Not all pets are furry........

So this post is for Coastal Aussie, who appears to be something of a frog woman. I made a comment on her blog about having toads as pets and so she asked if I had any photos of them. Well, I didn't, but it made me think that I should. So off I trot with my trusty Nikon and here, ladies and gentlemen, are the results. Now, you are all going to have to admit that they really are very cute, warts and all.

Just in case you are wondering, they are oriental fire-bellied toads (Bombina orientalis) and they do make great pets. They are very easy to keep and require very little attention. All they really need is a smattering of crickets every few days and that is about it. I will clean out their aquarium about once a year - this generally happens when the pump starts to cough and splutter and then finally refuses to do anything but make sucky, grating and very irritating noises. I would have to say that the only real downside to them is that they do require live food - they will not eat anything that is not moving. A cricket can be sitting right on top of their heads and the toads will just sit there. As long as the cricket stays still, it is quite safe. So, I guess I have to admit that they are not the brightest of animals, but then neither are my cats! They also have limitations in terms of sitting on laps and being all warm and furry and they don't do well in the park or on long walks in the country - but then neither do my cats! They can do the warm and furry bit, but that is about it. In fact, I am beginning to realise that my pets really aren't much good at anything at all, except, of course, being very, very cute!

A Brief Moment of Contentment.

For those of you that are friends with me on Facebook, you will have seen that I have been suffering from sunburnt hands and that, despite unusual punishment to my thighs, I am still walking. All of this is a result of a rather ambitious bike ride on the weekend. OK, so it was not the Tour de France - it did not even include a small hillock, let alone the Alps, and it was only 30km long. It turns out that was about 15km too long! Mr. DBM and I are not exactly couch potatoes, but we don't get out on our bikes very often - let's just say that I had to dust mine and clear off the cobwebs - so we were using muscles that don't get used too often. I ended up with very sore thighs, he knackered his knees and both our bums are still recovering from 30kms worth of juddering and jarring. The lesson learnt from all of this is that cycling is probably not the sport for us and that we should probably stick to hiking!

Having said all of that, I did enjoy a brief moment of contentment. It was on the trip home and my screaming thighs were demanding a rest. So, we found an isolated bench just off the trail. This bench faced out, with a panoramic view of the bay - just sand and sea as far as the eye could see. Soft, wispy-white clouds floated past against a backdrop of azure blue. A swallowtail butterfly fluttered by and a bald eagle glided lazily overhead. I lay my head on Mr. DBM's shoulder and closed my eyes. I could hear a bird chirping in a nearby bush and the wind rustling through the long grass growing along the trail. A faint breeze trailed its soft, warm fingers across my face. In the distance there was the faint hum of a small plane, but otherwise all was quiet, all was still, all was well with the world. Of course, it didn't last - it couldn't last.......one minute all is perfect, the next I have a crick in my neck, the distant hum of the plane has become an annoying, angry buzz and some small child is screaming at a flustered parent. So the bubble burst and everything returned to normal. Still, it was a little bit of peace in a world full of hustle and bustle, noise and distractions.

This reminds me of an advert that Lexus has run. A guy driving along an empty desert road, the sun at just the right level in the sky to make everything look gorgeous, hints of gold, red and orange on the rocks, sand and vegetation. A bunny rabbit hopping away from the vehicle - nowhere near the wheels and so in no danger of being squashed horribly. The breeze coming in through the open window is gently ruffling the guy's shirt and hair - all is perfect. The driver realizes this and starts to think that this is the perfect moment..........until..........he wonders what is for supper, the spell is broken and he thinks "Shoot!" Of course, we all know that what he actually thinks is "Shit!", but god forbid this word would actually be used in a commercial. Well, the world would go to hell in a hand basket, wouldn't it? A bit like the brilliant advertising used by French Connection U.K. Some bright spark must have thought all her holidays had come at once when she thought of this one - oooooh, let's call it FCUK - that could easily be mistaken for F#*K, and just think of all the people who are going to get their knickers in a knot over it, think of all the free advertising that we are going to get.........Brilliant, and it worked like a charm. All I have to say to those people with knotted knickers - Get Over It! I think that we have bigger issues to worry about and bigger fish to fry.........Now that has made me wonder what is for supper?!

