erastes

When I was working in Norwich I hated it—there’s a commuter road from where I live to Norwich and it’s single carriageway for about 3 miles before it reaches the dual carriageway – and every single day it would obviously be a bottleneck. Now I travel in the opposite direction across country and the worst I had to deal with was a tractor—going at 30 miles an hour and spitting mud all over my car (which made it marginally cleaner) a pheasant, wandering blithely across the road, and a couple of kamikaze wood pigeons who were too fat to get very far off the ground. Bliss.

Dad is reading the paper, and so we create new routines for ourselves.

The Muffled Drum is moving along; (or Happy Horny Hussars as it has been dubbed by Chris Smith) and the Hussars are horny, but not happy. But what do you expect, after all. the “by Erastes” should have been a clue. I wish they could teleport to Berlin, though because that’s when the buffalo dung is going to hit the punka. And yes, that analogy is entirely wrong for this Austro-Prussian war setting, but it made me giggle. Where’s a Tardis when you really need one?

I have found that I have Open Office on my laptop – I think I must have downloaded it a while back and forgot. It’s perfect for my needs, so thank you for suggesting that, peeps! And the spell check is far better than Works – it recognises daguerreotype for a start!

However, it needs educating. It doesn’t understand most of the Prussian words, obviously – but it doesn’t recognise arse. And that’s the only anatomical word I’ve used so far. Oh poor innocent programme, what a nasty shock you are going to get. But I LOVE it – it’s better than Word so far because Word 2007 is horrible. You hear me, Bill Sykes? Horrible. ETA: Hmmm. Word can’t read the files, though – that’s a pain in the arse…

However there is no hotspot here—I signed up to BT Fon which is a rather nifty and very socialist idea (Americans cover your eyes, you may faint) where anyone with a British Telecom Broadband service can opt into, and it “shares” a bit of your bandwidth with the world, so if anyone just HAPPENED to be in my cul-de-sac and desperately needed an internet connection they could piggyback onto my BB and use a bit of mine. There’s a limit to how much you can take from the shared pool, because not everyone has an unlimited bandwidth allowance but all the same, it’s a sodding brilliant idea. You can even access a map to find out exactly where in your area people have signed up – there are two in the immediate area here, but not near enough to get a signal. They are one street over. However, it’s a new scheme, and they don’t advertise it AT ALL so it will probably take a while for more people to sign up. So it will have to be a dongle for now. Today I got stumped several times: Prussian names needed, where a ball would be held in Berlin, would hussars wear dress swords at a ball, what the name of a commander of the 12th brigade of hussars would be, which hussar regiments would be in Berlin at the time and why – if there was a war on … however now i’m home, I’ll look that up now. *note to self, stop writing historicals they drive you potty*

This is the "pick a color" meme, where I was given "Silver" by n8an. If you want to play, just post a comment, and I'll give you a colour then you have to find ten things that you love of that colour.

Ten things I love that are silver (coloured)

1. Platinum. It was always my desire to have a platinum wedding ring (I didn’t get one, when I was married) because I wouldn’t have to tell anyone what it was, white gold, silver or platinum. I’d just KNOW. :) Maybe one day I’ll be able to afford one for myself!

2. My first mobile phone. My mother bought it for me for Christmas, and it was a Sagem xxxxx I’ve not been able to bear to throw it away for various reasons and one day it just died - but dayum it was a sexy beast. I suppose they can’t be sexy like that these days because they have to be ebooks and cameras and teasmades and razors and depth chargers as well.

3. The fairy lights around my bed. They are like snowballs and are white and silver and wound around the wrought iron of the four poster frame. They are strong enough to read by and when the main light is off it’s a twinkly fairy land. Now admit it, that’s a surprise isn’t it? You all thought I slept in a dank cellar or something, with a sack covering - or at least with Klothes that Klank sheets. (first one who names that book, gets a brownie point and I “I heart the Macaronis” mousemat)

4. FEESH! I’m going to get you little fishie! Oh Pop Culture, I am your slave. I love fish of any description. Nom nom nom. (OK – ironically NOT silverfish)

5. The Warren Cup

6. Vetinari, Lucius Malfoy – anyone who can be considered “silver-tongued” Don’t bother seducing me with fish and chips and champagne (well, actually, that would probably work too, if you are making notes) words and a dark brown voice are just as effective and aren’t as fattening.

7. Endora, one of Spooky’s kittehs, who was the only silver one.The other two were black - I wish we’d kept her but couldn’t afford to have four cats back then. Or now actually! This isn’t her, just looks a bit like her.

8. Moonlight. Don’t know whether that actually counts but it’s often referred to as silvery. I love living places where there are no street lights at all. I remember walking home from a night out with my lovely Irish swain when I lived in Rooskey, (or rather we were walking from Mohill to his house where we would not have sex, and I would sleep in the guest room. Yes that is what I told my mother and yes I was over 30 at the time, don’t ask.) Anyway – he moaned all the way home about how he wished he’d kept enough beer money to get a taxi, and I kept saying how romantic it was in the moonlight. Entirely wasted on him, sadly.

9. My parents’ canteen of cutlery. Yes, that sounds a bit sad, but 35 years ago they bought a silver canteen of the “King’s” pattern - and I thought they were mad as it was hugely expensive but we have used it every single day since and it’s still going strong despite being 10 years over the guarantee. I’ll never get rid of it until it falls to mouldering pieces, which is unlikely, as it’s a 12 people setting. But it has so many happy memories, which is silly, I know.

10. The Silver Brumby. Oh GOD I love those books. I got given them as a child, because I was horse mad (still am but broke bibendums don’t get to ride) and I had every horse book known to man or child. As mentioned in a previous post, I have ruthlessly hunted down every children’s book I ever owned, and I not only have the entire series I used to own, The Silver Brumby, Silver Brumby’s daughter, Silver Brumbies of the South, Silver Brumby Kingdom,and wow! I found out TODAY, doing this meme that’s a whole shed load of them I haven’t even heard of! The four books I read thought are is seared in my heart forever. Yes, the horses are rather anthromorphicised, they don’t wear clothes or anything, but they do have human emotions perhaps more than they actually do… but then… who really knows what and how they think? AUTHOR obviously knows horses very well, and knows her terrain (the Snowy mountains in Australia) and I would really really love to see a real silver brumby in real life.