I wonder if my colleagues' patients are programmed to start phoning at 3:55 on days when I'd quite like to sneak away a little early? Or, when I failed in that mission, why another one rings at 4:10?
No matter: I'm now looking forward to four days of not having to get up at silly o'clock; Tessie's has been raided for provisions for the weekend*, and scampi and chips are being consumed because (a) holidays; and (b) knackered.
* except for the WINE - there's a limit to what I can carry the length of the High Street. I'll take a wee jaunt out to Aldi's or Sainsbury's on Saturday for that; I'm not completely without (heaven forfend!), and my sister-in-law said they'd bring some on Sunday anyway.
eta: in accordance with the law of Murphy, the Tesco's Club Card which I'd ordered the other day was waiting on the doormat after I'd done my shopping, thereby depriving me of any benefits I might have gained.
eta: in accordance with the law of Murphy, the Tesco's Club Card which I'd ordered the other day was waiting on the doormat after I'd done my shopping, thereby depriving me of any benefits I might have gained.
It's possible they can add the points to your card if you take it and your receipt to Customer Services next time you're in the store. It's worth trying, anyway.
I went shopping this afternoon for a few extra bits including Easter eggs as Nenlet1 and son-in-law may be coming over on Saturday. There were hardly any left in the Co-Op I went into, but I got a couple. I wasn't going to go into Tesco's just for Easter eggs.
I've got the Maundy Thursday liturgy live from Canterbury Cathedral playing in the background here. I think I've mentioned that one of the nice discoveries of this third lockdown for me has been morning prayer from the deanery garden of Canterbury Cathedral. I grew up in Kent so feel I'm connecting with my home roots and CofE upbringing.
I've got the Maundy Thursday liturgy live from Canterbury Cathedral playing in the background here.
You've reminded me of arriving on a Greek island out of season (early April) but in time for the Orthodox Easter. After wandering the darkening (and very chilly) streets my friend and I plumped in desperation for an unpromising-looking bar. Where we had just the best gyros ever, while above us the TV broadcast the Maundy Thursday liturgy from Athens.
I got some marking done and am looking forward to a break. Officially I’m on holiday til a week Monday but I need to get some study done next week for my end of year assessment.
Tea was a spicy breaded lemon sole fillet with kale and mushroom Thai green curry and sticky rice.
HOT CROSS BUNS have been made. No eating them until tomorrow, though: I'm a purist who thinks they are only for Good Friday.
Technically, I suppose this means they should have been baked tomorrow as well. But I want them for breakfast, and I'm disinclined to get up at 5 AM to make them.
Every year since we bought our first bread-machine, I've intended to make my own HCBs, and every year I haven't got round to it.
I'll probably polish off the ones I bought the other day as a post-brunch treat with a cup of coffee.
Other activities planned for today include Dust Ing, hooverage and making some pâtés (one mushroom, one smoked salmon) for pre-lunch nibbles on Sunday.
I'm planning to make bread sticks to go with them, but I'll do that tomorrow, as they want to be nice and fresh.
I have a tried and tested recipe for hot cross buns - but I still buy them. Mostly because I tend to buy a pack of GF and a pack of ordinary to benefit from the offers available. And I haven't managed to produce yeasted GF bread that works (I can make soda bread). After wasting a lot of ingredients making GF bricks, I gave up.
I understand that people are being invited to take a *cold* cross bun (or two) away with them, after today's liturgy at Our Place - which is taking place as I write (I'll watch it - or some of it - later on Facebook...).
It was our custom in pre-Covid days to leave the church in silence after the liturgy, but to gather in the hall for HCBs and tea. For one or two devout souls, that would be the first food they take on Good Friday.
I skipped church as I need a break from online interaction. So I did the traditional British bank holiday activity and walked to the garden centre (with my trolley, it’s a mile and a half away). I have just potted up some geraniums, an everlasting pea and some sweet peas, and moved the spent cyclamen from their pots into a flower bed.
This afternoon I will plant out some potatoes in growing bags and I might sow some seeds. In an ideal world I would convince my husband to dig the veg patch for me but he appears to be writing a computer programme for some snazzy Smart temperature monitors he has just bought (why, I do not know).
I quite fancy making some hot cross buns, I might dig out a recipe.
It was our custom in pre-Covid days to leave the church in silence after the liturgy.
We used to do this following a Maundy Thursday evening service, joint with another church. Some people started - not unreasonably - to say, "What's the point in having a joint service if we can't chat?" so we laid on tea and coffee in an adjoining room - asking folk to remain silent till they entered.
I understand that people are being invited to take a *cold* cross bun (or two) away with them, after today's liturgy at Our Place
Cold Hot Cross Buns? Is Outrage.
We generally have a Churches Together Walk of Witness on Good Friday, ending up with coffee and cold buttered hot cross buns at one of the churches. Not possible this year, of course, nor last year neither.
Mr Nen and I shared a toasted HCB at lunchtime. The question is, do you prefer the top or the bottom? To make it fair, we halved it to toast it and then halved each half.
Bright sunshine here, though chilly. I'm planning a walk with a couple of friends and then Mr Nen and I will be listening to the Good Friday service from Our Place this evening.
O yes - a cold HCB is indeed Outrage, but the best that can be done in these Plague-Ridden Times...
As @Baptist Trainfan says, people are missing post-service chat generally, though I suppose some socially-distanced interaction might be permissible in the street outside the church...
Next door, whose garden is completely plantless (bar some automatically mown grass) are currently adding more patio and a summerhouse (in emulation, they say, of mine) to the shed, barbecue and hot tub. Diagonal neighbour also has new outdoor structure just a few feet from their conservatory. Neighbour t’other side has also muttered something about building one.
Trendsetter though I be, I can’t believe everybody’s suddenly hiring JCBs (really) and spending £££ on that account. More likely the successor activity to having the windows replaced and the front path relaid, which seemed to be the popular things last year.
Possibly it's the effect of not being able to travel and money that would otherwise be spent on going Abroad is sloshing over into other things instead.
Yes, garden investment is the in thing since lockdown. People know they won’t be visiting indoors for a while so make more use of outdoor space.
In the last year we have replaced the garden shed and put up a large bicycle storage shed, and we have also added a decking area for the barbecue at the end of the garden (our previous location on the patio annoyed the neighbours with smoke). Admittedly these were planned prior to lockdown. We are lucky in that we have a long garden so also have flower beds and veg beds and fruit trees and soft fruit bushes as well as lawn.
All this decking will be very welcome shelter to colonies of Rats, and the inability of rainwater to seep into the ground will no doubt have its effect on the rising damp in the house...
Builders, especially those expert at dealing with heave and subsidence, will be pleased, too.
I have a confession: I prefer my HCBs untoasted (sorry about that), but make up for this aberration by slathering them with industrial quantities of butter. I'll have the lower half, if it's all the same to you.
I've been an abominably lazy piglet today: I haven't got round to any of the things I said I would do (so far - I may yet whisk round the flat with a hoover and duster). I seem to be stupidly tired; maybe the clock change is catching up on me (or the early mornings).
Having eaten the buns at breakfast, I have now moved on to making a Simnel CAKE. I've made my own marzipan and everything.
It's now out of the oven and just needs its final decoration once it's completely cooled down.
In France the traditional Easter dessert is strawberries, so I think we shall serve them with said CAKE.
This morning we walked to Captain Pyjamas' future school to drop off the papers. We went around the back of the Ecole Militaire (the military academy, roughly equivalent to Sandhurst) and were treated to the sight of the mounted officers exercising their horses.
As @Baptist Trainfan says, people are missing post-service chat generally, though I suppose some socially-distanced interaction might be permissible in the street outside the church...
Possibly it's the effect of not being able to travel and money that would otherwise be spent on going Abroad is sloshing over into other things instead.
I'm told that holidays staying in the UK are just as expensive, or even more so, but perhaps people haven't found that out yet.
Certainly I've not actually found this to be true, but then part of the reason I go abroad seldom is that when I do it's not to a stupidly hot beach somewhere surrounded by human lobsters. That's where I'll find myself after I die if I've led a wicked life - an eternal Englishman On Holiday in Majorca boiling under the sun with no decent beer surrounded by thousands and thousands of demons in England football shirts.
The price comparisons always seem to be between a week in Torquay and a week in Menorca, neither of which appeals.
Although I am usually a purist with regards to hot cross buns and only have them on Good Friday, it was just too tempting not to try them when Macarius made them yesterday, still warm from the oven. We had the rest for breakfast this morning.
And we started on his simnel cake for tea this afternoon. Hmm, not sure how much dinner I will need this evening. Still, the Friday negroni is going down nicely.
All this decking will be very welcome shelter to colonies of Rats.
I find a chicken shed far more effective...
Hot cross buns were made but still not eaten, as we bought in dinner of hot smoked salmon and Asian salad, roast duck and veg followed by baked cheesecakes and strawberry compote.
HOT CROSS BUNS have been made. No eating them until tomorrow, though: I'm a purist who thinks they are only for Good Friday.
In ages past, BC (before COVID), no Good Friday was complete without the making of vast quantities of cake, efficiently baked & timed around the assorted services, in order to be able to feed the massed hordes cleaning and polishing on Holy Saturday...
This year, there being no communal cleaning & polishing on Holy Saturday, I felt the urge to (try to) make Hot Cross Buns. With the intent of sharing with friends/neighbours since there would be too many for just me. So I tried Mary Berry's recipe, which is apparently "completely foolproof".
It would appear that I am a complete fool. I think I may have invented Hot Cross Rocks, useful for sealing the tomb in an Easter Garden... Small, dense, heavy.... but smelled good! I'll probably eat them anyway, but definitely not fit for sharing. So I might have to make some Orange & cardamom cake to share instead.
My Mary Berry buns didn’t rise well enough and I assumed it was our yeast - perhaps I can blame her instead!
I love orange polenta cake and make it often.
All this decking will be very welcome shelter to colonies of Rats.
I find a chicken shed far more effective....
Indeed, a year or two back my dear mother was complaining that rats were coming into her garden from the untidy garden next door. This is a woman with 40+ chickens and an industrial-scale compost heap. Oh, and bird feeders. No, dear, they're *your* rats.
It would appear that I am a complete fool. I think I may have invented Hot Cross Rocks, useful for sealing the tomb in an Easter Garden... Small, dense, heavy.... but smelled good! I'll probably eat them anyway, but definitely not fit for sharing. So I might have to make some Orange & cardamom cake to share instead.
The recipe I use (also BBC) uses twice as much yeast as in that one @kingsfold. A rich dough like that, with egg in it, needs more lifting power!
And/or more warmth than West of Scotland Sun in Spring... My flat ain't exactly warm, so I left the dough in the hot spot in the front room. It sure as heck didn't double in size....
It would appear that I am a complete fool. I think I may have invented Hot Cross Rocks, useful for sealing the tomb in an Easter Garden... Small, dense, heavy.... but smelled good! I'll probably eat them anyway, but definitely not fit for sharing. So I might have to make some Orange & cardamom cake to share instead.
The recipe I use (also BBC) uses twice as much yeast as in that one @kingsfold. A rich dough like that, with egg in it, needs more lifting power!
And/or more warmth than West of Scotland Sun in Spring... My flat ain't exactly warm, so I left the dough in the hot spot in the front room. It sure as heck didn't double in size....
I find that in the absence of anywhere suitably warm, putting the oven *just* on is about right.
I don't think I'd trust my oven to be just on!
Hooverage has occurred, and mushroom pâté is cooling in the fridge. If the BBC weather page is to be believed, it's going to be 15° and sunny tomorrow, which should be rather nice for a stroll down the street.