So, what do you think she said.....?

It is Friday, I have just had two rather large G and Ts and I am feeling a little silly. So, I thought that I needed a little silly post to go along with my mood - for once, there is absolutely no edumicational content to this post! It is the end of the week, it is sunny and it is a long weekend.........

So, what do you think Willow is saying to her sister, Tess?

Mr. DBM seems to think that it might be something along the lines of "Tess, you really are a bit weird." This stems from the fact that she really is a bit weird. She seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in the basement, just staring at objects. One day, it is the washing machine, then it is a chair and today it was the wall. She just sits there, staring. Don't you think that it is wonderful how much we love our pets (insert children, other half, family etc) despite all their little faults? English Mum has a greyhound that she and her family obviously love dearly, despite the fact that he appears to have a roo loose in the paddock. My Tess is apparently a sandwich short of a picnic, but I love her none-the-less. At least we are willing to admit that our loved ones are not perfect. Nothing bugs me more than parents who claim to have perfect children! Well, perhaps there are some things.................

Scents of the Past

As I sit here and gaze out of my front window, I can see several containers full of bluebells. They are a little late this year, due to the cold spring that we have had, but definitely better late than never. I just love bluebells. I love their colour and their simplicity. Their delicate heads, rising above a carpet of shining, emerald green. I also love bluebells because they remind me of home. The first time I left home and moved down to Exeter to do my first degree, one of the things that I missed the most were the bluebell woods back home. That carpet of bright blue, beneath the brilliant green of freshly opened beech leaves, so new, so vibrant, the sunlight shinning through the leafy canopy, dappling the rippling sea of bluebells beneath. To this day, every time I see a bluebell, I think of home and I wish I could be transported to those bluebell woods........

Recently, in her blog, English Mum asked her readers what made them happy. I immediately thought of my cats - burying my head in their warm, soft fur, listening to the most relaxing sound in the world - a cat purring. Just thinking about them makes me smile. I also thought of daffodils, their cheery yellow heads, bobbing in the wind, reminding us all that Winter is on its way out and Spring is just around the corner - really, it is, you just have to be patient. Daffodils also remind me of home. More specifically, they remind me of my Granddad, who had the most wonderful garden in the world. Last night, I couldn't sleep. This is what happens of you drink too much water before going to bed. It is all very well going on and on about staying hydrated, but if that means you have to get up five times during the night.......I guess I have to choose between being dehydrated or sleep deprived, and after last night, sleep wins out over hydration every time! Still, it did give me lots of time to let my mind wander, skipping back to the past and meandering through the scents and sounds of my childhood. I started to think of all the things that made me happy now and realised that many of them make me happy because they remind of my childhood. Let's look at a few examples:

Some of the smells that make me yearn for the past:

Lavender and lilac

Wallflowers - maybe not the prettiest of flowers, but they have the scent of heaven.

Roses, mainly the old, rambling rose that we had growing over our shed in our garden. Also, another reminder of my Grandad, who grew some of the biggest and showiest roses that I have ever seen.

Box hedges - this may seem like an odd one, since they are not much too look at and their smell is not exactly sweet. However, we used to have box hedges in our garden and every time I smell one, I am transported right back home, playing in that garden.

Tomatoes - I don't even particularly like tomatoes, nor did I as a child, but the smell - oh my God, straight back to my Granddad's greenhouse, picking baby tomatoes. I can almost taste them as I sit here typing.

Sage brush and ponderosa pine, reminding me of a summer spent in Utah.

