Saturday, February 26, 2005

Moroccan Massives.

   
Perhaps Morocco isn't known for strawberries but they certainly do grow a mean one!Massive. I don't even recall seeing one this size back home in Ozland.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Its been snowing lately in London. Mostly at night but also during the day. The snow flakes can be so large they are over 1cm. With the over night dump being the best today I went out to take snow photos! Unfortunately by the time I got out into the city it had all melted. The snow that did fall during the day wasn't heavy enough to put any ground cover on at all :(

   
The view from our lounge in the morning.Snow flakes on my sleeve. Some, like this one, is rather large and can be made from several crystals
Single snow crystal/flake.Another one. The amazing thing is that the crystal shape is large enough to see with the naked eye.

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Cooking with Denzil 101... Pasta!!!

This is my internationally known pasta dish, atleast it is within my household when I cook for 1 at home.

Ingredients
  1. 1/2 Onion finely chopped.
  2. 2 garlic gloves finely chopped
  3. 3 mushrooms diced
  4. 1/2 can of spam (yes... spam.. the other white meat hehee) diced
  5. Dolmio spagetti sauce - I like the extra garlic and onion one myself.
  6. 1 portion of spagetti or your favourite. 1 portion is enough for 1 meal
  7. Extra virgin olive oil
  8. salt

Cooking
  1. Fry the spam until cooked and put aside into a bowl.
  2. Fry the onions and garlic until lightly brown.
  3. Add the mushrooms and fry until lightly cooked.
  4. Put the onions, garlic and mushrooms aside into a bowl.
  5. Add the pasta to bowling water with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and salt. Cook until al dente'.
  6. Stir in the Dolmio sauce to taste. For me that is a small amount just enough to coat the pasta for taste.
  7. Add the cooked spam, onions, garlic and mushrooms.
  8. Stir until well mixed and serve.


The raw ingredients. From the left clockwise: spam, 2 cloves of garlic, half diced onions, and diced mushrooms. Onions, garlic, and mushrooms all fried up (The spam is underneath).
The cooked spaghetti with the Dolmio sauce added. The delicious final garlic infused meal for one!

Friday, February 18, 2005

Why Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars.

Extract from the Life and Times of Denzil and Lulu In London:

Lulu: Can you get me the thing...
Denzil: [pause...]
Denzi: And you wonder why we have communication problems....

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Well we did warn you.

UK warnings at the start of tv programs are definitely not the same. By most counts they start off the same but:

The following program contains scenes of extreme violence, sex and projectile vomit.

The show is called 'Extreme Detox'... Fortunately its not the same detox program you can get at the local health food shop!!

Himalyan Gurus pouring water into your nostrils. Forcing yourself to vomit. Drinking urine. And hanging things off your nether regions. hmmm.

It was never said that detox was easy. You just wait until we start on spiritual enlightenment... Reiki I'm glad to say is much more subtle and that suits me just fine.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

According to Google...

According to Google there are 1590 pages where my name Denzil, happens to be on the same page as Lulu.

According to Google there are 169 pages where my name Denzil happens to be on the same page as the word weasel. I'm not impressed.

Lulu's favourite Venetian Memory.

Lulu loves to laugh.
Often at me.
I think its funnier for her when its about me.
Its seems to be quite habitual for Lulu actually.

Her latest was in Venice, ITALY, when I approached a group of 5 or so costumed people and asked if I could take their picture.

They allowed me.
I thanked them.
I said Merci.

Astute readers, and seasoned travellers will notice the flaw, the error, the faux pas.

Merci is French, not Italian.

Realising my mistake, Lulu took it well in her stride and burst out laughing and pointed out my mistake.

By this time the 5 strong troupe too were laughing at me.

I apologied quickly and corrected my mistake by doing it in Italian. It ofcourse was already too late.

Google Fame, or Shame. You decide!

Inspired by Steph's blog where he typed his name into google, I just had to do the same. I think the results speak for themselves:



Of all the things I want to be known for, burping is not one of them

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Venetian Memoirs 2005

Its February.
Its Venice.

Its Carnivale time.


Hords of people decended upon the little city of Venice to experience it like at no other time in its calendar. Amongst all the throngs of people Lulu, Jody, Cecilia and I daily found ourselves lost amongst the narrow alley ways of romantic Venice.

Its not that we didn't have a map, we had several, its just that the typical free (coz we're too cheap arse) map doesn't list every street name. But that's half the fun of Venice or any other city for that matter - getting lost and finding what you find. There is truely no better way to experience a city.

There were two things I wanted to do in Venice this time around (it was the 2nd time for both Lu and I). First was to take photographs... derrrrr... of hopefully people dressed in classical Venetican Carnivale costumes. Second was to find that little sweets shop that sells that "To Die For Hot Chocolate". Just writing about it is making me drool... not helped by the fact its 2pm and I haven't eaten anything all day.

Tick. Tick. Both missions accomplished. Many places actually have hot chocolate and we tried one other. It was just as good too!

One thing that was reminiscent of Brussels was little shops selling hot fruity wine. Just the thing when the temperature is close/below freezing. But as the pictures below will tell the weather was beautiful and we had blue skies! Weather reports suggested snow, which would have been quite spectacular to say the least.

So what else did we do? Well the girls shopped. Shopped. Oh and did I mention shopped?

What else did I do? I waited. I waited. And when I was almost bored of that, I waited somemore. All the men out there feel my pain. I could have been bored if I waited any longer. Salvation was to be at hand! Being carnivale time there were plenty of people in costumes walking about. Wandering mistrels to delight the passer-bys. Jugglers performing death defying acts of courage with their balls!

But I was good. I was restrained. I had to be. I didn't take my laptop so I did not have unlimited storage on my digital camera. And I only really allowed myself 2 rolls of film on my slr. (speaking of which I should get off my arse and put them in for processing).

I love Italian food, and the local food here was great. The pizzas, the pastas, and oh the coffee! Eva when you read this you should come over just for the coffee, its just that good!

Venice truely is as romantic as they say....

Below are a few pictures from the trip. Just a small collection. We'll add a proper album of photos soon and let you know when its ready!

Venice wouldn't be Venice without the famous iconic gondola. And no photo album would be complete without atleast one picture of one.Being Carnivale 2005, there were many costumed models like these posing everywhere. The best places to take photos like these is around the corner form San Marco Square as they stand on the jetty so you get a beautiful backdrop to all your photos.
Sun set over Venice. It could only get better if I had a glass of hot fruity/spiced red wine or hot chocolate. But then I wouldn't have the camera to take this shot!Dreamy. romantic Venice by night (and Denzil's camera and tripod).

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

I've added statistics!

Seeing that Steph put up some statistics on his blog, I was not to be out done.

Keen viewers will notice the hit counter under the Blog icon in the right hand column. This is the number of times this page has been viewed. Statistics can be see via the link down there too.