Perfect packaging

Yesterday, after visiting our favourite second hand emporium in a search for a chest of drawers and suitable containers for nesting chickens - found the perfect huge oval roasting tin, slightly macabre but I don't suppose they'll notice - we ended up in the fearful planet of Hyper-Leclerc for one item.

A few months back Mark invested in a new razor - one of the few things it's tricky to purchase as a pre-loved item. After dazedly looking at the shelves of testosterone-fulled, heavily marketed, black, aqua and red packaged razors he noticed a quiet and discreet model named Bulldog. No shouting about performance, new twenty blades, the best a man can get, etc; just a straight forward . . . razor with spare blades and a bamboo wood handle.

So, the one item in the supermarket we needed was new blades as our more local planet of stuff doesn't do that one no-fuss brand, yet. Below, the photo of the packaging. Card and ink, that's about it. Imagine if all products could be so simple, and how shopping time could be reduced. No staring blankly at fifty different options encased in layers of shiny, rigid plastic; but then people wouldn't have choice, something we've sadly grown totally accustomed to, at least in countries rich enough to have ad agencies, stuff development teams, supermarkets and willing customers. 

This little recycled card box gives me hope. 

Perhaps one day, the hand cream product I used to buy as it was in a tin rather than a thick plastic pot might reappear, and people might forget there was once a choice of kitten soft, three layer quilted, spring scented, matching bathroom-coloured loo paper and be content that a paper-wrapped, slightly off-white version exists in their small local shop.

Inflated things

I wonder what the daily domestic life of Mr Trump is. Now't I should imagine.
Maybe he should take up cooking to calm himself a little, find something to fire up his creative (?!) side; something to calm those twitchy nerves and divert himself from bigger, longer and more expensive things to fire off.
Egos can be quite happily inflated without having to spend, what was it, fifteen million dollars on that last penile display.

                               

This is my first souffle. Cheese and apple, made with five eggs from our hens. How very satisfying it was to open the oven and take to the table this erect and smoking hot main dish.
Oh, the cries of wonder and amazement. How my ego swelled, and the whole thing only cost about seven euros including the cheapo souffle dish, corn for the hens, cheese, a plop of flour and some milk - maybe factor in part of the cost of the wood for building the chicken pen and perhaps a few pence for the gas used, BUT, it was pure testosterone excitement and totally harmless.
Give the president flour, eggs, a Nigel Slater cook book and a few sharp knives. Either he might whip up something quivering, tumultuous and tasty or perhaps slip on a butter paper and impale himself on a Sabatier, his last phone operation a call to the E.R rather than another victory tweet.

Small history

This would have been a 'building number-something' post, but I forgot to take the camera.
Ezra wanted to show me where he goes to do 'airsoft' (latest phase, and thorn in our sides) within an abandoned house and outbuildings in a sprawling vine area just outside the town.
I did the statutory 'Oh that's nice, dear' as he described sniping at someone as they emerged from the main house - we are a dead loss, sorry Ezra. Wrong parents for this. Now if he was obsessed with playing the banjo still . . . that would be wonderful.
Hopefully it's just a testosterone-fuelled phase.
Anyway, we did the tour of the mournful place and then set off for a walk up the hill. Scattered around were many other little dwellings: vine tenders' shelters, each with a now-rambling garden, decayed interior and rustic fireplace.




In the last one, I found this flattened and twisted old fork, a thing of strange beauty and remnant of someone's, hopefully happy, existence in the small building.