Povey Prattle

75 years :  from Newfoundland to New Hampshire.         http://www.nhmagazine.com/October-2014/The-love-story-of-Hal-and-Ethel-Burton/index.php?fb_action_ids=10204367934992377&fb_action_types=og.comments&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=[620453234735093]&action_type_map=["og.comments"]&action_ref_map =[]&

    My closest friends and family members will recall that I have a passion for mussels. My longstanding request is that my last meal on earth be mussels.  I have even written a rather heretical poem about this. (Ask me nicely and I'll publish it).   To my great delight our local "Whole Foods" is now selling frozen mussels, (sustainably farmed) and already shelled and cooked  (only $4.99 for a 1lb bag).     I fixed a mess of them the other day, in (store bought) seafood stock, with garlic, tomatoes celery and onion (diced), and sweet corn. Look above and let your mouth water.   Apart from today's meal (!) my memory of  the finest mussel meal  of my life, to date, was in Rimini, Italy.  My pal Joe S. and I sat outside a great little restaurant, and I had a dish of steaming mussels, straight from the ocean it seemed.  Such memories .   -----------------------------...

Junior cat Adelaide all excited 'cause there is a bird outside      

      I have just read "FATHER AND SON  A LIFETIME"  by Marcos Giralt Torrente.  The book was published in Spain in 2010.  Translated into English by Natasha Wimmer the book was published by Sarah Crichton Books in 2014. This bittersweet and tender memoir is about Torrente's interaction with his unpredictable father, right up until the death, from cancer, of the latter.   It's a good read, and I recommend the book. On page 108 of the American edition Marcos Torrente writes this of his father: " My father was shy, introverted, and melancholy by nature, but that does not mean that he was sad. He hated any kind of solemnity, including the solemnity bred of sadness.  His main obsession, it's fair to say, was being happy.  He harbored all kinds of doubts about himself and was always grappling with them. but just as zealously he sought distraction, sought to brush his doubts aside. Humor was his tool, the ter...

Via Chris G

     MINOR NUISANCE 1   Plastic cover for engine.  Finding the engine block is hard if you don't have an adjustable wrench with which to remove the four bolts which hold this in place.   Dead battery       My brother Martyn, and his son Sam will remember that my car battery died one night back in 2011 after we'd had dinner at Barnacle Bill's on SRQ's "North Trail".   After resting the engine for a bit we managed to start the car just as the AAA techie arrived.  He was very nice about this.  But the car would start the next morning.  AAA replaced the battery which was just as well, since M and S were heading out to Sea World that day.   That new battery "died" in Feb 2013, and was replaced, fee of charge, under warranty.   This morning, less than two years later, the replacemen...