MY HOUSEKEEPER

Lately I get more and more unwelcome telephone calls from all kind of shops or statistical enquiries. They propose me wine , furniture, leather sofas and recliners or other stuff of course always the best and cheapest and on top of that I am always invited to go there to get gifts for free ! Unfortunately I don't need so said free gifts, therefore our house is still without leather furniture and we don't have a wine cellar either.

Sometimes I am also asked to answer questions for such and such polls, how many dogs or cats I have, if I am married, single, or having a partnership, if we own a house or not or if we want to participate for the government to find out how much a retired couple spends per months for living.

Of course these phone calls arrive always when you just turn your spaghettis around your fork and you have the mouth full, when you stand half naked and freezing in your room to get dressed or when you are just watching a crime story on TV. We don't have a display to tell us who is calling, so I always answer the phone, I could let run it through the answering machine, but for some unknown reason, Mr. G. hates this invention and hurries wherever he is to breathless pick up the phone. Then of course I get angry because he is unable to get rid of these people and starts endless conversations, while I in the background shout : hang on !!

Now I found a solution to get rid of them very quickly and even by being polite !

Last time just during an exciting murder story on TV the phone rang. I pushed the TV button on "pause" and answered

- Aaaallo (that's french)

- Mrs Jones ?

- No I am sorry Mrs. Jones is gone out

- Aw, may I talk to Mr. Jones then ?

- No, I am sorry he is not in either, I am only the housekeeper.

A little silence, and then the man hang up !

Satisfied I returned to my murders and Mr. G. wondered where our housekeeper was.


"Please hold while we bring you the complete works of Johan Sebastian Bach"

That's also a possiblity !

SHOW & TELL FRIDAY

More participants here

This week I am proud to show you my garden. I have to admit that I had never a green thumb. I found gardening rather boring. But since I am blogging and see so many beautiful garden pictures, I suddenly felt inspired and planted for the second time petunias in pots which stand in front of our house and along the entrance during spring and summer. Unfortunately I didn't count with these lovely creatures called snakes !



and that's what they did !



I declared war put a product and collected the corpses. My petunias survived, but became very skinny and now really ugly. So for the 1st of October I decided to replace them with some autumn flower decoration.



I planted decorative cauliflowers and added some pumpkins. This pot stands besides our mail box.



on the little wall besides the house, I put this



and along the entrance to our house these little yellow flowers which will become bigger I hope. I think they are asters, but I am not sure. I bought them because I have been told that they last until frost. Names are not important to me.



My work of course was supervised by my cat Arthur. He loves when people work outside.

THURSDAY THIRTEEN

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13 funny Headlines

1. College Opens Doors to Hearing

2. Old School Pillars are Replaced by Alumni

3. Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

4. Bank Drive-in Window Blocked by Board

5. British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands

6. Air Head Fired Steals Clock, Faces Time

7. Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms

8. Farmer Bill Dies in House

9. Teacher Strikes Idle Kids

10.Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash

11.Probe Told Miners Refuse to Work after Death

12.Drunken Drivers Paid £1000

13.Man Minus Ear Waives Hearing Deaf

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

This is not a modern colored Klu Klux Klan meeting but people who attended the opera "Aida" in the Verona Arena (Arena di Verona, Italy) a Roman amphitheatre in Verona, Italy, when it started to rain and the performance had to be cancelled !

The Verona Arena is internationally famous for the large-scale opera performances given there. It is one of the best preserved ancient structures of its kind.

In recent times, the Verona Arena has also housed concerts of popular music bands such as The Who, Ennio Morricone, Kiss, Simply Red, Simple Minds, Pearl Jam, Muse, Elton John, Tina Turner and Björk.

MY WORLD-Pumpkin festival

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It's pumpkin season and we had a pumpkin festival near Waterloo.



The farmer's house looks quite inviting



a beautiful decoration



and strange pumpkins



Delicious pumpkin pancakes



and all kind of other pumpkin recepes to try



The children had a lot of fun, running around on the straw



the farmer took them on the field





other activities





and hiding in little huts



there was also a puppet theatre



the pumpkin fields



some for decoration







there also was a group of painters



a quite big pumpkin



bees to show how honey is made



and other pumpkins of all kinds

I bought a few for decoration.

My World participants :

FUN MONDAY

Ari, our host for this week wants to know :

If you could click your heels three times, and change lives with any character from any film, who would it be and why?

I have to admit that I had to rake my brain to find a character in a film I want to be. As I don't want to be a beautiful woman who finds a rich man to marry, or a kind of Mother Teresa, which is not my style either, I finally googled for famous movies or famous women, without any result. I just wanted to give up and stay myself because anyway I don't wear shoes with heels anymore, when I stumbled over Miss Marple (a figure invented by Agatha Christie) and that was it !

I click three times with my non existing heels and I am Miss Marple !



Miss Jane Marple is an elderly lady (that fits on me) who lives in the little English village of St. Mary Mead (I could move there) . Superficially stereotypical, she is dressed neatly in tweed and is frequently seen knitting or pulling weeds in her garden. As this doesn't fit at all for me, I decide to wear a long skirt, and paint on my easel cats and flowers in my garden until a murder happens.

Miss Marple sometimes comes across as confused or "fluffy". I would replace confused by scatter brained. According to Wikipedia when it comes to solving mysteries, she has a sharp logical mind, and an almost unmatched understanding of human nature with all its weaknesses, strengths, quirks and foibles. In the detective story tradition, she often embarrasses the local "professional" police by solving mysteries that have them stumped.

That's just what would be perfect for me. I would solve all unsolved crimes of husbands who murdered their wives, or women who poisened their husbands, and make the police look ridiculous.



I would look like this Miss Marple, just looking in my purse to take notes of the crime scene.



These actresses also played Miss Marple but I they don't fit.

For those who don't know Miss Marple I could click my heels and be the mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher in "Murder she wrote".

In fact the title comes from "Murder, She Said", an adaptation of a Miss Marple novel by Agatha Christie. The character of Jessica Fletcher is thought to be based on a combination of Miss Marple, and Agatha Christie herself which would suit me very much too.



So you can choose, either I am Miss Marple or I am Jessica Fletcher ! I don't mind !

WEEKLY WINNERS

More participants here at Sarcastic Mom Weekly winners

I spent two days in the beautiful cottage in the Ardennes (Belgian mountains), belonging to the parents of my son's girl.



He loves to cook, it has become his hobby and so he prepared fresh Raviolis filled with spinach, ricotta (Italian cheese) and nuts as starter.



First he made the dough and put it through this little machine



some help was needed






and out came this long thin piece



with a special ring tin he made the Raviolis





stuffed them



The Raviolis are ready to be cooked



I wondered about the corks, but it is a genious idea to not burn your fingers when you lift up the cover !



and finally they were on our plates. They were delicious !



At the same time he had prepared trouts



which didn't look very happy. They were wrapped in aluminium foil together with spices, and vegetables and put in the stove.

Served with roasted potatoes with rosmarin this was the main course.

I only can recommend this restaurant !