The Real Winners of Eurovision 2012

At least in the minds of myself and daughter#2, should have been Russia. They reached the very respectable number 2 place but, darnit! (that's me slapping my knee there) we thought they should have won it. The actual winners, Sweden, were way out in the lead by around a hundred points which is a heck of a lot, but for quite a while we did think Russia had a chance.

When these little old ladies showed up on the stage in their traditional Russian costumes, daughter#2 who currently has a big penchant for anything Russia and is in fact calling herself Russian (the unfathomable ways of the teenager) started saying, 'I'm ashamed to be Russian', and shaking her head, but 30 seconds in these ladies were completely embedded in our hearts. I got up there and danced along with the song, arms pumping just like theirs, lol, and in complete Eurovision tradition the catchy tune stuck into our heads and we learnt the words after the first chorus - during the first chorus even - not hard as there were only a few words in English.

I don't know if the Swedish winners are going to get the same worldwide and enduring acclaim those other Swedish Eurovision winners did, back in the day, you know that little old band which went by the name of Abba, who have never been out of the minds of anyone ever since and is the pub Karaoke favourite after Elvis. Maybe they will, though I'm not so sure.

I'm going to leave you with the Russia entry now, if you haven't seen or heard it already I do urge you to, and do listen to it to the end, you may find the beginning a little, um well, but you'll soon see why it was so good and they even cooked up a little meal at the end, well, isn't that what Grannies like to do? Come on then 'Come on and Dance!

Buranovskiye Babushki, or Buranovo Grannies - Party for Everybody

The Moving In Laws

For the last couple of years my In Laws have been living in France all the while trying to sell, in a very slow market, their large and pretty house. They have had a few problems with their living arrangements while out in France. They wanted to buy a place of their own and searched for a long time, finding instead what seemed to be the perfect place to rent. Unfortunately for them the owners decided to sell this wonderful house with it's large glass room, but at a price far out of my In Laws reach. So the perfect place with it's own swimming pool surrounded by apple orchards had to be abandoned.

Not so long after they finally had a buyer for the UK house and have also found a lovely place to buy in France. It has all seemed so timely, some good luck for them for a change. So, it is the big move for them now.

They have returned to the UK in their little campervan to get things sorted, and as I type The Chauffeur and Daughter#2 are with them helping out. They have their different piles, these items to go to the tip, those to go to charity and those to sell on a driveway sale. The Chauffeur is also selecting what to keep for ourselves. We are slightly hoarderish so really could do with nothing at all, but he's bringing some antiques he simply can't bear to see go, including an early Victorian chest of drawers. We are also acquiring 3 - yes 3 - sets of golf clubs, great when none of us actually play! I'm a little concerned about what else he's bringing home. He didn't let me or Daughter#1 go with him so as to keep as much space left in the car as possible for goodies. I do feel mean, though, as Mother in Law is packing all her fragile bits herself, apparently the moving firm won't do this.

The photo above is the area they live in, the Haute Pyrenees, surrounded on all sides by large mountains, the largest of them being the Canigou. It's lush and fertile, dry in the Summer and snowy in Winter. They absolutely love it there spending much of their time walking those mountains. I'm sure I'll post more photos of the area once they've moved in to their new abode.

The Reflections Post

I am so glad I found out about this challenge. I'm not one for linkys normally but saw a post somewhere or other where this one was mentioned and it caught my imagination. And what a challenge it was. Posting every day even with Sundays off was more difficult than I'd imagined.

Saying that, it was also a practice run for me, that's how I've decided to look at it. Next time there will be a lot more pre-made posts and also a theme - what theme is still to be decided.

Best thing for me about the challenge was meeting other bloggers, especially who were doing the challenge itself as it made for a very close feeling of comradeship, we were all in it together. This feeling was encouraged by the team leaders - Arlee -  who got round to everyone's blogs, and also several of the other team leaders. It was a good feeling to see their names in so many of the comments boxes as I worked around them, as this also gave that feeling of intimacy mentioned just now. Tina, too, with her wonderful email to give us a kinship as part of her team. I've never felt part of any blogging community but this challenge has given me that feeling.

