I'll be fine; I can always nip over to the shop in my lunch break. The online order was mostly because (a) I wanted bulky things like bog roll* and kitchen paper; and (b) I couldn't be arsed tramping down the street at the weekend.
Today reminded me of summers days in childhood spent with a bucket and spade on the beach.
The snow here is starting to thaw, but a road-clearing machine had dumped a couple of feet of packed snow on top of the nearest drain. I started to dig out the drain, and a neighbour spotted me and helped. Once the drain was accessible I had to make sure there was a route for surface road water to access it, by a mixture of shovelling ice and snow from the gutter and brushing the water in the right direction. I chucked plenty of salt around, too. It was great fun! And just the sort of thing I enjoyed doing on the beach aged 8 or 9. Obviously it was chillier than most of our summer holidays, but as we tended to holiday in the north of Scotland, some of our days on the beach in summer were pretty chilly too.
All in all, it's been a good day - we took some stuff to the tip in the morning and then went for coffee in town, and in the afternoon we visited my cousin as it's her birthday tomorrow.
I too enjoy digging water channels on the beach. I once spent a few hours doing it at Lyme Regis. My son, who was about eight, got bored long before I did. It sounds like the North East Man is settling in well to retirement as well. My husband and I tend to meet up for set times, elevenses, lunch and 4 o'clock tea and the rest of the time get on with our own things.
The ice has more or less gone from our back garden which is great, though I don't feel inclined to go out and do any gardening just yet. I have caught up with the ironing and put a wash on though. This afternoon I have an Italian class, so will be strolling into town after lunch for that.
A truck and mini crane arrived just after 7am and deposited a pile of wood behind our house. The builders arrived at 10 and are building up the base for my new office. Mr Heavenly is managing the communications and I am hiding in my current office and will shortly start on the marking mountain.
Yes, my car concurs. It's certainly pleasant enough here in Arkland the Relieved to put out the Wash Ing, and then to sit in the wheelhouse with a glass of BEER.
Today's Pilates session - the first after a long break - was OK, with the Torturer being cruel, gentle, and encouraging, all at the same time...
Restage and snoozage will form the principal items on the programme for the remainder of the day, and possibly for tomorrow as well.
I have had a marvellous day. A young American, visiting Scotland, had arranged to visit our church and kirkyard, where some of his ancestors are buried. I met him to show him round.
He had omitted to mention that he is a church organist - if I'd known that I'd have arranged for our organist to be there too. As it was, I had the huge pleasure of listening to him play our organ.
It felt like "the intersection of the timeless moment."
I've been out most of the day, usual lunch with friends preceded by a morning of helping a friend with something at our church. The thing happens several times a week and they're particularly short of volunteers during January. I've been on the receiving end of such comments as, "You're really getting into this and enjoying it, aren't you, Nen?" to which my response has been a noncommittal "It's fine; pleased to help out." (Why is the church like a helicopter? Because if you stand too close you get caught up in the rotas.)
Home and chick frick for tea - on a Tuesday: Is Outrage! It'll be washed down by a white wine which was not only on offer at the local Co Op but also Fair Trade so I perceived it to be My Duty to make a purchase. Then a Zoom meeting this evening.
Meanwhile in gai Paris 'tis freezing cold. Shopp Ing this morning so the rouge family is safe from starvation for the time being.
This afternoon I went for a trial lesson with a new cello teacher. She's a very nice lady and I think a good teacher. The one thing that makes me hesitate is that she lives right over the other side of the city and I'm not sure I want to trek all the way over there.
Yesterday I needed to be up early ready for the tree surgeon, to sort a poorly lilac. Today I had no need to be up early, but I woke at 6am.
This afternoon I had to wait in for a phone call from the health centre for my annual review. All good, but sadly a long-standing friend sent news of a cancer diagnosis which is likely to be terminal.
I’m still not properly back in my meals routine as there are too many things to clear up before their due date.
Our Place's Parochial Church Council (PCC) meetings begin at 730pm and are usually over before 930pm. FatherInCharge has a Rule (like unto the laws of the Medes and the Persians) that no meeting shall last more than 2 hours.
This is allegedly why the seating in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford is legendarily uncomfortable. It is said that Sir Christopher Wren designed it that way to keep meetings short.
Church committee meeting tonight. It started at 7pm. I started losing the will to live around 9.15pm. It finished at 9.47pm. I got home at 10.02pm.
