12 Jan 2008

ICE SCULPTURE EXPOSITION IN BRUGGE (Belgium)

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"skinny" pictures are here




Cyber Cruise participation

Last wednesday I went to Brugge to see the Exposition of Ice Sculptures which is done each year since 2000.

The Belgian railway offers Excursion tickets with reduced train fees and the entrance to an event included. Which is very nice. That's why I went by train, it took me only 1 h and I didn't have to bother about a parking space.

When I came out of the station, I saw this :

There were so many bikes I had never seen such a lot in one spot in my whole life ! Not even in Amsterdam where bikes are used by everybody. But here at Brugge's station it really was terrible and on this picture you only see part of the whole lot !

The huge tent where the Exposition took place was just in front of the Station.




There was also a kind of Pub inside another tent where people could eat and drink something before or after the Exposition. Which I think is very nice for our always hungry captitain of the Cyber Cruise Mrs. Lifecruiser. Even a Caroussel for the children.

Then I went in. Please follow me here


10 Jan 2008

SHOW & TELL - FRIDAY FEAST


Kelli is hosting SHOW & TELL. If you wish to participate please go to her blog.


Today for "Show and Tell" I want to show you three pictures of my cat collection. I think I can go on for a while with that because I must have around 400 items by now !



These are two cats my son offered me for my birthday, he had bought them in Egypt. They are very heavy because the blue one is out of Lapislazuli and the other one in Malachite.



another gift from my son, cats carved in a piece of wood



and a very old metal box from 1890 which my neighbor offered me. She had got it from her Grandma.




Appetizer
What is your middle name? Would you change any of your names if you could? If so, what would you like to be called?
My middle name is short. Never thought about changing it. It only appears in my passport and is never used anyway.

Soup
If you were a fashion designer, which fabrics, colors, and styles would you probably use the most? No idea, I am glad I am not, I don't want to be killed like Versace !

Salad
What is your least favorite chore, and why?
I don't have favorite chores ! And anyway if a chore is coming up I would wait until it is not my favorite anymore.

Main Course
What is something that really frightens you, and can you trace it back to an event in your life?

Besides spiders nothing really frightens me and this problem is solved too, because when a spider dares to visit my house cat Pookie immediately takes care of it and it doesn't have a long life ! I only put her in the same room with the spider close the door and after some rumblings I open the door, the spider has disappeared and Pookie leaks her whiskers !


Dessert
Where are you sitting right now? Name 3 things you can see at this moment.

I am sitting on a chair, I see an unmade bed decorated with cat Rosie and my screen of course with this intellectual questions !





THURSDAY THIRTEEN




13 Reasons to have a cat (or more)

1. My first cat helped me to filter boyfriends and thus not to commit errors. The once who only faked they love cats to please me were eliminated immediately

2. Mr. Gattino had first to convince my cat and then me but that took only one evening.

3. Cats are very good tissus when you are sad

4. Since I have cats I also host mice once in a while

5. Especially one cat always wakes me up at around 4 just to show me how nice it is that I don't have to get up at 6 !

7. You have always company and can talk to them, which looks far better then talking to a wall

8. They always agree with you

8. Purrs and soft fur is good against stress

9. Your kitchen will always be well ranged if you leave any food on the table it could disappear misteriously

10. If anything gets broken you always can blame the cat. She doesn't bother

11. They force you to wash your windshield on a regular base because they decorate it with paw prints

12. They keep your heart in good shape because you have to learn not to drop dead when you open your wardrobe and something jumpes out on you.

13. You are never alone in a bathroom !



9 Jan 2008

WORDLESS WENDSDAY & LIBRAIRIES ON "YOUR SHELVES"




Kim from the website KIMBOOKTU lives in The Hague, in the Netherlands. She has been an avid book lover and bibliophile since she was 18 and one day she decided to start a blog with reading gadgets. So you must come to visit YOUR SHELVES !

If you would like to see your bookshelf on Your Shelves, just write to Kim and send one good photo of your library via this e-mail link.

