The Untied Kingdom? - the British thread 2021

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  • Cathscats wrote: »
    In other news the skating on the lochan has been fantastic and I have been three times in two days. Just me and the hills and the wild goats, the clean perishing air and the ring of skate blades on real ice which has real water under it! I do love to skate, it’s how I imagine flying might be.

    To me that would be unbelievable, @Cathscats - though Mr S would forbid me. That sounds dreadful, but as I broke one wrist skating (or rather falling) on artificial ice, and a second (ditto) snowboarding on artificial snow, I can't really argue. You might say I haven't a leg to stand on...

    I'll get my padded jacket, shall I?
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Last thing I assembled from IKEA was a table - very easy, not least because I have an electric drill with a screwdriver bit. Turning it right side up also not significantly difficult. It was this one.
  • SarasaSarasa Shipmate
    When we move we'll have a dyke at the bottom of our garden. I was having slight fantasies of skating on it in winter, a bit like in Tom's Midnight Garden by Philipa Pearce. However, as my husband pointed out, I have a very poor sense of balance and would be a total liability, assuming that it was ever cold enough to do it safely.
  • I’m 4 foot 11 and have a small frame under my plumpness, and tiny hands. I find manoeuvring large items difficult and using a screwdriver makes my hands raw and blistered. Piglet is right to be cautious.

    Another dull Monday of emails and admin, and I need to prep some essays for marking (first year essays on vulnerability, risk and safeguarding). Just off for my daily walk.
  • Nenya wrote: »
    Cathscats wrote: »
    In other news the skating on the lochan has been fantastic and I have been three times in two days. Just me and the hills and the wild goats, the clean perishing air and the ring of skate blades on real ice which has real water under it! I do love to skate, it’s how I imagine flying might be.

    Call me a scaredy-cat; how are you confident that all the ice is thick enough? :flushed:
    You stand on it. If it doesn't crack or move it is fine! You also take note of when the thermometer was last above freezing - which in my case is now about a week.
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Cathscats wrote: »
    Nenya wrote: »
    Cathscats wrote: »
    In other news the skating on the lochan has been fantastic and I have been three times in two days. Just me and the hills and the wild goats, the clean perishing air and the ring of skate blades on real ice which has real water under it! I do love to skate, it’s how I imagine flying might be.

    Call me a scaredy-cat; how are you confident that all the ice is thick enough? :flushed:
    You stand on it. If it doesn't crack or move it is fine! You also take note of when the thermometer was last above freezing - which in my case is now about a week.
    I guess I'm thinking it may be thickly frozen round the edges but thinner towards the middle. Ignore me - I'm a born worrier, even about people I only know virtually.

    In other news it's a mild, grey day here and I'm spending a few happy moments setting up my journal page to begin February. It is perfectly square this year and the only month ever to do that, being 28 days (so not in a leap year). I am not a huge fan of numbers usually but I find this oddly pleasing.
  • Wesley JWesley J Shipmate
    Excellent about the skating! :)

    Regarding IKEA assemblage, I'm also one who has done two-person pieces of furniture all alone. With mixed results though. You need to know what you are doing, and carefully plan ahead. On the few occasions I didn't, distaster struck and some heavy items came tumbling down. The traces are still visible to this day: some chipped doorways and deeply scratched floor. Rather embarrassing! :blush:
  • I’m 4 foot 11 and have a small frame under my plumpness, and tiny hands. I find manoeuvring large items difficult and using a screwdriver makes my hands raw and blistered. Piglet is right to be cautious.

    Having assembled by hand multiple sets of cheap B&Q pine shelving (40 screws per set) I feel your pain. Nowadays, however, I engage the services of a cheap battery-powered drill driver from Screwfix which takes the strain out of such tasks.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I’m 4 foot 11 and have a small frame under my plumpness, and tiny hands. I find manoeuvring large items difficult and using a screwdriver makes my hands raw and blistered.

    Hence the electric drill. A small one is not expensive, and confers the Power of Shelving.

  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Sarasa, you could have a canoe! If it wouldn't upset the local riparian rights owners. (I've just been reading odd bits out of "The Book of Trespass" which has been part of a birthday present.) Or do bog snorkelling.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    I’m ashamed to say I’ve never assembled anything.

