Is there anyone still out there?

It’s been a while but I made a promise to myself and thankfully I’ve kept it. We came back from our four week Australian/Tasmanian extravaganza at the end of January and I decided not to post again until I put the photos from the holidays online.

Of course, when you take 1,200 photos and 6 rolls of film it takes a while to sift through them and pick out the best bits. We’ve edited the collection and I’ve put a select few up for your perusal. You can have a look at them here!

Normal service will resume, but life is hectic at the moment making up for four weeks of beaches, wine tastings, walking, wildlife, beer, friends, camping, fishing, fairy penguins and tennis!

Bear with me!! 

From a  friend, via email and you’ve probably read it already but you know what, in the most festive way possible, I don’t care, you’re going to read it again! Cos its good!

Tequila Cookies:

1 cup of dark brown sugar

1 cup of butter

1 cup of granulated sugar

4 large eggs

2 cups of dried fruit

1 tsp of baking soda

1 tsp of salt

1 tsp of fresh lemon juice

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

2 cups of flour

1 bottle of Jose Cuervo Tequila

 

1. Sample the Cuervo to check quality
2. Take a large bowl, check the Cuervo again, to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Turn on the electric mixer.
3. Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again. At this point it’s best to make sure the Cuervo is still okay, try another cup just in case. It’s Christmas after all.
4. Turn of the mixerer thingy. Break two leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit. Pick the frigging fruit off the floor.
5. Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck to the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver.
6. Sample the Cuervo to check for tonsisticity
7. Next, sift two cups of salt, or something. Check on Mr. Jose Cuervo.
8. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts. Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find.
9. Grease the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don’t forget to beat off the turner.
10. Finally throw the bowl through the window, finish the Cuervo and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.

Cherry Mistmas! 

I’m not dead. I’ve been busy trying to wrap things up before the Christmas break and our holiday! Oh boy, I can not wait.In eight days we’re getting on a plane for 24 hours and won’t have to think about work for a month!

We’re off to Tasmania for three weeks and Melbourne for a week! It’s the first real holiday we’ve had this year, there’s been holiday scrimping going on all year and even a bit of next year to blow it all in this trip!

A friend from university who I also studied with during my doctorate is getting hitched to a Tasmanian down in Tas. We fly into Melbourne on the 26th, stay until the 31st and fly to Tas for New Years. Then the stag do is on the 2nd, the wedding on the 5th and then we have two weeks of travelling about to see the place. Back for a few days in Melbourne then home again on the 24th.What a Christmas present! But we’ve been a little relaxed as far as preparations go so we’ve got it all to do with eight days left.

The project in work has to be put to bed, Christmas has to be celebrated properly (we got our tree on Saturday), plenty of social events between now and then, the presents have to be wrapped and so on. Busy busy, but then we don’t have to think about anything for four weeks!

Apart from that, everything is quiet over here in the land of cheese and chocolate. Nothing to report, I’m back but for a limited time only!

I thought I was stressed and up against it coming into the festive season. But everything has been put into perspective thanks to a report from Sweden on Santa’s timetable for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Santa Claus is coming to town - for 34 microseconds.

It would seem that everyone’s favourite jolly old white bearded visitor has got the blink of an eye to land, get the right presents, drop down the chimney, deliver the presents, eat the cookies and drink the whiskey, get back up the chimney and move onto the next house. Not an impossible task but it’s no wonder he needs a year to recover!

Reindeer need to fly at 5,800 Km/hr to achieve the feat, the sleigh will experience some serious G force and air resistance en route but I’m sure Santa has thought of it. Otherwise he’ll be toast within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Bummer.

“The heat”, being work, not the weather. It’s miserable here, but then it’s winter, what was I expecting? I’m just hoping that the horizontal rain and wind here equates to nice fluffy snow on the mountains. I’m looking forward to the ski season this year.

We spent a very nice long weekend in Amsterdam celebrating Sinterklaas. In my opinion this is a much better alternative to the over-commercialised Christmas we celebrate. You hand make presents and write poems for people and then sing a few songs and have a big meal. Great fun, plenty of pressure trying to out-do each other in the hand made presents and writing the poems, capped off with lots of sweets, Christmas beer and food.

But over the weekend I heard a very interesting statistic. It seems that the ski season, or the cold weather at least is linked to the activity of the sun. The more sunspots, the warmer the winter and the less snow you get. The sun has a cycle of eleven years between minimum sun spot activity and 2007 is one of those minimums! So, this winter will be cold with lots of snow for me to plant my face into at high speed.

Lovely jublee. 

A while back I was amazed to see that a landlocked country such as Switzerland could win the elite world sailing race. Alinghi, a Swiss boat won the Americas Cup and I figured if they could do it, then Ireland, an island nation, should have no problems winning the thing.

I threw down the gauntlet then and challenged them with an Irish boat called Dinghi, fitted out with a jacuzzi, shag pile carpets and plenty of cup holders. It seems they’ve taken up the challenge:

America’s Cup postponed over row

The story claims it’s all about politics and race regulations but I have the insider track. Alinghi are not allowed the shag carpets and they’re throwing a tantrum. We have them on the ropes already!

Now all I need to do is plumb in the jacuzzi and get a crew on board and we’ll show the Swiss how to win a yacht race! 

Got this from my Mum today via email:

Beatrice.

 

Miss Beatrice, the church organist, was in her eighties and had never been married. She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all. One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room. She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea.

 

As he sat facing her old Hammond organ, the young minister noticed a cut-glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water floated, of all things, a  condom! 

 

When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat. The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist. 

 

“Miss Beatrice”, he said, “I wonder if you would tell me about this”pointing to the bowl.”Oh,  yes,” she replied, “Isn’t it wonderful? I was walking through the park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground. 

 

The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease. Do you know I haven’t had the flu all winter.”  

 

You may have noticed a little addition on the right of the page. The Daily Male is a new blog set up by 73man who has kindly invited people to contribute. So I joined up and will now do most of my venting there I think and the Swiss Job can get back to what it was created for in the first place, i.e. Switzerland and everything Swiss.

So pop across to the Daily Male and subscribe to it. Better yet, drop him an email and join in the fun. You know you want to!

Ps. The Daily Male is an equal opportunities blog and encourages applications from men, women and any combination thereof. 

I know, it’s an easy post, but I’m up against it at the moment. Here’s today’s top word:

stekelvarken - porcupine (in Dutch)

Closely followed in second place by:

schnupfen - cold/runny nose/sneezing without the wheezing! (in German)

So if you come across a dual-nationality, bilingual porcupine breeder with a poorly animal, you’ll have the necessary lingo to get by.

Don’t say I’ve never helped!

A while back I mentioned I wanted to be an astronaut. Here’s why:

How to get rid of rubbish in space

How much fun would that be?