The Untied Kingdom? - the British thread 2021

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  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    Can you share the gospel in 160 characters?
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited March 20
    Martha wrote: »
    I work for a church, and was tempted to write "being a church". What would you have put?
    I put "church"!

  • There's always the cheat of using the charitable purpose: "advancement of religion".
  • PendragonPendragon Shipmate
    Hmmm. Do I specify population screening, or just put "It's The NHS" and leave it at that??

    Mr Dragon also works for a household name firm so that shouldn't be too hard.

    Spent a fair chunk of this afternoon queuing for the tip, to then be all done in about 10 minutes tops.
  • Since Covid we have to pre-book our visits to the tip, you mustn't turn up more than5 minutes before your 'slot'.
  • Just (almost) completed our census form. All pretty straightforward, apart from the name of the organisation I last worked for - in 2005.
    It was in a Care Home - I can remember what the Home itself was called, but the business? Just couldn't recall it.
    The Home had been sold twice during my time there, and had just been sold again. I retired a week or so before the new owners took over, and have no contact with anyone from those days.
    There's no "I can't remember" option, so either I get sudden recall before the end of the day, G**gl* jogs my memory, or I leave the question unanswered and hope I don't get into trouble for it.
  • MiffyMiffy Shipmate
    Completed ours last night. I left them a snotty note in the feedback section, about no seeming allowance to record one (now defunct) professional qualification which is not degree level, but is definitely over O Level/A Level (yes, I date back that far!) standard.

    I also had great fun trying to define my ‘main occupation.’ Not one that many would be familiar with or rate outside of religious circles, but I’ve invested a great deal of time, money and training/personal development resources on it over the past ten years or so, and I’m damned if I’m missing out on the opportunity to have it recorded for posterity.

    Think this family history thing is getting to me.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    I’d just put the name of the care home if nothing else comes to mind, and not worry too much about the legal name of the employer.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    I haven't done mine yet, as I opened the envelope expecting some paper to peruse before getting started and found only a secret code to link me to an online place.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I had a lovely afternoon yesterday with some of the family - when we arrived at my niece's house my sister was there too; I hadn't seen her since Christmas.

    New great-nephew has been met and cuddled (he's v. small and v. gorgeous). As it was a nice day, we went for what for me was a really quite long walk; according to my sister-in-law's step-counter thingy we did about 8,000 steps, which in my book is Quite A Lot.

    Must get myself organised now and maybe take a stroll down to Tessie's to pick up the things I forgot yesterday (carrots, potatoes, yoghurt ...).
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    How lovely @Piglet 💕

    We have some sunny spells which I am using to sit in the garden with a very nice coffee - as I do make very nice coffee.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Sunny here too. Pottered about the garden and actually saw a robin use the newly-installed bird restaurant.
  • Intermittent sunshine here, too. Czech BEER is being consumed.
  • Wesley JWesley J Shipmate
    Pretty overcast here today, sadly. Had a few sunny spells in the morning, but that was it. Temperatures have dropped here, in Continental WesShire, in the past 2 weeks or 10 days, and snow has been had way down the hillocks' sides, and the odd flake or two in the plain as well. Nights are -1°C or lower, daytime up to about 6°C; warmer days are promised towards to end of next week, with up to 15°C, but nights still freezing.

    Not a chance of putting away the coldweather gear yet, I'm afraid!
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    The nearby hill has started to turn yellow as the sun gets high enough to blast the gorse flowers into action

    Vital gardening having been attended to, I am drinking french beer and sitting in the sunshine that floods the snug!

    When this strange period of time ends I shall quite miss all this the enforced laziness
  • MiffyMiffy Shipmate
    Sunshine here. The world and their dogs were out frolicking in the park earlier this afternoon.
  • kingsfoldkingsfold Shipmate
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Vital gardening having been attended to, I am drinking french beer and sitting in the sunshine that floods the snug!

    I read that as virtual gardening, which is the only sort around here (second floor flat!)
  • Ethne Alba wrote: »
    The nearby hill has started to turn yellow as the sun gets high enough to blast the gorse flowers into action

    Vital gardening having been attended to, I am drinking french beer and sitting in the sunshine that floods the snug!

