Timezone Weirdness

GMT+3 timezone

I’m currently in Beirut, Lebanon. It’s a lovely city in every way – dynamic, energetic, mixed, people of all kinds, great food, great nightlife, beaches, mountains, you name it.

The timezone is weird, though. Lebanon is smack in the middle of the GMT+3 zone, but nonetheless it GMT+2 – same time as Athens or Helsinki. My flight here connected in Istanbul, Turkey. From Copenhagen I went +2 timezones, but then from Istanbul to here, I went -1, despite travelling each.

Confusing!

Pebernødder, Again

It’s time.  Some can’t wait, some try to ignore it, but there’s no way around it (at least in my part of the world): Xmas is coming.  And so, it’s time once again to re-blog that post about pebernødder, and the recipe that go with it.

Leonard Cohen, 1934 – 2016

So. I learned today that Leonard Cohen had died earlier in the week. It was not entirely unexpected – in fact, it had sort of been announced a few weeks ago. Yet, I have so much emotional baggage riding on his songs; there’s a great sense of loss.

Brace yourself

At my house, we have a mass of purple Geranium in front, towards the street.  They are wonderful – lots of flowers from mid-May to far into the autumn.  They start flowering just as the Rhododendron are finished, and with a bit of luck keep doing so until the first snow. And with very little work. I love that, long after most other flowers are go
ne, the Geranium is still going strong – green, lush, and lots of colour in front of the house. We have precious little of that around here.

Travel no more (2015)

Looks like I’ve done my last trip for 2015. Looking forward to two travel-free weeks.

Dear airports; thanks for a hectic year. See you again in 2016.

Sweet potatoes w/grapes

Today’s cooking experiment was to find a new preparation for sweet potatoes.  We really like them as a side dish and often do a sweet potato mash, or simple (oven made) fries, but it was getting to be too much the same thing. The fix was a variation on the fries theme.

Wall of Voodoo – Ring of Fire

(I’m trying to capture some of my Facebooks posts from the “fill FB with music” thing that’s popular in August 2014. I won’t promise to do all of them here, but some are worth keeping).

Wall of Voodoo is yet another somewhat obscure band from the “new wave” / post punk era. Their pop-tinted new wave often sounded like a blend of Devo and The Stranglers. Never had much of an audience in Europe, but in particular the early albums are are definitely worth a listen if you can find them.