Laundry and amblage have happened, and the Wash Ing managed to become more-or-less dry although it's a cloudy, rain-threatening sort of day (I took it in before it was totally dry as there was a Heavy Cloud lowering above the back garden).
The next delivery from Hello Fresh has arrived, and looks quite interesting: a beef ragu, sweet & sour pork and something with hake.
However, we have a whole load of smoked salmon in the fridge, so tonight's supper will be pasta with smoked salmon, crème fraîche, lemon and spring onions, accompanied by wild salad*, followed by strawberries with more crème fraîche (more of S's interweb purchases).
* I'm not quite sure what it is - it's a bag of ready-to-go green things which look rather interesting, and should be nice with French dressing.
I generally prefer tame salad myself, and do hope that your wild salad will not quickly get totally out of hand! Perhaps drown it with many drowns, I mean, lots of nice dressing? Though at one point, surely, it shall in fact have to get out of hand, onto your fork and into your mouth., for which I wish you and yours a hearty bon appetit.
And in case anyone's too greedy - here's my very own word of the day (not necessarily SFW):
My husband and 19 year old son are sitting at the dinner table with me (post-dinner) and have spent the last 15 minutes discussing the most popular/disliked/high earning/etc programming languages. This lockdown has gone on far too long.
I've got a conference call going on in the background as Mr Dragon is remotely supervising an out of hours IT change. I know from experience that if you have the 'wrong' relatives technical dinner time conversations are par for the course!
We've just had our first Zoom Bible study/discussion group. In my opinion at least, it went better than I'd dared to hope.
Piglet; I've got some hot-smoked salmon flakes in the fridge, sandwiches-for-the-putting-into. Will be yummy! The best smoked salmon I've had comes from North Uist (we buy some every year) and we had some wonderful smokies from the smokehouse in Eyemouth. There used to be a very good smokehouse in Orford, Suffolk but sadly it closed (the other smokehouse there is ultraposh, expensive and offers a more refined, less robust flavour).
I've got tame salad growing on the balcony. Unfortunately we had a sharp hailstorm last night and I fear it's taken rather a beating 🙁. On the bright side, I don't think the tomato plants have lost any flowers, and the radishes seem to have come through ok. The perils of gardening...
We've just had our first Zoom Bible study/discussion group. In my opinion at least, it went better than I'd dared to hope.
Our group started using it straight away in lockdown and it’s working very well. A few of our members (my husband included) have paid for versions for work so can host for longer periods of time - this is Cambridge so our church members tends to be tech savvy, even the older ones. There’s usually about 8 -10 households present so we even have break out rooms for prayer at the end.
I've got a conference call going on in the background as Mr Dragon is remotely supervising an out of hours IT change. I know from experience that if you have the 'wrong' relatives technical dinner time conversations are par for the course!
Husband is the CTO of his own tech start up and working from home, as are his employees, and all day long I can hear his conference calls. He and my eldest are like peas in a pod (he’s studying electronic engineering with computer science at uni) and are now discussing game programming in the lounge.
I have worked from home for 12 years but I usually have a lovely quiet house to myself. I sometimes teach online in the evening though, but luckily my little study is upstairs and away from everyone else.
We had concurrent conference calls for about half an hour today when they overlapped. I was making heavy use of mute and being glad my laptop is old enough to genuinely not have a webcam today as I was in the same room as the Dragonlets who were doing No. 1's online school-work on the desktop, with the speakers on low, after they'd stopped demanding I get it set up. It was far more useful than yesterday's call on a similar topic with another venue. In normal times going to work every afternoon is my break!
luckily my little study is upstairs and away from everyone else.
My little study is the same, being the smallest room upstairs and housing all my books (plus rather a lot of paperwork that I'm gradually sorting). I love it very much and for a while made it a technology-free zone. Now that so much involves technology I do my Zoom and other such meetings in there, as well as my reading, writing, centering prayer and colouring.
Predictive text tried very hard to make that "cantering prayer." >killingme<
The first rainy day to make use of the drying facilities in the new utility/laundry room. The sheila maid works perfectly and the power from the solar roof provides more than enough to run the dryer and there's space to do the ironing without faffing around. Not quite bliss but pretty close to it.
