I went to the corner shop to get some electricity after choir practice, and on the way home I completely failed to resist a BACON SANDWICH for brunch.
There's a sort-of minestrone doing its thing on the stove; it's a bit of a fridge-clearing exercise, but so far none the worse for that. As the temperature outside seems to have taken a bit of a plummet, SOUP is just what I want.
Chicken Immoral this evening - I have the chickie bits, the haggis, bacon, shallots, pepper, brandy and my researches suggest I can substitute the cream with sour cream (left over from yesterday's Hungarian Mushroom Soup).
I think I saw the sun today...but I might have been mistaken.
The local marshes (an SSSI and bird reserve) are flooded, as are other parts of this town...but still houses are being built on the flood plains. Madness.
I have been suffering/living with a stiff knee for several months which has slowly been getting worse. Last night, as I was taking the kittens upstairs at bedtime, I twisted awkwardly and heard a nasty "pop" followed by a nasty pain behind my knee. Sleeping was challenging as I could not find a pain-free position, and it is very sore today. I suspect I have sprained a ligament or something. I could do without it.
Sympathies about the knee @St Everild . Mine is slowly getting better after I landed heavily tripping over my suitcase in early December. Getting up and downstairs was a pain both literally and figuratively.
As for building, they are supposed to be turning the A road that runs across the end of our road (no access from this road) into a dual carriage way. I thought it was a bad idea before, after all the flooding of the last three months I think it is a very bad idea indeed.
Tea was my vegan version of a pasta bake and it wasn't at all bad, though vegan mozzarella isn't a patch on the real stuff.
Referred yesterday by GP to sleep clinic with suspected obstructive sleep apnoea. Five to six weeks wait, and no driving meanwhile.
You have my sympathy. I was diagnosed in 1997. If the standard treatment works for you as it does for me then you will be OK for a few years yet. Diagnosis and treatment techniques have improved over the years.
Driving with untreated OSA is dangerous. Before I was diagnosed I had some hairy experiences. I think the worst was waking up to find that I was driving at 50 miles per hour on the hard shoujlder of the M6.
If you want to discuss things further via PM that will be OK by me.
Champagne cocktail for Twelfth Night, as I now have Angostura bitters.
("Angostura Bitters looked slowly round the bar, but there was no sign of Martini, just a small older woman in a dubonnet knitting something industriously, and an annoying man at the far end whom she knew to be a Noilly Prat...")
Here endeth the holidays. We (well, let's be honest, I) have done all the laundry and packed everything except pyjamas and wash bags, and tidied away all the stuff we don't leave out for people who rent the house. Oh, and taken the empties to the bottle bank. It appears the festivities were well oiled
Back to what is apparently going to be a very cold gai Paris tomorrow.
("Angostura Bitters looked slowly round the bar, but there was no sign of Martini, just a small older woman in a dubonnet knitting something industriously, and an annoying man at the far end whom she knew to be a Noilly Prat...")
Champagne cocktail for Twelfth Night, as I now have Angostura bitters.
("Angostura Bitters looked slowly round the bar, but there was no sign of Martini, just a small older woman in a dubonnet knitting something industriously, and an annoying man at the far end whom she knew to be a Noilly Prat...")
Just then, Cherry Brandy stalked in, and if looks could kill ...
The corner where the tree now isn't is looking rather bare and forlorn, but it's done and out of the way.
Lunch has been consumed, and snoozage will commence shortly.
I've been a total domestic goddess this morning, baking and cooking lunch and dealing with the mountain of washing generated by Mr Nen, whose Hearty Walk yesterday was also Muddy so all his stuff has needed rinsing and then putting through the washing machine. This morning he went on a Muddy Run so ditto. I've seen so little of him this weekend I told him this morning I'd soon be forgetting his name .
We are, however, going out shortly to see some friends for tea and chat, and then on to an afternoon gathering which is part worship-but-no-singing-type meeting and part bring-and-share meal (quiche, anyone? ).
Just then the man they'd been waiting for for rolled in. 'Make mine an espresso', Martini said.
We've just de-christmassed the house, put various decorations and the artificial tree in the loft and put the real tree out to be collected in the next week or so.
We are still very flooded, but I think it is going down. I spoke to my poor neighbour who is contending with leaking sewage as well as flooding. He was in tears as the only suggestion from the fire brigade guy in attendance was to evacuate.
