Anne Dickens | The Day After Yesterday

Dahlinks! I love you more than Domino's Pizza (actually I can't back that up).

As you know, I have been in the process of selling my house in London, and last Monday one of the viewers put in an offer of £430,000 ($688,500 USD). Considering that the sale price was £445,000, I was unsure whether to accept the offer or not.

So I put the question to my lovely readers; 'do I barter, or do I accept the offer?'

By the far the vast majority of you said 'barter', and so I made like an Arab and did exactly that. I rang the Estate Agent and told them that I would accept £435,000 ($699,000 USD).


The estate agent (called House Network by the way), got back to me within 24 hours to say that the buyer had agreed to the figure of £435,00! Woo hoo! The increase of £5000 equated to 1,253 bottles of wine, or 385 'Hot and Spicy' Domino's pizzas. What a bloody result. The Japanese lady buying the house only stipulated one condition for increasing her offer; and that was that the cooker be included in the price.

Now, considering that cooking is for the devil's spawn, giving away my cooker wasn't too much of a big deal. No cooker = less cleaning. Bonus!


So, it's all happening. The buyer wants to complete the sale by 13th May, and I need to get my skates on.

I will do it, but at the moment I am SOOOOO ....... bloody tired. I have been driving between Oxford and London at least three times a week to get the house ready for sale and to conduct viewings. On top of that I am currently trying to get my new business off the ground, whilst simultaneously designing a website for a friend. And that's before I factor in looking after Izzy and walking Naughty George.

My email inbox is brimming, I have a ton of mail that needs sorting, and my house looks like a hovel (but I don't mind that too much because I am pretty slovenly. It's a good job that black rings in the bath don't kill people).

So my dahlinks, if I haven't visited your blog or returned your email, it is not because I am ignoring you. Luckily, I have a free weekend coming up because Izzy is with her dad, so I am going to be doing some serious catching up.

P.S. So how are your days going? Busy or boring?

P.P.S. I nearly forgot. After my blog yesterday about the daffodils at Shotover Park, one of my blog chums, Robert from Arkwrights of Orton, sent me a picture of the daffodils he had seen at his place of work. And his place of work is uber-cool because it is a steam-train station.

In the olden days in rural England, communities used to be structured around the land-owning Lord of the Manor. The Lord would spend his silk-attired days gnawing through slabs of venison, boffing virgins and hunting, whilst the sackcloth-clad peasants from the village worked on his land and existed entirely on potatoes (blimey, they must have been a feisty lot, what with all those carbs and all).

Fast-forward 500 years to the present day, and physically things haven't changed that much in Forest Hill (the village where I live). There is still a Lord of the Manor, and the village still has most of it's peasants' houses (albeit they have now been converted to cater for modern day amenities - I know, I live in one of 'em).

'What the bloody hell has all that stuff got to do with anything?' I hear you cry.

Well, it's like this. The present-day Lord of the Manor lives in a house stately home called Shotover House which is about half a mile from my village. And every year at spring-time, instead of seeking out the villagers' virgin children like in the olden days, he opens his estate so that they can come and see his daffodils and celebrate the end of winter with a cup of tea.

Yep, the great unwashed are allowed unlimited access to the estate gardens for three hours (which was rather a nice idea on behalf of the current Lord of the Manor - top marks), and it just so happened that 'Shotover Daffodil Day' was last Sunday.

Given that the Shotover estate was supposed to be very picturesque, I decided to take Izzy and teach her how to use a camera, and she was heart-warmingly enthusiastic about the idea. Oh yeh, it was looking like we were going to be gadget-buddies. 

So this post is a photo-blog. And these are the photographs that we took.......... (with my new Canon Powershot S95...... man alive...... I am still LOVING that camera).

Oh, before I begin, I should mention that when we arrived at the Shotover Estate, they charged £2.50 for entry and I was a bit miffed. But then I found out that they were using the proceeds to fix the roof on the village church, so I wasn't miffed at all after that.

Here goes...... the Shotover House photoblog.............................................



















So Izzy and I went back to our peasant's house and had baked potato for dinner. Blimey, maybe things haven't changed so much since the olden days.

P.S. Do you have any ancient places near you?

Ooh, I forgot to tell you. I'm like a bloody pirate I am (except that I don't wear an eye-patch or have a wooden leg or parrot).

You know that in recent weeks, I have spent quite a lot of time in London getting my house ready for sale?

