MOTHER NATURE - OW!

Nestling in the woods above a winding stream the holiday bungalow was comfy and spacious and equipped with all mod cons. The weather was wonderful too - hot-hot-hot(!) with only two rather violent thunderstorms - and the Park amenities were excellent. Swimming, eating, walking, eating, climbing, eating, bowling and eating...!! Well, what the h*ck! Isn't that all part of enjoying a good holiday? Even though lots of normally 'forbidden' snacks and sweeties are now (despite all that activity) lodged for the unforeseeable future around the old hips and tum....

The setting was great; surrounded as we were with numerous different sorts of interesting trees, filled with birds of many lovely colours and inclination (I like birds). Cheeky Tom-Tits; raucous Jays; bossy Magpies; and busy mother ducks with their numerous fluffy offspring, all anxious to share our picnic breakfasts.

We were even treated to an occasional glimpse of two red squirrels, chattering at us from high up in the trees, although too timid to come down whilst we were outside.

All in all, Dutch Mother Nature at her most relaxing, picturesque and charming best....

WOAH... back up for just a moment there Geri!...

AND her worst!!!!!!!!!! *scratch, scratch*

Yup, I got bitten, remorselessly - by creeping, flying, whining, buzzing, horrible buggy things! Have been home two days now, but am still scratching at big red lumps on arms and legs. The one just above the left knee looks suspiciously tick-like too...

Why didn't I use the repellent on offer? Because I'm an idiot, that's why...tsk!

The second week of my summer holiday will be in Scotland, starting at the beginning of August - but since the end of last week the picture of beautiful highlands and the interesting woods and wild life they have there too, is now rapidly giving way to a vision of dozens of ominous clouds of.....midges!! I saw on the UK news recently that these pesky, tiny devils had actually driven hoards of camping tourists away....

Ah well - that's Nature, I guess. Take it or leave it.

I'll take it - but will be smearing myself in with 'anti-bug' from head to toe, the moment I leave the plane. Oh yeah..!

Happy holidays everyone! And take care, wherever you go.

BUTTON IT!

Oo goody, what's this? A new blog button ...*press*...... What on earth....?

Hmm.... now that's in-ter-es-ting....

Have just found this (probably not) new (but have only just noticed it, duh) monetize button on the blog Dashboard - and not being able to resist pressing a button....

A host of ads have just appeared under my last posting (???)

Technology at its most instantaneous and wonderously confusing (to me).

Oh crikey - supposing I want to remove them? Where's the button for that?
(More searching)

Not found yet.... Okay, keep searching...
(Preparation: Count down from 100 (brain exercise). Fresh pot of tea and chocolate bar (brain food) broken into manageable pieces and placed within reaching distance; investigative (button pressing - what else did you think?!) finger, at the ready...).

Can't wait to see what ads appear under this post!!! Heh heh.

BRAIN DRAIN!

It's the daily routine that's to blame, I'm convinced of it, because now I've stopped jetting backwards and forwards and thinking outside the box, I'm back to forgetting where I've put things - again!
Keys; shoes; bag; knickers; you name it.. nowhere to be found - so yup, life is definitely back to normal!

Time for the old brain exercises I'm thinking (well, at least I'm thinking!) and actually, I've reinstated one of the 'brain drains' we used to do at school on the last day of term, when the teacher couldn't think of anything else to keep us busy - and quiet.

The key word is PLANET and you have to get as many other words out of it as you can.
I think the record for this particular word is 92 other words - but there again, that does seem rather a lot - I can only see about 10 at first glance!

Come on then brain - here we go!

P L A N E T.
plan; plant; plane; pan; pane; pen; pat; pet; plate; peat; pleat; pal; pale; pelt; petal; - is that all the P's?

L... yawn ... This is really draining. Just off for a quick cuppa and chocy bar (brain food) - carry on without me folks...!!

WINTER SLEEP

Woke briefly from winter hibernation this morning and poked my sleep grizzled head out of the Geri Atric cave… A watery sun struggled through the clouds to briefly touch my tongue. Other folk hold up their finger to test the wind. I stick out my tongue to test the sun. Don’t ask.

Not a soul to be seen, except for a row of seagulls, perched motionlessly on the roof of the building opposite. They eye me hungrily.

I’m feeling peckish too and rummage hopefully through my depleting store of nuts and berries. Hmm, not much left. Spring will have to come soon….

A brief visit to the computer to read online news - and also to see if my blog is still there. Does the Blog Host Company, or whatever it’s called, delete your blog if it is not contributed to regularly (?) Not much to report at the moment but it’s nice to know I have an outlet, for those rare moments of rambling inspiration.

(Almost) cuddled back on the settee now, with the telly droning in the background and eyelids drooping…
Dreams of emigrating to warmer climes. Dreams of eating a mountain of chocolate ice-cream. Dreams of being young and nubile again.

Those ravenous seagulls are gathering under my window – and have been joined by flocks of raucous crows. I throw them stale bread and watch them half kill each other.
I like birds.

I hate winter.

CAMERA TRICKS

There should be a breathtaking, winter wonderland photograph of my latest walk in the park, set right here, in the middle of this page…. however, there obviously isn’t… mutter.

