I am having to vote late evening because of other commitments like work. The last time an acquaintance and her husband were in voting, him in pyjamas. This time it was just her. Not sure of the story.
@daisydaisy That sounds about right. I can't complain because I always get stuff done, and if you get the right people working with you, excellent conversation.
Very impressed by the badger-sighting @Darda hope it's ok wondering about during the day.
We voted yesterday evening and a colleague from work who was at the polling station and involved in certifying the boxes said that while our ward was "Steady" overall the response as quite low.
Sorry, all, my last post obviously wasn’t clear. The point was that it’s exactly the same place but instead of ‘school’, the polling cards now call it ‘educational facility’. I thought it was mildly amusing (like dustmen becoming environmental cleansing operators etc).
MMM
Hehe - I thought you were being disparaging about the school! 🤭😵
We visited the apartment this morning and it's *amazing*. The building was renovated just two years ago and the apartment is clean and nice. There's just some ugly yellow lino that we're allowed to replace.
It's on the 25th floor of a high rise with a balcony and a magnificent view. There's a shared garden downstairs and even a cellar (most important for the bottles). We are getting our papers in ASAP and hoping we don't turn out to be too well off for social housing. Logically they wouldn't have offered it to us if we weren't eligible but it has to go through a commission. Here's hoping.
Hope it gets sorted pronto @la vie en rouge , sounds amazing, if a long way to go for the wine.
Our polling station yesterday was apparently busier than for local elections, but not for general elections. I take that to be vaguely encouraging. We also got a full set of leaflets from the parties (not sure about the Greens). I delivered some of them. Not for the BREXIT Party I hasn't to add. Did you all get the leaflet with the rather odd photo of Farage that made it look like they'd stretched his face?
Very impressed by the badger-sighting @Darda hope it's ok wondering about during the day.
Yes, very unusual to see one in daylight. It appeared to be healthy, and ran off after looking at me for a few seconds.
A few years ago, my wife was wakened by the sound of a badger in our garden and was so excited that she wanted to let me know. Unfortunately, I was working away in Amsterdam at the time and did not appreciate the 2 am phone call!
Here's to you and M. en rouge getting the flat, La Vie - I bet it's got a view to die for at that height!
It's a nice day here: 15° with patches of blue in the sky. After D's concert we went to Moco for lunch, and the weather was nice enough that it didn't matter that we had to park a couple of streets away. We'd been there a while ago, and I think maybe made unfortunate choices, but this time we were more impressed. I had a beetroot and goat's cheese risotto with huuuge prawns*, which was delicious, despite being frighteningly pink (D. looked horrified when he saw it, but he really doesn't like beetroot). He had a chicken and pesto panini, which was also very nice, and came with very decent chips. One to go back to, I think - maybe not for a while, but some time.
* The only thing they lost points for was not peeling the prawns. I know they look pretty in their shells, but it's really no fun grubbling about in a hot dish to separate a crustacean from its plate-armour, and it would help if they provided a plate or saucer to put the shells in.
Well, I have discovered one vote in the euro elections which will not be counted: mine! I had a postal vote, being a commissioner at the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, and so from home this week. But when I got back home this afternoon, there was my envelope come all the way back to me. I had put my voting paper in the wrong way round, so that my name, not that of the polling station, showed in the window. Oops! 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳
Where in Paris is the 25-storey block, @la vie en rouge ? I thought only the Tour Montparnasse got anywhere near that height in Paris, or have things changed in the last (er...rather a long time)?
It's above the Beaugrenelle shopping centre - a surprisingly upmarket neighbourhood for social housing. There are a few very tall buildings around the edges of the city, although not in the centre.
I had an eBay panic last night! I’m a novice at eBay. I didn’t really think our old Canadian canoe would sell so I put it on at quite a low price - we just wanted rid of it and had already tried to give it away to various friends. So I put it up on eBay but, without realising, I clearly hadn’t finalised it, it was in ‘drafts’.