Well, yesterday I was in the garden digging a very big hole in readiness for a very big bush (crikey, that sounds like a euphemism), when all of a sudden my spade encountered something hard (woof).

At first I thought that my spade had hit a brick or stone, but it soon became clear that it was something larger. I knelt down and started carefully clearing the mud from around the object (I was pretending to be like those archeologists off the TV), but that got a bit boring so I got my spade and just stabbed at it like a psycho until it broke free from its muddy resting place.

And then ........... I found that I had discovered treasure! Kind of.  Ooh Arr me hearties!

It was a glass bottle and after I had washed off the mud, it became pretty clear that it was really old.... i.e. older than me.

Now that is one of the joys of living in an old house (I say old, but my London house was built in the 1850s, so it isn't that old compared with my Oxford house which was built in the 1550s) .......... they keep on throwing up little bits of history like a baby with a penchant for projectile vomiting.

So do you want to look at my treasure? Here you go ........................





So I took my treasure and hot-footed it back to Oxford so that I could do a bit of research on the internet.

I googled 'Idris Bottle' and was surprised by how few results came back. But from what I could glean, Idris was a Ginger Beer drink, and it was sold in bottles pre-1914 AD (apparently similar bottles were found in the Somme after World War 1).

In fact, even though I didn't have time to properly research it, it appeared that Idris Ginger Beer was still available today, although the packaging had morphed from glass bottles to garish tin cans.
WOW! There was nearly a hundred years between the bottle that I found and the tin can above. That is one long-living brand. And Steve tried to steal my find from me by asking, 'uhh can I take that old bottle that you found? It would be ideal for putting daffodils in'.

Obviously I said 'no' because it could potentially feature on the 'Antiques Roadshow' and be worth a fortune, and then I would never have to work again. 

So, are there any historians out there who can help me shed some light onto my find?

As you know, three weeks ago I made the decision to sell my London house and live permanently (well for the next couple of years at least) in a small village in the Oxfordshire countryside. Yep, I was turning my back on the bright lights and big city ..... because ...... well it's obvious isn't it? ............ fields and roadkill are so much more interesting. Actually, I had better not delve into that rationale too much or I might change my mind (again).

Now interestingly enough, I had decided not to go down the usual route of having a traditional Estate Agent sell my house, for the simple reason that their fee was 1.5% of the house value for chrissake, which totalled nearly £7000 or $11,200 USD. Indeed, to put the fee into a real-life context, £7000 would buy 1,556 bottles of wine. Truly shocking.

When the Agent told me the fee, my instant (outward) reaction was, "you are kidding me?", but inside my head I was shouting 'you are trying to mug me, you bastard'.

So I pointed out to him that; "It doesn't cost any more to market a house for £450,000 than it does for one that costs £200,000, so why are your charges based on a percentage?"

The Estate Agent said, quote; "Estate Agencies have always calculated their fees as a percentage of the value of the house."

Grrrrr, lemmings have always jumped off cliffs but that doesn't make them smart. Having been in business for years myself, there is one thing guaranteed to irritate me ........... and that's people who basically say, 'we do it that way, because that's the way it has always been done.'

Now in my experience, there is generally an upside to scenarios like these. And that upside is that there are plenty of entrepreneurs out there willing to exploit dinosaur companies who don't change with the times.

And, after a bit of research, I found one such company. It was a purely web-based Estate Agent called 'The House Network.' They charged a flat fee of £525 and it included virtually all the services provided by a traditional Estate Agent. Result!

My house was listed with them three weeks ago, and in the meantime, I busied myself getting the house into tip-top condition ready for sale. The garden in particular needed some attention after quite a harsh winter by UK standards.

When it comes to gardening, I bloody love it I do. But I am not particularly good at it - unless crispy plants ever come into fashion - then I will be the Galliano of gardens (except that I don't have a weird moustache and I'm not rascist).

So for a couple of days each week (as well as fitting in my day-job), I have been driving down to London to tidy up the garden ........ and here are some pictures of one of my little projects for you to look at ................................





'So', I hear you cry, 'has your hard work paid off?'

Funny you should ask that. Over the last three weeks I have conducted four viewings, and although they all loved the house, they didn't seem like serious buyers.

