Tuesday Evenings Will Never Be The Same

When I first saw the picture prompt for the day from The Haunted Wordsmith, I must admit I was slightly puzzled. “What on earth is that?” was the thought that went through my head. And then I realized…I might well be looking at a close-up of one of Kim-Joy’s “space-turtles”!

If you have no idea what or who I am talking about – fear not! All will be explained.

I am hoping you are familiar with “The Great British Bake-Off”…a show where twelve amateur home bakers become contestants, displaying their skills and tantalising the nation’s taste buds from within a large tent. I am not going to talk about the final just in case anyone has not had chance to see it yet.

Well meet the delightful Kim-Joy, one of the contestants from the 2018 series of GBBO. Apart from the fact that she is a talented baker and has remarkable creative skills she seemed such a sweet lovable character and we watched as her popularity with viewers began to burgeon over the weeks.

Kim-Joy had the most extraordinary imagination when it came to her culinary creations. At one stage I heard Kim-Joy described as “the rainbow encrusted dark horse of this year’s competition”.

Take for example, the brief set for the contestants in dessert week, which was week four of the competition. For their dessert show-stopper, the judges asked the contestants to create a chocolate sphere encasing a surprise dessert that would be revealed once a hot sweet sauce was poured over the chocolate sphere to melt it. Hmm. Because that is something home-bakers produce every other week. I thought this was quite a tough challenge so early on in the competition, and a challenge some of the contestants had a melt-down over – well at least their chocolate spheres had a melt-down!

But Kim-Joy literally wowed us with her incredible concept. This is the outside of her chocolate galaxy. I believe it was a hot caramel sauce (don’t quote me on the hot sauce, I was completely distracted by the rest of the dessert) that she poured over her chocolate sphere revealing her choux pastry “space-turtles”, yes that is right, turtles who live in outer space and drink cocktails (well we are presuming so since they all had cocktail umbrellas, although perhaps the cocktail umbrella is an instrument they use in their space-travels!). Absolutely as you would expect from the wonderful Kim-Joy, whose attention to intricate detail was remarkable, every “space-turtle” had a little tiny face drawn on to it.

I cannot find a photo of the stack of “space-turtles” that were hiding inside the chocolate sphere, But in the picture above, you can see three of them propped up against the chocolate galaxy that encased the rest of their galactic choux crew.

This was one of the Kim-Joy creations I will remember for the longest I have to admit. However, she has been a delight to watch and I don’t think anyone would deny how impressed they were by her intricate productions and wonderful imagination. She was just as sweet as her cakes and biscuits looked to be.

I had never heard of “space-turtles” before…but when I typed that into Google’s search engine…it’s clear that I am out of touch. “Space-turtles” are quite a presence it seems! What on earth am I going to do on Tuesday evenings now that the series is over? It just will not be the same!

 

 

 

 

https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/daily-writing-challenge-nov-4/

https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/your-daily-word-prompt-instrument-november-4-2018/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/11/04/fowc-with-fandango-extraordinary/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/11/04/burgeon/

Anyone For A Milk-Shake?

I expressed my concerns earlier this week about the mystery of our missing milkman and the suspicions that our new milkman is arousing in my mind. I appreciate all the comments from other bloggers – no small matter on my mind this has been! You are all so lovely to have given me feedback with my dubious dairy dilemma.

• The Mystery Of The Missing Milk-man
• The New Milk-man Is Raising Suspicions

Well…after receiving yet another overdue payment letter this week, I rang the milk company again on Friday, as last week we used her my landlady’s credit card to make a payment, which we thought had cleared the account.

