@Piglet - without knowing anything whatsoever about the geography of your part of Scotland, is there anywhere which might be a better place to change between bus and train?
IYSWIM.
(One of those little 100% electric cars would solve the problem, depending on parking at either end of the journey. The Citr**n Ami is likely to be available in the UK at some point, though I'm not sure how much one would cost).
Depends on whether the Scottish NHS is as fond as many of English trusts of charging through the nose for staff parking in an attempt to dissuade people from applying for over subscribed spaces.
Yes is the answer to that. In "normal" times, on my site there is one non-permit car park for staff. It's full by 7am (those of us who start before that are OK). It has allegedly been observed that people come in that early and sit in their cars until they start in order to get parking, and it's widely suspected that there are also folk using it as a park & ride for the city centre (in times of yore). And almost all the onstreet car parking hereabouts is also controlled, with max 3hrs stay, and it becomes very expensive after the first hour.
Should anyone be interested, car parks in ALL NHS Wales hospitals are free...
Some years ago I had to go from Ipswich to Manchester. The through ticket was £2 cheaper than the ticket just as far as London, travelling on the same train! Bonkers.
They're wise to that now. I was actually once advised by a BR ticket office chap to buy a ticket from Exeter to Bath (changing at Bristol) because it would be significantly cheaper than the return to Bristol that I actually wanted. But now they have automatic barriers everywhere they tend not to let you out of the station...
I’ve just watched the end of Pooch Perfect - poor dogs, why on earth do their owners want their pets to look like that?
Mind, many yEars ago a friend used pink food colouring to dye her female toy poodlE pink, her sister dyed her male toy poodle blue 🤭
@Piglet - without knowing anything whatsoever about the geography of your part of Scotland, is there anywhere which might be a better place to change between bus and train?
IYSWIM.
(One of those little 100% electric cars would solve the problem, depending on parking at either end of the journey. The Citr**n Ami is likely to be available in the UK at some point, though I'm not sure how much one would cost).
Depends on whether the Scottish NHS is as fond as many of English trusts of charging through the nose for staff parking in an attempt to dissuade people from applying for over subscribed spaces.
Yes is the answer to that. In "normal" times, on my site there is one non-permit car park for staff. It's full by 7am (those of us who start before that are OK). It has allegedly been observed that people come in that early and sit in their cars until they start in order to get parking, and it's widely suspected that there are also folk using it as a park & ride for the city centre (in times of yore). And almost all the onstreet car parking hereabouts is also controlled, with max 3hrs stay, and it becomes very expensive after the first hour.
Should anyone be interested, car parks in ALL NHS Wales hospitals are free...
Scotland , you get 4hrs free if you are a patient. Staff you either need to have a permit or be in sufficiently early to get the space in non-permit parking. Unless you work at Glasgow Royal in which case the car park is run by a private company, so everyone pays.
In the interests of fairness, I should say parking restrictions for staff have been eased in these times of COVID as they'd rather staff avoided public transport. And parking fees at Glasgow Royal have, I think, been waived for staff again.
Some years ago I had to go from Ipswich to Manchester. The through ticket was £2 cheaper than the ticket just as far as London, travelling on the same train! Bonkers.
They're wise to that now. I was actually once advised by a BR ticket office chap to buy a ticket from Exeter to Bath (changing at Bristol) because it would be significantly cheaper than the return to Bristol that I actually wanted. But now they have automatic barriers everywhere they tend not to let you out of the station...
You can buy both tickets, online or at a ticket office, before you depart.
@Piglet - without knowing anything whatsoever about the geography of your part of Scotland, is there anywhere which might be a better place to change between bus and train?
IYSWIM.
(One of those little 100% electric cars would solve the problem, depending on parking at either end of the journey. The Citr**n Ami is likely to be available in the UK at some point, though I'm not sure how much one would cost).
Depends on whether the Scottish NHS is as fond as many of English trusts of charging through the nose for staff parking in an attempt to dissuade people from applying for over subscribed spaces.
Yes is the answer to that. In "normal" times, on my site there is one non-permit car park for staff. It's full by 7am (those of us who start before that are OK). It has allegedly been observed that people come in that early and sit in their cars until they start in order to get parking, and it's widely suspected that there are also folk using it as a park & ride for the city centre (in times of yore). And almost all the onstreet car parking hereabouts is also controlled, with max 3hrs stay, and it becomes very expensive after the first hour.
Should anyone be interested, car parks in ALL NHS Wales hospitals are free...
