90 cent cocktail... without the hangover

I picked up a bottle of this Pineapple and Mango flavoured mineral water today. It's very tasty and today I realised... it tastes remarkably like the ol' Malibu and pineapple drink so popular at backyard parties in the 90s and early 00s.

Since it's actually not alcoholic, it comes without any hangover and is loads cheaper - just 90 cents for a 1.25L bottle of the stuff.

Next time I think I'll pour it into a tall glass over crushed ice and decorate with a wedge of fresh pineapple, a glace cherry and little pink parasol. How festive!

Banging my head against a brick wall (metaphorically, of course)

Today's lesson was more of a reminder: no matter how many times I ask/remind/nag, there are some things my husband will never do. At least, not consistently.

Somewhere at the top of the list is putting his dirty socks in a washing basket. In our house, the basket has always lived in our upstairs bedroom and hubby always discards his socks downstairs, in the living room or even the kitchen.

So I got a second clothes basket, which I put in the laundry downstairs in the hope that the closer proximity would encourage more basket deposits.

Irritatingly, I often now discover the dirty socks on the floor right beside the basket.

And I still find them huddled in their original hiding spots in the living room and kitchen.

Incidentally, the hiding place in the photo is between two decorative baskets on the shelf of our coffee table.

When pressed, he explains the reason for stuffing them in there is to avoid having dog hair from the floorboards stick to the soles after he's taken his shoes off.

My question: can he not see the hair that's also on the shelf there, between the baskets??

Savings rain check

 

How annoying is it when you go to the supermarket to nab a bargain you spotted in the junk mail only to find the sale sticker beneath an empty space on the shelf?

Today I found out that just because other shoppers got up earlier and cleared the shelf before you could get your half price toothpaste/nappies/washing detergent/that other expensive item you need in your home, doesn't mean you miss out on the savings.

In fact, it could mean you score even more savings. If the product advertised isn't available, you can get a rain check from the store that allows you to redeem the sale price on the item another day.

Apparently these rain check thingies are valid for 12 months so there's nothing to stop you from going to another store that day to get the bargain then squirrel the rain check away in a drawer somewhere to use later in the year when you've run out again.

So it seems the early bird gets only one worm while the bird that slept in or had something better to do that buy shampoo can actually get more than one worm :-)

A very thrifty stay-at-home-Mum also taught me today that when things are on sale you can take evidence of it to Big W for a price match, then lay buy a bunch of them for continued savings. Say nappies were on sale at Woolies for $25 rather than $33 a box. You could get Big W to price match their boxes for $25 and put 20 boxes on lay by at $25 each to save yourself $160.

As a new Mum, I've come to realise just how many nappies babies actually go through in a week and how much you can end up forking out for them over the months so this is definitely something worth considering. Assuming you can bring yourself to claim the price match from the pimply faced Big W customer service assistant before wheeling half a dozen trolleys full of nappies to the lay by counter.

Some lovely news

Today I found out one of my best friends is expecting her third baby. Happy days!

The best smoothie

I've just created the best mango smoothie recipe.

Simply toss the following in the Nutri Bullet:

• Flesh of one mango
• Few generous scroops of frozen passionfruit yoghurt
• Splash of orange juice
• Milk
• Squeeze of manuka honey

Whizz together and there you have it! The same recipe can be used with a banana instead of the mango for the world's best banana smoothie.

It seems fruit smoothies is the latest to be added to my list of foods I won't order when eating out because I can make it just as well at home. Yay me.

The raw prawn

There's a saying in Aussie slang: "Don't come the raw prawn", which refers to someone trying to deceive or pull one over on the person shouting about the prawn.

It's really anyone's guess where random sayings like this one come from but there's a theory that it comes down to a raw prawn being wet and slippery, like someone trying to get away with something dodgy. Seems a bit of a stretch, doesn't it?

Can you imagine being on the receiving end the very first time this saying/accusation was voiced? To be in the middle of some kind of confrontation and have someone scream at you about being a raw prawn? I imagine it'd be quite bewildering.

The reason I learnt this today is because it's Australia Day and I spotted this sign outside a fire station.

The meaning of the sign is fairly easily inferred but I Googled it anyway to see what I could learn.

If we accept that being a raw prawn is being deceptive, I'm not immediately sure how it fits with keeping an eye on the barbeque and fire safety.

Unless there's meant to be a joke muddled in there about people cooking raw prawns on their barbies. But why call the chef the raw prawn?

I'm afraid it still doesn't quite connect for me.

Gnomes convene

Today the 11th Annual Gnome Convention was held in Glenrook, Blue Mountains.

Yes, that's right.  Not only is there such a thing as a Gnome Convention, it's been held 11 times over as many years. Hundreds of people attend the event apparently, speaking Gnomish (whatever that is) and competing for a bunch of awards including Bushfire Gnome Survivors, Sporting Gnomes and Rescued Gnomes.

Who knew there was such variety of gnomes? Seems like the little fellas you can buy at Bunnings to stick in the garden are the plebs of the gnome community.

I was also surprised to learn there are two definitions of gnome: 

1. shrivelled little old men that inhabit the interior of the earth and guard treasure (this one I knew).

2. an expert in monetary or financial affairs; international banker or financier (say what?)

 

I suppose that means a real gnome is a shrivelled little old bank teller.

Bambi's mother lives!

In this version of the story, Bambi's mother isn't shot.

Reading it to my son, I was waiting for it to happen, half thinking I'd skip over that scene while he's young enough not to notice the gap in the story.


But it never came.

I've always avoided watching the Disney cartoon simply because it's too sad to see the mother killed while protecting her baby. Yes, I know it's an animation and it's not real but it's still an upsetting concept.

I have the same problem watching Dumbo. The mother elephant isn't killed but she's chained and locked away in a cell for protecting her baby. And that scene where she caresses him with her trunk through the bars of her cage is heartbreaking.

There are a number of cartoons that sacrifice the mother character, either on-screen for all to see or in some unseen incident many years earlier.

I can only think of one where the daddy dies protecting his kid: who could forget the scene (and the tears) when Mufasa falls to his death by stampede in The Lion King?

There's an interesting article about it: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/07/why-are-all-the-cartoon-mothers-dead/372270/

That's a big ball

There are up to 80 calories in one milk Lindt Lindor ball. I say up to because a friend told me it was 70, one website I found says 73 while others say 78, 79 and 80 calories.

Imagine how many calories there are in those massive Lindt balls. A regular sized milk ball weighs 11g and the massive one weights 425g. So the massive one is roughly 38.6 times bigger than the bite-sized ball. Multiplied by 80 and you're looking at 3090 calories.

Whoa.

Jelly Belly beans

There are 50 different flavours of Jelly Belly jelly beans.

My husband got this mega jar of jelly beans for his birthday. It reminds me of those competitions where you guess how many jelly beans are in the jar to win it. Seriously, who would want to win a big jar of jelly beans, each of which has been man-handled by the person counting them into the jar, one by one?

The real guessing competition should be what bacteria can be found on the beans. My money is on E Coli. Ew.

Pretty much every fruit is accounted for as well as popular cocktails (including pina colada and strawberry daiquiri) and soft drinks such as Sunkist, root beer and Doctor Pepper!

There are also some pretty unusual flavours including buttery popcorn, toasted marshmallow and caramel corn.

I'm not sure how they come up with the flavours. Is it someone's job just to think up flavours?

If that was my job, I'd introduce international flavour jelly beans based on national dishes. I do admit some of the ideas below sound gross but I still reckon there'd be markets in the patriots, tourists and the curious.



Australia - Vegemite; lamington; meat pie and sauce; Twisties; Tim Tam.
Japan - wasabi; soy sauce; teriyaki.
USA - BBQ sauce; cheeseburger.
Germany - frankfurter; beer.
France - various cheeses; champagne; chocolate croissant; pate.
Dutch - marijuana (that'd be addictive!); waffles; that tasty mayo that goes on their hot chips.
Italian - pizza, Bolognese, espresso, garlic bread.
Scotland - haggis, fish supper.
India - butter chicken, korma, lentil.

