Pages

Monday, May 11, 2009

There is a squeak in the laundry
















Early in Spring the trees around here started collecting white fluffy things which they are now dumping on Wien in great fluffy clouds.

It looks like snow but it gives me Hay Fever to a very alarming degree and I spend an inordinate amount of time sneezing. Someone will tell me what these trees are called – not that it matters much. (See pic above).

Cate’s hotel in Jakarta is up to the usual high standard and she had a private check-in on level 14 where she sat in a leather lounge chair and was given a glass of chilled white wine while she signed up. She also has her laundry done for her every day. I bet she has a chocolate on her pillow every night too!

Although…….I just made some bookings for two weeks hence for Krakow and on the hotel website they have promised us chocolates! We shall see.

Tomorrow she is going to Bangkok for two days.

There was something call the Genuss Festival in Stadtpark at the weekend. I am not sure what Genuss Festival means in this context but someone will explain it to me.

Anyway it is a display of the food and wine from all over Austria and I tried some different things and bought many different things including many different salad oils and different types of Schnapps. I must say the food and wine of Austria is sensational.

I didn’t take any photos but Merisi will have and they will appear on her website in due course I am sure.

What I did see was baby ducks so there will be pics of these soon.

I am back on the bike after recovering from my flu (or whatever it was) and have been for two very long rides. Probably about 40 kilometers each day. I plan on doing this five days each week.
I went to Alt Wien on Thursday and they had run out of Caruso Blend AGAIN! The man was very sorry and promised it would be in and roasted by Monday – and it was – which was just as well because I was down to the last cup.

I am not going to let this happen again as it is too traumatic. In future there will always be a kilo in the emergency reserves.

I told you I got a BIPA card – well I was issued with a temporary paper card when I signed up. I never did get a proper plastic card so Rozalin kindly followed this up for me.

It seems my card went to Gretl Almhupfer. Not only did Gretl get my card, she has also received the points from all my purchases for the last few months. I am going to contact her and suggest she has us a round for dinner.

With the Financial Times we often get a magazine that is called ‘Stuff For the Stupidly Rich’. The latest issue has an advertising supplement about the new Motorola AURA which has the world’s first circular display in a mobile phone.

What can I say?

Anyway – Motorola has signed up David Beckham to promote their phone and they have some eloquent quotes from him in the supplement.

Now you know that I never have an unkind word to say about anyone but I have seen David Beckham interviewed and – apart from the fact that he sounds like a Mongoose with its testicles caught in a mousetrap – he can barely string two words together.

However, if you want to watch the video (I haven’t but I am sure DB will not be allowed to speak) – it’s at: http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/GB-EN/Home

There is something that makes a weird squeaking noise every 15 minutes our so in our laundry. It sounds like the noise you would make if you trod on a child’s squeaky bear. (no it’s not David Beckham).

I just can’t figure out what it is. It has been going on for days. It's driving me Maaaaaaaaaaaad!

5 comments:

  1. Are you keeping a freezer in the laundry?
    Ours sends out some squeeky lament ever couple months or so, in the middle of the night. *waaaahh*

    I have pictures of Stadtpark,
    but no time to cobble a post together.
    I am also upset that I can shoot only with my pocket camera, my SRL's electronic playing nuts (which upsets me very much - barely a year old that thing!).

    ReplyDelete
  2. You obviously don't consider bureaucrats to be people when claiming to speak ill of no one!

    My father regularly recounts the advice given to my mother (and subsequently used by her!) about what to do when her baby cried and wouldn't sleep. Her gynaecologist told her to close the baby's and her own bedroom doors and go back to bed. (Back in those days mothers didn't keep their new-borns at their bedsides.) Can't you simply close more doors between you and the squeak? Alternatively, what does Muffin think about it?

    Speaking of your coffee shortage, the recent swine flu concerns made Jim and me put our minds to what we really need to survive: flour and the rest of the bread-making ingredients; our home-made muesli (rolled oats, sultanas, raisins, dried apricots, sunflower and sesame seeds, pepitas and linseeds); half a dozen chorizos (frozen); onions; spuds and plenty of canned tomatoes. We reckoned we could get by on that for a week or two and not worry about leafy green veggies!

    BTW, Jim always puts coffee on the list as soon as he opens the last pack...

    Tonight is budget night - no good news likely. May need to stock up on a couple of dozen before the taxes are increased.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Merisi - the only things in our 'laundry' (which is really just a recess in the wall - are a washing machine, a dryer and a water heater. I am going to have to spend some time sitting next to them to find the culprit.

    Please get your camera fixed ASAP.

    Annie

    Bureaucrats and Politicians (and many, many people in the public eye) are excluded from my list of 'speaking ill of on one'

    If we close the door to the laundry we deny Muffin access to the kitty litter. Need I say more.

    Well I always put coffee on the list - but if the blighters have run out what can I do.

    Hmmm.... I don't see red wine anywhere on your survival list?

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's a mouse... Or a rat... Or possibly both, and they are playing backgammon. The squeak is from mouse whenever he wins a game.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am so sorry those trees give you such a hard time - luckily, they don't bother me, but I can empathize with you since I spent the last six weeks suffering from the one or other pollen kindly floating around me.
    Took my camera to the emergency room. Would be a nice story for your blog the way its being handled, unfortunately I am too tired to talk about it.
    Get well soon!

    ReplyDelete