    It’s really freezing but sunny here - a nice change. I’ve just had my Zoom German lesson so my brain is fried! I took the puppy early to fit in the lesson (getting up at 7:30am feels very early these days)

    Time for some coffee! ☕️
  • Wesley JWesley J Shipmate
    Dear Boogie, you're assembling a lot of great stories about your lovely dogs and lovely family on here. This surely shall suffice! (And it makes more sense than many an IKEA instruction booklet.) :)
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Thanks for all the assemblage advice - at 5'1", although quite sturdy, I might have issues with lifting something the size of a dining table. Having said that, I've pushed and hauled the corner sofa across the living-room - twice! (I think it's going to stay where it is now ...).
    Better luck on the commuting front today - I don't know whether the bus was late or they've changed the times, but I only had to wait about five or ten minutes, and was in the office just after 8 o'clock, meaning I can leave around 4.

    Happy piglet. :)
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Glad you had a better commute @Piglet . I was thinking about you this morning, alongside a couple of other people - Nenlet1 who had a grim week at work last week and I'm hoping will have a better one this week and also someone I used to work with who has also now left the organisation I was made redundant from and starts a new job today.

    I don't do any furniture (or anything else) assembling either, as Mr Nen is very practical - also tall and strong - and I'm aware if ever he wasn't around I'd be challenged with that sort of thing.

    It's a dull grey day here again and I'll need to go for a walk after lunch, while much preferring the idea of staying in the warm.
  • Penny S wrote: »
    Sarasa, you could have a canoe! If it wouldn't upset the local riparian rights owners. (I've just been reading odd bits out of "The Book of Trespass" which has been part of a birthday present.) Or do bog snorkelling.

    Bog snorkelling? The mind boggles!
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Bog snorkelling. A 1:39 minute watch. You're welcome. :smile:
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    edited February 1
    Wesley J wrote: »
    Dear Boogie, you're assembling a lot of great stories about your lovely dogs and lovely family on here. This surely shall suffice! (And it makes more sense than many an IKEA instruction booklet.) :)


    You are very kind. 😊
    Nenya wrote: »
    Bog snorkelling. A 1:39 minute watch. You're welcome. :smile:

    It’s probably good for the immune system. 😋


  • HeavenlyannieHeavenlyannie Shipmate
    edited February 1
    Having assembled by hand multiple sets of cheap B&Q pine shelving (40 screws per set) I feel your pain. Nowadays, however, I engage the services of a cheap battery-powered drill driver from Screwfix which takes the strain out of such tasks.
    Thankfully my husband is an engineer and a control freak and I'm not allowed near his power tools. Having two strapping sons in young adulthood to assist him also helps.

    Dull day so far and the house is freezing cold.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Piglet wrote: »
    Thanks for all the assemblage advice - at 5'1", although quite sturdy, I might have issues with lifting something the size of a dining table. Having said that, I've pushed and hauled the corner sofa across the living-room - twice! (I think it's going to stay where it is now ...).

    Somehow this conjures up an image of your corner sofa, having been moved, waiting for you to go to bed/out to work before sneaking itself back into its original place.
  • SarasaSarasa Shipmate
    Mondays seems to be turning into our day for a longish walk. Today's took us somewhere we hadn't been before which was interesting. I've a new knitting project on the go, which I think will be interesting, so this afternoon was spent getting that started.
    House move is still creeping forward. Today's news was that the floor in the front room of our new house is in much better condition than the survey suggested. One less thing we'll have to fork out for when we move.
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    I messaged a friend about a walk and we had one together which was nice and a distraction from the dull grey weather. Sadly she was not very happy as she had the news last Friday that a friend of hers had died of Covid - a fit 50 year old with no known underlying health conditions. Coupled with the news that the South African variant has arrived in Kent the conversation was not exclusively cheerful :disappointed: although we managed a few laughs.

    Glad the move is progressing @Sarasa . :smile:
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I had the excitement of an optician's appointment, to which I added the additional thrill of going into Actual Shops and netting things like Chinese tofu products and Polish charcuterie.