That's the good news: the bad is that a combination of too much gardening and the change of weather is playing havoc with my knackered back - I think a massive drink is on the cards.
[...] Predictive text tried very hard to make that "cantering prayer." >killingme<
I like it! Just be careful not to shout too loudly - you might get hoarse!
I'll get my rain coat.
Speaking of which: after the 27°C earlier in the week, some nice rain and lower temperatures here in Continental WesShire, too, which nicely lessens any pollen allergy anyone might have, cough cough, say no more, take the tablets, Tiger et cetera and all that. Pretty ideal temperature for my taste right now: 18ish°C day, 11ish°C at night; you can leave the windows open, it's neither too cold nor too hot, there's the occasional slight breeze, and you can walk around dressed quite summerishly, but aren't in copious sweatland.
The best smoked salmon I've had comes from North Uist (we buy some every year)
The Hebridean Smokehouse perhance? It's wonderful. I love their hot smoked trout and it was my holiday treat when I was up there.
Mmmm, maybe I should get some posted out to me.....
Southern Scotland has reverted to the seasonal norm of cool and showery. I may have to think about socks and cardies again. Once the grocery delivery's been (Sainsbury's! At last!) I must venture out and see what the garden has been up to. Growing furiously, I suspect.
Went out for my morning walk in the rain. Hooray! No watering of the veg patch today. Just catching up on some work admin, I’m only employed term time so this month is catching up on training, planning and module de-briefing.
Husband has cancelled the hotels of our dream holiday to Japan (was 1st July for 2 weeks) this morning. We’re waiting for the airlines to cancel our flights before pursuing refunds with them/travel agency.
Cardiology has just phoned to move the date of my 24 hour ECG so that I can have an echocardiogram the same morning. It’s going to be weird turning up there for an appointment as I regularly worked as an outpatient nurse there 15 years ago.
... Pretty ideal temperature for my taste right now: 18ish°C day, 11ish°C at night; you can leave the windows open, it's neither too cold nor too hot, there's the occasional slight breeze, and you can walk around dressed quite summerishly, but aren't in copious sweatland.
Most pleasant.
You and I ought to get together, Wes - those sound like ideal conditions to me too!
I had a very nice amble down to the cashline machine this morning (it's my turn to pay for the groceries today) - it was 11° with a bit of a breeze, but very decent for ambling.
Supper will be one of the Hello Fresh things that arrived yesterday - probably the hake.
Pretty ideal temperature for my taste right now: 18ish°C day, 11ish°C at night; you can leave the windows open, it's neither too cold nor too hot, there's the occasional slight breeze, and you can walk around dressed quite summerishly, but aren't in copious sweatland.
Most pleasant.
My ideal, too. Can't remember the last time we had a decent spell of weather like that. Every year now we seem to go from cold and wet to sweltering and parched with no temperate space in the middle!
Husband has cancelled the hotels of our dream holiday to Japan (was 1st July for 2 weeks) this morning. We’re waiting for the airlines to cancel our flights before pursuing refunds with them/travel agency.
I've just cancelled my hotel and am also hoping that the flights - at the moment shown as running - will be cancelled.
None of the forecasts could agree this afternoon about the likelihood of showers between two and three. It decided to start coming down heavily as I pegged the last bit of washing on the line!
That's Murphy's Law writ large! The down-chucking I mentioned was actually very short-lived (it had stopped by the time I hit "post comment"), and there were a couple of short but substantial showers later; it now seems to have settled down to a rather wet night.
The hake thing (with crushed tomatoes, garlic, chilli and tagliatelli) was OK, but no better than that; I'm not a great fish fan, and it didn't really do anything to turn me into one.
We're not at all sure Hello Fresh is for us: once you're past the introductory offer* it gets rather expensive, and tbh I can make just as nice food from what we buy in the supermarket. Also, as each recipe has all the ingredients measured out, it uses more packaging than if you're buying your own stuff.
Root to Market, on the other hand, is a delivery service we're quite taken with: the food seems to be very good quality, and it's nice to support a local business.
