Monthly archive: February 2009

My birthday surprise, originally uploaded by bitful.

Stuart is taking me to see Avenue Q. I had a hunch this might be the
surprise, and am over the moon that I was right.

Sitting on the middle of the front row of the royal circle right now.
Curtain up in five minutes. Very excited!

Most people don't like growing old and would not be keen on the idea of turning forty-two. I am not. Why should I? Apart from never having been happier or healthier, I am today:

• twenty-one (again);
• the age my mother was when she had me;
• the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Today's Italian word is compleanno, which means birthday.

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• Downloads: bitRipper is a Dead Simple Solution for DVD Ripping

1. Gordon Brown lost the sight in one eye after an accident as a teenager.
2. The salt used to prevent roads from icing does not come from the sea.
3. The Union Flag is not symmetrical.
4. Status Quo covered Men Without Hats' Safety Dance in their 1996 album 'Don't Stop'
5. The original F*** My Life is the French site Vie de merde. Both are 'shadenfreude' websites with short everyday anecdotes of unfortunate moments that ruin someone's day
6. Wasabi has anti-bacterial properties. Via Tim Ferriss.
7. Branston pickle was originally made in the Branston suburb of Barton upon Trent, 5 miles from where my boyfriend's parents live.

Anyone knows how to get this thing off beige chinos?, originally uploaded by bitful.

Only two days ago, this was pure pristine snow.

I'm just back from a great dinner party (Thursday is the new Friday, apparently) with friends. Stunning location, fantastic company, and the sweetest house dog, craving attention, wanting to play – not too much, she kept her dignity didn't she, but you could tell from the wagging tail that she was enjoying every moment.

Today's Italian word is cane, which means dog.

And the London-wide party is over. We all went from giggly snowfights outside work to grumpily trudging through tarmac tarnished sludge while avoiding treacherous ice.

Today's Italian word is fango, which means mud.

Paper-thin pancakes, originally uploaded by bitful.

A friend made these for me tonight. So thin they were see-through,
then sprinkled with grated Parmesan, rolled up and covered with hot
homemade chicken stock.

I wish I was as Italian in the kitchen as he is. Next to him, I feel
like a fraud. In fact, I told him about my tinned food diet and he was
stunned, and then horrified.

This afternoon a friend of mine sent me a text message while bored and stuck at home watching bloody Animal Hospital (his words). He had slipped on the ice and broken a bone in his elbow.

As I believe Animal Hospital is not on at the moment, I asked him if his New Year Detox allowed him to wash painkillers down with gin.

Today's Italian word is ghiaccio, which means ice.

Snow outside my front door this morning, originally uploaded by bitful.

I was happy to be wearing my hiking boots (and that thus they had a
purpose other than taking up precious closed space).

The snow was the only thing everybody seemed to be able to talk about it today. The BBC One six o'clock news talked about it for the first twenty minutes – and then moved on to… the weather forecast!

Mind you I am not complaining since I was sent home from work two hours earlier because of it (which explains how I could catch the six o'clock news for once).

Today's Italian word is neve, which means snow.

Here are the websites I bookmarked into my del.icio.us account over the past seven days:

• Make uTorrent Portable – BitTorrent Client | Portable USB Pen Drive Applications
• How to Make Skype Portable via USB – ReadWriteWeb
• Dual Boot iTunes, Share Library | Tech Corner
• Unclutterer >> Archive >> Preserving digitized photographs
  Information on scanning, back up, organising and album printing services.
• Stretching Exercises for Plantar Fasciitis – Plantar Fasiciitis Treatment Stretches

Screaming Ballerinas live at Madame JoJo's, London, originally uploaded by bitful.

The second from the left is my friend Ollie.

www.myspace.com/screamingballerinas

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7971B9406AFB7F2E

How's your Italian coming along? I'm still hobbling a bit because of the slight foot injury I suffered last month – ba dum chhh ;-)

You now have one month's worth of Italian words. You can check if you remember them all with my Italian one word a day online flashcards.

Today's Italian word is mese, which means month.