Marilyn and Lionel Partridge have grown a marrow in their vegetable patch which looks just like a duck!

Marilyn Partridge, 62, said, “I have never in my 40 years of gardening and growing my own vegetables come across anything that looks like an animal before.
“I am absolutely delighted. The marrow just looked a bit odd at first, but we then realised that it looked like a duck.
“When I saw it, I burst out laughing. It is so realistic. We haven’t done anything to it, it is perfectly natural.
“It is in the shape of a duck with its head turned about to preen itself.
“We couldn’t eat it because it looked so adorable. Besides, would it be a meat or vegetable course?
“My two-year-old granddaughter Sophie loves it. She kept looking at it and saying “duck, duck”.
“Everyone thinks we must have done something to it to make it grow like a bird but we didn’t. In fact we completely forgot we had planted it.”
Marilyn added, “It would be great to grow another odd-shaped plant but seeing it took us 40 plus years to find this one, we won’t hold our breath.”

Marilyn and Lionel’s marrow is now part of a display in honour of Wild Bird Care Week at the garden centre where they bought the original plant.
‘Marilyn said, “When our grandchildren, Matilda, Henry and Finley Doel told us that they had entered a bird modelling competition at Sanders GardenWorld, we decided to take it along to add to the garden centre’s display.”

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ZOQY

Patrick Roger, the Paris confectioner who built his own Berlin Wall made of chocolate, has knocked it down.
The chocolate wall reportedly weighed over a ton.

What a crazy mixed-up world we live in.
I hope the chocolate didn’t go to waste.

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The Wine Connoisseur

It’s a chocolatey affair! A fashion show where all the designs are made using chocolate.

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RICHARDS REALM

A confectioner in Paris, France has built a chocolate replica of the Berlin Wall to mark the 20th anniversary of its fall.

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World leaders are gathering in Berlin, Germany today to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago.
The fall of the Berlin Wall expedited the collapse of communism across eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War, and led to German reunification within a year

9th November 1989 ~ News Breaks of The Fall of the Berlin Wall

9th November 1989 ~ Celebrations at the Fall of the Berlin Wall

10th November 1989 ~ Celebration at the Berlin Wall

Today, 9th November 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are among those expected to be at the Brandenburg Gate. A speech will be made by Angela Merkel, who grew up in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Thousands of tourists have arrived in the city for an occasion which Angela Merkel has described as, “A celebration of the happiest day in postwar German history”.
The Brandenburg Gate once loomed over the barbed wire barrier that divided East and West Berlin for 28 years until the night of 9th of November 1989.
239 people were shot trying to escape from East Berlin to a new life in the West. Over the years many people attempted to flee East Berlin, by various means including strapping themselves underneath cars and one man even manged to fly his family to freedom in a home-made hot air balloon.
5,000 people successfully managed to make it to freedom in the West.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to descend on the centre of Berlin today to recapture the euphoria that was felt across Europe when the Berlin Wall fell two decades ago.
The commemoration Fest der Freiheit (freedom festival) which is reportedly costing £4.6m (€5.1m) commences events over the following days and weeks to commemorate the collapse of communism across Germany and central and eastern Europe.
The festivities in Berlin, which will be attended by European leaders and other world dignitaries, are expected to climax this evening with the falling of a line of 1,000 huge dominoes, which represent the chain effect of the events of 1989. This will be followed by a huge display of fireworks.

The conductor Daniel Barenboim, who was in Berlin at the fall of the wall in 1989, will conduct a concert on an outdoor stage at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate with his Staatskapelle orchestra.
The music of Beethoven and Wagner aims to capture the joyous mood of the 9th of November 1989, when at approximately 8:27 p.m. East Germans started to squeeze through checkpoints before falling into the arms of West Germans on the other side of the wall.
As well as the Staatskapelle orchestra concert, the descent of a swarm of human angels adorned with huge white wings, from some of the rooftops of the buildings which were constructed along the former line of the wall will help mark the anniversary.
The descending angels will be reminiscent of Wim Wenders 1987 film, Wings of Desire.

In churches across Germany services of thanksgiving are being held, as well as ceremonies remembering the 136 people killed whilst attempting to flee the GDR.
At offices of the East German secret police, the Stasi, candlelit vigils are planned to highlight the plight of all those people who were persecuted by what was once one of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence organisations.

Todays party is being backed by corporate sponsors. Images of Trabant cars driving across the borders will be projected on to huge screens at the Brandenburg Gate. The Trabant images are provided courtesy of German car manufacturer Audi whose logo ‘Vorsprung Durch Technik’ will also be flashing in large letters.

Not everyone is using this momentous occasion to cash-in, British artist Martin Butler has organised a flash mob via the internet. He wants to put the Berlin Wall back up, using bodies instead of concrete and barbed wire. Martin Butler hopes to gather 33,000 people to recreate the entire path of the Berlin Wall, which was about 100 miles in length.
Martin Butler’s project, ‘Mauer Mob 2009: Recreating the Berlin Wall’ intends to ‘reconstruct’ the Berlin Wall using a human chain. The Mauer Mob (Mauer means ‘wall’ in German) flash mob will see thousands of people will descending on the former route of the Berlin Wall to form a temporary monument from 8:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Speaking about his idea Martin Butler said, “It’s a very simple gesture. I’m not taking a strong political stance. It’s more about asking people to think about division.”
Martin Butler, who stages performance projects with an Amsterdam-based group called the Liminal Institute, has divided the route into 330 segments and is aiming for a total of 33,000 participants.
Apparently over the past few months about 9,000 people have already expressed their interest in taking part via social networking websites Facebook and Twitter etc.
According to reports approximately 4,000 people have said they will show up at event.
Will Martin Butlers idea work? I think it just might, and even if it’s not a complete success it will definitely be a great opportunity to take part in a very unique commemoration for the people of Berlin and visitors to Germany.