* S's son-in-law sent us an introduction to it which gave him a freebie.
I have just put a load of washing on airers inside rather than on the line outside, thus guaranteeing that it will not rain this afternoon. To all those people who have put washing out: you're welcome.
It's chucking it down here at the moment, after having rained on and off all afternoon. We're having a curry evening. I have some Madhur Jaffrey Hydrabaadi rice in the oven at the moment and my husband is currently making a potato and spinach curry to go with it. He's just swearing as he added too much turmeric, but I'm sure it'll be fine, if a bit yellow. Earlier we had our monthly circle dancing get together via zoom. Great fun, if not as nice as seeing each other in person.
Just had thunder and lightening in South West London. It is about as dark as four o clock on a winter's evening. Good night for a curry, wine and a silly film.
It's such a faff cooking for one - there's just as much washing up as there was for two. So, and I must sound boring to all you terrific cooks out there, I had tinned mackerel with mashed sweet potato, lettuce thinning from my patio veg garden the end of a cucumber, celery and radishes. And very nice it was too.
On the plus side, no storms here, patches of blue sky and sunshine, followed by torrential rain, then sun again. At least I won't have to water my pots!
We had burgers (beef for the offspring, Jack Monroe's kidney bean and carrot for me), sort of oven chips and salad, followed by baked plums in the hope of making some disappointing yellow stickered plums interesting.
Very black thunderstorms here and a spectacular hail storm - the road and gardens were white. Today we have not managed 10 000 steps as we didn't fancy getting that wet.
And the other entertainment has been learning how to change tap washers only to find the washers are fine and not the reason for the leaking taps. Even after three applications of WD40 I still can't shift one tap valve to check.
This afternoon I did my choir leader’s gospel workshop on YouTube. While singing I watched a bank of black clouds with the odd flash of fork lightning slowly roll towards us. Quite an experience.
Just munching my way through pork pie and the leftovers of the blueberry and sour cream cake I made a couple of days ago. Despite waiting for flour with baited breath, once it was back in the supermarkets, choice paralysis set in, not wanting to waste it on a lousy recipe. The duck is broken (so to speak) so there will be more baking in foreseeable future.
Tinned fish is a thing of beauty, @Thomasina I'm partial to mackerel on toast.
Hail yesterday and thunder and lightning today. The lightning knocked my router out and it won't power back on. I'm thankful for the smartphone that my children insisted I buy. They, of course, are gloating about being right.
I sat watching the real time lightning map as it came towards us, after a brief flash. It must gave been some miles away towards Maidstone, the other side of the house, reflecting off the heavily dark clouds, as there was one outlier there. We didn't have any here, though, adn I felt a little cheated of the spectacle.
@Thomasina I keep things very simple about meals for just me as well! I love creative cooking when I'm in the mood and have guests to feed, thoroughly enjoy reading about other people's cooking choices, but I just don't seem to be inclined that way right now.
I batch cook stuff for the freezer, though, several times a year, and am just trying to get up the enthusiasm for that in case I'm called back into work from 15th June. I ran down the contents of the chest freezer about a month ago and switched it off to clean it, and it's not been switched back on since. I've concluded it's more a case at the moment of getting the enthusiasm for shopping for the ingredients rather than the actual cooking.
Sunday morning, and pouring with rain - which is needed. Still pleasantly warmish-and-nippy, which, as we know, is just right. I'm glad I am being supported in this plea for more of the same by fellow Shippies.
I've just received another bunch of these slightly unconventional face maks I ordered from a small UK company. They are washable and from a cotton-polyester mix. I had ordered the UK, Scotland and Wales flag ones. We're not forced to wear any in this 'ere Continental WesShire, except in places like hairdressers and other close-contact professions, just 'advised' to, and this country being what it is, they are thus few and far between. (I always have some with me, just in case.) No new spike in infections yet in the past few weeks since the first tentative openings, so there's hoping...