If you can get a space...
Any time I have to go to any hospital, all the car parks are full, even those charging through the nose!
This is a Week of Delights.
Tomorrow’s is sorting out a slow puncture on my car. I will need it on Monday to go for my vaccination.
Today’s was an early call to the plumber, following a leak at midnight with water coming through from the bathroom to the ceiling of the dining room below, and the stopcock being stuck fast. All the rushing about brought on Mr Puzzler’s angina, and almost no sleep leading to a very groggy day today, when I had a very challenging case to deal with as a volunteer advice worker. (Plumber resolved the bathroom problem by replacing a badly corroded split pipe.)
Tuesday’s was the internet connection, thankfully resolved after Mr Puzzler spent two hours on the phone getting it sorted as it was Not Our Fault.
We need to return to the uneventfulness of the previous three weeks.
Should anyone be interested, car parks in ALL NHS Wales hospitals are free...
If you can get a space...
To help solve that problem, there is here on weekdays a fast bus every 10 minutes from a nearby Park and Ride site; every 10 minutes during the day and every 20 minutes in the evenings. Both parking and bus are free, it's very useful.
@Piglet - without knowing anything whatsoever about the geography of your part of Scotland, is there anywhere which might be a better place to change between bus and train?
IYSWIM.
(One of those little 100% electric cars would solve the problem, depending on parking at either end of the journey. The Citr**n Ami is likely to be available in the UK at some point, though I'm not sure how much one would cost).
Depends on whether the Scottish NHS is as fond as many of English trusts of charging through the nose for staff parking in an attempt to dissuade people from applying for over subscribed spaces.
Yes is the answer to that. In "normal" times, on my site there is one non-permit car park for staff. It's full by 7am (those of us who start before that are OK). It has allegedly been observed that people come in that early and sit in their cars until they start in order to get parking, and it's widely suspected that there are also folk using it as a park & ride for the city centre (in times of yore). And almost all the onstreet car parking hereabouts is also controlled, with max 3hrs stay, and it becomes very expensive after the first hour.
Should anyone be interested, car parks in ALL NHS Wales hospitals are free...
Scotland , you get 4hrs free if you are a patient. Staff you either need to have a permit or be in sufficiently early to get the space in non-permit parking. Unless you work at Glasgow Royal in which case the car park is run by a private company, so everyone pays.
In the interests of fairness, I should say parking restrictions for staff have been eased in these times of COVID as they'd rather staff avoided public transport. And parking fees at Glasgow Royal have, I think, been waived for staff again.
In other parts of Scotland the car parks of hospitals are free, even those which used to charge. I think it is the hospitals which are not fully NHS which are allowed to charge, but someone who knows more will be able to correct that impression!
I know that over a decade ago a patient in the Borders General told me that each morning he saw people drive up and park about 6 p.m. then go and stand at the bus stop to get a bus to work in Galashiels or Melrose (which would be odd as both places have a fair bit of on-street parking) or maybe Peebles - which would make more sense. And similar things are rumoured to happen in the overflowing car park of Raigmore in Inverness. (which is a brisk 15 minutes walk from the town centre).
Baptist Trainfan, I wish that happened at more hospitals.
A couple of years ago, I had an appointment at the Royal Gwent in Newport. I arrived early to give myself plenty of time to park and find the department. After an hour spent trying to find a space, which took me well into the time of my appointment, I gave up and went home and rang the department to explain why I had missed the appointment.
Nowadays, my appointments with that department are at Nevill Hall in Abergavenny- parking there isn’t brilliant, but it’s infinitely better than at the Gwent.
Baptist Trainfan, I wish that happened at more hospitals.
I believe that it's funded by some charitable foundation rather than the NHS, Council or bus company. When it was first put on, staff travelled free but patients/visitors had to pay. Now it's free for all.
I know that over a decade ago a patient in the Borders General told me that each morning he saw people drive up and park about 6 p.m. then go and stand at the bus stop to get a bus to work in Galashiels or Melrose.
Baptist Trainfan, I wish that happened at more hospitals.
A couple of years ago, I had an appointment at the Royal Gwent in Newport. I arrived early to give myself plenty of time to park and find the department. After an hour spent trying to find a space, which took me well into the time of my appointment, I gave up and went home and rang the department to explain why I had missed the appointment.
Nowadays, my appointments with that department are at Nevill Hall in Abergavenny- parking there isn’t brilliant, but it’s infinitely better than at the Gwent.
