I can't get the taste of suncream out of my mouth (with a small word about Open Homing)

Now here's something I definitely don't like on a plate. Suncream.

On Sunday, when we were out dipping our toes in the joyous seas of Open Homing (more later), we stopped for an ice cream to asuage our lovely daughter who doesn't find Open Homing quite so joyous.

In the process of eating my ice cream, I noticed a blob had dropped onto my trousers (clean on, I might add). I quickly swiped the blob with my finger and popped it into my mouth. Hmmm. Doesn't taste quite right, I thought. Yeuch. Not. Right. At. All. Fast action was required - spitting the offending substance that definitely was not ice cream out of the car door (we weren't moving at the time).

I realised that it was, oh yes, suncream. They may both be called cream, and be a slightly off-white colour, but there the similarity ends. One of this particular type of suncream's selling points is that it stays on for many hours. Well, I can tell you now that this also applies to suncream on to your tongue. It's not a good taste, and believe me, it lingers. I can still taste it now, five days later.

But how, I hear you asking, did the suncream end up masquerading as melted ice cream on my trousers? Okay, okay, I know you weren't asking, but I'll tell you anyway. It's all to do with living in a country that has remarkably little in the way of ozone.

When the sun finally does come out (as it has been very shy about doing this Summer in Wellington), it is very hot and very strong. You can practically feel your skin sizzle and pop if you are not either covered in thick fabric or lashings of chemicals the minute the sun peeps around the silver-lined cloud (all clouds here are either long and white, or silver-lined). So suncream must be kept within reach at all times, especially when you have small children to feel guilty about.

There is a large bottle of the stuff parked in between the two front seats of our car. Very handy, really, except that the bottle has a pump dispenser. Everytime you lean over the central reservation for whatever reason, you are at risk of activating the pump and dispensing a blob (or blobs) of suncream.

Today, after I had dropped off my daughter at school and was chatting with some friends, I looked down and saw many blobs of cream on my top (clean on, I might add). I think the suncream will have to find a new home. It is haunting me. I smell and taste it everywhere.


A small word about Open Homing....

My favourite sport/pasttime/hobby takes place every Sunday between the hours of around 12 and 2.30.

After several hours pouring through the Real Estate pages of the paper, a list is compiled and the children are strapped in to the car (with or without the husband, depending on his whim and his work).

As you arrive at your chosen house - with the Real estate Agent's Open Home flag waving bravely in the Welly wind, anchored to an unbelievably flash car (as Agents here charge amazing amounts of money to sell houses) - you make your way up the path and step through the open door of the wonderful thing that is an Open Home.

You may have to remove your shoes - veteran open homers wear slip-ons for ease and speed - but from then on you are free to wander. Heaven.

It satisfies many needs - your nosey bone is well and truely tickled, your green-eyed tendency can be either piqued or put away, and if you actually want to buy a house, you might even find something you are looking for.

I love it. I am an Open Home junkie.

I am a blog-nonce

Yes, it's true.

I can set one up, but now what? How do I do the fancy bits like on webweaver's blog? (See, I don't even know how to make that a link to her blog.) How can I catch up on all the ether-phraseology? How can I possibly decide what aspect of my oh-so-multi-faceted life to comment on?

Aaah, tis all just another way to procrastinate. Ay, there's the rub. Here I am typie-typing when I really should be: sending out some invoices which are embarrasingly late, making lunch for my sleeping son, tidying up my famously untidy house (much like painting the Severn Bridge, that one), going for a run on my running machine (oh, actually, I don't have to do that today as I went for a bike ride this morning - now I can feel all self-righteous and justified), yes, I can think of many things I should be doing.

But I'm not. I'm sitting here wondering how to get those little stars which help rate the books I'm reading.

I know I'll catch up soon. But what shall I catch up with? And will I feel like I should have caught up with the other things first?

Things I like on a plate

Whenever I ask my daughter what she would like for lunch or dinner, her answer is invariably "things I like on a plate".

A famous dish in our house, its current ingredients include: cherry tomatoes, cucmber slices, crackers smeared with cream cheese, a pile of cottage cheese, perhaps some ham, diced avocado and some kind of fruit - usually apple. Not bad on the old nutrition front, I suppose, but after maybe 3 years you would think its popularity would be waning. But no.

And now my son, who can't yet say the words "things I like on a plate" has developed a strong penchant for cherry tomatoes, cucumber, cottage cheese and ham (not so much the avocado or the crackers, but hey). And so the dish lives on. And on.

Things I like on a plate is a great concept. It fits what you have in the fridge or cupboard. It fits individual taste buds. It can stay the same for ages (even years) or it can change every week.

And so, too, it fits for my blog. Sometimes there will be things I like. Sometimes there will be the odd thing I don't like. Sometimes there will be lots on my plate, sometimes very little.