Book Review - Leaving the world

Just read a very good book called "Leaving the World" by Douglas Kennedy. The story revolves around the disaster-packed life of of Jane Howard, a brilliant Harvard-educated woman. On the night of her 13th birthday she announces to her parents, “I am never getting married and I am never having children.” She declares this as a result of seeing her parents getting drunk and arguing with each other when out celebrating her birthday. But then her father decides to leave the family the next morning, and Jane’s mother blames her daughter for having put the idea into his head. After that, her relationship with her mother is never the same.

The book then moves on to Harvard several years later where Jane has a tragic love affair with her professor, then gets a job in the Freedom Mutual hedge fund to make some money to cheer herself up. Jane gets in trouble for lending money to her long-lost father, who turns out to have links with the mafia and so Jane loses her job. 

Jane's next job is at a state University, where she starts a love affair with a geeky, film buff called Theo. After drinking way too much of the happy juice one night, Jane falls pregnant. Theo turns out to be a useless father and an even more useless businessman, and soon Jane is left alone with her daughter and mounds of debt and eviction threatening her. The stress results in yet another disaster for poor Jane – the worst so far – necessitating yet another exit from the world and yet another job.

The action then moves to Canada where Jane's life takes another surprising twist. 

This is not a suicide story although the title suggests it could be, but it is not a "feel-good" story either. However it does have a reasonably happy ending. Definitely very readable and recommended, if only to make you realize that your life is pretty good all things considered...

Mamma Mia!

OK, I know I said I wasn't going to post anything further in this blog, but I felt I had to write about the concert Emma and I saw last weekend. The concert was an Abba tribute band called "Arrival". This band has been playing since 1995 and have played all over the world.

First the good. The band sounded very authentic, and the girls could really sing. They played all the well-known hits of Abba.

Now the bad...

The entrance - After all the excitement and build-up to this concert, it was extremely disappointing when they entered the stage and sang some unknown, not particularly catchy, song.

The costumes - the Arrival website makes a big deal of the fact that they are licensed to wear copies of the Abba original costumes. However they must've had most of their costumes in the wash last weekend because they only wore a couple and they were very similar; extremely short tunic style dresses with side slits up to their armpits. The only catsuits we saw were on the men, and that was not a pretty sight...

The encore - After leaving the stage and re-entering for their encore, one would expect them to play one of their most popular songs to finish. But no, it was one of those unknown numbers again. What were they thinking? Talk about a damp squid!

Overall though I did enjoy the night out with a great group of neighbors/friends. And although the choice of songs at the concert could've been better when they played songs we knew it was very enjoyable.

End of an Era?

As 2011 draws to a close, I am thinking I should call it a day for this blog, or at least put it on hold for a while.

I have written 477 posts since Feb 11th 2009 when I posted an entry called "Start of an Era". I have documented vacations, the kids activities, and have whined and complained about life in general and the weird things people do. I think I'm done for now.

Thanks for listening and wishing you a happy 2012 and beyond.

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas to my family and friends. I hope Santa brings you all you hoped for, your turkey stays moist and your sprouts are not soggy!

Let the festivities commence!

Presents wrapped... check!
Tree decorated... check!
Christmas cake, christmas pudding and brandy butter... check!
Egg Nog, wine, fizzy stuff...Check!
Roses, Quality Street and tin of biscuits...Check!

Bring it on Santa, I'm ready for ya!

Gusty

Seems ironic that the 165 MPH winds in Scotland yesterday caused a wind turbine to explode...

Thanksgiving break in New Hampshire

Just back from an enjoyable few days in New Hampshire over the Thanksgiving break. We stayed at the Mountain Club on Loon resort, which is set on the slopes of, well...of Loon Mountain, a ski resort. We don't go for the skiing, prefering to walk rather than hurtle uncontrollably down a mountainside. Surprisingly there was a lot of snow down, at least on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, so the skiers were out in force. We took some brisk walks through snow capped trees instead.