I never said that there were lots of parking spaces, only that they were free!
There has never been enough parking at the Gwent but, for those on bus routes, there are regularly services to the front of the hospital. It remains to be seen if the transfer of specialist and emergency services to the Grange will reduce the pressure on the RGH.
Nevill Hall is, by comparison, in the middle of nowhere and has a huge car park compared to the Gwent. Apologies for the south-east Wales tangent...
Having tired of my usual Friday night chippy suppers, and wanting to get smoked salmon and orange juice for tomorrow's breakfast, I went into M&S on the way home, and picked up a ready-to-cook pasta thing with chicken and bacon. It was quite nice, but not really any better than anything I could knock up myself (OK, it involved zero effort on my part, but still). And - hurrah! - it wasn't raining by the time I got off the train in Linlithgow.
I have some annual leave to use up, and my boss suggested I take next Friday and a few days of the week after, so I might use one of the days to try out the Haymarket / Shandwick Place / Queensferry Street bus route (not at silly o'clock in the morning - I'm not daft) just to see how it works out. I could use it as an excuse to visit my brother and sister-in-law, as the bus to theirs goes from either the same stop or the next one along the street. It's really the logistics of getting from Haymarket that I want to work out, and if I get a day with decent weather*, it might be quite a nice little jaunt.
I went into M&S on the way home, and picked up a ready-to-cook pasta thing with chicken and bacon. It was quite nice, but not really any better than anything I could knock up myself .
I find this. We had a couple of their posh mini pizzas for dinner and they were OK, but no more. All in all their prepped meals seem to have descended to a level of inoffensive mediocrity, possibly designed to appeal to - or not to offend - their core demographic of Old People.
Septuagenarian I may be, but I'm still looking for a bit more oomph in my food.
I went into M&S on the way home, and picked up a ready-to-cook pasta thing with chicken and bacon. It was quite nice, but not really any better than anything I could knock up myself .
I find this. We had a couple of their posh mini pizzas for dinner and they were OK, but no more. All in all their prepped meals seem to have descended to a level of inoffensive mediocrity, possibly designed to appeal to - or not to offend - their core demographic of Old People.
Septuagenarian I may be, but I'm still looking for a bit more oomph in my food.
If you're not shopping in carpet slippers you've no business doing food shopping in M&S
M&S gluten free is nicer than anywhere else locally. Otherwise, it's only worth going in to see if there's anything with yellow stickers, because occasionally there's something worth having (tuna steaks at 50p).
M&S gluten free is nicer than anywhere else locally. Otherwise, it's only worth going in to see if there's anything with yellow stickers, because occasionally there's something worth having (tuna steaks at 50p).
I came home from the co-op yesterday with about 20 packs of dry cured back bacon that was inexplicably discounted to 30p.
That's fine and dandy if you've got the freezer space, which I haven't. Tuna steaks at 50p though - !!!
Having said that, I did score three packs of smoked salmon for £10, and as they're flat, two of them don't take up too much freezer space.
BF - smoked salmon and scrambled eggs make the nicest imaginable "brekfuss"!
There are one or two things for which M&S is good - their own-brand four-nut granola is really nice, and as for their version of Fox's crunchy creams - well, if I carry on like this, I'll put back on all the weight I lost when I was staying with my sister.
I like M&S Plant Kitchen range, but a lot of their ready meals are a tad dull.
I think investigating the other route to work sounds a good idea @piglet. I really like going on bits of public transport I haven't used before, but that's probably just me. My husband claims that when ever my dad and I got together our conversation often included talking about which London bus we'd take to go to various destinations.
I woke up at daft o'clock, just had some breakfast and am heading back to bed. It promises to be wet and cold here today, so we've decided we're having a cosy indoor day, playing games, watching Bridgerton, and getting a take-away.
I woke up at 5 too, though that is not unusual for me. I’m currently relaxing before a 2 hour tutorial this morning (on children and social inequality).
I had to get up in a hurry and my pyjamas, having only just heard the wifi doorbell in my bedroom ring through the headphones I use for the radio so as not to wake anyone nearby, to admit a parcel in out of the wet. (There is a lockable cupboard with a sign on it for putting big stuff in, but now everyone uses the leave it on the doorstep mode.) Not something I'd ordered. Totally unexpected. and no return address. Four books, none of which I have, all of which will reward reading, and only one wrapped, sort of, with gift wrapping. And no message. I shouldn't, I think, have opened until Wednesday, but I wanted to know who it was from. eventually I realised that part of the internal packaging was a cut-up jiffy bag, so investigated it. It had been, at some time, addressed to me, then wrapped in such a way to hide that address, while having my address as a return one on the other side, and my sister's still on part of it. Three hardbacks, new, and a new paperback - it's amazingly generous.
