Big cakes and wilderness survival

I watch a lot for TV when I’m living out of hotels which can lead to some interesting viewing habits.  In Bangladesh my choice of English language TV channels is 2 for movies, 2 with food and lifestyle programmes, 3 with documentaries, 1 with American comedies, and the 3 news channels.

I’ve watched 4 of the Harry Potter movies and the 3 parts of the Lords of the Ring trilogy. 

Most of the time I watch documentaries.  The pattern is that one program is shown at the same time each evening until the series is finished and then another starts.  March is tiger month on one channel and February seemed to be all about crocodiles.

My nightly viewing can be summarised as big cakes and wilderness survival.Early evening I have had 3 different series which focus on the making of massive decorated cakes – a dog or bottle of wine or menagere made from cake, fondant and chocolate.  All quite amazing but I am often stunned at the money people pay for a cake that would feed all of their guests for a week.

Then later in the evening are programmes where the host is dumped in a wilderness situation and then shows how to survive and get rescued.  Lots of making fire, eating snakes and bugs, following rivers and climbing up or down precarious rockfaces. 

Having never grown out of asking ‘why’ I’ve been wondering why these two subjects are so popular at the moment?  Are they both about escapism, escaping the economic woes of the world? 

What topics are dominating the documentaries where you are?

Glimpses of Bangladesh – tea break

My experience in the UK and NZ is that the refreshments at most meetings is a cup of tea or coffee and a biscuit – a chocolate one if you are lucky. 

In Bangladesh it is usually tea but the accompanying snack is more substantial and varied.  The same has been true of the tea breaks during our two weeks of workshop. 

Often there is a piece of fruit – apple, grapes or Satsuma.   This will be accompanied by a sweet biscuit or two or a piece of maderia cake.  Samosa and pakora are also served and an item like a curried sausage roll.  We have also had doughnuts and palmier sugar pastries (bottom right photo).

I made a card about the snacks for my Project Life using a CZ minicard template.

52 photos of me – instalment 2

I’ve kept up with the project I accidently started in January to take a photo of myself every week.

For this set I applied the soft faded effect from the Pioneer Woman to all of them because the top left one needed attention due to poor indoor light and then I decided to to the same to all.

I love that the strong colour in my shirt in the top right photo survived being faded.  It and the photo bottom left were taken a week apart but could be 2 sides of the same photo.

The bottom right photo was my one for this week because I’m much more aware of thinking about washing my hands here in Bangladesh – because of the ever present dust; because of the lack of soap and clean towels in some places; and because the cleanliness of what I put in my mouth is a more present thought  (no problems yet – and that’s probably already too much information!!!).

The background to the photos is a texture from Pixel Dust Photo Art – called yesteryear.  I’m liking using textures instead of papers at the moment.

Using the spiral staircase

Thankfully I only have to walk up 3 levels of the grand spiral staircase to reach my temporary office – the lift goes to the 6th level and then we walk. 

Looking down into the well of the staircase makes me giddy but produces some fabulous photos.  I used one of these for my Friday Photoart this week.

I used the Pixel Dust Photo Art Blue Moon texture as the background and Statement Frames as the top layer – with the hue changed to show green.  I added an artistic filter to each photo of the spiral.