Form An Orderly Queue - the British thread 2025
Nenya
All Saints Host, Ecclesiantics & MW Host
in All Saints
Happy New Year! Looking forward to seeing you all on this new thread, where the kettle is always on and everyone is welcome.
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Today I am celebrating not having anything to do. I do not need to log in to work and catch up with my students or mark their essays. I do not have to visit someone else’s house or entertain guests. I can just be. So far my plans involve a refreshing walk (glances through the window at the wind and rain), feeding the birds, a long bath and maybe doing my nails. But first, a cup of tea.
Ironically, having a term-time contract, the holidays is when I try to catch up on studying. Yesterday I finished off Intro to Software Development and I'm just sitting down to crack on with Professionalism & Ethics. My course tutor is liable to return to a pile of marking.
The church party was quite a jolly affair, aside from being alcohol free. There was excellent food, various games, singing and dancing, with a brief spiritual moment before midnight. Captain Pyjamas had been prevailed upon to nap in the afternoon and consequently was still going strong at 12:15 am at the front of the French equivalent of a Conga line (la chenille (the caterpillar)).
We got up at about 10. I have been out to the only bakery open in search of dessert, and husband en rouge is currently working on a beef Wellington. Champagne and excellent Burgundy are waiting to make up for the absence of booze last night.
As is my tradition I have just been through my herbs and spices and thrown out any from 2023 and made a list of what ones we need for this year. Sometime, but not necessarily today, I intend to go through my knitting stash and sort that out properly too.
Better get dressed...
I have tidied away the cards and the spectral tree and hung the calendars for 2025.
We are currently listening to the concert from Vienna (Mutti's 83 - mind you, that's young for a conductor).
Tonight I will do Jay Rayner's roast chicken - basically, bathe it in butter - and may have a fizz with that.
It's definitely moved on to snow now.
Having slept until nearly 10, I got sort-of up, but I'm still in my nightie - I suppose I ought to go and make an effort.
I don't think I'll be going far though; I have enough food to feed an army, and even if I didn't, the shops wouldn't be open ...
Happy New Year, everyone! 🙂
Not much to see here, the borders being closed today, though there are Jobs that need Do Ing. They can wait until tomorrow, when Shopp Ing is also called for.
O well. Back to normal, I suppose. Happy New Year, everyone!
I woke at 5.30 to the sound of rain and wind, both of which have eased now.
My plan for January is paperwork: sorting, shredding, filing. After half an hour of that it seemed more urgent to do some housework, just in case anyone should call, so at least the place now looks clean and tidy. Dusting will wait until the cards and tree have gone. Phoned my cousin. Too cold to go out. Nothing on tv so I will find some music.
Back to the paperwork now.
I have often thought that there must be a market for an automated combined printer/shredder. Think of all the reading and filing it would save in between.
We are in sunny Mallorca with our granddaughter and family.
Heaven! ☀️ 😇
Big fry up brekky for family plus friends who partied with us last night (fed 11).
Hospital visit to brother in law in intensive care before lunch.
Boardgames this afternoon
Thursday is usually my day off so I will eschew the marking today and do my studies instead.
Bloody hell not even Epifanny yet!
Is Epifanny connected to your work in sexual health?
Enquiring minds and all that...
Sounds like my sort of churchman...
Most Christmas stuff had been removed from Tess Coe's shelves this morning - I made an early (for me) Expotition to stock up on a few Essentials prior to the Sn*w which may manifest itself over the forthcoming Epiphany weekend.
Butter, Cheese, Meat, Fish, and Chips are all safely stored away in my tiny fridge, with Biscuits, SOUP, Marmalade, Peanut Butter, and Painkillers (!) in the nearby cupboard. WHISKEY is standing near my computer, along with the necessary glass, and Bread is in the rather nice wooden Bread-Bin left behind by the former Mrs BF...happily, she took her debts with her...
A busy day, really - ordering of Coal online (the Coal People have an easily-navigated website these days), buying of Petrol, the aforesaid Expotition to Tess Coe, and a visit to the Arkland Office to pay the rent, which includes December's water and electricity charges. I am now resting, awaiting SCAMPI n'CHIPS presently cooking in the Dragon, and my weary debit card is also having a rest in my man-bag...
