Well on Wednesday I finally got time to clean the russula fungi and stew them. It took a while because the pine needles were well stuck onto the top, and because I had to take a tiny nibble of each one. Any hot ones had to be dicarded. And we finally ate them last night, with cream and pasta.
They were delicious. And we're all still alive.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Poor little Inky
We have two cats, Bib and Inky. Both are black, but Bib, the mother, has a white bib under her chin.
Last week Inky came home with her face all swollen. I only just had time to get her to the vet before they shut at 8pm, so the vet said to leave her overnight. It was an abscess almost as big as a golf ball and she'd need a small operation under general anaesthetic.
When I collected her on Wednesday, the poor thing had a dirty great drainage tube poking out of her cheek, and the vet said I'd need to squirt hydrogen peroxide into the hole every day for five days to prevent re-infection. He gave me a seringe without a needle to do it with.
Can you imagine a cat sitting still while you do that? In his autobiography (On Writing) Stephen King describes the daily cleaning of the pins into his broken leg as being "like someone poured gasoline over my leg and then set light to it." That sounds like hydrogen peroxide.
On Wednesday morning I wrapped her in a towel so she couldn't escape or scratch me. Then I squirted the stuff into the wound.
It was like a cartoon. The cat shot at least a foot into the air and whizzed out of the door. I didn't see her again until late evening.
On Thursday it was surprisingly easy to catch her, and I wrapped her up much more tightly, so I could do the job properly. Boy, did the poor thing howl.
On Friday and Saturday I couldn't get near her, although I did manage another squirt on Sunday.
And on Monday the drainage tube was supposed to come out. Well I finally caught her in the evening, wrapped her, and pulled on the tube. Nothing doing. My husband went for some tweezers. I managed to get a grip on it, but it still wouldn't come. Then I noticed that there was a stitch going through it. My heart hammered, but I managed to cut the stitch and pull it out, and Inky didn't seem too bothered by my efforts. After that the tube came easily, but there was pus with it, so I had to give the poor thing another squirt of the dreaded H2O2.
And to my astonishment she didn't even leave the room afterwards, and she was letting me stroke her again within ten minutes.
Last week Inky came home with her face all swollen. I only just had time to get her to the vet before they shut at 8pm, so the vet said to leave her overnight. It was an abscess almost as big as a golf ball and she'd need a small operation under general anaesthetic.
When I collected her on Wednesday, the poor thing had a dirty great drainage tube poking out of her cheek, and the vet said I'd need to squirt hydrogen peroxide into the hole every day for five days to prevent re-infection. He gave me a seringe without a needle to do it with.
Can you imagine a cat sitting still while you do that? In his autobiography (On Writing) Stephen King describes the daily cleaning of the pins into his broken leg as being "like someone poured gasoline over my leg and then set light to it." That sounds like hydrogen peroxide.
On Wednesday morning I wrapped her in a towel so she couldn't escape or scratch me. Then I squirted the stuff into the wound.
It was like a cartoon. The cat shot at least a foot into the air and whizzed out of the door. I didn't see her again until late evening.
On Thursday it was surprisingly easy to catch her, and I wrapped her up much more tightly, so I could do the job properly. Boy, did the poor thing howl.
On Friday and Saturday I couldn't get near her, although I did manage another squirt on Sunday.
And on Monday the drainage tube was supposed to come out. Well I finally caught her in the evening, wrapped her, and pulled on the tube. Nothing doing. My husband went for some tweezers. I managed to get a grip on it, but it still wouldn't come. Then I noticed that there was a stitch going through it. My heart hammered, but I managed to cut the stitch and pull it out, and Inky didn't seem too bothered by my efforts. After that the tube came easily, but there was pus with it, so I had to give the poor thing another squirt of the dreaded H2O2.
And to my astonishment she didn't even leave the room afterwards, and she was letting me stroke her again within ten minutes.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Toadstools
One of my friends goes hunting wild mushrooms every Sunday, and today I went with her.
We were in a group of about twenty people, all spread out over the hillside in the pine forest. I was hoping to find nacidas - the only wild fungus I can reliably recognise on the island, because they look like little new potatoes poking out of the ground. Well I did find nacidas. I found three, and they were all too old to eat. (When they're old the inside turns from white to grey.)