I got that wrong then. Today, my Estate Agent 'The House Network', telephoned me to say that one of the viewers would like to buy the house and had offered £430,000 ($688,500 USD). Woo hoo! The offer was great but it was still less than the asking price of £445,000 ($712,000 USD) but I am thinking about 'making like an Arab' and do a bit of bartering.

So tell me dahlink........ should I barter or should I accept?

I felt like Jack Nicholson from 'The Shining' this weekend (except that I haven't got a beard... well not much of one anyway).

'What are you banging on about?' I hear you cry.

Well, it's like this; for some reason my daughter Izzy had taken a shine to a tricycle she found in the garage. Not only that, despite it being way too small for her, she had been manically riding it around in the garden just like the weird kid from 'The Shining'.  



Crikey, all I needed was to find a dead bird in the bath and the scene would be complete. Not that I wanted to find a dead bird in the bath mind you. I bet that rotting flesh is a bugger to clean off, even with Mr Muscle Bathroom Spray.

Luckily, before Izzy freaked me out too much, I had arranged a Saturday afternoon outing for us both....... we were going to the Theatre.

The time came for us to leave, so I went into the garden to get Izzy off her tricycle.

"Come on Iz!" I hollered, "it's time for us to go."

"Don't want to," she shouted back, still pedalling tight circles.

"Good job that it isn't negotiable then," I yelled back.

"But why do I have to go to the theatre?" she asked.

"Because you are going to be bloody cultured when you grow up, and you have to start practising now." I shouted.

My answer (bizarrely) seemed to satisfy her, and for the first time in hours, she detached herself from her bike and followed me to the car, albeit 'speaking in tongues' under her breath. 

The play was being shown at the 'Oxford Playhouse' in the city, and it was called 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier'.


I was concerned that it was going to be a bit of gamble because it was an improvised and abstract version of the fairytale, rather than a normal show acted out by actors.

We entered the theatre, took our seats, and before long the lights went down and the show started. And even though it was weird, Izzy bloody loved it. And despite the fact it was aimed at kids, I must admit that the production of the story was flippin innovative and gripping.

But that didn't stop me from having a few beefs with the storyline itself.

Let me give you a brief outline: A tin soldier is given to a small boy as a present. Then when the small boy is asleep in bed, the soldier wakes up and falls in love with a paper ballerina in the nursery. The jack-in-a-box gets jealous because he also loves the ballerina, so he flings the tin soldier out the window.

The tin soldier is found in the street by some passing children who make a boat and float the tin soldier downstream. Eventually, the soldier's boat ends up in the sea, where it sinks. The soldier ends up on the seabed, where he is eaten by a fish.



Now this is where the story got bloody daft. A fisherman caught the fish that had eaten the tin soldier, and then sold it at market....... to (get this) the original small boy's mother! So yep, the soldier inadvertently ended up back in the nursery with his ballerina.

That's just bloody ridiculous. What was the probability of that chain of events happening? I estimate it to be 4,274,338 to 1 (and that's based on the small boy living in a very small community that likes fishing a lot). 

Not only that, but after the joyous reunion of the tin soldier and paper ballerina, the small boy decided that he didn't like them any more and flung them into the fireplace where they both horrifically died. The End.

Jeez, I didn't expect that. 

I turned to look at Izzy and she was distraught; "they're both dead!" she exclaimed.

I must admit that I panicked a bit, but still managed to pull something out of the bag, "They have just gone up to heaven together," I whispered in her ear before giving her a calm and saintly look.

Izzy's demeanour immediately changed from distraught to inquisitive, "where's heaven?" she asked.

Awww shit. I quickly realised that if I didn't head it off at the impasse, it would end up being one of 'those' question and answer sessions ..................

You know the ones that I mean: You tell your kid that heaven is in the sky. Kid then asks if they can get there in an aeroplane? You say 'no', so your kid asks you, 'how do dead people get there'? You say that 'God takes their souls there'. So your kid asks 'how does God take their souls there'? And then they top it off by asking, 'what is a soul Mama'? AAAAAGH!

So head it off at the impasse I did..... "Izzy," I said, "do you want to go home and play on your tricycle?"

Her face lit up and she shouted, "YAY!"

Oh yeh, no flies on me (although you can see where they've been).


Thinking about it, children in this day and age are totally mollycoddled with a vast array of politically-correct stories, each of which always culminates in a happy ending.

It's not like the olden days when I was a kid, where fairytales could be quite horrific; like Red Riding Hood being eaten by a wolf. And Snow White being poisoned by a witch. And Rapunzel being imprisoned in a tower. 

