Trick ………..

or Treat?

JORDAN

I want a dog.
Richard doesn’t want a dog.

I love big dogs, and I’d love another Great Dane or an Irish Wolfhound.
I also like small dogs, I’d like a Chihuahua or a Boston Terrier, but the dog I am really drawn to at the moment is the Maltipoo.
Maltipoo are a crossbreed of a Maltese and a Poodle, and as I am allergic to dogs the Maltipoo is apparently ideal as they are hypoallergenic.

My family always had dogs during my childhood, and it wasn’t until Richard and I got Bacchus that I suddenly became allergic to dogs.
My allergy doesn’t stop me from loving dogs, I just have to be very careful about having contact with them.
But as I sufferer from OCD, and one of my many compulsions involves hand washing, I don’t usually have too much trouble from stroking or being around dogs - apart from the rashes and the constant watery eyes and blocked nose etc etc etc.

I dreamt of Bacchus, our Great Dane, last night, probably because yesterday I spent a couple of hours online looking at various dog related websites.
Here’s another shot of Bacchus taken whilst we were staying at a relatives house.
Bacchus wasn’t feeling well which is why he was acting camera shy.
Unfortunately several hours after this photo was taken we had to rush Bacchus to the vets who thankfully made him better.

I do want a dog, and I’d love a Maltipoo, but I doubt we’ll get a dog.
The cold weather doesn’t make me want to venture outside the front door, let alone go for a walk.
If we were to get another dog the emotional part of my brain wants to buy a Maltipoo puppy, but the logical side knows that there are lots of dogs in animal shelters in desperate need of a new home, so I guess we would adopt a dog who really needs a good home rather than buying a puppy.

ITALY

The temperature in our bathroom this morning was just 14c.
I could have turned the electric heater on, but I know that after bathing the bathroom temperature always rises, so I didn’t bother.
I had to grit my teeth to strip off though, it felt horribly cold in there.
But I braved the cold and enjoyed a wonderfully hot shower, after which I smothered my whole body in moisturiser.
I always use lots of moisturiser after showering because my skin is very dry. It’s dry because our water here is unbelievably hard.
I use various different moisturisers on my skin, and at the moment I have been mixing three different ones together - not for any particular reason, I just like the way the texture, smell, and the way they make my skin feel when they are all mixed together.

But today as I stepped out of the shower I noticed a rather old tube of moisturiser that I haven’t used for several months, possibly years?
I have no doubt that the moisturiser was out of date, but I used it anyway.
I had forgotten how much I like this particular moisturiser, it makes my skin silky smooth and smells absolutely gorgeous. Every time I move I get a lovely waft of the scent of Roses.
The moisturiser is Lavera Body Spa Wildrose Body Lotion.
I paid £7.45 for a 150ml tube from the LoveLula website.
Apparently it’s an anti aging lotion recommended for firming and regenerating skin. I just like the smell.
As it’s made by Lavera it is organic and natural - and as my tube was out of date I definitely shouldn’t have used it, but it’s all gone now and I haven’t developed a nasty rash or anything - yet!

ISRAEL

Two senior couples are walking along, wives in front, husbands in back.
Herb says to Sam, “Gee, we went to a new restaurant last night and had the best meal ever. Good prices too.”

Sam says, “Well, we like to eat out too. What was the name of the restaurant?”

Herb says, “You’ll going to have to help me out here a little. What’s the name of that pretty flower, smells sweet, grows on a thorny bush?”

Sam says, “How about rose?”

“Yes, yes, that’s it!” cries Herb, then calls ahead to his wife. “Rose. Hey, Rose. What was the name of the restaurant we ate at last night?”

INDIA

Arctic weather sweeps across the UK.
One person dead, and thousands without power.
According to reports this is the first snow to fall in October in London for 74 years. The last time the capital experienced an early snow covering was October 1934.

Cyclist in Coventry

The Millennium Bridge covered in snow last night

Snow falling in London yesterday evening

I used to love the snow when I was a child, and now I am an adult I still think it looks pretty - but only when viewed from the warmth and comfort of my home.

ENGLAND

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross have both been indefinitely suspended by the BBC for leaving a series of lewd phone messages on Andrew Sachs’ answering machine.

The prank calls to Andrew Sachs, 78, (best known for playing Spanish waiter Manuel in 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers) sparked condemnation in Parliament, and an investigation by Britain’s media regulator.
The calls were broadcast the 18th October on Russell Brand’s national radio show, and have drawn over 18,000 complaints so far.
In the messages Jonathan Ross jokingly claimed that Russell Brand had slept with Georgina Baillie, the granddaughter of Andrew Sachs.
Burlesque performer Georgina Baillie, 23, has confirmed that she did have sex with Russell Brand.