Keeping it in the family. Ew.

Today I learnt that in New Jersey, USA incest is legal. Ew.

I read an article about an 18 year old woman is planning to marry her 33 year old father. Apparently they were estranged for many years and when they met, sparks flew and an... unusual daddy-daughter relationship began.

Reading her story, the way a play-fight turned into a more passionate roll in the hay, it was all I could do to keep my lunch down. I mean, I know the saying about girls marrying their fathers but it's not literal! To my mind, there is nothing ok about this scenario. Surely this woman can find another many from the squillions that are out there? ANY OTHER MAN.

If incest is legal in New Jersey, I gather inter-family marriages are also possible. Which reminded me of a show I saw on TV a few years ago about people's unusual addictions and there was a guy who had married a blow up doll. How the hell is that legal?

A quick Google search brings up a bunch of weird marriages, between people and animals and inanimate objects. One woman actually married the Eiffel Tower for goodness' sake.

The mind boggles.

Putting aside for the moment the absolute madness of people believing they are in love with a snake/building/pot, how can a legal marriage ceremony possibly take place? Don't the two parties/things being wed need to say I do?

And if you've married these things, then meet an actual person you wish to marry, do you first need to divorce the thing? How do you get it to sign the divorce papers? And if you don't divorce it, by marrying the person are you committing bigamy?

Hell, in some cases there aren't even two parties. I found at least two examples of people marrying themselves. Same question as above: how do you divorce yourself?

There are some crazies out there.

The coolest ride in town?

I saw on Sunrise this morning that a man had been charged by Police for riding a motorised esky on a footpath in Victoria. The guy was unlicensed and presumably, the eksy was unregistered.

I had no idea such a thing existed. Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. It must be an Aussie invention. Now I know they exist, I wonder why they're not scooting all over the place on Australia Day.

An online article released by Victoria Police says the guy was hit was $1476 worth of fines and the 49cc* esky was impounded for 30 days "under the local council laws in relation to the use of unregistered recreational vehicles on council land."

Um, exactly how does one register an esky? Presumably Victoria has a general recreational vehicle registration that covers all those things onto which people could stick a motor. Would they issue number plates? Would it need a pink slip safety inspection and if so how could it possibly pass?? They don't have seatbealts or even seats!

Incredibly, a tow truck was called to remove the esky. If the guy was booked driving on the footpath, was it picked up by hand and lifted onto the road so it could be towed by the truck? Seems like a bit of overkill to me.

The police article also said the guy "did not have a license to drive an esky or any other vehicle". I'm sorry, a licence to drive an esky?? I'm starting to question this media officer's qualifications. Or sense of humour.

It's not the first time someone has been in trouble with the law for their motorised cooler. Earlier this month, a guy in South Australia was reported for driving unlicensed, and driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle. So not only does the esky have to be registered, it also needs insurance?

I'm guessing the cost of registration and insurance would be more than the actual esky, which you can buy for $550. Plus the cost of a licence. Would you need a motorcycle licence rather than a car licence? It's all a bit ridiculous isn't it?

*Another small learning on the side: 49cc refers to the engine size and cc = cubic centimeters.

Don't try this at home

Today's lesson came early in the day while trying to make blueberry pancakes: a whisk doesn't work.

Little Golden Boring

I have fond memories of reading and re-reading my favourite Little Golden Books as a child. I reckon pretty much everyone who grew up in the 80s would remember The Pokey Little Puppy, The Saggy Baggy Elephant and Scuffy the Tugboat.

What I don't recall is how boring some of the stories were. I know kids' books are all about simple language, repetition and easy-to-follow narrative, often with some kind of lesson built in there. I certainly don't expect gripping, page-turning tales but some of the books I've been reading to my son seem a bit skinny on the storyline. And a lot of them seem to end suddenly, like the writer has realised they've spent 10 pages creating a scene then has only one page to wind it up.