It is the weekend the RSPB want people to observe birds for a survey. I wonder if they would be interested in four woodpigeons sitting hunched up and miserable in the rain in what is left of a heavily tree surgeoned tree. (They need to be chopped like that "for their health" - the trees, not the pigeons.)
The milkman, who has a polystyrene box with the name of his dairy on it, and a handle to make it easy to carry the bottles in and up to the kitchen, left the four bottles of milk standing in the rain, so there I am in my pyjamas and the rain, putting them into the box myself. at least they won't need spraying with sanitiser, being well washed.
It's a grey wet day here but Mr Nen and I have quite a full agenda including a Zoom seminar that runs from midday for 2.5 hours.
Regarding ready meals - we seldom have them and when we do it would be something I never cook at home. For example, on my lockdown birthday at the end of last year I bought Tesco's Hunter's Chicken which is something I wouldn't make from scratch but would be something I'd choose if we're out for a meal. It was fine - and required no preparation beyond removing the packaging and putting in the oven, which is all good in my book.
If the weather stays half-decent I'll go and brave Sainsbury's in the afternoon.
It got very dull and menacing a few minutes ago, and there were even a few white things falling from the sky, but in true Scottish fashion* it seems to have brightened up a bit again.
* Who was it who said, "if you don't like the weather in Scotland, just wait for a bit"?
M&S gluten free is nicer than anywhere else locally. Otherwise, it's only worth going in to see if there's anything with yellow stickers, because occasionally there's something worth having (tuna steaks at 50p).
I came home from the co-op yesterday with about 20 packs of dry cured back bacon that was inexplicably discounted to 30p.
I think this generally means that someone has just found an unopened box at the back of the warehouse which is about to go out of date.
I once did even better in Asda, finding some quite posh meat pies at a very competitive price in the reduced cabinet: a bit of research afterwards showed that Asda didn't actually sell these pies, so I suspect something was dropped off from the truck by mistake...
Hurrah for interactive tutorial @Heavenlyannie . I dropped out of two zoom things recently as my attention wasn't held by one person talking for ages with no break.
Our lazy day is going as planned. We've done a Bollywood dance fitness routine that was fun, had nice toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch and I'm now having a bit of a slob before we do another fitness video. My husband is roasting a load of coffee, so virtual cappuccinos, caffe lattes and espressos will be available in a bit. I can vouch for the caffe latte.
Ghastly here - incessant rain, cold easterly wind, the tide rising much higher than it should! - and a danger of my poor gangplank coming adrift...
*loud banging noise from the deck of the Ark*
...which it has now done...
Still, there's nowhere to go, and nothing to do when I get there, so I'll drink some lunch. When the tide recedes it will be possible to replace the gangplank where it should be!
There are flood warnings all over the country, including the Thames Estuary, so I rather suspect the Barrier has been closed. When that happens, we get a good deal of the banked-up water.
Shopping at Sainsbury’s is now the highlight of our week. We were given a parcel of interesting cheeses as a late Christmas present, and so Saturday lunch has been “artisan” bread (today’s was walnut) and cheese.
By the way, Sainsbury’s ready meals are pretty good.
Hurrah for interactive tutorial @Heavenlyannie . I dropped out of two zoom things recently as my attention wasn't held by one person talking for ages with no break.
We mostly teach in pairs and this means we can take turns to present and interact with each other as well as the students. We have purpose built software (adobe connect) so not only can we present powerpoints, whiteboards, videos, polls, have break out rooms, chat (verbally and in chat boxes) but we can also get students to draw and write on slides. The clear layout means everything is in neat pods and very accessible and we can organise our own room layouts and uploads in advance. We've been teaching online for years so this is normal for us.
We do sometimes have snags such as people getting thrown out of the room, but working in pairs means that tutors can continue each other's presentation if someone drops out. I have previously presented a whole hour long tutorial which I hadn't prepped for when my colleague couldn't get her lap top to work.
Trip to Sainsbury's was the highlight of my day too (how sad is that?), but at least I got there and back without getting wet between home and the bus stop - and I only had to wait a couple of minutes for the bus going and about 5-10 minutes coming back.
