Entschuldigung

Hello friends. I am Afflicted with a cold.

Does anyone else find that winter is a time of perpetually sniffling? I want to know it's not just me. It's even worse as I have hayfever, so spring, summer and autumn is also a time of perpetually sniffling, and just when you think the pollen has finally quit, viral coryza hits its step. The quickstep.

Damn viral coryza.

Things that have been cheering me up since my affliction:

1) Vegetables

This week we had: parsnips, butternut squash, leeks, beetroot, pears, apples, peppers, and cheery tomatoes. I baked the beetroot in the oven and the recipe told me I had to keep stabbing it with a knife to make sure it was cooked inside. By the time I had finished there was a pile of beetroot juice on the side and several dirty knives and when Tim came into the kitchen unexpectedly he screamed like a little girl and asked me if I had just killed something.

This is the remnants of our veg box after I went mad with a scrubbing brush on it. I know you are supposed to leave the mud on the veg so it keeps for longer, but I'm the kind of person who likes to tick things off lists and do everything in one go and so when the box comes I just clean all of it at once.

Also it makes the crisper in the fridge less like a lagoon of filth, which is what happened last time I failed to clean all the veg with the correct level of respect.

Unpacking our veg box every week gives me such intense pleasure. It's like having a present to unwrap every week. I never check up beforehand what's going to be in it, because that's part of the enjoyment. Call me sad, but Veg Box = Cheer. Even if it leaves me elbow deep in mud every Friday afternoon.


2) Frozen Planet

(photo obviously borrowed from Frozen Planet.)

Has everyone else been watching this amazing series? Also, I want to know how on earth they filmed that polar bear cub sequence in the den with the mother, in the Winter episode. Can anyone enlighten me? Besides 'magic'? 

3) Berlin

(photo borrowed from ATS.net)

Tim, who is addicted to Groupon, has brought us a holiday to Berlin in 3 months' time for a ridiculously cheap price. Ignoring the fact that the WWF website thinks I am living as if there are 2.5 planets to sustain me and the overwhelming reason for this is my environmentally-profligate travelling addiction, I am mainly simultaneously excited and overwhelmed by how difficult German is to learn.

German was never one of Those Languages I've always wanted to be able to speak. It just always seemed so...well, pointless (sorry Germans.) Firstly, you can only really speak it in Germany. Secondly, almost all Germans I've ever met speak perfect English. Thirdly, even at its best, speaking German sounds like you are mildly displeased about the rattly cough that's been troubling you all winter and just won't quit. Fourthly, I've been busy relearning my French and Italian, and, ambitiously, embarking on Portuguese (a foolish language if there ever was one. IT MAKES NO SENSE. HOW CAN IT BE SPELT THE SAME AS SPANISH AND SOUND LIKE OUTER MONGOLIAN) and there is only enough room in my head at once. Fifthly, I want to go to West Africa and Brazil and Florence and somehow in comparison Munich seemed less exciting.

Sorry Munich.

Anyway, I have been learning German with Tim and it is really hilarious and quite difficult, also whenever I hear the word 'entschuldigung' it makes me laugh because it reminds me of Tingewick. Along with 'claro que si' and 'zehr, zehr gut' they are phrases I can no longer employ in real life.

The Tingewick Curse.

4) Ponyo

I watched this today, after a colleague lent it to me. If you have not watched it, you have to watch it. It's the happiest film ever. The end.

She's a little fishy in the sea!

5) November is nearly over, it's almost the countdown to Christmas!!!

Almost happy-season's-greetings to you all :-)

love
Connie