Don't we look sweet!

Here we are, 14 years ago. Looking a lot thinner and with more hair (I'll leave you to decide which description applies to each of us!)

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful (long-suffering) husband Tony! 14 years today.

Fido? No thanks!

I am not a big fan of dogs, I've never seen the attraction. It seems like whenever we visit a house with a dog, with a few rare exceptions, the owner has to battle with the dog to stop it from jumping up and licking us. Today while out walking in my neighborhood, it seemed like every second house had some yapping mutt in the garden, running out at me, woof, woof, yap, yap, yap, howl (I think one was a wolf!). And where is the pleasure in taking a dog for a walk when you have to spend most of the walk carrying a small bag filled with its poop? Not my idea of fun that's for sure. (by the way, have you noticed that whenever a couple is out walking their dog, its always the woman who is carrying the little bag of poop? Whats up with that?!)
Give me cats anytime.

Happy St Patricks Day!

A bit of weather

I can't believe the weather we are having. This whole weekend it has been awful, non-stop torrential rain and high winds. And it continued throughout all of today, in fact as I type, there is some snow mixed in too, coming 'down' sideways. But fear not! This is New England after all. Tomorrow and for the rest of the week the forecast is sunny with temperatures in the 50s and 60s. Good grief, I can't keep up!

What the dickins is that?

Emma's grade held an Invention Convention last week. Each child had to invent something, and make a model of it. Emma's entry was called "Spray for dry days" and it was essentially a wheel that 'flicked' drops of water at a plant to humidify it. They all got to show off their models to bemused parents last week in the school cafeteria.

Happy Mothers Day UK!

Happy Mothering Sunday for all you mothers in the UK, but especially to mine! Hope you have a nice relaxing day Mam.

Whatever floats your boat

On the way back from TX, I was in the aisle seat in a row of 3. There was a teenage couple sitting in the other 2 seats, you know the kind, ripped jeans, skinny, long lank hair, sullen expressions, scruffy backpacks etc. I was fascinated by the way that the boy treated the girl. He buckled her in, he tucked his coat over her, he let her sleep on his shoulder and while she was sleeping he braided her hair. When she was awake (which was not often) he gazed lovingly at her. It was a bit unnerving when he kept rubbing her tummy and I felt like saying "Hey girl, ditch the doe-eyed weirdo and for goodness sake, get a dose of self respect!". But I didn't....

On yer bike!

Take a look at this video - amazing what you can achieve with a mountain bike when you practice enough. Filmed in and around Edinburgh, this video of Inspired Bicycles team rider Danny MacAskill (more info at www.dannymacaskill.com) features amazing street trials riding.
Good music too : Band of Horses epic song 'The Funeral.'

Useful info at the forum

Just back from a 2 day leadership team forum in Texas. It was pretty good, with lots of networking opportunities and some interesting speakers. One was quite unusual. His name is Erik Wahl, and as stated in his Bio, he is a "recognized artist and speaker who inspires corporations to achieve greater levels of performance. His consulting firm specializes in the psychology of success and challenging organizations to implement breakthrough thinking to gain extraordinary results". At certain points during his speech he plays a music video and paints, using his fingers or a brush. His paintings are on black canvas, basically just picking out the highlights and letting the canvas create the shadows. He did three during his 1 hour talk, Einstein, the Statue of liberty and Michael Jordon. They were pretty amazing and 3 lucky people were given them at the end. He played an excellent music video while painting the Statue of Liberty. I must be the only person who had not seen this and heard the song before,the accompanying video was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the song was used as a fundraiser for the victims. So while everyone else in the audience were making notes about creativity leading to increased performance, my little note book said "The saints are coming, U2/Green Day" !!

Here's the video and song from YouTube:

Walking the West Boylston Rail Trail

This weekend has been beautiful weather-wise, considering its March. Temperatures in the 50s and 60s, even 70 degrees in the sun, blue skies. It has definitely felt spring-like. Today we went for a walk on the rail-trail in West Boylston. The rail trails in Massachusetts are just as they sound - a trail made along the route of what once was a railway line. So they are usually flat, and good for walking, running or biking. This Rail Trail meanders along side of the Quinapoxet River for about 3 miles. The problem today was that the trees that line this particular rail trail also shaded it, so there was still a lot of snow on the ground making the walking quite tough going. And where the sun had shone through, there was a slushy, wet, muddy mess. Thank goodness I had worn my old walking boots. Some were not so smart however. There were many groups of teens out walking in the sunshine, wearing the latest gear. Those $200 Ugg boots didn't look quite so cool when they were covered in wet, slimy mud I can tell you :)

Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!

Today is St Davids's Day. Saint David (known as Dewi Sant in the Welsh language) is the patron saint of Wales. He was a Celtic monk who lived in the 6th Century and was Archbishop of Wales. His influence is shown by the number of churches dedicated to him in Wales. Saint David is credited with spreading Christianity to the pagan Celtic tribes. The date of 1 March was chosen in remembrance of the death of Saint David on that day in 589, and has been celebrated by followers since then. The date was declared a national day of celebration within Wales in the 18th century.

