Dancing parrot

I learnt today that not only can parrots talk, they can dance too. What an amazing talent! I love Snowball's moves, his rhythm, his headbanging, and his amazing hairstyle.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8026592.stm

Joining the 21st Century

I am very behind the times! I don't own an i-pod or MP3 player. VH now has an i-pod, which he received at Christmas & loves, but I don't. However, I decided to start downloading music nevertheless, from Amazon. You can buy some music tracks for 29p - great value for money. I bought the Slumdog Millionaire Ja'i Ho song on Easter weekend, which is so fun and great to listen to in the sun. This caused a minor Easter day disaster - my bank account got temporarily closed down, as fraud was suspected. Which is weird as it wasn't a big sum of money being taken out from abroad, but just a mere 29p.

Anyway, last night I decided to download some more tracks, and then burnt a CD of them. I never thought of doing this before, I don't need an i-pod, I can just listen to them in my car. I am very pleased with my first self-made music CD, it's great. There are even some tracks VH and I both like on it, including Ruby by the Kaiser Chief's which reminds us of our wedding day, as I danced with my niece to it.

Ten little moments of happiness today

1) Speaking to my niece, who told me all about Doctor Who and Prince Caspian
2) Walking around the park in the sun
3) Driving to and exploring a nearby village
4) Eating Cadbury's mini-eggs, and chick
5) Drinking a Starbucks mocha light frappuccino, followed by a relaxing glass of white wine
6) Wearing a dress for a change
7) Finding out that my bank account hasn't been subject to fraud
8) Getting into cleaning mode, and cleaning the kitchen
9) Reading my Jodi Picoult book
10) Hearing that my goddaughter took her first steps today

Happy Easter!

Veggie Hubby knows that while I am vegetarian, I enjoy eating animals when made out of chocolate. From left to right meet: Baby Basil the duck, Lucy the lamb, the white rabbit, Molly Moo (my present to him) and chick. I haven't started any of them yet, and will try and eat them very slowly.

Hope you are having a nice Easter. I am enjoying my five-day weekend, even although it is a quiet one.

By the river

When we are not doing anything out of the ordinary on Sundays, and the weather is nice enough, VH like to go for a stroll in the park and along the river Thames, looking at/feeding the ducks, geese and swans. The way they beg for food reminds me a little of my dog Sky. The Canadian goose above was particularly vocal today; whereas the other birds didn't make any sounds, this particular goose knew how to shout! Nevertheless, the other birds were good at asking for food in quieter ways.
I always like the birds that are a bit different. Last week, there was a small very strange looking brown bird with big eyes, and I hoped to see it again today. Although we didn't, we saw a bird which I later identified as a tufted duck. It stayed away from the other birds, and the food.

Cinderella

Here is a tiny admission - I am a girl who doesn't particularly like shoe shopping, or shoes. I far prefer shopping for other things; such as clothes, bags, books, or even food. Like Cinderella, it's difficult to get shoes that fit perfectly. Shoe shopping also requires the attendance of a shop assistant, whereas I prefer to shop in peace. This means that I don't own many pairs of shoes, and mainly wear a pair of black boots. But these boots are now scuffed, and are falling apart. In fact, the heel fell off last week, and someone I don't even know at work commented on the state of them, so I felt I should get some more!

I bought some shoes in France the other week (right), but I haven't worn them out as they still hurt. So after my colleague's comment on Wednesday, I decided there was no choice, I had to buy another pair. After a lot of shopping around today, I ended up with a second pair of work shoes (left). Now, I have my work shoes but I still need others... new boots, summer shoes (e.g. sandals/flip-flops) and trainers for the weekends. It is never-ending!

Basil has a baby brother

VH is now off on Easter holidays for two weeks, while I still have to work. :-( Lucky for some! In my opinion, everyone should work school terms, then the world would be a happier place. Well at least it's Friday night, and there is the whole weekend to look forward to. Shopping time! It is is also starting to feel like summer. It's getting sunnier (sometimes even sunny) and the evenings are nice and long. It's getting dark around 8pm - perfect.

We bought a new basil plant last week. It isn't a replacement for old basil, just a brother. After all the love and attention we have given to basil, we cannot bring ourselves throw him out, even though he has brown stalks. New basil is hopefully of higher quality than old basil, grown in organic soil. Unlike old basil, it looks much healthier in many respects, and has green stalks. However, new basil is not perfect either, which I will take the blame for. When we got new basil to the check-out till to pay for it, we realised it was already injured, squashed underneath all of our shopping. So new basil looks somewhat flat, and lop-sided. It seems that we are not very good at taking care of basils!

Spot the difference: