AS: Tea and biscuits and GIN, the British thread

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  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    I can't see a separate Scots thread, so a happy St Andrew's day to all in the top part of the main island. Too busy to post this morning
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    edited November 2018
    Oooh that's exciting. I hadn't thought that I could make pretty lacy stuff with all my sock yarn. (I mean, how many pairs of feet do I think I have?)
  • Gee D wrote: »
    I can't see a separate Scots thread, so a happy St Andrew's day to all in the top part of the main island. Too busy to post this morning

    We aren't able to celebrate tonight, so we killed and cooked a Haggis last night. Washed down with glasses of Scotland's Other National Drink.
  • Oooh that's exciting. I hadn't thought that I could make pretty lacy stuff with all my sock yarn. (I mean, how many pairs of feet do I think I have?)

    Patterns on Ravelry for lacy shawls too.

    (I need to finish the knitted fox that I'm making up as I go along, then
    make some bed socks from the stash. One pair in DK and the other in chunky. Both patterns found on Ravelry.)
  • Oooh that's exciting. I hadn't thought that I could make pretty lacy stuff with all my sock yarn. (I mean, how many pairs of feet do I think I have?)

    As CK says, patterns on Ravelry, use their advanced search and put four ply as one of your filters. Also search for free patterns and definitely something with picture. If you want Christmas presents, when you look at a particular pattern check column at right. It will show you degree of difficulty others have had, choose easier over harder for speed,

  • Wet KipperWet Kipper Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    glasses of Scotland's Other National Drink.

    Buckfast ? ;)
  • Naughty, naughty ... https://tinyurl.com/y82afblo.

    Although Herself did indulge in a tipple of Caledonia's Finest before bed (Talisker, I think).



  • Hot chocolate with any sort of Irish cream is very good.
  • The orchestra I play in has a concert this evening, which could have been a
    St Andrews Day celebration (we have plenty of Scottish themed tunes) but we’re sharing with a choir that specialises in Musical Theatre and there aren’t too many (any?) songs they could bring to the party. So we’re having an Advent Concert instead, with a joint piece at the end: Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - as soon as we started to rehearse it I felt Christmassy, even more so when we started on an arrangement of O Come Emmanuel. Sorry St Andrew.
  • <snip>I thought "The Other Place" was Harrow <snip>

    It is.

  • It's a small world; I'm from Nottingham, and did my first degree at Cambridge. Don't know many who went to UofN - we were all too keen to get away - although know/knew quite a number of their Finance Department. Lovely campus if you like campus Universities, and easy to get around.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    D's lunchtime concert today had a slightly Caledonian feel to it: he included a meditation by Harold Darke on Brother James' Air, which was written by a Scottish bloke called Mr. Bain*; a lullaby written by a friend whose son is D's godson and who moved to Orkney at the same time as D. did; and variations by Egil Hovland on the Hymn to St. Magnus.

    He suddenly (very late last night) had the idea that it would be educational for the audience to hear the original plainsong, so we sang the first verse ("Nobilis, humilis ...") as a duet before he played the piece, and it went down a treat.

    @Gee D - there is a Scottish thread, here.


    * he might have been a relation - my maiden name was Bain. :smiley:
  • Sorry to be returning to this from ages ago (I meant to reply to it but was reading on my phone, and didn't get back to it)
    Meanwhile, I'm still in the market for a pleasant, single with some va-va-voom musical woman c50-65 out there with time to spare for a decentish type with own hair and teeth and a reasonable sense of both humour and the ridiculous.

    There have been threads on the Ship in the past for people to declare an interest in meeting up - usually around Valentine's Day in February. The other thought is using the 8th Day board to discuss relationships in general? After Christmas? It would mean putting a proposal together.

    The shirt I was making is finished. I get slowed down by the stuff I end up doing on my daughter's projects too: cutting out, hand sewing, sewing on buttons, plus general household stuff. More alterations and at least one other wearable toile to come (two so far), but I need work shirts to replace the ones that went out.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Thanks Piglet, I missed it - was it past the first page?
  • Wesley JWesley J Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    Listened to 'From Our Own Correspondent' earlier today, where there was a report on rats in Paris. Interesting. I wonder if LVER encounters them!

