Our best burgers are found in the local nothing to write home about gas station, mini grill. They grind their own beef and make their own fries. We lived here five years before we tried their food, having found it hard to believe the local lore. We were wrong. Their burgers, and home made only on Tuesdays clam chowder, is outstanding. We heard their Friday only prime rib is also great Never tried that as we just happen to not be a big fan of beef other then burger now and then. Which goes to show you can indeed not tell a book by its cover, or a burger by its location.
It was a dear friend’s funeral yesterday. She died of Covid19 but the funeral was delayed as her family had to self quarantine for 14 days.
All the church members who could be there lined the road at 2m distances as the hearse passed. It was moving and sad.
Afterwards we stood and chatted at 2m distances. Strange but nice to see people off a screen for a change.
Yesterday the funeral of a respected Aboriginal elder was held in the NSW country town of Narromine. From photos posted to Facebook by a friend of mine, it appears that most of the town turned out to line both sides of the highway southward for well over a kilometre, as the hearse and family vehicles were given a police escort.
In some respects this is more moving than the usual routine of church service followed by the congregation observing as the hearse departs for the crem.
Likewise in Arizona. The only drive-thru I have patronized is Dairy Queen. They also let you go inside to order, but not to occupy tables. Even though Arizona has reopened, Dairy Queen has not yet opened up their tables, nor have several other fast-food places.
Really? I am impressed. I was in a Dairy Queen once. Once. I remember it still. It was in Tappan, NY, in 1972, and only because a future sister-in-law had a summer job serving there. It was my first visit to the USA, and I politely asked if it was common to eat oil refinery waste products there. I got some strange looks for that, but I'd probably say the same thing today.
I was once taken behind the scenes at a Dairy Queen in Oregon. Vats of chemicals which are whipped through a freezing air process. Would never eat there or anywhere else where the ice cream comes from a machine and you can’t see it already in its final form before you buy!
According to the urban myth, Margaret Thatcher was responsible for inventing that "Mr Whippy" style of 'ice cream' manufacture. Which is just one more thing on the long list of things we wish she hadn't done.
Well, to mangle an old proverb: Having a Dairy Queen treat is like eating sausage or making law: you can enjoy the end product but are better off not enquiring how it is made.
If there is a second spike here due to the prime minster and his advisor - or any other reason - we are going to take the dog and move to Germany until a year or so after Brexshit.
It feels good to have made the decision and I think it’s quite a good coping strategy.
Wow Boogie, that's a big one. I didn't realise English people could still move to a EU country.
I read an article about the NY Times listing death notices from around the US of people who had died of the Coronavirus, which I found very moving. Here people talk about the mental heath affects of the lockdown, but I imagine there are also effects of having so many people die around you.
Sounds a good decision @Boogie, though a shame you wouldn't be able to do your guide dog training, though could you do it there? As a child a dog once made off with a bit of our picnic, ignoring all our commands to go away. The apologetic owner explained it only understood German. At least Tatze already has a name that fits in!
Unfortunalty I don't have any family in Italy, which would be my country of choice.
It’s not a definite, but if a ‘second wave’ happens here we will be going for sure.
We have a super flat that we rent, which is always available to us and just down the road from my son and family. I would buy an e-bike and volunteer for a local animal charity. Mr Boogs would do what he always does anyway - cycle, cycle, cycle! My German is coming on.
Echo will already have moved on by then to his trainer.
It would not be permanent, we could not afford to do that. House prices are sky high in Heidelberg. Though we would apply for residency for the duration (ie until Brexshit is ‘over’ and we know what the future holds).
@Boogie I hate to be a party-pooper, but I fear you may find the borders closed. The UK is still in the EU but it is not in Schengen.
Most European countries are getting the outbreak under control so borders should be reopening quite soon, but in the event of a second wave in the UK, I suspect Schengen countries will be closing them again. I'm not saying it would be impossible to travel, but it might be complicated. You would definitely need to look into it I think.
@Boogie I hate to be a party-pooper, but I fear you may find the borders closed. The UK is still in the EU but it is not in Schengen.
