.... for getting a little over-excited BUT it's snowing again!! *whoop* I feel a snowball coming on!
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
*singing* Happy Birthday to Me! Happy Birthday ... aaagh, you get the idea!
... well not really, I am a Leo, slightly later in the season! But instead Happy Birthday to my blog; 1 year old today! So in homage to the mémé/même/mèmè, (*coughs slightly* an idea that I stole from Lisa and Fizzy) here's a little stroll back through memory lane or what I have been up to throughout the last year ~
February 2005 ~ I simply speaking introduced myself, no readers / commenters but then I was only doing this for me ... so I didn't care! I've re-designed aka done a Laurence since then and now I can't change the font colour so the very "lilac-ness" of Chez le laquet makes it almost impossible to read ... any ideas how I can go back and change things? Blogger will only allow me to look at the last 300 posts! Yes I do suffer from O.C.D. ~ no mocking of the afflicted please!
March 2005 ~ Simon and I "blind-tasted" Cava ready for the wedding. We were incredibly serious about it, we'd tried a couple of bottles and then we took it a step further ... we seriously opened 3 bottles and tasted them alongside each other. We are such piss-heads! I laughingly mentioned the fact that "Cava unlike champagne doesn't give me a headache" ~ I was so wrong! Wedding plans rushed onwards and my mother and I bankrupted my father at Box 2 in Brighton ... yes we bought frocks!
April 2005 ~ I made some new friends ... visitors started appearing Chez le Laquet! Battle Scars became my favourite post to write ever ..... it just flowed! And then there were the hen night capers! La Bella Stella told me to get with the humiliation .... I did! I drank, danced and scoffed Chinese food! Ok so the post didn't appear until May but only because I had a little itsy-bitsy headache :o)
May 2005 ~ May was pretty much about the wedding! You didn't know I was getting married *preens slightly* I'll have you know I blogged on the day!
June 2005 ~ It was Kev's birthday and my mum & dad's anniversary .... all in the same week! They moved the pipes ~ hurrah! I barely survived an ebay auction and went to the beach for a week with 25 kids! I know, most people's idea of hell!!
July 2005 ~ The baby arrived on July 16th, I spent a little time reading, there was sloganizer to play with and then I disappeared to France!
August 2005 ~ August was a quiet month, spent enjoying the sunshine in France ... not a lot of fear that much blogging was going to take place as le Laquet suffers from "the dreaded dial-up!" However I did some watercolour painting and my mum got interviewed by all you bloggers to celebrate her 60th birthday!
September 2005 ~ Ah back to reality, school and Kev's new job started, we talked about favourite places to be and I must have been marking virtously* ..... because there's not a lot else!
October 2005 ~ question of the month concerned the colour of starfish blood, my friend Chris passed away after a foul illness, I was given some proper health advice by true professionals and .... yes you guessed it I buggered off back** to France. Ok, even I can admit there's a pattern developing here.
November 2005 ~ Related the story of my first kiss, I did a little blog-trawling .... I love it, it's a great way to find delicious new reads! Everyone helped me improve my ability to eat and drink around the world and *drum roll* I got to drink hot chocolate and jaw and laugh with Fizzy in person! Hurrah!!
December 2005 ~ Tit-tape and toupees, the most amazing geeky-gadget present I ever had and I finally made it! So .... come-on what else do you think I did? Yep, that's right!
Also in December, I received a wondeful calendar with pictures of En Zed that make me want to go and visit even more ~ Merci bien Kiwi ~ a lovely gift from a certain sparkler and had my first trans-global phone call! However, thanks to the joys of being stuck in a small French hamlet (that'd be no mobile phone signal to go with the dial-up) I stood on the balcony in the snow as Lisa and I jawed for ages ... she did commiserate about the cold and tell me how lovely the weather in Wellington was!
January 2006 ~ We came back from France and I regaled you with tales of mad Belgians, snake in bottles and plumbing! I shared my holiday photos and a parcel arrived from the lovely Lisa! I shared my random thoughts and admited to weird habits.
February 2006 ~ And here we are full circle, a year later, a year older, a life richer for blogging and the good friends it has brought me! There are so many of you ... just look at my ever-swelling blogroll
I actually never thought I'd keep this up for a whole year ~ just goes to show that even if something is occaisionally a little difficult it can be worthwhile if you really enjoy it! Here's to the next year!!
**UPDATE** ... breaking news is that Broadband is coming to that little French village in April ~ hurrah! That'll really bring le Laquet into the 21st century*** ~ won't it?
* Don't panic! It didn't last
** By the way, what happened between them whilst I was away was not my responsibility ... they know who they are!
*** Yes, I know it's 2006 ... but were talking rural France here!
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Unconscious mutterings #160
I say ... and you think ... ?