    (FOOC is always a treat, I find, opening ears and eyes to goings-on in other parts of the globe!)
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    I suspect that, if LVER ever encounters rats, they are swiftly shown the door (let the reader understand) for the sake of Captain Pyjamas!

    ION, a thoroughly dire, dismal, and grey day here is being improved by a late lunch of tomato SOUP embellished with Marmite and two little Melton Mowbray Pork PIES.
    :yum:
  • daisydaisydaisydaisy Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    The allotment rat community keeps the committee with plenty to discuss - do we encourage their demise by fair means or foul or just leave them be, with maybe a bit of deterrent. It amused me no end when, on a moth spotting evening with a mothologist neighbour, the first rat I saw there was on the Chair’s plot. In fact I think it’s the only rat I’ve seen there in the 11 years I’ve been allotmenteering.

    I have so far had a day of lovely surprises - first a call from a friend to see if she could collect her raincoat, left a few weeks ago, then (on her encouragement) party crashing the Christmas lunch of the walking group that I started many years ago but haven’t walked with for quite a few years. As I was the only one there not driving I felt it my duty to help out with the complimentary Prosecco - hic.
  • It was our Church Christmas fair today - I had a stall and made £65 for Guide Dogs!

    Soooo easy. I asked for pre-loved soft toys to be donated for a few weeks, then sold them for 50p each. My friend donated a chocolate raffle and presto! Every penny was profit.

    :mrgreen:
  • This is fun...I'm on the train on my way to Strasbourg to meet up with a friend for a short break visiting the Christmas market. Everything was going well until 20 min outside Strasbourg when the train came to an abrupt halt. After a few minutes the guard announced we'd hit a deer. There was a wait of 20 minutes, presumably while some lucky person cleared the debris, and we were given permission to move. Then 10 minutes later on the train stopped again. Apparently this time, children were playing on the line and abandoned a pushchair, which happily we didn't hit. We're still not going anywhere, and it looks like we may be here sometime....this is not quite the journey I envisaged!!
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Wesley J wrote: »
    Listened to 'From Our Own Correspondent' earlier today, where there was a report on rats in Paris. Interesting. I wonder if LVER encounters them!

    Yep. There are rats in the park over the road from my house.

    Apparently the reason is the Seine is unusually high and so the rats' usual lairs are flooded. Consequently you see far more of them above ground.

    Dormouse, that's annoying. A couple of years ago someone we know got stuck for ages when her TGV hit a wild boar.
  • I have been stuck on a train because 'Sheep were on the line'. Apparently, it is not having to compensate the farmer for the sheep knocked down but that the blood on the wheels from a killed sheep means loss of friction with the rails.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    La Vie, have you been affected/disturbed by rioting going on in France? A friend who lives there posted about it on Facebook; it seems to have been quite nasty.
    Gee D wrote: »
    Thanks Piglet, I missed it - was it past the first page?
    It might have been - I think it was just resurrected yesterday when people posted St. Andrew's Day greetings.

    * * * * *

    D's off to a model railway exhibition this afternoon; I might have gone too but when he mentioned it, I was in mid-bread-bake and said he'd be as well going on his own. Not that I don't like model trains, but they are more his thing than mine.

    Instead, in anticipation of the start of Advent, I've put up the candle-bridges (and found the spare bulbs, which was just as well, as two of the old ones had died, and another one blew quite spectacularly when I tried to straighten it).

    The rest of the decorations will go up next weekend; I love when the house starts to look festive! :smiley:
  • Jengie Jon wrote: »
    I have been stuck on a train because 'Sheep were on the line'.
    Same round here but with a llama...
  • The London Fenchurch Street line to Southend is regularly disrupted by cows on the line. The track runs through their coastal marshland grazing and the trains just have to wait until the cow decides to move away, or sometimes the driver will contact the next station, who in turn contacts the farmer who comes to the rescue - eventually!
  • Livestock on the line gets coded on the reports for national rail, but varies depending, which confused a PhD student analysing them for her PhD. Particularly as she wasn't a local, or a Brit.
  • Cattle can derail a train, with catastrophic results: https://tinyurl.com/y6vc8v4v
  • Very little livestock round here, east anglia tends to have pigs in tin huts.