I saw no bids so thought there was no interest and I’d sell it on Facebook. Turns out they are sought after and offers poured in. All fine, but meanwhile I’d clicked the right button on eBay and bids were flying in there too. 😵
I’d already chosen my favourite buyer on fb - a scout group and the leader was so keen he was on his way, cash in hand, in a van, to pick it up.
I went to eBay to cancel the sale - you can’t! - eek! So I had to grovel to every bidder to withdraw their bids. Eventually I got there but it sent me into such a panic I wasn’t fit for my online German lesson! It makes sense, now that I think about it, that you can’t withdraw - but I was such a novice I didn’t get the protocol.
The guitar, which is Worth Money and which I thought would attract interest is still on there - not even a watcher :rolleyes:
I’m not cut out for eBay and won’t go near it again after the guitar time has run its course!
Memories of many happy holidays. We even took it to Norway twice and paddled the fjords when the boys were young teenagers - now hopefully many happy little beavers and scouts will enjoy it.
@la vie en rouge the flat sounds amazing, although I think I’d feel I need a parachute at that height. I once worked near Olympia on the 23rd floor and the view was stunning.
English fish, chips and a pea fritter at the allotment for my dinner yesterday. Not very European, but so tasty.
Today I swap the rather enormous courtesy car (I am so scared when parking it!) for a teeny one - I thought most people would be pleased with the enforced upgrade (they didn’t have anything smaller) but apparently a lot of people, like me, prefer a smaller one. It’s only until Tues or Weds when mine comes back - the repairers even wash and valet it, although dinging the car is rather an extreme way of keeping it clean.
It's been the first properly warm day of the year here today: we went out at about 6 in the evening to have a recce and find out where this job interview is (it's a very nice-looking, modern church in a rather upmarket neighbourhood about 5 minutes' drive from the house) and it was positively sultry - 24°.
The rest of the day had been very lazy - I'm still fighting off a change-in-season cold which is making me very sleepy. All I've really done today is made lunch, which was a fridge-clearing exercise: penne pasta with sausages, red and yellow peppers, mushrooms and tomato-and-basil pasta sauce from a jar. It was rather good, but afterwards I conked out on the sofa - D. was pretending to watch The Hobbit*, which is guaranteed to send me to sleep.
* another North American public holiday weekend, another chuffing Tolkienfest.
We made the trek back to the English side of the Severn yesterday, to see the fabulous http://lipservicetheatre.co.uk/ close the Nailsworth Festival with 'Strangers on a Train Set'.
ROFL.
They have been touring for 30 years now and have lost none of their originality (or ability to pull weird faces, switch between characters and inhabit different roles) so if you ever get the chance to see them do go. This one combines film and live action, with a railway theme, and Nailsworth Primary School (maybe not the most glamorous of venues?) was resounding to laughter all evening.
Great to have so many useful links on a lazy Sunday morning! Thanks to the Climacusian BBC report, which is very fascinating indeed, my interest was drawn to this story here, entitled 'Why my 93-year-old gran is learning to fly'. Utterly beautiful and inspiring!
While I am here, may I also point to two half-hour programmes on the work of the fabulous late comedian Jeremy Hardy, as told by his friend Sandi Toksvig. I've always liked him, as he never descended into profanities, which many other comedians think they need to do to be funny - well, he didn't. Very witty and eloquent!
We made the trek back to the English side of the Severn yesterday, to see the fabulous http://lipservicetheatre.co.uk/ close the Nailsworth Festival with 'Strangers on a Train Set'.
I have corrected The Intrepid Mrs S' URL, above now working. A simple colon was missing, which led to colonic irritation on the web. - Wesley J, always at your service, especially for anything train-related.