Take this book, for example. On page one the lion gets a thorn in his paw (we don't know how, he just does) and poses the question, who will take it out? While it doesn't say so, we assume he can't simply pull it out with his other paw.

The next pages proceed to go through a bunch of animals in the area who can't or won't take the thorn out for one reason or another. They're all pretty lame excuses, by the way, like the gazelle who is too busy prancing about to stop and help a fellow animal in need. And remember, this isn't just any other animal. We're talking about the king of the jungle here, a helluva handy ally for a herbivore at the lower end of the foodchain could have. But I digress.

Then suddenly, we arrive on the final page. The question that's been asked on every single page is posed for the final time: who will take the thorn from the lion's paw? With the answer from a tiny mouse who volunteers "I will!"

The end.

Um, really? Talk about an anticlimax. I was actually embarrassed when I realised this was the end of the story I'd chosen to read my three-month old son.

If we ignore that the picture on the cover gives away the mouse punchline, the story just ends there. No moral to the story is given to reinforce to the kiddywinks about helping others, being brave or small beings with big hearts.

Or... what happened after the mouse removed the thorn. Maybe the lion wasn't so grateful he pledged eternal friendship and protection to the wee rodent, as we adult readers assume but instead in a morbid twist he used his newly healed paw to squash the squeaker. On second thought, perhaps that's why the book ends so abruptly: did a squeamish editor cut the final page in favour of a more palatable albeit dull ending?

The new Cadbury Creme Egg

Cadbury has changed its recipe for the popular Cadbury Crème Egg. They're the ones with the runny white and yellow centre, made to look vaguely like the insides of a real chook egg but so sweet as to make your teeth sizzle with the sugar.

Apparently they'll no longer use Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate but another Cadbury milk chocolate instead. Now, I love chocolate but I doubt I could tell the difference between Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate and Cadbury's milk chocolate. Especially with my teeth sizzling from the syrupy centre.

But you want to hear something really wild? There was a fish and chip shop in Fife, Scotland that made battered and deep fried Cadbury Crème Eggs, with a serve of hot chips as little soldiers for dipping.

Talk about a heart attack in a box! It was an Easter experiment with a mixed reception from customers. Keep in mind, Scotland is the home of the deep fried Mars bar and pretty much everything on the take out menus in the country is encased in greasy yellow batter.

Some people love Cadbury Crème Eggs so much they've made massive versions of it. Pimp That Snack has a bunch of chocolate treats people have super sized in their own kitchens.

Manther?

Today I learnt the term "manther". It comes from man + panther and is the male equivalent to a cougar. That is, it's an older man who seeks out younger women as partners. Apparently a "sugar daddy" applies only to wealthy old men while manther can apply to the poorest of old dudes who fancy a younger mate.

Actually, a search of an online urban dictionary educates me further. A cougar is a women in her 40s while a puma is under 40 and a jaguar is in her 50s.

And of course a sugar mamma is the female equivalent to a sugar daddy, wooing their young man with money.

Who the hell came up with these categories??

I think the metaphor is that all the cats are predators, so the older person is preying on the younger person.

If you think about it, the implication is that the young "prey" are unwilling participants. I mean, have you ever known a deer to willingly trot off with the cat hunting it?

So then, where does the "cougar hunter" come in? This is the young guy who likes older women (who fancies young men). The metaphor is getting a bit too muddled for me to follow now.

While we all know a sugar baby is the young girl who likes a sugar daddy, the urban dictionary came up empty for "manther hunter". Their doesn't appear to be a word for a young girl who likes older men unless they have money (ie sugar daddies).

The urban dictionary has more to teach me. Apparently "bobcat" is the name given to an older woman who wants only to make out with a young dude. A bobcat resembles a wild cat but has little to no wild blood; Often times a married woman that acts unmarried for isolated incidents. As far as I can see, there are no bobcat hunters. No real surprise there.

No name, no difference

I've figured out the Coles brand nursing pads for $5.30 a box are just as good as the more expy Pigeon and Avent brands at double the price!

For something that gets used for a couple of hours then turfed, it's worth knowing.