"My cousin Remy turned up from France," said Martini offhandedly. "It was a bit of a surprise, to say the least. But he'll keep his vermouth shut, and I wasn't shaken, so much as stirred. He's gone off to Scotland for a couple of days birdspotting on Atholl Brose now, anyway."
He said something else, but at that point someone started playing a limoncello and Martini had to shout about the sound. The music suddenly stopped and Angostura heard him roar:
"I SAID HAVE YOU GOT THE SECRET PAPERS!?"
* * *
Today I took the decorations down. The festive season is over, the house returned to normal, and oddly enough it doesn't look as bleak as it usually does post-Twelfth Night, maybe because all the New Year flowers are still up. I always like to get yellow and white with a touch of gold for New Year's Day. The tree is stowed away again, until Sat 1 Dec this year.
We met a friend from Nottingham at Newport yesterday and went to Caerleon. She kept checking train times as she had had problems getting from Nottingham to South Wales due to flooding . It was a good job she did,as the train she was due to go back on was cancelled, again, due to flooding, and she had to go back on one just after 3.
She messaged us later to say that she had been held up at one of her connections and missed her connection back to Nottingham ☹️
*I've got a beaune to pick with you!* said Beau, who's usually quite a jolais sort, and not given to whining...
Cold, grey, and windy here - nor'nor'east now, and with Sn*w forecast for tomorrow morning - but my daily Totter has been accomplished, along with a short Expotition to the Co-Op for BEER and POTATOES.
Ordered 2 things from Amazon last Thursday, both of which are apparently being sent by Royal Mail tracked delivery. One was scheduled for Friday, which was allegedly delivered at 10:23 am (no it wasn't), then I had an email to say it was all going to be delayed, now I've just had another email to say Royal Mail will deliver it today before 7.30 pm. It's Sunday and they don't work on Sundays AFAIK. 😵
"Excuse me", said Peter Stuyvesant, who'd been sitting quietly at the bar - "just nipping outside for a smoke".
Still jolly cold here - currently 0° and falling - if I didn't have to go over the road for Evensong later, I'd be in for the night. At least it's dry ...
I feel your pain re: deliveries, Ariel - I ordered a handbag weeks ago from an advert on Farcebark for unfeasibly cheap Radley stuff, and got a couple of texts in between Christmas and New Year saying something about delivery failure and a missing address (I'd put the office address, and it was technically closed).
The trouble was, when I clicked on the link to add the address, it took me to a "dangerous site" - page all in red, with warnings from Chrome to go back to safety - which I did. One text purported to be from Evri, but for all their faults, they usually email as well as text, and they hadn't, which made me more suspicious.
I can't see any odd payments from my bank, but I was a bit pissed off that the time they'd chosen to try and deliver was in the week the office was shut! I suspect they've cancelled the order, and I shan't get the bag. Serves me right for trying to get a cheapie (which was probably a fake anyway).
Hmm. Peter Stuyvesant - he wasn't the chap who went to Marlborough, was he? He was employed at a consulate, or an embassy, IIRC...
4C here, but feeling like 0C (so the Met Office says, and they're right), but I've enough Coal to last until some days beyond Wednesday, when the next delivery is due. If the worst comes to the worst, and I do run out of Coal Neighbours T and S still have a good stock, and will barrow a few bags in my direction...
I recently bought one of those little plug-in electric Heaters, much advertised as being the best thing since wossname, and it seems to be working well. It pushes out a fair bit of heat, and at the same time blows it into the surroundings, topping up (as it were) the ambient heat from the Dragon.
The little heater is supposed to be very cheap to run, but I won't know if that's true until I get my monthly Bill...
Peter Stuyvesant? The one with the expensive silk cut clothes? I remember him. Had a chalet on the slopes of Grand Marnier and a girlfriend who used to do Kahula dancing. Never trusted him.
Peter Stuyvesant? The one with the expensive silk cut clothes? I remember him. Had a chalet on the slopes of Grand Marnier and a girlfriend who used to do Kahula dancing. Never trusted him.
No indeed. He used to drink the sort of GIN which many regard as a load of bols...although not in Geneva.
BTW - did Angostura have the Secret Papers? It would have been a bit of a fag, lugging them around...
Well stap my vitals, gadzooks and all that. The Royal Mail have just knocked at my door and delivered one of my items. It being Sunday evening and all. No trace of the second one, though.
* * *
It was then that Benson and Hedges, the two plainclothes policemen, arrived in the bar, which rapidly emptied through the back door, Martini and Angostura grabbing a handful of bottles from the shelf as they passed to sustain them in their flight. The little old lady threw aside her dubonnet and revealed herself as Mrs Pollifax.