You will notice how many of these are flowers that remind me of either my garden or my granddad's garden as I was growing up. There are many more, and whenever I hit the garden centre, my choice of flowers nearly always reflects the gardens of my past - dog daisies and giant red poppies, lupines and hollyhocks, buddleia and delphiniums and pansies, we mustn't forget pansies - my Dad was smitten with pansies........... Oh for a large garden that I could fill with flowers. Unfortunately, we have a garden the size of a postage stamp and Mr. DBM has his own ideas about gardens and their uses. If he had his way, it would be full of lettuces and spinach, strawberries and raspberries, onions and garlic. Hang on a minute - it is! It is quite amazing how many vegetables you can fit into one tiny garden. Not that I am against growing vegetables - I think that it is a great idea and we should all do it, but I do have to draw the line somewhere. Right now, that line is drawn at chickens living in the garage and a sheep to keep the grass short. Again, great idea, but we really do need a bit more space before I can allow the introduction of farm animals to our urban Eden.

While most of my strongest memories are triggered by scent, there are also certain sounds that have a similar effect. I have been to Australia several times now, and I always look forward to hearing the galahs. I know, they are not the prettiest, or the smartest and definitely not the most melodious of birds, but their song is just so Australia. As is the kookaburra. How can anyone hear that bird without smiling and starting to laugh? One of the most prominent sounds of my childhood is the sound of a cricket bat hitting a ball. Mostly, this is a good memory, although having two brothers knocking in cricket bats could potential drive you nuts pretty quickly. Then there is music - ah, now that is a whole new post, but I will mention one sound bite of my past that starts the memory juices flowing - the theme tune of Grandstand. Sitting on the floor of my grandparent's living room, with a small stool across my legs, eating a boiled egg with soldiers..........I still have that stool. I finally persuaded Mum that it would be OK to give it to me and let me bring it to Canada.

All of these memories are happy memories of a wonderful, carefree childhood. A while ago, I wrote about how luck had little to do with the life Mr. DBM and I had made for ourselves (Special Offer of the Day). However, I am very willing to admit that the halcyon days of my childhood were due to luck - the luck of having a family full of love and laughter. We didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have a lot of material things, but we did have a lot of fun and many a hectic holiday, chaotic family gathering or frenzied family outing and we are now very lucky to have a lot of fond memories of our past. These memories now shape my present and my future. Perhaps only in small ways, such as the flowers that I chose for my gardens, but they are always there, influencing how I live my life today.

Tulipomania

In my last post, I asked if anyone was interested in learning a bit about tulips - I got no response. I assume this means that you, my loyal readers, are not dying to know about tulips. Do you think that is going to stop me from telling you anyway? Hell no, this is my blog and I am going to write about whatever I want to - so there!

Warning - educational information follows.

Would you believe me if I told you that tulips nearly ruined the economy of a certain country famed for its tulips? Would you believe that a grown man would chose to spend vast sums of money on a single flower? A flower that he might buy before he even knew what it would look like, which would then flower for a few, brief days and then wither and die, not even leaving offspring that might look the same? Absolute madness, if you ask me, but it happened all the same.

We are talking about Holland in the 1630s and we are talking tulipomania - an apparently well studied economical event that nearly ruined Holland. People went mad over tulips. I kid you not - men really did spend vast sums of money to buy a tulip. Now, everyone can understand why someone might want to spend large sums of money on a work of art - let's say a Rembrandt or a Van Gogh, for example. This would be considered an investment - you may not even like the painting, you may lock it up in your cellar for years, but it will still be there in years to come and it will still probably be worth a lot of money. But this just doesn't apply to our tulip. Let's take the most famous of the tulips around at the height of tulipomania - the Semper Augustus (see picture). I would hope anyone can see that this is a gorgeous flower, a feast for the eyes, the rich colours, the delicate and intricately feathered petals are a marvel indeed. But do you really think that anyone could be daft enough to spend over 6,000 florins on one bulb back in 1635? Just to give you some idea how much this was - an average income back then was around 150 florins. Let's say an average income now is $50,000 - that would mean that some numbnut just paid approximately $2,000,000 for a tulip! Such ridiculous sums of money for a flower that will wither and die. Why would anyone do that? I really don't know - perhaps you have to ask someone who has bucket loads of cash lying around, may be they would think that it is worth it. Now, I can tell you that many rich Dutch men bought the tulips for status reasons - can you imagine trying to keep up with the Joneses if they ever got a Semper Augustus in their front garden? I also know that many a man made his fortune by speculating and trading in tulips. However, in 1637, some bright spark suddenly turned around and said "Eh up? Why would anyone spend this much money on a poncey flower?" Everyone had second thoughts, the market collapsed and many people were left with nothing but a few worthless tulip bulbs.

