Pandora's blog

Wide-eyed

2007-08-16T00:27:00.000+01:00

Of course, the consequence of failing to give up caffeine is sometimes insomnia. I haven't slept properly for the last four nights and I'm not quite sure why. However, my younger brother returns from Palestine on Friday so it would be nice to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for that. His (updated almost as often as mine) blog about his experiences can be found here.

It's weird. I haven't felt able to write an espresso stories for ages but in the last 2 days I've written about 7 (yes, that's the grand total of 175 words or fewer. Marvel at my productivity). Perhaps that's what will happen with my blogging soon. I might even blog about something other than blogging soon. Don't hold your breath.

Let's start again

2007-07-31T22:36:00.000+01:00

In retrospect, proclaiming that I was back to blogging a couple of days before I headed off on holiday was probably a bad idea. But then I wasn't expecting Oxford to flood, which a) made me a day late back to work, b) had me on flood watch so that my brother could get some sleep for another day. And then there was WOMAD (or WOMUD as us bad punners like to refer to it).

So I apologise. I'll start again. After I've been to see Transformers tomorrow of course....

I don't know, I've been in the pub.

2007-07-12T00:25:00.000+01:00

I should really go to bed. Or something.

Eh?

2007-07-10T22:55:00.000+01:00

What's all this new blogger stuff? Why do I need a google address to log in? Why cant I just upload a profile picture from my computer rather than use one on the web any more? Labels - what? How long have I been away? I'm confused.
But I'm back, I think (if there's any one still out there).
I am also:

single
living on the other side of Oxford
suffering from a headache right now - won't be attempting to give up caffeine again any time soon

Where I'll be next Easter Monday

2007-04-09T22:34:00.000+01:00

Quack quack.

Well, it beats this year's boat race. Bah.

A haiku

2007-04-08T18:11:00.000+01:00

Flowers in a vase
surrounded by so much dust
I have to tidy

Things I have mislaid since moving

2007-04-08T08:58:00.001+01:00

my tape measure
my small handbag with the mushroom picture on it
my mushroom shaped summer hat
my cycling gloves

The loss of each is annoying in its own special way. They'll turn up eventually, I suppose.

Update: 2 down, two to go.

Snow!

2007-02-08T19:50:00.000Z

The unusual and exciting event of it actually snowing quite heavily in Oxford this winter has caused me to undertake the unusual and (or perhaps not) exciting act of updating my blog for once.

Behold! A snow-covered tree!

Here's the snowman what I made -

He'll have melted by tomorrow :(

Just checking in

2007-01-12T22:51:00.000Z

Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?

A view over Cromford

2006-10-10T22:06:00.000+01:00

In honour ofMaryB who will be in this neck of the woods at the end of October, here's a picture of some Derbyshire countryside and a short list of some of the interestingly-named plants you might find there.

There will be no more blogging from me for a week or so, but this time it's intentional.

The Latin roots of blogging

2006-10-02T22:01:00.000+01:00

bloggo, bloggere, bloggi, bloxus

Well, it amused me.

Curiouser and curiouser

2006-09-25T21:28:00.000+01:00

I noted the other day that Google trends showed that Canvey Island in Essex was the source of most of the searches for oatcakes.Well, now it turns out, they also like searching for Stoke City a lot. More than anyone else in fact, including Stokies themselves. Is there some North Staffordshire contigent stuck down there, unable to escape, mournfully resorting to Google for a reminder of home?

Slightly belatedly....

2006-09-19T19:34:00.000+01:00

Turns out this blog had a birthday yesterday while I wasn't looking. Happy 2nd birthday Pandora's blog - let's see if you can limp along feebly for another year.

Meanwhile, Edward seems to have depleted his blog down to a squiggle. I hope this isn't the end of OmCoC.

Two fat cats sitting on a wall

2006-09-16T23:53:00.000+01:00

In completely unrelated news, we now have five bikes in our flat. Only one (mine) works at the moment.

Keen knitter?

2006-09-15T22:02:00.000+01:00

Fan of birds? Why not knit jumpers for penguins?

