5 OS Pleasures in your Day Today part 2

DundeeDoll

ss we too have santander123. Very impressed by your list of sorting.
mhags wow 2 years on your rollercoaster. Thinking of you
dfv no pandas but...
1) very good lectures from philippa langley and prof caroline wilkinson re richard third
2) scrummy lunch followed by equally good talks by ddra member and winner of phd history prize, agm and dinner
3) back to dundee today on coach. Half of us went to discovery, half to verdant works then dca for very good lunch (you may detect a certain foody theme for dorothy dunnet readers association agm weekends...
4) walking home, spotted friend watching rugby in pub just as rain started. Called in for a pint, waited at bus stop and neighbour pulled up so free lift
5) letter from premium bonds. I have won £25. Feels like a real life monopoly - better not throw triple double!
Off tomorrow for internet-free hols early tomoz so see you next weekend x

VickyA_2

Good evening everyone :hello:

Tealady - sorry I really want afternoon tea again. There's a deal on Groupon for a local hotel's afternoon tea, but I'm just wondering who I could convince to take with me!
mhagster - glad your DH is a survivor. My mum had breast cancer 5 years ago and, as my brother says, she's "still annoying". :rotfl: That's our family's sense of humour, I'm afraid.

So, my pleasures for the day:

1) Made a batch of carrot & leek soup (Delia Smith's Frugal Food recipe) for lunch. Four more portions to put in the freezer. :j

2) Baked my cake for tomorrow's cake club. I've made a lemon, parsnip and hazelnut cake from the Clandestine Cake Club book.

3) HM chicken tikka masala for supper (BBC Good Food recipe). It was the last batch out of the freezer, but I picked up some yellow sticker chicken for a new batch.

4) Trip to Homebase to get some seeds for the garden. I'll be having another visit during the week to get some plants. They have some plants on a 5 for £10 deal. We just need a bit more colour in the garden.

5) Set up my Justgiving page for my 10k run. Now to try to encourage my friends to sponsor me... My teaching assistant has suggested that we use the class to bake treats and then sell them to the school! Slave labour, that's what we're like. :rotfl: I'm joking - and my class are really looking forward to helping me. They will get a treat for helping me!

Frith

Quick pleasures for today:


1) A lie in. :-)


2) Took the plants off the windowsills and put them in the greenhouse on the allotment (as the new cat was snapping them all off).


3) Went to the big shopping centre and got bigger son his shirt for the wedding. Went to the big branch of Monsoon to get my shoes (they had them in the little branch locally but I wanted to think about them) - and they didn't stock them! So a phone call to little branch in the morning.


4) Managed to tidy up in a feeble sort of way.


5) School friend came round and, after I had complained about the cat trashing the house and never sleeping, the cat lay on her lap and slept for hours!


6) Pie for tea with gammon and left overs from Friday's roast.


7) School friend brought crème eggs with her.

Kittikins

1. Mummykins was well enough to come out to lunch, she's 90% better I reckon


2. Lunch was scrumptious - a local restaurant that had gone a bit downhill, but has definitely scaled the peaks again. Wow! We will be going again! Just a few minutes away from our flat as well


3. We've found (hopefully) a coffee/dining table that could be great for the new place


4. We've all agreed that no matter when we buy the place, we're not moving in to our new home until the summer hols. My studies and DD's tranquillity are too important. Also - it's tiny, so will need a lot of creative storage-making, not least because DD and I have a tendency to hold on to "things" and so we need time to be ruthless and plan how to make it home


5. My parents have offered to swap my king-sized bed that is in pieces in the garage for the double bed that I currently sleep in. Their rooms are huge, mine to be less so, so this is ideal! Yay!


DD's got a play date and tennis planned for tomorrow, so I'm going to go to the library and start on this darned essay! Hoping I can make sense of my current woolly ideas, and find sufficient academic research to make me look intelligent

sparrer

1. last night's party had a beige buffet so gave my tum a rest today and had a couple of slices of toast at breakfast, and the same at dinner time. Pleasure is I feel better now.
2. other than the above the party was fun, drinks were cheap as it was a private club, and the music wasn't so loud that we couldn't have a conversation
3. Took a top back to m@t@lan, it was supposed to be a 12 but I struggled to get it on and had trouble taking it off again. Even the sales asst said it looked more like an 8/10. Got a refund, didn't buy anything else
4. Met with friends at lunchtime but just had a cuppa so a cheap 'lunch'. Did the week's shop which came to £15.57, just over budget but some things will last much longer than one week
5. Filled the car up, had a 6p/litre off voucher which saved me £2.88 and more than makes up for the grocery overspend.