I take it you weren’t chairing it? Nothing profitable is done after the first hour and a half.
No I wasn't chairing it, and I can't fault the chair. There was a very, very long agenda. By the time we got to the agenda item on the Sunday School picnic, round about 9.30pm, I was doodling in biro on the back of my hand, and found my attention wandering to a contemplation of the question "should I get a tattoo?"
I sometimes think the reason to attend meetings is to prevent people deciding to do something stupid in your absence.
That, too, is true, certainly, of PCCs...Deanery Synods, at least down here, are perfectly useless, and achieve precisely nothing, AFAICS.
Damp but very mild in Arkland the Misty. The Wash Ing has been brought in, as it's still nearly as damp as when I hung it out yesterday, but it'll dry nicely in the warmth of the Dragon.
When my parents' church was first allowed to have in-person meetings after Covid, one of the conditions was that all the doors and windows had to be left open for ventilation purposes. Apparently this concentrated minds wonderfully of a winter's evening.
I've a council meeting tonight. We try to keep them to no more than two hours and usually fail. When it gets to three hours plus I have totally lost any concentration I ever had. I'm hoping tonight's won't be too long.
We had a very nice morning walking with the Ramblers. We were walking around the edges of a nearby town learning about the industrial architecture of the place. I lived in said town for a few months in the 1970s but didn't know this bit of it existed.
When my parents' church was first allowed to have in-person meetings after Covid, one of the conditions was that all the doors and windows had to be left open for ventilation purposes. Apparently this concentrated minds wonderfully of a winter's evening.
My bus this morning had all its windows open. I think that's because it had been foggy early on and they steamed up - however by the time I travelled the sun was out!
I've a council meeting tonight. We try to keep them to no more than two hours and usually fail. When it gets to three hours plus I have totally lost any concentration I ever had. I'm hoping tonight's won't be too long.
I usually travel to and from our church by bus and have the evening timetable in my head. The service gets less frequent after about 8.40pm and this tends to concentrate my chairing of meetings.
And, presumably, wishing that they'd been able to think up a good excuse for not attending.
It's a very large committee, which encourages people to think that they won't be missed if they don't attend. Last night the perfect excuse was that the pavements were covered in ice and slippy, and attendees were worried about falling, and being a burden to the NHS, already struggling with an influx of icy-pavement related fractures. More than half of the committee, mindful of their civic duty not to go arse-over-elbow on the pavements had sent their apologies.
One exception was the NE Man who sent his apologies as he had a much better option - he was at a dinner in a rather nice restaurant. He was eating oysters, florentine crusted halibut and sticky toffee pudding while I was drinking church instant coffee and trying to care about three tier safeguarding. (Basically, if you have contact with children or vulnerable adults in a church context, you need to have safeguarding training. That's a no-brainer.
BUT if you have no contact with children or vulnerable adults because e.g. you are elderly and housebound, but you retain your position as an elder of the kirk and are therefore a Trustee of the church, you need Trustee Safeguarding Training which trains you to recognise that safeguarding training is required of those who do have contact with children and vulnerable adults in a church context. I think.)
I think you think correctly! It's a bit of a moot point though: the Baptist Union (England & Wales) state that "Churches have a responsibility to ensure they minimise the risk of harm to anyone who has contact with them. ... All of the Trustees and Deacons in the Church have these responsibilities, even though some tasks or activities are delegated to the Safeguarding Trustee or other members of the church Safeguarding Team". They "strongly recommend" that all Trustees and Deacons have at least Level 2 Safeguarding Training, but do not actually mandate it. Ministers have to have Level 3. I don't think we have specifically-tailored Trustee Safeguarding Training.
I've never had oysters but I'm afraid I'm not a fan of halibut. My wife likes it though.
In other news: I went out early to buy a paper, a bit later I conducted Assembly at a local school, which I always enjoy doing. My wife had her usual midweek coffee-and-chat Welsh group this morning; I met up with her afterwards, we went to a small local private art galley (wish we'd been before) with, among others, some very tempting but pricey Chagall and Matisse prints on sale. Then we had lunch (Imam Bayaldi) in our favourite Turkish cafe, run by two charming women, before returning home.
U3a talk this afternoon was a bit of a comedy of errors: not the speaker, who knew his subject and presented it well.
First, the team couldn’t work the sound system. This often happens. I wish they would ask guidance from the church people whose hall is used.