The title of this blog entry means "Happy Saint David's day" to those who don't understand Welsh, which includes most Welsh people. According to the 2001 census, more than 70 per cent of the 2.8m people in Wales have no knowledge of the language.

The town with the longest name in the UK is on the island of Anglesey. It contains 58-letters and is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It means: "St Mary's church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio near the red cave."

On St Davids's day, young girls dress up in the Welsh National costume (see photos), generally a red cloak and tall black hat. This largely developed during the nineteenth century. It was part of a conscious revival of Welsh culture during a period when traditional values were under threat. Many wear daffodils or leeks as emblems. The leek arises from an occasion when a troop of Welsh were able to distinguish each other from a troop of English enemy dressed in similar fashion by wearing leeks. An alternative emblem developed in recent years is the daffodil. Welsh cakes (sometimes also known as bakestones, although that is really the griddle that they are cooked on) are made by the sackful.
Here's a recipe for Welsh cakes, bake and enjoy!

Ingredients

* 2 cups all purpose flour (280 grams)
* 1/3 cup granulated white sugar (65 grams)
* 2.1/4/ teaspoons baking powder
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
* ¼ teaspoon ground mace
* ½ cup of cold unsalted butter (113 grams)
* 1/3 cup of dried currents.
* ¼ cup of chopped mixed peel
* 1 lightly beaten large egg
* 3-4 tablespoons of milk.

Method

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon and mace, cut the butter into small pieces add to the mix and blend together with two knives (or mix by rubbing with your fingers) now the mixture should look like large crumbs. Add the currents and stir into the mix. Then add the beaten egg, and sufficient milk to make a light dough.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured flat surface, gently kneed the dough until it is flat and about ¼ inch (0.75 cm) thick then with a round pastry cutter or a glass will do, cut into 2.1/2 inch circles.

Lightly butter a bake stone (griddle) or heavy frying pan and heat, place the mixture on the griddle and bake on each side for about five minutes until golden brown in color; they should still be soft on the inside.

Once baked sprinkle with granulated sugar and eat with Welsh butter, jam, honey or they are delicious plain as they come from the griddle.

Oh, and of course an ideal accompaniment is a nice, strong cup of tea!

Tiramisu? or styrofoam?

I had the worst ever Tiramisu at Via Restaurant in Worcester this weekend. It was basically a square creation of lady-fingers sandwiched together with the cream they use in canolli. Bland, boring, no coffee or alcohol in sight. Call themselves an Italian restaurant! The pastry chef should be ashamed of his/herself.

Birthday Meal at Romaine's restaurant

Had a nice meal out tonight at Romaines restaurant in Northborough to celebrate my birthday. Its amazing that we've lived in this area for 9 years and have only recently discovered this restaurant. Its a very nice place, good size with a lively bar area. For appetizers Tony had Maine crab cakes (jonah crab, pan-seared with corn salad and chipotle mayo) and I had mixed greens ( a salad of organic mesclun greens, stilton cheese, spiced pecans and roasted-pear vinaigrette). For our entree I had North Atlantic haddock with potato gratin, asparagus spears and tarragon cream, and Tony had some fancy chicken salad thing. All washed down with a bottle of Fess Parker Syrah. Scrummy. I was even too full for dessert. Left the restaurant just as the snow started to fall.

Under pressure

It always surprises me how music gets re-released years after its initial incarnation to a whole new audience. My daughter loves the "latest" music from the gruesome-twosome known as Jedward. Its called "Under Pressure - Ice-Ice Baby" or something similar. How surprised she was to see that I had the Queen/David Bowie version on my "Ultimate 80's" CD.

Here's the original in all its glory, with the late but very great Freddie Mercury. This is from his Kind of Magic tour, which I went to see in Wembley Stadium, London.




Followed by the Jedward version...a pale imitation in my opinion

This man's a fool!

Just been watching a recording of the British show "Big Fat Quiz of the Year". Now, being in the US, we don't get to see much of British "celebrities", but we do read about them and their antics. Russell Brand was one of the contestants on this show. I had heard of him and his radio show, and I had formed an opinion of him as an outspoken, controversial, but basically sharp-witted person. However after seeing him on this show I can only say how wrong I was. Sharp-witted? More like Dim-witted. What an irritating idiot this man is! He has been quoted as saying "I`m repulsed by men" - Russell, after watching you for an hour I can relate to that!

Shopping and stuff...

Had a couple of days off from work, making for a nice long weekend. Yesterday we spent a few hours wandering around the Natick Mall ("Natick Collection"). It amazes me that some of these designer stores can still be in business. They are all the same, laid out in an artsy fashion, with limited stock and one, bored looking assistant pacing the floor desperate for a customer. Can anyone afford to spend $500 on a skirt nowadays? Whereas I'm not likely to be snapped for the "People of Walmart" website (www.peopleofwalmart.com), I have a limit to what I will spend on something that will be out of fashion this time next year. I do, however, like handbags, especially those from Coach, and luckily bags seem to be "the" fashion accessory of the moment. You will not, however, see me in a pair of Uggs, not in this lifetime ....