    When this strange period of time ends I shall quite miss all this the enforced laziness

    Ah, but will you (or we) go back to being as busy as before? Maybe the pandemic will teach us how to live at a slower and more relaxed pace, even when *normality* (whatever that is) returns...
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Maybe the pandemic will teach us how to live at a slower and more relaxed pace, even when *normality* (whatever that is) returns...
    I wonder if it will. I think so for some of us - although for me personally that may be as much to do with finishing work this time last year as the pandemic. I think and hope we'll appreciate the things we used to take for granted that seem so wonderful now - meeting with family and friends... coffee shops...

    I've been for a walk and the weather here is positively springlike after an overcast morning. It's a busy Zoomy day chez Nen; just drawing breath before my next meeting.
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    @Bishops Finger this very question was under discussion during Sunday Lunch today!

    A Sunday lunch that ended almost at 3pm but that s another matter.

    For this household? I think as we are both retired and now firmly getting into our respective retirement activities, lockdown has merely hastened the whole Relaxation Thing.
    I see no need to return to business
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited March 21
    Nenya wrote: »
    Maybe the pandemic will teach us how to live at a slower and more relaxed pace, even when *normality* (whatever that is) returns...
    I wonder if it will. I think so for some of us - although for me personally that may be as much to do with finishing work this time last year as the pandemic. I think and hope we'll appreciate the things we used to take for granted that seem so wonderful now - meeting with family and friends... coffee shops...


    Well, yes. I have my doubts, but I hope you're right about appreciating anew the simple things we're missing just now.

    There is some speculation, I believe, that people who have become used to working from home will prefer to continue doing so, and that this may have an effect on public transport - less crowded trains and buses, maybe, but the flip side of that is that operators may have to reduce services...
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    @Bishops Finger this very question was under discussion during Sunday Lunch today!

    A Sunday lunch that ended almost at 3pm but that s another matter.

    For this household? I think as we are both retired and now firmly getting into our respective retirement activities, lockdown has merely hastened the whole Relaxation Thing.
    I see no need to return to business

    Yes, as long as we don't all get so tied up in the Relaxation Thing that we tire ourselves out!
    :wink:
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    @Ethne Alba In France, a Sunday lunch that's done and dusted by 3 pm is considered quite a short affair. A proper family meal has you still at the table at about 5 o'clock :mrgreen:

    (The adults, that is. The children have usually sloped off to watch the telly rather before that.)
  • My census conundrum has been solved.
    I tried an internet search for the Home, and found an outdated CQC list of occasions when it had been inspected with, of course, the names of the companies owning it at those times.
    Of course, as soon as I saw the name I recognised it, so all is now complete.

    Otherwise, my day has not been so good.

    To save my back, which gives me a lot of trouble, I asked Mr RoS to weed a small patch of the garden, which had been cleared of all but a few obvious weeds, such as dandelions. I was specific about where he was to weed, and very specific about which bits he was not to touch.
    Three times he asked what I wanted done, and three times I gave him precise details.
    So - he dug up the few remaining weeds, and then moved on to two small adjoining beds, clearing every green thing from them. Not weeds, and not for the first time.

    I was expecting this to be the last year I would be able to do anything much in the garden, but at the moment I don't want to be bothered with it at all.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    ... this may have an effect on public transport - less crowded trains and buses, maybe, but the flip side of that is that operators may have to reduce services ...

    Here, they already have. My morning train, which used to have eight coaches, now only has four. This was fine and dandy until the secondary schools reopened last week; although very few of the extra passengers appeared to be schoolchildren, the train felt decidedly fuller than it had done, and by the time the train reached Linlithgow it was difficult to find a seat that was neither next to nor opposite someone else.
    It was an absolutely glorious day here today: I had to deploy sunglasses for the first time this year on the way back from Tessie's.

    Supper chez Piglet was a chicken concoction with green veggies, potatoes and a crème fraîche and mustard sauce, which I hadn't tried before, but will definitely do again, as it was really rather nice.

  • Much hilarity in our local farm shop yesterday. One of the second-homers was in bemoaning the fact that all their chuckens had been killed over-night. This is the same person who treated the shop to a long sermon on what food she leaves out "for the foxes" and who questioned shutting up chickens overnight when the weather was warmer 😖
  • I think that's called *karma*, no?
    :wink:
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    @la vie en rouge ah! That’s it then! Mr Alba was originally very keen on relocating to France.....



  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Much hilarity in our local farm shop yesterday. One of the second-homers was in bemoaning the fact that all their chuckens had been killed over-night. This is the same person who treated the shop to a long sermon on what food she leaves out "for the foxes" and who questioned shutting up chickens overnight when the weather was warmer 😖

    As they say round here: Ah weel, she kens noo.