One of the big questions for me was why certain tulips were so rare and hence so valuable. Surely if you have one tulip you could let it grow and multiply and then have lots of tulips, all of which you could then sell. Of course, if this were the case, the tulip would no longer be rare and therefore it would lose its value. Still, this doesn't answer the question of why some tulips were very rare. It turns out that this is Mother Nature's doings. The colour of a tulip depends upon the pigments present. Most tulips have two classes of pigments, an underlying base coat and a second coat of a different pigment. If you can vary the amount and coverage of the top coat, you can develop patterns on the petals. When this occurs, the tulip is said to have broken. So, you can have a pale base coat of say yellow or white and then bursts of colours over the top of this. In some cases, you can get incredibly fine streaks of colour along the length of the petals - imagine these in a deep, dark red or a brilliant, fiery orange, feathery patterns spreading out across the petal, bold colours contrasting against a pale background. If you are really lucky, you end up with a rare beauty, such as the Semper Augustus. I say lucky, since this exquisite, natural work of art was a one off and was caused by a virus. This means two things. The first - the tulip cannot, ever, be reproduced exactly, since you will not get two tulips to break in the same manner. The second - it results in the tulip being less fit, since it is infected with a virus. Once the Dutch realised what caused breaking in tulips and why these tulips were less fit, the unique beauty was doomed. The Dutch increased the fitness of their tulips by ridding them of their virus - so depriving the world of these magical beauties.

Much of the above information was gleaned from the book "The Botany of Desire" by Michael Pollan. Very interesting book. I also learnt, among other things, that apples do not grow true from seeds, which is why you have to graft branches on to root stocks to get a particular variety of apple. On a more bizarre note, I discovered the truth behind witches and their flying broomsticks. This is a little delicate and I shall try to put it nicely. Apparently their flying trips had more to do with psychoactive plants than with actual flying and their broomsticks were used to insert said plants into a witch's most private of places......ahem....I hope I don't have to elaborate. So much for riding the broomstick..........I think I am blushing!

I shall finish with an amusing titbit that I found while reading about tulips - since the Dutch are a bit strapped for space, they are thinking of making an island, much like the palm tree island of Dubai, only theirs, of course, would not be the shape of a palm tree but, rather, a tulip!

If you go down to the woods today.........

After my last floral post, I had fully intended on exploring the history of tulips, since I know how much everyone likes to be educated. Whilst it is all very fascinating - the history of tulips, that is - I figured that people might actually prefer to hear about my close encounters of the bear kind. Besides, I know that it will make brother Moon very jealous. After all, he kept on whinging and whining the whole time he was up here visiting about the lack of bear sightings. So Moon, here are the bears......