Baby step :: little feet
Wasted :: time and energy
Reggie :: Reggie and Ronnie Kray
Pitiful :: pathetic
Acting out :: drama, traditional tales in school this week!
At home version, Me ~ oooh what big eyes you've got!
Simon ~ *wiggles eyebrows* All the better to see you with my dear!
Me ~ *sniggering* Lol!!!
Tomato :: Heinz Tomato Soup ... my favourite canned soup, the panacea of all ills (from hangover to period pain) for me is Heinz tomato soup and white buttery toast! What's your favourite canned soup?
Bad night :: coughing + no sleep = bad night!
Trip :: just booked to go to Barcelona ... sssssh, it's a surprise for Simon!
Finance charges :: We're changing our current account to the Nationwide ... the only bank that doesn't charge you a flaming fortune to spend your own money whilst you're in France! The Halifax charges you £1.50 every time you use your card ... £1.50!! Even charged us that when I used it on the tolls on the motorway for €5 .... bloody hell!
Sport :: rugby! Muddy, yes ... but those thighs!
Lisa ~ just for you 'cause I know it makes you giggle .... €5 = NZ$8.96 and £1.50 = NZ$3.94
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Friday's feast .... left overs, served cold on Saturday morning to help with the hangover!!
Appetizer
Choose one :: moving to another state, having triplets, or never being able to eat chocolate again. Well moving to another state probably equates to moving to another country over here, which I would do quite happily as I love to travel and see no places .... making that the cop-out answer to be truthful! Give up chocolate ~ no way José, couldn't do it ... couldn't go without the creamy sweetness of Galaxy or the joy that is Green & Black's organic milk chocolate or especially the crisp snap of Rococo's chilli artisan bar. So ... that would be me having 3 babies .... offers of baby-sitting greatfully accepted!
Soup
Name a news story that truly shocked you. I spoke to a friend last night and she told me about a story splashed over the front pages of our local newspapers ~ a 9 year old boy from of our local primary schools has commited suicide after an arguement with his mum when he was banished to his bedroom for 15 minutes time-out for being rude! How did that child even know that was an option? How did he know what to do? How is his mother going to cope? I bawled!
Salad
What was your very first job? Aged 16, I was a checkout operator at one of Britain's biggest supermarkets .... loved it! Mind Christmas was horrendous but I had such fun working there!
Main Course
If you had the chance to read the diary of someone you're really close to, would you? Why or why not? Of course .... it's not that I'm nosey you know, I just have a need to know!!
Dessert
What's something you're looking forward to? I am more than a little excited about picking up my new car on Wednesday .... I shall endeavour to be calm *does a little tap dance, drums fingers on desk, takes deep breath* I am really looking forward to that!
Friday, February 24, 2006
I have officially been a very lax blogger
It's been a struggle to be here this week ... I've been busy and yet I don't seem to have achieved anything that I have set out to do!
I have had 2 nights when I haven't got home from school until gone 8 o'clock (are you listening all you out there who think that teachers only work until 3.30 each day on top of the 13 weeks holiday a year! Yeh I know you're right about the 13 weeks but I do work later than 3.30!!) .... but I still am not up to date on my marking/planning etc
I played poker on Tuesday night, enjoyed an evening of wine, food and good conversation (hurrah) but made the huge profit of 10p (boo!)
I have bought a car ... little red Renault Clio to match the other little red Renault Clio that we already have!! I know ~ no imagination!
I am slightly narked with Blogger's new word verification do-berry .... having to enter letters every time I post / save a post is all very well and good but I am so addicted to a certain game that I then spend the next hour trying to think of a sentence using said letters!!
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
All those years ago ...
The 21st of February already? What happened to January? Where'd it go? Anyways that's besides the point really, if it's the 21st of February it must be Dad's birthday ... it's a biggie too.
So .... Happy 70th Birthday Dad!
Have a wonderful day, lots of love
Jo & Simon
xxxx
Don't you just love to Wiki?
It can tell you all kinds of amazing things for your trivia loving father to peruse .... enough to keep him busy for days!
On the 21st of February ....
362 - Athanasius returns to Alexandria
1431 - The trial of Joan of Arc begins.
1440 - The Prussian Confederation is formed.
1543 - Battle of Wayna Daga - A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated a Muslim army led by Ahmed Gragn.
1613 - Mikhail I is elected unanimously as Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia .
1743 - The premiere in London of George Frideric Handel's oratorio, "Samson".
1804 - The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales.
1842 - John J. Greenough patents the sewing machine.
1848 - Karl Marx publishes the Communist Manifesto.
1874 - The Oakland Daily Tribune publishes its first newspaper.