I recently read a cookbook which advised putting most of the spices into the hot cross bun glaze, as they inhibit the yeast if they are in the dough. I haven't tried it though; I have made hot cross buns, but they are generally inferior to the bought version.
For hot cross buns, I used Felicity Cloake's Grauniad recipe. It worked very well. I used fresh yeast, as she specified - I don't know if that makes a difference.
The warm spot isn't too much of a problem for me. Our bedroom windowsill gets the direct sun in the afternoon.
I should add that I, too, have been busy in the garden department (oo-er, matron!), though big plans have been held back by the sheer cost of double glazing - we can afford to replace a window to enable us to sort the bathroom, or sort the bathroom, but not both!
I've been breaking out and breaking up concrete the old fashioned way with BFI as it's cheaper (there's a big slab that is going to have to be dealt with by hiring a Kango) - managed to get rid of some of the resulting hardcore via the good offices of Nextdoor, crap redistributor to the nation, I'm hoping that someone can use the rest as otherwise I will have to hire a skip, and that will cost!
Anyway, I was banging away when one of the neighbours came round the little green next door picking dandelions for their tortoises (there's a sentence that would give any English teacher conniptions) and I've now been offered a circle of paving slabs from their garden. That may not seem very exciting until you hear that we were planning on putting a half-circle of bricks down to replace the horrid butt-ugly concrete, if it's the size he reckons and it looks OK, it might be just the thing. Of course, I'll have to get more concrete out to put it in, and get rid of that [Yul Brynner] Etcetera etcetera etcetera[/Yul Brynner] - and cricket starts on the 11th, so that's all my Sunday afternoons taken up until September!
I expect I'll survive the sea of first world problems and self-made obstacles.
For HCB I use a recipe from my ancient copy of Good Housekeeping's Cooking for Today, a splendid book that assumes the reader starts from a baseline of zero knowledge. It was given to one of my sisters but she didn't want it so I grabbed it and it taught 13 year-old me the basics.
I probably have more than one recipe for hot cross buns but the one I know I've tried and tested comes from a National Trust book of Christmas and other Festive Recipes - my hardback edition is green with a line drawn illustration, much more austere than the link. It also has a good chocolate truffle recipe, crystallised chestnuts and flowers and Simnel Cake.
A beautiful, if cold, morning here as well. Shoulders not as outraged as I thought they might be after giving the lawn a thorough raking yesterday.
Next door is now an industrial wasteland. My summerhouse was sized to sit on the area of paving that was there, which is simply slabs over sand. But next door have dug out the back quarter (JCB) and put down aggregate. There are mountain ranges of hardcore and sand. You could build a sodding block of flats on that, let alone a wooden hut.
With some it's enough just to turn the selector to "oven" and start the fan and light; others need a tweak of the temp dial too. It works on the cheapjack Obscure Brand model where we're renting, and all the others I remember trying.
@Miffy compulsory schooling from age three is a fairly recent development. The Macron government's rationale is that the children it helps the most are the most vulnerable. Given that most parents work, I don't think too many people are really complaining, but I'm not entirely convinced that all three year-olds everywhere need to go to school.
Not sure about the list of what you need to buy. I know that in many schools you need a blanket and pillow for their afternoon nap, and the school we are choosing requires that they have a blouse - a sort of overall that you wear over your clothes, that basically serves the office of a uniform. Once upon a time, all schoolchildren wore them, but these days they are limited to private schools, usually of the Catholic persuasion.
I love the idea of a blouse; really practical, wish we’d had them. I remember missing Uk school uniform.
Yes, it sounds as if things have changed since we were over there. Which was, I’ll admit, over 20 to 30 years ago! The primary school looks just the same, though, from the outside at any rate. (daughter checked it out when she was visiting a couple of years back).
It's a lovely day in sunny West Lothian, and as the awaited parcel has arrived* (new shoes - hurrah!), I'm going to have an amble down to Tessie's to get some WINE and sundry bits and bobs for tomorrow's lunch.