Wedding of the Year

2006-09-14T21:13:00.000+01:00

One of the reasons I've been absent from the blog for a while is that in mid-August my older brother got married after a short engagement* and I was asked to be responsible for the food at the reception. It was to be a 'bring and share' event so in the weeks running to the day I was spending my time trying to work out whether X should bring pasta salad, if Y could be relied upon to bring puddings and most importantly whether there would be enough quiche. As the picture below demonstrates, my quiche concerns were misplaced and the was also enough pizza and porkpie to placate those to whom eggy flan is an anathema. (Note also the plate of cold pork. I cooked that myself I did, along with a beef joint and some gammon. Aren't you proud?)

Our flat echoed for weeks with the plaintive cry of "Will there be enough bread? Chris, what about the bread?". But in the end, my fears were misplaced. I had asked my parents to get 40 loaves from the supermarket on the way to the reception, they got 20 and that was about 15 too many. In fact there was plenty of food (some might say too much), all were well fed and Chris and I were able to dine on large leftover puddings for the following week. AND I got three jars of pickled onions to take home at the end. Marvellous.

It goes without saying that the wedding itself went very well, all were joyous and I was most pleased to gain a sister-in-law. The bride and groom were all sparkly, smiley and happy and, (partly, but by no means entirely, thanks to the two kegs of ale they ordered for the reception) I think all the guests enjoyed themselves. There were no helter-skelters (or in the end giant cool-boxes as cool bags sufficed) but there was giant jenga and Connect Four.

*less than a decade

Tour of Britain

2006-09-13T22:44:00.000+01:00

I've been out most of the evening but I'm determined to keep this blogging thing going* so here's a photo of the start at Rochester of day 5 of the Tour of Britain which happened on 2nd September. This pair were having a chat as they went past**. Look at the lovely bricked damp paving they are going over - bet that was fun! Day 5 was spent mainly in a non-racing protest as apparently the cyclists got sent the wrong way round the route or something and were, understandably, a little annoyed at this. I think this is the bit of the route which will be part of the Tour de France next year, so hopefully they will have worked out which is the right way by then.

*5 days of posting without a break! WOOooooOOOoooo!
** Look! Helmets!

Cycling helmets: not so good after all?

2006-09-12T20:46:00.000+01:00

Interesting article on the BBC about cycle helmets - apparently motorists give people who don't wear helmets a wider berth than those who do, so wearing a helmet might make it more likely that a vehicle will hit you.

I wonder if this effect is caused by an awareness of the difference - meaning, if no-one wore a helmet, once the motorists had got used to it, would the distance gap close up?

Meme catchup

2006-09-11T19:29:00.000+01:00

On 25 August Shuggy tagged me with a book meme. I looked at it, probably ate a biscuit and had a cup of tea and didn't get round to doing it. But now I have. I'm not sure if I've done this one before but I'll have changed all my answers by now so that doesn't really matter!

1. One book that changed your life – The Aeneid Book II which I did for Latin GSCE was probably instrumental in my decision to study Classics at University.

2. One book that you've read more than once – Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

3. One book that you'd want on a desert island – Don Quixote. Because I’ve got that lovely Edith Grossman translation sitting on my bookcase and I still haven’t had enough time to sit down and really get into it. Being trapped on a desert island would probably be a good opportunity once I've got tired of annoying all the other people stranded on the desert island trying to read their chosen books.

4. One book that made you laugh – Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down. Good source of information about biscuits too.

5. One book that made you cry - Nothing springs to mind. I probably cried over Black Beauty once upon a time, I suppose.

6. One book you wish you had written - Symmetries by Luisa Valenzuela

7. One book you wish had never been written – I'm sure there are many - unsolicited manuscripts have jaded me - but I'll pick The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. Because its so loooong and so utterly rubbish.

8. One book you're currently reading – I’m currently re-reading We Need to Talk About Kevin for a book group. Not a fun read, but a very good one

9. One book you have been meaning to read – Extreme Survival by Dr Kenneth Kamler. I’ve just finished reading South by Ernest Shackleton, and before that I read In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick and these two, combined with watching Blizzard have got me fascinated by how the body copes with extreme conditions.

Sponsor me!

2006-09-10T21:30:00.000+01:00

On Monday I will be starting a three-month long attempt to swim the English channel.

"Three months, you say? David Walliams did it in 10.5 hours. Are you going to be using only one limb at a time or something? Surely you will starve to death or drown of boredom before you get half-way!"