The first Saturday in weeks where I could go out to the shop without having to dread the pavements. Had entertained rash thoughts of going into the garden, but the fact it was still face-chewingly cold put paid to them. Instead I did a watercolour of a bunch of grapes sitting in a cocktail glass.
@Heavenlyannie , that's interesting. When I did my OU degree there was a little on-line stuff and I used the forums at lot, but not the sort of things you are doing. So invaluable when you can't do face to face tutorials. I think zoom is great for small groups, special friends and family, less so for anything more formal. My writing tutor was showing us Google classrooms yesterday as she's going to be using that come September. I think she's hoping the class will be able to meet in person, so it would just be a back-up. I will have moved by then (fingers crossed) and it would great if I could still join in the class from 120 miles away.
Eek about your gang plank @Bishops Finger . Someone posted a picture on Facebook of someone cycling along a flooded footpath on my bit of the Thames yesterday, but I haven't gone and had a look how high it is yet.
Do be careful, and keep well away from the river...
Anyone cycling (or walking) along a flooded towpath is Extremely Foolish - how do they know they're not about to fall into a horrible deep hole where part of the bank has been washed away?
Apologies for not dropping in more often these days. I mean, the thread, not some high-rising river! (I do hope everyone is and will be safe!)
I have been pretty busy with the schools, which are in part on site (well-en-maskéd), and part online (where it was a pleasure to see students' faces again, un-bemaskéd; 'oh, so that's what you look like beneath your eyes! I vaguely remember you now!'). - Also, with the end of term looming, lots of deadlines and shedloads of tests to mark. Seems all of us keep forgetting about the deadlines, and then go, ooops, how many more weeks, oh, urgently need to do a few more tests!
Another two-week school break is upon us now, and well-deserved too, I should say! At one of the schools, we've already been informed about the new intake, in August, and we're bound to have a multitude of very unruly kids, mostly boys, in some of the classes. I sometimes wonder if the distance 'learning' has made them even weirder that they are anyway at that age. Still, that's only going to happen in late summer, so we'll take it day by day.
We've had a very snowy month of January here in Continental WesShire, with at some point a record height of over 1 ft (!) of snow one night and morning, which brought wide swathes of the country to a quasi-standstill - although they're fairly used to snow here. In some areas, public transport even totally stopped, but luckily not where I was, and so I was 'only' 45 minutes late on a delayed re-routed bus! At one crossroads, with cars and lorries blocking our way, I even got out of the bus (with the driver's permission), wading up to some cars and asking them to move out of the way to let us pass, which they did. What a great adventure!
And as we need to talk about food on this thread: I've just finished a tin of Bailey's Luxury Fudges, which I got last year from the Edinburgh Woollen Mill. Mmmh! (Yes, they occasionally also sell foodstuff!) Their Walkers Glenfiddich Luxury Mince Pies are some of the best I've ever had, and so ginormous that I only manage to devour one at a time. Also, the occasional treat of a Walkers of Lunden Choccie Liqueur with Teachers Blended Scottish Whisky is a pleasant thing, ... and given the Glaswegian brand name, very delightfully ironic for anyone in our profession!
Happily, two neighbours have helped me re-position the gangplank, so all is well.
Presumably on the correct side of the Floating Episcopal Palace.
Indeed! It leads once more from Deck to River-Bank, as per the usual arrangement. With the FEP (or Ark) pushed right up against the bank by the wind, the gangplank was pointing more-or-less skyward, which is not helpful.
Apologies for not dropping in more often these days. I mean, the thread, not some high-rising river! (I do hope everyone is and will be safe!)
I have been pretty busy with the schools, which are in part on site (well-en-maskéd), and part online (where it was a pleasure to see students' faces again, un-bemaskéd; 'oh, so that's what you look like beneath your eyes! I vaguely remember you now!'). - Also, with the end of term looming, lots of deadlines and shedloads of tests to mark. Seems all of us keep forgetting about the deadlines, and then go, ooops, how many more weeks, oh, urgently need to do a few more tests!
Another two-week school break is upon us now, and well-deserved too, I should say! At one of the schools, we've already been informed about the new intake, in August, and we're bound to have a multitude of very unruly kids, mostly boys, in some of the classes. I sometimes wonder if the distance 'learning' has made them even weirder that they are anyway at that age. Still, that's only going to happen in late summer, so we'll take it day by day.
