… something slightly more evil to make you smile…

(this is actually a followup to a previous post)

I’ve had a bit of a shitty day today. I won’t go into the whys and wherefores but it involves cold bugs, whiny sleep deprived parents and children and completely incompetent customer service to add into the mix.

Then this guy made me smile :)

Yes, I did have a camera with me, but I’m always a little wary of taking photographs near schools in case they’re misconstrued – even if I’ve carefully made sure there are no children in the shot. So you’ll just have to picture this…

… it’s snowy, lots of kids running around and squealing with delight. Walking down the hill and turning into the school carpark area. The children’s bikesheds are completely empty and monotone – just the white of the snow and the grey of the steel structure… all except for this bright splash of blue which turns out to be a plastic sledge tied up to the bike rail!

Awww, bless!

I love the snow.

Cooking when you’re feeling less than 100% is never really an enjoyable experience, is it?

Today’s plan was to make a chicken casserole. Dead easy, I thought… chuck everything in the slow cooker first thing in the morning – hassle free and yummy meal by the evening. Except getting out of bed with this cold in the head wasn’t particularly appealing so this morning was more than a tad rushed.

Plan B. Chucking all the ingredients into a casserole dish and cooking it in the oven for an hour and a half instead. Great! Except that was picking up from school time and then it slipped out of my mind.

Plan C. No worries, we can still have a healthy meal. I’ll just ignore my primal fear of explosions and dig out the pressure cooker from the bottom of the cupboard – once that’s up to pressure, a delicious meal is ready in mere minutes!

I defrosted the chicken, chopped all the veg, got the stock and the wine ready. Next job was to fry the onions and give the chicken a bit of colour… then chuck everything in, on goes the lid and…

… ooooookay. Where has the safety valve gone and why isn’t it still in the lid? I turf out everything in the cupboard, all the kitchen drawers … nada. I have a sinking feeling that the last time I used the pressure cooker was before the new kitchen went in around February – in which case the valve could be anywhere by now.

So what was the healthy nutritious meal we had to nurse us all back to health? McDonalds! Oh well, cooking the casserole in the oven now, I shall fridge it overnight then reheat for tomorrow’s dinner – pretending I’m a domestic goddess for having pre-prepared the meal so far in advance…

In a fit of constructive Blog Faffing, I have also got a favicon (the little image to the left of the URL in your browser bar). You probably can’t work out what it is, but it’s taken from:

and put through the very nifty favicon generator from the aptly named FavIcon from Pics site.

Ta da!

Okay, I’ll find a better photo at some point…

I have a new feature. If you look over to the little sidebar on your right, I now have a little rental space for showcasing other people’s blogs via Blog Explosion – a way of introducing readers to other sites of interest out in the blogosphere.

This week’s blog of note is OneManBandwidth. Lonnie, an American currently living in China, writes his observations about life there with a fair amount of politics, photographs, cartoons and poetry thrown in for good measure. The blog layout is simple but eyecatching, and this man knows how to use paragraph breaks, which my eyes are always greatful for!

His observations are interesting and detailed – I’ve been especially moved by the recent blog post about the cost of medical treatment and what happens when the money finally runs out. A reminder of how grateful I am for the National Health Service here in the UK, even when I do moan about its inefficiencies. Well worth a visit.

… for my American readers.

If you have turkey on Thanksgiving – what do you eat on Christmas Day? Do you have another turkey? Or is your traditional Christmas Day meal something completely different?

Just curious…

Woke up this morning with the sore throat from hell and feeling all groggy. As both Li’l Bhaji and Akra Jr have had The Cold[tm] this week and suffered greatly, I’ve let Akra go with the boys up to Blackburn this weekend (for my older nephew’s birthday and my younger nephew’s christening) while I stay here to recuperate and hopefully not infect anybody.

So, the weekend stretches before me. This should be luxurious – no kids, on my own, nothing particularly needing to get done in a hurry (well, okay, there’s a chore list three miles long but I’m conveniently ignoring that). Only problem is, I don’t feel well enough to really appreciate it.

I have ventured out this morning though. Popped into Tescos; bought milk, a paper and some sore-throat-friendly ready meals – that should carry me through and allow me to hibernate over the next two days. Well… you have to make the most of these opportunities, don’t you?!

I’ve had this great idea for a photo project. Well okay, maybe not completely mine – I got the idea from an article in Granta magazine. It’s a way of creating a photo record of you and your neighbourhood over the course of 2006. Anyone up for it?

Here’s the rules:

• Step 1: on January 1st, take 12 photographs around your neighbourhood. These locations must be places that you can get the exact same shot of throughout the year – so make a note of exactly where you stood, the composition of the shot, etc. Post a link to your work in progress on the Wheel of the Year Entries page.
• Step 2: on February 1st and each 1st of the month throughout 2006, go back to those same 12 places and take the exact same photo as you did on January 1st. Remember to update us with your link on the entries page!
• Step 3: by December 1st 2006, you should have a 12×12 grid of photographs recording the changes of the passing year in your neighbourhood. Upload it to your webspace of choice and don’t forget to send us that link!

Important considerations:

• Choose your locations carefully. You’ve got just over a month to think through where you would like them to be. I suggest local and fairly close together, mainly because you’re committing to retracing your steps every 1st of the month. If you’ve spaced them too widely or made them awkward to get to, then you’ll have an excuse to give up half way through, or fail to get them done on the right day. Doesn’t really matter if you’re a day early or a day late one month due to personal circumstances, but would be more satisfying to have them on the 1st each month.
• Get other people involved. These sorts of projects are so much more fun if lots of people get involved – would be fantastic if we could see the change of the seasons all over the world.
• Remember variety is the spice of life. 12 tree pictures would be fairly dull, although a landscape in at least one of them should probably be compulsory! Be creative with your ideas. I’ve listed some brainstorm suggestions below – if anyone has some other great ideas, post them in the comments section and the best ones I’ll add to the list.

Some ideas I came up with while brainstorming with Zippy last night (I’m sure you can come up with some better ones!):

• a room inside your house – are you a constant decorator/furniture rearranger? Want to see how bad your habit is?
• your garden
• your street
• a local shop display window – do they do fantastic displays for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter?
• yourself – see your change of clothes as the weather changes, change of hairstyle, more wrinkles being added ;)
• a bus queue – at the same time of day – are the same people there? How has their clothing changed with the time of year?
• a local nature reserve or park – what wildlife visits at what times of the year?
• a large building site – record the progress
• a newborn baby – the first year are the fastest changes that you’ll see in a child
• you could theme the 12 shots – I’m tempted by doing a Hanbury Hall sequence – a stately home I love very much near us. Alternatively you could do a theme around your local town centre with shots of the main shopping area, bus stop, shop displays, and down by the river… use your imagination if just outside your front door doesn’t inspire
• find a high viewpoint somewhere near home and make the 12 photos a 360 degree view from the top

So … what do you think?

UPDATE: a Flickr group has been set up for the project, conveniently called Wheel of the Year. If you’re a Flickr user, please feel free to join up and chat about ideas, etc!

UPDATE 29/12: I’ve amended the information above to include details of where to submit your links!

I’ve finally bullied persuaded a good friend of mine into starting her own blog. Go say hi to her on Zip and Nada – that’s an order!