Guilty of negligence !

My humble apologies to all the people in bloggyland for neglecting my blog the way I've done for the past few weeks.


I have no excuses, all I can say is I've been here, there and nowhere.


As a good blogger buddy once said "Life gets in the way!!"


For my deeds, I'll serve prison sentence for as long as it takes to be forgiven!!

Thailand's pride and oy.

On Sunday evening I received an e-mail from my dearest friend who lives in Cape Town, and I would like to share this with everyone out there in bloggyland.

This is a flower from Thailand, it is also a protected species and not allowed to be exported. This will be the only way we will be able to view this flower.

The very rare parror Flower

WHO BUT GOD COULD DO THIS ?

Tribute to David Carradine

I was totally distraught about the death of this great actor David Carradine.
Caradine was found dead on Thursday in Thailand. The 72 year old actor appeared to have hanged himself in a suite at the luxury Swissotel in Thailand.



He was a great actor, and I remember his suberb performance in the TV Series KUNG FU in the 1970s - - I never missed a single episode of the show when he played the Shaolin priest as Kwai Chang Cane.

What more can I say here except "You will be sadly missed David, not only by me but by millions of viewers from all over the world!!!"

Once again, we've lost another great one !!!!

It's a man's world ?

Sometimes we do things in good faith and then all goes pear shape.

Above is a picture of my snow white male canary, and he sings so loudly that you can hear him way down our busy street.

Not only is he a superb roller, but a very pleasant little bird as well.

He's lived in our household for the last 5 years, and a few weeks ago I felt so quilty that he lives a life in solitude, that's when I decided to get him a little female companion.




Needless to say, the little guy wasn't amused with the imposter in his cage, or as Mr. CC said "The little guy was practically forced into an unwanted marriage!"

Above is a pic (the best pose I will ever get of the little female demon)

One week after madam's arrival, I saw her sitting constantly in the seed bowl, and refused to move from her comfy spot.





The following morning, while cleaning their cage, I saw the reason why she was so reluctant to remove her skinny little legs from the seed bowl.

Soon after the shock of finding 3 tiny eggs in the seed bowl I noticed that all was not kosher with my male canary. Not only has he stopped singing, he looked a proper mess.

He has no energy what so ever and he remains sitting in one corner at the bottom of his cage, all puffed and doubled in size.

So off we rush to the petshop in search of answers.

To my surprise the lady at the pet shop said it's a normal procedure for birds to become "overworked" due to their male duties during the mating season.

HUH!!!

That sure was a new one on me!

So we seperated the two love birds, and my beautiful little singer could find a little peace and quiet from the very demanding female.



Two weeks down the line, and the poor guy looks no better, yes he's lost all zest for life.

I've tried all the home remedies in Grandma's good book - to no avail.



In the meantime I'm legging around like Mother hen hoping my bird will snap out of his Zombie state.

When I mentioned my worries and frustrastion to a total stranger today, she told me I should invest in a small bottle of BACHBLÜTEN TROPFEN because he's probably still in shock and the good stuff well do the trick on him.
I can't seem to find the English word for Bachblüten (the dictionary tells me it's Brook blossom drops) but I'm really not sure, all I know is the Bachblüten is a Homeopathic remedy and comes from the Bach flower.

So, if it doesn't kill, it'll cure !!

A film to experience.

When the day's work is done, I like to sit down, feet up, and watch a good movie. But ever so often I can't find much of interest on any of the 54 Channels on the telly. Lately we've had to put up with repeats - either you watch again, or you don't watch at all.

As I paged through the TV magazine last night, I spotted the movie called PERFUME and said to Mr. CC "Finally something new and different AND it looks promising!"

So at 8.15pm I sat down to watch the film.

I was spellbound from beginning to end and hardly dared to breath or utter a single word during the entire film.

It's the story of a murderer but also of an artist, as a baby, born with an extreme sensitivity to smell.

Strangely enough, this poor lost soul gained all my sympathy, and silently I kept hoping he'd get away and his obsessive deeds (although murderous) were never discovered.

Click on the link for a few snippets of this weird and way out movie, wonderfully played by the young actor called Ben Whishaw.

http://www.perfumemovie.com/ click on the image gallery.

Struwwel-Peter is everywhere

During our visit to one of the villages in Switzerland and strolling the dog, I came across a Ladies Hairdressing salon called STRUWWELPETER . At the very top of the wall is a large metal figure of the bad boy himself - - Note his unruly hair and long fingernails - - a very appropiate name for a Ladies Hairdresser.

The story of Struwwel-Peter (Shaggy Peter) is just over 150 years old and it was originally written in German and later translated into several languages.

The storybook describes a boy who does not groom himself, by not combing his hair or cutting his nails.

The story of the cruel Frederick - a violent boy who terrorizes animals and people.

The dreadful story of Pauline and the matches - a girl plays with matches and burns to death.

The story of Suck-a-thumb - a boy who continuously sucked his tumb, until a roving tailor comes along and cuts off his tumb with a giant scissors.

The contents and illustrated pictures of this "Educational" book for children is enough to give any small child a night filled with bad dreams instead of sweet dreams !

A man's home is his castle

The Schloss Ebenrain is a former country residence that was built as a Summer residence for the wealthy Swiss silk ribbon manufacturer, Martin Bachofen and his family in 1774.

When Bachofen died in 1814 the Schloss was sold to another wealthy Swiss merchant, Johann Ryhiner-Streckeisen.
Seven years later the estate's new owner committed suicide at Schloss Ebenrain. He was facing charges of bigamy, and on 29 July 1824 he took his own life with a pistol.



The gardens to the North and South of the residence were converted to fashionable English parks in the early 1800,s and has unchanged to the present day.

Strolling through the beautiful gardens of the Ebenrain is ever so peaceful, and I can't say that I've experience any uneasy feelings of the past tragedies that happened in the life and times of the rich and famous.