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross have both apologized for their actions.

Gillian Baillie - Andrew Sachs’ graddaughter

I have known for some time that the world is a mad place - but this story is yet more proof.
I doubt most of the 18,000 people who have so far complained about Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross were even listening to the radio show, I bet they heard about it via the newspapers or television news and jumped at the chance to complain about something.
How empty their lives must be to have the time, let alone the inclination, to complain about, what was a pretty harmless prank, when there are most definitely far more important things going on in the world to get their knickers in a twist about.
I guess some people are never happier than when they are unhappy!

The only thing that bothered me about this story is that Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross apologized - I think they should have simply said “no comment”, they should have stuck by their actions.
I would not have apologized, but then unlike Jonathan Ross I haven’t just signed a three-year contract with the BBC worth a reported £18 million.

GIBRALTAR

I absolutely love these sculptures by Chinese artist Xiang Jing, they are breath taking.
They are titled, Your Body. Made of colour paint on reinforced fibreglass.
I think they are currently on display at the Saatchi Gallery in London?
I would be interested to see them in person, as I doubt these photos do them justice.

Here’s what the gallery said about the sculptures ~

Xiang Jing’s eerily life-like sculptures confront the viewer with a duplicitous engagement with outward appearance and inner psychology.
Xiang’s works range from the larger than life to miniature; cast in bronze or polyurethane, they draw from a classical tradition and aesthetic to portray the experiences of contemporary women.
Her works depicting teenagers clubbing, shopping, and primping offer a veneer of generic beauty, sparsely accessorised with synthetic looking props and latest fashion trends; their appearance of mundane innocence is contradicted through their expressions of violence, depression, and malaise.

In Your Body, Xiang presents a gigantic nude. Fabricated from painted fibreglass, the figure is unnerving in detail, her expertly faux finished skin radiating a sickly, waxen pallor. Shorn headed, and slumped on a simple wooden chair, her subjective doll-like presence reflects the epitome of emotional depletion.
Towering over the viewer as a goddess-like effigy, her vacant gaze projects downward with oppressive force: her nakedness and vulnerability evoking a self-contemplative reflection of inadequacy, humility and emptiness.

GERMANY

A short video of the village of Villeneuve les Corbieres, France, on a sunny day.

FRANCE

I’m not sure why, but I like this quote.

King Charles V (1500–1558), Spanish King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, allegedly said it?
“I Speak Spanish to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to My Horse.”

SPAIN

I have never lost a sock in the wash.
Surely it’s a myth that socks go missing in the washing machine?
It must be, I don’t see how it is even possible to lose one sock in a washing machine; where would it go?

The reason this topic is on my mind is because of the author, Alexander McCall Smith. I think he mentioned something about socks disappearing in the wash in one of his books that I read recently.
I can’t remember exactly what Alexander McCall Smith wrote, but it was something about buying plastic clips to keep socks together in pairs during the wash cycle?
Why would anyone have invented such a useless product? It’s truly bizarre.

Anyway, after I read the sock disappearing sentence I thought “that’s never happened with any of my socks, or Richard’s sock, or the socks of anyone I have ever known.”

I have on occasion used a public laundry matt, and I never lost any socks there either.

I don’t believe socks get lost in the wash.
Although having said that, I am, as I type, beginning to recall a sock disappearing incident from a few years ago during our travels.
Richard and I were staying in Lushoto, TANZANIA, where one afternoon he was washing several pairs of his socks in the en-suite of our hotel room.
I say en-suite, which although grammatically correct conjures up an image that in no way resembles our hotel room.
Out hotel, I can’t remember the name, was a very basic place. The window of our room didn’t have the best view I’ve ever seen from a hotel window, far from it. The window didn’t actually let any light into our room, it looked out into a chicken coop.
Our en-suite chickens meant that our alarm clock was not needed.
The bathroom was also very basic, with a French style loo; a hole in the ground.

Lushoto TANZANIA

As I was saying Richard was washing his socks and he accidentally dropped one down the loo, and it immediately slid down the large hole never to be seen again.
So I suppose that does mean that a single sock can disappear in the wash? But as the sock was actually lost in a loo, I don’t think it counts.
So I stand by my initial observation - I don’t believe socks get lost in the wash.

ENGLAND