Rogation Sunday here, so I’ll be tidying up the allotment ready for our joint-churches Rogation Sunday walk around the parish boundaries (not sure if it’s officially Beating the Bounds) going past it, and hopefully stopping to pray for a productive year. The day ends with a service in the Abbey which processes out into nearby fields. Although the land desperately needs rain (on Thursday a farmer told me his grass isn’t growing :-( ) it’ll be a far more pleasant occasion as it’s dry. Tomorrow being a bank holiday might bring some rain.
Due to various things my birthday didn't get celebrated a couple of weeks ago so son came home this weekend so I could have an endulgent weekend now instead. Yesterday husband and son took me out and bought me a lovely bracelet and we spent the evening in the garden enjoying the three course meal we'd cooked between us and drinking prosecco.
This morning the bracelet wasn't in my wrist. After much puzzlement son found it under our bed. I must have caught it on the bed head during the night and snapped one of the links. I'll be taking it back to get it fixed next week, which will be an opportunity to consider further buying a frock I liked in the adjoining shop!
Just been to vote...It strikes me as a very wasteful system: you get pages delivered to your house: a page of the manifesto plus a page with the candidates on for each party (of which there are about 9 or 10). You then go along to vote where there are duplicates of all the "name" sheets. You pick several, including the one you've chosen to vote for, (in order to confuse those who might be spying to see who you vote for) go into a little booth and put your chosen piece of paper in an envelope, while discarding the rest. This is replicated in every Mairie in every town and village across France. What a terrible waste pof resources - even if the discarded sheets are all recycled, it still seems an enormous waste!
Yes, the British hi-tech voting system, flimsy batten-and canvas partitions from roughly groin height to 7 foot and the use of a short, semi-blunt 3B pencil.
Yes, the British hi-tech voting system, flimsy batten-and canvas partitions from roughly groin height to 7 foot and the use of a short, semi-blunt 3B pencil.
Yes - so homespun, and so English, but, ISTM, with a refreshing lack of extraneous paper (unlike those Awful Foreigners)!
It's those blunt pencils - are the peeps staffing the polling stations equipped with neat little sharpeners, to cope with the crowds anxious to vote?
(BTW- given the use in Ukland of so many schools, church halls etc. as polling stations, at least the flimsy 'booths' aren't too difficult to cart around/erect/dismantle. Our Place's hall is used as a PS, which means our churchwardens have to open up/close up on election days, but the local Council does cough up a fair amount of £££in recompense).
In the Polling Station handbook issued before the EU Referendum it stated (more than once!): "Check that the pencils/pens are fixed securely to polling booths, and that pencils are sharpened". It did not stipulate how they were to be sharpened!
I think the pencils used in polling booths used to be "indelible". Does anyone know if the current ones are? I can't say I've noticed (or even thought about it) for years. Probably because they are not purple.
I may be descending into Ludditeness or just old-grumpdom, but it seems to me that the simpler a method of voting is, the better. At least with pencils (however blunt) and paper (however flimsy) there's probably less chance of Sinister Outside Entities getting their mucky paws on them.
The warm and sunny weather reported yesterday has Gone Away, and it's tipping with rain. This is a particular embuggerance as once D's finished with the second service we're heading down to Rothesay (about an hour and a half away) where he's doing a choral workshop for singers from the surrounding area, followed by FOOD*, followed by Choral Evensong. The vicar there is a friend (he was D's organ scholar when we were in Newfoundland); we did a similar thing last year which went down very well. We'll be going back there in a couple of weeks, as the aforementioned vicar is getting married, and D's playing the organ for it.
We went to Cowbridge (Pont-faen) yesterday and popped into a newish cafe. Both the coffee and the toasties we ordered were remarkably good. (You wouldn't think there could be much variation in such things, but there is). Afterwards I had a good scramble on Llantwit Major beach, the cliff formations are remarkable: https://tinyurl.com/y5eqv6bc. (There was sand, too, as it was low tide). The ice-cream was excellent!
I've just dealt with the third hornet of the day. Don't know where the bu**ers are coming from but they're huge, loud and frightening, plus still-at-home son is allergic to bee/ wasp stings
Just had a weekend of Nice Dinners - because why not?
