Caracol colocado

Hours of mental application. Words whizzing through my mind. The choosing of a new blog title is almost as difficult as choosing your child's name.

Of course, I wanted something clever; witty; encapsulating; pertinent. So many good concepts to choose from - I already had chocolate. I have moved to place with a name - Rosales - in a village with wolves in the title. There were 94 inhabitants before we came. I have identified myself with snails; we'd been 'moving on' for quite some time; we had arrived in our very own home.

Surely from this little lot I could conjure up a wonderful title?

Well, there have been some strong contenders. ('Dun Romin' was the outsider, though, let me make that clear!) 'Moving In', 'Settling In' and 'Staying Put' came quickly to mind; closely followed by 'Casa Rosales'.

Ruy came up with a lovely one - Five New Wolves'; and someone else suggested 'And then there were 99'.
I was focusing on snails and rose trees and discovered there is a story of this name by Hans Christian Anderson. Interesting.
I checked out chocolates and roses and was plagued by memories of a truly awful advertisement from my younger days. Some of you will know exactly which one I mean! (I was quite surprised to find it was from 1964 - when I was only 5 - and I can remember it clearly even now. The power of advertising!) It was for Cadbury's 'Roses' - a mix of chocolates, usually in a tin, - and had Norman Vaughan saying 'Roses grow on you' as the slogan.

So no to a roses and chocolate theme. But I did wonder about the phrase 'May contain nuts.' I've included it in my heading because it appeals to me and could cover a multitude of possibilities as well being a common reference to chocolate. (And I much preferred Frank Muir's contribution to Cadbury's advertising...)



The other night, my mind still turning words and phrases around, I had the lovely idea of being a settled snail. Snail, in English, has a slightly unpleasant sound to my ear.
In Spanish, though, it's lovely. Caracol.

SO, feeling on the verge of something rather exciting, I remembered that something 'placed' (or settled) in Spanish, is 'colocado' - and I absolutely fell in love with the sound of 'Un Caracol Colocado'.
Beautiful alliteration, somewhat unusual and rather clever, in my opinion.

I turned to FR to try it out. He was unimpressed and appeared to mutter something. As he was with earphones on and watching a video, I though his comment about being 'doped up' was related what he was watching. Then he stopped and gave me his full attention.

"'Colocado in Spanish does mean 'placed' or 'settled' but it's also used as a slang expression for being stoned, smashed, drugged up. You can't call your blog 'The Stoned Snail'......No, you can't!"

(This last comment as he saw my eyes light up!) Yes, I was sorely tempted - but then I discovered someone already had the title. Not a blogger, but a fantasty fiction writer. And not a very good one. But I really was tempted.

I've had suggestions from friends too and in the end, I've settled for something that takes a bit from many suggestions, says what I want to say, doesn't require lengthy explanations and also draws on the philosophies of living in the moment. Of being; and of being here.

Being Here.