Tuesday 29 March 2011

Spot the Spelling Mistake

Every time I pass this store, my eye goes right to the spelling mistake.

Can you find it?

Sunday 27 March 2011

Mystery Chicken

Early one morning, I looked out of my window and saw this mysterious creature waddling across my back yard. I live close to a Sales Barn where farmers sell their livestock on weekends, so perhaps it was an escapee from the chopping block......

..... but what is it? Is it a chicken? Or a duck? perhaps a goose? Here's a closer look.

I've been told it could be a White Guinea Fowl. But it doesn't have a guinea fowl type of beak, more like a Donald Duck beak! Any other suggestions, bird lovers?

Later... Monday 28 March
I think my "mystery chicken" could be a white lady Muscovy Duck. I found this picture of a male Muscovy on the internet. Very similar.

The Muscovy Duck has a body like a duck, behaves like a goose, roosts like a chicken, and has a breast like a turkey, so no wonder it was hard to identify.

I haven't seen it since that first sighting, so I hope it didn't end up as someone's Sunday dinner.

Friday 18 March 2011

Four Sisters

My mother had three sisters and two brothers.

This photo of the sisters must have been taken to celebrate a special occasion some time in the late 1920s or the early 1930s, the reason now forgotten. Look at the strings of pearls... so fashionable! And the dresses! They look gorgeous. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

From left to right:
Evelyn Barham - December 1911 - August 1988
Phyllis Norah - January 1908 - March 2002
Olive Kathleen - January 1906 - January 1980 (my mother)
Julia Marie Claribel - February 1902 - January 1980

Missing from this family picture are brothers Tom Alan - January 1904 - December 1985, and Eric Stephen - 1915 - December 1994.

Eve lost her RAF husband during WW2, and emigrated to Australia with her daughter after the war. Norah and her husband and children joined Eve in Australia a few years later. Both Kath and Marie married and stayed in England with their families, Kath in Devon and Marie in Sussex. Brothers Alan and Eric also lived in England, in Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. But even though the six brothers and sisters lived far apart geographically, they stayed close all their lives with regular letters, phone calls, and when possible, family visits.

Monday 14 March 2011

Happy Pi Day!

If you like to write the date with the month first and then the day, then it's Pi Day for you.

March 14 = 3.14 = pi = π

And even if you write the day first, and then the month, you can still celebrate Pi Day with the rest of geekdom.

Pi is the ratio between the diameter of a circle and its circumference. Remember that from your school days?

You can celebrate Pi Day by calculating the circumference of a circle, committing Pi to memory (this is how to do it), or just by eating pie.
I prefer the latter.
Pictures borrowed from the internet, no I didn't make that pi pie, I wish I had. Maybe next year, if I remember....

Monday 7 March 2011

On The Table #4

It was a Girls Night Out.... My friend G and her two sisters S and N who were visiting for the weekend, my friend C who had left her husband looking after her three little ones for a rare evening out, and me.... so we ordered wings and fries and G provided the salad and the wine.

We pigged out on all the things we should never eat. And we loved it!
Wing flavours were honey garlic, thai, BBQ garlic, gar-par, accompanied by gar-par fries and sweet potato fries.... truly an overdose of garlic fumes filled the house by the end of the evening. I pitied C's husband the next morning.

And then we rounded the evening out with a cutthroat friendly game of Aggravation.
Believe me, those women are brutal when they really want to win!

Wednesday 2 March 2011

Henderson-Kolk Duo

I often volunteer at our local Centre for Arts and Entertainment.
I get dressed up in my best volunteering outfit, take tickets, hand out programmes, show concert-goers to their seats, sell CDs, indicate the location of the washrooms.... whatever is necessary.
And after I do all that, I stay and watch the show.

This weekend's concert featured a pair of brilliant classical guitarists, Drew Henderson and Michael Kolk. They met studying music at UofT (University of Toronto) and have been established as one of Canada's premier classical guitar duos since 2004.

Drew Henderson was playing a brand new 8 string guitar. I know very little about guitars, but I'd never seen an 8 string version before. I was impressed.

Here's one of the pieces from the concert. The first movement of Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel. Enjoy!