    But Jings, my feet hurt. I'm not sure if it's the nascent gout in my right toe, or that the soles are soft from only ever pottering short distances on carpeted floors.
  • BroJames wrote: »
    Vanilla is the name of the software the Ship runs on

    And there I was thinking it ran on GIN and chocolate...
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I suppose I should be grateful that I have to walk a certain amount every day, if it's stopping my feet from seizing up!

    There was one hell of a hailstorm about half an hour before I finished work, and was I ever glad that it had run out of hailstones before I had to go for the bus!

    I'll be glad to get home to the rest of the SOUP for supper, followed by a cup of tea and the Grauniad crossword. What an exciting life I lead ... not!
  • BroJames wrote: »
    Vanilla is the name of the software the Ship runs on

    And there I was thinking it ran on GIN and chocolate...

    /pedant alert/

    The correct rendition of the final word of your post is CHOCOLATE.
    Piglet wrote: »
    I suppose I should be grateful that I have to walk a certain amount every day, if it's stopping my feet from seizing up!

    There was one hell of a hailstorm about half an hour before I finished work, and was I ever glad that it had run out of hailstones before I had to go for the bus!

    I'll be glad to get home to the rest of the SOUP for supper, followed by a cup of tea and the Grauniad crossword. What an exciting life I lead ... not!

    Be thankful for small mercies - and, of course, SOUP!



  • kingsfoldkingsfold Shipmate
    edited February 1
    Reminds me I've a pan of soup to make....
    Celery & cashew if you're interested (and even if you're not)
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Sounds nice - care to put the recipe upstairs? :)
  • I am definitely not interested in celery and cashew soup. Cooked celery is one of the few things I don't like (not sure why, raw is fine).
    I need to go and look in the fridge in case any meat needs using up but I suspect today is meat-free Monday again, so more a lentil risotto sort of day. Our meat and veg boxes arrive on Tuesdays.
  • JapesJapes Shipmate
    @Piglet When I last changed jobs, I swopped a commute similar to yours for one with a 10 minutes bus ride/30 minutes walk almost door to door. I kept intending to walk it more than I did, but I was significantly more rotund and I was pretty active in the workplace so it never happened.

    Then nearly six years ago, I moved house, to twice as far away, was (wrongly) diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and kind of accidentally discovered walking was the most effective way to keep my blood sugars under control for the best part of 3 years, along with one medication and cutting out almost all carbs. (It worked excellently until it didn't, then a re-diagnosis to a slow onset Type 1 - these days, when not in lockdown, walking helps keep my insulin doses smaller.)

    Initially, when I was working out a walking plan (for I was pretty determined to keep blood sugars well controlled with minimal medication if at all possible,) I based it on the walks I did between home/station then station/workplace. Which I was quite astounded at the time to realise was 4 miles, 4 lots of 20 minutes. These days, I happily walk the 3 miles to work and home again. But I am only in the workplace two days a week for the time being.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    I really haven't thought much about the actual distance I walk each day; home to the station takes me about 10 minutes (maybe a little longer if there are Patches of Treachery™, in which case I'm hobbling about like a 90-year-old). From the train to the bus stop at Waverley - no more than 5 minutes, and most of that is on escalators -and a couple of minutes to work from the bus stop. There's a slightly longer amble along Princes Street on the way home - maybe another 10 minutes.

    I suppose it all adds up though, and if I stop to get the groceries, I'm sometimes humping quite a heavy bag with me.

    I'm very glad none of it involves anything with much of an incline!
  • I am definitely not interested in celery and cashew soup. Cooked celery is one of the few things I don't like (not sure why, raw is fine).
    I'm the opposite - I'm happy to eat cooked celery but am really not keen on raw. Consequently the rest of the head after I used the one or two sticks needed, or the celery that comes in veg box from time to time gets turned into soup.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    Forgot to add - @Heavenlyannie, would you put the lentil risotto recipe up too? :)
  • Celery & cashew soup recipe is upstairs...
  • Having assembled by hand multiple sets of cheap B&Q pine shelving (40 screws per set) I feel your pain. Nowadays, however, I engage the services of a cheap battery-powered drill driver from Screwfix which takes the strain out of such tasks.
    Thankfully my husband is an engineer and a control freak and I'm not allowed near his power tools. Having two strapping sons in young adulthood to assist him also helps.

