Solly as a Rock!!

“Three, two,
two-and-a-quarter… “
(Solly: “You can’t go up again” “Yes, I can, it’s MY countdown”)
“two, one-point-three, one, a half…”
*moment of silence*
“one-256th”
*geeky smile*
“one-512th, one-768th, one-1024th, one-2048th, one-five thousand…”

A friend of mine saw this pretty bag in a shop and immediately thought of me. I truly love her – the friend, the bag, both, who will tell? -, and she will be listed in my will! (Yep, a serious case of handbagaholism)

A series of terrorist attacks in London this morning. Antiglobalists? IRA? Al Quaida?
Bastards!

50 years ago, the local newspaper featured the following article, entitled: Asbestos, nature’s miracle!

If a house wife places a thin asbestos plate on the furnace to prevent her food from burning, she probably does not realise the fact, that this material once was extremely precious. In ancient times, asbestos was more expensive than gold and even considered to be a sacred material! The Greek and Roman emperors wrapped their precious treasures in asbestos sheets to protect them from nature’s most destructive force: fire. Emperor Charles the Great once invited his enemies for diner and threw the table cloth into the fire place afterwards. When he took it out a while later, it was not damaged. The enemy, who did not know a thing about asbestos, thought Charlemagne was a magician, got scared and blew off war.

Nowadays, things are very different. Magic does not scare away the enemy – terrorists, president Bush, poverty – anymore and men in white suits from specialised companies have to remove the ‘sacred material’ from buildings…

Since 2003, Tuesday evenings in July and August mean: Valkenbergconcert! It’s our weekly ‘Party – slash picnic – in the Park’. If it’s not raining – sun and warmth are optional – we go. During the day, e-mails and text messages are sent to and received from friends. Who goes? Who brings what? For example, we always provide the picnic – one side is fleece, the back is plastic : ideal for wet grass -, seatsing for four; Xtal always brings great tapas, everyone brings a bottle of rosado…

Anyway, at 8-ish PM, I take the bottle of rosado out of the fridge, put it in my ‘Valkenbergconcert-grab bag’ (with cloth, plastic cups and – very important – an opener for the bottles) and jump on the backseat of my bicycle. MyLove drives, off course. On the way to the park, we both ring friends to check their whereabouts. Normally, we sit at the same spot every week.

There’s two groups of people around, very easy to distinguish from each other. The music lovers and the ambiance lovers. We belong to the latter, without doubt. The first group stands, or even dancespreferablyly close to the podium. The second group sits, on their cloths, behind the first group. As long as the music can be heard, we’re ok. The music lovers buy their drinks at the bar, the ambiance lovers bring their own. Bottles of rosado, cans of beer… In fact, they bring a lot of stuff, anything that enhances the ambiance. Food – mostly pringles and tapas, but last year I’ve seen BBQs and lobsters – candles aincensence sticks – smells nice and annoys the mosquitoes.

At 11 PM we went home, slightly tipsy. The music was very ‘Buena Vista Social Club’, the ambiance was chill. We said hi to several friends, the conversation varied between very profound and absolute nonsense. We had a great eve.

Same time next week?

I wasn’t in the best mood the past couple of weeks. Outside I smiled, played happy Solly, but inside… I don’t want to go into detail, lets just say the bucket flooded. Anyway, I did not want to “share the joy” with y’all, hence the silence on this blog. I have picked myself off the floor and promise to log as often as possible – daily, or at least a couple of times a week!
update @ 13.00 PM: As a token of my good will, I have given this log a mini-make over. What do you think about it?