The first one we saw was just on the side of the road as we were driving to Long Beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island - well known for its long beaches - duh, big waves and endless surf. We had stopped on the side of the road for safety reasons - apparently someone was missing a headrest in the back seat. Turned out to be not so safe a stop, since once we had all piled out of the vehicle, someone noticed the large tree stump just behind the vehicle move. "My God, the tree stump is moving!?!" Oooooh, the tree stump is all furry and it has eyes.....wait a minute........" The coin finally drops - it is a bear. We all leg it back to the car, for two different reasons. The sensible half of the group deems this to be the safest spot. The photographers of the group need to grab cameras and zoom lenses. Am I sure that you have guessed which group I fell into - and weren't the photos worth the risk of a bear mauling? Besides, it was only one small bear, and there were four of us, and the car was pretty close by. As I was taking photos, I could tell how close the bear was getting by the pitch of my companions voice - one of the sensible ones in the car - as she was yelling "Get in the car. Get in the car now!" Good thing too, since you can't really tell how far away a bear is when you are looking at it down a camera lens. Needless to say, it would have been a very sad ending for all concerned if the bear had got me while I was browsing through the photos that I had just taken of it - well, you have to check that your exposures are correct, don't you? I can imagine the judges verdict now - death by camera distraction.

Anyhoo, the bear didn't get us - in fact he was quite happy chomping away on freshly sprouted herbaceous plants and grass, apparently not bothered by us in the slightest, even when I started singing "Look for the bear necessities, the simple bear necessities......." That is normally enough to enrage any hearing-capable mammal, but even this did not phase the bear. The bear just didn't care - look, he is even smiling at me....

We bearly survived our next encounter - this time it was with a mother and a cub - the most dangerous combination when it comes to bears attacking. The mother was on one side of the path and the baby on the other. Both munching away on grass and dandelions without a care in the world. That is until we came along. They then had to put up with my renditions of the Teddy Bears Picnic, Winnie the Pooh and the Bear Necessities (well, I only have a limited repertoire when it comes to bear songs) and my friend imploring us to step away from the bears - again, we could only get so far back, since our zoom lenses are only so good. So, what to do now? I suggested that we throw a couple of stones at them to try and move them along - well, it had worked with a rattlesnake one time in California. That one got voted down - can you believe that!?! Our only other plan was to make noise (hence the singing) and wait, at a safe distance. Unfortunately, I am not good at waiting safe distances, so I tended to drift closer and closer to the bears, which were moving very slowly down the path, not leaving a dandelion uneaten. I did beat a hasty retreat at one point, when the mother bear huffed at me in a very threatening manner. Huffing may not seem very threatening, but trust me, it is when there is nothing between you and a mamma bear and her cub.

Plan B was about to be put into action when a group of hikers wended their way down the path, blissfully unaware of the danger up ahead and their impending mauling. This could be the answer to all our problems. All we had to do was let them continue on their merry way and observe the outcome. The possibilities:

1). The impending mauling becomes an actual mauling - good photo op and should clear the path for us, since mamma bear will have her claws full.
2). They will scare the bears off the path, leaving the path clear for us - not as exciting as option one, but a good outcome for all concerned.
3). As above, but the bears are actually only hiding and we get the mauling - might get a decent last shot before going down.

Of course, we didn't get to test these options, since my good will gene got the better of me and I informed the hikers of the danger up ahead. They seemed to quite like the idea of seeing bears and so carried on down the path. Meanwhile, we took the less dangerous route and bushwhacked it through the undergrowth, onto the beach and back to the car the long way round. Turns out that our route was the more dangerous - lots of spiky and prickly bushes and some very dangerous tippy logs. By the time we made it back to the car, the other group was already ensconced in the local inn, toasting their lack of a bear mauling.


For those of you dying to know all about tulips, and I am sure there are many - well, another day, another post...........perhaps, if you ask nicely.

Tulips from Amster.....damn they're beautiful!

This weekend, Mr. DBM and I loaded our bikes into our car and headed south. We love our little excursions down to Seattle and surrounding areas, but there are a few things that tend to limit such forays. In order of bugging-me-ness:

1). The dreaded border
2). The cost of petrol
3). Seattle traffic and the length of the drive

Every time we go down, we swear we are not going again, but, overtime, the frustration wanes, the memories dim and the numb butt recovers feeling. So, the time had come to brave another trip across the border, into the land of the free.

