I do my weekly shopping by plane in Germany. Or France.

Since our village has no shops where we can buy bread or milk or other stuff to help us stay alive in an enjoyable way, I have to go shopping in nearby somewhat larger villages, which also is the highlight of the week. Shopping at Aldi. A while ago someone told me that Lidl, another supermarket, has a broader assortment than Aldi. The closest place that had a Lidl supermarket was about 20 kilometres (about 12 miles) away then (recently another Lidl has opened it’s doors in a village much closer to our home) but the adventure of exploring a new supermarket was such a challenging thought that I did climb into my car (I used to drive our ridiculously high Landrover Defender, called Bob. Great car, but it requires a technique and some agility to get into it. Getting out of Bob is a dangerous undertaking for the untrained. Bob is always higher than you expect. I have seen many people tumble out of him in many different ways. Always good for a laugh, our Bob.) and drove the 20 kilometres to the Lidl. Always fun, exploring a new supermarket. Where you can find everything that’s on your shopping list and more at your familiar food-supplier blindfolded, the search for curry spices in an unfamiliar supermarket often provides entirely new discoveries. Shopping at Lidl felt as being on holiday in Germany.

Isn’t it sad that my life is brightened up by shopping at a new supermarket and that something as simple as that gives me the feeling of being on vacation?

In the hope of receiving some sympathy for leading such a dull life, I shared my ‘holiday-experience at Lidl’ with a friend. She didn’t offer any sympathy unfortunately, but she did suggest another holiday option. Shé (and her life is knitted together by real vacations) got hér holiday-feeling from the very big Jumbo-supermarket in a nearby town. It made her feel like being in France.

France! I hadn’t been in France for a long time. So when the rear wall of the refrigerator came into sight and it was time for the highlight of the week again, the weekly shopping, I climbed into Bob and went on my way to France. I more or less knew where to find France, but it proved to be quite a challenge to actually get there. A couple of right and wrong turns later I finally arrived at the site where Jumbo had built their way into France. Excited I followed the Parking-signs.

But totally unexpectedly my journey was brought to a halt. I could only get into France if I’d park my car in the underground parking garage. But Bob was too high to get into the garage. I jumped out of him to check, but Bob’s roof-height and the height of the garage ceiling were incompatible. If I didn’t want to continue my journey with a convertible there was no other option than to return home. Without visiting France.

A couple of weeks later we got another car. A Range Rover, a second hand one with one previous careful owner. We also kept Bob, but hubs now mostly drives Bob, while I drive the Range Rover. Unless we both go to the same place at the same time. Then we take the Range Rover, which is more comfortable than Bob, and hubs drives (although I’m a better driver of course, being a woman, but he needs the practice. Just last week he backed the Range Rover up into one of our other cars, which is a very boring Opel, or Vauxhall which is a different name for the same car. I know it seems a bit excessive to own three cars, or actually four, but hubs has a company and the Vauxhalls are mostly used by his employees. It left the Range Rover unscarred, but the Vauxhall now has a big dent in it's bumper. Oops. Haha.).

Anyway, the Range Rover has a navigation system that works either in English or in German. There are no other languages we can choose. Dutch is no option. So we chose the English version. But it turned out that the British girl who told us where to go and where to turn and which exits to take expected us to drive on the left side of the road too. Which is a hazardous undertaking in the Netherlands, since all the other drivers use their right side of the road. So we switched to the German girl who now teaches us what roundabout and exit are in German (Kreisverkehr and Ausfahrt) and christened the Range Rover Gretl, which we thought was an appropriate German name.

And then we went to fill Gretl up with petrol. And discovered that a Range Rover is actually an aeroplane in disguise. Because it takes hours to fill her up. Well, not actually hours, but it sure feels that way. So we’ve changed her name into ‘the Plane’. The Plane takes me to my weekly holiday destinations. Mostly Germany (Aldi and Lidl), sometimes I stay in the Netherlands (Albert Heijn) and if hubs drives, because he’s the most courageous of us both, we go to France. Why we need courage to go to France? The Plane is actually the right height to comfortably fit under the ceiling of the parking garage, but it is a rather wide car. It leaves about 5 centimetres (2 inches) of space either side of the mirrors at the entrance of the garage. Far too thrilling for my liking. And as we have learned already, hubs isn’t afraid of a dent or two.

Tag. Shit, I’m it!

Monique, who’s Dutch and moved to Canada a couple of years ago, tagged me. I forgive her. We didn’t know each other before she tagged me actually. At least, I didn’t know her. Perhaps she has been stalking me without me noticing, but I don’t think so. Anyway, she seems nice enough, so I’ll be nice too (as if I’m ever not) and join in the ‘fun’. Which means that I have to answer 10 questions she made up and then make up 10 new questions myself and tag 5 other people. Do not be afraid. I’m not going to tag 5 other people. Perhaps I’ll make up 10 questions that you can answer if you like. I’m not sure yet. Let’s see what happens. First I have to answer her questions. Actually, I rather liked her questions and I don’t think I can come up with better ones.

Monique’s ten questions:

1 How do you drink your coffee?
I drink my coffee black. No sugar, no milk. And I like it strong please. Preferably with a nice fresh slice of cake (baked by hubs who is a master cake baker) on the side. And a dog (or two or three) at my feet. The sun shining. The French windows open. Birds singing, the scent of elderflowers and wild roses….

2 What's on top of your bucket list?
I didn’t know what a bucket list is, so Monique had to explain to me that it is the list of things you want to do before you die. And almost immediately after she’d explained it, the weekly newspaper about our village was delivered and what was in it? 
A column about…

And that everyone should have one. Because if you have no dreams and no goals, your life will always stay the same. Says the woman who wrote this (she’s a life coach).

