Herbs and Splash

You Are Basil

You are a mild mannered person. People feel naturally calm around you.You are warm hearted and loving. You have a close knit circle of friends and family.You have the courage to be who you are in life, even if others disagree. You’re proud of your uniqueness. You are good at caring for and healing others. You are naturally soothing.

What Herb Are You?

This is from Little Old Me’s blog. She often posts little snippets like this which I think are fun to do.

And this leads me to the Splash Award for alluring, amusing, bewitching, impressive, and inspiring blogs, which Guyana Gyal has kindly offered:

 because I’d like to award it first  to Little Old Me for her blog which contains all of the above.

Next to Susie Vereker whose blog reflects her wide interests and a passion for reading and writing. Her next novel is due out in June. I can’t wait!

Then there’s Z from Norfolk who manages to write about her hectic life in a most compelling style.

Canisfamiliaris contains interesting and amusing anecdotes about life with a lively Bedlington terrier.

And last but by no means least comes Keith whose blog  often makes a point about what’s wrong with the world but also has more homely moments such as his latest post with a recipe for Turkey and Lovage pie.

When you receive this award, you get to:
1. Put the logo on your blog/post. (If I’ve done it wrongly you could get from Guyana Gyal.)
2. Nominate up to 9 blogs which allure, amuse, bewitch, impress or inspire you.
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have been splashed by commenting on their blog.
5. Remember to link to the person from whom you received your Splash award.

Left with a bitter taste

Last Wednesday we celebrated CC’s birthday and Jay did the cooking with just a bit of help from me.

The menu included a Jamie Oliver recipe for tuna balls in tomato sauce. Jay bought a lovely piece of fresh tuna  which was cooked with cinnamon, parsley, lemon  and pine nuts before being mixed with breadcrumbs and shaped into balls.

We all enjoyed this tasty treat and had the left overs the next day.

On Thursday evenng Bear opened a packet of biscuits while we were watching TV and I thought they tasted very bitter. He thought they were fine.

By Friday the bitter taste was noticeable all the time and made worse by eating or drinking anything. Adding honey or anything sweet made it even worse. I began to worry.

So I looked up ‘bitter taste in the mouth’ on the internet and to my surprise up popped a Sainsbury’s forum where lots of other people were suffering exactly the same symptoms after eating pinenuts – especially pinenuts from China.

I looked at the remaining packet in the cupboard and, sure enough, they did come from China.

The bitter taste is diminishing but hasn’t disappeared completely yet.

Fortunately, the rest of the family weren’t affected but I think we’ll all be a bit suspicious of ‘pignons’ in future.

Have any of you experienced this problem?

Bear again!!

It’s a long time since I’ve posted a moan about Bear.

In fact, apart from the occasional tantrum and tirade about living with the family, he hasn’t been too bad.

Until Thursday evening.

It was only a small thing that set him off. Our youngest cat, Willow was due for her operation (sterilisation) on Friday and food and drink were forbidden from 6 o’clock.

I made a point of telling everyone that I was feeding the cats early and then shutting Willow out of the conservatory at six to keep her away from the feeding bowls. I also put away the biscuits we keep in the bedroom (Holly’s diet – but they all like it).

During the evening I heard the rattle of biscuits coming from the bedroom and went in to find Bear putting out a bowl under Willow’s nose.

Of course, I called out to stop him and he went mad!

The verbal abuse ended with him coming at me, face full of hatred and grabbing me by the shoulders to shake me.

“I’ll shake you till your teeth drop out”  he began but suddenly seemed to realise what he was doing and let me go.

He started on his usual list of complaints: I’m not a wife to him – I don’t look after him properly – all our friends wonder how he puts up with it – I’m a selfish cow, only doing what I want – and I don’t love him!

Well, of course I’m no longer in love with him:  not when I’ve had to put up with that sort of behaviour for years on end, but I do look after him and I’m much nicer to him than he is to me.

Not surprisingly, I decided to sleep in the spare room “until you apologise”.

But would you believe it, he claimed that he only came towards me to kiss me and I reacted badly.

There sinply isn’t an answer to that – except that either he’s mad or I am. . . . . . . . .

By the way, Willow is still a bit dopey but she enjoyed the fish I cooked specially for her and so it looks as though she’s on the mend.

Bad hair day!

We haven’t had much luck with finding a reliable hairdresser  ’a domicile’.

First there was young Marie who set up her own business in the village but she got fed up and found a job in a salon without bothering to tell her regular customers.

So we tried the yellow pages and met Virginie who was less expensive and did everyone’s hair to their liking but, unfortunately, last week when I tried to contact her she didn’t reply to any of the messages I left.

So it was back to the telephone directory and I made arrangements with a lady from Deville to come round this morning.

She arrived in a snazzy sports car – a slim, chic blonde wearing sunglasses despite the overcast sky.

From the moment she stepped inside she didn’t stop talking until she left two and a half hours later.

Jay went first because he wanted to go out. As soon as she saw his bald patch she told him about a treatment to prevent further hair loss. Apparently a drug used to reduce high blood pressure had resulted in hair growth and so it was now marketed to rub on your head and massage in.

In between this we learned that she was ‘a professional’ and had been hairdressing for thirty years, owned several salons but preferred to paint whenever she had time.

She painted with a knife – mainly still life but also nudes and exhibited in her own atelier as well as in various places locally.

“You must come and see them” she said. “They start at 200 euros but most sell for around 700.”

“I’d like to see them, ” I replied, “but we couldn’t afford to buy one.”

When she got round to putting on my colour she explained again that she was a professional and most people expected home hairdressers to be cheaper but that wasn’t the case with her. She explained that my roots wouldn’t show up so much if I let her do ‘meches’ (two different colours).

I supposed that would be more expensive so I had better stick to just a normal colour while thinking to myself,

“Ooops – it’s a bit too late to send her packing now.”

She rattled on about her family, her job, her painting, sometimes asking questions but never letting me answer.

She admitted she lived life at a hundred miles an hour and had written off seven cars. She was only insured thanks to her husband’s insurance and he had threatened that if she had another accident there wouldn’t be a replacement vehicle.

She claimed she never asked a client what they wanted (I doubt she’d listen anyway) but they always ended up looking more beautiful than before.

CC begged to differ as, although she politely said she liked her new style when it was finished, she came to me in tears after and said it was the worst haircut she had ever had. The problem was that she refused to work in the bathroom in front of the mirror so we sat by the kitchen table unable to see what she was doing.

When it came to my cut and blo-dry I had the impression that she did not spend very long on the cutting part but she took quite a while to dry it – then put lacquer on before I could say I didn’t like the stuff. The finished result (above) makes me look as though I’m wearing a wig, according to my daughter – and I have to agree. However, the colour is OK  despite the fact that my forehead and ears are stained too.

She cut Bear’s hair and he, at least, was happy with the result.

I made her a coffee and got out my cheque book.

“As I have done the whole family I’ll give you a special price” she began, but when she started to reel off her normal pricelist it was much more expensive than the local salon, so even with her ‘discount’  we were landed with a bill for 120 euros – nearly twice as much as I’m used to paying.

Looks like it’s back to the yellow pages again next time with a reminder to self to check prices in advance.