We've had a very snowy month of January here in Continental WesShire, with at some point a record height of over 1 ft (!) of snow one night and morning, which brought wide swathes of the country to a quasi-standstill - although they're fairly used to snow here. In some areas, public transport even totally stopped, but luckily not where I was, and so I was 'only' 45 minutes late on a delayed re-routed bus! At one crossroads, with cars and lorries blocking our way, I even got out of the bus (with the driver's permission), wading up to some cars and asking them to move out of the way to let us pass, which they did. What a great adventure!
And as we need to talk about food on this thread: I've just finished a tin of Bailey's Luxury Fudges, which I got last year from the Edinburgh Woollen Mill. Mmmh! (Yes, they occasionally also sell foodstuff!) Their Walkers Glenfiddich Luxury Mince Pies are some of the best I've ever had, and so ginormous that I only manage to devour one at a time. Also, the occasional treat of a Walkers of Lunden Choccie Liqueur with Teachers Blended Scottish Whisky is a pleasant thing, ... and given the Glaswegian brand name, very delightfully ironic for anyone in our profession!
Good to hear from you @Wesley J ! A busy time indeed, but, if you are unable to devour any more Glenfiddich Mince Pies, please to send them over here. I shall be happy to assist with the devouring (devouration?) thereof.
@Heavenlyannie , that's interesting. When I did my OU degree there was a little on-line stuff and I used the forums at lot, but not the sort of things you are doing. So invaluable when you can't do face to face tutorials.
Module materials are all online and very few courses have printed materials except for occasional Readers and materials for disabled students. Lots of interactive stuff integrated into the online materials such as videos, word clouds and inline discussion forums. And no more DVDs in the post...I remember getting cassettes as a student in the 90s!
There are free online short courses available on OpenLearn, they are often chapters from old online modules.
I've been for a walk and done the laundry but really should be doing something more useful than browsing. Lunch was baked salmon, salsify and salad but I'm not sure about tea. Mr H should be cooking but is currently doing the tax returns so I may have to be virtuous and volunteer.
Comments
All together now.... Aaahhhh.....
That looks like 6 black pups and 4 blond pups - is that an unusually big litter?
Should anyone be interested, car parks in ALL NHS Wales hospitals are free...
They're wise to that now. I was actually once advised by a BR ticket office chap to buy a ticket from Exeter to Bath (changing at Bristol) because it would be significantly cheaper than the return to Bristol that I actually wanted. But now they have automatic barriers everywhere they tend not to let you out of the station...
Mind, many yEars ago a friend used pink food colouring to dye her female toy poodlE pink, her sister dyed her male toy poodle blue 🤭
Scotland , you get 4hrs free if you are a patient. Staff you either need to have a permit or be in sufficiently early to get the space in non-permit parking. Unless you work at Glasgow Royal in which case the car park is run by a private company, so everyone pays.
In the interests of fairness, I should say parking restrictions for staff have been eased in these times of COVID as they'd rather staff avoided public transport. And parking fees at Glasgow Royal have, I think, been waived for staff again.
You can buy both tickets, online or at a ticket office, before you depart.
If you can get a space...
Any time I have to go to any hospital, all the car parks are full, even those charging through the nose!
There are eleven pups!
That’s quite big for a Lab, they usually have about nine.
One of our Guide Dog Mums has just had twelve!
Tomorrow’s is sorting out a slow puncture on my car. I will need it on Monday to go for my vaccination.
Today’s was an early call to the plumber, following a leak at midnight with water coming through from the bathroom to the ceiling of the dining room below, and the stopcock being stuck fast. All the rushing about brought on Mr Puzzler’s angina, and almost no sleep leading to a very groggy day today, when I had a very challenging case to deal with as a volunteer advice worker. (Plumber resolved the bathroom problem by replacing a badly corroded split pipe.)
Tuesday’s was the internet connection, thankfully resolved after Mr Puzzler spent two hours on the phone getting it sorted as it was Not Our Fault.
We need to return to the uneventfulness of the previous three weeks.
In other parts of Scotland the car parks of hospitals are free, even those which used to charge. I think it is the hospitals which are not fully NHS which are allowed to charge, but someone who knows more will be able to correct that impression!
I know that over a decade ago a patient in the Borders General told me that each morning he saw people drive up and park about 6 p.m. then go and stand at the bus stop to get a bus to work in Galashiels or Melrose (which would be odd as both places have a fair bit of on-street parking) or maybe Peebles - which would make more sense. And similar things are rumoured to happen in the overflowing car park of Raigmore in Inverness. (which is a brisk 15 minutes walk from the town centre).
