Help!
I can now buy "American style" pancake mix which Olivier adores. How can I make them round like on the packet?

A few links for today.
Pam over at New Century Notebook is researching into the why and how people blog. If you’ve got a couple of minutes please fill in her questionnaire. She’s also discovered that her Grandma kept a diary, problem: Pam and the diary are on different continents.

Willow and I went for a trip in a time machine and didn’t quite end up where planned.

Neutron is selling a CD on ebay, if you look hard enough you can hear him sing too.

Part II of the calendar story

Yesterday a new calendar arrived from Tahiti! A few years ago, Rob gave English lessons to a high flying banker who was packed off to Tahiti. We hadn’t heard from him for ages and yesterday the calendar arrived. It’s in English, French and Tahitian, so January is Tenuare and today is Mahana Maha. Besides the beautiful pictures of blue seas and white sandy beaches, we have the French holidays and US holidays as well as the Saints days.

Because of the bad weather this morning I had the local news on. While I was listening they had a phone in quiz game where the contestant had to guess whether 10 US calendar days were real or not. I was expecting Martin Luther King Day or Lincoln’s Birthday and things like that, but in fact they must have visited Cassie-B for her calendar. The contestant won… just, more by luck than judgement.

Does anyone know how to get the pictures straight?

We've got SNOW
Yesterday afternoon it was very cold and it started raining; Rob and Olivier were both soaked when they arrived home. Around eight-thirty, Rob suggested our usual evening stroll around the block so I sent him to check it wasn’t raining. It was snowing!!! We went for our walk around the block though a shorter route than usual and yes we got soaked.

This morning there was a lot of snow on the ground and it had frozen over. Rob went to work on the bus instead of his bike and Olivier went off to lycée praying the buses were cancelled (not logical as Rob had already taken an earlier bus). Apparently the traffic is moving very slowly. I haven’t even gone out to collect the post, it probably won’t have arrived yet.

As the sun started to rise , it was really beautiful. The frozen snow on the branches of the trees sparkled in the pinky, yellowish light. It won’t last for long I’m sure, but at least we’ve had a little bit.

Pause
If you don't do anything else today, you must read these...

Stormy weather
The wind is coming from the direction of Siberia this morning. I’ve just had an email from Dom to say that it’s snowing in Poitiers. I walked round to the post office in record time this morning. It was still a little dark at 9 o’clock. The light sensitive (or should I say dark sensitive) streetlights were on and the cars all had headlights on too. I think we’re in for some nasty weather.

The weekend was busy. Mainly post card stuff. My groups are doing well. Rob and I found where my course next week will be, it’s in an architect friendly but not for human consumption type building where I know I shall get lost on the first morning. At least I know where the building is now.

T.G.I.F.
I found this really funny. Better put the coffee down before watching.

This morning
I walked to the post office with one of my neighbours who was off to her gym session. As we were going through the woods we saw a squirrel, he was certainly enjoying himself dancing around in the wind when he should be in bed. Going past the co-op the shop window was completely smashed in and there were glass and gendarmes everywhere. The lady at the post office said there had been a break in. The co-op is a bit of a joke in our village because no one ever goes in there except for when they run out. Usually you’ll find one 4 pack of yoghurts on the dessert shelf and two choices of cereal if you’re lucky. The only thing they have worth taking is a reasonable stock of alcohol.

Recently Rob has asked me to sort unsellable postcards into groups. I’m really pleased with myself, they are selling quite well. My week long course for setting up a business is at the end of the month. I’ve got to count the post cards we’ve got so I have some idea of how much stock I’ve got. I reckon between 5000 and 10,000. No, I shan’t count them 1 by 1, I’ll count up a hundred and measure them and do it that way.

Affiliate Advertising Advice
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In order to get started you need to find a good site to give you information on how this all works like <a href='http://www.affiliateprofitcenter.com'>affiliate marketing</a> , there are lots of useful tips which could save a beginner a lot of time and trouble. Next find a network that deals in tying up advertisers with affiliates. Have a look around and check out the rules very carefully. If you’re hesitating about trying this way to earn money my advice is to go slowly and read as much information as you can.

This post is sponsored by Affiliate Profit Center

Calendar time
(A bit of a play on words in the title I think.)