    Lots achieved today, unusually for a Saturday. I taught a tutorial on lifestyle and identity (in relation to health inequalities) this morning, made a plaid petticoat (as in skirt below my dress) for my Victorian costume this afternoon, popped to the shops and then started putting some braid on my Victorian dress to cover up the terrible hem. Now I’m relaxing with a beer (Cascade) while browsing.
  • I'm feeling very virtuous after spending most of today bringing the choir's music catalogue up-to-date, mending a couple of psalters, and then a quick run-through of various staple Advent pieces likely to be required over the next few weeks.

    We have a Christingle service tomorrow - in the afternoon - plus a normal Family Eucharist when we'll be admitting 3 new junior choristers so I also checked cassock buttons and that the PinC knows what is happening when.
  • Cattle can derail a train, with catastrophic results: https://tinyurl.com/y6vc8v4v
    The link seems subscriber-only, so here's Wikipedia. - Sadness.


  • And in a very British sort of thing, which, I'm afraid to say, made me chuckle - sorry! -, there is this passage in the official report on the accident (scanned typed pdf), p 7, point 49, downloadable from here:
    He* described the amount of energy stored in the train when moving at 85 miles/h as sufficient to raise the two leading coaches to the top of the Eiffel Tower. [...]
    Seeing the distance between the place of the accident and Paris, that will indeed require quite an extraordinary amount of energy, and I reckon they were lucky it could be avoided as the French undoubtedly would not have been amused.

    *Dr R Illingworth, Head of Vehicle/Track Interaction Unit at the British Railways Research and Development Division at Derby
  • To change the subject entirely, what do you Shippies do for relaxation when you are not cooking or crafting?

    I find the days are very long since I lost my husband earlier this year. I am mobility impaired, don't drive now, hearing impaired (and the most unmusical person you've ever met!) I do a lot of reading, but there is a limit to the amount I can do, watch TV (ditto), I write, luckily I can still type, though my fingers won't do anything else I want! (I've published a book of my poems, she says modestly), I'm computer literate, but there still seems to be an awful lot of day left, mostly when its dark.

    I don't cook much, can't be bothered, though I do make a mean omelette! The only person who comes to see me is a lovely lady from the local JW's, she's been coming for some years, and she tells me how beautiful the world will be when Jesus comes, and how all sadness will be gone, and I nod and say "Yes", and try to remember helpful verses from Isaiah!. I think she has plans to get me down to the Kingdom Hall one Sunday ..........

    Any suggestions to fill in that dark bit of the afternoon between about 3.0 pm and 6.0 pm?
  • If you can hear it Radio 4 can be a Godsend. There is quite often good conversation going on between intelligent people.

    Other than that puzzles. I find Flow Free and Mathduko/KenKen are easy ways to loose any spare time I have. Your idea of a good puzzle might vary completely.
  • I'm wondering about restarting the 365 project to get me out and exercising more, now I can, which could give you a photography and processing challenge - someone posted a photographic study of their garden over several years and I remember loving your photos.

    The other thought is interesting courses, which will link you to others - Future Learn is free and there are discussions as part of the courses.
  • Thanks CK - that's a brilliant idea - have found a course and joined! I'll see how it goes! The Future Learn one, I mean. Will examine the 365 project again, I remember it from a while ago! :)
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    You sound like me @Thomasina - a non musical, non cook!

    Podcasts good time passers if your hearing is up to it.

    Here is a charity set up to organise tea parties - it looks interesting :smile:

  • I second Future Learn and if you are interested in languages Duolingo is fun. I'm deaf too, and I manage to hear that OK.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    Does being unmusical, @Thomasina, mean that you can't appreciate music?
    :confused:

    My preference for the Dark Bit between 3pm and 6pm* would be BBC Radio 3, but I do understand that YMMV.

    Jengie Jon is, of course, right about BBC Radio 4.
    :wink:

    (*BTW - the Dark Bit is when I sometimes simply lie down and have a nap. One is shortly due...)
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I'd second the radio - BBC radio is mostly excellent - but I also agree with BF that a nap can be a very pleasant thing. And I'm only in my mid-50s! :blush:

    Being currently a "job-seeker" (and non-finder :cry: ), I fill rather more of my day than I should with games of patience, Sudoku and colouring on my Tablet (although I read proper books as well). When we were sans computer or television when our stuff was in storage, I bought a couple of those colouring books of mandalas and a set of pencils and, despite having no artistic talent whatsoever, I had quite a lot of fun colouring them in.