Instead, my recently acquired, first ever digital camera, kindly given to me by my son-in-law, is informing me that it is full to bursting (with Christmas pics) which means that all the lovely New Years photo’s I took, depicting silver white Jack Frosted trees; dogs rolling delightedly on icy white grass; people clutching for dear life onto lampposts and ducks slipping and sliding comically on frozen ponds, were not recorded at all!

Technology is still taunting me…

Ah… there appears to be a drawing of a dustbin, situated bottom left on the camera screen. So I’m assuming that’s where the ‘old’ photographs of feasting family members must be thrown…Have fortunately recently mastered camera to computer downloading or uploading (?) so Christmas 2008 is preserved for posterity – but had not realized you also have to remove the pictures from the camera afterwards, to stop it getting ‘full’. Well, well. I thought they just sort of ‘dissipated’ into some eternal memory bank, or something… but apparently not.

Right…so how to proceed? Geri’s usual m.o. when faced with a new technological challenge is to ignore the incomprehensible, geek talk ‘instructions’ and press every button in sight. And when that doesn’t work, mutter unutterable words and weep with frustration!

However this year, things will be different. Think first and then act is my new resolution. So have laid the camera carefully down, put the kettle on for a nice hot cuppa and am about to rummage for brain food: - i.e., chocolate (!).

Hey-ho, off we go then… slurp, chomp, press, click… this should only take me about a week to learn. And then of course I shall have to go and take more photographs - but by the look of it the frost will still be here! Brrr...!

Wrap up warm everyone! Unless of course you live in a hot climate, then that would be just plain daft....

NO MEAN FEET!

Waiting for the tram yesterday morning I was struck by the diversely colourful attire of the female commuters - but what grabbed my attention the most, were not the clothes - but the ladies feet! Female toenails to be exact, in all shapes, sizes and colours, peeping out from all manner and style of sandals.

Standing between two women I recognised as neighbours from my street, my eyes were riveted by the sight of our toes. My own honey yellow offerings twinkled up at me from between red cherry to the left and deep purple plum to the right and in the ten minutes we waited for the tram, we were joined by orange fizz, green apple, black liquorice, juicy blueberry and raspberry pink!

Fascinated and amused, I nudged both neighbours - who were chattering in Dutch behind my bent head - to take a look at the multicoloured phenomenon below. Glancing down and chuckling briefly, they were about to resume their conversation when I injected an item of my own.
‘The sight of all these toes is making my mouth water!’
The neighbour on the left looked blank but the one on the right smiled nervously and shifted slightly away. Then the tram arrived and we all piled in and got separated.

As we trundled along, I mused on that ‘look’. I get this a lot in the Netherlands. Even after all the years I’ve lived here the language can still stump me. It’s no good just insinuating something the way you would in English and expect the subtlety of your wit to be understood. In Dutch you must explain yourself properly and I suddenly realised that what I should have said was: ‘The nail varnishes all have names of fruits and the thought of them is making my mouth water.’ Which if you’ve got to explain it that much has killed the whole point of saying it in the first place and it wasn’t what I meant anyway! Darn it! So now by the time the sun goes down, everyone in our street will think I’ve got a foot fetish!

Oh well, let them think what they like, I couldn’t care less, because my mouth was still watering and it was the toenails themselves causing it - but only because the sight of all those shiny, round, multicoloured little objects had given me an overwhelming craving for a bag of M and M’s!

RETURN OF THE GLITCH GREMLINS!

Oh... stuff! It seems those infernal techno' gremlins, have invaded my life again (!)
The portents are not good. My computer has just asked me twice if I’ve forgotten my password and will not let me log on. So… retype password for the third time, letter for letter, with great concentration: i.e., aided by tip of tongue protruding from side of mouth – and bingo! I’m in! Good old tongue, always there when I need it.
Just for a change, I decide to type my blog URL directly onto the web, to see what it looks like to ‘the world’ so to speak - when up pops the announcement that there is no such blog in existence!
Aagghh…! Instant panic as heart leaps into throat. O.M.G.! ‘They’ have taken it off! I must have transcended some moral code or other. Oh gosh, which one? Why? What have I done?
Good old tongue to the rescue, moistening increasingly dry lips - although I have to practically ‘gag’ it up from the back of my throat, after almost swallowing it in shock! My darting eyes search frantically for the problem – then… ping (!) the old grey mush other people refer to as a brain, finally wakes up properly and tells me I have misspelled the URL address…. A quick retype… and there it is!
Oh the blessed relief! There you are - my new little blog. Kiss kiss! Ouch! Bump my nose on the monitor and it tastes horrible too. Relief does strange things to a person but the adrenalin rush has receded now and here I am typing away, so I think it is probably time for a nice strong, refreshing cup of tea.
Actually, this posting was only intended as a postscript to ‘Cell Phone Cacophony’. I just wanted to say that encouraged by my son, who came over for a visit yesterday, I went out and bought a sleek new cell phone! It is shiny and red and about one third the size of my wallet (!) although just as useless at the moment, because it still needs to be programmed. Hmm. I know this sounds daft - but I have turned aside all offers of help. Past events have shown that when anyone tries to help me with new technological challenges, I get into a flap! The combination of geek jargon and watching someone else’s finger clicking rapidly on menu buttons - passes right over my fuddled white head.
So there's nothing else for it, if these new technologies are going to ‘stick', I have to tackle them myself. Either that, or keep phoning the kids for help and become a dreaded burden! Still, on second thoughts, isn't that what kids are for? No, on third thoughts, I’d better not. They are all talking to me at the moment… and I’d like to keep it that way!
I do have one tried and true aid though. Tea! Pots and pots of it and I think a mild blackberry flavour would go down a treat right now. Also, if I’m not mistaken, there are still a few chocolate bars left in ‘Granny’s Sweetie Jar’. I buy them for my almost three year old grandson, but his mum - very sensibly - wont let him have too many of them. So I help him along a bit. Can’t have the stock going stale!
Still, they do say that eating chocolate releases endorphins in the brain and I am going to need a lot of ‘happy feeling’, before tackling my brand new cell phone! Now if I could just find out which foodstuffs induce PATIENCE…? Any ideas? Tea’s up! Cheers!

