Towards the end of this morning, close to midday, I persuaded my small grandson that playing in the garden would be a good idea. He refused point blank to put his coat on, declaring that his hoody was warm enough. To be fair, his hoody was a good deal warmer than the jumper I was wearing. So I put an extra layer on me and kept his coat handy in case he changed his mind. In the event, with all the running around he was doing he was plenty warm enough. And in the bits of the garden that the sun had reached it was positively balmy. I had to keep an eye on him to make sure he didn’t get his sleeves wet as he experimented with what would and wouldn’t float in the water barrel.
It was a beautifully clear and sunny day. It would have been perfect for a bit of a ramble but my daughter had not left the buggy and I did not fancy getting to the point where 2.5 stone of toddler would turn to me and demand to be carried the rest of the way. That’s not what I signed up for.
This evening by contrast it has gone very cold. My weather app tells me we are down to 0°. It’s still very clear. There’s the thinnest sliver of moon and a couple of planets visible nearby, probably Venus and something else I have yet to identify.
Granddaughter Number Two sent us a a screenshot of a kind of messaging service they have in the her student accommodation block at York University. The message read: “Whoever is playing the flute or whatever in ……….. College, I just want you to know it’s so f*****g loud we can hear it in the new quad.”
It was accompanied by a comment: “It’s the Pied Piper collecting all the silverfish”.
Priceless! It’s nice to know there are still young people with a sense of humour.,
Why are modern buildings like that hall of residence infested with silverfish, though? It could be worse but it’s not pleasant. Mind you, back in the late 1960s I lived in a student flat infested with mice - much worse!
Yesterday I read that Starbucks is about to start selling coffee infused with olive oil in Italy. It will be introduced to US branches in the spring and to UK and Japan branches later in the year. Friends and family know my aversion to coffee “infused” with anything other than coffee. You can keep your vanilla latter, caramel latter, apple pie latte, or minced pie latte - indeed, instead of keeping them you should throw them in the bin. Coffee should be coffee, in my opinion. And I don’t want oat milk or soy milk or any other kind of plant based milk, thank you very much. And I know that there is a long tradition of drizzling oil on bread and even sampling tiny shot glasses of beautiful extra virgin olive oil. However, I don’t want it in my coffee.
I read that Starbucks only opened their first store in Italy in 2018 I’m amazed they’ve kept going. It’s probably a trendy, young people thing. Oops! Am I unjustifiably stereotyping the young? Never mind! When plans were announced to open that first branch in Milan (in what the US coffee giant said it was “the most beautiful Starbucks in the world”, housed in a 2,300 sq metre former post office in Piazza Cordusio) there were calls by some coffee lovers for a boycott of Starbucks. A Starbucks spokesman said: “We are not coming to teach Italians how to make coffee. We’re coming here with humility and respect, to show what we’ve learned.”
We shall see!
On the subject of Starbucks, here’s a joke (of sorts) I came across yesterday:
“Today in Starbucks when I placed my order, I gave the name ‘Spartacus’ as a joke. When they called my name to pick up my order I stood up and yelled, “I am Spartacus!” Everyone turned to look at me. Than an old man sitting in the corner stood up and yelled, “No! i am Spartacus!” Then, one by one, everyone in the Starbucks stood up and yelled, “I am Spartacus!””
I could almost wish to have been there.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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