I need some rest

I've walked past this sign dozens of times and never noticed it. I've never heard of a women's rest centre and it sounds odd to me. I know you go to a shopping centre to shop so presumably you go to a rest centre to rest? Why not just go home?

I Googled it to find out and learnt that it's a place women can take their kids to play or use the toilet. But it seems this particular rest centre was found to be an unnecessary service costing the local council money with nothing in return. Surprise, Surprise.

And I thought caramel popcorn was bad

Cheese, Chicken and Chilli aren't the only Twisties flavours. Who knew?

Apparently Twisties can be found in various countries (I assumed they were only in Australia but apparently they've gone global) in Tomato, BBQ Curry, Salmon Teriyaki and Toffee flavours. Ewwwwww!

Toffee flavoured Twisties? The Salmon Teriyaki flavour must be in Japan. They eat all sorts of weird stuff there so I guess it's not that surprising. I wonder if they've ever had Soy Sauce or Wasabi flavoured Twisties.

Let me just do a quick Google search... holy crap! There are Wasabi Twisties and Peri Peri Twisties.

There are even Fizzy Twisties! Twisties that fizz on the tongue like Fruit Tingles. Now that would be a party in the mouth.

Apparently the texture of Twisties was altered in the 1990s to give them a smoother finish. Did anyone even notice?

Cult deli

There's an unusual café in the Blue Mountains that serves up tasty food with a side of religion.

While enjoying a weekend away, my husband and I stumbled upon the Yellow Deli, a unique café that feels like it's been carved within the trunk of a massive tree. The menu smacks of a healthy hippy diet with frothy green juices, dandelion tea and some sticky green health bars packed with all sorts of seeds that promises to promote a healthy bowel.

But there were some tasty items too. The apple cinnamon muffin was delightful and the steamed sandwiches (steamed bread??) come with a side of crisps and a big pickle, American style.

On their website I found they sought "living a life of peace, where love and care for others was supreme" and that "for the last 40 years our people have been working and raising our families together, building communities and tribes where love is the centre of our life".

The hippy moral behind the fibrous menu. I'm kind of surprised they didn't try to convert us to something as we paid our bill.

Lions, tigers and... termites?

Most kids have one or two animals they are particularly excited about seeing at the zoo. Usually something cool like giraffes and elephants, or something ferocious like lions and tigers.

Personally, I head straight to the Galapogus tortoises.

Can you imagine ever getting excited about seeing termites? Apparently there are a couple of zoos out there, including Zoo Basel in Switzerland, that have termites on display. I can't think of anything more dull. They're not exactly imposing... depending on the species (there are over 1000 apparently) I don't think they get much bigger than a bull ant.

Could you buy little paper bags of wood chips to feed them? Somehow I think seeing an ape peel and chew up a banana would be higher on the thrill scale than chucking some pencil shavings at a big mound of dirt hoping a 2mm sized pest will come out to collect it.

I've also discovered that in many African countries including Zambia and Tanzania, the people eat termites. Presumably they cook them in smoke or fire rather than eat them live and kicking. I doubt there's a factory churning out packets of termites like crisps. It reminds me of my trip to Cambodia and a young girl selling cockroach kebabs. I passed, in case you're interested.

Learning from scriptwriters

It's amazing what you can learn from watching popular sitcoms. I mean, other than how to back-stab everyone in the neighbourhood while hiding a pregnancy by an escaped sociopath who loves animals and therefore can't be all bad.

 

But there can be some real take-aways from sitcoms. I don't mean those set in people's inner city apartments or suburban culdesacs where absolutely everything comes from the fanastical corners of a creative scriptwriter's imagination.

I'm talking about those sitcoms that require at least a basic fact checking, like those located in a hospital or police station. I mean, how much did MacGyver teach us about getting out of sticky situations with nothing more than a length of hose or a paperclip?


If you think about it, there are lots of sitcoms based in medical or police/legal settings. I can think of at least a dozen off the top of my head including ER, A Country Practice, All Saints, Castle, and the multiple versions of CSI and Law & Order.