I found a few blogs I have begun to follow, some from the list and some from the comments they had left on other blogs. I'm going to try to work my way through the list for the rest of the year - that's a good idea - leaving the list up giving us all a chance to get round them all.

All in all, looking forward to next years challenge - bring it on!!

Z is for Zinnia

And so we reach the end. I don't know about all of you but I feel a bit ZZZZZ after all those blog posts. I thought about ending with Z is for Zebra as I started with A is for Apple but decided against that. By the way, did you ever wonder what colour zebras actually are? Well, they are black with white stripes - not white with black stripes.

  That post would have been a bit monochrome so  instead this thread is more colourful as I shall add a few pictures of the Zinnia, a very pretty flower from the Americas, mostly situated in Mexico, and a member of the Astor family. Strangely the Spanish used to call them Mal De Ojos or the Evil Eye, but also because they were considered to be ugly! They like hot dry climates so if you want to grow them and don't live in such a place may do better grown in a greenhouse, but can be put outside once it has germinated. There are many different types, and lots of different pretty colours. They attract butterflies which is a bonus.

  I actually had this name on my baby name list for my first child but The Chauffeur discounted it - one of many names I liked. He didn't have any particular choice but I had a huuge list. He wouldn't go for anything unusual, that included Zinnia, but also any 'hippy' type names I liked such as Meadow or Blue. Nor anything too old fashioned, out went my Olde English choices such as Isolde, no foreign names as the surname is foreign and he was worried about bullying, out went Titziana. in fact my huuge list was quite shortened by the end. Not that I chose anything too different, certainly not Talula Does The Hula In Hawaii as had been chosen in Australia, nor Number 16 Bus Shelter - another real choice! With choices like those what on earth is wrong with Zinnia? In the end we went with sensible traditional which luckily I do like a lot, though very popular.

So, we have reached the end and I find it all quite sad. But don't forget the Reflection Post. I will be visiting many more blogs in the coming year as the list will still be up, so that will be fun. In the meantime have a look at some more Zinnias - none of them  mine, of course as she is named something quite different.

Yorkshire

Apologies yet again for being a day late.

Although I don't live in Yorkshire or anywhere near it's the area where The chauffeur's mother is from and I've been to visit. It's beautiful, rugged and wild.

It's the location of my very favourite book - Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Emily was the daughter of a Curate and led a simple quiet life. People often wonder at the passion shown in her book not understanding where she could have found it, but surely the area she lived had some hand in it due to the wild land around, the space and the rugged Dales. I have been to her house and walked those Dales, it is easy to imagine a passionate Cathy and brooding Heathcliffe wandering around there.

  More history of Yorkshire is the War of the Roses, the name of which is so contradictory if you imagine roses to be harmless, sweet smelling flowers. The reality is the House of York was represented by a white rose and were at war against the House of Lancaster, represented by a red rose. This war went on for 30 years before Lancaster won and the Tudors took the throne from the Plantagenets.

Yorkshire's most famous culinary dish is the Yorkshire pudding. Not a sweet or pudding dish at all, it's savoury and made of flour eggs and milk, very similar to a pancake but cooked so it rises, the higher the better. The correct Yorkshire way is to serve it large with gravy, but is usually eaten nowadays smaller with a roast meat dinner, preferably on a Sunday. No roast dinner is complete without a Yorkshire pudding!

 This area had also been taken over by the Vikings who invaded the territory during the 10th century after arriving on the Cumbrian coast in their Longships . It was they who gave the capital of this area the name York, though spelt Jorvik which was Scandinavian for 'Camp of the Cheiftains. There is a legacy for the invasion in the red hair sported by a large number of people from this area, including my mother in law. A recent DNA test of many from here showed a high genetic link back to the Scandinavian countries showing that their ancestors came from there more so than a genetic link to the the UK, even after all these several hundred years. If anyone gets the chance to see a bit of Viking life you can visit the Jorvik Viking Centre where you first watch a little video of the history of Yorkshire, then you get into a sort of trolley which moves around a reconstruction of a Viking village all the while moving along above the village as you look down into it. There are sights, sounds and, quite interestingly, smells that may have been around, nice Viking food smells counteracted by not so nice public toilet smells with sound effects to go with it!!