What I did find was lots of a mushroom called Russula Turci. They grow under the pine needles and it's easy to walk over them before you see them. I pulled up enough to fill my basket.
And then everybody got together to show the expert (a high-school science teacher called Pepe) what they'd found and have it identified. And we got a little lecture on how to collect fungi so that it could fruit again. You don't pull it up, you cut it.
Oops!
Friday, October 06, 2006
Making an Exhibition of Myself
I've got an exhibition of photos up at the local airport, so life's a bit strange at the moment. We start the day with a mad rush to get my son to school, then I go straight to the airport and open the exhibition. For most of the morning there are just enough people coming through that I can't settle to anything else, so I get thoroughly bored. Once or twice a day there's a big charter flight, and then the place is packed. After all, it's at least an hour between check-in and boarding, and there's not much else to do. A good percentage of visitors ooh and ah, or say nice things to me about the photos, but nobody's bought a thing so far. Of course they've all checked in their suitcases, haven't they? My husband had the brilliant idea of selling postcard-sized prints: small enough to go in the hand luggage and cheap enough for an impulse buy. The only catch is, I can't get to the photo shop because I'm stuck in an exhibition all day, and he can't go either because he's stuck up a mountain. Maybe I'll manage it at the weekend. On the other hand, my business cards keep going, and with a bit of luck a few people will order from the web site. Of course this means that the web site will need serious work as soon as the exhibition's over.
At lunch time I close the exhibition and have another mad rush to pick up my son from school, feed him, and get back to the exhibition by three. Usually we're a little late. Then we try to get his homework done. Now my son isn't very good at concentrating at the best of times (and believe me, sitting in an exhibition isn't the best of times) so the homework takes forever. Then he plays with his Game Boy or my laptop, and gets thoroughly bored. At eight we shut up shop and have another mad rush to get dinner and get him to bed. I try to fit in a little cleaning or email before I collapse into bed. It's surprisingly tiring sitting still almost all day.
On Wednesday a friend babysat the exhibition for the afternoon, and I had a mad afternoon turning the house from filthy to grubby, and dyeing my hair. (Look, my hair colour is my own, all right? I paid for the bottle.) This afternoon my son went to his Godmother's, since the homework can wait a little. My goodness am I looking forward to closing for the day on Sunday!
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Osama bin Laden and the Paris Hilton
We're on holiday. We just spent five days in Paris.
Guess when we were supposed to be flying to London?
When we left the hotel at 11am, the receptionist checked the web and said there was a problem at Heathrow, but it looked like London Luton wasn't affected. So we took a taxi to the airport and checked in, they said we'd have a two hour delay because somebody had tried to get a bomb onto a plane at Heathrow. We sighed and shrugged our shoulders. Two hours isn't fun, but hey, we'd been through worse. We went through security (which was normal at the time) and I passed some of the wait on a seriously expensive Internet connection and caught the breaking news from London Heathrow, which was pretty vague at the time. In due course we got onto the plane three hours after the official time and waited. The crew apologised for the delay, saying that things were pretty bad in London airports. It's the first time I've seen cabin crew look frazzled. And we waited. And waited.
I was really glad that Julio had his Game Boy.
Then the pilot announced that he was very sorry, but we appeared to have one suitcase too many, and he was annoyed because they'd had an extra three hours to sort out our luggage. However, there was no way we could fly until they'd cleared this up.
So we waited some more. And waited. And got chatting to the mother and daughter behind us. Julio made friends with the girl, who was a little older than him and called Louise.
And then the pilot announced that he was really, really sorry, but he was now out of hours and it was illegal for the crew to fly. We'd be provided with a hotel, dinner and breakfast, and we could either fly in the morning or claim a refund. Please to go back, claim our suitcases, and someone would come with information.
So we went thought passport control into baggage reclaim, and one suitcase sat on the carousel going round and round and round. That was almost certainly the one that caused the hold up. Julio got really friendly with Louise.
Eventually somebody appeared and began talking to 120 scattered people at normal conversational volume. It wasn't until I yelled "INFORMATION!" that people gathered around.
We were booked into the Hilton! Dinner would be at 8pm, and we had to be back in the airport for 6am.
The promised shuttle buses never appeared, so we had to walk with luggage for about 1/4 mile and queued and queued for reception. When we finally got to the room we attacked the mini bar and spent 18.50 Euros in about 20 minutes. But then we found out that the normal price for the room was 748 Euros per night.
