Today feels like England, it's raining and grey (but not cold - hooray) and the palaver and hoo-haa of valentines day is finally over. When i was single i always thought that v-day would be much better as a couple. Now it's nice to share gifts (anytime is a good time for gifts in my book) and make a special meal, but the red hearts and must be with someone you love still annoys me a lot. In a way it's somewhat better in the states as it encompasses everyone you share joy with in your life (kids/secretary/useful service people) and not just your main bonk...well lets hope not!
I think I subscribe to the Tinholt theory that P&K came up with...if you buy flowers for your sweetie at least once a month to tell them how special they are, then you can eschrew the ridiculous overpriced stuff on v-day, knowing they already know you love them. Of course we always give him a hard time for being tight due to his Dutch ancestry....but that's another story.
Anyways...went to Florida to hang with the MIL and FIL last weekend. The locals all complained cos it got down to a cool 14 degree's on Saturday...but still felt pretty warm to me, and by the time it was 25 on Sunday we were lying by the pool in our togs blinding the locals with body parts that had not seen daylight since Malaysia
Florida is a very good place for license spotting, since it is packed full of 'snowbirds' (retired people who've done their time in cold states). We saw plates from Ontario, New York and just about every cold place in between those states and Florida...we may have easily been the youngest people in town as well.
MIL and FIL have a nice little condo overlooking a lake and it was good to spend time with them. Went to a craft fair and bought some guava jelly (closest I'm going to get to feijoa's for a while) and swamp cabbage salsa...remember when you were growing up and you learnt that you could cook and eat the heart of the cabbage tree...that's swamp cabbage in Florida. It did remind me a lot of the BOP, cold crisp mornings and warm days...not to mention large groves of oranges (sorta pre-kiwifruit BOP actually). MIL wanted to go to a grove to pick oranges and take a picture of us next to an orange tree(strange but true)...had flashbacks to living in kati and when the owner figured this out I got to spend the next 15 minutes regurgitating all I knew about kiwifruit production as he wants to have a go growing them. Who would have thought all those seasons of picking/packing/pruning/pollinating would come handy some day on the other side of the world. By the time we got to T-bar vs Pergola everyone's else eyes were glazing over so we headed of with some very tasty oranges and the knowledge that I might have planted the seeds of the next kiwifruit market....Oops.
Didn't do much else cept eat lots of fresh fish and lolling around reading and catching up...then managed to get an earlier plane home to a very sodden Chicago.
Off to sit through 2 hours of someone's presentation of a test plan...might need some coffee.
No comments:
Post a Comment