THOSE TERRIFYING TEETH

I’ve tried to look after them, I really have – but is there really anything good to say about teeth? From the moment in babyhood when those first tiny ivories penetrate our tender gums, they torment and control our lives: Brush me! Floss me! Avoid too many sweeties (not a chance…) Take me for regular dental checks – and all in the name of avoiding toothaches and bad breath and acquiring a healthy, attractive smile.
Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way for yours truly. My second front teeth came through crossed, requiring an uncomfortable brace - and were not particularly white to start off with. I also had ‘extra teeth’ that needed to be yanked – and in those distant days of yore they actually used GAS to knock you out with! The horror and pain of it all is etched forever on my mind. The black rubber gas mask… nauseating smell… dizziness… feeling of whizzing through a tunnel backwards… and the humility of waking up and discovering I’d wet my knickers! No time to wallow in self-pity though, I’d be too busy throwing up. None of this was unusual for the times. In fact the whole process was considered quite humane. Milk teeth were usually pulled without anesthetic. Believe me - I know!
Oh how often I have envied those fellow citizens genetically endowed with strong, straight, natural pearly whites, while my own ancestors saw fit to curse me with a hodge-podge of brittle, crooked, off-white curiosities. Bah!
For a while, as a teenager I blamed my less than attractive smile on being born just two years after the end of WW 2 (a ‘baby boomer’) to a mother trying to stay healthy on rationed foodstuffs: i.e., eggs, butter, cheese, milk, meat, etc... Then later, as a mother myself, although well fed, I privately but fleetingly attributed my rapidly loosening molars to the arrival of my own kids! How ‘cruel’ (!) I hear you say - but isn’t there an Old-Wives-Tale that predicts something like: ‘Get pregnant - lose a tooth’? Still, that would only account for three molars at best.
No, there’s nothing else for it. I’ll just have to own up. The fact is I was a greedy, lazy child, who grew up with her hand in the cake tin and stole her little brothers’ chocolate bars, toffees and lollies and employed a perfunctory brushing technique at best!
Happily that’s all in the past now. A decent dentist, has put most of my genetic and hygienic dental legacy and transgressions to rights.
As I smile into the mirror today, I see a top row of gleaming white ‘crowns’ and a bottom row of more or less intact natural teeth, which are however a couple of shades less white than the top row - and that is why I said ‘most’ and not ‘all’ has been put right. There remains just one thing left for me to do and I’m really looking forward to it!
I’ve bought a ‘Teeth Whitening Kit’ for my bottom teeth – and I can’t wait to get started!
There are two tubes of jelly like paste: one for the whitening process and one for maintenance. There is also a half-circle shaped lump of transparent plastic, which apparently has to be heated in hot water and then pressed over my own teeth and held in place for a minute or two to allow it to mould to their shape. This phase must be done properly because once heated and cooled the mould cannot be reheated and reshaped…hmm (slight trepidation in pit of stomach). I must then apply some of the whitening jelly into the mould and put it back over my (bottom) teeth and hold firmly in place for twenty minutes. Repeat daily and after three days I should see a remarkable improvement. Lovely! Seems easy enough, even for my extremely un-technical, un-spatial, un-mathematical brain. So here I go! Tra-la!

I’m bleaching my teeth with a home-try kit,
You have to melt the mould to make it fit….(struggle).
I’m bleachin’ me teef wiv a hmm made kit….(slurp),
Ye af te melt de muld te mek it fit….(drool).
‘m bleech’n mi teefs wiv a hmmm mud kit… (splutter).
Y’v tu mul de mdddd… t’ mek it f’tttt…(slobber….choke!)
And it doesn’t!! It doesn’t fit – and I can’t reheat it…. sob!

Nothing else for it but to phone the dentist for a scrape and a polish and hope s/he can fit me in before 2010…..See ya! I’m off to comfort myself with a cuppa… and a very tiny bar of chocolate.