Perhaps I need to visit her since I don’t have a list of things to do before I kick the bucket. I simply like to live before I die. I believe that if you really want to do something, you should do it nów. I have no wish to accelerate my dying process by bungee jumping or skydiving or performing a similar stunt. I’m quite happy with the way things are.
Nice and boring ;-)

3 what is the best advice you ever got?
Relax.

4 I never want to....
eat snails.

5 What is the silliest thing you have ever done? 
Synchronised walking with my sister in Paris. Do you know the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 a hat a stick an umbrella and front behind left right song/walk? No?
Okay, you start walking with your left foot while counting to 7 (se-ven takes two steps), walk on while you say: a hat (point to your head) a stick (gesture as if you’re holding a walking stick) an um-brel-la (gesture as if you’re holding an umbrella) ánd front (step to front) be-hind (step to rear) left (step to left) right (step to right). Singing this song while walking gives you an energy boost and my sister and I were really tired when we were in Paris so we started doing this ‘walk/dance’. After a while we did it in silence, but still synchronised, which must have been a silly sight for the Parisians.

6 What song makes you happy?
Do you know the 1 2 3 4 5 …? No, just joking.
This song makes me happy. I defy you to sit still while listening to it.

Also a happy song:

A little bit of feelgood by Jamie Lidell:

 

7 My favorite book is....
Almost everything by John Irving, but ‘A prayer for Owen Meany’ springs to mind. I also like Stephen Fry’s books.

8 Have you ever used a Ouija-board?
No. And I’m not sure if I’d dare to….

9 When I was a child, I thought that.... 
I slept with my eyes open. Because I could see what I dreamt (or dreamed?).
I know. I’ve learned a lot since then. Except how to spell dreamt. Or dreamed. Or both? 

10 Worst song ever....
’Hello’ by Lionel Richie. Aarrgghh!

 

So, that was that. And it was quite fun to do actually. Gave me a headache thinking about my ‘happy song’, because there are so many. I love the Stereophonics too for instance, great band. The sound of the guitars in the song I’ve linked to makes me smile and dance stupidly through the room. Picture that and it’ll make you smile too ;-)

And now I have to think of 10 new questions and tag 5 other people. But I won’t. Sorry for being a spoilsport.

Thursday’s Trifles

Great news

for coffee drinkers. People who drink up to 4 cups of coffee a day diminish their chance of getting a cardiovascular disease by 20% compared to people who drink no coffee at all or more than 4 cups a day. This is the conclusion of research carried out by the UMC (University Medical Centre) Utrecht, who studied the lifestyle of 37.000 people.
Tea is even better for you (as if you didn’t know that already). Drinking tea diminishes the risk of getting a cardiovascular disease by a third.

So I’m thinking; if I drink 4 cups of coffee and 4 cups of tea a day… I’ll have about 47% chance of dying of a heart attack? 
 

Women rather go shopping

Another wonderful research, carried out by a marketing- and business consulting agency. Apparently 25% of women are not interested in football. Really?

A short summary of an interview in our local newspaper:

“You’ve only interviewed women?”
”We thought that women were the most likely not to be interested in football. They’d rather watch something else on TV or go shopping.”
”But women prefer to go shopping anyway don’t they?”
”………. Of the women who don’t like football, 57% even prefer cleaning the house.”
”So, if you’re unlucky the sound of the TV will be overshadowed by that of the vacuum cleaner.”
”………. Many women even prefer going to the dentist.”
”My dentist has a small TV-screen above the chair.”
”Hopefully he won’t get a woman in his chair who doesn’t like football.”
”Perhaps it’s better if he switches the channel to something like ‘the Bold and the Beautiful?”
”Women prefer to watch a movie.”
”But that takes too long at the dentist’s.”
”Perhaps some movie trailers”?

And apparently 5% of the women only watch football for the men playing and it would be more interesting to us women if the ban on footballers taking off their shirts was revoked.

Really?

 

You catch a pike with a beessie

First some background: a large supermarket chain called Albert Heijn gives you a ‘beessie’ with every 15 Euros  you spend. Yep, more junk. The ‘beessies’ they hand out have something to do with the World Cup Football currently going on in South Africa.

I personally can’t see the relation between a ‘beessie’ and the football, but hey, who am I to have an opinion about something I don’t have a clue about and am not interested in. Although I’d rather watch the football than clean the house. But that says more about how much I like to clean the house than about how much I like to watch football.

Anyway, I digress. ‘Beessies’ are available in the colours red, white, blue and orange. Funnily enough a friend just sent me a photo of his questionable trainers, but with a ‘beessie’, so I can show you what it looks like. We also would like your opinion on the shoes. Would you want to be seen wearing trainers like that? 

And now a summary of the interview with someone from a website for anglers who found out that using a ‘beessie’ to catch a pike works very well.

“Why are ‘beessies’ so very popular with pikes?”
”They move through the water wonderfully. If you remove the wire from the ‘beessie’, it dances nicely through the water. The pike will be provoked by that and eats it.”
“Do the fish only like the orange ‘beessies’?”
”Any colour will do. The redhead is a hit. That’s a ‘beessie’ with a red head and a white body.”
”Can you get a redhead at the checkout?”
”You’ll have to make it yourself. Anglers often create ingenious structures. I know someone who uses wooden carrots and bananas as bait.”
”You’ve organised a competition?”
”For the duration of the World Cup. Any fish caught with a ‘beessie’, can be entered in the competition.”
”Does a photo show if the fish has actually been caught with a ‘beessie’?”
”There is of course a risk of fraud. But I warn anyone who tries to cheat! They will be hit by the wrath of many Gods! Besides, anglers are extremely honest. They never lie about their catch.”