On this trip, we decided on a new border crossing strategy - instead of getting up at "oh my God, its early" time to beat the border rush, we decided to take the laid back approach and wait for the initial early morning rush to run its course. We're in no rush, oh no, we have all the time in the world. By the time we managed to get our laid back bums in gear, it was 2pm as we approached the 49th parallel. All was going well until we made that fatal mistake, the one that seems to happen to everyone in every queue around the world - we picked the wrong one! Now, obviously, not everyone can end up in the slowest queue - someone has to be in the one next to me that is moving twice as fast as ours, but we always err on the slow side. When we finally get to the front of the queue we find out just what is holding up the line - a devious, sly, sneaky border guard who was asking really tough and tricky questions in the hope that he might uncover the next mastermind suicide bomber. And how does he do this? Well, the sly guy asks the same question, separated by two others, twice. I guess he must think that the mastermind terrorist can't keep track of their answers. "So, ma'am, what is your job?" "I am a lecturer." A couple of questions later........"What did you say you do for a living?" "I make bombs.........ooops, I mean that I am a lecturer in bomb mak.....I mean biology." I have to wonder if that strategy ever works for him?

Anyhoo, our answers seemed to satisfy and once we got across the border, it was all plain sailing, for all of about half an hour. Then it was an hour in a traffic jam through Bellingham. Our ETA for Seattle was pushed back by one hour. Not a problem, we weren't in a hurry. Of course, we hadn't factored in the fact that we were now late enough into the afternoon to hit the Saturday early evening rush into Seattle. Another hour in traffic, amidst all the fumes outside the car and the fuming inside the car. Just as we were about to despair of ever reaching our exit, or of ever escaping the god-forsaken stretch of road that is the I-5 just north of Seattle, I remembered the Green and Blacks that I had slipped into my bag earlier that day. Disaster was averted by two squares of chocolatey bliss and we finally arrived at our friend Js. Mr. DBM downed a beer, I downed a cider and all was well with the world again.

So, was the above worth it? Well, look at the photos and you tell me......

I have seen the tulip fields before, but the sight still amazes me. The colours are so vibrant and so intense. Blocks of colour that are so unexpected - reds, pinks, and purples, yellows and oranges all so bright that you think someone must have adjusted the colour saturation settings on the whole view. Where you expect to see green, you see magenta, where you expect to see cows or perhaps a couple of sheep, you see rows upon rows of regimented colour marching out into the near distance.

Of course, there were a lot of other people around, all out to bug me. I have posted before about how rude, inconsiderate and selfish people can be (see "OK, so I didn't have to call him a moron....... February 17, 2008) and how some people seem to think that rules are meant for other people but not them. That was all very evident here. There was the woman moving a bright orange cone that was there to keep the road clear - well, it was getting in the way of her husband trying to park his car so obviously it needed moving. Then there were all the people wandering down the rows of tulips, even though there were signs everywhere asking people to stay out of the tulips - well, how else can they get photos of their nearests and dearests surrounded by the tulips if they didn't venture in - the signs really didn't mean that you couldn't do that, did they? Oooh, and one of my all time favourites.....just as you have got your perfect shot lined up, some ignoramus walks in front of you. You very politely point out that you were in the middle of taking a photo and that his giant, oafish frame is now blocking your shot. Does he apologise and quickly vacate your photo? Oh no, the oaf just looks at you and then calls all of his family in to surround him to make sure that there is absolutely no way you can take the photo! Bloody hell! People really are very inconsiderate. That, or incredibly stupid - I am never quite sure which!?!

Special Offer of the Day

I have been very busy recently making lots of arrangements for our next travel extravaganza. It is one of the things we do - we travel. We spend wad loads of cash on long holidays to exotic places to wallow in beauty and to seek out the most interesting and cutest animals that money can find. While people can always understand my obsession with cute - who can't resist an adorable baby elephant, an orang that is vaguely reminiscent of your youngest brother - must be the ginger thing, a kangaroo that will not take no for an answer and insists upon getting into your camper van, despite being threatened by Mr. DBM wielding a tyre iron, a flying fox dangling off your arm, it's beautiful brown eyes staring right into your eyes, oh, I could go on and on and on and on...........but I can see you might get bored. I can also hear you cry - "Hang on a minute, what this about a flying fox - a bat, cute!?!" See, here is where I start veering off from the general population in my animal obsession. I really do think that flying foxes are very cute. I also happen to think that weevils could possibly possess one of the most endearing faces in the animal kingdom. See, I like different, unusual, odd, rare, peculiar and out of the ordinary plants and animals.

