Pots galore...

I had quite a successful time at the bazaar, but it sure was a long day. My daughter came to spell me from time to time so I could go to see to Toby etc. On the whole it was a fun experience. They´re now talking about having a Christmas bazaar which sounds like a good idea.
 

Odds and sods

I´m sitting here at the computer with a smell of burning in my nostrils - I think my cleaner just killed the hoover by plugging it into the shaving socket in the bathroom which is 220v whereas all the 'usual' sockets in the rest of the flat are 110v. I don´t know what she was thinking, using the hoover in there as it is all tiled. We shall see if it still works.

Talking of burning...the other day I was simmering Toby´s chicken broth while I worked on some intricate glaze tests for my pots. I became so focused on what I was doing that I completely forgot the pan on the stove. After some time I thought a neighbour was making toast, then that they had burned something...then I remembered the chicken. My pan had boiled dry and burnt black. My flat reeked of burnt chicken for the rest of the day...and me a vegetarian!

Every now and then there is a young man on the treadmill in front of mine when I go for my daily gym session. He looks to be in his early thirties, is tall and well built with short dark hair and very light eyes, altogether a handsome chap. When he has finished his session and gets off the treadmill he often turns and gives me the most beautiful smile. If only I were fifty years younger! I probably remind him of his grandmother, sigh. 

It´s our building´s birthday bazaar this Sunday and I´m busy getting organised and choosing which pots to try and sell. It will be interesting to see what happens as I´ve never done this before. I´ve bought bags and tissue paper, ribbon, price tags and have a cloth for the table, and I´ve made some business cards. I think I´ve thought of everything. My daughter is coming to help me and give me some moral support.

Finally, a little rant. I have recently subscribed to a VPN so I can watch British TV, after many years without. I don´t watch much but really enjoy pottery and nature programmes and good drama. One thing that has really struck me, though, is the awful quality of the advertising. The adverts seem to be so dumbed down and inane, if not downright silly that it is difficult to watch them. Some of the time the action is so removed and irrelevant to what they are trying to sell that you only realise what it is in the last few seconds. There is nothing witty, charming or amusing about them, gone are the days when you could "go to work on an egg" or "put a tiger in your tank" - real classics of the art of advertising. I´m sure the agencies are charging a fortune for their services, it´s a pity their clients are not more discerning.

 

Ugh!!!!!!

 

I was coming home the other day when I saw one of our condominium´s employees sweeping up a load of leaves by the security gate. As I entered I glanced idly down and saw that some of the "leaves" were lying on their backs waving legs in the air!

I realised they were hoards of dead or dying cockroaches, escaping from the drains which had been doused with insecticide. Just remembering it makes my flesh creep. I don´t mind many things but I have an absolute and irrational horror of cockroaches. 

As they flee from the poison they swarm over the parking lot and into ground floor rooms, thankfully uninhabited, but I believe they sometimes invade the first floor flats. Thank goodness I live on the eighth floor - they don´t come up this high (they can´t reach the buttons in the lift lol). 

This treatment is carried out at intervals but never really gets rid of the pests. I remember once being in a communal ground floor room with a craft group when we were suddenly invaded by dozens of cockroaches during one such cleansing. They can move really fast if the poison hasn´t yet taken effect and I shot out of there like a bat out of hell!

Photo by Erik Karits at Unsplash
 

Young men?

I nearly choked on my breakfast egg this morning when I burst out laughing...

I was reading an email from the building administrators explaining the rules for stall holders in the upcoming bazaar we will be holding as I have decided to sell some pots there. It is our building´s 50th anniversary as well as Halloween. For reasons best known to itself Google Translate has started to automatically translate all my emails into English. Included in the instuctions was the following:

• Metal and wooden supports, such as racks and young men, can be used according to the space available, not hindering mobility and logistics on site.

´Nuff said!

Five times and counting...

Today I had my fifth visit to the dentist this year, another broken tooth! My vitamin D levels are fine so it must be old age and dry rot. I´m pretty fed-up as not only do I have to keep coping with my dentist phobia but it is also costing me a pretty penny. Humph!

Busy doing nothing

I don´t know why I am always so busy, after all I´m retired now and have a cleaner who comes for the day once every three weeks to do the strenuous stuff (five minutes hoovering and my back seizes up), yet I seem to be constantly on the go, with nothing much to show for it. 

So, what is it I get up to all day? Well, I usually wake around half past six, feed Toby and go back to bed for half an hour with a coffee and my Kindle. Then it is up and dealing with Toby´s eyes and giving him his heart meds, then shower and breakfast. After breakfast I have a general tidy around and maybe spend an hour or so on pottery work. After that I´m off to the gym, followed by a trip to the pottery studio on a Monday or the farmers market on a Tuesday. Then it is home for lunch, a bit of internet, wash up and read and have a little snooze. Time to do Toby´s eyes again then maybe some pottery, cooking or pop to the shops. Every ten days or so I do a large batch of cooking for the freezer. Feed and medicate Toby, have dinner and catch up on blogs and YouTube vlogs I follow. I don´t bother with TV, it irritates me. Toby´s eyes again, then off to bed about ten for a read before sleep. I´m usually pretty tired and have no trouble nodding off - and that´s it - a full day doing nothing much.

Looking after Toby takes a bit of time as he does not like having his eyes cleaned and treated, so I have to do it slowly to avoid a wrestling match. Reading back over what I´ve written it strikes me that I have a pretty relaxing day which suits me just fine as my last job was very stressful. I´m certainly never bored, anyway!

 

Chivalry is not dead

Today I popped out quickly to the shops without checking the weather. On the way back I got caught in a torrential downpour with no brolly. I sought shelter at a newsagent´s kiosk near home and stood there dripping while I waited for the rain to lessen. An elderly man rushed over the road and sheltered beside me before deciding to buy an umbrella from the newsagent and heading on his way. As he was leaving he turned to me and offered to buy me an umbrella also. What a gentleman! Naturally I didn´t accept although he was quite insistent, but what a lovely gesture.

Photo by Joy Stamp at Unsplash
 

Microwave

 

I think my poor old microwave is about to give up the ghost. I´ve had it for at least ten years, so I shouldn´t complain, I suppose. 

The reason I think this is that it is not behaving consistently. I would have thought that heating the same object for the same length of time would always give the same results, but that is not happening.

In order to coax Toby to eat I make a chicken broth and freeze it in an ice tray. At feeding time I put one ice-cube in a little pot and microwave it for thirty seconds and then mix it with his kibble. I always use the same little pot and sometimes it is hot to touch and so is the broth, sometimes it is cold and the ice-cube half-melted and this morning the cube was still solid! That doesn´t feel right.

I don´t actually cook in the microwave, apart from jacket potatoes, but I use it daily for making coffee and reheating food. I cook all my meals from scratch on the stove and freeze them in portions, much easier when you are cooking for one, I find.

Well, I´ll have to see how it goes, nothing lasts forever, after all!