Kim and Loise were in the next room, and the kids spent most of the time before dinner under Julio's bed, giggling. If they'd been just a little bit older, I'd have been very worried. As it was, I went to soak in the bath. Carlos had a shower (there was a separate shower).
Dinner was a set menu, but very good. Especially when you consider that they produced dinner for 120 people at one hour's notice. And we all went to bed soon after, having had a tiring day.
We got up at 5:15 and went down to reception. Our departure time had been moved back. Breakfast would be served from 8-9, please to be in the airport terminal by 11. Obviously we went back to bed.
Just before breakfast, we spent some time surfing news channels, and they all said there would be no hand luggage in or out of London. We repacked.
We got to the airport well before 11, and found the information desk to ask for details about check in and hand luggage. Nope, no hand luggage except passports, medicines, and tampons without a box. The check in didn't open until 11am, (for a 1pm flight when there's a security red-alert. Hello???) and the queue was extremely slow. So I went down to the front in search of extra luggage tags, seeing as our repacked "hand" luggage was now going in the hold.
The people at the front of the queue were repacking their stuff, because they'd only just found out about the new security regulations. The people behind them were doing the same, but as far as I could see, nobody else was. No wonder the queue was moving as fast as a glacier. So I grabbed a handful of luggage tags and handed them out, explaining as I went. Most people believed me. After that the queue went a bit faster. God knows why nobody from the airline thought to do that. Everybody would have believed it coming from someone in uniform.
We finally checked in at 1:30. Even though we weren't the last by a long way, we were told we had to hurry through security. The queue was gigantic, and even though our flight was no delayed by 24 hours and supposed to have special security, we didn't have a special queue. I did get frisked, but nobody checked the hand luggage. We got to the gate at about 2:20, and were told in no uncertain terms that we didn't have time to go to the snack machine even though we hadn't eaten for six hours.
Once on the plane we waited and waited for the remaining passengers. And waited. And waited. And waited. The crew - the original crew stranded since the day before - handed out water and apologies, including the flight crew. Since they only had the original food from London, they were going to have to ration it, and couldn't do that until they had everybody. And we waited. And waited. Since Julio and Louise had been parted from their Game Boys, they were seriously bored. I taught them "You'll never get to heaven" with a new verse.
Oh you'll never get to heaven
By EasyJet
Cause this darn plane
Won't take off yet.
Then we sang "The quartermaster's stores" with:
There were delays, delays,
For days and days and days
In the stores, in the stores...
The guy in front of us started phoning on his mobile.
Mobile? As in potential detonation device?
The captain appeared and politely confiscated it until we got to Luton, leaving us wondering open-mouthed about the competence of security that took twice as long as usual, and still let something like that on the plane. To be fair to the passenger concerned, he didn't speak much English and probably didn't know he wasn't allowed to take it on board.
The final passengers appeared at 3:25. We took off to rousing cheers at 3:35. The cabin crew dashed round with FREE snacks and drinks, and we got to Luton at 3:15 to more cheers. (No, that's not a typo. London is 1 hour ahead of Paris.) We collected the hire car just 28 hours late. And the rest of the journey to my brother's was uneventful.
So I finally got to stay in the Paris Hilton, courtesy of Osama bin Laden.
Guess when we were supposed to be flying to London?
When we left the hotel at 11am, the receptionist checked the web and said there was a problem at Heathrow, but it looked like London Luton wasn't affected. So we took a taxi to the airport and checked in, they said we'd have a two hour delay because somebody had tried to get a bomb onto a plane at Heathrow. We sighed and shrugged our shoulders. Two hours isn't fun, but hey, we'd been through worse. We went through security (which was normal at the time) and I passed some of the wait on a seriously expensive Internet connection and caught the breaking news from London Heathrow, which was pretty vague at the time. In due course we got onto the plane three hours after the official time and waited. The crew apologised for the delay, saying that things were pretty bad in London airports. It's the first time I've seen cabin crew look frazzled. And we waited. And waited.
I was really glad that Julio had his Game Boy.
Then the pilot announced that he was very sorry, but we appeared to have one suitcase too many, and he was annoyed because they'd had an extra three hours to sort out our luggage. However, there was no way we could fly until they'd cleared this up.