When we first moved in Rob banged a nail into put a hook on the wall in the kitchen, so that I could hang up my keys and it turned out to be a good placement for a calendar. On New Years day I finally had so many calendars that I’d saved that I couldn’t hang my keys up anymore. This is what I found when I sorted them out :

1993 Memories calendar with lovely old advertisements for Pears Soap and other British goods.

1999 Cynthia Hart’s Victoriana calendar: A special calendar for Cynthia, celebrating 10 years of calendars, I think. Her work was called collage then, not scrapping (her 2006 calendar).

2000 Millennium calendar: Every day had an entry taken from the last thousand years of history. Did you know that Queen Elizabeth I was crowned on 13th January 1559?

2001 Followed by the help of the knights and Damsels calendar: Featuring lovely romantic paintings by artists such as Leighton,Waterhouse, Maclis and Hughes.

2002 The year of the Art of Shakespeare calendar: Again lovely painting and quotes from Shakespeare.

2003 LS Lowry calendar: With his match stalk women and men.

2004 Supermarket freebie calendar: Ideas for nutritious meals made from their products, of course.

2005 Idem, with a little more information on ‘5 a day’.

2006 Worcestershire Federation of Women’s Institutes calendar: Sent by my Mum, theme; gates and gateways photographed by Institute members.

2007 The WI calendar for this year, theme; water.

I don’t know where to put 1993 to 2003, I really don’t want to throw them out.

You’d think I’d have learnt how to spell calendar by the end of writing this… nope.

Smile
Carol king wrote these words 35 years ago:

You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You're gonna find, yes, you will
That you're beautiful as you feel

I’d forgotten about this song, I think we could do with singing it again today.

Hedgehog problem

A little while ago Nearly three years ago, I remember writing about there being no hedgehogs in the US unless they were pets. There was a report on the news yesterday about hedgehogs in Canada waking up from their hibernation because it is so warm.

Can anyone tell me if they turn back at the border?

Neutron started it.
This is an awful picture of me with my first car. It was taken in 1975. The car was an Austin A40 registration AOK104B (Anji’s OK) called Bertha. I had to let her go in the end because she wouldn’t pass her MOT (Ministry of Transport Test).

The photo is at a funny angle because my boyfriend at the time thought he was David Bailey (remember him?).

How about your first car?

Almost back to normal again this week
Rob has taken a days holiday so I haven’t quite got the house to myself all day yet. The week started with a new lesson in town, a really nice student who needs lots of help so I shan’t feel as if I’m running out of things to do. I was out for three hours for a one hour lesson. When it’s not raining I can do a short cut on foot and save half an hour, it’s ironic that going on foot saves time, isn’t it?

Dom is taking her exams this week, she spent a lot of time revising when she was home. I would have liked to have found time to read her books. Perhaps next holidays. She bought a digital camera with her birthday money, so she showed us some film she’d made of the campus. The funniest bit was when she climbed into a round window and pretended to be a hamster – don’t ask! We also saw her young man (on film) but only for a few seconds and he didn’t speak (Dom: you’ll be able to tell him he’s world famous now).

Christian and MIL enjoyed their visit though it was really cold for exactly the duration of their time here. I hadn’t seen Christian for 18 months so you can imagine how pleased I was to see him.

Olivier went back to lycée yesterday full of promises to work harder this term. If he wants to take science he needs much better results than he had last term.

The hospital in La Rochelle has made national news. Someone died at the weekend because the blood transfusion tube was mixed with an oxygen tube. I think anyone who comes across this in the medical profession will know that it’s something that can’t happen by accident. Although all three children were born there and it was my first experience of hospital, therefore a happy one. They have all spent time in hospital later, so I’ve found myself milling over unhappy times.

French Rugby players
You thought that rugby players were covered in mud and had broken noses, didn't you? The calendar has recently been for sale in our local newsagents. Mrs Newsagent kindly turns the page everyday. Not for anyone with high blood pressure

Geography lesson
Yesterday Rob had a visitor from this country. Have you ever heard of Micronesia? It really does exist, it was in his computer for visitor statistics though he suspects that the powers that be will accuse him of entering obscure countries on purpose again.

Happy New Year

I’m sorry there has been ‘silence’ for such a long time. Here’s a charming young man who would have been wishing everyone a Happy New Year around a hundred years ago. Notice that he’s holding the horseshoe upside-down. In France it’s the iron that counts, not the shoe itself!