AcrossThePond's Profile

Personally, I prefer the 'before' to the 'after, although ...not so much the floor!. White, gold and marble just aren't my thing, I'm afraid.

Ah...if only we had the weather.... :(

SARRAZAK you should be able to get hold of copper foil tape from a green/organic gardening suppliers (e.g. Chase Organics if you're in UK). It's made for sticking around the sides of plant pots to keep slugs and snails from getting to your plants and, as such, I found it pretty disappointing. However, as a craft material, it's great! I'm sure that it would look great on a project like this, especially as the surface mellows and tarnishes!

How on earth did I miss this post? It's brilliant!!! I'll try it out for myself of course, but I also think that our gardening pupils would love to make some too! THANK YOU!!

Wow, thanks for the info'. Is that where the expression "shimmy up to" comes from I wonder? Anyway, I'm not sure that we have anything that useful in DIY stores here. I'd have to improvise!

I'd suggest braving the elements to explore a museum, gallery or arts centre but personally, I've been too busy doing 5, 6 and 8!!!

E.OLIVER You have crumpets too? :) I've got to admit, muffin or crumpet, as soon as it has popped out of the toaster it's swiftly dispatched to my tummy so, I've never really looked that closely at my muffins! I wonder if you were lucky enough to venture into Staffordshire when you lived here and eaten Staffordshire oatcakes (very, very different to the Scottish oatcake, which is a dry savoury biscuit thing) and pikelets? Both have the texture of crumpets but pikelets resemble thick 'dollar' pancakes and oatcakes are more like thin, large and floppy! Traditionally, oatcakes were made on site at the oatcake shop, by pouring the batter straight onto a large hotplate, resembling a large table. Great when stuffed with say, grilled mushrooms...mmmmmm!!

Well, in England, a muffin is a muffin! Actually, looking at the images in this post, those muffins look a little like crumpets... could it be that, in America, crumpets are English muffins....? Which ever they are, I haven't got a recipe for making either!

DENISEGK, your comment reminded me of a lecture I went to a few years back, about "The Great Wave" painting by Hokusai, albeit, not so pleasant on the ear. The person introducing the guest speaker had, what I thought was the slowest and most monotonous voice I'd ever heard. It was a struggle to pay attention but I knew that, eventually, the guest speaker would take over and was bound to be lively and positively effervescent by comparison. Finally, the speaker stepped up to the podium and began to speak...in a voice even slower and, incredibly, even more monotonous. There was no way that I could listen to him and stay awake and I wasn't the only one struggling. I had to wait several minutes for the lady sitting next to me to wake up before I could make my escape.

HOMEBODY, I was listening to their covers of "Sweet Jane" and "Blue Moon" yesterday. I don't know if the tracks are on the album you've mentioned but I wouldn't be surprised!

To hell with marriage, I'd happily commit to one of those cottages!

Seriously though, what an absolutely brilliant idea!! DISCERNING, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. It's evidently not for you and that's fine but living under the same roof does not guarantee a happy marriage. How many unhappy couples have habitually shared a bed for years on end? How many relationships could actually be revived through living apart? It could be quite thrilling!!! It certainly wouldn't be dysfunctional (I'm sure that there are some military wives out there who'd back me up!).

To paraphrase my favourite Armistead Maupin character, Anna Madrigal:

"There are all kinds of marriages, dear." ;)