Most European countries are getting the outbreak under control so borders should be reopening quite soon, but in the event of a second wave in the UK, I suspect Schengen countries will be closing them again. I'm not saying it would be impossible to travel, but it might be complicated. You would definitely need to look into it I think.
We have both travelled already with closed borders. Me in March from Germany, Mr Boogs to Germany in March and, five weeks later, home in April. We were allowed because we have family there.
Fair enough. I'm surprised the Germans are more lenient than the French, though.
We have also booked to go for a month in July - quarantine could well still be needed on our return to England, but not on our arrival in Germany (unless things change).
I’ve booked the dogs in with their boarders for an extra two weeks in case it is.
Sounds like the Boogie Family has a Plan (or several)!
One hopes the need to Flee doesn't arise, but, the way Things are Going in this benighted country, a massive second wave of Covid-19 is appearing very likely...
Things are opening up here. I am cautiously optimistic, with the emphasis on caution. I trust the experts here have probably got it right, but as always there are some drongoes out there and it doesn't take many...
NZ has a high rate of testing and one new case in the last 4or 5 days. A new tracing app has been rolled out as well.
If it does, please, pretty please, may we borrow your Prime Minister for a while? We don't seem to have a proper one of our own...
ION, another lovely day here in Little England.
Looking up into the almost cloudless blue empyrean, I see rather more aircraft vapour trails than have been evident lately. Is this a sign that air traffic is reviving?
If it does, please, pretty please, may we borrow your Prime Minister for a while? We don't seem to have a proper one of our own...
ION, another lovely day here in Little England.
Looking up into the almost cloudless blue empyrean, I see rather more aircraft vapour trails than have been evident lately. Is this a sign that air traffic is reviving?
Domestic air traffic has re-started. EasyJet has begun to bring their pilots back. My son expects to be in the last group, probably in August.
We've never entirely got rid of air traffic: the local airport is a freight hub, plus being still fully open there have been more pilots than usual heading our way on training flights to keep their qualifications valid.
I did consider a burger from Five Guys once but it turned out I didn't have sufficient equity in the house for the required secured loan. Back to McDonalds it was.
Out for a walk early this morning, I noticed the first vapour trail I've seen for ages making a big scratch across the clear blue sky. Doubtless from the same airport.
Not that we have been totally without air traffic - helicopters flying along the coastline are quite frequent. I generally assume that there are idiots playing silly b****rs on the cliffs again.
We're not far from Edinburgh airport here, but the only air traffic I've heard in the last weeks has been the odd helicopter; there's a special needs school not far away, and occasionally they're needed to search for children who've gone astray.
I did consider a burger from Five Guys once but it turned out I didn't have sufficient equity in the house for the required secured loan. Back to McDonalds it was.
I raised the capital and took the plunge. It was a lot like the crappy burgers Dad used to make, but more leathery.
Three way toss whether this qualifies for the Insomnia, Scotland or this thread.
My normal wake/get up time has become 5 am. At this time of year - a few weeks short of the summer solstice - there are perhaps 4 or 5 hours that could pass for darkness hereabouts. The night's sleep that precedes the 5 am is at best 3 or 4 episodes of sleep of about an hour's duration.
The driver is a lack of tiring physical activity combined with way too much mental activity of a wearyingly repetitive character.
So I think it does belong here, because that is the core problem - to get 'good tired' you need to be doing something stimulating. But how to do that when the norm is monotony and sameness?
My normal wake/get up time has become 5 am. At this time of year - a few weeks short of the summer solstice. . . . The night's sleep that precedes the 5 am is at best 3 or 4 episodes of sleep of about an hour's duration.
Miss Amanda's routine precicely! And when I wake up I have to work at reminding myself what day it is.
I'm the opposite. At the beginning of lockdown, I was waking up between 5 and 6 every morning to go for a walk - my mind had become hyper-alert, I guess, plus I was convinced early morning was the only time the woods would be quiet, and that if I missed a day of going out for a walk, I'd lose my impetus and never go out again.
