The Stolen Child…
WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going,
The solemn-eyed:
He’ll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
William Butler Yeats.
I invented something AMAZING in my dream!
God, I’m a genius. I actually INVENTED something really amazing in my dream last night.
I hope it’s not one of those things that I am the only one who thinks it’s amazing… and then when I tell someone, they think it’s not only weird but really stupid.
Let me tell you it anyway and you can tell me what you think… I was going to patent the idea and bring it to the Dragons Den, but it would cost me a fortune in concrete to actually make it.
Here it is anyway, in a nut shell.
It all came from my subconscious genius-of-a-mind don’t forget…
It’s going to be really hard now to translate it into words as I just saw images of it in my dream…
Right, so… em…
Ok…
Well basically it’s made from concrete. If that’s not feasible, then fake concrete may suffice and may be the better choice for emergency reasons (this will make sense later).
Right, what you do is, build a MASSIVE block of concrete, like about the size of a twelve story apartment block. There is only one entrance and one exit to the concrete mass and in between is a kind of maze, similar to that of an ant farm…
But should be as complicated as this:
The narrow burrows should only fit one human being with enough space to maybe scratch themselves if needs be. The burrow should not be wide enough for them to be able to give up and turn around and pull themselves back out. The reason being, that once you enter, there is no wimping out. This teaches the individual the all important lesson of sticking to an important decision… a lesson in strength of mind.
Method of travelling through the burrow is by pulling your body, worm like through the maze. Elbow pads would be supplied free of charge to anyone willing to partake. Tunnels may be fitted with a sort of mechanism that doesn’t allow you to go backwards even if you tried.
Some tunnels/burrows may lead to a dead end; where this is the case, the tunnel would not have the mechanisms that prevent you from turning back (otherwise I’d be done for manslaughter). The idea behind these traps are again, for building up strength of mind and for teaching people to relax and focus under extreme pressure.
I think that these human concrete ant-hill mazes would be great in amusement parks or maybe army training camps or even boot camps for delinquent adolescents.
If someone does have a heart-attack in the middle of the concrete maze, there is an emergency procedure whereby the building can be pulled out in four parts and the person can be plucked from the maze and treated.
Under no circumstances is the person allowed to be removed from the maze however. They must continue on after receiving medical assistance.
These human concrete ant-hill mazes can be a wonderful way to raise money for charity. People would be sponsored to partake in it and spectators could come and watch the concrete while they are inside trying to get out.
There could be an opportunity for further developments to the idea in so far as, the outside could be fitted with glass whereby the spectator could see the individual struggling within but the individual could not see out.
For even more fun, you could add another element. If the person doesn’t make it out by 5pm, then they get locked in the maze overnight! The exit would be bolted shut like….
So what do you think then?
They look interested to me!!!
YES!
Willie’s Chocolate bars are really…
I wrote a blog before about Willie Harcourt-Cooze and I slated him. Well I kinda take that back now… because I went to Selfridges one day a few months ago and I saw his chocolate bar for sale.
I proceeded to purchase it for a whopping…
When I got into the bus, I felt the urge. I took it out of my bag and had a little look at what all the fuss was about.
Nice packaging.
Nice logo.
Nice little note underneath the seal, telling me to ‘tuck in’…
Two slabs of chocolate wrapped in gold…
I put it back in my bag.
It was far too fancy to eat on the bus.
Eating a bar of this caliber required a bit of fuss. I needed a cup of tea and a comfortable seat. I needed to put my feet up. I needed a few cushions. I needed a punkah wallah. I needed… well, i just needed to get off the smelly bus so I could really savour these glorious looking chocolate slabs of delight that lay seductively before me…
When I got home and made myself comfortable, I tucked in to what is now, most definitely my favourite chocolate on the planet.
The texture is like, sort of harder than fudge but the same kind of soft quality to it, your teeth sink into it. It’s not like all those plasticky type dark chocolates on the market that make that cheap ’snap’ noise when you crack a piece off…
The taste is so rich and tangy. It boasts of subtle tropical fruit tones, and it delivers them with every bite. The after taste has a zing too and you just have to wait before taking the next bite because the experience continues on in your mouth after…
It was so good, I had to buy two more today!
I ran 10 miles today…
Woke up at the absolute crack a dawn today to do a 10 mile run.
I like to go for my long distant runs as soon as I hop out of bed (after a decent stretch). If I hang around any longer, then I run the risk of getting hungry and I’ve never been able to handle being hungry; I always get really shaky and weak.
I’ve become kinda neurotic with the eating and running thing actually… It’s just that I am very prone to getting stitches so I have to wait about 4 to 5 hours after eating, otherwise I am crippled. The less food I have in my belly, the more enjoyable the run… But, this means that at the beginning of a run, I am borderline hungry. It’s a thin line.
Running first thing in the morning is perfect cuz I have nothing in my belly and the run always feels more comfortable. I swear, when I get going I feel like a panther or something! I am now doing longer runs in the build up to the marathon, so lately, my stomach starts rumbling mid way through and this has been making me feel a bit nervous. Well, I have recently discovered the solution to this neurosis… and it comes in the form of these energy gel packs…
They’re just the job. You eat them while you’re running. They keep the edge off the hunger and they’re light enough on my stomach that I don’t get a stitch. The whole thing could be psychological, but I know I’m alright if I have my little gel pack with me.
The run was good today but not great. In the first half an hour, I got a few stones in my shoe. I was too stubborn to stop and take them out. There were about four small ones in my left shoe all rolling about and then embedding themselves in various locations on my foot before moving off again. They niggled at me for most of the run.
Anyway, me and the stones did the run in 1 hour and 35 mins.