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Life in France

A racing car that runs on chocolate?
That’s two of my favourite things; cars and chocolate!

A British research team have developed a fully sustainable racing car that runs on chocolate.
The car actually runs on a biofuel that is made from mainly chocolate, but there’s a lot more that makes this car an extraordinary contribution to sustainability.
The body of the car is made using recycled carbon fibre, flax, and recycled resin, the steering wheel is made from carrot pulp. The lubrication for the moving parts in the car are made from plant oils.
Despite being the most environmentally friendly car on the Formula 3 circuit, it’s not slow.
This car has a top speed of 135mph, and with a little help from the turbo charger it does 0-60 in just 2.5 seconds.

Dr Kerry Kirwan from the University of Warwick, England, is the lead researcher of the project and despite the idea of ‘green’ motor sport often being greeted with cynicism, he is confident that it’s definitely a feasable option.
Dr Kirwan said that the idea behind this project was to help people understand that “being sustainable and green can be incredibly sexy, fun and fast” and that they hope to “show ways for the future, for people to race and be green.”
Dr Kerry Kirwan is confident that the car which cost £500,000 to build, will not embarrass itself.
He said, “We believe it is the world’s greenest car but it shows that being green does not have to be boring.”

Ross Brawn, the F1 team boss, and racing drivers Lewis Hamilton and Adam Carroll have given their approval to the project and the car.
The car, called the ‘WorldFirst Formula 3 Racing Car’, but is also known as the ‘flying carrot, took part in its first racing competition in the Formula 3 Championship final on the 17th October at Brands Hatch.

While I’ve no doubt there will be many ‘green’ people who think this is a great idea, I’m not so sure.
Running a car on chocolate? I prefer to eat my chocolate.

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LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

Famous French chefs give cooking lessons on the metro in Paris, France.

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Mmm, mmm, mmm ~ rotisserie chicken.
Hubby cooked a very tasty chicken for our lunch today.
I love rotisserie cooked chicken, it’s so moist with delicious crispy skin. I could happily have eaten the whole bird, but a very angry looking wasp flew in to the house whilst I was eating and, having been stung a while ago, the fear made me lose my appetite.
Oh well, at least I know what I’m having for dinner this evening - the remains of my lunch!

This photo does not do the chicken justice. I was going to wait until it was on a plate but I knew as soon as it was cooked I’d want to stuff my face.

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The Wine Connoisseur

A hamburger, cooked at Mallie’s Sports Grill and Bar in Southgate, Michigan, weighed in at more than 13 stone (182 lbs), and set a Guinness World Record as the worlds biggest burger!

Restaurant owner Steve Mallie (pictured above) said, ”Being in the Guinness World Records book is the greatest accomplishment we’ve ever done.
”I’ve worked my entire life to build this restaurant and being able to have the notoriety of Guinness makes it just that bit more rewarding.”

The Guinness World Record was set on the 30th May 2009. The huge burger beat the previous record, which was also held by Mallie’s, by over 1 stone 4 oz. the hamburger is topped with a dozen tomatoes, ten onions, more than 50 rashers of bacon, and a pound of sliced cheese.
The hamburger takes 12 hours to cook, and it reportedly took eight hours for the chefs at Mallie’s Sports Grill in Southgate, Michigan, to bake a bun large enough to hold the burger.
This hamburger is known as the ‘Absolutely Ridiculous Burger’ it sells for £333 ($540) and has nabbed the record for the world’s biggest burger.

I have just one word for this - Yuk!

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The Wine Connoisseur

I love the summer for many reasons, one of which is I enjoy eating lots and lots and lots of salads.
We have been eating various different salads for lunch every day for several weeks.

Today, as usual, I was messing about online and didn’t realise the time, so I quickly washed and chopped and chucked todays salad ingredients on to our plates.
Here is todays salad, it isn’t pretty; everything was just flung randomly on the plate, but it was very tasty.

Todays salad was gem lettuce, chicory, cucumber, beetroot, carrot, cherry tomatoes, green olives, sun-dried tomatoes, boiled egg, gherkin, sweet corn, baby asparagus, potato salad, pasta salad (pasta, cherry tomatoes, gherkin, Prosciutto and lime juice).

Being the lazy gal I am, I needed no encouragement from hubby when he suggested making large salads for our lunch, eating what we wanted and leaving the rest for dinner.
We usually eat about half of this size salad, which then goes straight back in the fridge until the evening.

We don’t eat anywhere near as much food as we used to, our meals are gradually gettng smaller and smaller. I guess as we hardly use any energy; because we are both lazy our bodies don’t need as much fuel as they used to when we were living busier lives in London!

Life in France