The notices were drowned out by the two ladies who had been collecting subs, who continued to talk loudly, checking lists of names.
Then several members of the audience could not resist commenting to their neighbour about what the speaker was saying. Why, but why?
Choral society tonight. Our MD has a way of silencing any chattering. He stops and stares them out.
I like oysters and fish is one of my favourite things. The drudgery of my days marking makes a restaurant all the more appealing.
My garden office has been built over the last 2 days and looks shiningly new. We need to wait for the plasterer, electrician and gas fitter (for the heat pump) before we can paint it and move my stuff in. Then we need to organise for decking, new pathing etc.
Tea is roast chicken leg with roasted carrots and a salad of rocket, date, chick peas and blood oranges with a tahini dressing (a salad recipe kit from the veg delivery company).
Church committee meeting tonight. It started at 7pm. I started losing the will to live around 9.15pm. It finished at 9.47pm. I got home at 10.02pm.
Crikey, NEQ - that's above and beyond the call of duty!
I'm glad to say that the meeting I was at last night at St Pete's lasted less than an hour and a half, and was actually quite productive.
I had a rare Bad Day at work today; the correction ribbon on the typewriter* needed to be replaced, and, being a Piglet of Very Little Brain, I botched it. Luckily one of my colleagues didn't, and it is now once more functional, but it occupied too much time, a commodity of which I had rather little. Oh well, tomorrow's another day ...
I am once again waiting for Tessie's to deliver some food (and more importantly, DRINK) and sundry other necessities; supper was pasta with prawns and veggies.
* Luckily I don't have to use a typewriter that often, but occasionally there are testing clauses (basically the particulars of who signed it, when it was signed and who the witness was) to be added to documents which have been signed, so the wording has to be typed on the document.
I'm glad to report my meeting only lasted an hour and a half and we were on the whole in agreement.
Before I headed out the door I made a version of the sausages and rice dish that @piglet mentioned earlier. I didn't cook it very well but it was still tasty and used up various bit and pieces I had in the house. It'll be a useful one to remember when I'm stuck for what to do for dinner.
I had a much less stressful day today (not having to battle with a recalcitrant typewriter helped), and actually got everything done by just after 4 o'clock!
Then off to the salon to say goodbye to my Christmas manicure, and have a nice subtle pink with a pearly chrome top coat applied instead. I've also booked to get my hair cut next Tuesday, which is nice as it's beginning to get in my eyes and annoy me.
Because my nail appointment was just after work, I got scampi & chips afterwards for supper; I would usually patronise the Golden Chip on a Friday, but it was convenient. I have the ingredients for a veggie curry, which I might cobble together tomorrow.
Lord P posted on f/b. that one of the churches in the ministry area now has a new peel. Of bells and is. looking for campanologiists. Might your team be interested in. coming to ring in south Wales Sandemaniac?
Usual Thursday of yoga followed by coffee with the ladies. This was followed by a check on my students (assignment submission day) and then I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the first of my own two essays.
The plasterer came and fitted the insulation and plaster board in my new garden office and cut out the socket holes ready for the electrician next week. Mr Heavenly is hoping to get the base coat on this weekend.
Lord P posted on f/b. that one of the churches in the ministry area now has a new peel. Of bells and is. looking for campanologiists. Might your team be interested in. coming to ring in south Wales Sandemaniac?
Ooh, thank you! Message @Celtic Knotweed and myself with the name/location, and we will drop large hints to our local organiser!
Busy day with the first lip reading class of the year followed by my charity bookshop shift. This evening I spent in the pleasant company of my local writers group. I think we've made some progress on our next project. Only downside was the basement of one of my favourite cafes where we meet was freezing.
I had a lovely day yesterday. The NE Man had a meeting in Aberdeen in the morning, so I went into town with him, did some research in the library, and went to see the exhibition of samplers in the Art Gallery. I bumped into a friend I haven't seen for over a year, which was an unexpected bonus. We met up in Waterstones for a coffee and a browse before heading home.
Our church holds legacies for the upkeep of several gravestones, and I'm due to compile a report on their condition.* In the afternoon, we had a walk and photographed nine of the stones, which is a Good Start.
I tried out a new recipe for a baked risotto for dinner, and we watched An t-Eilean in the evening,
All in all a productive day.
*I am the Elder Responsible for Ensuring our Sepulchres Remain Whitened.
