"Mind how you go "

Dutch Health and Safety being its usual wet blanket-ty self , the limit on firework purchase per person has been set at 10 kilos . Hardly enough to make yourself heard over your neighbours . It's enough to make you get together with your buddies , pool your resources , and stuff the cache in a millk churn and set them all off at once , like dashing young lads do in the villages .

We 'll be at home , wearing earmuffs and circumspectly sipping a small sherry and avoiding the cholesterol -laden Olieballen ....

But wherever you are and however you'll be celebrating , I wish you a convivial New Year's Eve and a healthy , prosperous and very happy 2010 .

Be Careful What You S(w)ing at Christmas.

It's politically incorrect in these enlightened times to refer to "Eskimos" - even though that's what they call themselves, for Goodness sake.   Soooooo . . . a certain seasonal verse needs to be rewritten.

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Jack Frost nips your norty bits.

Yuletide carols being sung by the choir

And folk dressed up like Innuits"

There.! That'll keep the PC Nazis quiet.  Lord knows what they'll make of the picture . . 

Happy Christmas and awesome New Year to all super Soupers.

(Jinksy's assistance in preparation of the artwork was invaluable.)

to kindle or not to kindle ....

i'd been wondering about the desirability of a kindle for a while . not in a full-on must-have sort of way .... it was more a sort of vague ponder .
i thought , when i flew back from england a couple of weeks ago and watched fellow travellers with theirs , that it seemed so neat , somehow , compared to my fat , gaudy paperback *.
the whole easy-jet scrummage for a seat and legroom completed , i settled in and hauled the , by now , rather dog-eared novel out and read on . the doors shut , all gadgets had to be switched off and the up to the minute reading public had to twiddle their thumbs for ten minutes until we were airborne , when they could pick up where they'd left off .... before the life-jacket demonstration in two languages , exhortations to buy duty free and to enjoy a speedy cocktail with a toasted sandwich .....and read on until the pilot announced that we were coming in to amsterdam . schiphol has to be the airport with the longest approach in the world and we circled and meandered up and down runways for another twenty minutes , gadgets switched off , while i read another chapter or two . so , grand total kindle-reading time = twenty minutes on the forty-five minute flight and my decision was made for me . i didn't need one .
until wednesday , when i fell off my bike and comprehensively broke my left wrist . now , what i could just do with is a little tablet-form gadget with page after page of almost any book of my choice , easily scroll-downable with one hand .
*and what was i reading? i'd be mortified if you found out .... let's just say 2-for-one and "dark secrets" ... though , in my defence , it did say "well written and subtle" , too .

Party?

I want to put on a holiday party. I want to prepare a buffet table with silver dishes set among swirls of sparkle-and-glitter gold tulle. Here and there in the artfully gathered tulle between the silver serving dishes, there would be ornaments...

I want the dishes to be filled with easily served and eaten rich foods of puff pastry and lots of spices and colors. I want there to be sweetmeats and sugarplums (whatever those items are). The table would be so full of beautiful things, edible and inedible, that there would be sighs of awe and murmured wishes not to disturb the splendor.

I would like the guests to be dressed beautifully in the kind of holiday evening attire that one wears only between the middle of December and the middle of January. I want the women [and whichever men feel so inclined] to be made up beautifully, and wearing jewel colors, and I want the [other] men to wear ties and be so freshly shaven that the planes of their jaws shine smooth. I want the conversation to be witty and intelligent and I would like everyone to drink enough alcohol to sparkle but not enough to become stupid or clumsy. I want there to be enough seating that there is none of the awkward juggling of plates that accompanies buffets everywhere, but I want the guests to be mobile as well, circulating and sparkling and chatting and being amusing and amused.
I would like background music (unobtrusive Christmas carols and hymns) and lighting with dimmer switches. And lots of white candles in various sizes and shapes and groupings.

I have never attended such a party in my life, much less hosted one. And I don't want to host this one.
I want to set it up, to cater it, and then to sit back and watch.
And then I would like to go home and let somebody else clean up.
It would be my own little stage set, wouldn't it?

Vignettes of French Life

Even if your French is rusty, I’m sure you’ll get the gist of this  this little advert, displayed this week in the local paper. 

I expect that Saint Sylvester would have had something to say about being celebrated in such a fashion.  Me, I tend to ring in the New Year in more conventional ways, if at all.   

And the French tendency to borrow from English and do their own thing with it is always entertaining, but Fasylove takes the cake. 

Hello Again

Amendments duly made, as per Doctor FTSE's observations, and Fran's words. As promised, the closing date for captions will be Monday, but I hope the snowfall I've already sent to various parts of Blogland will just about cover it - if you see what I mean! Hehehe!

Hello?