Apology
Aunty Belle decided to play with one of our computers today!!!! Even though she has her own!!!!
Sam caught her with a most guilty look on her face and saw the page she was on.. Yes…. his Facebook. Ahh ahh ahh
He said the blood drained from his face as he tried to work out what she had done!!
The first port of call was to make sure “he” hadn’t liked any “Wiggles” related pages!!! So far, so good!
And to anyone who has been unfriended or has received any kind of strange message or request, please disregard. It appears she has been on his Facebook and the Hobbs Family Partnership Facebook as well.
Apologies to everyone affected.
Bread Making
Thirty years ago a dear little old lady taught me how to bake bread.
I pumped and pulled bread dough so much my short arms ached.
I am convinced that the old way of bread making is really just for tall people with long arms.
Then twenty two years ago I started experimenting with beer bread and found it so easy to make. This started me on a pathway of baking between 20- 30 loaves a week for friends.
Steinlager Classic is my beer of choice as the aroma and flavour is superb.
Of course the flavour all depends on the beer and I have experimented with ½ gallon (flagon) beer, cheap nasty brands and good stuff on special.
Basically if you wouldn’t drink it, don’t use it in bread.
I once used a highly perfumed beer and even the chooks turned their beaks up at it!
I have a wee problem as my recipes are all in my head because I am a bit of this and a drop of that kind of cook.
I have been asked to put an easy Beer Bread recipe on my blog, so have picked out a trouble free one which you will find at the end of this ramble.
Many years ago when Sam and Ruby were little, after Supermarkets became sellers of fine beer, I was purchasing my normal weekly or fortnightly booze for bread when along came a very elegant woman whilst I was loading up in the carpark.
She looked down her nose at me and said,
“I had heard you were a drinker but didn’t realize as to how much.”
I replied ever so kindly,
“This slanderous accusation is totally inaccurate and I would like you to inform the person who inadvertently told you this blatant lie that it is indeed a lie but better still, give me their phone number and I’ll give them a ring and sort it out for you today.”
She turned red with embarrassment and walked off in a huff.
I was quite impressed with my quick comeback.
I think she was very careful with what gossip she actually believed from that day on.
What I actually wanted to say was,
“Lady you should see me when I’m sober as I can fit a few more dozen in the boot. The kids can each hold a dozen in their car seats too.”
But I thought better of that as I do remember my unusual sense of humour has gotten me in trouble from time to time!
A simple uncomplicated Beer Bread recipe
3 cups white flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 bottle of beer (Steinlager Classic 330ml (made up to 400 mls with water)
1 handful of grated cheese
Preheat oven to 180°C.
Mix the first four ingredients together and spoon into a large bread/loaf tin approx. 23 x 12cm. This will take 50-60 minutes to bake or two loaf tins approx. 8 x 15cm which will take approx. 40 minutes to bake.
Top with the grated cheese before popping in the oven.
Wit
“If you ever catch fire, try to avoid looking into a mirror, because it might throw you into a panic.”
“PESSIMISM: Every dark cloud has its silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people each year who are trying to find it.”
“Life is like a box of chocolates. It’s a cheap thoughtless perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for.
Unreturnable because all you ever get back is another box of chocolates, so you’re stuck with this unidentifiable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there’s nothing left to eat.
Sure, once in a while there’s a peanut butter cup or an English toffee, but they’re gone too fast and the taste is fleeting.
So you end up with up with nothing but broken bits with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts.
If you’re desperate enough to eat that, all you have left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.”
“A man with no arms should not look at a piano.”
Rizwan Haroon
“It is better to drink to forget, than to forget to drink.”
Message on a blackboard in an Edinburgh pub
“This planet is obviously being used as an insane asylum by other planets.”
George Bernard Shaw
“I was walking down the street when this man hammering on his roof called me a paranoid little freak… In morse code.”
“I remember reading that scientists once believed the universe was made of hydrogen, because it was the most plentiful ingredient found. If that theory holds any truth, then I believe it to be made of stupidity.”
“Crazy? Once I was crazy. They locked me in a room to die. Die? I don’t want to die. All the mice will get me. Mice? I hate mice. They drive me crazy. Crazy? Once I was crazy. They locked….”
“PHILOSOPHY, n. A path of many roads leading from nothing to nowhere.”
“The best defense against the atom bomb is not to be there when it goes off.”
“Friends come and friends go, but enemies accumulate.”
“Stupidity killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.”
“Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.”
Churchill
“If you ask me, these cheap, mudslinging ads drag the political process down to a level so juvenile and debased, I can actually understand it.”
“A man being admitted into a mental institution: “They called me mad. I called them mad. And damn them they outvoted me.”
“Two Rules of Success : 1) Don’t tell everything you know.”
“Save the whales. Collect the whole set.”
“Only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change.”
Confucius
“Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.”
Painting Woes
Our house will need a paint job some time in the near future so about three weeks ago we started checking out colours.
Do you realize these days there are hundreds and hundreds of colours to choose from with the most ridiculous of names?
What happened to khaki brown, light brown, dark brown, brown?
Oh and the names for black are truly amazing.
It’s black for Pete’s sake!
And I refuse to go down the testpot road.
Many years ago I had splashes of at least thirty testpots on a wall and in the end I went with none of them.
Yesterday I remembered what happened to a dear friend in Wellington when he decided to have his house painted.
He still claims he was mentally scarred from the experience of trying to work out a colour scheme as it took over six months of dithering before he finally made up his mind.
With the colour scheme sorted he rang the Painters and arranged for the job to be done whilst he was overseas on business.
He flew back into Wellington a month later and he was sure he saw a “dazzle” coming from the hills where his house is perched, as the plane descended.
Well he was right.
His house resembled a brightly decorated Xmas tree; a look he wasn’t aiming for at all.
It was bright and hideous with the contrasting trim so bizarre; one was simply lost for words. (To this day, I believe it was the vodka that chose the colours)
The painters must have laughed the whole way through the project.
And they must have been aware that this rich boy would be asking them to repaint as quick as look at you once he saw the abomination that was once his home.
Before my friend had a chance to put his key in the front door lock, his neighbours, who had been tentatively awaiting his return, ambushed him.
He listened to their fears, tears and horror and they to his; as it was obvious he was on their side, the situation was diffused ever so quickly.
Hence to say he gave me a ring and put the ball in my court as he was off overseas again the following week.
The colour scheme I chose still looks fabulous to this very day.
So the million-dollar question is, if I’m so good at choosing a paint scheme for someone else, why then can’t I pick one for our home?
That is the question I shall ponder until I come up with a solution.
Life without Internet
What a 24 hours I have had!!!
No telephone and internet connection. Ah ah ah ah!!!!!!!
You may be wondering why.
Let me tell you why.
A bloke drove down the road in a height induced vehicle, hooked, and broke my telephone cable that hung across the road.
Did he stop and ask for my forgiveness for this violent act of accidental vandalism?
No he did not!
What did he do, I hear you ask.
This is what he did…absolutely nothing…he just tootled on his merry way…
I am expecting a dozen cream buns in my mailbox within the next twenty-four hours as way of an apology or I will be staring at your telephone pole with a deranged look in my eyes!
P.S. I hope you had a sleepless night worrying about Sandra’s inability to check the daily newspapers, weather updates, general gossip of overseas stars, Liam Neeson’s love life and more importantly, what if the end of this world occurred during this period of isolation from the world.
I would have been the last person to know and how would you have felt about that!!!
P.S. Apparently a couple of you think that I am being seriously. I assure you that this is not the case as it is written as satire.
No worries though, I have contacted them and they have withdrawn their comments.
Recent Comments