So, let me know what you think? Should children be allowed to watch horrific fairytales, or should they be spared from unhappy endings? *wink*

P.S. UPDATE! Just in case you were wondering whether Izzy was mentally scarred by the Steadfast Tin Soldier, she wasn't. After the initial shock, she went on to say that it was her favourite part of the weekend and she wants to go back to the theatre. See, I was unwittingly a good mum. 

So my lovelies, I need your help. I have probably got too much time on my hands, but three things have really been bugging me today. Three things which are quite frankly, a riddle wrapped in an enigma.

I annoy myself, I do: It starts with me noticing something odd, and then I can't get it out my head until I know what the answer is .......... which is where you come in! I want you to be my own personal Sherlock Holmes (but I don't want you to dress up in a Deerstalker hat and tweeds, or start smoking pipes. That would be nearly as weird as those fetish guys who like dressing up as babies). So here goes ................

1. Dead birds. I live in the countryside and over the period of a year, I will see hundreds, maybe thousands, of birds in my garden and around the village. Yet I have never seen so much as a single dead bird (with the exception of roadkill). And I spend a LOT of time walking around the fields, forests and glens of rural Oxfordshire. What's that all about then?

[Note to reader: it's not that I actually want to see lots of dead birds (that would be a pre-cursor to me becoming a serial killer), I just want to know what happens to them].

2. Aircraft turning corners. Why oh why, do aircraft turn corners when they are flying? It's not like they need to navigate around buildings or other aircraft. Surely the most efficient way to reach a destination is a straight line? So why don't they just fly from A to B?

As luck would have it, I noticed an aircraft turning a corner over my house this evening, as you can see from the photograph below.


I am suspecting that the answer lies in Vector Analysis, but that is just me wild guessing.

Oooh, I have just remembered that I have an old friend called Matt who is an 'Air Traffic Controller' so I emailed him the question. Although I am awaiting his response, please don't let it stop you speculating.......

3. Dry-cleaning raincoats. This one is fairly self-explanatory. Why do you have to dry-clean raincoats? (I have got raincoat with a label that says 'dry clean only'). What the bloody hell is that all about then?

So get your 'thinking cap' on and let me know you theories. Look at me - I am all high-maintenance and demanding!

P.S. But the upside is that I will help you if there is anything bugging you (yeh, I am like Mother Theresa, but with less wrinkles, and less dead).

Phew, another week over. Not only that, but spring is now well underway, and the sun was shining all day today. But don't worry, I went to great lengths to ensure that it didn't taint my cadaverous pallor (I am even thinking of investing in a balaclava).



'So if your post isn't about daffodils, what is it about?' I hear you cry.

Good question, and let me elucidate. I was sat at my laptop today, beavering away and minding my own business, when suddenly an email plopped into my inbox.

It immediately grabbed my attention because the subject was 'I want to buy your blog'.

Being the mercenary entrepreneurial type that I am, the dollar signs immediately appeared in my eyes. I opened the email with trepidation ...................... and read the following missive:


After reading his email I was strangely irritated by it (and I am pretty hard to wind-up). Then I read it again and I became outraged. The cheeky fucking bloody bastard..... (look he made me swear). Basically he was saying that he was going to check that my blog met his terribly high standards of grammar and his Google ranking criteria, and if he acknowledged that it did, then I would be the lucky recipient of $200.

$200 for two and half years of original content.

That equated to 30 cents per post ($200 divided by 664 blog posts).

Cheeky bastard squared.

Not only that, he had TOTALLY failed to understand his market. Bloggers don't write blogs so that they can ultimately sell them for cash; they do it because they love connecting and making friends with top-banana people in the blogging community. I tell you now, if Paul had been standing in front of me, I would have bopped him on the nose.

Anyway, because I am business-like, I decided to reply to him ...................

So as you know, last Saturday night I went for dinner with Steve (Izzy's Dad) and daughter Izzy. Steve cooked salmon fishcakes with noodles, and because it was so tasty I stuffed my face like someone with Prada Willi syndrome in a sweetshop.

Anyway, after me banging on about how good the fishcakes were (and normally I think that fish is the devil's spawn), I received a number of comments and emails asking for the recipe. And because I am kinder than Mother Theresa (but with better dress sense), I asked Steve to email me the recipe so that you too can enjoy the feast. Here goes....... 