But the lesson I wanted to share here, which I took away from an episode of Offspring, was that an adult with the correct blood type can donate slice of their liver to a baby needing a transplant.

Dr Google confirms that, because the liver regenerates itself, the section that's been cut out of the adult will regrow but even more impressively, the slice implanted into the bub grows with the child as if it was always there. That's pretty darn cool in my book.

Fussy tastebuds

I recently discovered my husband doesn't like lime flavoured jelly. On its own, that's not a peculiar thing. Certainly not worth writing a blog post about. But today he's just poured himself a cool, refreshing beverage.

Lime cordial.

Isn't it odd that he'd enjoy lime cordial but not lime jelly? You might think it's a texture thing. I love custard from the carton but think baked custard  is icky, because I don't like its wet and wobbly texture. But my husband loves other flavours of jelly, which rules that out as the reason for his anti-lime-jelly position.

It also rules out any sensitivity to synthetic flavouring. He'll happily slurp up strawberry jelly and there sure as hell aren't any real berries hidden in those teensy sugar crystals. And I've seen him munching out on those incredibly bright yellow banana lollies.

I'm left scratching my head because it seems my husband's tastebuds are apparently so discerning as to identify the difference between whatever lime flavour additives are used in the cordial and in the jelly.

34 going on 80.

As a new mum on maternity leave, my "outings" are not unlike that of an elderly woman. Except I'm pushing a pram instead of pulling one of those nanna trolleys and I've my slip-on shoes are quicker to put on that those orthopaedic shoes that look like fat white trainers.

It's mid morning on a weekday and I've headed out of the house with my son in his pram to the local café, passing a grey-bunned woman wearing her fat lace-ups and her maroon nanna trolley clattering behind her.

After my coffee I wandered up to the post office, where I saw grey-bun again. Her PO box was next to mine. I saw her again in the bakery where I buy bread then at the milk in the nearby supermarket. She clattered out of the chemist as I walked in then crossed the road as we both (presumably) headed back to our homes.

I suppose there is some comfort to be found in the thought that my routine may not change all that much over the next five decades.

Hold the yoghurt

I spotted these in the refrigerated section of the supermarket today.

Gee whiz, it's like they're not even trying to hide the sugar anymore. Unlike those diet yoghurts with "FAT FREE" emblazoned across the packaging but with a thousand per cent added sugar hidden in the teensy nutrition information box.

(And while I'm on the subject: "nutrition information" is a pretty loose description of the digits in the box. One might ask where the nutrition can be found in the sugar and saturated fat line items, for a start, and how much actual information (def: "the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence") a normal person could glean from the stats without an interpreter).

I assume new products like this one are tested by potential consumers or focus groups before they're mass produced and put on supermarket shelves. Who tested this Jaffas with vanilla yoghurt?

I recall the first time I asked myself this question: it was about a ham and pineapple flavoured Uncle Tobys Le Snack. (I mean, everyone knows French Onion is the only Le Snack worth eating).

000 is no longer just a number to phone in an emergency

My son has started wearing 000 size clothes. I'd expected he would grow out of his 0000 onesies after two or three weeks but it's taken him three months. My learning is that 000 is not a universal size.
I've got teeny tiny t-shirts, shorts and jumpsuits that are all labelled 000 but are certainly not the same size. Some shirts fit nicely while others float around his shoulders.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. After all, I know from my own wardrobe the massive difference in sizes between brands. But still, it was something I didn't know before and now I do. Which by my definition is something learnt.

I now also know which jumpsuits are best in terms of practicality versus those that are adorable but a pain in the butt to get on and off an wriggling baby.

I was given a very cute outfit when he was born that had 17 buttons! Thirteen of which had to be undone each and every time I needed to change his nappy.

This knowledge will come in handy when it comes to buying gifts for my two girlfriends who are expecting babies this year.

The smartphone knows...

As a new mum, I recently needed to create online mygov accounts for Medicare and Centrelink. That was a trying business, I can tell you! So many online forms to complete and checklists to determine if I qualify for Paid Parental Leave or the Family Tax Benefit.