You see, I would be more willing to volunteer at church if I had a responsibility like that. Alas, one thing of the things my church is lacking is gravestones, possibly due to being in a warehouse in an industrial area with a tarmac car park instead of a graveyard.
Today is the excitement of writing a tutorial followed by the joy of marking some essays. Onwards and upwards.
Comments
* I have enough to last a little while ... 😳
The snow here is starting to thaw, but a road-clearing machine had dumped a couple of feet of packed snow on top of the nearest drain. I started to dig out the drain, and a neighbour spotted me and helped. Once the drain was accessible I had to make sure there was a route for surface road water to access it, by a mixture of shovelling ice and snow from the gutter and brushing the water in the right direction. I chucked plenty of salt around, too. It was great fun! And just the sort of thing I enjoyed doing on the beach aged 8 or 9. Obviously it was chillier than most of our summer holidays, but as we tended to holiday in the north of Scotland, some of our days on the beach in summer were pretty chilly too.
All in all, it's been a good day - we took some stuff to the tip in the morning and then went for coffee in town, and in the afternoon we visited my cousin as it's her birthday tomorrow.
The ice has more or less gone from our back garden which is great, though I don't feel inclined to go out and do any gardening just yet. I have caught up with the ironing and put a wash on though. This afternoon I have an Italian class, so will be strolling into town after lunch for that.
Today's Pilates session - the first after a long break - was OK, with the Torturer being cruel, gentle, and encouraging, all at the same time...
Restage and snoozage will form the principal items on the programme for the remainder of the day, and possibly for tomorrow as well.
He had omitted to mention that he is a church organist - if I'd known that I'd have arranged for our organist to be there too. As it was, I had the huge pleasure of listening to him play our organ.
It felt like "the intersection of the timeless moment."
I've been out most of the day, usual lunch with friends preceded by a morning of helping a friend with something at our church. The thing happens several times a week and they're particularly short of volunteers during January. I've been on the receiving end of such comments as, "You're really getting into this and enjoying it, aren't you, Nen?" to which my response has been a noncommittal "It's fine; pleased to help out." (Why is the church like a helicopter? Because if you stand too close you get caught up in the rotas.)
Home and chick frick for tea - on a Tuesday: Is Outrage! It'll be washed down by a white wine which was not only on offer at the local Co Op but also Fair Trade so I perceived it to be My Duty to make a purchase. Then a Zoom meeting this evening.
This afternoon I went for a trial lesson with a new cello teacher. She's a very nice lady and I think a good teacher. The one thing that makes me hesitate is that she lives right over the other side of the city and I'm not sure I want to trek all the way over there.
Temperatures still getting up to double figures here, and I got to and from work (and Tessie's at lunchtime) in the dry.
Supper (because the ingredients I wanted were not delivered
I also wanted something speedy as I've got a meeting at church at 7:30, and didn't want to be rushed.
2 days of proper work in.
Pie for dinner yesterday, sweet and sour today.
Long ago, one of my grammar school classmates was known for riding his bike through the town with his cello (carrying, not playing). It can be done.
This afternoon I had to wait in for a phone call from the health centre for my annual review. All good, but sadly a long-standing friend sent news of a cancer diagnosis which is likely to be terminal.
I’m still not properly back in my meals routine as there are too many things to clear up before their due date.
I take it you weren’t chairing it? Nothing profitable is done after the first hour and a half.
No I wasn't chairing it, and I can't fault the chair. There was a very, very long agenda. By the time we got to the agenda item on the Sunday School picnic, round about 9.30pm, I was doodling in biro on the back of my hand, and found my attention wandering to a contemplation of the question "should I get a tattoo?"
IME this is perfectly true.
That, too, is true, certainly, of PCCs...Deanery Synods, at least down here, are perfectly useless, and achieve precisely nothing, AFAICS.
Damp but very mild in Arkland the Misty. The Wash Ing has been brought in, as it's still nearly as damp as when I hung it out yesterday, but it'll dry nicely in the warmth of the Dragon.
We had a very nice morning walking with the Ramblers. We were walking around the edges of a nearby town learning about the industrial architecture of the place. I lived in said town for a few months in the 1970s but didn't know this bit of it existed.
It's a very large committee, which encourages people to think that they won't be missed if they don't attend. Last night the perfect excuse was that the pavements were covered in ice and slippy, and attendees were worried about falling, and being a burden to the NHS, already struggling with an influx of icy-pavement related fractures. More than half of the committee, mindful of their civic duty not to go arse-over-elbow on the pavements had sent their apologies.