A couple of years ago, I had an appointment at the Royal Gwent in Newport. I arrived early to give myself plenty of time to park and find the department. After an hour spent trying to find a space, which took me well into the time of my appointment, I gave up and went home and rang the department to explain why I had missed the appointment.
Nowadays, my appointments with that department are at Nevill Hall in Abergavenny- parking there isn’t brilliant, but it’s infinitely better than at the Gwent.
Time to enjoy one of my two daily coffees. ☕️
Glad your week of ‘delights’ is over with @Puzzler - hope you have a better weekend!
I’ve been bought a brand new Laptop for putting the Church online services together so I’m looking forward to playing with it this afternoon.
Then Friday evening I’m allowed WINE - hurrah! 🍷 (when I say ‘allowed’ my alcohol-free days are self imposed 🙂)
I never said that there were lots of parking spaces, only that they were free!
There has never been enough parking at the Gwent but, for those on bus routes, there are regularly services to the front of the hospital. It remains to be seen if the transfer of specialist and emergency services to the Grange will reduce the pressure on the RGH.
Nevill Hall is, by comparison, in the middle of nowhere and has a huge car park compared to the Gwent. Apologies for the south-east Wales tangent...
I have some annual leave to use up, and my boss suggested I take next Friday and a few days of the week after, so I might use one of the days to try out the Haymarket / Shandwick Place / Queensferry Street bus route (not at silly o'clock in the morning - I'm not daft) just to see how it works out. I could use it as an excuse to visit my brother and sister-in-law, as the bus to theirs goes from either the same stop or the next one along the street. It's really the logistics of getting from Haymarket that I want to work out, and if I get a day with decent weather*, it might be quite a nice little jaunt.
* In Edinburgh, in February?
Luxury! We had to make do with a handful of cold gravel...
The proposed trip from Haymarket sounds as though it could be a pleasant little Expotition, weather permitting.
I find this. We had a couple of their posh mini pizzas for dinner and they were OK, but no more. All in all their prepped meals seem to have descended to a level of inoffensive mediocrity, possibly designed to appeal to - or not to offend - their core demographic of Old People.
Septuagenarian I may be, but I'm still looking for a bit more oomph in my food.
If you're not shopping in carpet slippers you've no business doing food shopping in M&S
I came home from the co-op yesterday with about 20 packs of dry cured back bacon that was inexplicably discounted to 30p.
Having said that, I did score three packs of smoked salmon for £10, and as they're flat, two of them don't take up too much freezer space.
BF - smoked salmon and scrambled eggs make the nicest imaginable "brekfuss"!
There are one or two things for which M&S is good - their own-brand four-nut granola is really nice, and as for their version of Fox's crunchy creams - well, if I carry on like this, I'll put back on all the weight I lost when I was staying with my sister.
I think investigating the other route to work sounds a good idea @piglet. I really like going on bits of public transport I haven't used before, but that's probably just me. My husband claims that when ever my dad and I got together our conversation often included talking about which London bus we'd take to go to various destinations.
I woke up at daft o'clock, just had some breakfast and am heading back to bed. It promises to be wet and cold here today, so we've decided we're having a cosy indoor day, playing games, watching Bridgerton, and getting a take-away.
It is the weekend the RSPB want people to observe birds for a survey. I wonder if they would be interested in four woodpigeons sitting hunched up and miserable in the rain in what is left of a heavily tree surgeoned tree. (They need to be chopped like that "for their health" - the trees, not the pigeons.)
The milkman, who has a polystyrene box with the name of his dairy on it, and a handle to make it easy to carry the bottles in and up to the kitchen, left the four bottles of milk standing in the rain, so there I am in my pyjamas and the rain, putting them into the box myself. at least they won't need spraying with sanitiser, being well washed.
But hooray for the books.
It's a grey wet day here but Mr Nen and I have quite a full agenda including a Zoom seminar that runs from midday for 2.5 hours.
Regarding ready meals - we seldom have them and when we do it would be something I never cook at home. For example, on my lockdown birthday at the end of last year I bought Tesco's Hunter's Chicken which is something I wouldn't make from scratch but would be something I'd choose if we're out for a meal. It was fine - and required no preparation beyond removing the packaging and putting in the oven, which is all good in my book.
(Well, my wellies did anyway 😋)
* Who was it who said, "if you don't like the weather in Scotland, just wait for a bit"?