    Advent off to a decent start today at Our Place - but it doesn't really start properly until this afternoon, with the Advent Procession, complete with Great O Antiphons and outrageous descants.

    My favourite service of the whole year - bring it on! :smiley:

  • Piglet wrote: »

    Advent off to a decent start today at Our Place - but it doesn't really start properly until this afternoon, with the Advent Procession, complete with Great O Antiphons and outrageous descants.

    My favourite service of the whole year - bring it on! :smiley:

    Mine, too, and our Cathedral does a Really Proper Job. Alas, it coincides this weekend with a horrible commercial winterfest in 'honour' of a famous local author (Charles Dickens), and so access to the Cathedral/parking etc. is tricky, to say the least.

    We have, at Our Place, previously tried an Advent Liturgy with a penitential (but positive) tone, based on the Great O Antiphons. It worked well, albeit with only a small congregation, and might be worth doing again next year (!) if our new priest agrees....
  • Thomasina, there are a number of games on the net - I play "words with friends", an Internet scrabble, against a small group of friends, including Rowen in Australia. I thought I had good vocabulary, but one of my college friends is the scrabble queen, and I've learned lots of obscure words!
  • Thomasina wrote: »
    Thanks CK - that's a brilliant idea - have found a course and joined! I'll see how it goes! The Future Learn one, I mean. Will examine the 365 project again, I remember it from a while ago! :)

    Yes, I was also going to recommend doing some free online courses, the OU also does them via openlearn, some of the modules I teach have parts available free on there.
    My son's sixth form uses futurelearn for optional study period projects, my son studied robotics modules.
  • I was trying to use the Future Learn courses in work, to support extended projects and interests - the robotics courses were one of the suites of courses I was suggesting, for ASD students in this case.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    The Advent Procession went off very nicely. Rather smaller congregation than usual, as it started sn*wing just after the morning service, and by the afternoon the roads really weren't very nice. But the choir all made it, and we really didn't make too bad a fist of things (including the great O antiphons in between lessons, choral and congregational carols).

    Tired but happy piglet. :smiley:
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    The conversation’s rather moved on, but anyway, I’m fine. Anyone with any sense stayed well away from the Champs on Saturday. Things were always going to degenerate.

    Actually I spent my Saturday at Le Grand Tasting sampling some very excellent wines. The only way in which we were inconvenienced was that it took us rather a long time to get home because the closure of the metro stations resulted in a rather significant detour half way round Paris.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Glad to hear it - and the wine-tasting sounds fab!

    It's a dreich sort of day here: although the temperature's got up to 4° (as opposed to the 11° they were forecasting at the weekend) it's not really enough to shift very much of the sn*w, and it's supposed to go back below zero for the rest of the week, so not much chance of a thaw.

    Oh well, c'est la chuffing vie ...
  • That’s good @la vie en rouge - I’ve been thinking about you.
  • Quite mild here today but I've mostly been inside in the office anyway. I co-taught an online tutorial this evening on lifestyle and obesity and am now sinking a beer (Cintra) ;)
    LVER, my 14 year old was in Belgium/France a few weeks ago visiting the Battlefields and they had to miss one location out due to blockades on the route home. luckily they let them through the blockades, he said because they were British but I suspect it was because they were children!
  • Does being unmusical, @Thomasina, mean that you can't appreciate music?

    Well, yes I suppose it does. I very rarely listen to music voluntarily, though on occasion I have been known to listen to Shostakovitch or Mahler. But I couldn't tell you what the pieces were! Hardly like to say this here, but I don't care for singing much and I loathe Opera!!!

    More of a "word" person, that's me! I write, and sometimes people read it!!
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited December 2018
    Nor me @Thomasina.

    I listen to it if it’s on. But I prefer chat radio to music.

    Mr Boogs is very musical and plays in two bands, one concert band and one covers band (drums). He plays piano to a very high standard indeed and plays at Church once a month.

    I do enjoy a live orchestra but that’s really the only music I would choose to listen to - I love watching them enjoy playing! (It’s more about the watching than the listening for me, I can take or leave the tunes.)

  • Thomasina wrote: »

    Any suggestions to fill in that dark bit of the afternoon between about 3.0 pm and 6.0 pm?

    Come round and amuse my children?
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