Don't worry, my learning for today isn't how to navigate the website, what Family Tax Benefit actually means or the pros and cons of the current Paid Parental Leave package. I still haven't learnt these things.

This is about a text message I sent my friend who is expecting her first baby next month and is now going through the same ordeal. As a survivor of the online labyrinth of the mygov website, she asked for my help.

As I was texting her some instructions, I noticed my smartphone auto-corrected "mygov" to "Lucifer". When I mentioned this to my friend her response was apt: that's why it's called a smartphone.

Why the Cadbury was in the freezer

Ever since I can remember, in our house the block of Cadbury was always kept in the freezer. I found myself in a conversation recently where the group consensus was that chocolate tasted much better at room temperature and freezing it was unacceptable.

If this view was the norm, why had it always been hardened in the freezer compartment of our fridge growing up? My parents don't live in Coober pedy; it's not like it would melt into a delishly runny sauce if left in a cool cupboard.

Today I got my answer. Mum simply said: kids can't reach the freezer.

Smurfette was originally created by Gargamel

For Christmas, my son got the complete box set of original Smurfs cartoons that I used to watch when I was a child. Anyone who has ever watched the Smurfs will have wondered at the role played by the only female in the village of 100 boy Smurfs.

Sitting down to watch the first episode, I was surprised to learn that Smurfette was actually created by Gargamel, the wicked wizard who is perpetually trying to locate the Smurf village (with their massive mushroom houses, you'd think it'd be easier to find). So like the story of Eve, their first female was created by a big, vengeful (think Old Testament) man whose name begins with G.

She had short, black, unstyled hair then but of course when Papa Smurf discovered who she really was he made a magic potion to turn her into the perfect token female for the village: blonde (they have more fun) and sweet tempered.

From information that came with the box set I have also learnt that all the Smurfs are 100 years old (although they continue to celebrate birthdays without getting older) except for Papa Smurf who is 542. 

If they have birthdays, they must have been born, right? How the Smurfs come into existence is unclear. All the fella Smurfs existed without a female (or mother) before Smurfette turned up so impressed that rules out the need for a male/female coupling or any kind of fertilisation. Even if they hatched from eggs they'd need a mother to lay them. Is there a chance there were women once but they've all cleared out?

More mind boggling, in the new (and in my view, corrupted) episodes there suddenly appears a couple of kids (including a little girl) and a baby. 

A quick Google search reveals other people before me have asked the same questions, and spent much more time researching and arguing the answer. The answer that seems most acceptable is the good old stork.

A murder of crows?

Today my husband informed me that a group of crows is called a murder. A murder of crows. It gives Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds a whole new dimension,  doesn't it?

A group of bears is called a shrewdness, a group of cows is called a kline (but a neat dozen is called a flink), a group of cobras is called a quiver (probably because that's what it would do to anyone who stumbled across it) but if it's a group of rattlesnakes it's called a rhumba. A group of ravens is called an unkindness while a group of turtledoves is a pitying and a group of rhinos is a crash. 

Some are descriptive enough to make some sense, like the rhinos, while others seem head-scratchingly random, such as rhumba-ing rattlesnakes.

Notice all the above definitions follow the same format: "A group of {insert animal name here} is called a {insert synonym for group here}". 

Why don't we just call them all "group"??

Alpacas make good bodyguards

Assuming your body is atop four legs and covered in curly wool.

Driving past a paddock full of sheep, I noticed one long-necked alpaca sitting amongst the herd. At first I thought the farmer must breed both animals for their fleece but there seemed to be loads of sheep with the lone alpaca.

My mum was also in the car and told me alpacas are often put in with sheep because they deter foxes from stealing away with a warm woolly meal. Why on earth would a fox be frightened by an alpaca? Surely to the predator they just look like dorky sheep? Apparently not...

I've learned that alpacas have a terrible, ear-bleedingly piercing scream that they let out when they sense a threat. This of course alerts the farmer of the danger as well as causing the hungry fox to decide the meal isn't worth the hearing loss. They have excellent eyesight over distance and will literally stomp some heads when needed. Whoa.