A friend from Blighty thought it horrible to wear a Union Jack mask, which may be so if dwelling in said Union. Over here, I haven't seen any of these yet on anyone else, let alone the Scotland and Wales ones, so that may be enough to confuse (and amuse) the locals. These 'special designs' are as far as I am willing to go in terms of face-covering ridicule, if not using the surgical ones. (I was wondering at some point whether I should get a Halloween bloody surgeon outfit and wear it with a surgical mask, but decided against further upsetting local mankind, who have suffered enough, like we all have! )
Interesting that you can order waterproof maps from that manufacturer, by the way. I might look into that!
Finally, decisions have been made that in certain educational institutions most classes are now not returning before the summer break, which begins in early July. This is really rather annoying as I very much enjoy the immediacy of contact of regular teaching. I feel the online stuff is really getting a bit samey! Luckily, for a couple of weeks now we've been back at other instutions of learning, which is a relief for everyone involved.
Ach well. Count your blessings, as many of you here say. Take it as it comes, eh, step by step...!
Wishing everyone a happy and blesséd Sunday, and <votives> for everyone in dire straits. (Since you're asking, I guess the band as well!)
The local library service has sent an email advising that book returns have been extended for a second time. Now we get to hang on to any library books we had out, when Lockdown struck, until the end of September. (Also applies to other items the library lends out).
I had/have only one book out, a cookbook. There is a waiting list of prospective borrowers, so I am making the most of my time with it to try out as many recipes as possible. All good so far!
Now regretting that I hadn't taken out my full loan allowance - but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
A sunny Sunday morning here and the wind has dropped, which is good news for the planned socially distanced lunch on our patio with Nenlet1 and son-in-law. Before that we have socially distanced coffee in a friend's garden, for which I've made lemon polenta cake. I don't know what gathering like this (or life generally) is going to look like in the winter months but am trying not to look too far ahead and follow what my reading this morning said - let go and recognise that this here, now, is enough and all I need.
Been out for my morning walk and managed 2 miles without mishap. Now getting ready for morning Zoom church service, bread and port at the ready.
I made myself a pretty shaped mask with a tiny floral pattern but need to make more, especially non-florals for the masculine household members.
The local library service has sent an email advising that book returns have been extended for a second time. Now we get to hang on to any library books we had out, when Lockdown struck, until the end of September. (Also applies to other items the library lends out).
I had/have only one book out, a cookbook. There is a waiting list of prospective borrowers, so I am making the most of my time with it to try out as many recipes as possible. All good so far!
Now regretting that I hadn't taken out my full loan allowance - but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
We have pretty much Dragonlet 2's whole allowance, but it will good to get to change them. I didn't bother as I've got plenty of books at home and our local library didn't have anything I particularly wanted. Cooking unusual things has been assisted by Google.
Goodness - it must be aeons since I last used a Library! Alas, our local library was moved to another building, a long time back, and, in so doing, they seemed to mislay the majority of the books...
I did go in a few times, but there always seemed to be crowds of little childer and their Mums, having Story Time or something, and it was almost impossible to get to some of the bookshelves.
(Actually, Story Time sounded really Fun, but I doubt if this Scruffy Aged Single Man would have been welcome...).
... Cooking unusual things has been assisted by Google.
My sister's cookbook collection is currently in boxes in the dining room (the lockdown has meant that the kitchen revamp isn't quite finished, and there's no point in putting things back until it is). She's contemplating a fairly drastic cull, on the grounds that the interweb will tell her pretty much anything she cares to ask.
I did a fair declutterage of my cookbooks when I moved back to Scotland, but there are several I really wouldn't want to be without; even if the recipes are available online, I still quite like to actually read a few pages of a cookery book (preferably while eating a sandwich ...).
It's quite a nice day here; according to the Met Office, it's 15°, but it didn't feel quite that warm when I ambled. The birdie bistros have been replenished, and I'm contemplating which of the Hello Fresh recipes to do for supper - ragu with pasta or sweet and sour pork.
I once bought Mrs BF a Delia Smith cookbook (at her - Mrs BF's - request).
By good fortune, Delia herself was at a book-signing in Charing Cross Road at the time, so Mrs BF has (and may, for all I know, still have) an Autographed Copy!