Well, I'm not actually going to be swimming in the full-of-pollution-and-giant-boats-and-other-unsavoury-items English Channel. In fact I shall be popping down to my local (reasonably clean apart from all the hair bobbles and the mysterious sand at the bottom) swimming pool on a regular basis and swimming it in stages with an intended completion date of 3rd December. And I'm doing it for ASPIRE, the national spinal cord injury charity. So, I need sponsoring. I think you know where this is going...

As you probably haven't noticed as it's so small*, there's a link in the sidebar saying 'sponsor me' which goes to my justgiving page, where, if you feel so inclined, you can make sponsorship donations directly to Aspire without having to go through me*.

(And once I've found out where I can get one from, I'll be putting up a thingy which shows how many lengths I've done and how many I've got left to do. I know Purple Elephant had such a thing for NaNoWriMo but I can't remember where it was from...)

thanks!

*note to self: make text bigger
** I think Justgiving take 5% of any donation as their fee but as Chris pointed out to me, they remove the admin that Aspire would need to carry out (and pay for) if you made the donation to the charity.

Warning: Spider

2006-09-09T20:34:00.000+01:00

Last year I wrote a post about the evil spiders which occasionally creep into my flat and try and eat me.

Now I have photographic evidence.

"hello there. I'm a ~~reasonably large but easily scared~~ absolutely enormous and malevolent spider who has come into the flat ~~to escape from the rain~~ to first intimidate and then try and eat Kate. How are you?"

(Chris took the photo with the flash on which is why the curtain seems to be glowing.)

Yum yum

2006-08-14T21:35:00.000+01:00

I've just been faffing around on google trends and was intrigued to see that the place that has the most searches for 'oatcake' is not in Staffordshire* but is in fact Canvey Island in Essex** by quite a large margin. Perhaps its my new sister-in-law's*** family trying to find out what on earth my family keeps talking about with such delight.

* Cos there's really only one proper kind of oatcake. The Staffordshire kind.
** Actually I don't think they are from Canvey Island. I have no idea where anything is in Essex.
** * I know what you're wondering. You're wrong.

Important question for UK-based readers (if there are any of you left)

2006-08-02T22:04:00.000+01:00

Does anyone know where I can get a decent sized cool-box? I need it for next Thursday at the latest.
Why? All will be revealed at some point, probably, perhaps after the helter-skelter craziness* is over.

*GOOD helter-skelter craziness, I would like to have you know.

A post with actual words in it coming soon...

2006-07-31T21:44:00.000+01:00

IMG_0611
Originally uploaded by katemonkeee.

In the meantime, here's a picture from Rousham Park of a tree made of cotton wool and cushion stuffing.

What's so wise about them anyway?

2006-06-20T19:27:00.000+01:00

I hate my wisdom teeth. All of them came through to the triumphal chorus of excruciating pain. With the last, I couldn't sleep for more than four hours at the time because whenever the effect of the painkillers I was taking wore off the agony woke me up. I had to keep putting ice on it to get any real relief. Only the 'ping' of a restrictive piece of gum finally snapping to release the burgeoning fang made the pain go away properly. Not one of them had the decency to come through in a nice, orderly and painfree fashion.

And then, I discover, one of them had the audacity, the nerve, the sheer cheek to get a hole and so require a filling today! Pah, I tell you, pah!

And then, there was a slight confusion over the local anesthetic. The dentist gave me the injection (not fun) and then gave my teeth a clean while it got to work. Then he asked me if my mouth was numb. It felt numb so I said yes. But I'm not used to having anesthetic and was not previously aware that there might be gradations of numb. For instance, your tongue and the front of your mouth can feel numb but the tooth which is getting the filling might still be free to feel the horrible pain of the dentist sticking some sharp metal implement in it. I had to go and sit outside his office for a bit until my mouth had reached the proper grade of numb for the procedure*.

Of course this had to happen on the day our Tesco online order** turned up. So on the afternoon I decide I really am going to have start cutting down on my sugar intake, 20 bottles of fizzy pop arrive. Ho hum.

*apparently I was very brave when finally the anesthetic kicked in and I got the filling. Hurrah for me!
**For those who are amused by such things, we currently possess 42 toilet rolls