We ate at a couple of local restaurants, the Common Man Restaurant in Lincoln and the Woodstock Brewery in North Woodstock. We've been to both places on previous visits and its sad to see how the Woodstock Brewery restaurant/pub has gone downhill. The decor all looks a bit tired inside, the food was average at best and the waiter was bordering on rude. We won't be back.

The Common Man restaurant in contrast was extremely good. The wait staff could not do enough for us and the food was lovely. Definitely recommended.

One further benefit of being away for a few days is the time we get to just chill out. I enjoyed some quiet hours of reading and managed to finish my book (Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand). I enjoyed the book - it was the true story of Louie Zamperini and his struggle for survival when held as a POW by the Japanese during WWII (I will think twice before I buy anything Japanese again!)

All in all we had a nice relaxing time. The weather was perfect, we didn't get caught in traffic in either direction,  we took some good walks, swam in the hotel pool and watched the skiers from the warmth of the outdoor hot tub. It doesn't get much better than that!

For better or for worse

TV has come a long way in the past 10 years. The color is better, the picture is sharper, and so is the sound. On the average TV show, the sound quality is so good you can hear breathing, a feather falling and a gnat's fart. However that level of detail can get annoying. I was watching Coronation Street tonight, as Lloyd and Cheryl were breaking up. Lots of tears streaming down faces etc. But I found myself increasingly irritated by the sniffing. Great big wet dribbly sniffs to accompany their tears. Good grief!....how much of the wet stuff have you got up your nose!? Its enough to put a girl off her wine

Legend or Supermarket?

A new supermarket has opened up in the next town over, its called Wegmans and quite frankly, you'd think that it was the site of the second coming, such is the excitement and furor surrounding its opening. Wegmans is a family-owned chain which has appeared on Fortune's annual "100 Best Companies to Work For" list since its inception in 1998, and has ranked among the top 10 for eight consecutive years. Food Network recognized it with its award for Best Grocery Store in 2007.

Inside it looks a bit different to the run-of-the-mill supermarket.  Its not Marks & Spencer that's for sure, but it seems more interesting and original than Stop N' Shop (although so is a brown paper bag). Unfortunately we chose an odd time to make our first visit, when there was a power outage from the previous night's winter storm, so it was running on backup generators and could not power up the ovens to make fresh bread. However we still had a good look round and were reasonably impressed with what we saw. Surprisingly it was cheaper than the local grocery stores, it had a really good beer/wine section but what really sold me was the Irish/United Kingdom section which sold Crunchies, Robinson's Barley water and Bird's instant custard. What more could a girl ask for? I look forward to a return visit when they are operating on all cylinders and the crowds have gone. (Probably in 2015 then...)

X-rated

My sister-in-law has started a blog. Lets just say she has
"a way" with words. I find it extremely funny but don't read it if you are easily offended and dislike the F-Bomb...
Mother, you have been warned!!

http://thekrakenwakes.blogspot.com/

Memory Lane excursion

A couple of weeks ago we were over the neighbors house playing with their Spotify (ooo,err Missus!). We were taking turns to select music we like from our past (I know, its a far cry from the alcohol-fueled all-nighters of our youth!). Anyway, it was fun but it was amazing how hard it is to recall favorite songs 'on the fly'. Heres one I did remember



 and here's one I should've remembered

For your Eyes only

Good grief! A blast from the past! Just listening to BBC Radio 2 (thank goodness for Internet radio!), and I hear Sheena Easton "Modern Girl" blasting out. Remember her? She was a Scottish singer who gained fame and presumably fortune on a TV show called "The Big Time" and had hits such as "9 to 5/Morning train" and "For your Eyes only" - one of the Bond movie songs.
Link to it here:
http://youtu.be/8BOWrm4xzQ0

Talking of Radio 2, who is the idiot presenter Paul O'Grady? Is he for real? What a dick ('scuse my French)

Retired extremely dangerous

Watched a pretty good movie last night called RED starring Bruce Willis. It was about a  former black-ops agent Frank Moses who, when his peaceful life is threatened by a high-tech assassin, reassembles his old team in a last ditch effort to survive and uncover his assailants. It had a host of well-known actors/actresses such as  Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirrin, John Malcovich, Ernest Borgnine and Richard Dreyfuss. Quite entertaining, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I enjoyed the special effects and thankfully, Bruce Willis did not bear his chest or wear a vest at any point.

