Envoi

No, Mrs Trellis: googlies.

Life's googlies

My beloveds, I have an urgent message for you all, and Mrs Trellis of North Wales: life never ceases to bowl unexpected googlies at you. Actually, that's a silly thing to say, because googlies are by definition unexpected (Apologies to my transatlantic readers, who will be as mystified by a googly as any English batsman. Incidentally, V, great to hear from you today).

What I mean is, you can reach my age and still have new experiences, which is really comforting when you think about it, and certainly more life-affirming than lower back pain.

Anyway, back to my new experience. I am really excited by this latest never-did-this-before moment. Tonight I ate an Alaska pollock. To be accurate, I ate a fillet from an Alaska pollock. I have no idea what proportion of a complete AP I ate, but I can tell you that this fish is probably rectangular judging from the shape of my fillet.

The pollock or pollack- a fish that cries out for bad puns - is, according to Wikipedia:
largely considered to be a white fish, although it is a fairly strongly flavored one. Alaska pollock has a much milder taste, whiter color and lower oil content. High quality, single frozen whole Alaska pollock fillets may be layered into a block mold and deep frozen to produce fish blocks that are used throughout Europe and North America as the raw material for high quality breaded and battered fish products...Single frozen Alaska Pollock is considered to be the premier raw material for surimi; the most common use of surimi in the United States is "imitation crabmeat" (also known as crab stick).
I don't know from kak about all that, but I am intrigued to know why there is no -n on Alaska. Seems a bit of a pose to me, like those people called Finch who spell their names ffinch. The Alaska pollock was all right, but personally, I'd rather have ccod or hhaddock.

"Does my bum look big in this?"

My dear friend X told me today that she had sat on her glasses. I know you ladies are very self-conscious about your backsides, but it seems a bit exaggerated to try to see your own bum by sitting on your glasses.
Shame on you, X. All you needed to do was ask me: I will happily gaze on your bum anytime.

A taste from my childhood

During the War, in order to keep us children healthy, we were given a gill of free milk every day, a gill of orange juice and a tablespoonful of Malt Extract with Cod Liver Oil. I recently discovered that Malt Extract is still available, thanks to a firm called Potter's of Wigan, so I bought a jar. And took a spoonful. And, my goodness, it's not only delicious and doing me good, but it's made me feel eight years old again!
I didn't have lower back pain when I was eight years old.

Postscript

As a postscript to the previous post, perhaps I should add that pteridomania was a Victorian obsession which had moreorless died out by the 1880's. This makes my rage an even more satisfying one, even if it does seem to be a case of bolting the horse after the stable door is gone.

................... I must try to get more sleep.

Down with pteridomaniacs

Apologies for my recent silence. I crocked my back and have been mostly horizontal for the last few days. Being crocked makes me angry, most with myself, but in order to externalise my rage, I looked around for something to get really grumpy about. And I discovered pteridomania. God, I get really demonic when I think of the (de)predations of pteridomaniacs, damn them all to hell.
Ah, that's better. Nothing like a good grump to take your mind off lower back pain.

The Marmalade WHAT?

As a regular reader of this blog, you and Mrs Trellis are undoubtedly interested in wildlife. Me too. In fact, in all modesty, I can say that I have now reached the stage where I can easily separate a Mew Gull from a Daffodil even without hearing them sing. And so, driven by my endless yearn for self-improvement, I took out a subscription to British Wildlife (I have no idea how wildlife knows that it's British, but that's another theme for another day).
British Wildlife is, and I am serious here, a wonderful publication. But - isn't there always a but?- I quickly lose heart. Let me give you an example of the kind of thing that immediately takes the steam out of my sails. In the current issue, in the section called Wildlife Reports, in the subsection called Flies, the first sentence reads: "That the year 2006 was a poor one even for the Marmalade Hoverfly Episyrphus baltaetus speaks volumes."
It may speak volumes to Roger Key of English Nature and his entomobuddies, but I can't hear a damn thing.