I have included a link to the website of the centre - warning, you may feel in need of your own shield if you click on this.

XIII and XV...

  ...are the ages of my girls. I am slightly longer (and older) with XLVII, and The Chauffeur is XLIV. We are all presently X rated (sorry, lame joke).

As you can see these are Roman Numerals. Not all numbers start with X of course, and there are certain rules about the use of the numbers so that the X can mean 10 less than the next number letter - does that make sense?

We have all seen Roman Numerals about, most commonly on clocks, but also on door numbers and tombstones among others. They are a very efficient numeral way to write numbers but went out of fashion when we began using the Hindu-Arabic numerals in the 14th century which you can see on your keyboard right now. One big difference between the two systems is that although they were also decimal the Roman Numerology did not have a number for zero which is quite odd to think about now, I'm not sure how they got around that in general but some ancients used Nulla meaning None.

There are a few rules for using Roman Numerals, the first being that the subtractive numbers on the left should only be I, X or C but not the multiply by 'five' numbers, V, L and D. That number must be less than a 10th of the following letter, and only one letter is usually allowed to the left. This is why both The Chauffeur and I have an X before the L in our ages. I won't be too happy when I lose that X before the L and even less so when it moves to the right. I say there are rules but they are often disregarded and some numbers can be written ridiculously long, for instance my age could have been written XXXXVII which looks quite pretty, now I look at it.

Here are the number symbols with our modern number next to them to let you know what they all are in case you are unsure.

I = 1
V = 5
X = 10
L = 50
C = 100
D = 500
M = 1,000

So, can you work out our ages?

Where Did Yesterday Go?

The title is referring to the fact I'm a day late in the W post which was supposed to go up yesterday. The fact is I was pretty busy and didn't get a minute to do one.

Up at 6.30 to get my girls ready for school, I also walk them to their school bus to make sure they won't miss it. I just know if daughter#2 didn't have me to chivvy her along she'd miss it have to return home to take a couple of public buses arriving at school 2 hours late! So, that was an hour of my time walking there and back plus an extra bit of supermarket shopping time (thank goodness for 24 hour shopping giving us the choice to buy a courgette or whatever takes our fancy when we want, but that is a post for another time - do they take away our choice, too?).

Housework, lovely housework took up some time then out with The Chauffeur looking at yet more kitchen cupboard units ready for the kitchen makeover launch in a few weeks (finally). Back just in time for my online work which ran over by an hour, quick bath, prepare meal for family and straight back to work with my meal in one hand and typing with the other. Finished at 11pm. Turned off laptop to unwind in front of inane TV shows and remembered it was my deadline for my invoice to go in, grrr. Switched my laptop back on to get the dates I'd worked last month, switched on The Chauffeur's laptop to do the invoices and timesheets - due to only wanting to pay for Office Word on one machine we keep it on his laptop so all invoices go through that one. I am so happy as I managed to do them all by myself for the very first time. I envisaged waking daughter#2 up as she's always had to help me in the past - I am far too computer illiterate to do it normally - and sent them off at 11.30pm, just in the very nickest of time (I hope, or I don't get paid for last month *shiver*).

I was then too shattered too think of a W topic and get it typed out so watched the inane TV show which turned out to be quite enjoyable in the end. Unfortunately when I went to bed my mind didn't - that means it wouldn't go to sleep and just flicked from one nuisance thought to another, all to do with things I might have done wrong or things I need to do or things which might happen and then go wrong - why is it when you can't sleep you can't at least think nice happy thoughts and only horrid unwanted ones pop up into your mind?

So, that was my day, hectic but not with anything particularly important, just one thing to another to another with no stop and then it was today, so Where Did Yesterday Go?