Bathroom cleaning has happened, and coffee with TOAST and lemon curd consumed; I'll possibly have proper breakfast when I get back. I'll set the bread-machine going to make breadsticks before I go out, so that'll be another task partly out of the way.
* Kudos to the Royal Mail: the tracking thingie said between 10:27 and 2:27 (where do they get these silly numbers?), and it arrived about half an hour ago. It also got me up and dressed somewhat earlier than I usually would be on a Saturday.
It's grey and chilly down here, and instead of walking over to test my Adventure Lab and place the bonus cache, we've wimped out. Mostly caused by lack of sleep from starting an online Jigidi jigsaw puzzle to solve a geocache and knowing I'd lose the progress if I stopped, so kept going to the bitter end. It was a 400 piece jigsaw of Sponge Bob Square Pants that has more than 50% yellow pieces and took ages. (If anyone is into geocaching, there's a geoart series of 130 of the things just gone up - my fault, I pointed out a heart.)
Cold here too. I did a longer walk this morning of almost 3 miles and then did some pottering in the garden (literally, as I sowed some brassicas and beans in loo roll pots in the shed).
Amblage completed, and it's really warm! The High Street was hoaching with people out and about, walking their dogs, queuing up at the ice-cream shop or sitting on the benches at the Cross, enjoying the sunshine. I could have done without my woolly jacket.
The BBC weather page said it's 12°, but I reckon that's b*llocks - it felt much warmer than that. They're probably being told to downplay any nice weather in Scotland, as we tend not to vote Tory ... <paranoid>
Amblage completed, and it's really warm! The High Street was hoaching with people out and about, walking their dogs, queuing up at the ice-cream shop or sitting on the benches at the Cross, enjoying the sunshine. I could have done without my woolly jacket.
The BBC weather page said it's 12°, but I reckon that's b*llocks - it felt much warmer than that. They're probably being told to downplay any nice weather in Scotland, as we tend not to vote Tory ... <paranoid>
Remember that's in the shade. Often it's a lot warmer in direct sunlight.
Sunny here and warm out of the wind, but the breeze is pretty chilly. Monday we're due sub-zero temperatures and a stronger breeze. Wind chill forecast as -8°C. oh, and possible snow.
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No matter: I'm now looking forward to four days of not having to get up at silly o'clock; Tessie's has been raided for provisions for the weekend*, and scampi and chips are being consumed because (a) holidays; and (b) knackered.
* except for the WINE - there's a limit to what I can carry the length of the High Street. I'll take a wee jaunt out to Aldi's or Sainsbury's on Saturday for that; I'm not completely without (heaven forfend!), and my sister-in-law said they'd bring some on Sunday anyway.
eta: in accordance with the law of Murphy, the Tesco's Club Card which I'd ordered the other day was waiting on the doormat after I'd done my shopping, thereby depriving me of any benefits I might have gained.
Ho hum.
I went shopping this afternoon for a few extra bits including Easter eggs as Nenlet1 and son-in-law may be coming over on Saturday. There were hardly any left in the Co-Op I went into, but I got a couple. I wasn't going to go into Tesco's just for Easter eggs.
I've got the Maundy Thursday liturgy live from Canterbury Cathedral playing in the background here. I think I've mentioned that one of the nice discoveries of this third lockdown for me has been morning prayer from the deanery garden of Canterbury Cathedral. I grew up in Kent so feel I'm connecting with my home roots and CofE upbringing.
Tomorrow is swordfish'n'chips: Saturday a roast of lamb: Sunday chicken with stuffing and possibly onion sauce.
Tea was a spicy breaded lemon sole fillet with kale and mushroom Thai green curry and sticky rice.
Technically, I suppose this means they should have been baked tomorrow as well. But I want them for breakfast, and I'm disinclined to get up at 5 AM to make them.
I'll probably polish off the ones I bought the other day as a post-brunch treat with a cup of coffee.