That wasn’t too bad. If I keep up that pace then maybe I can run the marathon in 4 hours. That goal is beginning to surface now despite promising myself I wouldn’t set a time goal for the marathon. I told myself I would be happy just to run the 26.2 miles.
I don’t want to go over the 4 hours though.
I will be happy running it in 4 hours or under…
Bring back the Barmbrack!
Does anyone remember Barmbrack!!?
For those of you who don’t know what it is and find yourself in a rare situation where you have the opportunity to eat it, you better read this first or you’ll be at risk of choking to death.
It is a kind of a light traditional Irish Fruitcake that used to make an appearance around Hallowe’en when I was a young wan.
Haven’t seen it around since…
Anyway, it’s a nice tasting cake, nice and light, I normally don’t like fruity loafs but I really like Barmbrack. It’s even nicer with a thick layer of butter on top and a cuppa cha on the side.
Once you bite into it and start enjoying it, you’ll soon be picking at the contents in your mouth, the reason being that you will find all sorts of random objects in the cake. Rings and sticks and hard peas and pieces of clothes…
Each object has a meaning and foretells your future…
If you find the pea in your slice - you’ll never get married…
The stick – you’d be beaten by your husband or if you were a man, you’d beat the wife. This was an ever so subtle way of saying you were going to have an unhappy married life.
The piece of cloth – you’d be skint
The coin – you’d be rich.
The ring meant you would get married that year.
I remember one time, I was eating it and unknownst to myself, the stick was in the particular bit of cake I was chewing. Whatever way I chewed it anyway, it made the stick go vertical and it slotted into one of the nukes and crannies in my bottom back tooth. When the top teeth came down from above in the midst of the chewing, it shafted the stick further into my tooth and I’ll never forget the pain it caused me. I had to yank the stick out from my tooth which caused it to bleed and it kind of put spinters into my gum. I couldn’t chew on that side of my mouth for about a month after…
You’d never get away with having such a cake on the market these days…
Bring back the Barmbrack!
A building gets dressed…
Think about your life in the last twelve months.
Now look at the first twelve months in the life of this building.
What a difference a year makes…
(I won’t bore you with the other 361 photos!)
London’s skyline is ever changing…
Strange thing spotted in the Park…
On a shortcut through the Park yesterday, I stumbled upon this…
Initially I got a fright, but was relieved it wasn’t moving.
Does anyone know what the hell this is all about?
9 mile run, under the belt…
Woke up at the crack a dawn yesterday morning.
This was the immediate sequence of events thereafter…
I ran 9 miles in the local park.
It was the furthest I ever ran and it felt great.
I finished the 9 miles thinking I could easily have ran further… Then I kinda thought that I should have pushed myself more. I did it in 1 hour and 28 mins. It’s not the best time but I am only 4 weeks into my training and I am not very confident with the whole distance thing yet.
I have been doing a 3 mile run 3 times a week, as well as a long run on Saturdays. I have really started pushing myself on the short runs. I am down to 23 mins on the 3 mile run, I have been managing to whittle down the time bit by bit every week. My immediate goal is to run 4 miles in 30 minutes and to sustain that pace for the short runs.
Here, this is my training plan:
I got it off the internet, It’s based on Hal Higdon’s Novice plan. I reformatted it onto an excel spreadsheet and tweaked it to suit. It was an 18 week plan but I had 20 weeks to go, so I added an extra two weeks in there (in red). The plan is designed to increase the recommended 10% in distance each week.
I put it up on the pin board and we tick it off as we go!
I usually run the short runs in the gym. The treadmill is great because you set the pace and the time you want to do it and that’s it, there’s no cheating! It gives my joints a break from running on concrete as well, that’s another plus.
Running outdoors is far more enjoyable though…
4 weeks down and 16 to go!
Chocolate Tasting…
So I was telling you last week that I bought these three Chocolate Bars…
I couldn’t wait to get home and tear the covers off em and ram em down my throat.
I restrained myself though, as these are sophisticated creatures of delight. I knew I had to play it cool with these…
I really had a bit of a pain in my head trying to decide which one to eat first. I pondered over them and fondled each of them one by one. I read their wrappers and took in what they had to say about how they were made, what they were made of and where in the world their innermost beans came from.
I decided by eliminating one from the list. I decided to leave the Mora Mora Bar ’til last, for two reasons;
- It was the most expensive – It cost a whopping £3.21
- It says this on the wrapper:
“Worlds best Chocolate Winner – Silver Award 2007″.
I thought it must be pretty good tasting stuff and best kept for last. I placed it carefully back in the fridge.
So it was a toss up between the other two.
Seeds of Change just seemed to beckon me with it’s pieces of figs, so I went for it.
My God.
My God is all I say.
This is one flippin’ mouthwatering piece of chocolate.
Look at the bits of fig in it:
The whole thing was just perfect. The texture was divine and I didn’t want the consumption of it to end. I wanted more when I had finished, so I moved onto my second conquest.
The Chokolit Dark Orange – Biting Back Bar with the pic of the cute chimp on it. He kinda looks sad… hmmmm… anyway…
This chocolate was just beautiful.
It had the perfect consistency. I’m no professional taster; I can’t go on about the fruit tones and the flowery essence and all that waffle. I’m just a simpleton who knows what I like in a bar of chocolate. I know I like this one. The texture is perfect. It’s got a hint of orange, you’d be a pure eejit to miss that cuz it says it on the wrapper too. It was just another magical experience.
The Mora Mora Bar was consumed on the next evening.
It was a momentous build up…
What an anti-climax.
This was really disappointing.
A glorified Bourneville.
It was hard and plastic-y tasting like Bourneville too.
I wouldn’t recommend it at all.
What a rip off too…
