Getting out in the sunshine

We’ve been enjoying unseasonably good weather this week – temperatures in the 20s (centigrade) when they are normally in the low teens. In normal Scottish pessimistic humour my neighbour says ‘we’d better enjoy it because this might be the only summer we get this year’.

And I have been out with a picnic and my kindle – reading the Hunger Games trilogy and loving it.  My automatic picks for somewhere to walk and sit in the sun are all by water.

Walking along the prom at my local beach (I used the timer and sat my camera on a wall and walked away from it – one of my favourite selfie methods)

Beside one of the lakes on the inner-city hill

and by the local recreation lagoon.

[Both collage frame templates are from the Coffee Shop blog].

Do you head for water? or trees?  or ?

Hello spring

Home again. Welcomed by this fabulous display of bulbs in my garden – lots of grape hyacinth and some yellow tulips and daffodils. 

Wonderful blue skies yesterday – so nice after the ever present pollution haze in Dhaka.  This morning opened the blinds to fog although it is clearing now. 

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.