They tried hard

Last night we watched the football game between France and Uruguay. Somehow it's always stressful for me to watch the French team. They are capable of the best or the worse and there is no way to predict which one it will be. Still last night they tried hard to score. They had many opportunities but sadly never managed to break the defense wall from Uruguay. Let's hope they will do better in the next game.

A different activity for the evening

A few months ago we bought tickets for a show without really knowing what it was about. It was a leap of luck, trying to experience something different: Marianne Faithfull reads Shakespeare's Love Sonnets.
We arrived late due to impossible parking situation in the center but still made it just before she started.
The set up was 2 people on the stage:
- Marianne Faithfull, sitting at a table and reading the sonnets
- Vincent Segal, sitting next to her playing the cello in between each sonnet
I have to confess I preferred the music over the sonnets. Possibly because Shakespeare's English is not that easy to understand (even with translation).
I was a bit surprised that the show only lasted 1 hour but at the same time longer might have become boring. There is only so much time one can listen to poetry, I guess.
Not the best show ever but surely a nice and different way to spend the evening, away from Internet and DVDs.
You can have a glimpse of the show here (bottom of the page).
This said we had no idea who Marianne Faithfull was / is (just not our generation). Obviously there were some fans in the room who stood up at the end of the show. I guess it reminded the (old) lady of her success when from the 60s and 70s (we won't talk about her scandals :)).

Steam station

About 2 weeks ago Anamaria, our cleaning lady, asked me whether we were considering changing the iron. Surprised, I asked whether it was a) broken, b) not working properly or c) simply something was wrong with it. None of the above. Then what?

My iron is too old and not powerful enough :( An iron equipped with a steam generator would be much better and allow to iron much faster (i.e. more clothes ironed by her, even less by us). Quid ????

True I can't remember when I bought my iron. For sure at some point in Paris which means easily 8 years ago, if not 10. Fair to say it's old.

True with the 2 of us in the house there is more to iron than when it was just me.
True new irons are more powerful than mine and I can bet one with the steam generator would be.
True also I always wanted to have one when I was ironing but never had the money to buy one (later I had Anamaria ironing for me... so I never thought of it again).
So I searched the Internet to learn about those steam stations and nearly had a heart attack when I saw that prices ranged from 100 euros or so all the way up to 400!!!!

In the meantime I discovered most of my colleagues have one (seems it's a must when you have children) and even those who don't have children bought one eventually because it's simply faster.

Conclusion of the investigation: we bought one...

It's huge compare to the simple iron I had before and after a test drive this evening I can say the following: WOW! It's so much easier to iron now. One slide and it's done or almost. One negative though: the noise when the machine is heating the water which makes it harder to hear the movie.

If I didn't hate so much ironing in the first place I would almost say I enjoyed ironing. I never thought I would say that one day.

Beautiful Flowers

The house is full of flowers and I love it!

Thanks Silke, Alex and Fabian (2 weeks after your visit the orchids are still beautiful)

Thanks Wolfram for the surprise  bouquet.

Thanks Manuela, Luis and Adrian for lovely flowers and great brunch.

Life is tough

when you are a cat sleeping 18 hours a day...

3000

Today while buying a gift for baby Lily, I decided to treat myself with a new puzzle.
3000 pieces that's the size of the challenge I'm about to start. That's the biggest puzzle I ever did (well this is assuming I will manage to finish it).
Let's get started (and forget eating at the table for some time).

The Paper Towel Gang feat. Bounty's Pool Balls Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sk2zBEjfX8
Check this out !
Of course the whole team wants us to do the same for our project. It's gonna be fun :)