Rooftop Restaurant and German

Hi friends,

As good old M came from Germany on Wednesday, we went to his favourite Rooftop Restaurant in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Although we did not book in advance, we could get a good table with the lovely view, looking down the Avon and the meadow behind it. It was simply beautiful in twilight.

We started with a glass of Rose and Cucumber cocktail. It sounds odd, but trust me, ladies and gentlemen, it was gorgeous. It is lovely gin based cocktail with rose syrup, lemon and cucumber.

I really like M’s company as he has got a similar view to mine regarding foods. He confessed he spends rather a lot on foods and wine. This is the man who bought Land Rover Discovery only few weeks after Range Rover Evoque. I should not ask him how much he means by “rather a lot”.

Drink was nice, food was lovely and the company was absolutely fabulous, as always.

Only downside of this treat was, the man at the table near ours. A waitress brought the wrong order to our table and when we were talking with her, there was this horrible man shouting at us.

It was his and his (supposedly) wife’s order. This kind of mistake happens all the time, doesn’t it? There is no need to talk to a young waitress so rudely for such a small error. He shouted at us as well. “You did not touch it, did you?”

What an unpleasant man! There is no sign of class in this behaviour, so unsuitable for such an elegant venue.

Their service is always friendly and appropriate there. I have to say, Mr Nasty, it is a law of attraction. We like the place because they provide “us” excellent service and foods.

One of the waiters said that he studied German but as he has not many opportunities to practice, he is forgetting the language. He obviously heard the accent as he said that in German. I normally pretend that I do not understand German but M at last noticed that I actually do. Oops.

The reason why I gave up learning other European languages is, my ex-boyfriend (happened to be a German) said I sound like a Brummie when I speak in German! Doh!

Shockingly, nearly 15 years ago, my ex-colleague from Belgium said exactly the same thing when we were talking in French and he kindly advised me to stick to English….Doh!!

Never mind.  

Anyway, it was a lovely evening with nice foods and a great company. Thanks M, let’s go again.

http://www.rsc-rooftop-restaurant.co.uk/

Breakfasts, House Cleaning and Heroic Polonaise

Hi friends,

It has been a busy week at work and I felt that I ignored my life at home. When I lose home/work balance and losing the control and quality in them, I stop everything and start cleaning the house.

My dear friend in London told me that she has started sorting out the clothes  to make it to 100 pieces.  Although it is my policy, there is no need to make it to 100. As long as you feel it is manageable, I think there is nothing wrong having 300 dresses and 500 pairs of jeans. Whether you are feeling truly good about it, is the best measurement for“sorting out” – not only about things but also about people - relationships.

Then, my another obsession – breakfasts. Having big good breakfast, and cleaning the house. It sounds rather sad way of spending weekend, doesn’t it?

Well, with a good piece of piano music, I spent my Sunday morning feeling happy and content. Where I came from, particular pieces of Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven give us nostalgia and high percentage of people in my generation can hum these tunes. They are Heroic Polonaise, La Campanella and Tempest.

I recently bought my favourite pianist, Nobuyuki Tsujii’s CD through Amazon. It is a beautiful collection featuring the work of Chopin and Listz. Although I absolutely adore Nobuyuki's talent, his Heroic Polonaise was just too elegant for my liking. When it comes to Chopin’s greatest work, it has to be Vladimir Horowitz.

If you click the following link, you will be shocked what this wrinklie old man is capable of. He is amazing. This is my kind of Heroic Polonaise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvlWpB2X6Vg

However, Nobuyuki Tsuji is just right for me for La Campanella. He is certainly a talented young man, but not as gifted as Horowitz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbAoeZZvntk

Every once in a while, right in the middle of my ordinary life, music gives me a fairy tale.

Righto, time for me to go back to cleaning!

Enjoy your Sunday afternoon.

Breakfast and Lunch

Hi friends,

My usual topic – breakfast and lunch just to report to you that I am alive ;-)

Breakfast

Lunch

I have got a rather busy weekend. Whilst the weather is nice like this, we must make most of it!

Little yet big steps and wishes in our lives

Hi friends,

What a gorgeous day! Although such a day gives me hay fever and sometimes asthmatic cough induced by it (Doh!), I am still enjoying myself here. Honestly!

What made me happy in recent few days are, the little presies I got from friends (in the photo above), restored communication with old friends & colleagues in the US through LinkedIn, good laugh over good coffee with gorgeously Germanic AS (although he is claiming he is not....lol), and lastly, the decision my dearest AM made.

