I am back from the weekend

Hullo I am back. I have been in a cabin in the woods all weekend communicating with nature.

What it did not have:

- a connection to the water main, ergo
- a loo that flushed (instead, my monkeyparts were refreshed by external breezes)
- a shower, etc
- the internet
- a telephone

None of these mattered one jot.

What it did have:

- electricity
- a massive wood-burning stove
- many old magazines
- Leonard Cohen (not in person obv)
- excellent friends down a track ("...and then a WEASEL popped out of the La-Z-Boy!")

Here are some photosnaps:

The cabin. Many people think all of Canadia looks like this. They are (very) slightly correct.

Detail of the print on a single pillowcase. Skating 
cats! I ask you. I dream of it.

Gaping Bavarian shaving mug. Terrifying. $35. I did not buy it.

"Deceptively Simple", priced at a deceptively optimistic $695

You couldn't make it up. 

The famous prehistoric stone circle of the Cantons de L'Est 

Do you know what this is?  We thought it was a propeller. It is not a wing, we don't think. 

It was, 'ow you say, "awesome".  Yesterday, we went to Abercorn, bought delicious bread and had lunch with our excellent friends and some people we had not met before, but liked very much. They had dogs. I like dogs. (I will be writing more about this in the week; if we do not get a dog soon I may die soon, on the floor, in a heap.)

In other news, I will wait until tomorrow to announce the winner of Friday's Caption Competition.  In other words, it is not too late to be a "have-a-go-hero" yourself. 

Pip "Last chance saloon" pip!

NWM

UPDATE:  My friend and conspirator Asta IMMEDIATELY spotted that the thing is the blade of a wind turbine. I am not joking when I say it is fucking massive. Massive.  I was scared, but then I have a thing about a) crustaceans with antennae and wavy legs; b) gigantic industrial machinery/constructions. 

I run another caption competition (of sorts)

You may write a caption if you wish for that, as I know only too well, is a "formatte" you know and love already.   But really, I wish to know what it is that the dog has just said and/or done.  Come on. You know you can do it. 

As ever, there is a prize, but it is not a prize of a thing; it is simply the reward of knowing you are judged as "the beste" by me, NWM, arbiter of style and highly-qualified judge of what is and isn't funny. 

OK here goes.

Winners announced next Monday evening (EST).  I will be freshly relaxed from a weekend in a shack without internet or hot running water but WITH gigantic sauna, wine and people we like.

Good luck!!!

Pip "Man o' the Woods" Pip

NWM

P.S. Read this blog called Colonel Knowledge.

I prepare for the Royal Wedding

When Layd-dee-Dee (as they call her in some French-speaking nations) married Prince Charles, I made a massive scrapbook and was excited.   This time, I am not excited, but I will be having a celebratory tea-party. Hats will be obligatory, as will be sherry sucked out of ladylike tea-cups through bendy straws. (Tickets $150 each. Includes egg sandwiches, scones, half a bottle of sweet Oloroso and a commemorative shortbread biscuit.)

In preparation for my Royal Wedding tea party, I am buying new plates. Here is an example of one of them.  More here; buy them here.

Gawd bless yer, m'am!!!

Pip "Climb ev'ry mountain" Pip

NWM

I lose the internet

Today, a man in a yellow van come to our house in the semi-country outside Montreal, and spent the day "improving our connections" in a snowstorm up a ladder. (NB: "improving our connections" had nothing to do with Valentine's Day.)

With the man up the ladder came the loss, for one day only, of the following useful services:

1. The internet
2. The television
3. The telephone (landline)

"But what did you DO all day?", I hear you cry, your tiny faces straining towards me like newly-born kittens reaching mistakenly for a hot water bottle.   Here is the answer, adoring readers and/or fans: yes, using the power of the chart, I am able - using simple visual aids - to allow you easily to compare what I did all day today without an internet connection, to a typical day with an internet connection.

OK here goes. (Click on the image to make it bigger if your eyes are small like a tiny kitten's.)

 

I am not saying that doing the filing is of greater intrinsic value than for e.g. posting Dancey Paws to Facebook, or that having a little sit down and think is better for my mental health than looking at pictures of dogs and/or puppies*, but today I did things that were useful and I didn't, apparently, miss very much.  Is that true, do you think?  Or am I just living in a strange semi-non-working world, where covert operations take place on an iPhone under the stairs and I wait and wait for a work permit? 

Pip "Hmmmm" Pip

NWM

* especially when the dogs look like this: 

I give you my love