Eating soup with a teaspoon

Today at work I had to eat my soup with a teaspoon.

It was a frustrating experience. It occurred because of a lack of resources (i.e. normal-sized spoons). The teaspoon was an inadequate alternative, particularly because some of the vegetables in my soup were bigger than teaspoon-size. Whilst I achieved my goal of consuming my soup, it was a lengthy experience and my enjoyment was diminished.

Eventually I found a cheap, plastic spoon in my desk drawer. This wasn't as shiny and smooth as the teaspoon but at least it allowed me to get a reasonable mouthful of soup.

I can see this might prove to be a useful analogy some day.

While my ukelele gently weeps

I don't usually do two posts in one day but this was just too good to ignore.

Driving home, listening to Triple J, the presenter announced a much requested repeat of a hawaiian chap playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps .... on the ukelele! With visions in my mind of George Fornby singing about cleaning windows, I listened on. What I heard amazed me. This guy, known as the Hawaiian Ukelele Wizard but whose real name is Jake Shimabukuro, has a wonderful talent and can make the ukelele take on a whole load of other sounds, such as flamenco and classical guitar. Apparently Hawaiians learn to play the ukelele at school in the same way that Brits and Aussies learn to play the recorder. Most then move onto the guitar but Shimabukuro stuck with the ukelele and made it his own.

Here is a YouTube movie of him performing While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Stay with it, the break about 2.45 minutes in is fantastic and the low res movie can barely keep up with his lightening fast hands. There is a higher resolution movie of him playing this in concert but it's 8 minutes long so I'll let you go and check it out yourself if you're interested. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=3mEqEe-PIC8&feature=related)



It's also worth checking out his website and YouTube site. He has some great original tracks (e.g. Let's Dance) and his version of Ava Maria is just beautiful (navigate to the Gently Weeps album in his audio player). I think I know what my next CD purchase is going to be.

Chunky soup

What's with all the chunky fancy soup these days?

Ever just fancy eating something from your past? By that I don't mean a 10 year old beef and tomato Pot Noodle, rather something that you used to eat and perhaps don't anymore? I caught a whiff of something in the office today and it reminded me of mulligatawny soup and I thought, "well there's a thing I haven't eaten for a while. I wouldn't mind a bit of that."

So off I trundled down to the supermarket and I found myself the soup aisle but no mulligatawny soup! There was beef and potato curry, even beef massaman soup and Malaysian laksa soup and lots of other fancy foreign ones but no straight-forward mulligatawny, nor, whilst we're on the subject, was there any good old traditional oxtail soup. There were all these "chunky", "hearty" soups but I didn't want an entire meal, I just wanted a nice can of Heinz mulligatawny soup.

Maybe it just never made it to Australia.

I'm happy to say that tomato soup did still seem to be available. That was my mainstay as a kid especially when I was sick (or poorly as we say in the north of England) and I tell you something, it made me feel better every time. Perhaps I should have got some to make me feel better about not having mulligatawny.

Dolphin Watching

I've been quiet because since about 5th June I've been laid up with a bad back and have been unable to sit at the computer for more than five minutes. Here's a quick summary of events.

Some time during the week of 19th May: I ride my bike 7.5km to work, then home again. I get a sore back.

Some time during the week of 26th May: I ride my bike 7.5km to work, then home again. I get a sore back again. I decide that 4km to the beach might be okay but 7.5km to work is too much and that I won't ride my bike to work again until I have one with a smaller frame. Toby suggests that I actually have a virus that he's got and that is going around people at his work. It makes you sleepy and gives you a sore back. I point out that I'm not sleepy and that it's the second time I have had a sore back after riding my bike and that I want a new one.

Sat 31st May: About two hours after getting out of bed everything becomes too much for me and I have to go back to bed today. I spend the weekend drifting in and out of sleep. Toby tells me I have the virus.

Thurs 5th June: I do a first aid course all day at work, which mostly consists of bending over on knees performing CPR on a dummy with no legs and arms, and comforting and administering first aid to crazy imaginary drunken mountain bikers and aggitated electricians. My back twinges. Go to yoga. Tell instructor but do mostly the same stuff as the rest of the class. Back twinges even more on way home.

Fri 6th June: Back still twinging. Go to pilates. Tell physio back is twinging. Do lighter version of the exercises. Then drive to supermarket and over-load basket with morning tea goodies for the team. Drag heavy bags into work and back goes into spasm. Most painful. Spasms all day. Sitting at desk makes it worse. Go home that night and collapse on floor in painful teary heap. Stay there a while.

Sat 7th June: Woke up in pain. Toby gave me a massage. Spent most of the day flat on back on floor on top of my hot water bottle. Toby's mum did the housework for me. Toby did all the cooking.

Sun 8th June: Woke up in pain. Spent day lying around, stretching and massaging back (with a tennis ball). Was convinced I'd be all better in the morning.

Mon 9th June: Wasn't better. Was exhausted and frustrated. Long weekend but just more lying around and stretching for me. Did a teeny bit of gardening but couldn't spend too long doing anything. Went to yoga and this time concentrated on back problems and did lots of gentle stretching. Started to feel much better.

Tues 10th June: Took day off sick and went to physio then for short walk. Then stretched, slept and massage. Still hurt.

Wed 11th June: Went to work. Set myself one task then left when completed which took five hours. Back was seized up a bit by then. Went home and slept.

Thurs 12th June: Same as yesterday only I exchanged my pilates appointment for another physio session, which helped ease things up a bit more.

Fri 13th June: Local public holiday (Nambour Show Day a.k.a. Maroochy Shire Holiday). Went to Straddie for a weekend of camping. Packing was hard work. Back seized up after sitting in car but spent rest of day lying flat on back in sun at campsite. Started feeling much better.

Sat 14th June: Felt much better and even managed a lovely coastal walk with Toby, Scott and Lucie.

Which brings me to the point of my post. On this walk we saw a pod of about thirty or forty dolphins surfing the (rather large) waves, jumping, spinning and all in all just having a jolly good time. It was such a beautiful sight and kept us entertained for a good 10-15 minutes before the dolphins started to head back out to sea again. Toby took some photos but I haven't looked at them yet so don't know if they'd be any good. The next day we spotted plumes from two whales obviously travelling up the coast together. Apparently loads of whales had been spotted that day.

My back still gets a little bit sore after sitting at my desk but it feels so good to be mobile again.