Was sitting in the tea room having lunch with a colleague and we got talking about her husband's family visiting as his sister is having a baby and then I asked if she had started thinking about names for the baby she is going to have and she mentioned one and then said that another colleague had insisted she recommend the name "Felix" to her husband...so she went home and mentioned to her husband that the "Russian Princess" had suggested a name. So the conversation progressed with me asking why my colleague had referred to this other lady as the "Russian Princess" and I then learnt that this lady, let us call her "RP", has Russian roots. This was fascinating for me as I had absolutely no idea! She doesn't look or sound Russian to me so then I discovered, after a series of questions, that RP migrated into Australia at a tender age of 8 with her mother who could not speak much English.
So then the interesting bit unfolded with my colleague sharing about experience with her non-English speaking mum and some tourists at the Blue Mountains in Sydney. As some Europeans traditionally do in forested mountain-type settings. RP's mother set about picking mushrooms along their way, much to the horror of passing tourists who tried to explain that the mushrooms were not edible. So there was RP trying to translate the warnings of the desperate passerby to her mum, who very calmly waved her arms and and flatly said, "NOooooooo....", to indicate that there would not be a problem. So the encounter escalated with a slightly frantic passerby who made RP think that she would take her and RP's sister away from this lunatic of a mother picking deadly fungi to feed her kids, but eventually the passerby said, "Well, look, I cannot stop your mother but whatever you do, don't eat the mushrooms after she has cooked them and tries to feed you with them!" So RP obediently agreed and shuffled off with her mum and the mushrooms.
So then the interesting bit unfolded with my colleague sharing about experience with her non-English speaking mum and some tourists at the Blue Mountains in Sydney. As some Europeans traditionally do in forested mountain-type settings. RP's mother set about picking mushrooms along their way, much to the horror of passing tourists who tried to explain that the mushrooms were not edible. So there was RP trying to translate the warnings of the desperate passerby to her mum, who very calmly waved her arms and and flatly said, "NOooooooo....", to indicate that there would not be a problem. So the encounter escalated with a slightly frantic passerby who made RP think that she would take her and RP's sister away from this lunatic of a mother picking deadly fungi to feed her kids, but eventually the passerby said, "Well, look, I cannot stop your mother but whatever you do, don't eat the mushrooms after she has cooked them and tries to feed you with them!" So RP obediently agreed and shuffled off with her mum and the mushrooms.
Naturally, being the good daughter that she is and probably understanding her mum has had great experience with wildlife, she ate the mushrooms and has lived to tell the tale. Speaking of mushrooms, it's made me think about this pizza called mushroom madness in Singapore at Holland Village...I don't even know if that cafe even exists anymore...in fact I now can't recall what it was called. They also sold crazily sinful fatty desserts...they weren't quite to die for but not bad when you needed a sugar hit and were craving for ice cream and fudge and Oreo cookies and that type of stuff
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