Congratulations

This time fifty years and one day ago my parents got married. 

Congratulations my beautiful parents.

Holidays

My brother Sunshine, Mrs Sunshine and the not-so-small Sunshines have just got back from a family holiday in Peru and Brazil. (Permission to feel a teensy bit jealous:granted). Check out one of the holiday snaps we are now being tortured with. 

Hello Machu Picchu.

He sent me an email last week and it included the phrase, 'off to Rio tomorrow.' Like my cousin (see two posts below) I almost was never going to talk to him again.

But that was never going to happen because the photos look just far too good and I'm just far too nosey.

P.S Can you believe what you're looking at is nearly six hundred years old? If only I could age that well.

Confused? I Think So.

Dear Fly

It's Winter.

Now please go away.

Love Kate

For Foodies

My cousin has just set a blog Food that Tastes Great .

I think you could accurately describe her as a weapon in the in the kitchen. I remember our grandmother once telling me off when we were shorter versions of our current selves.

'You don't know how to cook peas? Even Your Cousin can cook peas!' She's a year younger than me so, technically, I suppose in Grandmother's mind I should have already known how to boil peas.


My rational for not knowing how to cook peas was,  'Why -oh- why would I want to know how to cook peas? I'm ten. They're a vegetable.' (Insert noise as though I'm coughing up a fur ball).

Anyway, if you want to learn how to cook way more complicated food that I'm capable of - I highly recommend it.

I'm loving the sound of her bread.

Now I'm just going to have to get her to make it for me. (Only problem is that currently she's holidaying on a yacht off Tonga and has been torturing us with idyllic photos on Facebook, so there's every chance I may never talk to her again).

Wine Fairy

So last Friday we arrive home after a drink down the road to find a bottle of wine on the doorstep.

A Hawkes Bay chardonnay, if you will.

No note, no nothing, just a bottle of wine.

But what to do? (Drink it, obviously)

But what do the Karma Gods say on this? Do we now have to go and anonymously drop a bottle of wine on someone's doorstep so the chain is not broken?

I am not aware of what is protocol when the Wine Fairy visits.

Hell, I didn't even have to leave out a tooth. Does an expensive visit to the dentist count?

Anyone?

Monday Morning Wisdom

And happy July to you! I thought I'd celebrate the fact that winter is a third over with this little pearler. 

It put a smile on my dial!

Words

Ohh look, stripes! Sadly, it's not a feature I've designed, it's just one I can't get rid of due to the fact I'm a Luddite when it comes to cut and paste. 

But hey, I'm just going to embrace it. Do you like my redecoration?

I came across this list the other day - you may well have seen it as it's been doing the rounds on the interweb but it's just too good not to cut and paste repeat. 

In a nutshell it's a list of 25 words that don't exist in the English language: okay, we're kicking off with :

1 Age-otori (Japanese): To look worse after a haircut. Isn't that a great word. I wonder if there's one that's 'To look like a poodle after a blow dry'. I've been there. I needed that word. 

2 Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didn’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude. Oh, that's getting way too complicated for my simple brain, but I can almost get it.

3 Backpfeifengesicht (German): A face badly in need of a fist. I love that word. I work with people who work with people who need that word. 

4 Bakku-shan (Japanese): A beautiful girl… as long as she’s being viewed from behind. Is that better or worse than 'A beautiful person...until they open their mouth'?

5 Desenrascanço (Portuguese): “to disentangle” yourself out of a bad situation (To MacGyver it). I'm okay with 'MacGyver' as a verb. 

6 Duende (Spanish): a climactic show of spirit in a performance or work of art, which might be fulfilled in flamenco dancing, or bull-fighting, etc. I've never needed this word, but I can understand it would be very helpful for some. 

7 Forelsket (Norwegian): The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love. I can't believe we need ten words to describe this, when one would do.

8 Gigil (pronounced Gheegle; Filipino): The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute. I'm hearing ya. 

9 is a bit boring. 

10 Ilunga (Tshiluba, Congo): A person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.  A third time? Really? It's sad that this word exists. 

11 L’esprit de l’escalier (French): usually translated as “staircase wit,” is the act of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late to deliver it. This word is me. 

12 started to lose me and 13 as well. Oh and, add 14. 

15 Meraki (pronounced may-rah-kee; Greek): Doing something with soul, creativity, or love. It’s when you put something of yourself into what you’re doing. I'm loving meraki. 

16 Nunchi (Korean): the subtle art of listening and gauging another’s mood. In Western culture, nunchi could be described as the concept of emotional intelligence. Knowing what to say or do, or what not to say or do, in a given situation. A socially clumsy person can be described as ‘nunchi eoptta’, meaning “absent of nunchi” And I'm loving nunchi as well. 

17 Pena ajena (Mexican Spanish): The embarrassment you feel watching someone else’s humiliation. Does 'cringe and die a little bit inside' also work? 

18 Pochemuchka (Russian): a person who asks a lot of questions. Hmmm, some of my nearest and dearest would argue that we have a word for that in English: 'Kate'.

19 Schadenfreude (German): the pleasure derived from someone else’s pain. I think that's done the jump to English. 

20 Sgriob (Gaelic): The itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whisky. Don't get that. 

21 Taarradhin (Arabic): implies a happy solution for everyone, or “I win. You win.” It’s a way of reconciling without anyone losing face. Arabic has no word for “compromise,” in the sense of reaching an arrangement via struggle and disagreement.I like this word. 

22 Tatemae and Honne (Japanese): What you pretend to believe and what you actually believe, respectively. Graham Capill, anyone?

23 Tingo (Pascuense language of Easter Island): to borrow objects one by one from a neighbor’s house until there is nothing left. Don't think I need that word. 

24 Waldeinsamkeit (German): The feeling of being alone in the woods.Does this apply to bears?

25 Yoko meshi (Japanese): literally ‘a meal eaten sideways,’ referring to the peculiar stress induced by speaking a foreign language. I get this !

Anyhou, feel free to expand your vocab. I shall endeavour to (but can safely safe, will fail miserably. But I'm okay with that).