Around the Pins

 This is a swimming pool built around an aquarium. You swim on the outside, the sharks swim on the inside and we all know how wrong that can go. I remember being taken to the aquarium at Sorrento or somewhere down there, I was young and impressionable.  I was standing close to the glass fascinated at being so close to live fish, I never saw the shark coming until it was practically cruising through one ear and out the other. And all that stuff they tell you about, like banging it on the nose, shoving a finger in its eye to save yourself, forget it. I went straight to freeze mode and I still do that at the beach if a piece of seaweed touches me. And it looks a bit deep and dark in that pool, on  the fish side, I have no idea what's around the corner where the light is coming from, hopefully a floating bar with a G&T.

 Now I'm down sizing myself here from the grand to the minute, I mean I still want the big conservatory out the front of the house but this would be just perfect to extend from the kitchen as a breakfast nook. I'd ditch the greenery, can't see the birds feeding but I could make that into padded seats  with tables in fronts. I hate the stupid little light though, ruins the atmosphere of luxury.

 I'll have something like this, pretty in the sunlight and gorgeous lit up on a dull day. River, it's high up, no-one will ever see the dust for a couple of years at least.

Now, in the golden days of blogging, we did have food blogs. Great cooks making up meals for the family, and if we were lucky a photograph of the actual dish not photoshopped into perfection.  This was before everyone had a phone and tweeted every cup of coffee and muffin they scoffed at "this divine little place hidden down a back lane".  Pinterest cake boards are a world on their own, kilojoules leap from the screen and grab you by the throat before you have time to click out.  Even I, the cake queen, could not contemplate eating this monstrosity. It's a Neapoliton chocolate chip cookie cake and it has 47 ounces (don't ask me to convert it, I'll hurt you) of sugar in it. That isn't cream between the layers, it's sugar icing cream and I've never seen pink choc chips before and hope never to again. I almost went on a diet when I saw this.  Next time some person whines about what we eat I'll whip up a batch of wholemeal scones, unadulterated cream (not squirted out of a can) and homemade jam and make a real leaf pot of tea and enjoy it.
Don't ask about mother.