It’s winter in the veggie garden at the Swanson household, although you wouldn’t know it by looking at the mercury. The benefit of all this unseasonably warm weather is the growth we are seeing in our garden beds: tomatoes are ripening & fruiting, peas & squash are flourishing everywhere and the greens & carrots popping up. And don’t forget the strawberries!
With the twilight beginning to fade I’m watching my chooks cautiously making their way in to roost for the evening and this causes me to reflect on just how happy poo makes me.
Sure the chooks lay eggs, just perfect for a fresh batch of mayonnaise, but it’s the poo that’s got me well chuffed. They are veritable wing-ed poo-machines. They poo all over their roost, the floor of their cage and, now the fence is up, my yard. It’s fantastic!
While shoveling up small mounds of dried chook dirt isn’t to be sneezed at, it’s the results of all this poo that I’m really looking forward to; it’s the juicy Cuor di Bue tomatoes, the fractilous Romanesco Broccoli and the small forest of herbs that has me salivating in anticipation.
That is all I have to say on the matter of poo and happiness, for now.
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Facebook is for girls; Twitter is for guys. Facebook is a marriage; Twitter is barely cohabiting. Facebook coerces you to befriend every bedraggled so and so you ever met, lest honesty undermine you. Twitter allows you to attract a thousand followers and yet acknowledge none. Facebook demands your engagement in the collective story of life; Twitter is an unfettered podium. Facebook is the gaggle around the coffee table; Twitter is two guys over a smoldering BBQ.
Facebook: will you acknowledge me as a friend?
Twitter: @monkeyman your farts stink.
When asked, I like to compare our time here to climbing a mountain. It begins with excited anticipation. You make a start but soon the reality sinks in; you realise you have a long climb ahead. Then it’s pain the whole way, with a few spectacular views from the top. After getting back down as fast as you can, you stop and realise what it is you just did and ask yourself, “why don’t we do this more often?”.
It’s been a long time since I updated my blog, but now that the coming of summer has thawed the icy veins of my depression I feel motivated to reflect upon my life once more; today it’s chess. Chess has been played for thousands of years, but I only really joined in over the course of the last 12 months. A year ago, whilst wandering the grounds of the school, I noticed the old gardener and his young apprentice battling it out on a regular basis and eventually my curiosity overcame my bashfulness; now I am the apprentice, getting a regular thrashing by both the chess master and his 12 year old protege.
Today I got to live one of my dreams and visit a cymbal factory, and what’s more, one in the spiritual home of modern cymbals – Istanbul! The long trek from my cosy hotel in the historic Sultanahmet district to a drab industrial estate an hour to the west was immediately justified when I was greeted by some grubby young teenagers who assured my signed questioning that I had, at last, arrived at the Istanbul Mehmet Cymbal factory. You’ve just got to …
Need I say more? But yet I will. I’m enjoying a week in Istanbul and one highlight is the availability of real seafood. Unfortunately the “seafood” available in Kiev is more like stinky river fish; only God knows what’s in the water. Istanbul is right on the Sea of Marmara so there is no shortage here. Here I’m enjoying a freshly grilled mackerel sandwich by the sea on a cold and blustery winter’s day, and only $3!
Maybe it’s the twenty cent baguettes, perhaps it’s the massive range or even the untypically Ukrainian feeling of space but there is something about the French supermarket chain “Auchan” that draws Kievites by the, seemingly, millions. I’ve never been stuck in a shopping trolley traffic jam long enough before to contemplate that industrial sized supermarkets could be designed to actually be filled with patrons; I just thought the scale was provided to cater to a western appreciation of personal space. My hat goes off, however, to the managment of Auchan for providing an equally ridiculous number of checkouts AND actually staffing them (take that Furshett!!).