Mind you, she (Mrs BF) may have sold it on eBay by now...
Comments
The next delivery from Hello Fresh has arrived, and looks quite interesting: a beef ragu, sweet & sour pork and something with hake.
However, we have a whole load of smoked salmon in the fridge, so tonight's supper will be pasta with smoked salmon, crème fraîche, lemon and spring onions, accompanied by wild salad*, followed by strawberries with more crème fraîche (more of S's interweb purchases).
* I'm not quite sure what it is - it's a bag of ready-to-go green things which look rather interesting, and should be nice with French dressing.
And in case anyone's too greedy - here's my very own word of the day (not necessarily SFW):
Piglet; I've got some hot-smoked salmon flakes in the fridge, sandwiches-for-the-putting-into. Will be yummy! The best smoked salmon I've had comes from North Uist (we buy some every year) and we had some wonderful smokies from the smokehouse in Eyemouth. There used to be a very good smokehouse in Orford, Suffolk but sadly it closed (the other smokehouse there is ultraposh, expensive and offers a more refined, less robust flavour).
Husband is the CTO of his own tech start up and working from home, as are his employees, and all day long I can hear his conference calls. He and my eldest are like peas in a pod (he’s studying electronic engineering with computer science at uni) and are now discussing game programming in the lounge.
I have worked from home for 12 years but I usually have a lovely quiet house to myself. I sometimes teach online in the evening though, but luckily my little study is upstairs and away from everyone else.
Predictive text tried very hard to make that "cantering prayer." >killingme<
That's the good news: the bad is that a combination of too much gardening and the change of weather is playing havoc with my knackered back - I think a massive drink is on the cards.
I'll get my rain coat.
Speaking of which: after the 27°C earlier in the week, some nice rain and lower temperatures here in Continental WesShire, too, which nicely lessens any pollen allergy anyone might have, cough cough, say no more, take the tablets, Tiger et cetera and all that. Pretty ideal temperature for my taste right now: 18ish°C day, 11ish°C at night; you can leave the windows open, it's neither too cold nor too hot, there's the occasional slight breeze, and you can walk around dressed quite summerishly, but aren't in copious sweatland.
Most pleasant.
The Hebridean Smokehouse perhance? It's wonderful. I love their hot smoked trout and it was my holiday treat when I was up there.
Mmmm, maybe I should get some posted out to me.....
Husband has cancelled the hotels of our dream holiday to Japan (was 1st July for 2 weeks) this morning. We’re waiting for the airlines to cancel our flights before pursuing refunds with them/travel agency.
Cardiology has just phoned to move the date of my 24 hour ECG so that I can have an echocardiogram the same morning. It’s going to be weird turning up there for an appointment as I regularly worked as an outpatient nurse there 15 years ago.
It’s morning coffee and Ship time, I really appreciate both! 🙂
You and I ought to get together, Wes - those sound like ideal conditions to me too!
I had a very nice amble down to the cashline machine this morning (it's my turn to pay for the groceries today) - it was 11° with a bit of a breeze, but very decent for ambling.
Supper will be one of the Hello Fresh things that arrived yesterday - probably the hake.
My ideal, too. Can't remember the last time we had a decent spell of weather like that. Every year now we seem to go from cold and wet to sweltering and parched with no temperate space in the middle!
The hake thing (with crushed tomatoes, garlic, chilli and tagliatelli) was OK, but no better than that; I'm not a great fish fan, and it didn't really do anything to turn me into one.
We're not at all sure Hello Fresh is for us: once you're past the introductory offer* it gets rather expensive, and tbh I can make just as nice food from what we buy in the supermarket. Also, as each recipe has all the ingredients measured out, it uses more packaging than if you're buying your own stuff.
Root to Market, on the other hand, is a delivery service we're quite taken with: the food seems to be very good quality, and it's nice to support a local business.
* S's son-in-law sent us an introduction to it which gave him a freebie.
I kept ours indoors. It hasn't rained.
On the plus side, no storms here, patches of blue sky and sunshine, followed by torrential rain, then sun again. At least I won't have to water my pots!
