Danger Zone 6 - Danger vanquished!
Several breakthroughs were made during the course of the long weekend, which was another long one in the other sense, too.The first piece of danger occured in the most usual way ever. I was hungry and busy whilst in Japan. Luckily I was in the middle of making food for the party. We got a new breadmaking machine which luckily broke, forcing me to make some muffins. Do you know the parable about some court artist who was asked to demonstrate his sketching prowess to his king and sponsor? He did so by drawing a perfect circle by hand.
He's got nothing on what I've got - homemade oven-bottom muffins that perfectly match the sze of my fried egg. None of my cooking highs ever scaled this height.
The evening rolled around and so did we eventually! It was another of our country-themed parties. We crowned our glories with "England". One the menu were cottage pie, fish and chips, beef-in-guiness pasties, apple crumble and real English cheese that Mio had recieved from Rob about a month back (?!). Also on offer was Guiness (closest I could find to English beer) and Gin and Tonic (Bombay Saphire, export strength at just under seven pounds a bottle!).
On the guest-list were people from the Philipines, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan and one from England. Not bad for a postage-stamp sized apartment.
The next day Mariko, Mio and I took a trip to stay on the other side of the lake. Being as our tent is not really big enough for three we decided to rent a cabin.
OK - spot the odd one out: Door, roof, windows, floor, walls, air-conditioning, mats on the floor. Yep - the garden shed had air con. Not that we needed it in the balmy evenings of 15 degrees.
We had a massive BBQ (someone forgot to put the small one of ours in the car - whoops!) and spent the rest of the night burning pine cones for the smell. The next morning we were up at 5.30. For those of you who know me, I must just reinforce that this was 5.30 IN THE FUCKING MORNING! Up until this point i hadn't really believed in the possibility of being awake this early without there being a still in there somewhere. It was most disconcerting. Luckily the sunrise more than made-up for any slight discomfort.
After which we had another (light) barbie for brecky. This was when all hell broke loose. For the first time ever, ever, the espresso machine thing failed. Not only did it fail, but it failed in a sort of cartoon bad-guy fashion. Somehow it managed to melt without reaching a high enough temperature to boil the water inside. I was left with only one option. This is the second danger situation. I had to have coffee out of a vending machine.
The problem: It ws cold.
The solution:
Five minutes in the embers and my insipid,cold, over-sugared, under-caffeined coffee was bearable again. They will be selling heated ones soon.
posted by Between daisies @ 19:48
15 Comments:
I don't miss the card sized apartments or overpriced undercaffeinated cans of miniaturised coffee.
I do miss the clarity of those pre-sunrise dawns.
Greetings from the Adelaide Hills, where the temperature always suits the brass monkeys, unless it's bushfires that float your boat.
mate - you lived on the right side of a lake. I just get sunsets here... I'm glad the brass monkeys are happy, balls frozen off or otherwise.
Zee heated cans a blessing when you are stuck on a cold platform with even colder hands.
Anyhow, I am going to have to come and see these so called hills in so called Adelaide.
Why on Earth did you wake up at 5:30? :-P Just for the sunrise? Haha pfft.
heheheh
You're like MacGuyver, only less crap and without a sequel series set in space.
I applaud your resourcefulness.
Nothing beats a nice sunrise.
Tim - To be fair, once the sun hit the side of the shed it was too hot to sleep anyway. Plus the girls were up and banging around and talking in soto voice.
UTMG - I have heard talk of this McGuyver but i have never seen it... If you can find funding I am more than willing to venture into space. The sunrises in the winter mountains should be good later this year... watch this space!
Tim - To be fair, once the sun hit the side of the shed it was too hot to sleep anyway. Plus the girls were up and banging around and talking in soto voice.
UTMG - I have heard talk of this McGuyver but i have never seen it... If you can find funding I am more than willing to venture into space. The sunrises in the winter mountains should be good later this year... watch this space!
Trust me about the hills. I'm back on the treadley ding-ding and wondering why 90% of my rides end up in tears.
Mind you, the hardest part is getting out of the driveway and to the end of the street (though I've noticed many taxis have enough room for bikes these days, cutting the total trip time by more than 75%).
For the record, I agree that any coffee, especially the heated kind, is better than no coffee.
I hear you on the coffee call...
Bikes in taxis? (shakes head)
Guinness is spelt with 2 'n's. Hate to be an Irish stickler, but there you go.
And and and. Also, Guinness is owned by Diageo, a British company.
I so own you.
No shit! I would have thought Guinness was one of those nationally protected things. You know, like the French do with their cars?
Do you own my students loans, too?
Doesn't Guinness own Burger King?
Oh my lord, can you imagine if they started selling Guinness at BK? I'd never have to go to another building.
I own all of you, including your likeness and property rights.
It's crying out to be done.
Meegeekai: Why are you not marketing me a little better then?
Yep - cna you start paying for my upkeep now?
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