Too many, at least, to work in the garden of my house between the hours of 11:30 and 13:00, while delicious smells of cooked lunch come and distract me from various directions.

Nice to know that not every parent has surrendered to Microwave food, although the smells did make me struggle with my gardening work.

I gave them my revenge yesterday though, kick-starting a huge amount of oxtail soup mid day, and preparing a delicious liver pate in the early evening. Both are very smelly businesses, so I am confident that the smells from my extractor made a few bellies rumble.

The movie cost between 240 and 300 million US dollars to make. Amazing, if you think about it. In terms of box office revenue, it made well over 2.6 billion US dollars so far (according to this site). That is US$ 2,600,000,000, and growing. Not to speak of merchandise and DVD sales.

More than a year’s pay, even including the bonus!

And this is just one of many big money-spinning movies. While the crowds enjoy watching the fate of the Earth-like planet Polyphemus in 3D, I can’t help thinking what all this this money could have done in our present, real and truly three dimensional world. $2,600,000,000. That’s enough to fix a lot of things in this world. Instead, we squander it away in 2 hours 40 minutes, accompanied by a bucket of sticky popcorn.

Maybe intelligent life exists somewhere in the Universe. On a whole, we don’t seem to have much of it on this planet.

An Express Paella. Paella is one of my all-time top-ten favourite dishes. The express version is based on Churizo and deep-frozen mixed seafood; no lamb, chicken or pork, no fresh fish, mussels or shellfish. As such, it can be thrown together in a matter of minutes, all you need then is an hour of cooking time.

Roasted lamb chops with aubergines, topped with spiced and crumbled feta cheese and pine nuts. Served with roasted potato wedges, and a pudim flan afterwards. A nice blend of Moussaka with something else. Well, nice, that’s what matters. (See picture.)

A belated Chinese New Year Dinner at our friend L.-S.’s house, featuring Won-ton soup (all components made by hand and from scratch, of course), steamed dumplings, steamed chicken and mushrooms, sea bass, rice – oh, and the beautiful and delicious Jasmine Tea. I had only known Jasmine Tea as the Jasmine-infused Green tea variety. We admired and enjoyed tea brewed from real (dried) Jasmine flowers. Very beautiful and very delicious. I’d love to have some more of this.

Super-lazy Chicken with all the trimmings, as part of our lazy French Sunday (on account of our French friend C’s birthday). Spiced up with watching The Dish, but that’s a different story…

I used to think nurses were women,
I used to think police were men,
I used to think poets were boring,
Until I became one of them.

The BBC quoted this poem in their Mastercrafts program on stained glass, and the poem is now cited in a new stained glass featuring in a school in Peckham, south London.

I was intrigued and consulted with a popular Internet search engine, and thus discovered a poet called Benjamin Zephaniah. What a great guy! Well worded, non-boring, non-traditionalist, inventive, fresh. I also like Wot a Pair.

Read it for yourself, and read it aloud. It’s right here.

As rain washes off the dust a little, I think it will turn a little darker – especially when wet, which it probably will be most of the time.

Anyway. Another thing done and ticked off the list. All we need now is nice and warm weather.