But I couldn't keep it up - I got tireder and tireder, and postponed my walks to later and later, and now I am walking in the evenings, and waking up (properly, after waking up several times in the night and going to sleep again) between 9 and 10 in the morning.
I've just revived my Apple watch a couple of days ago - hadn't used it for a year, so it needed charging and updating - so I can keep an eye on my heart rate. And because it makes my walks more interesting to see my heart rate on a bar chart. So far, my best sleep (which to me is when I have a heart rate in the 50s or 60s, which shows as blue on the bar chart of the app I use) seems to be between 4:30am and 7:30am). I suspect the reason I am sleeping so much is because of how high my heart rate goes on my long walks. But the walks keep my mental health better, and also are better for me physically than if I didn't go for walks at all. I really miss swimming. Ideally, I would rather alternate swimming and walking - that would be much easier.
Between 5.00 a.m. and 6.00 a.m. had already become my normal waking time for insulin timing reasons - all that's so much better if I can do the first doses of the day early and have breakfast. If I sleep much longer and don't eat early my blood sugars just go up and up then I spend the day chasing them back down again. But, my going to bed times have fluctuated wildly ever since lockdown started which is most unusual for me, I'm usually in bed just after 10.00 p.m. and reading for an hour or so.
However, the complete lack of urgency to get anything done, despite the facts I'm doing quite a lot of work from home, my garden couldn't be any tidier, or my house cleaner (painting and decorating is on the cards though if I end up being at home until the start of the new academic year) is causing a sort of general can't be bothered with anything frame of mind and lack of concentration which is also pretty unusual for me.
The dog's alarm clock is set for 7 AM. She also wants to go to bed at 9PM but I ignore her until 10. Now she could easily go into the bedroom and get into her bed, but for some reason a human also needs to be in the room, so she comes and sits and stares and then looks toward the bedroom. Very annoying.
My daughter, the Quinie shared a rented flat with two friends, both at university. When their university switched to online teaching, both went home for the duration, to different cities, one south, one west. The Quinie was then furloughed and came home to us (north). Then the country went into lockdown.
The lease on the flat ends Friday 26 June. Technically, driving a 150 mile round trip to collect the Quinie's remaining belongings from the flat contravenes the lockdown rules, but we don't have much option. Her two flatmates will be making 80 mile and 280 mile round trips respectively.
They are planning to keep separate by visiting on different weekends, so that there would be no overlap of three different households, and there would also be a few days gap before the new tenants move in. But that means that the first of them will have to go fairly soon (7 June).
The second problem is that there are some items which the Quinie intended to give to a charity shop at the end of the lease. If she has to transport them home, then we probably can't manage everything in one trip.
Ideally, from an end-of-lease point of view, the NE Man would drive the Quinie down, return with a full car leaving her behind to spend the night cleaning the flat, then drive down again to collect her and her remaining possessions. But that would be 300 miles all told, and flouting the rules twice.
There must be lots of parents with university aged children contemplating the same issue.
My first thought is that, as you say, that's likely to be a common problem and one approach could be to contact you MSP to put that question (or, a general version thereof) to the government on your behalf. Then you'll get a formal and official answer that you should be able to freely share.
More immediate, in regard to the charity shop stuff, try and call the relevant charity (or, for that matter any of the other charities with shops in the immediate area) - the shops can't open but they may be able to take in items by arrangement.
I would see this as an essential trip, effectively moving house through no choice of her own (obv I don’t live in Scotland so might be misinterpreting something in the rules). The staying overnight is more of an issue I think.
We have to move my son’s things from York in the next few weeks but he was in halls so less of a cleaning issue. He has a house to move into at the end of June but we’ll sort that issue out later.
You don't say which country you are in, but in England it's legal to leave your home for the purposes of moving home, or indeed with any reasonable excuse.
I know that my brother did the round trip from the central belt to Aberdeen to move my niece out. There wasn't the cleaning problem as two of her flatmates were still in residence - but there was the issue of being in the same space as them while she packed up; I believe they went for along walk. And I think other people have done similar. I know of girl here who took the train to Glasgow to clear herself out. It would be good to get an official reply to the question, though, because - well, because it would.