I think this is finally the year when we need to rationalise them all and have a clear out. I never use tinsel these days, and a lot of the things never come out but we keep them because they're of sentimental value (some of them go back to when Mr Nen was a child). A number of our baubles are smashable as well, and they need to go.
Bright and cold here. I've been out for coffee with my usual Thursday morning coffee group.
Sláinte mhaith!
(Good health!)
You know what? That sounds like my idea of relaxing too. Tides a bit hard to find in Oxfordshire, though.
Hehe...you could always go and sit by the Oxford Canal, should it be conveniently close by. Granted, no tides, but there will be some water to look at.
Yes, about half a mile away!
There was actually something of a water shortage, so there were restrictions to movement/lock closures. We made our way onto the Thames, causing the railway staff at Rewley Road IIRC (then a goods-only station) to open the swing bridge for us. It was quite an effort for them, on a hot day...and they weren't best pleased when we returned the following day, and they had to open it for us again.
Cold and bright* in West Lothian; a nice winter day. I had a little amble along to the corner shop, as I needed milk and bread, and topped up the electricity wand while I was at it. Realised I hadn't been over the door (except to the laundry) since Sunday!
I was a bit non-plussed to see that the milk they had actually had the same die-by date (4th January) as the carton in my fridge (which was bought before Christmas), but as I was practically out, I bought it anyway. Perhaps I ought to make macaroni cheese at the weekend, and kill two birds with one stone ...
* well, it was bright; it's dark now ... 🙃
Back to old clothes and (not) porridge tomorrow!
Rewley Road Station was closed to passenger traffic in 1951, but continued in use for freight for many years thereafter. At the time of my visit in 1976 or 77 (can't recall which, but it was a hot summer, before I married the first Mrs BF - that auspicious event took place in 1978) there were, I seem to recall, some coal wagons in the rather overgrown sidings.
Complete closure took place a few years later, and presumably the bridge was left open to waterborne traffic after the sidings were lifted.
Rewley Road was featured in Railway Modeller in November 1976 - here is a photo of the model, including the swing bridge:
https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/95478/page/31
That museum is fab, discovered it on the last day of our (as yet) only Welsh holiday
Our house guest (my sister) returned to the east this morning. Dropped Mrs Twang to the hospital for visiting her brother.
Did some ironing whilst watching a dvd that santa kindly delivered.
Picked Mrs Twang up.
Lunch.
More ironing.
Went to the local festive light trail
Prepping dinner
Off out to have a jam with a friend this evening (shall take some homebrew)
In a funny sort of way, it now feels like Proper Winter...though I'll gladly forgo the Sn*w which They have forecast.
Supper was the other half of the SOUP I made yesterday (there wasn't really enough for a whole other meal, so I finished it off), along with some bread and charcuterie left over from Monday.
How am I going to handle tomorrow without an Afternoon Nap?
No and yes. The National Museum exists in several sites around the country: eg the Big Pit coal museum, the Slate Museum, the Wool Museum etc (we've been to them all).
The museum with the restored buildings is at St Fagan's on the outskirts of Cardiff (we may be going there for a Plygain carol singing service in a couple of weeks, in the church you mention); today we went to the "central" museum in Cardiff itself.
Thank you!
Tomorrow the remains of the NY chicken rendered as chicken'n'mushroom pie.
I took the Christmas cards down.
I went over the road and bought a few necessities but mainly I am trying to use up items which have been around too long in the fridge and freezer so I cleared up veg from the fridge with a cheese sauce from the freezer, then felt virtuous enough to indulge in a miniature Christmas pudding, the only one I have had this season.
Very cold and frosty, with snow forecast for tomorrow.
Today we're heading to cathedral city to the east to return a shirt I brought my husband for Christmas he doesn't like and for me to have a mooch in one of my favourite shops' Christmas sale. We're all also going to take in some culture, though not sure what yet and have lunch out somewhere. There is a vegetarian restaurant that is always closed when we visit, but we usually visit said city at the beginning of the week, so hopeful it might be open today.