Management Bollocks

I am struggling to keep up with all the "management-speak" at my place of work. It seems that every week some new phrase creeps in to the conversations. I fell victim to jargon this past week when I was asked what would be attributes of my quality scorecard, and I didn't have a clue how to answer. Now put it in a normal sentence such as, "What would be some metrics that we could use as an indicator of your project's quality" or something similar, and I would've known what was being asked. Other jargon that I encounter in my job almost daily are: lets socialize it at the all-hands, we need to assess the value-stream, get off your bike and hit the ground running, let's pareto the data, We really need to push the envelope on this one, 360-degree feedback, lets put that on the parking lot for now, we need to attack the low-hanging fruit.....its endless.

I have a cool book called Management Bollocks. Here's a couple of my favorite entries:

Reinvigorate your family life by importing positive management models into the home:
Introduce total Quality management into mowing your lawn.
Implement Key Performance Indicators for the cleaning lady.
Write a mission statement for the milkman.
Outsource your children. Downsize your spouse, Re-engineer your cat.

Your organization's core competencies must be protected at all costs. If you're not sure whether your organization has any core competencies, bring in outside consultants. (To pay for outside consultants, it may be necessary to close down your core competencies).

Class reunion

My old High School is having a reunion in April. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend as I will be on travel with my job. I'm not sure if that is a blessing or not. Reunions are a strange thing. They are frightening and fascinating all at the same time. I do know that they are probably the most effective diet incentive you will ever have!

I went to one about 15 years ago. It was actually held in our old school, which was a very odd feeling indeed. Standing in our old sixth form common room drinking beer, talking to people who look vaguely familiar, but are really strangers. The funny thing is, each of us knows that we are not the same person that attended school all those years ago, yet we all judge each other based on that memory. The boy who used to tease the girls, the class bitch, the stud....they are all there in the room with you, and even though they have become the lawyer, the teacher and the doting father, you can't help but see them as they were. School reunions....you either love them or you hate them. Having said that, I'm on the fence :-)

Here, there and everywhere

Got a busy year coming up, travel-wise. In March I am going to Texas for a few days (just outside Dallas). In April, I have a weeks vacation in San Antonio, TX during Fiesta week, followed by a week in Orlando with work, at the Disney Contemporary resort. In June I am in Ireland, in October and again in November I am in Tucson, Arizona. I also have one trip to Los Angeles, and one to St Petersburg, Florida scattered somewhere in between the others. And I have yet to decide where to go in August! Jet setter or what?

HVD

Happy Valentine's Day to all you romantics out there. And to the rest of us, Happy Sunday!

Happy Anniversary!

Its one year ago today that I created this blog. In one year I have had over 4000 visitors from 63 different countries. In 2009 I wrote a jaw-dropping 238 posts, with the most occurring in April (30) and the least in July (14). I have commented on the weather, sports, vacation destinations, birthdays, schools, soaps, exercise & diets, chocolate, restaurants, cars, University, kids playgrounds, Hannah Montana, swine flu, Orthodontics, concerts, Bejeweled Blitz, Dunkin Donuts, Conkers, shopping, Winker jeans, bulimic cats, apple picking, Michael Jackson, Halloween, recession, puberty, kitchen appliances, Dolly Parton, Welsh sheep, haircare and St Winnifred's school choir. No wonder I'm running out of things to blog about. I will have to get my thinking cap on if I want to achieve similar results this year. All ideas gratefully received....

Necessity is the mother of invention

Today in our works cafeteria there was a display of inventions from over the ages, primarily from African American inventors. It was pretty interesting, with artifacts such as refrigerators, various toys, particular kinds of light bulbs etc. However I was a little perplexed by one exhibit. It was the invention of the sanitary belt! What on earth were the organizers of this event thinking when they decided to display that particular exhibit? Anyway, I was not surprised in the least to see that this uncomfortable, impractical, ugly contraption had been invented by a man. Figures...

What? More snow?

Waiting for the big snow storm to reach us tomorrow. Washington got badly hit earlier this week, now its our turn. The schools have already stated their intention to close early. Should be blizzard conditions by this time tomorrow night. And there was me thinking we were over the hump, snow-wise. I guess we have at least another month or so of this weather before we are done. Ho-hum.

I'm in the minority

The New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl victory over the Indianapolis Colts has become the most-watched program in US TV history, early figures show.
A record 106.5 million people watched the game last weekend, out of a total US population of 308 million.

So I'm still in the majority, i.e. people who did not watch the game. However I am probably in a very small minority of people who didn't even realize that the Superbowl was on this past weekend! I was more interested to find out that BBC America was showing the Six Nations rugby last Saturday. Super bowl? What Super bowl?