Triumph! (to be exclamated in Mozart-fashion)

I've handed in my thesis proposal! Due the 21th of December 2005!

Yin en Anna fry oily balls (their own way)

Y. arrived safely in Exeter, bringing wonderful stuffs like Dutch brown bread and my favourite Indonesian bika ambon (mm!).

And oily ball mix.

After collecting (and cleaning) some assorted crockery from flat C2, finding 500 ml of warm water and stirring in the mixture, A. concludes that making oily balls is easy.

The batter is put aside to raise - and forgotten all about. For Y. had brought A. a surprise: six floury girls at a Christmas dinner in Rotterdam, talking (chocolate) moose and Gwyneth Paltrow, all nicely video-recorded for A.'s enjoyment.
I do miss the gang.

Meanwhile, the batter had been slumbering warm and snug near the heating in A.'s bedroom (which didn't explode on being turned on for the very first time).

Later: Y. storms into the kitchen and utters the epochal words: "Het rijst de pan uit!"

And indeed: the batter had been raising and raising, lifting the lid of the pan, creeping over its edge, crawling over A.'s desk, over the edge, falling, falling, down, down, missing a pair of stockings by an inch... splash! Onto the nice blue Lafrowda-standard carpet.

Making oily balls is easy.

The cleaning and washing up part wasn't ideal. But the frying was big fun. (Making oily ducks is easy, too.) The result was a collection of approximately 24 (acc. to Koopmans instructions) minus six (acc. to Y&A cooking procedures) oily balls, ready to be taken to a German-English-Swedish New Year's Eve party on Pinhoe Road (where we witnessed a Zucker-Hut slowly (s)melt into a bowl of orange-sliced glühwein under the influence of red- and blue-flaming rum!).

which brings us...

... via one second of nothin'ness...

... and sparklers, and Morning Glory....

... and 'champagne'...

... to 2006,

or,

I wish you, dear reader, a year of beauty and kindness, and more flowery things with pink fairies and blonde cherubic music...

- or wait, I know something better:

I wish you a Room with a View.


P.S.
Y. has a special message for S., M. (have you managed the Nutcracker performance?), A. (incl. J.), F. (in LA!!) and Tante Miep: happy new year!