"Do you have the secret papers?"
"They're not very secret any more, are they?" Angostura snapped bitterly. "Besides, we're all digital these days."
"Give them to me anyway," said Martini. "Whatever happens, they must not fall into the hands of the White Russians."
"Ah, I knew there'd be a connection with that Kahlua dancer," said Mrs Pollifax. "Give them to me. I will pass them to the Jagermeister."
"I'll have those" said a voice, "Stella Artois at your service - you require the little grey cells of a Belgian detective."
Evensnog has been snug, and Part II of the SOUP has been eaten, and rather nice it was too.
At this point, the Teachers rang the Bells, and commanded silence whilst a White Horse, bearing none other than Macduff himself, halted at the door of the bar...
(I'm slightly perturbed by our rather extensive knowledge of Fiery Liquors, not to mention Tobacco...)
Opened the window this morning, was met by a blast of arctic air and hastily shut it again. That's enough fresh air for one morning. But no snow. Any of the rest of you got any?
And Rishi Sunak turned up in Oxford yesterday to look at the floods and go away again. He might at least have tried to rebuke them. The Abingdon Road is currently closed for the foreseeable.
Cold and grey here. I’ve just looked at the forecast and it might sleet at exactly the time I plan to leave the house and walk to Mr Heavenly’s workplace (we are going out to dinner for his birthday).
You do get the weatherly excitements down south. We're supposed to be 'mist and light winds', but it's just bog standard grey morning and not a twig stirring. Temperature bumping along a few degrees above 0°
Hard frost overnight. Having been somewhat snippy with the North East Man yesterday, I decided to defrost / scrape the car for him. (He thought I was taking the milk in off the doorstep - I knew it wouldn't occur to him to wonder why taking the milk in was taking me so long.)
He is now driving to work without having registered that the car was surprisingly frost-free.
He did notice my hands were freezing when I came back in and gave them a rub, so not totally unobservant. (The milk bottles were very cold and are now getting less cold in the fridge.)
Cold and grey here too. Over the three layers I was already wearing I've now put a huge fleecy top that Mr Nen gave me for Christmas and I'm still not particularly warm.
I need to do some sorting - I told myself I'd do a bit every day in the new year and haven't so far kept to it, so I need to make a fresh start today.
Snow now scheduled from 5-6pm this evening. However, it's a 50% chance which means we will probably only get half the amount, or half-snowflakes falling.
We've had so many promises and so few actualizations. People ought to be able to opt in to having it delivered in handy portable containers to the door, so you could legitimately claim you woke up to snow on the doorstep. You could then sprinkle it where you wanted on your own property, so as not to inconvenience anyone.
Both my wife and I have been out - it feels chillier now as there's a bit of wind. I have to go out again at 6.30 by which time rain (?or sleet) is forecast.
We have had flurries of light snow today, although none that stuck. It's definitely a day for Very Warm Knitwear though, and a woolly hat if one is going outside.
I've been fairly productive. We have ascertained that the washing machine is definitely kaput (hooray!) so I went to the automatic washerette downstairs while waiting for my mother to buy me a new one. While the washing was going round, I packed all the Christmas decorations away. After returning to the washerette to get everything back, I took the decoration box and the suitcases and Captain P's car booster seat back to the cellar.
Lidl and the vegetable shop were frequented this afternoon.
Sn*w descended on Arkland at around noon, on a vicious easterly wind (thank you, Mordor), giving us a layer of about a centimetre or so, but the blizzard only lasted an hour or so.
I observe that Sn*w is again falling, and that we have a Yellow Weather Warning for Ice. I may have to cancel my Pilates session tomorrow, as tottering across icy patches of roughish ground in order to get to the Car may not be a very Good Idea...
Cold here, and a bit grey but no snow. After the floods of last week the last think we want is more precipitation. The water company have been round to look at our drain problem and a lorry is turning up at intervals to pump the drain out. At least my neighbours now seem to be taken seriously. Last week the water company didn't seem to believe them when they said they had sewage mixed up with the flood water that the rest of the street had. Our garden is now more or less back to normal, hurray!
This morning I had a Pilates class followed by a few games of table tennis with my husband and a nice lunch in the nearby cafe. Obviously lots of people have decided to take up Pilates for the New Year. The class was packed and I couldn't book a space for next week.