Saturday was a ‘91 Tuscan red, for which I did venison steaks in port and redcurrant jelly. Tonight was posh fish kebabs - swordfish, scallop and prawn doused in lime juice and tequila - with a Pouilly Fumé.
My son-in-law taught me that you can kill flying insects with window-cleaning spray. It works great.
My mum was totally terrified of spiders. One night she heard one climbing up the bedhead. She knocked it onto floor then realised the insect spray which was used only on spiders was downstairs.
She was terrified as she thought that spider might disappear in time taken to get the spray and she would not know where it was. That was an even more frightening idea. She grabbed the can of hairspsray which she used then and gave it a big squirt. It glued the spider stiff and she was able to sweep it up into dustpan and put it in bin.
Despite the minging weather, we had a very enjoyable trip down to Rothesay. There was a decent turnout of singers, and as anticipated, the FOOD was excellent - lasagne, garlic bread and Caesar salad, followed by CAKE. We've also been offered free accommodation for the night before the vicar's wedding, which is nice, as we're planning on treating ourselves to dinner in a favourite restaurant the evening before.
My son-in-law taught me that you can kill flying insects with window-cleaning spray. It works great.
I keep a bottle of Windex handy, which does a great job of killing mosquitoes, either in the air or on the wall or ceiling. Cheaper brands of window cleaner do not seem to work. Best of all, it doesn't cause the fumes of most insecticides.
Yes, the British hi-tech voting system, flimsy batten-and canvas partitions from roughly groin height to 7 foot and the use of a short, semi-blunt 3B pencil.
Here we are provided with heavy folding metal and plastic booths - one of these days I will come a cropper putting them up. Our pencils this time were new, but we have a pencil sharpener issued in our kit although with only around 75 voters that’s an average of under 20 x’s per pencil so I don’t think it’s too much of an issue. We also have a sign telling voters they can use their own pen if they wish.
My son-in-law taught me that you can kill flying insects with window-cleaning spray. It works great.
As far as possible I shoo them out of the window - if they aren’t a pollinator (an endangered beast) then they are food for something, including spiders.
Today I am nursing post-CAKE indulgence - yesterday’s Rogation walk included 2 stops for tea and CAKE and, well, it would have been rude not to have sampled the delicious offerings from the women serving.
In Australia, polling booths and other electoral paraphernalia are now made of flatpack kits of heavy-duty corrugated cardboard. Most of our polling booths are in schools, so these kits are often recycled into useful items such as puppet theatres, drama backdrops and craft projects.
Yesterday Captain Pyjamas got his initiation into the world of restaurants.
After all, if he’s going to be a member of our family, he’d better in the habit. And a very well-behaved little chap he was too. We went somewhere cheap, cheerful and quick and stuck a couple of CHIPS in his little paw. Yummy. He also got to taste a couple of spoonfuls of WHIPPED CREAM. I’m not sure the paediatrician would approve, but the aforementioned foodstuffs went down a treat.
(Actually, our paediatrician probably wouldn’t care. He is a gentleman already old enough to retire but who carries on because he likes children and enjoys his job. I think his age – he’s seen it all before – is probably the reason he is pretty laid back about nonsense like not feeding babies the odd chip.)
Comments
Very impressed by the badger-sighting @Darda hope it's ok wondering about during the day.
We'll come Sunday.
Hehe - I thought you were being disparaging about the school! 🤭😵
It's on the 25th floor of a high rise with a balcony and a magnificent view. There's a shared garden downstairs and even a cellar (most important for the bottles). We are getting our papers in ASAP and hoping we don't turn out to be too well off for social housing. Logically they wouldn't have offered it to us if we weren't eligible but it has to go through a commission. Here's hoping.
Or do you usually keep a bottle or two on hand in the kitchen?
I see what you did there, and I like it!
