Tuesday 29 September 2015

Finding Things

 I like to visit the city when I've been away for a while.  My first stop is usually the Franciscan church where I visit a side altar devoted to St. Anthony, the finder of lost things.  I usually make a small donation here as a thank you for the safe return of one or other of my daughter's cats, one of which has a propensity to wander off and not be seen for a week or more.  Call me naive or superstitious if you like, but I always pray to St. Anthony when something gets lost and I - or he - usually find it again.
 I like wandering round the stores when I'm not actually looking for anything specific.  Charity shops with their huge selection of books are first on my list.  It's amazing what you can find.  It reminds me of a story called The Book Bag by Somerset Maugham - see a review here.  Set in the old colonial days of the British, it is related by a traveller who, having learned his lesson once while imprisoned by illness in a hill-town in Java without enough to read,  now carries a giant laundry bag of books with him everywhere in his travels through colonial outposts. Without that book bag, he says, he would "never had heard the singular history of Olive Hardy."  Maugham's stories are fascinating for the glimpse of life on remote jungle stations which they give.

A few months ago I wrote that I was looking for something to hold a set of kitchen utensils which I'd received as a Christmas present.  I had very definite ideas but after exhaustive research in all the stores I still couldn't find what I was searching for.  So I did what every sensible person has done in similar circumstances, I adopted the motto:  if you can't get what you want, then want what you can get. So I found this inexpensive solution:
This is an exclusive picture of my not-very-modern-kitchen worktop complete with tea caddy and chopping boards.
Do I admire this utensil holder when I'm working in the kitchen?  To be honest I don't even see it.  It serves a purpose, I'm glad I've got it, and that's the end of the story.

Friday 25 September 2015

The Instant Fix Myth or why do I fall for (some) advertisers' promises

'Have you got some kind of skin disease?'  The nurse in a German hospital had a voice like a buzz-saw and an attitude to match.  My guess is that although the hospital was in Frankfurt, most of the law-makers in the Bundestag in Berlin some 600 kms away heard her.  She was about to give me an injection and had just noticed the skin on my legs.  At that time I had no idea what these peculiar round patches on my legs and thighs were so I couldn't give her an instant course in harmless skin conditions even if I'd wanted to, which I didn't. 

Last Sunday while glancing through the Beauty page of The Sunday Times I came across an article entitled Back to Beauty School with the sub-title How to Get Smooth Skin  (Page 18, Sunday Times Supplement from 20th September 2015). The first sentence grabbed me :  The medical term is keratosis pilaris; the simple term is permanent goose bumps or back-of-the-arm spots.  That's it!  yelled my inner I-want-to-have-smooth-skin-on-my-legs Muse.  There has to be a cure, a fool-proof remedy.  There isn't, as it turns out.  The only advice was not to scrub the area, to look for lactic acid in product ingredients and not to use soap bars.  Two products were recommended but as I have not tried them - yet - I won't mention them here.
When you want a better answer what do you do?  I turned to the fount of knowledge, i.e. Google.  Again, I came up with a no-remedy result.  Apparently lots of people, there was mention of that mysterious 30%, have this perfectly harmless condition.  So join the club -is there a club somewhere out there in cyber darkness?  The keratosis pilaris club? 

That little episode got me thinking that we are always looking for quick fixes and very often not getting them.  I had a bad head cold last week and the final stages of it are a ticklish cough which wakes me up at night.  So I researched cough mixtures for dry coughs and found two (from the same manufacturer) which said on the packaging that they were a powerful and instant relief.  One variety was the non-drowsy one and the other the won't-make-you-sleepy version.  I chose the latter but as for the effectiveness, I can only say that it doesn't appear to have done much good and I'm on the third day of dosage.  I had sort of expected that it would give "instant relief".  No quick fix, then.  As my mother used to say "nature must take its course".  I'll buy that, at least as far as the common cold is concerned.

So, I've still got a cough (although it is improving with or without the aid of a cough mixture) and I've still got my keratosis pilaris.  I'm getting the like that last name. Next time I'm stuck for conversation I'll find a way to bring it into the conversation. 

 

Monday 14 September 2015

Holidays and failed holiday pics

I'm just back from Germany where I had some quality time with my daughter and two grandchildren. We spent a week in a holiday park in the Eifel.  There is an extinct volcano here and the country is rich in thickly wooded forests and deep valleys.  It is very pastoral.  Here's an impression from my not-very-technical camera:

This was taken at a small wildlife park and those dots you can see are in fact big fat turkeys.  There were goats as well - loads of them - who came up to the enclosure looking for snacks (which you could buy from the shop, all healthy stuff).

We visited a falconry and watched the eagles, kestrels and owls being fed and learned a bit about them.  We drove through another park and had to negotiate scores of deer and wild pigs and a few donkeys as well.
Here's a picture of the falconry but as usual I missed the action bit where the eagles were taking off but maybe you get a feel for the atmosphere?
There were some lovely picturesque towns in the neighbourhood.  My favourite was Bad Muenstereifel where we spent the best part of a day.  It is a walled town and the old part - overlooked by a castle which  appears to be a restaurant nowadays -  is a pedestrian zone. It was a very hot day.  We sat next to this little stream and had our lunch.  The castle can just be seen at the top of the picture.

 Here's another shot of the town. 
All in all it was a very enjoyable week.  Ladal Holiday Park is Dutch-owned.  It is situated on the border of Luxembourg and Belgium so had a real international flair.  Very comfortable accommodation and very efficiently run with plenty for the kids to do.

Now I am back to grey reality - literally.  Today it is raining, it rained yesterday, and it is slowly getting chilly.  Which all means that I will not put my nose outside the door today.  Instead I will knuckle down to writing the second novel in my Sergeant Alan Murray crime series.  I'm about halfway through the first draft - in other words there is a load of work to be done.  I usually revise about five times before I feel I can publish.  If you like a cozy crime novel to while away the evenings, you could try the first novel in the series:  Death in a lonely Place:  Here's the U.S. link http://www.amazon.com/Death-Lonely-Place-P-B-Barry-ebook/dp/B00LSP1I2U  and the Amazon UK one:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00LSP1I2U/
I write under the pen name P.B. Barry to distinguish from my other novels.

I'm off to make a cup of tea and then I really will get down to some writing.  I'll just have another look at my not-quite-perfect holidays pictures first, just to remind myself that two short weeks ago I was sweating in a hot sun with a blue sky overhead in the company of my daughter and two very lively grandkids.  Ahhh!