Just looking at the Scottish regs you can leave home with a reasonable excuse including "to move house where reasonably necessary", you can also participate in gatherings in a public place of more than two people "where reasonably necessary to facilitate a house move".
I really wouldn't think this is something worth bothering an elected official with.
In these days when clear regulations (such as if you, or someone in your household, show symptoms then you should self-isolate and not leave home for any reason) are open to personal re-interpretation to suit your own needs then it's questionable whether the regulations mean anything at all. Either that, or the regulations are important and anyone who breaks them should be brought to task - especially someone in public office.
In these days when clear regulations (such as if you, or someone in your household, show symptoms then you should self-isolate and not leave home for any reason) are open to personal re-interpretation to suit your own needs then it's questionable whether the regulations mean anything at all. Either that, or the regulations are important and anyone who breaks them should be brought to task - especially someone in public office.
Which means some clarification never hurts.
The law is there in black and white, the only people who can further clarify it other than by revising it are in the courts.
Comments
When Mum made them at home she always wrapped the chips in a cloth or paper towels before frying them.
Yesterday the funeral of a respected Aboriginal elder was held in the NSW country town of Narromine. From photos posted to Facebook by a friend of mine, it appears that most of the town turned out to line both sides of the highway southward for well over a kilometre, as the hearse and family vehicles were given a police escort.
In some respects this is more moving than the usual routine of church service followed by the congregation observing as the hearse departs for the crem.
If there is a second spike here due to the prime minster and his advisor - or any other reason - we are going to take the dog and move to Germany until a year or so after Brexshit.
It feels good to have made the decision and I think it’s quite a good coping strategy.
I read an article about the NY Times listing death notices from around the US of people who had died of the Coronavirus, which I found very moving. Here people talk about the mental heath affects of the lockdown, but I imagine there are also effects of having so many people die around you.
We can, so long as we do it before December 2020
Unfortunalty I don't have any family in Italy, which would be my country of choice.
Republic of Ireland perhaps, as I qualify for citizenship, or perhaps France, as my sister lives there.
Scotland, possibly, as the Irish connection originally came from Galloway, but I doubt I'll live long enough to see Scotland independent.
Indeed - it's maybe time they removed the word "unionist" from their name!
@Boogie - wishing you, Mr. B and the dogs all the best!
I'll try to survive until The Great Day!
We have a super flat that we rent, which is always available to us and just down the road from my son and family. I would buy an e-bike and volunteer for a local animal charity. Mr Boogs would do what he always does anyway - cycle, cycle, cycle! My German is coming on.
Echo will already have moved on by then to his trainer.
It would not be permanent, we could not afford to do that. House prices are sky high in Heidelberg. Though we would apply for residency for the duration (ie until Brexshit is ‘over’ and we know what the future holds).
Most European countries are getting the outbreak under control so borders should be reopening quite soon, but in the event of a second wave in the UK, I suspect Schengen countries will be closing them again. I'm not saying it would be impossible to travel, but it might be complicated. You would definitely need to look into it I think.
We have both travelled already with closed borders. Me in March from Germany, Mr Boogs to Germany in March and, five weeks later, home in April. We were allowed because we have family there.
We have also booked to go for a month in July - quarantine could well still be needed on our return to England, but not on our arrival in Germany (unless things change).
I’ve booked the dogs in with their boarders for an extra two weeks in case it is.
One hopes the need to Flee doesn't arise, but, the way Things are Going in this benighted country, a massive second wave of Covid-19 is appearing very likely...
NZ has a high rate of testing and one new case in the last 4or 5 days. A new tracing app has been rolled out as well.
If it does, please, pretty please, may we borrow your Prime Minister for a while? We don't seem to have a proper one of our own...
ION, another lovely day here in Little England.
Looking up into the almost cloudless blue empyrean, I see rather more aircraft vapour trails than have been evident lately. Is this a sign that air traffic is reviving?
