Monday 20 March 2017

Hoovered Up Last Week

Odds and ends ...

According to a Daily Telegraph quiz on Friday , I'm only a Plastic Paddy . My various , rather distant Irish ancestors would be mortified , but unsurprised ; I haven't been there for over forty years . Never mind , one of my cousins is called Patrick Joseph Mary , and you can't get much more Irish than that ... I'll have to put it on my application for a passport if Brexit threatens ...

A sentence from a Guardian book review last week caught my eye , "Many Britons can date their childhood to the suffix their subconscious applies to the word "Raleigh", be it Roadster , Chopper or Burner ." That the suffix that I came up with was Walter says it all , really ...



The Den Haag  exhibition of clothes Givenchy had designed for Audrey Hepburn was beautiful ... columns of black satin with only giant pearls or a swirl of tulle for the evening  , hot pink or mustard coats with tiny pill box hats , beautiful embroidery ... but the most striking gallery was dedicated to her work with Unicef . The photos of her with refugee children showed her at her best , glowing and alive in capri pants and simple cotton shirts with three toddlers draped round her neck . In another corner there was one of her handwritten recipes for pasta reproduced with her wooden spoon  ,  a photo of her on a gigantic sofa with her cat and another of both the designer and herself buttoned up in his tweed coat in the snow . Not just Holly Golightly but someone you'd like to have known .

The three of us were fading away with hunger by this stage so repaired to the museum cafe  for lunch . Was unable to resist one of the weird pink rolls , though filled with cheese rather than smoked mackerel . Had to ask ... why's it this colour ?  Made with wholemeal flour and beetroot juice , apparently  . Which just leaves the question why ? Another desperate attempt to make us all eat our  Five A Day , perhaps . In case your baker produces beetroot bread  , be warned . It just makes the bread slightly sweet and heavier .

And this week ?  Blood oranges , "The Trouble With Goats And Sheep" by Joanna Cannon on audio , yet more rain and the poop test . Lots to look forward to ...

5 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Oh no, not the poop test! Seriously though, one of those saved my life by necessitating a colonoscopy which discovered a fibroid which would have become a fatal blockage. So they're important tests to have done!

Had a laugh at what Raleigh prompted you to remember! Gawd, you're not THAT old!

colleen said...

I too came up with Walter by not paying attention. Second attempt was Explorer, my first two wheeler. Ah me.

Am I the only person who found the poop test interesting? Would have been better to have had a court minion to do the work, like Pu Yi in the Last Emporer, but we can't have everything.

Liz Hinds said...

I'm with you on Walter!

I would have loved to have seen that exhibition - and tasted the beetroot bread.

I'll do my poop test if you do yours ...

Vicki Lane said...

For me Audrey Hepburn was the epitome of beauty and glamour and then to see her work with third world children was so wonderful

Tattieweasle said...

Adore Audrey Hepburn - such a beautiful lady both outside and in!
Like everyone else said Walter too perhaps it's just a sign that we loved our history lessons!