Pot noodles...

Categories: rejoice-with-me

Tags: holiday, events, tuition

Date: 25 July 2011 16:29:22

Well here I am again after a long gap - what's new? We just had two lovely weeks in Austria, though The Grouch was ill the first week in Vienna because it was too hot, and Genius Brat was ill the second week in the mountains because he caught a cold. At least I had a good time! (actually so did they really when they weren't being ill).

Funniest moment of the holiday, to match the menu on our last trip that offered 'Tart of the House', was the English menu which declared that its Carinthian cheese noodles (which are not actually noodles but a sort of giant ravioli) were filled with 'cheese, mint and pot'. I think they meant potatoes... I was also amused by the toilet paper dispenser (with no toilet paper) that announced its name as 'Triple Willy'. Nasty condition, that...

Nothing broadens the mind like foreign travel, though you should always ask for the English menu which is guaranteed to give you a laugh.

Meanwhile, we finally got some tuition in Maths and Physics for Genius Brat, just two weeks before we went away! I have asked for the rest of the 40 hours tuition we were offered to be delivered in the holidays, since we had waited six months and had to book our holiday without knowing tuition would be offered, but the borough has refused since it is their policy not to give tuition in holidays. However the lovely tutor has offered to come in this week (which brings us up to about half of our offered tuition time) and to see if he can do anything after that - but not next week as GB is going away again to gifted camp! (just like that humorous card - you know, the one where the extremely intelligent child is pushing on a door marked PULL).

The master (or mistress) plan for the next month or so is for me to spend the mornings working on some writing ideas and the afternoons doing clutter clearance. It remains to be seen how much of this actually gets done. A lot depends on the weather, as if we suddenly get an unexpected summer it may be too hot to waltz around clearing cupboards. OTOH I am booking some nice central London events which will only benefit from warm weather - including a rare opportunity to go up the BT tower (which I remember going up decades ago before it closed), and lots of lovely retro events at the Festival Hall, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain, an event I would have liked to be at if I had not been aged minus two at the time.