boblog

fire

My latest earworm:

I'm on fire, in more ways than one.

translation

Blog-hopping on crafty blogs this evening I came across this recipe for making your own extra-strong mints.

Being a bit partial to M&S extra strong mints (they come in a lovely little tin that I can never bring myself to throw away when empty) I quite fancy having a go at this recipe. Looks tasty.

OK, so what do I need...
Gum paste.
What!?
Google: it's a type of sugarpaste icing → YouTube how-to vid.

Next, a dram of your preferred flavouring.
A what? A wee dram? No.
Wikipedia: it's about 3.5ml

What kind of flavouring?
Wintergreen.
What?!
Wikipedia: it's an oil made from the leaves of Gaultheria sp.
Not a common flavour in the UK.

Next, roll out icing 1/8th inch thick. Googled it: just over 3mm.

Hmm, what to use as a cutter... a large bubble tea straw.
WHAT!?
A large bubble tea straw? I don't even begin to know how to make sense of those words.
Google → Amazon: large straws for drinking bubble tea. What?
Wikipedia: bubble tea is some kind of tea concoction made with tapioca. In-ter-est-ing... as a child of my acquintance would say.

Will let you know if I ever get round to making any.
Yeah, that and needle felting.

choke

We had to take Teh Kitteh to the emergency out-of-hours vet the other week because he had helped himself to some leftover chicken and choked on a bone.

I say 'take him to the vets' like it was a leisurely stroll, when it was actually a mad dash in the car (the emergency service is near the town centre, not at our usual vets just up the road). It was very scary hearing him struggle to breathe, but even scarier when he stopped making any noise at all.

The vet dashed off with him as soon as we arrived and then we had an anxious wait.

When she returned she said it was a good job we lived so close. She gave us the extracted bone:

As usual, click on the photo to see the full picture. You can see the shaved patch on Kitteh's leg; shows you how much of him is fur. And in the background, our dead lawn (it was deliberate, part of the planned garden transformation - more on that another day).

After staying overnight to monitor him, he came home the next day.
He was fine. We were £240 worse off.

grizzly

No, I haven't blogged in ages. There have been things to say but not the time to blog them. To follow later in the week, details of Teh Kitteh's latest brush with death.
In the meantime, here's my latest earworm:

Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks

lucky

Walking home I was involved in a near-miss with falling bird poo. We're talking millimetres here; a white flash in front of my eyes, a splat on the pavement just in front of my foot.
Being poo-ed on by a bird is lucky? NOT being poo-ed on is luckier.

head

Teh Kitteh likes to bring us presents.
One of his recent offerings was an already dead toad (complete with fly eggs), another was this:

Nice.

garlic

I'm off garlic for a while, having reacted badly to some home-made garlic bread on Thursday evening. In the early hours I began to steadily feel worse and worse until I was sitting in bed shivering, then in the bathroom throwing up, etc.

This was made worse by the fact that I know you have to be careful with garlic in butter / oil, so was convinced I was going to die of botulism. And you know how things are always worse at night.

Anyway, I'm still here to tell the tale, but am still not up to eating normally.
Well, not that I ever do, but you know what I mean.

G20

So, the Obamas are in town.

Either the Queen has shrunk, or there's some strange perspective optical illusion going on here.

Notice the Queen and Michelle's little mutual hug @1m14s in.

What's all that screaming and frenzied excitement? A film star? A band? No, it's a politician's wife.

for Carolyn

This one's for Carolyn, who enjoys hearing tales of my neighbours' secret relationship.

I bumped into B as she was getting out of her car last Friday. She told me D has gone to work in Japan for six months and his company (a big bank) have paid for her to fly over next month and visit him. And she's staying with him, of course.

Him: Oh, my next-door neighbour wants to come over and visit me during the peak tourist season.
His employers: Sure, go right ahead and book it!

Despite having a pretty good idea how she wangled that one, I regret not actually asking her, just to see what she said.

Why don't they just admit what's going on?!

felting

After seeing bits and pieces here and there on the web about needle felting and didn't really know much about it, this evening I saw this cute little elephant on Etsy, and my curiosity could take no more.

I watched a couple of tutorials on YouTube (it comes into its own for something like that) and am now dying to have a go. I shall be off up to Boblogville tomorrow evening to try and get felting supplies.

Fortunately, I have a little stash of felting wool saved from my college days, which has only taken 15 years to finally come in handy.

Will let you know how I get on.