Sweet dreams

VJsmum

It's time I caught up

Such a horrid day - but I am working from home, and I did shedloads at the weekend so as long as I do the urgent stuff, I am not going to break my neck today. One week till holiday :T

DD - Mr Hamper? Have I missed summat? have a nice holiday. I have a "thing" about Richard III - excited to see that The 'Batch is playing him soon
Kittikins - good luck with the flat - how exciting. Good news on the Uni Tutor.
Mhags - so sorry about the doggie My sister has a resident mouse that she is totally ok about - but the sight of a tiny spider at ours gave her the screaming abdabs!
PK - hope you are well on the mend by now.
Vicky - fantastic news on the Good to Outstanding teacher thing. Well deserved, I am sure. Be interested in your trip to Amsterdam as I have a day there at the end of the month. I am planning on the Rijksmuseum, but not sure what else.
McC - great bargaining on the mattress topper.
Ampersand - hope you are feeling better too.
CCP - the "poshness" of our soap depends on which hotel we've nicked it from :rotfl:I think you might have spoken too soon, re central heating - I am just thinking about putting mine on.
Tealady - night in the cells? have I missed summat else?
Frith - putting everyone to shame with your allotment. WEll done.
Sparrer - where do you find a strapping 18 year old gardner - could do with one of those myself! I'm not a fan of "beige" (though I call them Brown) buffets. Mine are always a large gammon joint, large turkey joint "something veggie" then a load of salads and fresh breads and cheeses. Identifiable and probably cheaper than "mums gone to Iceland"
BoP - 2 new toys? Go on - tell
Broomstick - glad you've found a lovely cottage to move to. Ooh and a woodburner - well jel
LFS - ooh, I could just eat a cheese scone. Regrettably I am on a fast day.
Skint - I hope this week is better for you
Supersaver - I think I understood all your figures - well done, anyway.
DforV - I keep saying that DS should do more cooking. Then there is never enough time. Though he did make Victoria sponge last week, and ate most of it. He made it on a fast day for me, first thing I had the following morning? You guess right:D

Mhagster - I will say "happy" anniversary. Because you are all there to celebrate being all there!


So pleasures for the last whenever

Got loads of work done on the train down to dads
The rail replacement bus was good for people watching, though rather tedious.
Meal out with friends at an Austrian restaurant. I had herrings followed by venison pie. twas lish.
Good dissertation sessions with students on Friday - hand in is this Friday and they should all be OK
Spent the day with OH yesterday getting rental house fully ready for market. Looks bliddy good if I say so myself.
Went to London with work on Thursday - had a moan and a laugh with colleagues. We went to the Crystal "Sustainable building" exhibition, which was OK but I'd rather have gone to CAT in Wales. I came home on the train so took the Emirates cable car to the O2 which was surprisingly good - fantastic views. I got home an hour before the coach had even got back to Birmingham so a good move.
A second wave of daffs seem to be in bloom
Had a bath yesterday and watched "Shetland" on ipad.

Hopefully going for lunch with friend today - have a good one everyone.

mhagster

Ooh it's all dark outside...who put the lights off? Beautiful sunrise at 6.30 am ...I woke up at silly o'clock as my body clock doesn't know the clocks went back !

I drove to work ...I know, on a Monday too! Schools are on holidays so driving home was a doddle.

Payday ( and that extra shift on Saturday was most welcome)

DD2 had physio appointment and another referal to podiatrist ( I'm thinking free cinema ticket again)

There's a moose loose about the hoose! Spotted in the office at the back door. Then when DS and I went in it was gone.....hmmmm!
Much whispering so DD1 doesn't know what's going on.

Beans on toast for tea.

Tonight the final episode of a whodunnit is on... Whilst I've enjoyed it it's maybe went on a couple of weeks too many!

Have a lovely Monday

ampersand

1. 'Mathieu Bastareaud who had one of those days when the ball stuck to his hands and defenders need not have bothered to have stuck out theirs in the hope of slowing him down.' and 'un RCT de gala !carte le Leinster (29-14) dans un Mayol en fusion' are most pleasing to see ce matin[grauniad and var-matin], in after-glow of &'s sterling performance in The Alma hier. Unexpected margin and not quite expected at half-time, despite Toulon's thunderous opening and a titanic match generally. No, & wasn't there, but & SO was. Saw several peeps I know on screen.

2. Call from NZ late hier soir was good. Rain chaos. Tsunami carry-over from Chilean earthquake had all the 'black bugs on boards out in the Bay', said Aunt. Little do they know & will commandeer a famberley telly 27/4 and 24/5.

3. Glad I've found Ronnie Blythe's 'Out of the Valley'[2000], a keeping/sharing thing to read and feels very right. With him in his landscapes, we also greet other writers and minds in a friendly, coming-home sort of way. I'm just going to keep pace with it through the year as RB writes it. At random[could be any bit read so far] -
'A week of looking upwards...Auden summed up the way we manage to get on with our lives in spite of what is occurring in the skies. When Icarus falls to his death it is not a disaster for the ploughman toiling below, only a splash and a forsaken cry. Suffering, says the poet, 'takes place/while someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along'. And it is true, it does. But then so does human happiness. The barn owl, the comet and the jackdaws share our universe, and this is a comfort and a pleasure. To see them we have to look up.'
And I must look up differently - mse savoury sth for 30+, Wed pm mtg.

4. Prayer from Vicar for x at a telling moment in [definite Princess]A's baptism hier was unexpected and perfect. Will be telling x later.