1875 - Jeanne Calment was born, going on to live for 122 years 164 days, the longest confirmed lifespan for any human being in history.
1878 - The first telephone book is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
1885 - The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
1893 - Thomas Edison receives two U.S. patents for a "Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps" and for a "Stop Device"
1916 - World War I: In France the Battle of Verdun begins.
1925 - The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
1937 - Initial flight of the first successful flying car, Waldo Waterman's Arrowbile
1937 - The League of Nations bans foreign national "volunteers" in the Spanish Civil War.
1947 - In New York City Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
1948 - NASCAR is incorporated.
1952 - Language Martyrs' Day, marking language-revolution in the then East Pakistan (currently, the independent state of People's Republic of Bangladesh)
1952 - The government of Winston Churchill abolishes Identity Cards in the UK to "set the people free".
1952 - In East Pakistan (Present Bangladesh) Police opened fire on a procession of students, who demended to establish Bangla as the State Language, killing four people and starting a country-wide protest which led to the independence of Bangladesh in 1971. 21st February was later declared as "The international Mother Language Day" by UNESCO.
1953 - Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of the DNA molecule.
1960 - Cuban leader Fidel Castro nationalizes all businesses in Cuba.
1965 - Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam.
1970 - Swissair Flight 330: A mid-air bomb explosion and subsequent crash kills 38 passengers and nine crew members near Zürich, Switzerland.
1971 - The Convention on Psychotropic Substances is signed at Vienna.
1972 - President Richard Nixon visits the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations.
1972 - The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.
1973 - Over the Sinai Desert, Israeli fighter aircraft shoot down a Libyan Airlines jet killing 108.
1974 - The long-running Japanese comic strip "Sazae-san" publishes its final installment in the Asahi Shimbun.
1974 - The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal in carrying out a truce with Egypt.
1975 - Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.
1981 - Charles Rocket, portraying the gunshot victim in a Saturday Night Live parody of the "Who Shot J.R." plot on the program Dallas, said, "I'd like to know who the fuck did it," during the live feed of the "goodnights" segment. Afterward, everyone except Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo was fired
1986 - Metallica released their 3rd album Master of Puppets.
1988 - Jimmy Swaggart, on his own televangelism program being taped in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, confesses that he is guilty of an unspecified sin and will be temporarily leaving the pulpit.
1995 - Serkadji prison mutiny in Algeria; 4 guards and 96 prisoners killed in a day and a half.
1995 - Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.
2000 - David Letterman returns to The Late Show over a month after having an emergency quintuple heart bypass surgery.
2003 - Over 100 concert goers die in a fire during a performance of the rock band Great White.
2004 - The first European political party organization, the European Greens, is established in Rome.
A variety of holidays are observed around the world ::
Language Martyrs' Day - A day celebrated by Bengali speaking people for gaining right of mother tongue.
International Mother Language Day (UNESCO)
Catholicism - Feast day of St Peter Damian.
Lots of people were born ::
1484 - Elector Joachim I of Brandenburg (d. 1535)
1556 - Sethus Calvisius, German calendar reformer (d. 1615)
1621 - Rebecca Nurse, American accused witch (d. 1692)
1675 - Franz Xaver Josef von Unertl, Bavarian politician (d. 1750)
1688 - Queen Ulrike Eleonora of Sweden (d. 1741)
1705 - Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke, British naval officer (d. 1781)
1721 - John McKinly, American physician and President of Delaware (d. 1796)
1723 - Louis-Pierre Anquetil, French historian (d. 1808)
1728 - Tsar Peter III of Russia, husband of Catherine the Great (d. 1762)
1791 - Carl Czerny, Austrian composer (d. 1857)
1801 - John Henry Newman, English Catholic cardinal (d. 1890)
1821 - Charles Scribner, American publisher (d. 1871)
1836 - Léo Delibes, French composer (d. 1891)
1844 - Charles-Marie Widor, French organist and composer (d. 1937)
1865 - John Haden Badley, English author and school founder (d. 1967)
1867 - Otto Hermann Kahn, German millionaire and benefactor (d. 1934)
1875 - Jeanne Calment, supercentenarian (d. 1997)
1880 - Waldemar Bonsels, German writer (d. 1952)
