Sunshine And Nary A Snowflake In Sight.

A New Year's Eve different and sweet.

Perhaps my feelings of a warm winter in store are coming to fruition. Despite having eschewed a visit outside so far today, it looks pretty warm indeed. The roof tiles are witness to the sun's strength as now they are back to a healthy brown.

It has so far been a delightfully lazy Sunday spent at home. Bob and I had a nice batch of fried eggs on toast and then we leisurely lounged about the lounge. History documentaries back to back on the telly, which we both like to watch. About halfway into the first one, Bob disappeared into the kitchen and I kept on hearing sounds of activity emanating from it.

Bob, who has talked about it for weeks had taken the bull by the horns and made a batch of Chelsea buns from scratch. Good grief, nothing ordinary about Bob...straight to a difficult culinary hurdle. Mausi and I were dozing on the couch and only woke up now and again when a bowl was stirred too vigorously or when Bob deshelled walnuts from our garden by using a hammer. Twenty of them. Each with at least five loud hammer encounters!

I must say, making Chelsea buns seems a long and laborious affair although, Bob wasn't put off by it. On the contrary, he skipped and hopped in and out of the kitchen keeping me abreast of each step.

The final step of course was the best in the spectator's gallery...an aroma of ambrosia had wafted into the lounge and into my senses. Is there anything better than the smell of fresh baking? Only one thing trumps that...the actual tasting of it.

Cunningly I suggested to Bob a divine way of testing whether they were baked to perfection.

" Take one and cut it in half. "

Hook line and sinker. Offering myself as a tester, I had the pleasure of tasting his Chelsea bun straight out the oven and it was fabulous. Not to sweet and the dough nice and fluffy. Dear Bob, that is the first of many Chelsea buns to be made and I can't wait to be the taster each time...I married well.

Isn't it fantastic? A slightly different Chelsea bun recipe...with apples, walnuts and apricot jam.

Oh dear, I don't see a long future for them...

Biggi

Shamelessly Exploiting Our Laissez-Faire Attitude Towards Maths.

Bamboozled by numbers.

Thankfully I am old enough to still use the rudimentary application of time tables and numbers...by mind and not with aid of technology. Yet, with the constant use of computers and calculators, what used to be done spontaneously by mind ( tables taught well ) now takes a bit longer and often needs to be double checked by a tool.

The other day Bob and I were doing the stop and start along the isles of a supermarket when out of pure curiosity I took the time to look a bit further. As most items, be it coffee, chocolate, flour, cat food or toothpaste are staged in different sizes ( pack of 1,2,6, 12 or mega size ) most of us blindly grab the one within arms' reach . We don't want to stretch our arms up or bend down to look at the bottom shelves due to another one of our laissez-faire attitudes. This one toward exerting extra energy.

I took the time to cast my glance upwards whilst on tip toes and to my surprise I noticed that a pack of 1 was much cheaper than a pack multiples, for example if I had bought six singles it would have been cheaper by over a euro than buying a pack of 6. That is contrary to everything we believe in regard to shopping. Bigger sizes and quantities should really be cheaper, shouldn't they? Well, they are not and to make matters worse, the pricing isn't done in an easy manner. Sometimes it feels as if they put prices on that are not easily divisible by mind.

Most of us would spot the exploitation if for example:

• 1 soap = 50 cents
• 2 soap = 1,30 euro
• 6 soap = 4,50 euro

but, what about when:

1 soap = 56 cents

2 soap = 1,38 cents

6 soap = 4,98 cents

most of us would by the bigger quantity to save money! What I have started doing for a while now is to look at the price per kilogram of anything. Even if it is an identical product, the price per kilogram strangely enough is different depending on quantity. The only problem with that is the sneaky trick of supermarkets...they print it so small that one either has to lean up close or don a pair of reading glasses.

Has our dependence of technology dulled our ability to reason or do most people not care if they are had by the bamboozling scheme of pricing...I'd love to see what will ensue now that it has become trendy to adopt Echo & Alexa into our families.

Biggi