuss food, food allergies and our hobbies. And we all wear glasses. In fact we are more kind of Specs and the City!

Customer Answering Machine

Accidentally mistook a customer for an answering machine today.

Called their number, and the lady in question answered very slowly and precisely with her name and the company name. I thought it was an answering machine.

I waited until all of this was over and then was about to put the phone down as I had planned to call back later rather than leave a message.

Suddenly the answering machine addressed me by name! Apparently my customer not only has my number but also my name stored.

I will be more careful in future.

Wedding Ring

Had to have my wedding ring cut off today. It was either that or my finger!

My ring finger was so swollen, apparently due to arthritis, that the ring was completely stuck.

Fortunately we have "Open Sunday" today in our town and there is a very nice jeweller opposite who took one look at my finger and then reached for his tool (a ring cutter!).

Ladies, please!

Feel a bit sad but it was totally necessary.

The bank is taking us over!

The bank has had a party today. I think it must have started about 8 am, anyway it finished at 2 pm. A party service delivered about a million bottles of beer and about three thousand muffins. When I went downstairs to get some takeaway lunch about 11:30 the entrance to the building was like the Albert Hall with standing room only. Many people were standing around, others were loading the tons of food and drink through our front door to the back entrance of the bank. It was difficult to actually leave the building. The party service nearly knocked me over!

I asked if this was going to take all day, and was told it would be over by 2 pm.

So I walked round to the market place and saw the actual entrance to the bank, where there was a big poster advertising all the stuff they were offering today - kid's painting, free alcohol and the like. What does that have to do with being a bank?

I ventured into the bank where it seemed like several hundred people were clammering for free beer and prezels. It was like Piccadilly Circus! I got out quickly and when I returned with my takeaway lunch the party service asked me if I would like some muffins as compensation. Before I could speak they planted a chocolate and vanilla muffin on top of my takeaway lunch. They tried to plant some prezels too but I escaped upstairs before that was possible.

There must have been hundreds of people down there!

The Bank

A bank has now moved into this building, two floors below my appartment. Apart from the *extremely noisy* construction work of the last 7 months to renovate the building in order to accommodate the bank, the bank itself has now decided to make a noise.

I swear if that bank doesn't change its ways soon they will have a very angry person storming in on them - just as soon as I find the right door.

Baby Girl

Well! Am very proud to hear that my little baby girl (though now all grown up) has a super-duper job for an international company in London! One chick leaves the nest... wondering about leaving the nest myself!

Boring Start

A fairly boring start to the day - waiting and waiting for answers from customers who all seem to be in meetings or having the day off.
Have made list of items I am waiting for.
Is a bit of a waste of time.
Wishing I could be doing something interesting!

Creation

Created blog.