I have been known to trek through the forests of Borneo to find the world's largest and, probably, ugliest and smelliest flower. Who wouldn't want to see a flower that looks and smells like a rotting hunk of meat? In Africa, when others were demanding elephants, me, I wanted to see vultures and I got really excited when we saw a secretary bird. It goes around stomping on lizards and snakes and, no, it doesn't do shorthand. I am overjoyed by sightings of antlions and pitcher plants, cockroaches and geckos, komodo dragons and any kind of frog, toad, salamander or newt. And I haven't even started on the other two thirds of our planet - underwater. Sea snakes and leafy sea dragons, pygmy sea horses and warty frogfish, not to mention night dives to see spanish dancers and spawning coral. I could spend all day trying to communicate with a cuttlefish. I plan entire holidays just to catch glimpses of sharks, be they great whites or whale sharks, wobbegongs or snaggletooths. In fact, the whole starting point for our gallivanting around the Galapagos is so that we can see the schools of hammerheads before their fins end up in someone's soup!

This has led me to wonder what fostered this fascination with all creatures great and small. I suspect the blame must lie in the direction of a certain Sir David Attenborough. Like most children, I spent many hours in front of the TV and, given the chance, I would be watching nature programs. My siblings may have had other ideas and I am now very capable of giving a mean deadleg due to hours of endless practice while fighting for control of the TV. Mr. DBM claims that he never fought with his family - just the odd bout of Greco - Roman wrestling. Now I have to wonder - whose family was the normal one? I have always assumed that siblings had all out fights about most things, but apparently not!?!

So, in my quest for unusual animals, and to fulfil every biologists dream, we are heading to South America and the Galapagos! Just think of all the odd animals I can find there. Marine iguanas (the only marine lizards) and all of the finches that allegedly inspired Darwin to come up with his Theory of Natural Selection, including the vampire finch - honestly, I kid you not, there is a vampire finch. They are particularly fond of the blood of my brother's favourite Galapagos attraction, the boobies. I keep trying to explain to him that they are birds, but whenever they are mentioned he zones out and I lose him for a while. There are the giant tortoises, flamingos and pelicans and my all time favourite and the cutest of birds, the Galapagos penguins, right on the equator! And, of course, let's not forget those hammerheads..........

The whole point of this post is not to make you jealous about my next holiday or bore you to death with a list of 1000 animals to see before you die. In fact, I am getting to the bit where something bugs me. When I tell someone what Mr. DBM and I are doing for our holidays, the normal response is: "Oooooh, aren't you lucky?" Well, that really bugs me. I will admit that my childhood upbringing had little to do with me. I did have a great childhood, thanks to my parents and, I can now see, although I couldn't at the time because we were too busy fighting, to my brothers and sister. But, I would like to think that a lot of the rest was not luck. I worked damned hard. I didn't go to a great school, but I worked hard at the school I did go to. As a student, I didn't spend all my time drinking beer and protesting student loans. I actually worked to get my degree. I then moved out to Canada and I was lucky to meet Mr. DBM - who had also done everything possible to get a good job with a good wage. No luck there. In reality, the main reason that we have the time and money to spend has nothing to do luck - although, wait, perhaps it has, if you count bad luck. The bad luck is that we can't have children. There are lots of downsides to this, the most important one being who the hell is going to look after us when we are old and smelly? But, there are definitely upsides. Loads of cash that doesn't have to be spent on nappies, food, electronic gadgets and education. No need for an inheritance. We don't have to worry about ruining the planet for our children or our children's children. As far as I am concerned, I have done my bit to save the planet by not having kids! Still, I can't help but wonder what life would have been like if we had been able to produce some little DBMs.......