    I'm gradually being permitted to use more of my wife's tools. I was even allowed to attempt some Solder Ing last week.
  • Oh, I used to do mixed media art so I have a soldering iron of my own. Because I used to do glass fusing (my kiln has broken :( ) I also have a small grinder. My husband has stolen my Dremel though.

    Which leads me on to this evening’s excitement - dodgy smell in the lounge earlier which my husband suspected was carbon dioxide from the gas boiler. When we were investigating the carbon monoxide detector went off so we appear to have a faulty boiler. House is now freezing cold and we are checking out gas engineers.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    House is now freezing cold and we are checking out gas engineers.

    Good luck with that. I think - hope - pray our boiler is now fixed. It had a leak which only manifested when it was off. However I am currently running it continuously (and will be as long as the forecast is sleet followed by sleet and then sleet after which we can expect sleet).

    The tenderfootedness which attended my walk this morning has now translated to joint pain from the hirpling.
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Oh dear, I hope that gets sorted soon @Heavenlyannie .

    My evening's excitement was managing to snag a delivery slot with Sainz Breeze next Monday evening (Tess Coe have nothing for the foreseeable - three weeks). So while I shall be getting up early to get my groceries tomorrow, I'm already looking forward to not having to do that next Tuesday. I've done Tess Coe in person for years so Sainz Breeze will be a New Thing; as will a delivery to the door. A first. :smile:

    I had a glass of wine with my tea and am feeling pleasantly distanced from what has otherwise been a rather sobering day.
  • PigletPiglet All Saints Host, Circus Host
    A glass of WINE always helps, I find.

    @Firenze - sorry about your foot and the joint pain: I'd recommend less hirpling and possibly more WINE (purely for medicinal purposes, of course). However, under no circumstances should you attempt a hirple after too much WINE ... :mrgreen:
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    @Piglet We try to keep Monday and Tuesday as Dry days, so it'll have to be ibuprofen.

    Tonight's dinner didn't really merit a glass. It looked good in print: cream cheese, leeks and bacon on puff pastry, but it was at once dry and claggy.
  • Which leads me on to this evening’s excitement - dodgy smell in the lounge earlier which my husband suspected was carbon dioxide from the gas boiler. When we were investigating the carbon monoxide detector went off so we appear to have a faulty boiler. House is now freezing cold and we are checking out gas engineers.

    I feel your pain, @Heavenlyannie . Although a very diligent and competent boiler engineer spent an entire weekend battling with our system (see the P&T thread) and came back the following Saturday lunchtime, ours is still cutting out from time to time, which means Mr S (not an engineer, but a control freak, so it's always him*) going out on to the hillside, brushing aside sheep and kicking over molehills, to take the cover off the boiler and press the red button.

    * but in mitigation, I always change the little one's nappies...

    Also the effect of the weekend's power flush, although largely beneficial, has been that the radiators take it in turns to be cold which means he has to go round bleeding them :rage:

    And to make our joy complete my car battery has gone flat yet again and I have broken my sewing machine. Grrrrr.

    Sorry about the rant!