5. Back I'll have to go re: mob[no net, seems misaligned to new no, not old retained one] and notebook today. I believe gubbins are missing and want to be proved wrong. But new mob has just beeped 2 new msgs and battery strength seems good, not expiring in less than day as with unused pointless function over-stock motorola. &'s even coping with cross btwn touch and keypad w/o angst. Boding medium well.

Note the un-numbered not speaking of Light Blues' Boat Race from & perspective, but was already drawn to self twice-manifest in dark blue boat. What a name[future PM on the cards? certainly not out of his mind, I warrant] is Storm URU! -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/rowing/10748430/The-Boat-Race-2014-Oxford-University-claim-biggest-win-over-Cambridge-since-1973.html
and here:
http://m.tvnz.co.nz/sport/other_sports/5888008

In Honesty Compels mode, & must relate the cataclysmic groan and wail of 'LOST, THAT'S IT. WE'VE LOST IT!' at the dreadful clash and crab, hardly mattered which. Mass empty of Alma section to &'s right.

mhags - you have done so well, as a family, with your different life and challenges. All of you have had so many extra coping tests, in addition to that faced by OH. Bullying, Uni, working, separations, missed friends, pets, family. Long Reign the Saturday Scone reports:-)
kk and frith both - really liked your no.4.

Late 6. Better than 'Goody' - new, final Cazalets on now, with bliss voice that is Penelope Wilton narrating:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zxzlp
########
separate bop-script, or raffles:
So what were the pressies that we have to decide whether or not we can keep secret about?

CCP

Afternoon all.

No posts from me over the weekend, as I was away visiting my M&D for their wedding anniversary.

Some pleasures for the weekend:

1) My sister and her partner were bruised and shaken, but otherwise OK, after a car smunch. (Sadly the same can't be said for my sister's much-loved little car, which is irretrievably smunched and will be heading off to the big garage in the sky. )

2) My sister's Christmas present to me - a lovely amber-set bracelet which perfectly matched the earrings I was wearing.

3) Sitting in the pub, with my sister and her partner, chatting and watching the rain.

4) A very pleasant meal out on Saturday evening, and again on Sunday lunchtime before we got the ferry back to the mainland.

5) Home in time to watch the grand prix yesterday.

6) The ever-unpredictable Isis greeted me with purrs and an enthusiastic game with her ball, rather than with the furious sulk I was expecting.

7) Sort of a pleasure -

VJsmum wrote: »

CCP -....I think you might have spoken too soon, re central heating - I am just thinking about putting mine on.

Yep, me too! I loathe being cold, so turned it back on for a couple of hours in the evening.

Will be back later with today's pleasures.

Broomstick

Belated happy birthdays to those who have celebrated them in the last couple of weeks. I’ve, at last gone through 17? pages of pleasures and there’ve been so many things I wanted to mention. This list is not complete - I haven't left anyone out intentionally!!!

Lfs, mcculloch, your posts about the Pauper’s Cookbook reminded me that I’m still cooking an adapted version of Jocasta Innes’ stir fry (now a veggie version) 35+ years after getting the book which sadly seems to have disappeared. I ‘ve just searched for the potato, onion and bacon hotpot recipe which was another regular of mine and I think I’ll work on a veggie version of that too – would smoked paprika work, I wonder? But while I was searching, I came across her obituary from last year http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/24/jocasta-innes. Her finding of a soul mate and their living arrangements made me smile. &, she was another Spitalfields soul too.

And & (tautology!), I know it’s terribly late in response but I am so pleased about your hospital results. The butterfly rescue was lovely as well.

Frith, your allotment news is very inspirational. We seized up with our hoped-for one over Christmas but I have emailed the people in charge in our new village to see what their waiting list is like.

Kk, your tenacity at not running away and then locating the sort of support you deserve for teacher training is fantastic. I hope things continue to improve, and I’m so glad that the plans for the new flat are rushing ahead. It’s exciting.

Dfv – brownie belts! Thanks for sharing that one.

VJsmum, wow about your daughter getting offered E15 – I had a peek at the course summary and it looks really interesting.

Vicky A, woo hoo on the ‘Good to Outstanding’ – get the tshirt printed! And as for the blog… oh, I am so tempted to reinstate afternoon tea in our house.

And thanks for everyone who has posted positives about Santander 123 – I’ve been looking into opening one and this helps. And thanks to whoever it was (ages ago) who recommended the Kath Kelly £1 a day book - borrowed it from the library and read it in an evening during my absence!

…and more and more…

So here goes back into posting five pleasures again from me:

1. Went round to my parents for supper last night – very good fish pie – while watching the boat race live. We only ever see live telly at their place!

2. Discovered that DS2 had taken a load of pictures of the upstairs interior of the new house on his mobile. It was really helpful to have another look.

3. Am using the move as a reason to rethink and change utilities etc. So this weekend it’s been bye bye BT.

4. Lovely surprise to hear the start of the new Cazalets on R4 this morning.

5. Have just posted my first freegle offer and there were two replies within half an hour – I have a feeling I’ll be getting rid of a lot more stuff this way!

Have lovely afternoons
B x