So, the next time that I tell you that I am spending an arm, leg and right ear (the left one is too damaged to sell or trade) on a holiday, maybe you should be saying "Oooooh, aren't you unlucky!" And this finally leads us to the Special Offer of the Day - One exotic holiday to the Galapagos, an expensive camera to capture all those magical moments and cute and not so cute animals and a brand new 42", high definition TV to view all those wonderful photos. But wait, that's not all - I will also throw in an almost new car - how's that for a deal? How can anyone resist? And how much is all this going to cost you? Not four, not even three children. Hell, I am not even asking for two - just your first born is all that it will cost you!

Please note, this offer is not open to anyone with children between the ages of 13 and 21. You can keep them!

Willow vs. the FURminator - Round 2

Round One went to Willow, but here you can see the results of Round Two - I think that the FURminator wins it by a hair! I will admit that this is not the result of just one session with the FURminator, but rather many, very short sessions. Thankfully, all my body parts are still intact and no blood was shed during furmination, although I did come close to losing my ear again today - yep, same one as last time, and no, I have not yet invested in some ear protection.

Revolvingly Good Lamb

Finally - a gorgeous, warm, sunny and perfect Barbeque Day. Time to try out the new barbeque........












Mediterranean Lamb Marinade

5-7 lbs lamb joint - preferably no bone, rolled and tied
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp onion salt
1 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced

Mix all ingredients and marinade lamb for 4-6 hours or longer. Don't chuck the marinade away once you are done, since you will need it when cooking the lamb.

Preheat barbeque to a medium heat - you want to cook the lamb with an indirect heat, nice and slowly, so that it stays nice and tender. Before skewering your lamb, pan sear each side of the joint over high heat to seal in all those lovely juices. Then skewer the lamb on the rotisserie and place on barbeque. Turn on rotisserie and watch the joint go round and round and round and round...... Once you are bored with this, go find a nice cool drink and relax in the sun. All you have to do now is come back every 20 - 30 minutes to baste the lamb with your marinade. It will take around 2-3 hours, depending on how hot your barbeque is. We left our's until the internal temperature was 145 degrees F - gives medium rare lamb that is still nice and pink in the centre. Make sure you let the joint rest for 20 minutes or so before carving.

While waiting for the lamb, you have lots of time to drink, chat, beat your friends at poker - we won a truck, but then felt sorry for R. since he had no way to get home. You also have time to make some beautiful roast potatoes - my absolute favourite way to do potatoes, possibly because it is probably the unhealthiest way to do potatoes. Oh well.......

Yummylicious Roast Potatoes

However many potatoes you want
A small amount of flour
Salt and Pepper
Lots of oil

Peel and quarter potatoes. Boil some salted water in a large pot and cook potatoes for 5 minutes. Drain, then bung the potatoes in a bag with the flour and seasonings. Shake, shake, shake until the potatoes are covered in the flour. Now you need to heat some oil in a pan - I used the oil left over from searing the lamb, since it had lots of tasty bits in it. Fry the potatoes until they start to turn golden. After the boiling and the frying comes the baking. You need to do this at a fairly high temp - around 400 degrees F and it is very important to get the oil very hot before you add the potatoes - if you don't, your potatoes will stick to the bottom of the pan and you will swear a lot when you can't get them out. Pop the potatoes into the oven and cook for around 1 hour - I turn mine over after about 40 minutes.

There you have it - the tenderest lamb I have ever tasted and the best ever roast potatoes.

Many thanks to R. for providing the marinated lamb and to D. for the wonderful barbeque. It took a while to get it together, but it was worth it.

I am now going to find some thermal underwear and I am very happy I bought that down jacket last week - it was sleeting yesterday and they are forecasting snow for this weekend. Come on global warming, I am waiting.......