  • SarasaSarasa Shipmate
    We get menu boxes from Mindful Chef every few weeks and yesterday's dinner was a rather nice Goan chickpea curry. The ones we like we re-do ourselves at a later date and that one is going on the list. We didn't crack open the wine, because although dry January has finished my husband had a zoom club straight afterwards. We're going to try to hang on till Friday, but may well fail!
    Golly about your boiler @The Intrepid Mrs S, I'm so glad the place we are moving to has the same straightforward gas boiler we have here.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Nenya, I have found that Sainz Breeze do not deliver in bags, everything is loose in their boxes, so I have to provide a box (or boxes, or bags) of my own to transfer things into.
    As I'm in a town house, I am using the ground floor to quarantine purchases, down where it is cool, and the corridor is half blocked with things waiting to be taken up to the kitchen. (That sounds worse than it is, stockpiling wise, but when there are things I can only get from somewhere that isn't my normal source, and I have to order enough to pass the minimum order amount, there tend to be more than I would get on a personal forage.)
  • Our boiler is an old back boiler in the chimney so we know this almost certainly means replacing our heating system and utter chaos, as we live in an overcrowded terraced house so have limited external wall space (and, of course, we are all working from home).
    I've just had a research meeting and should be studying but am now going to do some cleaning and tidying instead.
  • Heavenlyannie, I thought my friend who does all sorts of embroidery and mixed media work was the only person who kept a soldering iron in her embroidery kit.
    Many years ago I did an evening class with her. When I very proudly told a friend that I’d spent the evening burning holes in fabric (to embroider around), they laughed their socks off!
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Penny S wrote: »
    Nenya, I have found that Sainz Breeze do not deliver in bags, everything is loose in their boxes, so I have to provide a box (or boxes, or bags) of my own to transfer things into.
    Yes, I saw from the confirmation email that there would be no bags. Do they allow you to bring their boxes into your house to unpack? Our house is, in estate agent speak, rear entry so the delivery would be coming to the back door which leads into the utility room and the kitchen.

    Sorry to read about your boiler, Mrs S. Our radiators get a bit unbalanced sometimes and Mr Nen has to go round bleeding them to get heat into all the rooms.
  • I believe that plumbers sort out the balance by adjusting the gate valves (that's the valves at the other end of radiators) - might it be worth doing that? Mind you, I don't know how you actually get the balance right, just that it's clearly to do with the flow rate to each radiator.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Nenya wrote: »
    Penny S wrote: »
    Nenya, I have found that Sainz Breeze do not deliver in bags, everything is loose in their boxes, so I have to provide a box (or boxes, or bags) of my own to transfer things into.
    Yes, I saw from the confirmation email that there would be no bags. Do they allow you to bring their boxes into your house to unpack? Our house is, in estate agent speak, rear entry so the delivery would be coming to the back door which leads into the utility room and the kitchen.

    When I see the van draw up, I grab a handful of bags from where they hang on the bannister, go downstairs, open front door. Driver sets a crate down on the step, I transfer stuff while he goes for the next one. Some things which do not require chilled storage or not needed immediately are stacked on the stair, but fresh stuff gets taken to the kitchen/fridge/freezer.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    edited February 2
    Their boxes get left outside the door, with the being moved as the top one is emptied. I do not touch the boxes. I use bags for the stuff which needs to be taken immediately to the freezer, and hang them on the handles of the shoe thing. (a piece of tall furniture with drop down holders - no idea what it is called. I didn't buy it - had it from a swopsy with a neighbour at the last place.)
  • DormouseDormouse Shipmate
    I am still trolling off to Car-4 (Carrefour)and Lidl for shopping - we're not confined here in France (YET) It's generally okay, despite the I-don't-know-how-to-wear-a-mask wearers, who I edge away from. But I went to a new Lidl the day it opened. That was an unpleasant experience as Le Monde et sa Femme (the world and his wife) were jostling in the aisles. If I hadn't needed food I might have just left. I didn't catch anything (as far as I know)

    We've got slow cooked barbecue poitrine of pork - I think it's belly pork - for dinner. It's been wafting its aroma around the house for quite a few hours....
  • Nenya wrote: »
    Penny S wrote: »
    Nenya, I have found that Sainz Breeze do not deliver in bags, everything is loose in their boxes, so I have to provide a box (or boxes, or bags) of my own to transfer things into.
    Yes, I saw from the confirmation email that there would be no bags. Do they allow you to bring their boxes into your house to unpack? Our house is, in estate agent speak, rear entry so the delivery would be coming to the back door which leads into the utility room and the kitchen.

    We tend to bring in the boxes and empty them in the kitchen, Nen, and wash our hands afterwards. If there is anything helpful you can tell them about where to bring the delivery, i.e. use the 5-barred gate to the LEFT, not the wrought-iron one to the RIGHT, do put that in the box for such instructions, on the last page of your ordering process - sadly you have to do this every week, but they DO read it and DO find it helpful.
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