Our polling station yesterday was apparently busier than for local elections, but not for general elections. I take that to be vaguely encouraging. We also got a full set of leaflets from the parties (not sure about the Greens). I delivered some of them. Not for the BREXIT Party I hasn't to add. Did you all get the leaflet with the rather odd photo of Farage that made it look like they'd stretched his face?
A few years ago, my wife was wakened by the sound of a badger in our garden and was so excited that she wanted to let me know. Unfortunately, I was working away in Amsterdam at the time and did not appreciate the 2 am phone call!
It's a nice day here: 15° with patches of blue in the sky. After D's concert we went to Moco for lunch, and the weather was nice enough that it didn't matter that we had to park a couple of streets away. We'd been there a while ago, and I think maybe made unfortunate choices, but this time we were more impressed. I had a beetroot and goat's cheese risotto with huuuge prawns*, which was delicious, despite being frighteningly pink (D. looked horrified when he saw it, but he really doesn't like beetroot). He had a chicken and pesto panini, which was also very nice, and came with very decent chips. One to go back to, I think - maybe not for a while, but some time.
* The only thing they lost points for was not peeling the prawns. I know they look pretty in their shells, but it's really no fun grubbling about in a hot dish to separate a crustacean from its plate-armour, and it would help if they provided a plate or saucer to put the shells in.
I had an eBay panic last night! I’m a novice at eBay. I didn’t really think our old Canadian canoe would sell so I put it on at quite a low price - we just wanted rid of it and had already tried to give it away to various friends. So I put it up on eBay but, without realising, I clearly hadn’t finalised it, it was in ‘drafts’.
I saw no bids so thought there was no interest and I’d sell it on Facebook. Turns out they are sought after and offers poured in. All fine, but meanwhile I’d clicked the right button on eBay and bids were flying in there too. 😵
I’d already chosen my favourite buyer on fb - a scout group and the leader was so keen he was on his way, cash in hand, in a van, to pick it up.
I went to eBay to cancel the sale - you can’t! - eek! So I had to grovel to every bidder to withdraw their bids. Eventually I got there but it sent me into such a panic I wasn’t fit for my online German lesson! It makes sense, now that I think about it, that you can’t withdraw - but I was such a novice I didn’t get the protocol.
The guitar, which is Worth Money and which I thought would attract interest is still on there - not even a watcher :rolleyes:
I’m not cut out for eBay and won’t go near it again after the guitar time has run its course!
Memories of many happy holidays. We even took it to Norway twice and paddled the fjords when the boys were young teenagers - now hopefully many happy little beavers and scouts will enjoy it.
English fish, chips and a pea fritter at the allotment for my dinner yesterday. Not very European, but so tasty.
Today I swap the rather enormous courtesy car (I am so scared when parking it!) for a teeny one - I thought most people would be pleased with the enforced upgrade (they didn’t have anything smaller) but apparently a lot of people, like me, prefer a smaller one. It’s only until Tues or Weds when mine comes back - the repairers even wash and valet it, although dinging the car is rather an extreme way of keeping it clean.
I’m a bit lazy for that 🤔☺️
The rest of the day had been very lazy - I'm still fighting off a change-in-season cold which is making me very sleepy. All I've really done today is made lunch, which was a fridge-clearing exercise: penne pasta with sausages, red and yellow peppers, mushrooms and tomato-and-basil pasta sauce from a jar. It was rather good, but afterwards I conked out on the sofa - D. was pretending to watch The Hobbit*, which is guaranteed to send me to sleep.
* another North American public holiday weekend, another chuffing Tolkienfest.
Best wishes, lVeR! Sounds marvellous.
As was, I thought, the uncovering of this ancient forest in Wales! I hope Hannah did not cause any of you any trouble.
ROFL.
They have been touring for 30 years now and have lost none of their originality (or ability to pull weird faces, switch between characters and inhabit different roles) so if you ever get the chance to see them do go. This one combines film and live action, with a railway theme, and Nailsworth Primary School (maybe not the most glamorous of venues?) was resounding to laughter all evening.
