And I think you’ll all agree with me that the state of my avocado’s winkle is an interesting thing. Three weeks after the winkle first appeared, it is now less of a winkle and more of a trunk that should perhaps be marked as NSFW. However, on top there is now a cute new upstairs winkle! The little shoot that started off inside the stone has emerged through a crack at the top and is now a couple of centimetres tall. AND! It’s furry. I don’t know what else you could ask for.

All of my bones ached today on account of spending the day walking around Bluewater shopping centre yesterday. Suzy and I didn’t do badly with our shopping. I got a few Christmas bits and pieces done and we both found some nice clothes. We were also both very smug about getting lunch before the crowds descended on the eateries and seating areas. We also made sure to stop for a rejuvenating coffee and cake break in the afternoon just before entering the temple of H&M. That plain ol’ cup of Joe up there, just waiting for a splash of milk is mine. The pile of froth and nonsense spilling onto the table is Suzy’s festive chai latte.

Though I didn’t come away with piles and piles of clothes like some people, H&M was good enough to me to provide me with a few bits of knitwear (which I didn’t particularly need, but which are pretty). I also now have a grey and black stripy top which made me feel like Mildred, the Worst Witch when I tried it on. That pleased me for some reason.

Another niceness from the day happened as I walked out of a shop and a little old lady walking by stopped to tell me what a little sweetheart I was and that I looked lovely. I thanked her and she asked me if I had a boyfriend. “No, I don’t”, I said. “Well, with a face like that you’ll get one” she said. I thanked her and she disappeared into the crowd. I don’t know who she was, but I think she should have some nice karma coming to her for that.

Yes, boys and girls, you too could have a hot pink Christmas tree with its own falling polystyrene snow. I’m guessing this isn’t really intended for households with babies or kittens … or taste.

Anyway, the glamour of the Pan Am stewardesses inspired me to play around with my makeup while I watched (because barely anything nowadays gets my full attention; I have to multi-task at all times). I tried out applying the creamy eyeshadow in my Sleek palette with my Mac brush rather than the sponge applicator. That’s what the Pixiwoo ladies do, so I gave a it a go and the result was good. I thought I’d also try a winged eyeliner for a change (aeronautical makeup seemed appropriate) and the result was pretty good, though perhaps also proof that I am clearly not ambidextrous.

Here I am, Hipsta-ing it up. I was given a new iPod for my birthday, as it turned out that while the one I had was in perfectly fine working order, it was too old to be updated to iOS5. This new one has a camera, which means I have now finally entered the world of Instagram and Hipstamatic and all those things that are completely old hat to millions of iPhone users. I’m still not allowing myself an iPhone for the time being though. I don’t think it would be good for me to have access to the web and email everywhere I went; I’m not sure I’d be as attentive to the real people around me as I should be. So for now I have the Everything But of an iPod with access to the net only if there’s wi-fi. Which is fine for me. Well, for now at least.

My interest in the game is linked to my interest in aerial photos. I just find these views of buildings, streets and little pieces of life fascinating. I took the photo above [full size] not long after taking off from Salzburg a couple of weeks ago. I tracked down the area on Google Earth and Bing Maps and by dint of these photos being best when you’re relatively low, I have earlier photos from a similar place. The picture below [full size], which has been my desktop background for years, shows the reverse side of the red, green and blue apartment buildings (right of centre above) at the bottom of the shot. On the online maps they’re still under construction, which makes them a challenge to find:

Mum noticed the lime green edged building in the new photo, a little below the road on the left edge of the picture, and wondered aloud what it might be. Knowing roughly which area the picture showed, I went a-looking. It had a nice distinctive roof to find, with two white squares on top. Except it was nowhere to be found. I found the roofs around it, but the building in the middle wasn’t right. Ok, well at least I knew now that it was a school though, thanks to the label on Google Earth. So I Googled the school and … yep, as I thought might be the case, it popped up on a couple of websites belonging to architectural firms. The school had been knocked down and rebuilt … and the pictures on the websites showed the lime green walls that we could see in the photo.

I just love doing this kind of investigative research, tracing people or objects from place to place, thinking outside the box in order to find a new path to follow. To top it off, when I went back through my old Salzburg photos, I found the one below. At full size I can just see the white fascias of the old school building. So I have my own little before and after archive for the school.