Information about the rule: Make sure the picture is exactly 500 pixels wide if horizontal. You can add a couple of lines describing your library, but make sure it does not exceed a hundred words (or five lines in Word). Please state your name and where you are from in your e-mail. If you have cataloged your books online via LibraryThing, Shelfari or something else, please send the link to your catalog too.






FASHION 2008

















8 Jan 2008

COMPILED NEWS






Bogota opens 'museum of laziness'
The museum hopes to get people to think about what laziness is
A museum dedicated to laziness has opened in Colombia's capital, Bogota. The event features sofas placed in front of televisions, hammocks and beds - anything associated with the avoidance of work. I would have needed that when I was working ! I think I would have been a very regular visitor


UK's oldest emigrant sails to NZ
Eric King-Turner said he lives "from day to day"
The UK's oldest emigrant has set sail for his new life in New Zealand - at the age of 102.
I don't know if he needed a "green card" and has got a good job, anyway it proves that it is never too late to imigrate !



Sarkozy to wed his supermodel lover Carla Bruni in time to meet Queen
Nicolas Sarkozy will marry his supermodel lover Carla Bruni next month - in time for the two to enjoy a state visit to Britain.The wedding will take place in Paris on February 8 or 9, accordingto a newspaper owned by a close friend of the French president. This will be two weeks after Mr Sarkozy celebrates his 53rd birthday, and less than four months after his divorce from his second wife, Cecilia, also a model.
One thing I have to agree to, this man has taste ! Unfortunately that's not her case. But getting a first lady isn't that bad she only has to close her eyes. Finally there is a president who behaves like a superstar and keeps the paparazzi running ! When I think what the prude Americans did to poor old Clinton ! Can you imagine old Bush divorcing Laura and showing himself at the Niagara falls with a super model ???

The older you get the SMARTER you get, study says
They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks - but whoever came up with that particular adage was probably young and foolish. For contrary to the long-held assumption that brain power peaks between the ages of 18 and 26, new research indicates that it actually increases with age. You can see the result with me !


The Empress of Extravagance: How the Queen Mother left behind more than £7m in debts
When the Queen Mother died in 2002, at the age of 101, the chatelaine of five royal residences and with a vast retinue of more than a hundred servants, the astonishing scale of her expenditure - on haute couture, millinery, jewellery, a stable of 12 racehorses, vintage champagne and lavish entertainment in the manner of a bygone era - had left behind debts of more than £7million, making her arguably the greatest royal spendthrift since the opulent Versailles heyday of Marie Antoinette. And I only have one cleaning woman, 4 cats and no debts ! Life isn't fair !

Blair converts to Catholicism
LONDON: Six months after stepping down as prime minister of Britain, Tony Blair has completed his long-expected conversion to Roman Catholicism from Britain's established faith, Anglicanism, Catholic officials said in a statement. Is he looking for a place in Paradise ? I have heard that only catholics go to heaven, the others are all roasting in hell. That's probably why he converted.


Is Tom Mr. Big in alien church ?


TOM CRUISE has become second-in-command of the alien-obsessed Scientology cult, a new book claims. And author ANDREW MORTON says some followers have speculated that his daughter Suri may have been fathered using FROZEN SPERM from its founder L RON HUBBARD. Now I understand why he suddenly has a child ! With Nicole Kidman it didn't work ! She probably refused insamination.

7 Jan 2008

MANIC MONDAY & FUN MONDAY



MANIC MONDAY LINK
For Manic Monday this week's word is ONE






Lisa @ Lisachaos proposes the following for this funny Monday :

"Let’s meet your pets. I think most of us have at least one pet and I would like to see your fluffy or scaly pal. If you don’t have a camera you can tell us about him/her/them. If you don’t have a pet tell us about a pet you had or a pet you want. If for some weird reason you hate all animals we want to know why gosh-dang-it."

That's a theme I really love and it gives me the opportunity to present you my five cats although some of you know them already from their adventures on my Cat Blog.

For years when we were both working we had two cats. The first one belonged to the whole family but the second one belonged officially to our son. Of course for feeding and vet purposes this cat belonged suddenly also to us.