Sn*w has ceased falling here, but not before discombobulating numerous motorists who have tried to brave the steep hills hereabouts - according to the latest reports on our local online news outlet!
I have no need to go out for a couple of days, although I'd like to get to Pilates tomorrow, if the ground isn't too treacherous. Shopp Ing is also required, as the fridge is emptying - I could do with a PIE or two, and something FISHY (CHIPS are in stock... ).
Comments
There's a sort-of minestrone doing its thing on the stove; it's a bit of a fridge-clearing exercise, but so far none the worse for that. As the temperature outside seems to have taken a bit of a plummet, SOUP is just what I want.
With BREAD. And CHEESE.
The local marshes (an SSSI and bird reserve) are flooded, as are other parts of this town...but still houses are being built on the flood plains. Madness.
I have been suffering/living with a stiff knee for several months which has slowly been getting worse. Last night, as I was taking the kittens upstairs at bedtime, I twisted awkwardly and heard a nasty "pop" followed by a nasty pain behind my knee. Sleeping was challenging as I could not find a pain-free position, and it is very sore today. I suspect I have sprained a ligament or something. I could do without it.
As for building, they are supposed to be turning the A road that runs across the end of our road (no access from this road) into a dual carriage way. I thought it was a bad idea before, after all the flooding of the last three months I think it is a very bad idea indeed.
Tea was my vegan version of a pasta bake and it wasn't at all bad, though vegan mozzarella isn't a patch on the real stuff.
You have my sympathy. I was diagnosed in 1997. If the standard treatment works for you as it does for me then you will be OK for a few years yet. Diagnosis and treatment techniques have improved over the years.
Driving with untreated OSA is dangerous. Before I was diagnosed I had some hairy experiences. I think the worst was waking up to find that I was driving at 50 miles per hour on the hard shoujlder of the M6.
If you want to discuss things further via PM that will be OK by me.
("Angostura Bitters looked slowly round the bar, but there was no sign of Martini, just a small older woman in a dubonnet knitting something industriously, and an annoying man at the far end whom she knew to be a Noilly Prat...")
Back to what is apparently going to be a very cold gai Paris tomorrow.
@St Everild - ouch!
Is it catching?
This is brilliant - I'd like to know more.
The corner where the tree now isn't is looking rather bare and forlorn, but it's done and out of the way.
Lunch has been consumed, and snoozage will commence shortly.
Our tree came down last night and the cat is most perturbed as she has been sleeping under it and sniffing the pine needles.
We are, however, going out shortly to see some friends for tea and chat, and then on to an afternoon gathering which is part worship-but-no-singing-type meeting and part bring-and-share meal (quiche, anyone?
We've just de-christmassed the house, put various decorations and the artificial tree in the loft and put the real tree out to be collected in the next week or so.
We are still very flooded, but I think it is going down. I spoke to my poor neighbour who is contending with leaking sewage as well as flooding. He was in tears as the only suggestion from the fire brigade guy in attendance was to evacuate.
"My cousin Remy turned up from France," said Martini offhandedly. "It was a bit of a surprise, to say the least. But he'll keep his vermouth shut, and I wasn't shaken, so much as stirred. He's gone off to Scotland for a couple of days birdspotting on Atholl Brose now, anyway."
He said something else, but at that point someone started playing a limoncello and Martini had to shout about the sound. The music suddenly stopped and Angostura heard him roar:
"I SAID HAVE YOU GOT THE SECRET PAPERS!?"
* * *
Today I took the decorations down. The festive season is over, the house returned to normal, and oddly enough it doesn't look as bleak as it usually does post-Twelfth Night, maybe because all the New Year flowers are still up. I always like to get yellow and white with a touch of gold for New Year's Day. The tree is stowed away again, until Sat 1 Dec this year.
It's been good.
She messaged us later to say that she had been held up at one of her connections and missed her connection back to Nottingham ☹️
Another frosty turning to merely grey day here, but thankfully neither wet nor windy.
Cold, grey, and windy here - nor'nor'east now, and with Sn*w forecast for tomorrow morning - but my daily Totter has been accomplished, along with a short Expotition to the Co-Op for BEER and POTATOES.
Still jolly cold here - currently 0° and falling - if I didn't have to go over the road for Evensong later, I'd be in for the night. At least it's dry ...
I feel your pain re: deliveries, Ariel - I ordered a handbag weeks ago from an advert on Farcebark for unfeasibly cheap Radley stuff, and got a couple of texts in between Christmas and New Year saying something about delivery failure and a missing address (I'd put the office address, and it was technically closed).