Domestic air traffic has re-started. EasyJet has begun to bring their pilots back. My son expects to be in the last group, probably in August.
BTW, has anyone noticed that we have a new, and topical, emoji?
(Well, it may have been there a while. I just saw it today).
Not that we have been totally without air traffic - helicopters flying along the coastline are quite frequent. I generally assume that there are idiots playing silly b****rs on the cliffs again.
I raised the capital and took the plunge. It was a lot like the crappy burgers Dad used to make, but more leathery.
My normal wake/get up time has become 5 am. At this time of year - a few weeks short of the summer solstice - there are perhaps 4 or 5 hours that could pass for darkness hereabouts. The night's sleep that precedes the 5 am is at best 3 or 4 episodes of sleep of about an hour's duration.
The driver is a lack of tiring physical activity combined with way too much mental activity of a wearyingly repetitive character.
So I think it does belong here, because that is the core problem - to get 'good tired' you need to be doing something stimulating. But how to do that when the norm is monotony and sameness?
Miss Amanda's routine precicely! And when I wake up I have to work at reminding myself what day it is.
But I couldn't keep it up - I got tireder and tireder, and postponed my walks to later and later, and now I am walking in the evenings, and waking up (properly, after waking up several times in the night and going to sleep again) between 9 and 10 in the morning.
I've just revived my Apple watch a couple of days ago - hadn't used it for a year, so it needed charging and updating - so I can keep an eye on my heart rate. And because it makes my walks more interesting to see my heart rate on a bar chart. So far, my best sleep (which to me is when I have a heart rate in the 50s or 60s, which shows as blue on the bar chart of the app I use) seems to be between 4:30am and 7:30am). I suspect the reason I am sleeping so much is because of how high my heart rate goes on my long walks. But the walks keep my mental health better, and also are better for me physically than if I didn't go for walks at all. I really miss swimming. Ideally, I would rather alternate swimming and walking - that would be much easier.
However, the complete lack of urgency to get anything done, despite the facts I'm doing quite a lot of work from home, my garden couldn't be any tidier, or my house cleaner (painting and decorating is on the cards though if I end up being at home until the start of the new academic year) is causing a sort of general can't be bothered with anything frame of mind and lack of concentration which is also pretty unusual for me.
My daughter, the Quinie shared a rented flat with two friends, both at university. When their university switched to online teaching, both went home for the duration, to different cities, one south, one west. The Quinie was then furloughed and came home to us (north). Then the country went into lockdown.
The lease on the flat ends Friday 26 June. Technically, driving a 150 mile round trip to collect the Quinie's remaining belongings from the flat contravenes the lockdown rules, but we don't have much option. Her two flatmates will be making 80 mile and 280 mile round trips respectively.
They are planning to keep separate by visiting on different weekends, so that there would be no overlap of three different households, and there would also be a few days gap before the new tenants move in. But that means that the first of them will have to go fairly soon (7 June).
The second problem is that there are some items which the Quinie intended to give to a charity shop at the end of the lease. If she has to transport them home, then we probably can't manage everything in one trip.
Ideally, from an end-of-lease point of view, the NE Man would drive the Quinie down, return with a full car leaving her behind to spend the night cleaning the flat, then drive down again to collect her and her remaining possessions. But that would be 300 miles all told, and flouting the rules twice.
There must be lots of parents with university aged children contemplating the same issue.
More immediate, in regard to the charity shop stuff, try and call the relevant charity (or, for that matter any of the other charities with shops in the immediate area) - the shops can't open but they may be able to take in items by arrangement.
We have to move my son’s things from York in the next few weeks but he was in halls so less of a cleaning issue. He has a house to move into at the end of June but we’ll sort that issue out later.
Keep copies of correspondence, of course, for the First Minister, the Police, and the Press (just in case...).
I really wouldn't think this is something worth bothering an elected official with.
Which means some clarification never hurts.
The law is there in black and white, the only people who can further clarify it other than by revising it are in the courts.