1885 - Sacha Guitry, Russian dramatist, writer, director, and actor (d. 1957)
1893 - Celia Lovsky, Russian-born actress (d. 1979)
1893 - Andrés Segovia, Spanish guitarist (d. 1987)
1895 - Carl Peter Henrik Dam Danish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1976)
1903 - Fairfax M. Cone, American advertising executive (d. 1977)
1903 - Anaïs Nin, French writer (d. 1977)
1907 - W. H. Auden, English poet (d. 1973)
1910 - Douglas Bader, British pilot (d. 1982)
1910 - Carmine Galante, Italian-born gangster (d. 1979)
1915 - Ann Sheridan, American actress (d. 1967)
1917 - Lucille Bremer, American actress (d. 1996)
1925 - Sam Peckinpah, American director (d. 1984)
1924 - Robert Mugabe first President of Zimbabwe
1927 - Erma Bombeck, American humorist (d. 1996)
1927 - Hubert de Givenchy, French fashion designer
1929 - Roberto "Chespirito" Carlos Bolanõs, Mexican actor, writer, comedian, and songwriter
1933 - Nina Simone, American singer (d. 2003)
1934 - Rue McClanahan, American actress
1936 - Barbara Jordan, American politician (d. 1996)
1936 - My Dad
1937 - King Harald V of Norway
1937 - Gary Lockwood, American actor
1941 - James Wong, Hong Kong composer (d. 2004)
1942 - Margarethe von Trotta, French actor, film director, and writer
1943 - David Geffen, American record producer
1946 - Tyne Daly, American actress
1946 - Anthony Daniels, British actor
1946 - Alan Rickman, English actor
1947 - Olympia Snowe, American politician
1949 - Jerry Harrison, American musician
1953 - Christine Ebersole, American actress
1953 - William Petersen, American actor
1955 - Sir Steven Fayburgh KCMG, British diplomat
1958 - Jake Burns, Northern Ireland singer (Stiff Little Fingers}
1958 - Mary Chapin Carpenter, American singer
1958 - Alan Trammell, baseball player and manager
1961 - Davey Allison, American race car driver (d. 1993)
1961 - Christopher Atkins, American actor
1961 - Martha Hackett, American actress
1961 - Chuck Palahniuk, American writer
1963 - William Baldwin, American actor
1967 - Leroy Burrell, American sprinter
1969 - Eric Wilson, American musician (Sublime)
1970 - Michael Slater, Australian cricketer
1972 - Seo Taiji, Korean musician
1974 - Ivan Campo, Spanish footballer
1974 - Roberto Heras, Spanish cyclist
1975 - Affirmed, American race horse (d. 2001)
1977 - Steve Francis, NBA Basketball player
1977 - Kevin Rose, American television host
1979 - Pascal Chimbonda, French footballer
1979 - Lonnie Ford, Arena Football League fullback/linebacker
1979 - Jennifer Love Hewitt, American actress and singer
1983 - Braylon Edwards, American football player
1986 - Charlotte Church, Welsh singer
.... and some people died ::
1437 - King James I of Scotland (b. 1394)
1471 - John of Rokycan, Czech Catholic archbishop
1513 - Pope Julius II (b. 1443)
1543 - Ahmed Gragn, Sultan of Adal
1554 - Hieronymus Bock, German botanist
1595 - Robert Southwell, English poet
1668 - John Thurloe, English Puritan spy (b. 1616)
1677 - Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (b. 1632)
1715 - Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, Governor of the Province of Maryland (b. 1637)
1788 - Johann Georg Palitzsch, German astronomer (b. 1723)
1824 - Eugène de Beauharnais, son of Napoleon's wife, Josephine (b. 1781)
1846 - Emperor Ninko of Japan, (b. 1800)
1862 - Justinus Kerner, German poet (b. 1786)
1926 - Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Dutch physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1853)
1938 - George Ellery Hale, American astronomer (b. 1868)
1941 - Frederick Banting, Canadian physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1891)
1944 - Ferenc Szisz, Hungarian-born race car driver (b. 1873)
1945 - Eric Liddell, Scottish runner (b. 1902)
1965 - Malcolm X, American black activist (b. 1925)
1967 - Charles Beaumont, American writer (b. 1929)
1968 - Howard Walter Florey, Australian-born pharmocologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1898)
1974 - Tim Horton, Canadian hockey player (b. 1905)
1984 - Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov, Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
1991 - Dame Margot Fonteyn, English ballet dancer (b. 1919)
1994 - Luis Donaldo Colosio, Mexican politician (b. 1948)
1996 - Morton Gould, American composer (b. 1913)
1999 - Gertrude B. Elion, American scientist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1918)
2002 - John Thaw, English actor (b. 1942)
2002 - Harold Furth, Austrian-born physicist (b. 1939)
2004 - John Charles, Welsh footballer (b. 1931)
2004 - Guido Molinari, Canadian artist (b. 1933)
2005 - Ara Berberian, American opera singer (b. 1930)
2005 - Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Cuban novelist (b. 1929)
2005 - Eugene Scott, American religious broadcaster (b. 1929)
What does Wikipedia say about your special day?
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