Other activities planned for today include Dust Ing, hooverage and making some pâtés (one mushroom, one smoked salmon) for pre-lunch nibbles on Sunday.
I'm planning to make bread sticks to go with them, but I'll do that tomorrow, as they want to be nice and fresh.
It was our custom in pre-Covid days to leave the church in silence after the liturgy, but to gather in the hall for HCBs and tea. For one or two devout souls, that would be the first food they take on Good Friday.
This afternoon I will plant out some potatoes in growing bags and I might sow some seeds. In an ideal world I would convince my husband to dig the veg patch for me but he appears to be writing a computer programme for some snazzy Smart temperature monitors he has just bought (why, I do not know).
I quite fancy making some hot cross buns, I might dig out a recipe.
We generally have a Churches Together Walk of Witness on Good Friday, ending up with coffee and cold buttered hot cross buns at one of the churches. Not possible this year, of course, nor last year neither.
Mr Nen and I shared a toasted HCB at lunchtime. The question is, do you prefer the top or the bottom? To make it fair, we halved it to toast it and then halved each half.
Bright sunshine here, though chilly. I'm planning a walk with a couple of friends and then Mr Nen and I will be listening to the Good Friday service from Our Place this evening.
As @Baptist Trainfan says, people are missing post-service chat generally, though I suppose some socially-distanced interaction might be permissible in the street outside the church...
Trendsetter though I be, I can’t believe everybody’s suddenly hiring JCBs (really) and spending £££ on that account. More likely the successor activity to having the windows replaced and the front path relaid, which seemed to be the popular things last year.
In the last year we have replaced the garden shed and put up a large bicycle storage shed, and we have also added a decking area for the barbecue at the end of the garden (our previous location on the patio annoyed the neighbours with smoke). Admittedly these were planned prior to lockdown. We are lucky in that we have a long garden so also have flower beds and veg beds and fruit trees and soft fruit bushes as well as lawn.
Builders, especially those expert at dealing with heave and subsidence, will be pleased, too.
I've been an abominably lazy piglet today: I haven't got round to any of the things I said I would do (so far - I may yet whisk round the flat with a hoover and duster). I seem to be stupidly tired; maybe the clock change is catching up on me (or the early mornings).
It's now out of the oven and just needs its final decoration once it's completely cooled down.
In France the traditional Easter dessert is strawberries, so I think we shall serve them with said CAKE.
This morning we walked to Captain Pyjamas' future school to drop off the papers. We went around the back of the Ecole Militaire (the military academy, roughly equivalent to Sandhurst) and were treated to the sight of the mounted officers exercising their horses.
I'm told that holidays staying in the UK are just as expensive, or even more so, but perhaps people haven't found that out yet.
Certainly I've not actually found this to be true, but then part of the reason I go abroad seldom is that when I do it's not to a stupidly hot beach somewhere surrounded by human lobsters. That's where I'll find myself after I die if I've led a wicked life - an eternal Englishman On Holiday in Majorca boiling under the sun with no decent beer surrounded by thousands and thousands of demons in England football shirts.
The price comparisons always seem to be between a week in Torquay and a week in Menorca, neither of which appeals.
And we started on his simnel cake for tea this afternoon. Hmm, not sure how much dinner I will need this evening. Still, the Friday negroni is going down nicely.
MMM
Hot cross buns were made but still not eaten, as we bought in dinner of hot smoked salmon and Asian salad, roast duck and veg followed by baked cheesecakes and strawberry compote.
I’m hoping to make simnel cake tomorrow.
In ages past, BC (before COVID), no Good Friday was complete without the making of vast quantities of cake, efficiently baked & timed around the assorted services, in order to be able to feed the massed hordes cleaning and polishing on Holy Saturday...
This year, there being no communal cleaning & polishing on Holy Saturday, I felt the urge to (try to) make Hot Cross Buns. With the intent of sharing with friends/neighbours since there would be too many for just me. So I tried Mary Berry's recipe, which is apparently "completely foolproof".