AM will start a course for mentoring in September. Her ultimate goal is to work for a cancer related organisation to provide counselling sessions to those who desperately need support and understanding from gentle yet strong souls.  

What a strong noble woman!

God bless her future. The world really needs people like her.

It makes me wonder where I would like to go and what I want to be.  I recently read a novel about a man and a woman who kept attracting each other but always resulted in a tragic end in their reincarnated lives. In the story, they learn why they lived like that and eventually noticed the theory in this world.

I know my ladies and gentlemen, you think Juno has become a weirdo and is entering the bizarre world, but bear with me. I found a very interesting and encouraging message in this story.

This man and this woman, they noticed that the lives they had were just what they wished and they created them by themselves. In another words, you can live your life exactly in the way you really wish.

There are things you think you are lack of, or you feel like you are carrying lots of burdens. Unfortunately, they are also what you wished for your life in a twisted way.

My older colleague once told me that he had bleeding gum and suffered from bad breath for few years. He kept wishing that he would be free from such a trouble. Shockingly, his bleeding gum was miraculously healed in few weeks since he started wishing but he is not sure about the breath. He lost his sense of smell due to ear infection he got after that! We could say he is now free from the issues as he wished.

Well, we had better to be careful with what we wish and the way how we wish….

What I would like to say is, if we strongly wish for ourselves, it will be subconsciously stored in our brain and it will rule our behaviours and thoughts. Consequently, it will come true.

OK, it is rather dodgy, I admit. However, I want to believe it and I will practice it. In the end of the day, it won’t cost me a penny, so why not?

For now, I wish you all a nice weekend and the brightest start for AM who made a courageous decision.

Saturday Lunch with Friends

Hi friends,

I had hilarious 2 hours with my great friends at the Cross in Kenilworth on Saturday. The time with those ladies gives me great sense of fun and it is always the most effective stress buster.

As we were too busy with latest gossip…nope, it was catching up, I completely forgot to take photos of the foods. I managed to take photos of desserts though.

Vanilla Panna Cotta

Strawberry Sundae

Cheese and…..something?

It was so scary on the way coming back from Kenilworth. By the time I reached Banbury Road B4100, the rain became almost stormy and I could not see anything as it was as bad as driving under the Niagara Falls.

Lots of “sensible” drivers stopped their cars by roadside and waited until the rain eased off.

Me? Well, I was driving Landrover….let’s put it in this way.  

Oui Katsushika - The Most Talented Ukiyo-e Artist

Hi friends,

As promised, this is the Ukiyo-e (Japanese style print) I so wanted to see for years.

By Oui Katsushika

This is the property of Boston Museum but whilst I was in Kobe in June, there was a special exhibition at the Kobe Museum and at long last, I saw this in real. Look at the details of the patterns on Kimono and the combination of colours! She was a genius and at the same time, her paintings made her a poet and also without doubts a ravel.

If you have a chance to see this piece in real, remember to check at the bottom of the black Kimono. As well as the gorgeous flowery patterns, she created one dew drop and on the orange area (under Kimono), there is a pattern of cob web.

These three ladies are actually high class prostitutes (Not Geisya, geisya is often misunderstood as prostitutes but they are not.) Oui expressed her view towards these prostitutes discreetly through patterns of Kimonos. Dew drop means something easily disappears and cob web means these ladies were trapped, they lost their freedom.

Her name Oui is not the real name. She decided to use this name as an Ukiyo-e painter as her father often called her “Oi!”. What sense of humour she had! Mind you my friends, I am talking about the woman lived in Japan in the 19th century where no women received any form of education and were labelled as second class citizens. She is a tough cookie, our kind of girl, isn’t she?

I adore this woman’s extraordinary talent, wit and insight. Absolutely exceptional and simply stunning.

She was said to be born in 1800 as the third daughter of the famous Ukiyo-e Master, Hokusai Katsushika. If Ukiyo-e, I am sure everyone thinks of Big Wave or Red Fuji. They are the master pieces created by Hokusai. Unlike her father, very little is known about Oui.

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/02/14/the-artists-daughter-the-girl-behind-hokusais-prints/

I personally think her talent excelled her father’s. Some experts think Oui was the ghost painter behind Hokusai’s late pieces.

This is Oui’s best known work. Night Scene in Yoshiwara. Yoshiwara is the famous Red Zone in Edo (old name for Tokyo) in the Edo period (1603 -1867).