the (evening) blue hour

I enjoy my spring evenings. Oh, I bloody do.

This week, I have met a lovely blogger from faraway parts. 

(As in far away to mine, of course. It's all a question of perspective and relativity, time and space, existence and causality. In short, metaphysical palaver. Short? Shortish. Francesca, anything to add?) 

More about that soon(ish). 

(As in writing about the lovely blogger from faraway parts and her visit to da 'Dam; not my inability to keep sentences short and/or the metaphysical character of everything, that is ;P)

Ninjaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

"most men..." says pien

Miss Pienduzz has a rad series going on called "Most men bring flowers", which I already referred to last week, on my kitchen tap post.  I have now realised she was, in turn, referring to Jane's post here.

Not sure about "most men" actually bringing flowers, but analysing the cliché would be a totally different post. What I know is that Pien's brings her cow tongue, fungus, a dead grouse or even a pony (the latter alive and kicking); while Jane's brings her jamón serrano. Ole y ole.

There have been a few occasions when I have thought of this series and the below was one of them.
I am really, speedy ninja, you see. I took the below pics in June 2010. Tra la la.

Last year, one day in June, I got home to find this fabulous combo: gorgeous flowers (anyone knows the name of this sort?) and a sealant gun. Hooray! All a lass needs, really.

The top bit of the living room windows was duly ninja-sealed.

However, the flowers actually faded changing colour quite quickly. Does any of you flower connoisseurs have any idea of the reason why? (I'm thinking Francesca or Malo here, but... anyone?) They were absolutely beautiful but a tad delicate.

Oh yeah, all that whining and moaning about the weather has been heard and listened too.
The sun is out. It is proper warm, no gloves, no scarf. Woo hoo. I have hung the washing outside, have all windows and doors open (bit carried away, I know) and I am listening to Elvis Presley full blast. Woo hoo. Again. And again: Woo hoo.

Off to the streets to bask in the sun now. See yas.

there's a posh tap on my kitchen counter

Yup. A brand new tap (last year's b-day pressie from that boy) just arrived. This evening.

We defo are quick (I was born in May) and romantic around these here parts.

Seriously, the thing is shiny and fab and I love it. Plus, you know, just like a diamond, this one's forever.

Late and poor cv but I'm in bed, knackered and typing on a phone to boot. Woo hoo. Ninja moderna.

Oh yeah, this is my entry to this week's cv, currently hosted by Miss Francesca, Hostess Extraordinaire.

However, I would like to link to Miss Pienduzz and her Most men bring flowers series here (particularly this one, which had me chuckling at the time.) I thought of her while typing this post (I still have another one on this subject saved somewhere, as a draft. It has been there for, well, a while. I shall try to dust it out of its lethargy this week.)

anything goes or the only way is up, "a la catalana"

Plan was writing a long hilarious post (being this my theme of choice and all), but this ninja has managed to get the best cold of the season so far. Achoo. Bloody 'ell. Third time this year.

Anyway, I have had this video up my sleeve for a bit planning on posting it at some point. Well. Point. Reached.

Castellers have been added to UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, which is just yabadabadoo.
Will you look at those colours. Ha.

"Spain - Human towers - Castells are human towers built by members of amateur groups, usually as part of annual festivities in Catalonian towns and cities. The traditional setting is the square in front of the town hall balcony. The human towers are formed by castellers standing on the shoulders of one another in a succession of stages (between six and ten). Each level of the tronc, the name given to the second level upwards, generally comprises two to five heavier built men supporting younger, lighter-weight boys or girls. The pom de dalt – the three uppermost levels of the tower – comprises young children. Anyone is welcome to form the pinya, the throng that supports the base of the tower. Each group can be identified by its costume, particularly the colour of the shirts, while the cummerbund serves to protect the back and is gripped by castellers as they climb up the tower. Before, during and after the performance, musicians play a variety of traditional melodies on a wind instrument known as a gralla, setting the rhythm to which the tower is built. The knowledge required for raising castells is traditionally passed down from generation to generation within a group, and can only be learned by practice."

The new additions are wonderful and include (amongst many others) the Mediterranean diet, Croatia's gingerbread, Spain's Flamenco, Korea's Daemokjang traditional wooden architecture, Japan's Kumiodori, traditional Okinawan musical theatre, falconry, the gastronomic meal of the French... I am loving this "intangible cultural heritage" category. Intangible. Fabulous.

P.S. One of my bestest friends, E alias Topo, just posted about this yesterday too. Plus she seems to have also gotten herself a champion cold. Raaaaa. Connected in the distance or what. Should you be able to read Spanish, just head this way.

For more random corner views, get yourselves over here. 

green fingers... yup. from squashing bloody caterpillars, like.

I really keep trying my best at this greenery-growing-on-the-balcony-lark. But the bloody evil green caterpillars keep coming back (and I have moved house) to eat up my bloody plants. Bloody hell, I had to get rid of my basil, chives, parsley and lavender yesterday. For chrissake, I'm not the best of urban gardeners as it is. This is not helping.

So, apart from crunching (bollocks) and unsuccessfully (bollocks) trying to replant the broken (bollocks) branch where one tiny little cherry tom was starting to appear (double bollocks), I reckon I've saved the tomato plant.

It was given to me about two weeks ago. This is me carrying it on the bike basket that night.
Quality photography. Warning: It may cause drowsiness.

I was in motion, so was the bike and there was no light.
However, it is much better than the first one I tried to take. Look:

Wey hey. How pretty is that! My bike light going all sparkle mad.

This is what one end of the balcony looked like last week (I wanted to show the extremely impressive growth of above-pictured plant to its generous previous owners.)

Anyway, the tomato plant is a good 10 cm. higher now (that's about 4" for you non-metric nutters) minus one branch sporting one minute tomatito plus a bunch of squiggly green bastard caterpillars.