This is Lisa our oldest cat she will be 17 years old this year. Lisa is a very bullheaded cat when she has something in mind there is nothing to do she always wins. When she decides to be hungry at 3 or 4 am, you have to get up and feed her otherwise she would meauw an opera and scratch whatever comes under her paws. We tried to educate her but it was useless, now we get up, stumble in the kitchen feed her half asleep and climb in our beds again. Then we are allowed to sleep longer.



Arthur was adopted because Mr. Gattino had always dreamt to own a white cat. He is 6 years old and very special. He knows the whole neighborhood and they know him. He usually naps in all their beds too, loves to work under cars and comes home covered with black oil spots. He also loves to climb in cars as soon as a door is open ! All neighbors know it ! He is a very friendly and social cat. He is the one who always has funny adventures and puts himself in the most strangest situations. Since we adopted Rosie he is in love with his little "sister" and plays around with her.



Rosie is 8 months old now, she is the first cat I adopted through Internet, because I wanted a "tuxi" cat with a black mask on her face. She also is the first cat I could follow with my camera from the very beginning and could follow up her development since her birth day. I even have a picture of her with her mother.

Rosie is very affectionated and she shows now to be the most intelligent one. One of her specialities is to make order, that means during the night she collects her 5 little mice "dolls" and puts them neatly around the food bowls. Four around and one in the food ! It makes us laugh every morning. She also takes good care of Arthur and washes him until he gets angry, probably she is afraid that his white fur could seem dirty.



We had enough of course with our 3 cats until one day our son asked us if we could host his two cats for 3 months because he had to move to Amsterdam (NL) for his work. He lived in London and had a house so the cats were used to get in and out. But in Amsterdam he was in a flat and although Pookie (picture above) got used to the inside life quite well, Kim was impossible to keep in a flat. She was so unhappy that she refused to eat.

This happened 5 years ago and the two cats are still here. Of course they could never go back to our son, they are now so used to us.

Pookie is 10 years old now but I also knew her since she was a kitten. She is a very "female" cat, doesn't like Lisa and doesn't like Rosie. But she loves me and she also is a clever cat. She considers Kim who is much bigger as her daughter because she was one year old when our son adopted Kim.




And here is Kim, she really is a beauty but unfortunately that's it. She is very shy only loves cats even the bad once, but doesn't like humans. If I didn't know that she was born at my English friend's house and our son picked her up there, I would think that she had been badly treated when she was a kitten. But she always had a good life and grew up with Pookie. Kim always lives outside but comes in for food and allows us to pet her a little but not too long. She never plays and had never played either even when she was a kitten. She really is a strange cat. Sometimes she just sits there and meauws as if she would talk to herself.

Cats are just like humans, they also have all kind of characters and intelligence levels.

Now you know why we have 5 cats. But I have to say they are never really all together. Sometimes there is not even one cat around and we are sitting alone in the living room. Sometimes they are two or even three but never all five together. They come and go through the cat flap and they also eat whenever they want to. For that Mr. Gattino is the official canopener.

6 Jan 2008

THREE KINGS DAY








Today is the "Three Kings Day" or Epiphany which is very much celebrated in certain European countries. In Italy and Spain it is even more celebrated than Christmas.

In Belgium on Epiphany people eat the ""galette des Rois" (sometimes also called "gateau des Rois). This is a kind of king cake, with a trinket or a bean hidden inside. The person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket becomes king for a year and puts a crown on. This is usually a day where families or friends are getting together and share the "galette" it's usually very funny because everybody wants to find the trinket in his part of cake and become a king !

Yesterday I saw these "galettes" everywhere in Bakeries or Supermarkets. In the News they said that 5.200 bakeries have baked between 200 and 250 galettes each !

Every year other trinkets are invented and in fashion. They are in plastic, ceramic or porcelain. This year I found out that Harry Potter trinkets were on the top list. More traditional families put a little Jesus or a bean as trinket or sometimes also coin. This use exists since 1801.

Trinket samples :





Harry Potter


Star Wars