oh! also...

...an appeal for followers: if you read this blog and like it, would you be very kind and follow me via this ‘join this site’ button over there ------>

(Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!)

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Picture from: cake with giants.

daisies and danger.

Last week I got caught up reading the Hunger Games series so spent a lot of the week (in the house, or on the bus, or in the staff-room after eating soup) with my nose in one of those books. After reading a lot of (interesting but) difficult texts* for university it was a nice change to read something that was compelling and didn't require too many literary dictionaries to decode.

(*When I say 'difficult texts', I mean ones like T.S. Eliot’s 'The Wasteland' (aka ‘I stuck lots of bits of other people’s poems together to make something which is now unintelligible’), Samuel Beckett’s ‘(If you’re) Waiting for Godot (you’ll be waiting a while)’ (which is actually hilarous and I loved it, but watch: this), and Don DeLillo’s ‘White *I-have-a-very-bleak-view-of-humanity* Noise’. No irreverence intended, of course.)

This week, I'm trying to be a little bit more productive so I have started work on my dissertation research, tidied my tip of a room, and I am going to start studying the Highway Code! As of yet I have managed to avoid killing anyone with the car (...if you don’t count that guy with the beard last week), so on those grounds I'd say the driving lessons are still going okay.

Anyway! I thought I'd put up some amusing road signs that I came across in a book today:

[one.] Beware of the ducks (thankfully I've not come across too many ducks yet. This makes me think of the story 'Make Way for Ducklings' which my Mum read out to my little brother when he still qualified as 'little').

[two.] Watch out for Mr. Darcys. 

[three.] Beware! ‘Migratory toads crossing’ (...?)

[four.] Watch out for tankers...

[five.] Not to make you feel anxious or anything, but are you wearing your scuba suit?

♥

(The pictures of daisies are not really relevant to anything in this post. I just quite like them. They were taken in: the Botanic Gardens last summer, in the cutest little town called Cromarty two summers ago, in St Andrews about five summers ago.)

did you know...?

Toast comes from the French word 'Toster' or Latin 'Tostum' (to scorch), and was invented in the eighteenth century. In olden times 'the toast' used to be a slice of roasted bread - toast - put into a jug of beer and it was the last to drink who got the toast. He then had to make a speech. Hence came the present day connotation 'The Toast'.

 ~ From The Book of Sandwiches by Gwen Robyns.

(Well, I never...!)

You might be wondering why I own a book called 'The Book of Sandwiches'? Well, I bought it today from a second-hand bookshop (for a mere 30p. I'm no expert, but as far as my knowledge of sandwich-related literature goes, I'd say I found myself a bargain). I bought it as part of my dissertation research. I'm writing mine on 'Food and Found Stories' (...it's a bit more complicated than that. But, yeah, basically my research over the summer is people-watching in cafes and supermarkets, and reading recipe books for short story ideas. Brilliant!)

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(Oh, p.s. You may have noticed that the picture in this post is not of toast or sandwiches. It's of a scone. First of all: well done! Second of all: I can assure you that there were a number of very delicious sandwiches just a few inches away from where this scone was (in The Butterfly and the Pig). I just like this picture better than the sandwich ones.)

du Boursin.

I just remembered about this advert and had to share it. Ha ha.

♥

(p.s. after four years years of 'not getting round to it yet', I've finally started learning how to drive. It's a lot of coordinating, and it's a tiny bit off-putting when other cars will insist on driving past you on the road... but I'm actually quite enjoying it so far!)