Ingredients

• 800g (1.8 lbs) skinless salmon fillets
• 2 bay leaves
• small bunch dill, stalks and fronds separated
• 500ml (1 pint) milk
• 600g (1.3 lbs) Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and chopped into even sized chunks
• zest 1 lemon 
• 4 tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 4 tbsp capers, rinsed and dried
• Flour for dusting your hands
• 1 egg, beaten
• 100g (half a cup) breadcrumbs (or use Jamie Oliver ready-made lemony breadcrumbs for extra 'tang'
• 4 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil
• Lemon wedges and watercress, to serve 

Method

1. Poaching the salmon: Put the salmon in a frying pan with the bay leaves and dill stalks. Pour over enough milk to cover the fish (you may not need all the milk), bring to the boil, then lower heat to a gentle simmer and leave to poach for 4 mins. Turn off the heat, then leave the fish to continue cooking in the poaching liquid for 5 mins. Lift the salmon out with a fish slice onto a plate. Flake into large pieces with a fork, then leave to cool.



2. Making and drying out the mash: Meanwhile, cook the potatoes in boiling salted water for about 10 mins, or until tender. Drain well, then leave to cool in a colander for 2 mins. Tip back into the pan and return to the hob on a low setting. Mash the potatoes, watching that the mash doesn't catch at the bottom of the pan, for 2-3 mins - it should be dry and fluffy. Stir in lemon zest, mayonnaise, mustard, capers and some seasoning.

3. Mixing and shaping fish cakes. Pat away any liquid from the fish, then carefully lift the pieces into the pan with the mash. With your hands, gently mix together until roughly combined; it should take just a few movements or the fish will break up. Dust hands and work surface with flour. Shape a handful of the mix into a patty-shaped cake, about 2.5cm (1 inch) thick. Repeat to make 8 cakes.

4. Breadcrumbing and browning. Dip the cakes into the egg, then press into the breadcrumbs all over. Heat half the oil in a frying pan until very hot. Fry 4 fish cakes for 5 mins each side until golden. Alternatively for a healthy option, you can cook them in the oven at 200 degrees (Gas Mark 6, 400F) until the breadcrumbs are golden brown (that is what Steve did). Remove; keep warm. Repeat with the rest, or freeze. Serve with lemon wedges and watercress.

Nutrition (if fried. Obviously calories and fat will be significantly reduced if oven-baked)

431 kcalories, protein 27g, carbohydrate 27g, fat 25 g, saturated fat 5g, fibre 2g, sugar 4g, salt 1.05 g

So let me know what you think if you decide to give it a go!

Blimey, you would never guess what happened to me yesterday? Utopia garnished with chocolate peanuts; that's what.

To give you a bit of background, when I first moved to the Oxfordshire countryside from London, I quickly realised (to my absolute horror) that my new village was too remote for Dominos Pizza home delivery. I panicked and was all like, "shit! what the blazes am I going to eat?" and then I ran around the house flapping aimlessly for several hours before deciding that I needed to come up with a plan. And I did.

So, no more nightly home-delivery pizzas ..........  no worries I thought to myself, and I fashioned a cunning plan to buy ready-meals from the local (as in 8 miles away) supermarket. Yep, drastic measures were needed in order to avoid spending too much time in the desolate wasteland that I call my kitchen.


The ready-meal strategy worked well for a while - in that it had kept me sustained for the two-and-a-bit years that I had lived in Oxford, but last night I reached terminal boredom with the limited range, and decided to do a bit of rude Internet surfing to distract myself.

Nooooo, I don't mean 'Redtube' before you jump to conclusions - that is just filth (so I have been told). Being the sad git that I am, I decided to surf the Dominos Pizza website and lament 'pizza's past'. The quirky 'Dominos Pizza website' demands that you type in your postcode (ZIP code) before you can view the menu. So I did just that and then a screen appeared saying; 'Your postcode is eligible for home-delivery'.

WTF! It appeared as though Dominos pizza had increased their home-delivery catchment area in response to the recession! HUZZAR AND DOUBLE HUZZAR!

I immediately decided to order a pizza (for scientific reasons you understand) to test whether or not Forest Hill was truly in the catchment area. And as each stage of the order progressed, I started shaking like a shitting dog in anticipation.Then BAM! I received a screen saying that my order had been dispatched and would be delivered within 45 minutes.