    With the incoming generation of young home owners with their taste for high fences and minimal gardens, the local urban fox population has been driven out of the immediate vicinity.

  • I think that's called *karma*, no?
    :wink:

    Chicken karma, surely?

    (My coat is already on...)
  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited March 21
    We always kept our chickens in a large covered run as the local fox would wander into the garden at 3pm while you were in the garden.
    The chicken run is empty at the moment and overgrown.
  • Much hilarity in our local farm shop yesterday. One of the second-homers was in bemoaning the fact that all their chuckens had been killed over-night. This is the same person who treated the shop to a long sermon on what food she leaves out "for the foxes" and who questioned shutting up chickens overnight when the weather was warmer 😖

    Head, say hello to Mr Wall. Mr Wall, say hello to Head.

    No shortage of urban foxes round here - I've had them come through the garden (about 15m long) *when I've been in it* in daylight, any chicken run here would have to be nuclear bunkeresque in scale. In addition, we obviously have wandering badgers - the green next to us has been well rummaged in, (there's been the odd hole appearing up and down the road), and on Friday I discovered an enormous Farage in one of the holes that matched badger latrines I've seen elsewhere. Without going into details, badger shite is quite distinctively deposited.
  • Spheroids, ran out of time whilst editing.

    I've also had a bit of a turn up for the books - I've shifted some of the effing concrete in the back garden and, via the good agency of Nextdoor, crap redistributor to the nation, I've found someone who can not only use the hardcore but is furloughed so has time to come and break it up themselves (I'm not 100% sure where this leaves us on the rules and regs, but it's outdoors, they don't need to come in, so I'm happy it should be safe). Given that having new driveways put in seems to be the in thing round here, the noise shouldn't disturn anyone either (well, unless I twat my thumb with the hammer...). Assuming they need more than they have already taken, I am delighted!
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Nextdoor is indeed a most excellent crap redistributor; the electronic ink had barely dried on my post offering my old dining furniture when a delightful gentleman turned up to relieve me of it.

    I hope there will be no unwanted connections between hammer and thumb!
  • @Sandemaniac @Firenze We're not urban, we're attractive rolling countryside. And we get your urban foxes dumped on us by pest controllers re-locating them from our nearest big cities. Poor brutes invariably starve to death, plagued with mange.
  • Our foxes weren’t urban ones either, our house used to back on to farmer’s fields. Alas, the village is now swallowed up into Cambridge suburbs and we have a huge new build behind our house.

    Usual admin today, and another stray essay to mark. I also need to apply for a couple of days work for a project on student mental health. But most of this week will be working on my studies which will be a nice change.
    Off for a walk in the sunshine.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    My farming grandfather had an opinion about people who lost chickens to foxes. He would probably have had an agreeable conversation with Firenze.
  • We sometimes see Foxes here in the boatyard, taking the shortest route from nearby fields on one side to a wooded area on the other side. They occasionally trot across the mud, on the edge of the incoming tide, being somewhat lighter than Me (if I try to walk on the mud, I sink up to my knees...).

    Now and then, one will wander around the yard at night, seeking what he might devour, though people are generally careful about NOT leaving edible rubbish out (there are Rats...).

    We had something of an outbreak of Rats one year. My former neighbour shot many of them with the gun he usually uses on Rabbits (he and his partner own some riverside land, inhabited by many Rabbits, and make a bit of extra £££ by selling them oven-ready).
  • Piglet wrote: »
    ... this may have an effect on public transport - less crowded trains and buses, maybe, but the flip side of that is that operators may have to reduce services ...

    Here, they already have. My morning train, which used to have eight coaches, now only has four. This was fine and dandy until the secondary schools reopened last week; although very few of the extra passengers appeared to be schoolchildren, the train felt decidedly fuller than it had done, and by the time the train reached Linlithgow it was difficult to find a seat that was neither next to nor opposite someone else.
    Our buses are running a full service as from this week. Can't speak for the trains.

    And traffic here seems as busy as ever - sadly.

  • Having just been to Tess Coe's for the weekly mega-shop (two bags!), I noticed that the traffic here seems a bit heavier than it has been in the past few months.

    Maybe the fine sunny weather is tempting people out for *non-essential* journeys? Buses seem to be running virtually empty, though, even on routes which are normally well-used.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Just had flying visit from a couple of Team Polskie to fix some odds and ends from the earlier works. Also, could they move some rocks from the front path to the back garden? (I'd managed one by loading it into a shopping bag, but it was a struggle). So they picked up three each...
  • :lol:

    I thought I might have to try to find a Polish plumber today.

