For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Author: O Zangado
Just loping around. Extremely fond of roast boar in particular, meat in general and cooking on the barbie. Fish is good too.
Dias Medievais
Soooo! It’s late Sunday afternoon. Flocks of house martens and bee-eaters are circling colourfully and noisily overhead. A slight breeze is keeping the ambient temperature just on the bearable side of 40c, yet Das Fürballen are crashed out panting on their backs, trying to stay cool. Lewis Hamilton has just won the Belgain Grand Prix, although why that drab, rainy little country warrants a Grand Prix is quite beyond me, so let me tell you instead about a sortie we undertook last week, Thursday to be precise.
Salop – A true story (Aug CW-2)
Mum was an only child, but Dad had four brothers and sisters, so perhaps Grandma wasn’t always the starch-stiff Victorian matriarch she appeared to her grandchildren, sitting in that high-backed wooden chair with the thin, knitted cushion and smelling of camphor and violets as the big clock on the mantlepiece loudly ticked away the long years of her widowhood.
Sleepy Sunday
I have mentioned previously Paulo, pig breeder extraordinaire, from whom I buy my porco preto and boar. Well, this year Paulo is taking a break from pig breeding (much to my chagrin and, no doubt, to the considerable chagrin of his prize stud pig and possibly the sows as well) and has turned his formidable skills to the production of geese, turkeys and guinea fowl.
Mores, O Mores!
The old man slumped into his favourite armchair in the homestead of the sprawling station he had built from nothing and reached for the next mouthful of the inevitable Bundaberg rum. It had been yet another hard, hot, day in the outback. All those cattle – enormous herds of Murray greys – the heat and bull dust had drained him. But the chopper pilots and ringers had done well rounding up far-flung stragglers. ”All is safely gathered in”, he smiled ruefully to himself, remembering instinctively the harvest festival services from long ago and far away. “Another year over, another just begun”, but he could not quite place the words he had heard in a song over the radio several Christmases past. Although still lean after a lifetime of hard toil, he was tired, old and wizened now. The sour woman he had married, remained faithful to, but who had left him childless was long since dead, swallowed by the red soil of the outback whence she came and the little empire he had built had both taken their toll. What was he still working for? What was the point of it all? The sweet rum tasted bitter in his mouth but the soporforic effect inevitably kicked in as it always did.
His mind drifted back….
St Swithin’s Day
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday dear Wolfie
Happy birthday to me.
Sigh!
OZ
The Visitor
I know I keep banging on about all the wildlife around here – eagles, voles, genets, chameleons and the like – you know, the sort of stuff that makes Bilby want to pack her sandpit and come over to Portugal, but this one is a bit special.
The Terrible Weapon – August CW Comp
The massive spaceship hung motionless in space in much the same way that Westminster Abbey doesn’t. It was in an uncomfortably close orbit to the most mind-boggingly litigious and therefore humungously wealthy planet in the whole universe, Plajarismo IV, and the crew were taking no chances. They were on a mission.
For Ferret – Beer can chicken
Cheers, Ferret – Here’s the results of the experiment. I’ve taken the liberty of making a few improvements on the septic’s video.
Take one raw chicken. Season inside. Insert a half-full can of beer up its bottom and set the can on roasting tray.
Rub skin with olive oil, season with rock salt, freshly ground black pepper and dried thyme.
Add some scrubbed, whole potatoes to the tray, in my case one large one.
Place the tray in a pre-heated oven at 180ºC for 90 minutes.
Eat.
The chicken was tender and moist, but to be honest not better than I regularly produce on the barbecue. It is, however, simple and foolproof, which is probably why it is popular across the pond where a bucket of McNuggets is the norm.
OZ
A Barbecue for Claire and Rick
Ooookay! We’ve all been there. The British barbecue. Charred supermarket sausages, raw burgers, soggy, processed buns, possibly some limp lettuce leaves and warm beer all consumed under a dripping umbrella.
Here’s just one alternative Portuguese version.
Boadicea's Chariot 
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