I think this generally means that someone has just found an unopened box at the back of the warehouse which is about to go out of date.
I once did even better in Asda, finding some quite posh meat pies at a very competitive price in the reduced cabinet: a bit of research afterwards showed that Asda didn't actually sell these pies, so I suspect something was dropped off from the truck by mistake...
Our lazy day is going as planned. We've done a Bollywood dance fitness routine that was fun, had nice toasted cheese sandwiches for lunch and I'm now having a bit of a slob before we do another fitness video. My husband is roasting a load of coffee, so virtual cappuccinos, caffe lattes and espressos will be available in a bit. I can vouch for the caffe latte.
*loud banging noise from the deck of the Ark*
...which it has now done...
Still, there's nowhere to go, and nothing to do when I get there, so I'll drink some lunch. When the tide recedes it will be possible to replace the gangplank where it should be!
There are flood warnings all over the country, including the Thames Estuary, so I rather suspect the Barrier has been closed. When that happens, we get a good deal of the banked-up water.
By the way, Sainsbury’s ready meals are pretty good.
We do sometimes have snags such as people getting thrown out of the room, but working in pairs means that tutors can continue each other's presentation if someone drops out. I have previously presented a whole hour long tutorial which I hadn't prepped for when my colleague couldn't get her lap top to work.
Yes, and we seem to have had a lot of floodwater let down from the non-tidal part of the river to make the tide higher than predicted.
Happily, two neighbours have helped me re-position the gangplank, so all is well.
Until the next high tide, which is at 220am...
Eek about your gang plank @Bishops Finger . Someone posted a picture on Facebook of someone cycling along a flooded footpath on my bit of the Thames yesterday, but I haven't gone and had a look how high it is yet.
Anyone cycling (or walking) along a flooded towpath is Extremely Foolish - how do they know they're not about to fall into a horrible deep hole where part of the bank has been washed away?
I have been pretty busy with the schools, which are in part on site (well-en-maskéd), and part online (where it was a pleasure to see students' faces again, un-bemaskéd; 'oh, so that's what you look like beneath your eyes! I vaguely remember you now!'). - Also, with the end of term looming, lots of deadlines and shedloads of tests to mark. Seems all of us keep forgetting about the deadlines, and then go, ooops, how many more weeks, oh, urgently need to do a few more tests!
Another two-week school break is upon us now, and well-deserved too, I should say! At one of the schools, we've already been informed about the new intake, in August, and we're bound to have a multitude of very unruly kids, mostly boys, in some of the classes. I sometimes wonder if the distance 'learning' has made them even weirder that they are anyway at that age. Still, that's only going to happen in late summer, so we'll take it day by day.
We've had a very snowy month of January here in Continental WesShire, with at some point a record height of over 1 ft (!) of snow one night and morning, which brought wide swathes of the country to a quasi-standstill - although they're fairly used to snow here. In some areas, public transport even totally stopped, but luckily not where I was, and so I was 'only' 45 minutes late on a delayed re-routed bus! At one crossroads, with cars and lorries blocking our way, I even got out of the bus (with the driver's permission), wading up to some cars and asking them to move out of the way to let us pass, which they did. What a great adventure!
And as we need to talk about food on this thread: I've just finished a tin of Bailey's Luxury Fudges, which I got last year from the Edinburgh Woollen Mill. Mmmh! (Yes, they occasionally also sell foodstuff!) Their Walkers Glenfiddich Luxury Mince Pies are some of the best I've ever had, and so ginormous that I only manage to devour one at a time. Also, the occasional treat of a Walkers of Lunden Choccie Liqueur with Teachers Blended Scottish Whisky is a pleasant thing, ... and given the Glaswegian brand name, very delightfully ironic for anyone in our profession!
Indeed! It leads once more from Deck to River-Bank, as per the usual arrangement. With the FEP (or Ark) pushed right up against the bank by the wind, the gangplank was pointing more-or-less skyward, which is not helpful.
Good to hear from you @Wesley J ! A busy time indeed, but, if you are unable to devour any more Glenfiddich Mince Pies, please to send them over here. I shall be happy to assist with the devouring (devouration?) thereof.
There are free online short courses available on OpenLearn, they are often chapters from old online modules.
I've been for a walk and done the laundry but really should be doing something more useful than browsing. Lunch was baked salmon, salsify and salad but I'm not sure about tea. Mr H should be cooking but is currently doing the tax returns so I may have to be virtuous and volunteer.