Well, at least all that kept me occupied for a while.

You mix up quite a stiff dough, which is then piped from a bag with a star nozzle into hot oil to fry. It took me two hands to squeeze the dough, so I had a sous chef to cut the lengths. This sous chef was getting kicked out of the house in the evening though, hence the need to reheat churros. By undercooking the sticks the first time, reheating them in hot oil in the evening worked well at finishing them off and making them crisp and warm. But serving them completely fresh is still absolutely the best way to do it … and Suzy has a very particular time for eating them too.

I served the warm chocolate sauce in individual tea cups, with a little pile of churros on the saucer. Then I brought in the big bowl of all the rest of the churros and my guests proclaimed their love for me.

It turns out that at some point during the evening, while I was doing something – probably with cheese – in the kitchen, the other three used my laptop to order tickets for my birthday present and then deleted their browsing history to cover their tracks. Just like we used to do at school.

For the record, they are not in the process of secret booking in the photo above. They were much stealthier than that. Anyway, the tickets are for kick-ass seats for us all at Cirque du Soleil in London in January. And here is where I attempt some kind of segue from hoping we don’t have to join in the acrobatics to talking about how the end of our evening turned into a ridiculously silly dance party to cheesy Mexican party music. I’d bought a bunch of tracks on iTunes to entertain my guests while I was in the kitchen, but didn’t remember them until the end of the meal. What the hell, we thought, let’s put them on now … and let’s have Suzy teach us to samba, fail at that and generally arse about. The next day I could barely walk, but it was a lot of fun.

Here’s the grand finale video:

There was a slightly obscure reason I had chosen the cow over the pig also on offer. I shall explain. I used not to exactly know what a moot point was. It was alright if someone else used the phrase in conversation – my eyes didn’t glaze over too obviously or anything, but I didn’t know how to use the phrase accurately myself. Until I saw this and it all clicked:

Ever since then, a moo point has been part of not just my vocabulary, but also that of everyone around me who has to put up with me labelling anything relevant a moo point. So I thought it only right to own a cow as official mascot for The Moo Point. Her name is Cathy.

The day before I flew home from Salzburg we made a little 20 minute road trip to the Gaisberg mountain. It’s a mountain I’ve seen often and was the first one I had to learn, as it’s easily identifiable by the big antenna on its peak.

Though the sun had been shining when I arrived in the city, the mist had since descended and so we made the drive up the winding mountain road through the fog, passing the odd cyclist or runner (why?!) before finally we saw sunshine hitting the trees ahead of us, turning the autumn leaves to gold.

It has occurred to me since I’ve been back that although we went to the top of the mountain, we didn’t actually stand at the highest point. We parked up and crossed the road so as not to be looking over other people’s parked cars and this took us downhill. The 1265 metres above sea level of which the sign speaks was actually a point a few feet up behind us. So I feel I need to go back and do this mountain again.

See? It’s higher up there. I didn’t go up there. I should go up there.

This is the Dachstein off in the distance, which is another mountain that’s fairly easy to identify, in that it’s huge, covered in snow and has its very own glacier.

And the Dachstein is about all we had in terms of a view. The city below us was completely shrouded in mist and the only sign of life when you stopped talking and listened was the strange zombie-like groaning coming up from the valley as people carried on their day. Up there in the dark on Halloween would be a great place to scare the crap out of people.

The pointed peak in the middle of the photo is the Watzmann, the third highest mountain in Germany. Maybe I’m easily impressed, but it still blows my mind a little that I’m seeing something in one country when I’m standing in another.

Sometimes quesadillas are made by folding the circular tortilla in half, with the filling in the middle, but I did mine with two whole tortillas stacked with the filling in middle. They fit nicely on a baking sheet, so I cooked them in an oven rather than a frying pan. Plus, the more hands-free approach enabled me to get on with sprinkling more cheese on the kitchen floor.

I wanted to offer two different fillings, so gave everyone a quarter of a two quesadillas – one had chorizo and pine nuts with cheddar and feta and the other had mushroom, red onion and cheddar. I also made potato wedges with a sprinkling of ground cumin in the olive oil in which they were coated.

Here’s the judgement video:

The length of my avocado’s winkle is now reasonably obscene and as such, one’s eyes should be averted. There are things afoot in the middle of the stone now though, with a future shoot beginning to show.