We had burgers (beef for the offspring, Jack Monroe's kidney bean and carrot for me), sort of oven chips and salad, followed by baked plums in the hope of making some disappointing yellow stickered plums interesting.
Very black thunderstorms here and a spectacular hail storm - the road and gardens were white. Today we have not managed 10 000 steps as we didn't fancy getting that wet.
And the other entertainment has been learning how to change tap washers only to find the washers are fine and not the reason for the leaking taps. Even after three applications of WD40 I still can't shift one tap valve to check.
Tinned fish is a thing of beauty, @Thomasina I'm partial to mackerel on toast.
I batch cook stuff for the freezer, though, several times a year, and am just trying to get up the enthusiasm for that in case I'm called back into work from 15th June. I ran down the contents of the chest freezer about a month ago and switched it off to clean it, and it's not been switched back on since. I've concluded it's more a case at the moment of getting the enthusiasm for shopping for the ingredients rather than the actual cooking.
I've just received another bunch of these slightly unconventional face maks I ordered from a small UK company. They are washable and from a cotton-polyester mix. I had ordered the UK, Scotland and Wales flag ones. We're not forced to wear any in this 'ere Continental WesShire, except in places like hairdressers and other close-contact professions, just 'advised' to, and this country being what it is, they are thus few and far between. (I always have some with me, just in case.) No new spike in infections yet in the past few weeks since the first tentative openings, so there's hoping...
A friend from Blighty thought it horrible to wear a Union Jack mask, which may be so if dwelling in said Union. Over here, I haven't seen any of these yet on anyone else, let alone the Scotland and Wales ones, so that may be enough to confuse (and amuse) the locals. These 'special designs' are as far as I am willing to go in terms of face-covering ridicule, if not using the surgical ones. (I was wondering at some point whether I should get a Halloween bloody surgeon outfit and wear it with a surgical mask, but decided against further upsetting local mankind, who have suffered enough, like we all have!
Interesting that you can order waterproof maps from that manufacturer, by the way. I might look into that!
Finally, decisions have been made that in certain educational institutions most classes are now not returning before the summer break, which begins in early July. This is really rather annoying as I very much enjoy the immediacy of contact of regular teaching. I feel the online stuff is really getting a bit samey! Luckily, for a couple of weeks now we've been back at other instutions of learning, which is a relief for everyone involved.
Ach well. Count your blessings, as many of you here say. Take it as it comes, eh, step by step...!
Wishing everyone a happy and blesséd Sunday, and <votives> for everyone in dire straits. (Since you're asking, I guess the band as well!)
I had/have only one book out, a cookbook. There is a waiting list of prospective borrowers, so I am making the most of my time with it to try out as many recipes as possible. All good so far!
Now regretting that I hadn't taken out my full loan allowance - but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I’ll get me coat…
I made myself a pretty shaped mask with a tiny floral pattern but need to make more, especially non-florals for the masculine household members.
I did go in a few times, but there always seemed to be crowds of little childer and their Mums, having Story Time or something, and it was almost impossible to get to some of the bookshelves.
(Actually, Story Time sounded really Fun, but I doubt if this Scruffy Aged Single Man would have been welcome...).
My sister's cookbook collection is currently in boxes in the dining room (the lockdown has meant that the kitchen revamp isn't quite finished, and there's no point in putting things back until it is). She's contemplating a fairly drastic cull, on the grounds that the interweb will tell her pretty much anything she cares to ask.
I did a fair declutterage of my cookbooks when I moved back to Scotland, but there are several I really wouldn't want to be without; even if the recipes are available online, I still quite like to actually read a few pages of a cookery book (preferably while eating a sandwich ...).
It's quite a nice day here; according to the Met Office, it's 15°, but it didn't feel quite that warm when I ambled. The birdie bistros have been replenished, and I'm contemplating which of the Hello Fresh recipes to do for supper - ragu with pasta or sweet and sour pork.
By good fortune, Delia herself was at a book-signing in Charing Cross Road at the time, so Mrs BF has (and may, for all I know, still have) an Autographed Copy!
Mind you, she (Mrs BF) may have sold it on eBay by now...