A typical Saturday morning

A typical Saturday morning.

1. Wake up late, go downstairs to make tea. Cleanup mess in kitchen from previous evening.
2. Kids are up. Clean up their breakfast mess in the kitchen. 
3. Go to put some washing on. Tidy up the kids bedrooms. Tidy up the kids bathroom. 
4. Inspired by a session of watching "Cupcake wars" last night, daughter is making lemon & lime cupcakes.  Tidy up kitchen .
5. A tornado (aka husband) comes into the kitchen., returning from grocery store, and now late for daughter's soccer. 
6. Daughter appears and declares she is ready to go. She just needs to clean her teeth, put her hair up, put on her socks, shin guards and cleats, get some water and put on her sports glasses. More tornado activity 
7. Finally they leave. Tidy away purchases. Go downstairs to gym to do some exercise. Peace at last.

Whoever said weekends were a time to relax?

Mount Pleasant...fairly pleasant

Been quite enjoying a British sitcom called Mount Pleasant, which airs on Sky1 and is set in a Manchester suburb. It stars Sally Lindsay as Lisa, Daniel Ryan as her husband Dan, Pauline Collins and Bobby Ball as Lisa's parents. Its not of Fawlty Towers caliber thats for sure, but its easy to watch and provides a few chuckles. One such moment was when 'Lisa' was describing an overweight  friend of hers; "She makes a whale look like a tictac"...that tickled old Ernie!

Scrabble anyone?

I'm enjoying playing a Facebook game called Words with Friends. Its basically an online version of Scrabble and you can play it with your Facebook friends or even with a random stranger if none of your friends want to play with you (which may be a problem you should look into some more...). This enables me to play Scrabble with my mother and brother-in-law in the UK, my brother in Saudi, as well as my son who is in the same room as me. Who ever said that computers destroyed family-time? This is just the good-old board game taken to the 21st century.

MAc or Windows?

My Dell laptop is on its last legs. The hinge on the lid/screen is loose so it won't stay vertical. The Q and the V keys are missing so I have to press a hole in the keyboard and hope for the best, and the M and K keys stick so I often find those letters have been issed out when I type quicly. To add to all that frustration, the fan is noisy and whirs constantly. But its obviously not working because the laptop gets burning hot underneath and occasionally shuts down because of it.

Everyone is trying to persuade me to get a Macbook Air. I'm not sure about these Macs. For a start, it takes me ages to close the window due to the buttons being on the top left instead of top right. I also don't know where the equivalent of "My Computer" or "Control Panel" is. Or how to set my desktop background as I like it. But I am tempted by the fact that it does not take 10 minutes to start up, and I don't have to wear a back support to lift it up...

However the real deal breaker for me is the fact that the Macbook Air only comes in silver. Where's the individuality in that? Where's the self-expression?! Unless I can get one in Orange or Turquoise then frankly, I will have to side with Mr Gates...

Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run

I've started doing some running in over the past month or so. Disheartened by how out of condition I felt when I ran a 5K road race earlier this year, I decided that I needed to do something more regularly to build up my stamina. I must say I am enjoying it although it is very weather dependant right now - mainly because I find it impossible to run in humidity or heat, both of which seems to be affecting us currently. I don't run far, only about 2-3 miles each run but I feel like I've worked hard at the end so it must be doing something.