I ended up speaking to a very chatty adviser and learnt the following:

• the account is clear so we can ignore the overdue payment letter
• she has no idea what happened to our old milk-man
• we currently do not have a regular milk-man
• milk-man “temps” are standing in and there may be several different milk-men covering the round
• the adviser had never heard of a milk-caddy with a dial!
• not all milk-men understand the milk caddy system – they may not realize they should look at the dial to see how many pints of milk the house-hold needs
• they prefer for customers to ring in the milk company with their requests rather than having direct communication with the milk-man
• they prefer customers to set up a direct debit for payments (I explained that is not what my landlady prefers)
• she was shocked when I told her our old milk-man used to deliver the milk around 10 or 11am. She told me milk should be delivered before 7am!
• a milk-man somewhere in the country did actually die quite suddenly this year only she has no idea where in the country that was, but it was due to illness and nothing suspicious
• milk-man work horrible hours
• they are looking to recruit new milk-men
• it’s a really hard job being a milk-man
• it’s even harder if you are a milk-man temp and you are having to deliver milk to customers on a round that you are not familiar with

I made her cry telling her how fond everyone was of our old milk-man and how lovely it was to see his cheery face and have a chat with him. We both agreed that it is lovely to see a local milk-man who is friendly and a part of the community.

We both spoke rather nostalgically of the “olden days” when neighbours chatted over the fence and everyone knew the milk-man and the post-man and the coal-man (hold on a minute I am much too young to remember the coal-man – but she remembered him).

I admitted to her that I am afraid that it could have been our lovely milk-man that may have died due to illness. I explained that would rather explain his mysterious disappearance. She said that all she knows is that it was very sudden and unexpected, but she has no idea where his milk-round was.

Perhaps I have been a bit over-imaginative in my detective work. I am starting to conclude that my theory about a new milk-man with “issues”, who was at war with my landlady over her complaints, is highly improbable – because it turns out we might be having a different milk-man every week! And of course my far-fetched fears about the disappearance of the old milk-man being due to some nefarious act on behalf of the new milk-man is also seeming even more absurd.

I am still faced with at least one of the milk-man “temps” being slightly dodgy, but I think I have to recognize that my suspicions were inordinately large. All I can accuse him of at the moment is not understanding how a milk-caddy works (which apparently is not unusual!), having an unkempt appearance, nearly running me over in his milk-float when he came around the corner too quickly, and lurking down cobble stoned alleys with shady looking photos.

However, I think we can all rest in peace that whatever his misdemeanours may be, they are not on the scale I presumptuously concluded they were.

We can all return to enjoying milk again (well some of us can enjoy the dairy-free alternatives). Is anyone for a milk-shake?

Take Another Little Piece Of My Heart Now Baby!

For many millions Sunday is Songday in one way or another, and for us bloggers that includes “SONG-LYRIC-SUNDAY”. Today’s theme is take/taking… as you can see in the post from Helen Vahdati, the creator of This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time:

https://helenswordsoflife.com/2018/11/03/song-lyric-sunday-theme-for-11-4-18/

I have found these past few weeks that as soon as I see Helen’s theme a song immediately pops into my head and it seems best to go with that and not overthink my choice!

This is a song I sang on stage several times in front of an enthusiastic audience…and I have sung it many times into my hairbrush around my bedroom. I love it! I have been singing it for years and I am sure it was because of a commercial television advert I saw when I was younger; only I cannot remember which one. I have included one possibility at the bottom of this post, but I am not 100% sure if this is the advert I am thinking of. I only remember the song, not the men trying on jeans, but perhaps I was just a bit too young to notice male totty in the video – am I allowed to even say that?:

Didn’t I make you feel like you were the only man yeah!
Didn’t I give you nearly everything that a woman possibly can?
Honey, you know I did!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I think I’ve had enough
But I’m gonna show you, baby, that a woman can be tough

I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby!
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah, yeah, yeah
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby
You know you got it if it makes you feel good
Oh, yes indeed

You’re out on the streets looking good
And you know what you got in your heart, that it ain’t right
And oh you never, never, hear me when I cry at night
Babe, I cry all the time!
And each time I tell myself that I, well I can’t stand the pain
But when you hold me in your arms, I’ll sing it once again

I’ll say come on, come on, come on, come on and take it!
Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart now, baby
Oh, oh, break it!
Break another little bit of my heart now, baby yeah
Oh, oh, have a!
Have another little piece of my heart now, baby
You know you got it if it makes you feel good

“Piece of My Heart” – written by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns.