Be Careful

Despite being attributed as an old Chinese Proverb (which it may well be) and to Goethe and W W Jacobs the imprecation to be careful what you wish for because it may come true is actually difficult if not impossible to attribute to an original source.  In fact it has probably come from so many independent and different sources there is no one origin.  In any case so far as I am concerned I said it - albeit I was not the first.  "And what" may we ask "are we to be careful about?"  Actually in this case it is a warning from me to me.  

I haven't written a blog post a for days (why oh why does the spillchucker not recognise blog and Blogger?) and I am really missing it.  I have been in Blogland reading though.  Why have I not posted?  Because life back in NZ has been busier this time than ever just as my last summer in Europe was one of the busiest I can remember.

I almost found myself wishing that I wasn't so busy.  Then I stopped myself.  Just think if I couldn't play croquet; if I couldn't drive and travel and see all my friends; if I didn't have all those friends and family; if I were housebound; if I didn't have the money to travel to tournaments; and so on.  The list is endless.   The lifestyle I enjoy so much may have its frustrations but those frustrations are born out of a lack of time to do everything that I want to do.  How much more frustrating it would be if I had all the time and I didn't have those things to fill it.

One day I may well not be able to do everything.  One day time may be in such plentiful supply that I will look back on my life at the moment and be very, very grateful.

In the meantime I shall be very careful what I wish for.

On a lighter note here are a few titbits for you:

A female (possibly immature) Chaffinch 2 metres from me on the deck watches me as she clears up the night's bugs

"I'm watching you."

The Honeysuckle is doing well this year.

Life's good and I'm going to tell the world

And who are you looking at?

"I Did It, I Jumped The Fence" Explained

Because it is a quotation that I use so often I forget that some of the readers of this blog might not realise the significance when I used it yesterday.   Some time ago I posted the following on Eagleton Notes:

I thought that CJ had blogged about this some time ago but it appears to have been a passing reference in a post on books of childhood. Anyway when achieving something members of our family invariably say “ ‘I did it, I jumped the fence!’ cried Trotty”. This was from a book entitled Farm Babies. I for one loved the Trotty story and the one about the duckling but most of all I loved the illustrations. I still do!

Even the inside covers were brilliantly illustrated.

On Being a Vegetarian

On Facebook this morning Fi of Four Paws and Whiskers asked if anyone had heard of 'meat glue' being used here in New Zealand.  To understand you may need to watch the link from the Australian Today Tonight programme.  As some of you will know I was brought up in a household with relatively little red meat being eaten and in an era when chicken was an expensive luxury but fish was plentiful.  My Dad had been diagnosed with crippling rheumatism at 18 and had been told that there was no cure but that if he cut out red meat it might help.  He died at 94 never having had rheumatism again.  Mum just disliked meat.

During the course of the 'conversation' another Fiona commented how difficult it was being a vegetarian in France.  That reminded me of a story.....

My wife was a meat eater and an absolutely superb cook and hostess and during the years of our marriage I ate meat until one day when we were in France at a ferme auberge I was faced with a poussin for the meat course (the French tend to have the meat as a separate course).  It sat there on the plate sans feet and head and feathers and I couldn't eat it.  It was many years before I could face anything that actually looked like meat again.

My second partner and her daughter were vegetarian.  It was during this time that I learned how wonderful and varied vegetarian cooking could be.  When my partner's daughter was about 9 I said in conversation that in France it wasn't just difficult being vegetarian but that they ate vegetarians in France.  

Some years later when my partner and I were talking of a visit to Paris for the weekend her daughter became very agitated.  We didn't leave her very often and her reaction was very unusual.  Eventually it transpired that she was frightened that we might get eaten if it was discovered that we were vegetarian.

That taught me a lesson I should have already learned.  When I was a wee lad my Uncle Eric had said that he wouldn't teach anyone to drive because someone he'd taken out had lost her head when she drove.  I took his words as fact and the thought stuck with me for years. 

Although I am by inclination a vegetarian I now eat meat especially when I'm in New Zealand (I use a lot of Quorn in the UK but it's not available here) but am easily put off if it's identifiable as belonging to a particular creature.  C'est la vie.

And I tend to be careful what I say in front of children!

Forget Your Troubles

Another One For Adrian

Seen at Scott's Landing:

 The caravan may not be as flash but how about it Adrian?

Possible

Someone mentioned something being possible this morning and I, without thinking about it, quoted my Mum who used to say “Wash down as far as possible, up as far as possible and then wash possible.”.  Please remember that I was brought up before the general use of showers and when a bath was not a daily occurrence.  No one had ever heard the saying before.  Is this another one purely family saying or has anyone out there heard it too?

Oh Dear

Whilst reading all the blog comments this morning I suddenly had a thought for a one-paragraph posting.  By the time I'd opened up my browser the thought had vanished.  There is a saying in Gaeldom "Old age does not come alone."  Too right!

Sweet As

One of the fridge magnets on Wendy and Martin's fridge is of one of the most-heard sayings in New Zealand.  It's not really regarded as slang but as a generally understood expression broadly used to describe something highly regarded “This concert is going to be sweet as!”  Pronounced sweet aas.  But sweet as what?  We shall never know.  

Sweet can also be used on its own to indicate general agreement, “I can meet you after work if you like,” “Sweet!”