Aaaah, if only everything had continued in such an easy fashion ......... Yes Dominos do deliver to Forest Hill, but it took FIVE phonecalls from the delivery man before he managed to find my house. It didn't help that he hardly spoke any English at all, even though he works in England (don't get me started on this - companies who position people who can't speak English in customer-facing positions deserve to lose... well custom). But as they say, beggars can't be choosers.

To give you an idea of our conversation it was:

Delivery Man: Ring.. Ring..... "Hewo, this is pitza man. I try to find your house and I am at bus station near Sandhills. Where your house?"

Me: "I live in Forest Hill not Sandhills."

Delivery Man: "Where Forest Hill? How I drive there?"

Me: "Do you have a Sat Nav?"

Delivery Man: "Yeh, got Sat Nav."

Me: "Ok, my postcode is OX33 1EH."

Then the phone rang again twenty minutes later and it was the same chap.

Delivery Man: "I no can find Forest Hill."

Me: "Where are you?"

Delivery Man: "I still at Bus Station in Sandhills."

Me: "You haven't bloody moved since I last spoke to you, why didn't you use your Sat Nav?"

Delivery Man: "Sat Nav no work."

Me: "Why didn't you say?"

Delivery Man: "You no ask."

Bloody Nora, what a drongo.

Needless to say, I almost got irate, and much schenanigans ensued resulting in my pizza turned up an hour late and was bloody cold. But hell, I was just happy as a pig-in-shit to savour a 'Hot and Spicy' pizza after such a hiatus! In fact, I am positively joyous!

P.S. Have you had any problems caused by language differences or has anything as joyous happened in your life recently?

Last Saturday night was a significant date in the astrological calendar. Yep, it was the night of the 'supermoon'. To be honest, although it sounded good, I really didn't know what a supermoon was. A normal moon but with a cape?

So I did a bit of research and found out that we were going to encounter the nearest approach of the Moon to Earth for the past 18 years, bringing it some 30,000 miles closer than usual. Ok, that's fairly cool in itself. But what was really cool, was all the hocus-pocus myths, facts and theories associated with the supermoons. Below I present you with some of that hocus-pocus stuff that was being banded about.......



1.  The supermoon will cause chaos on earth

As the title suggests, the astrologer who coined the phrase 'supermoon' (Richard Nolle) predicted that it would coincide with chaos on earth. I was keen to found out why this would be the case and undertook some further research because I am a sad puppy like that, and I need to get out more.

His theory was that the gravitational pull of the moon (the same gravitational pull that causes high and low tides) is stronger when the moon is nearer the earth, strong enough in fact, to cause significant tectonic shifts as well as geothermal and seismic activity. And then the same Mr Astrologer chappy went on to claim that the supermoon was behind the New Zealand and Japan earthquakes. Coincidence? More than likely; especially as scientists claim there is no evidence to support the theory, which is a posh way of saying that Mr Astrologer is talking bollocks.


2. The supermoon turns you into a mentalist

Apparently, during full- and supermoons, there is a far higher rate of suicides and homicides. Not only that, but psychiatric facilities time and again report far higher levels of aggression amongst patients when there is a full- or supermoon. This theory is not a new one. Indeed, the words 'lunatic' and 'lunacy' are dervied from Luna, the Roman moon goddess.

Coincidence? It appears not, because I actually found some proper research* concluding that schizophrenic patients show a deterioration in mental well-being during a full moon.

So there you go my lovelies .......... if you have any particularly troublesome neighbours, go and bump them off on the night of a full moon, and then blame it on the white blob in the sky. Job done. Defence sorted. I'm helpful like that.


3. A supermoon is a sight to behold

No it isn't. In actual fact, a supermoon is only 0.3% bigger than a normal full-moon. And as such, experts claim that it's unlikely that a novice on the ground (that'll be me) would be able to discern the difference between a full-moon and a supermoon. Which probably explains why my supermoon pictures were not quite living up to my expectations shall we say.


* Barr, W. (2000). Lunacy revisited: The influence of the moon on mental health and quality of life. Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Service, 38 28-35.

After all the "excitement" of the supermoon, I had to hotfoot it to Steve's (Izzy's dad) house in the village because we had arranged to have dinner together with Izzy. Yep, I know it is an unconventional set-up, but I liken it to Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, except that Steve isn't interested in adopting kids and then boffing them.