Mrs. S, tired but happy this morning
Great to have so many useful links on a lazy Sunday morning! Thanks to the Climacusian BBC report, which is very fascinating indeed, my interest was drawn to this story here, entitled 'Why my 93-year-old gran is learning to fly'. Utterly beautiful and inspiring!
While I am here, may I also point to two half-hour programmes on the work of the fabulous late comedian Jeremy Hardy, as told by his friend Sandi Toksvig. I've always liked him, as he never descended into profanities, which many other comedians think they need to do to be funny - well, he didn't. Very witty and eloquent!
Have a pleasant Sunday, all!
This morning the bracelet wasn't in my wrist. After much puzzlement son found it under our bed. I must have caught it on the bed head during the night and snapped one of the links. I'll be taking it back to get it fixed next week, which will be an opportunity to consider further buying a frock I liked in the adjoining shop!
I hope the results will be out soon, and that many a reasonable and quite decent person will have been elected. <votive>
Yes - so homespun, and so English, but, ISTM, with a refreshing lack of extraneous paper (unlike those Awful Foreigners)!
It's those blunt pencils - are the peeps staffing the polling stations equipped with neat little sharpeners, to cope with the crowds anxious to vote?
(BTW- given the use in Ukland of so many schools, church halls etc. as polling stations, at least the flimsy 'booths' aren't too difficult to cart around/erect/dismantle. Our Place's hall is used as a PS, which means our churchwardens have to open up/close up on election days, but the local Council does cough up a fair amount of £££in recompense).
The warm and sunny weather reported yesterday has Gone Away, and it's tipping with rain.
* The church in Rothesay is very good at FOOD.
But it's a good track.
We went to Cowbridge (Pont-faen) yesterday and popped into a newish cafe. Both the coffee and the toasties we ordered were remarkably good. (You wouldn't think there could be much variation in such things, but there is). Afterwards I had a good scramble on Llantwit Major beach, the cliff formations are remarkable: https://tinyurl.com/y5eqv6bc. (There was sand, too, as it was low tide). The ice-cream was excellent!
Saturday was a ‘91 Tuscan red, for which I did venison steaks in port and redcurrant jelly. Tonight was posh fish kebabs - swordfish, scallop and prawn doused in lime juice and tequila - with a Pouilly Fumé.
My mum was totally terrified of spiders. One night she heard one climbing up the bedhead. She knocked it onto floor then realised the insect spray which was used only on spiders was downstairs.
She was terrified as she thought that spider might disappear in time taken to get the spray and she would not know where it was. That was an even more frightening idea. She grabbed the can of hairspsray which she used then and gave it a big squirt. It glued the spider stiff and she was able to sweep it up into dustpan and put it in bin.
Win-win, I think.
I keep a bottle of Windex handy, which does a great job of killing mosquitoes, either in the air or on the wall or ceiling. Cheaper brands of window cleaner do not seem to work. Best of all, it doesn't cause the fumes of most insecticides.
As far as possible I shoo them out of the window - if they aren’t a pollinator (an endangered beast) then they are food for something, including spiders.
Today I am nursing post-CAKE indulgence - yesterday’s Rogation walk included 2 stops for tea and CAKE and, well, it would have been rude not to have sampled the delicious offerings from the women serving.
...I'll get me coat.
After all, if he’s going to be a member of our family, he’d better in the habit. And a very well-behaved little chap he was too. We went somewhere cheap, cheerful and quick and stuck a couple of CHIPS in his little paw. Yummy. He also got to taste a couple of spoonfuls of WHIPPED CREAM. I’m not sure the paediatrician would approve, but the aforementioned foodstuffs went down a treat.
(Actually, our paediatrician probably wouldn’t care. He is a gentleman already old enough to retire but who carries on because he likes children and enjoys his job. I think his age – he’s seen it all before – is probably the reason he is pretty laid back about nonsense like not feeding babies the odd chip.)