It would appear that I am a complete fool. I think I may have invented Hot Cross Rocks, useful for sealing the tomb in an Easter Garden... Small, dense, heavy.... but smelled good! I'll probably eat them anyway, but definitely not fit for sharing. So I might have to make some Orange & cardamom cake to share instead.
I love orange polenta cake and make it often.
Indeed, a year or two back my dear mother was complaining that rats were coming into her garden from the untidy garden next door. This is a woman with 40+ chickens and an industrial-scale compost heap. Oh, and bird feeders. No, dear, they're *your* rats.
Having now tried said creation, less Hot Cross Rocks, more Hot Cross Dwarf Bread...
And/or more warmth than West of Scotland Sun in Spring... My flat ain't exactly warm, so I left the dough in the hot spot in the front room. It sure as heck didn't double in size....
I find that in the absence of anywhere suitably warm, putting the oven *just* on is about right.
Hooverage has occurred, and mushroom pâté is cooling in the fridge. If the BBC weather page is to be believed, it's going to be 15° and sunny tomorrow, which should be rather nice for a stroll down the street.
The warm spot isn't too much of a problem for me. Our bedroom windowsill gets the direct sun in the afternoon.
I've been breaking out and breaking up concrete the old fashioned way with BFI as it's cheaper (there's a big slab that is going to have to be dealt with by hiring a Kango) - managed to get rid of some of the resulting hardcore via the good offices of Nextdoor, crap redistributor to the nation, I'm hoping that someone can use the rest as otherwise I will have to hire a skip, and that will cost!
Anyway, I was banging away when one of the neighbours came round the little green next door picking dandelions for their tortoises (there's a sentence that would give any English teacher conniptions) and I've now been offered a circle of paving slabs from their garden. That may not seem very exciting until you hear that we were planning on putting a half-circle of bricks down to replace the horrid butt-ugly concrete, if it's the size he reckons and it looks OK, it might be just the thing. Of course, I'll have to get more concrete out to put it in, and get rid of that [Yul Brynner] Etcetera etcetera etcetera[/Yul Brynner] - and cricket starts on the 11th, so that's all my Sunday afternoons taken up until September!
I expect I'll survive the sea of first world problems and self-made obstacles.
Next door is now an industrial wasteland. My summerhouse was sized to sit on the area of paving that was there, which is simply slabs over sand. But next door have dug out the back quarter (JCB) and put down aggregate. There are mountain ranges of hardcore and sand. You could build a sodding block of flats on that, let alone a wooden hut.
With some it's enough just to turn the selector to "oven" and start the fan and light; others need a tweak of the temp dial too. It works on the cheapjack Obscure Brand model where we're renting, and all the others I remember trying.
I love the idea of a blouse; really practical, wish we’d had them. I remember missing Uk school uniform.
Yes, it sounds as if things have changed since we were over there. Which was, I’ll admit, over 20 to 30 years ago! The primary school looks just the same, though, from the outside at any rate. (daughter checked it out when she was visiting a couple of years back).
Bathroom cleaning has happened, and coffee with TOAST and lemon curd consumed; I'll possibly have proper breakfast when I get back. I'll set the bread-machine going to make breadsticks before I go out, so that'll be another task partly out of the way.
* Kudos to the Royal Mail: the tracking thingie said between 10:27 and 2:27 (where do they get these silly numbers?), and it arrived about half an hour ago. It also got me up and dressed somewhat earlier than I usually would be on a Saturday.
The BBC weather page said it's 12°, but I reckon that's b*llocks - it felt much warmer than that. They're probably being told to downplay any nice weather in Scotland, as we tend not to vote Tory ...
We deserve it, I suppose, as most of us dahn Sarf do vote tory...
Remember that's in the shade. Often it's a lot warmer in direct sunlight.
Sunny here and warm out of the wind, but the breeze is pretty chilly. Monday we're due sub-zero temperatures and a stronger breeze. Wind chill forecast as -8°C.