Warbling on the Costa

This post is brought to you by 0% San Miguel - the beer that loves your liver.

But - about those clichés?

Well - at the end of the day and when all's said and done, there are some clichés that I like.

How about *Blue sky, birds singing, sun shining and sea shimmering?*

or * Carpets of wild flowers leading to the snow capped mountains*?

Not a lot of time for cognitive therapy, conflict resolution or moving on to mutual understanding.

Sorry Jeremy.

Sorting out the differences between a moustached warbler and a grasshopper warbler took up a lot of time as did solving the clue to 12 down (I've always found doing crosswords is a good way to avoid cross words).

So Kev's still there and I'm back here - young free and single for the moment.

I had a good time, but was still glad to get off the Terrorvision bus in Manchester at 10.30 last night.

Next time I go to Spain, I'll definitely take my lap top and find a hot spot.

I just missed you all too much.

KAZ

Peace and Harmony ??

On Sunday I shall fly to Spain to join Kev whose liver is in remission for good behaviour.
I shall be there for one week.

Kev drove down in the white van last Monday taking 3 bikes and 2 guitars which could not be entrusted to Ryanair.

Don't ask why he needs a total of 4 bikes in Spain.
I did and I have lived to regret it.

So I intend to:

= Work on my relationship
= Build bridges
= Pour oil on troubled waters
= Smoke the pipe of peace.

I shall address my anger management issues, practise team building skills and investigate the infinite possibilities of chemistry.

I shall practise counting to ten, rational discussion, negotiation techniques and - even a bit of forgive and forget.

How many more bloody clichés do you need?

The place where we stay appears on my blogroll. Can you spot it?

Wish me luck.

KAZ

Sunday in the Park with KAZ

The only reason people used visit our local park was to feed the ducks or meet their dealer.


Then 'they' decided to spend some money and we got :


Art..

and a 'Teen area'



You can't feed the ducks now because they are an *eco system*. Unfortunately, nobody told the ducks. This coot (top left) looks well pissed off about it. He used to get poppadums and chapatis as well as Mother's Pride.





We've also got charts telling us about the birds.


On closer inspection I don't think they got it quite right do you?



Unless that duck's called Arthur and his girlfriend is Hylda Baker.



This Egyptian Goose was trying to get to know the Canadians -




And a good day was had by all.

KAZ

I Scream!

Do you like ice cream?
Of course you do.

What's your favourite brand or flavour?

I LOVE ICE CREAM

I used to eat an ice cream every day.
Always vanilla - no raspberry, but sometimes a 99.

This quiz got it right.

Your Icecream Flavour is... French Vanilla!

You're a smooth and silky suave type! You exude class and you believe in tradition. A classical taste who doesn't like things to be too flashy or showy. Climb the Eiffel tower of taste with a spoonfull of you! Oui Oui!

What is your Icecream Flavour?

HOWEVER, I haven't had an ice cream for 5 years

Why?

I was clearing out a freezer in an empty flat. There were 3 frozen peas, 10 oven chips and a scoop of ice cream.

I threw the ice cream in the sink (the water was switched off) thinking it would just melt and slither down the plug hole. 2 days later I returned and there in the sink was all that remained....A lump of LARD!

Since that day I have never touched ice cream.

When I saw this lovely retro ice cream van last week I was tempted to buy one.

But I took a picture instead.

Enjoy your ice cream this weekend

KAZ

Kitchen goddess

Up early for long strenuous walk in sun and wind.

Home - dashed out to Tesco - recycled three tons of old teaching notes.
VERY Cathartic.

Returned to kitchen still energised in mind and body. Recalled that the floor tiles used to be pale grey. Horrid squeegee thing mop just moves dirt from one place to another - so got down on hands and knees with srubbing brush.

No chance of getting MRSA or Clostridium difficile in my kitchen.

Was it 6 oclock yet? YES
Poured large glass of cooool Sauvignon and checked latest post - some interesting comments…thanks
Another Sauvignon? Why not?
Read some more blogs and left some comments

Peckish work. Grabbed wok, got wrist in action.
Oil ran out

Opened posh pretentious foodie oil from Sainsbury’s deli shelf with unnecessarily ostentatious Budweiser type top.

Manipulative skills lacking - didn’t close it properly.

Bottle fell on floor with sickening crack.
Oil slick spreading all over clean tiles.

Kaz sliding around like Orville in desperate need of Dean.
My little slippers were living up to their name.

Yards of kitchen roll and a cut hand later - decided to check my permitted alcohol units:
I can have 14 units of alcohol per day week.

The site tells us ‘The 'typical housewife', who shares a bottle of wine with her husband every night, will run into trouble if they do it for long enough.'

Lessons to learn:
4Don’t cook when drunk
4Don’t share your bottle of wine with husband
4Stick with ASDA economy cooking oil
4Spend money you save on top quality kitchen towels with thirst pockets.
KAZ

Grown up?

I’m going to hand my blog over to Christopher Brooker for Easter.

You may think that my rantings against the Tories are a bit ‘childish’.

In spite of the millions of reasons for hating Tories, it’s not an objective thing with me. It’s embedded in my DNA - lodged snugly in the double helix.

So imagine my delight to find this.

Makes me look almost ‘mature’

Charlie has said everything I wanted to say. He’s unashamedly childish about it and he gets paid heaps of money by the bestest newspaper in the world.

Yeah!

Don't forget the 'IGNOPEDIA’ entry at the bottom about the Conservative Party

KAZ

Amazing Grace

Two things from last week.

Eileen, Norma and I went to see ‘Amazing Grace’. It tells the story of William Wilberforce who lead the fight to abolish slavery in this country. Ignore the reviews - we all thought it was a great film.

The night before, after suffering Deidre’s excruciating neck contortions and wrinkly smoking, I stayed with ‘Tonight with Trevor McDonald’. Except it’s not really is it? After saying whaddya think about this, he buggers off and lets some cheaper presenter take over.

The topic was immigration - mainly concerned with the Polish communities. Nothing new was said.

As a young energetic teacher in the 70s, I taught in an inner city 11 to 18 comprehensive. Hard work, but I loved it. A high percentage of the students were immigrants or the children of immigrants. Their parents and grandparents had come here to drive our buses, tend our sick and work in our factories.

Many were Moslems of Pakistani origin. There wasn’t a head covering in sight, as this was pre Ayatollah. I would stand in assembly and admire the rows of shiny Shilpas in their shalwaz.

The other large group were of Caribbean (mainly Jamaican) descent. They used to tell me the best places to buy reggae in Moss side and bring me tapes for tasters.

A few years ago (when I was exiled in Trafford) the beautiful and brainy Karene turned up in my AS level class. She had moved between Manchester and Jamaica a couple of times in her 17 years. Karene had to pay the same extortionate fees as the non EEC ‘foreign’ students. In spite our shared history, these citizens of the commonwealth* had to pay exactly the same as students from Outer Mongolia.

Why did we have to abandon them when we became European?

Yes, of course we should apologise about slavery - no doubt about it.

But what’s that apology worth if the descendants of those slaves can’t come over here and take advantage of some of the legacy of the wealth they helped to create?
KAZ
*Including Canada.