The trouble was, when I clicked on the link to add the address, it took me to a "dangerous site" - page all in red, with warnings from Chrome to go back to safety - which I did. One text purported to be from Evri, but for all their faults, they usually email as well as text, and they hadn't, which made me more suspicious.
I can't see any odd payments from my bank, but I was a bit pissed off that the time they'd chosen to try and deliver was in the week the office was shut! I suspect they've cancelled the order, and I shan't get the bag. Serves me right for trying to get a cheapie (which was probably a fake anyway).
4C here, but feeling like 0C (so the Met Office says, and they're right), but I've enough Coal to last until some days beyond Wednesday, when the next delivery is due. If the worst comes to the worst, and I do run out of Coal
I recently bought one of those little plug-in electric Heaters, much advertised as being the best thing since wossname, and it seems to be working well. It pushes out a fair bit of heat, and at the same time blows it into the surroundings, topping up (as it were) the ambient heat from the Dragon.
The little heater is supposed to be very cheap to run, but I won't know if that's true until I get my monthly Bill...
Perhaps he was a spy - the mysterious No.6.
Well done, Sir! I was hoping someone might bring No.6 into the party - I remember them well (1/3d for 10...)
No indeed. He used to drink the sort of GIN which many regard as a load of bols...although not in Geneva.
BTW - did Angostura have the Secret Papers? It would have been a bit of a fag, lugging them around...
* * *
It was then that Benson and Hedges, the two plainclothes policemen, arrived in the bar, which rapidly emptied through the back door, Martini and Angostura grabbing a handful of bottles from the shelf as they passed to sustain them in their flight. The little old lady threw aside her dubonnet and revealed herself as Mrs Pollifax.
"Do you have the secret papers?"
"They're not very secret any more, are they?" Angostura snapped bitterly. "Besides, we're all digital these days."
"Give them to me anyway," said Martini. "Whatever happens, they must not fall into the hands of the White Russians."
"Ah, I knew there'd be a connection with that Kahlua dancer," said Mrs Pollifax. "Give them to me. I will pass them to the Jagermeister."
*Vladimir! You are Tried and True! Seize those papers!*
Evensnog has been snug, and Part II of the SOUP has been eaten, and rather nice it was too.
The colourless Vladimir stood by, and quietly lit a cigar, of a type popular in the hamlet of his youth.
*A reference to certain YouTube adverts for SA au naturel...
'So' purred Grenadine 'you boys are single malts?'
(I'm slightly perturbed by our rather extensive knowledge of Fiery Liquors, not to mention Tobacco...)
And Rishi Sunak turned up in Oxford yesterday to look at the floods and go away again. He might at least have tried to rebuke them. The Abingdon Road is currently closed for the foreseeable.
He is now driving to work without having registered that the car was surprisingly frost-free.
He did notice my hands were freezing when I came back in and gave them a rub, so not totally unobservant. (The milk bottles were very cold and are now getting less cold in the fridge.)
I need to do some sorting - I told myself I'd do a bit every day in the new year and haven't so far kept to it, so I need to make a fresh start today.
We've had so many promises and so few actualizations. People ought to be able to opt in to having it delivered in handy portable containers to the door, so you could legitimately claim you woke up to snow on the doorstep. You could then sprinkle it where you wanted on your own property, so as not to inconvenience anyone.
I've been fairly productive. We have ascertained that the washing machine is definitely kaput (hooray!) so I went to the automatic washerette downstairs while waiting for my mother to buy me a new one. While the washing was going round, I packed all the Christmas decorations away. After returning to the washerette to get everything back, I took the decoration box and the suitcases and Captain P's car booster seat back to the cellar.
Lidl and the vegetable shop were frequented this afternoon.
I observe that Sn*w is again falling, and that we have a Yellow Weather Warning for Ice. I may have to cancel my Pilates session tomorrow, as tottering across icy patches of roughish ground in order to get to the Car may not be a very Good Idea...
🌨🌨❄
This morning I had a Pilates class followed by a few games of table tennis with my husband and a nice lunch in the nearby cafe. Obviously lots of people have decided to take up Pilates for the New Year. The class was packed and I couldn't book a space for next week.
I have no need to go out for a couple of days, although I'd like to get to Pilates tomorrow, if the ground isn't too treacherous. Shopp Ing is also required, as the fridge is emptying - I could do with a PIE or two, and something FISHY (CHIPS are in stock...