So we waited some more. And waited. And got chatting to the mother and daughter behind us. Julio made friends with the girl, who was a little older than him and called Louise.
And then the pilot announced that he was really, really sorry, but he was now out of hours and it was illegal for the crew to fly. We'd be provided with a hotel, dinner and breakfast, and we could either fly in the morning or claim a refund. Please to go back, claim our suitcases, and someone would come with information.
So we went thought passport control into baggage reclaim, and one suitcase sat on the carousel going round and round and round. That was almost certainly the one that caused the hold up. Julio got really friendly with Louise.
Eventually somebody appeared and began talking to 120 scattered people at normal conversational volume. It wasn't until I yelled "INFORMATION!" that people gathered around.
We were booked into the Hilton! Dinner would be at 8pm, and we had to be back in the airport for 6am.
The promised shuttle buses never appeared, so we had to walk with luggage for about 1/4 mile and queued and queued for reception. When we finally got to the room we attacked the mini bar and spent 18.50 Euros in about 20 minutes. But then we found out that the normal price for the room was 748 Euros per night.
Kim and Loise were in the next room, and the kids spent most of the time before dinner under Julio's bed, giggling. If they'd been just a little bit older, I'd have been very worried. As it was, I went to soak in the bath. Carlos had a shower (there was a separate shower).
Dinner was a set menu, but very good. Especially when you consider that they produced dinner for 120 people at one hour's notice. And we all went to bed soon after, having had a tiring day.
We got up at 5:15 and went down to reception. Our departure time had been moved back. Breakfast would be served from 8-9, please to be in the airport terminal by 11. Obviously we went back to bed.
Just before breakfast, we spent some time surfing news channels, and they all said there would be no hand luggage in or out of London. We repacked.
We got to the airport well before 11, and found the information desk to ask for details about check in and hand luggage. Nope, no hand luggage except passports, medicines, and tampons without a box. The check in didn't open until 11am, (for a 1pm flight when there's a security red-alert. Hello???) and the queue was extremely slow. So I went down to the front in search of extra luggage tags, seeing as our repacked "hand" luggage was now going in the hold.
The people at the front of the queue were repacking their stuff, because they'd only just found out about the new security regulations. The people behind them were doing the same, but as far as I could see, nobody else was. No wonder the queue was moving as fast as a glacier. So I grabbed a handful of luggage tags and handed them out, explaining as I went. Most people believed me. After that the queue went a bit faster. God knows why nobody from the airline thought to do that. Everybody would have believed it coming from someone in uniform.
We finally checked in at 1:30. Even though we weren't the last by a long way, we were told we had to hurry through security. The queue was gigantic, and even though our flight was no delayed by 24 hours and supposed to have special security, we didn't have a special queue. I did get frisked, but nobody checked the hand luggage. We got to the gate at about 2:20, and were told in no uncertain terms that we didn't have time to go to the snack machine even though we hadn't eaten for six hours.
Once on the plane we waited and waited for the remaining passengers. And waited. And waited. And waited. The crew - the original crew stranded since the day before - handed out water and apologies, including the flight crew. Since they only had the original food from London, they were going to have to ration it, and couldn't do that until they had everybody. And we waited. And waited. Since Julio and Louise had been parted from their Game Boys, they were seriously bored. I taught them "You'll never get to heaven" with a new verse.
Oh you'll never get to heaven
By EasyJet
Cause this darn plane
Won't take off yet.
Then we sang "The quartermaster's stores" with:
There were delays, delays,
For days and days and days
In the stores, in the stores...
The guy in front of us started phoning on his mobile.
Mobile? As in potential detonation device?
The captain appeared and politely confiscated it until we got to Luton, leaving us wondering open-mouthed about the competence of security that took twice as long as usual, and still let something like that on the plane. To be fair to the passenger concerned, he didn't speak much English and probably didn't know he wasn't allowed to take it on board.
The final passengers appeared at 3:25. We took off to rousing cheers at 3:35. The cabin crew dashed round with FREE snacks and drinks, and we got to Luton at 3:15 to more cheers. (No, that's not a typo. London is 1 hour ahead of Paris.) We collected the hire car just 28 hours late. And the rest of the journey to my brother's was uneventful.
So I finally got to stay in the Paris Hilton, courtesy of Osama bin Laden.
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