Veep

A lady Veep?
Crazy.

album

Name an album you can sing, from start to finish, every song.

Book learning #44

Shakespeare by Bill Bryson


I like Shakespeare as much as the next man ( as long as the next man quite likes most of the stuff he's seen and is comfortable to call the crap as he sees it, was taught some at high school and was taken to some of the bloodier plays as a teenager by his dad who decided that the way to culture for his kids was some militaristic glorification of a deviously interpreted past) and I also quite like local eminence Bill Bryson.

This was a quick read and just the tonic after some months of literary ennui.
The premise being that there's a lot we think we know about Shakey but an awful lot more that's myth or just plain old false.

Now I just have to wait a bit for my mum to finish her amazing looking bio of one of history's greatest characters so that I can get into that. I also need to avoid mum for a week or two as she delights in reading snippets from the aforementioned book.

Holiday

Just back from a couple of weeks away.
Just back in the 'got in the door, put toddler to bed, unpacked some bags, found the telly remote from the house we stayed in, and of course, found five minutes to blog.

Big news of the trip?

We've finally succumbed to membership of The National Trust.
I had always thought of it as a Pagan/Marxist conspiracy but it does offer tremendous value for anyone who enjoys the outdoors, all that free parking!

Book learning #43

Bush at War by Bob Woodward.

Sometimes I wonder, I really do. Sometimes I wonder why I persist in selecting books about US Presidents, their high jinks, their fiascos and their occasional successes when out there, on some sturdy wooden bookshelf , there must be just the book for me. A book that would enlighten and amuse, and perhaps even educate.

An indicator of how seriously i took this book was the fact that I kept playing with the author's name. Recalling that favourite childhood joke "What do you call Edward Woodward without any 'r's? Answer- EwarWoowar" I kept thinking of 'Bob Woowar' and smiling gently to myself as I shuffled about.

The content is noble but by now it's all common knowledge. Lots of meetings, Rumsfeld gets annoyed, Bush becomes strong and slightly mean then tears up when meeting survivors of the terror attacks, Cheney goes and spends some time in a secret, everything proof bunker, Rice is concerned, Powell is perplexed and doubtful. Repeat to fade. Everything you've read in the NYtimes or heard on NPR in the last 7 years.

"How'd city git orn?"

It will be heard across the east from now until May.

The footy season kicks off tomorrow.

Here's hoping we can worry about promotion and playoffs rather than not getting hammered by Ipswich and possibly geting relegated,

If it could be said in song lyrics it might g a little something like this... "You're worth the trouble, you're worth the pain, if we all went back to another time, I would love you over" Belle & Sebastian.
Or perhaps "Don't go changing, to try to please me, etc..." Was that Billy Joel?
Anyway, you can begin to understand the delightfully muddled place that my brain is at right now, the olympics, the footy, the toddler.

Watch this space.

Our favourite beach (right now but possibly forever).

(This picture is from a visit in June, We would have taken a bunch of pics today but we were too busy having fun and I really, really need to recharge the camera battery)


Living here, we are lucky in many ways. You should not leave New York and move out to the burbs to die. You should leave New York and find somewhere different, interesting, challenging but fun to live.
Here, in Norfolk, we have that. You just need to read between the lines. We enjoy reading between the lines.

We also enjoy the conversations about beaches.

Anyone lucky enough to live within an hour of the coast, any coast, will no doubt know exactly what I mean. The 'favourite beach' conversation.

I have lots of different 'favourite' beaches.

The favourite romantic beach,the favourite outstandingly beautiful beach, the favourite swimming beach, the favourite walking a dog beach, the favourite getting drunk and falling asleep until dawn beach (old mondale but still a cherished memory!)

Right now our favourite beach is 45 minutes drive away. Get on the highway and drive east. Don't stop until you park the car outside the old folks home overlooking the bowling green and the tennis courts on top of the cliff.

Unpack toddler and tote bags and stroll down path to wide , underpopulated, clean, friendly, relaxed , sandy beach!

The promenade is long and wide, there are cafes, a couple of gloriously faded hotels, a sailing club and a boating lake, you have a great view of a busy industrial harbour and lots of big ships coming in and out, it's not quite cool enough to attract too many people but it's perfectly formed and the human element is very well designed (there can be no escape from the prom for the climbing obsessed toddler, all the designated play areas are 100% age appropriate and all have only one gated entry/exit point).

Today we spent 6 hours waltzing about, chasing the tide, trying to eat sand, building sandcastles, paddling, regretting not bringing grown up bathing suits, staring at pink, fat people, drinking tea and eating cake and generally having a ball. The Wee Hen snarled and cried when we left. I knew exactly how he felt.

Right now we have that most excellent feeling, that post beach, glass of wine, time for bed feeling!

The world turned upside down

Cultural landgrab? Political/socio-economic blitzkrieg? I'm not sure what any of this means but let's just say, I've already begun my meandering journey to the next available polling booth and there's no way I'm voting Tory. But then what?

Roots

We popped in on some family history this afternoon (on the way to the zoo)

Churchyard full of goats?

What a marvellous scene!

Fishing for compliments

Ah, nothing like a few hours on the North Sea fishing for your supper.


Ah, nothing like a few hours staring out at this waiting for a bite while all around you catch tonnes of the bite sized morsels!



After three increasingly impatient hours, some sulking, a change of bait and several changes of position I finally gets me the stupidest fish in the North Sea!



Then the fisherman's homemade 'sushi' challenge.





And at last! The perfect end to a day's fishing!
(Bottom left- the stupidest fish and his brother, the unluckiest fish , two of the three caught by me goodself, the third fish, just a normal fish having a bad day is at the very top of the barbeque, almost out of sight)

(apologies to Msdee, this is not the August 1st post I promised you. Could you just remind me again, what did I promise you?)