Monday 28 January 2013

Words words words


I seem to have been very busy since we arrived back from our wonderful holiday – now just fading into a lovely but distant memory.  Nothing really to do with writing either.  We have a gorgeous new puppy Lola, a tiny toy poodle.  She’s an absolute delight but quite demanding as puppies are.  A few days after she arrived we had our tiny garden dug up so that we could have a little plunge pool installed.   I really had no idea how much mess that would generate – a mountain of soil – for such a tiny pool?  Lola thought the whole process great fun and was very happy to go and play in the large brown sand dune with the workmen, so I spent a lot of time dragging her back in.  Unfortunately, even though she arrived housetrained (at 9 weeks) she lost the plot in all the chaos so quite a lot of training has had to be fitted in.  Ho hum – but we now have a little pool, a newly laid lawn and (fingers crossed) once again a virtually housetrained puppy. 

I don’t know why it is, whether they hold secret union meetings in the small hours, but almost all of our appliances contrived to pack up at once.  I may have mentioned we are raw vegans (the last nine years) so I am very dependent on my Vitamix blender and my dehydrator.  Well the dehydrator fan motor packed up – not so simple to replace when one considers it is a Swiss make, bought in England and carried in a suitcase to South Africa.   At virtually the same time the jug of the blender developed a leak – it appears to need a tiny washer, perhaps half an inch across but with a specific moulding.  Simple to replace one would think?  Just a washer?  Should cost pennies.  Ha ha.  The only thing the agents can offer is a complete new blade assembly – costing well over $120 US.   We are now looking for someone who can make us a washer – perhaps whittle it down from a larger one.   So I am without my Vitamix and also unable to make any of my dehydrated crackers and bread.  Then yesterday to add insult to injury I was printing something and the printer stopped working.  I took the whole printer to an ink shop who tested it and said it seemed fine – didn’t even need new ink.  Took it home, tried again – no joy.  Today (Monday ) I took it back to the computer shop where I had bought it – who will look at it – for half the cost of a new one.   So I was feeling very hard done by.

Fortunately I am easily pleased by small things.  I received my Word of the Day email – from Wordsmith. ( http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/   A great website and they send such interesting words – interesting if not all useful.  Some time ago they gave the word, which I have forgotten for ‘that place in the middle of your back that you can’t reach’.  My first thought was ‘well I don’t have one of those’; having a short body and long limbs I can reach everywhere on my back – someone else said the same in the comments).  Today’s word was overmorrow, with the fairly obvious meaning of the day after tomorrow.  Such a nice word - I’ll make an concerted effort to add it to my vocabulary.  Not just a word someone has made up either – first recorded usage 1535.   Just getting an email with such a nice word has made me very happy – I shall go and take a dip and forget about the appliances.  Who needs them anyway?  What’s wrong with a knife and chopping board?  And why print when I can email? 

Till next time J