I use a great website called http://www.mapmyrun.com which allows you to trace out a route in an area. It then tells you the distance and the elevations that apply to that route. Heres an example of a route I run:

Unpredictable weather

What on earth is going on with the weather in my part of the world? Last week it was starting to get chilly at night, and I got my jeans out and considered packing up my shorts for the year. Then this week its been either pouring with rain, or so warm and humid that we have the A/C at full blast. I don't know whether to wear shorts, or raincoats or sweaters. September is meant to be dry, sunny and warm, somebody has obviously forgotten that this year!

PS. Like the pic? Something to do with Hurricane Irene apparently. Nice shorts...

Good riddance Samsung

After 2 years of hand washing dishes after our Samsung dishwasher had supposedly washed them, we have finally lost patience and bought a new one. We are trying a Kitchenaid this time, which supposedly, along with Bosch, is one of the best mid-range dishwashers. So far so good, and it is unusual as it is one of the few dishwashers we saw that has retained its heated drying cycle.

I am starting to get a bit frustrated with the latest energy-saving, low water-use appliances. Its not that I am not energy conscious. I am as careful as the next person and I recycle everything I can. But if the result of these energy-saving measures is a dishwasher that doesn't actually wash because of the low water usage, and doesn't dry because of the lack of a heated drying cycle, then I would prefer to be an energy hogger. Its the same as the low water usage toilets that need to be flushed 2 or 3 times in order to prevent them getting clogged.

So fingers crossed that this one will work, and my dishes come out sparkling. I can say for sure that we will never buy another Samsung dishwasher, what a piece of junk. The racks were obviously designed by some intellectual who had never loaded a dishwasher in their life - I did not possess one piece of dishware that would fit in those racks. And the Samsung customer service was bad enough to make us think twice about ever buying any Samsung appliance again.

Bottom line, Energy efficient is not always best. Oh and Samsung - you suck!

Fangs for the memory

Its hard to believe that it's been two and a half years since my son, Robert first started his orthodontic work. The first year he tolerated a Herbst appliance in his mouth (An instrument of torture), then he put up with a full set of train tracks on his top teeth. Then just at the point where we thought the orthodontist was going to declare him done, instead he slapped a set of train tracks on his lower teeth too. Two and a half years of adjustments, elastics, brackets and wires.

Yesterday we finally heard the magic words; "Robert, you can get your braces off, you're done!"

Well, he whooped and cheered and danced around the room with glee, hugging the orthodontists, his assistants and high-fiving everyone in the waiting room (OK, I exaggerate, in reality, being a typical teenage boy,  he grunted with slightly more enthusiasm than normal...)

I will post a picture of the perfect teeth when he returns from his 'removal' appointment

Now on to the next child...

Come on Irene!

Hurricane Irene is heading up the East coast and supposedly Boston is in the direct path. Its a big hurricane, was a Category 3 over the Bahamas, is now a category 2 but is still significant enough to cause mandatory evacuation orders to be issued at various places up the coast. The people on the Weather Channel are all excited and its hard to tell whether this is serious or just something to ensure they get good viewing figures. Do I board up my windows? Do I stock up with water and buy a backup generator? Do I start looking for somewhere to evacuate to? Should I pack my suitcase? Or shall I just have an extra glass or two of wine and continue to watch the Weather Channel as the fun unfolds. Hmm....Cheers!

Where's the realism?

Just watched tonight's episode of Coronation Street. I was looking at Owen Armstrong (the builder) and a thought occured to me. Have you ever seen a builder with such puny, white arms? Come on Corrie, you are destroying your credibility ;)

A vacation in Montreal

Last week we spent 4 nights in Montreal, Canada. It was quite a drive there (5 hours) but the time seemed to pass quickly. To save me from posting lots of info about our activities, I shall use this opportunity to advertise my son Robert's "new" blog called Burnt Toast- (link to Robert's Blog), which gives a detailed account of what we did as well as a lot of photos. Check it out. He has his Dad's razor sharp wit (ahem...)

Happy Anniversary!

Happy 51st Anniversary to my parents!!