    Imagine my horror when I realised that the Ark's domestic plumbing (serving the galley sink, the bath, washbasin, and WC) had apparently Sprung A Leak - right in the darkest and most inaccessible corner of the galley, of course. Several gallons of water have probably leaked down into the bilges, though that is what bilges are for.

    A quick panicked investigation ensued, involving the removal of some panelling (designed to be removable, happily), the shifting of the gas cooker, two falls onto the floor, and the smashing of a portable lamp thereby. Norty Words were uttered, I'm afraid.

    It transpired that one of the header tanks was overfull, so by releasing the excess water, the problem was solved.

    BEER has been consumed, in relief...

  • @Bishops Finger Ballcock need replacing?
  • @Bishops Finger Ballcock need replacing?

    And the same to you, Sir!
    :lol:

    Yes, it may indeed be so. Further investigation is pending, but for the moment, I'm just relieved to have stopped the water going where it didn't ought-er...
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Plumbing issues are one of the things I find scariest about living on my own - I'd fly into a right flap if there was water where it shouldn't be.
    I'm having a relaxed, but productive day off: there's Wash Ing in the tumble-dryer and bread dough in the bread machine, so I'll be set up for going back to work tomorrow.

    I realised yesterday that I'm going to have three consecutive four-day weeks: the weekend after next is Easter, so Friday and Monday off. I mustn't get used to it ...
    Beans on TOAST for supper tonight, I think - a dish fit for a king when you're in the mood for it!
  • Ooh...Beans on TOAST! What a good idea...
    :grin:
    The plumbing issue didn't affect the Wash Ing, which is drying nicely outside (but needs to be brought in soon).

    All the faffing and falling about I've done today has made my poor Legs ache summink crool, so tomorrow's Pilates session may have to be somewhat gentler than usual.

    Herself always asks how I'm doing, and arranges the writhing about on the floor exercises accordingly. She's hopeful that we may be back to IRL sessions in the Studio around 13th April, which I for one will welcome!

  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    We are on baked potatoes with beans and CHEESE. 🙂🙂
  • I may well add some grated Parmesan CHEESE to my Beans on TOAST.
    :wink:
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Piglet wrote: »
    Beans on TOAST for supper tonight, I think - a dish fit for a king when you're in the mood for it!
    I love beans on toast - one of the few meals that takes longer to eat than it does to cook! I'd eat them several times in the week if it were just me in the house, but they don't agree with Mr Nen's Delicate Digestion, and on a Sunday evening when I have them for a treat for supper he has spaghetti hoops. This is only ok because we'll have had our main meal at lunchtime, because Something On Toast (as enny fule kno) is a snack, not a meal. :wink:

    We're having stir fry - I always do enough on a Saturday night to have again on a Monday as it's another of my favourite meals but all the chopping makes it quite time-consuming, I think. I've managed to save some red WINE to go with it.

    I've been for a walk with a friend I haven't seen for a couple of weeks and it was lovely to see all the spring blossom and the spring flowers in the sunshine.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited March 22
    Yes, it's been a lovely mild sunny day here, too.

    My little trough of Herbs is doing well (at least, the Mint is - not sure about the Basil, which has yet to re-appear, though the Parsley is OK), and the wild Grasses and other weeds interesting plants are beginning to spring up in the old dinghy which lives on deck, and is euphemistically referred to as *The Garden*. There is one plant - not yet identified, even by experts! - which has the most gorgeous little bright vermilion blooms, come summer.

    I also have three Pots with various Succulents therein, which seem to require no attention whatsoever, but still produce Flowers now and then, when the mood takes them...
    :wink:
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    edited March 22
    I got an indoor herb "garden" (three little pots in a tray with compost and seeds) for my birthday last month, and I'm delighted to report that the basil is now beginning to look (and almost smell) like actual, proper (if still rather small) basil.

    The oregano is also beginning to look herbaceous, and even the thyme, which I thought was never going to do anything, now looks as if it's at least trying.

    Perhaps I'll have some nice herbage to go with salads and things when the summer comes* - assuming that the lovely weather we had last week wasn't our lot!

    * mmm ... tomato salad with fresh basil ... :)

    eta: I'm not at all sure about adding CHEESE to B-on-T: I think it would fall into the category of Things I Like, But Not Together. Ditto beans on baked tatties - it just seems Wrong.
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