I've been tagged directly by Melba and indirectly by Laini to "Spill the Beans"
Well the first bean that comes to mind is that I really don't like eating beans; at least not much... but growing them is fun - they grow so well and I love the way the climbing ones curl around their sticks and lift themselves up. Maybe I should just grow them for their flowers. I'm sure I read somewhere that when runner beans were first brought to the UK they were grown purely for their flowers as their beans were rumoured to be poisonous. In trying to confirm this I find a site that states that runner bean flowers are edible though sweet pea flowers are not.
Which brings me to my second bean. When I was young I was always trying to find ways to earn some money. One of my least successful attempts were the sweet peas that I planted in garden earth in plastic coffee cups. They germinated and grew but the earth went all hard and cracked. I tried to sell these unappealing specimens but no-one bought a single one. (An equally unsuccessful venture involved tracing pictures from a book called "Le Petit Lapin" then stuffing them in envelopes and attempting to get people to buy them without looking first... )
And for my third bean... I used to regularly spend my lunch hours with a few others exercising under the expert guidance of Mr Bean. He was a rugby coach and discovered that we were not up to running to his standards but a hard core of us regularly turned out for circuit training. As he was the rugby coach for a nearby RAF station we got free admittance to their gym provided it was available.
My fourth bean is the more famous Mr Bean. I can't stand him! And that's as much as I want to say about that one.
My fifth bean... I once made a small bean bag in the shape of a frog. But I filled it with grain that we had for feeding the chickens. It got left out in the rain and the grains sprouted. Which the end of that bean bag.
My sixth bean.. Another bean bag... I have one of the kind you can sit in. A turquoise one. I like to use it when reading in bed. Or in the sitting room too. Much nicer than ordinary chairs...
My seventh bean... One of my favourite stories as a child was "Jack and the Beanstalk".... maybe that is why I like seeing beans grow.... but I was always frustrated that all the heroes in the fairy tales were male and the heroines had to be saved. When I was involved in creating and putting on a pantomime I cast a woman as Princess Connectionism and she saved the sleepy prince in our version of Sleeping Beauty.
My eighth bean... If I have to eat a bean of some sort my favourite is the chickpea. Or maybe its that I like the garlic that goes with it in such things as houmous.
My ninth bean... I do like jelly belly beans... My favourite flavour is strawberry cheesecake... But I've not had any for ages... Too sugary...
My tenth bean... Is my favourite of all and is the cocoa bean.. because that of course is where chocolate comes from!
Now I've bean really mad here and insisted on spilling only beany beans. One of the last things Melba mentioned was that she enjoyed being tagged because it made her feel loved. So on that principle I'm going to tag, in no particular order:
Andrea, Reluctant Nomad, Kyknoord, Viking, Wandering Coyote, Janey, Holly, Nan, Johnny Norms and Zinkibaru
And having mentioned Andrea I really must also mention her small art blog. At the time of writing these ones are still available for $100 + $10 p&p - world wide delivery is also available - enquire for cost of shipping outside Canada.
Tantalizer 53: The age of steam
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From New Scientist #602, 20th June 1968 [link] The line from Alfacre to
Grogham was closed in 1898 and even the five intermediate stations have
since disap...