One exception was the NE Man who sent his apologies as he had a much better option - he was at a dinner in a rather nice restaurant. He was eating oysters, florentine crusted halibut and sticky toffee pudding while I was drinking church instant coffee and trying to care about three tier safeguarding. (Basically, if you have contact with children or vulnerable adults in a church context, you need to have safeguarding training. That's a no-brainer.
BUT if you have no contact with children or vulnerable adults because e.g. you are elderly and housebound, but you retain your position as an elder of the kirk and are therefore a Trustee of the church, you need Trustee Safeguarding Training which trains you to recognise that safeguarding training is required of those who do have contact with children and vulnerable adults in a church context. I think.)
I've never had oysters but I'm afraid I'm not a fan of halibut. My wife likes it though.
In other news: I went out early to buy a paper, a bit later I conducted Assembly at a local school, which I always enjoy doing. My wife had her usual midweek coffee-and-chat Welsh group this morning; I met up with her afterwards, we went to a small local private art galley (wish we'd been before) with, among others, some very tempting but pricey Chagall and Matisse prints on sale. Then we had lunch (Imam Bayaldi) in our favourite Turkish cafe, run by two charming women, before returning home.
First, the team couldn’t work the sound system. This often happens. I wish they would ask guidance from the church people whose hall is used.
The notices were drowned out by the two ladies who had been collecting subs, who continued to talk loudly, checking lists of names.
Then several members of the audience could not resist commenting to their neighbour about what the speaker was saying. Why, but why?
Choral society tonight. Our MD has a way of silencing any chattering. He stops and stares them out.
My garden office has been built over the last 2 days and looks shiningly new. We need to wait for the plasterer, electrician and gas fitter (for the heat pump) before we can paint it and move my stuff in. Then we need to organise for decking, new pathing etc.
Tea is roast chicken leg with roasted carrots and a salad of rocket, date, chick peas and blood oranges with a tahini dressing (a salad recipe kit from the veg delivery company).
Crikey, NEQ - that's above and beyond the call of duty!
I'm glad to say that the meeting I was at last night at St Pete's lasted less than an hour and a half, and was actually quite productive.
I had a rare Bad Day at work today; the correction ribbon on the typewriter* needed to be replaced, and, being a Piglet of Very Little Brain, I botched it. Luckily one of my colleagues didn't, and it is now once more functional, but it occupied too much time, a commodity of which I had rather little. Oh well, tomorrow's another day ...
I am once again waiting for Tessie's to deliver some food (and more importantly, DRINK) and sundry other necessities; supper was pasta with prawns and veggies.
* Luckily I don't have to use a typewriter that often, but occasionally there are testing clauses (basically the particulars of who signed it, when it was signed and who the witness was) to be added to documents which have been signed, so the wording has to be typed on the document.
Before I headed out the door I made a version of the sausages and rice dish that @piglet mentioned earlier. I didn't cook it very well but it was still tasty and used up various bit and pieces I had in the house. It'll be a useful one to remember when I'm stuck for what to do for dinner.
Then off to the salon to say goodbye to my Christmas manicure, and have a nice subtle pink with a pearly chrome top coat applied instead. I've also booked to get my hair cut next Tuesday, which is nice as it's beginning to get in my eyes and annoy me.
Because my nail appointment was just after work, I got scampi & chips afterwards for supper; I would usually patronise the Golden Chip on a Friday, but it was convenient. I have the ingredients for a veggie curry, which I might cobble together tomorrow.
Noticed it is closing. I want to order two mugs to complete our collection
. How do I do if?
The plasterer came and fitted the insulation and plaster board in my new garden office and cut out the socket holes ready for the electrician next week. Mr Heavenly is hoping to get the base coat on this weekend.
Ooh, thank you! Message @Celtic Knotweed and myself with the name/location, and we will drop large hints to our local organiser!
Our church holds legacies for the upkeep of several gravestones, and I'm due to compile a report on their condition.* In the afternoon, we had a walk and photographed nine of the stones, which is a Good Start.
I tried out a new recipe for a baked risotto for dinner, and we watched An t-Eilean in the evening,
All in all a productive day.
*I am the Elder Responsible for Ensuring our Sepulchres Remain Whitened.
Today is the excitement of writing a tutorial followed by the joy of marking some essays. Onwards and upwards.