Bastard things, trying to charm me with their circus flourishes and curlicues. They had to go. Unfortunately all my herbs had to go with them. Bastards.

Well, I'm happy the olive tree is going strong and so is the black-eyed Susan vine. I also planted some random flowers that were supposed to be coming out by now, but haven't seen much colourful progress on those yet. Oh well... End of boring green post. Nearly.

I reckon next time I see caterpillars I'm going to try and pimp them just like Antonia does her snails (always in a responsible and well-informed manner, bien sur.) Any ideas? Aimee? Jen? You wouldn't happen to have any random tutorials on the subject kicking about, would you?

You say tomato, I say tomato.

no corner view, yes overdue "gracias chicas"

So... gracias chicas.
It's been yonks since I received these wonderfully whimsical magnets from the (I suspect in person even more) wonderfully whimsical Miss ArtsyVillager Extraordinaire. If you don't know who I'm talking about, then, bloody get yourselves over here, to magical artsyville, and PRONTO.

Seriously, I got Aimee's super magnets -which I adore and refer to often and not only with imaginary friends, at the end of January. Pretty rubbish it's taken me this long to publicly thank her and engage in some seriously shameless promotion of her stuff. But, hey enough about me and my always endearing ninja virtues and onto the matter at hand.

Magnets. Lovely magnets. Loooots of 'em (pssst, over here.)

Orange space man there is going ¡Joder! while performing a major eyeroll and thinking there's no fucking way all these bleeding magnets are sharing this lamp with him. While, on the other side, funky chickadee just chuckles and tells him "have a vodka dear, I think our new companions are fan-fucking-tastic but, you know, if you have sharing issues, it's also ok to say no" and thinking to itself, I should really avoid toxic people (spacey or not.)

So, that's what happened in January and then, around the second week of February I got a cool house-warming card from this other Missy with the Mad Curly Hair here. Yup. Another space cadet action from ninja's part and another long period of time elapsed. Right, so here's my public thank you to Jane and go give her new (full to the brim with beautiful photographs) shop the fanfare it should have (not that it needs it, but she loves the company, don't you just? ;)

So... FANFARE. MUSIC. SHOPPY SHOP. GET GOING. NOW. :)

This was quite a funny one to receive being Amsterdam my adoptive city of choice and the place where I live. It is rather surreal receiving a card from where you are from someone that isn't there. El mundo al revés, love it.
Anyway, girlie wurlies, thanks a bunch. It's actually a good thing I've waited until now to post these as the light is finally good. It was really dark and grey and crap back then and the photos wouldn't have done your pressies any justice. Well, as usual, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Tra la la la.

Note 1: No, I'm not on commission or anything. Just the spring making me go all happy and soft inside and out. It won't last.
Note 2: Yup. I'm playing with da blog and it's all over the shop (pun intended) right now but spring beckons so I'm off to play outdoors and shall try and sort it out and make it look prettier again tomorrow.

bloganiversario, hip hip hip...

So, here we are.

One whole year gone by.

Quite a bit of nonsense later, still giggling away, which was the main point of this thing.

Deep, huh?

Hooray.

mis plantitas

Ages ago, I had threatened a certain Miss Gardener Extraordinaire to show her a pic of my plants when she posted this one. She's been posting a lot on herbs and the like lately (I absolutely dig this drawing) so I thought I'd be a ninja of my word and finally show her mine. Well, you know what I mean.



So there. First one wearing slippers and pjs in my very untidy balcony. That basil's still going strong, by the way. What's more, it's blooming. In November!
I'm still totally clueless about the whole planting thing. Mine just do what they want, honestly. See here and here and, okay here if you're not already bored to death (which you should be by now), for proof. (Proof that I haven't got the foggiest about what I'm doing, that is.)

Second one, a lovely lovely suzanne met de mooie ogen (black-eyed susan) vine that I got as a present from the boy in June and that I managed to kill off in about a month. Great.

I went to the shop after re-potting it and seeing that things were still not looking good, and was told "no direct sunlight". Oh poo. Too late. That's exactly where it'd been all the time.

To replace it, I'm buying one myself next June but this time I'll get the instruction manual too.

Last pic. Love that spraying that plant with water created an invisible still life of sorts on the balcony table. (By the way, that one came full of green and ugly caterpillars, the bastards. However, I managed to get rid of them and save it. Yay. At least one successful rescue in that balcony. Go Green Ninja, go).

Okay, off to break a wall now. No, really. With a big hammer and a golden stone chisel. That's what we do around here on a Sunday morning. It's late enough to make the neighbours crazy, right? Right. There we go.

of orange vests, leaves, rants and whoopee

In keeping with my (lately most irregularly posted) a-ranting + a-moaning series, I was about to moan about men in shiny orange vests cutting, clipping, trimming, pruning and basically getting the park tidy and ready for the winter.

It's not about them I want complain though, they tend to do a splendid job at cutting, clipping, trimming, pruning and getting the park ready for the winter. (See that first photo down there? That's a perfectly neat pile of... crap?) What really bugs me is that they are at it, with their heavy machinery and stuff, first thing in the morning making my cycle to work a perilous one again (ahem).

So anyway, instead of having a sulk (I'll rant soon about female joggers wearing the wrong undergarments, another interesting park feature), it got me thinking on how everyone's posting pics of red leaves and brown stuff, nature, parks, trees and the like. Exactly the same thing seems to happen every year. Spring and autumn.

It reminded me of this fab post by the hilarious and articulate Antonia at whoopee, which really sums up the subject in a way I never could.

Really, go and have a peek. She's fun.

Right, next entry will be on shiny orange vests or, indeed, joggers' too often too bouncy bosom.