5 OS Pleasures in your Day Today part 2

ampersand

A post yesterday was here, but isn't now.
Have spent most of time since early rtn hrs yday on continuing putah fix, thanks to the tireless goodwill of other msers.
Today, all seems o.k. for which I am hugely grateful.

So, although I disembarked from Dunkerque a week ago, I've done another week of camping sauvage around Kent's coast and have loved that and my needy quinzaine en France both. Random plucks follow:

1. 1st vide-grenier at Bollezeele samedi matin produced a 1€ bnwt mattress, which exactly fits back half-width of &'s infernal combustion engine. It has been brilliant, comfortable, perfection, is still there:-), though & was in own bed last night.

2. Simple daily routine soon based around this way of living was ideal, pure joy, with simple produce shopping, eating, swimming, walking, discovering, hunting, gathering, binocular-ing[endless boats/ferries to manipulate/manoeuvre through docks, out to sea] reading and more of same, gradually loading car with more and more acquisitions. This became interesting logistically. esp. when bed called, as days passed. I've managed paintings, small furniture, fragile porcelain and glass, textiles, games, paper ephemera, jools, a heavy old mirror, books....
and always &, every night.

3. Bought and wore interesting French clothes at vide-greniers, after hand laundering. Easy when a 10L Volvic water[Auchan promo:3 for €5.85]with tap really heats up in a couple of hrs' sun. & had basin and lessive. Laissez tremper le tout - easy sloshing and rinçage, dry in 2hrs. All v. satisfying.

4. Melons, peaches, avocados, baguettes, croissants, butter from my friendly farm people, for whom I had a kiwi teatowel. They are such good, good people, this famille d'acceuil.

5. Bastille Day and night's fireworks, spectacular over one of the many Port basins.
Many 'friendships' of the night and the occasion. &'s viewing of Le Tour through Cambridge well-received.

6. Did no cooking of any kind while away. Didn't have camera. Blackberry wouldn't re-charge. Tomtom plus map was lovely and more than sufficient, in hand with current copies of Antiquit!s Brocantes and Aladin.

7. The steely-white quality of diamond bright sunlight, fierce and immediately different - dkw when only a little over 20 miles separates the countries at nearest point.

8. & is nut-brown, despite peeling, which & never does - stopped using backpack after this.

9. Followed up any little Military Cemetery signpost in middle of nowhere, wet or fine. Walked them all. Came upon several recent additions in the way of detail and photos left by a family who had only recently become aware of any connection with a grave. Very moving. & had tears, standing alone there, often. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has all my admiration for this work:
http://www.cwgc.org/
First memory stays. Low gate and walls, gently kept and planted, marked by several lines of poplar, soughing their own lament on a grey, post-damp morning.
There are German graves too. Harry Gilchrist:
Rank:Lance Serjeant
Service No:10813
Date of Death:06/05/1918
Age:23
Regiment/Service:New Zealand Cyclist Battalion[which astounded me, more to learn about]
Awards:M M
Grave Reference: II. E. 1.
Cemetery: ARNEKE BRITISH CEMETERY
Additional Information: Son of Fredrick and Clara Gilchrist, of Oxford, New Zealand.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/50146/GILCHRIST,%20HARRY

As a species, we do not change much, or enough.

9. The navette gratuit in and around Dunkerque/Malô-les-Bains. Night walks along vast sandy beach with treat ice-sream. Beurre-sal!'s a fave now.

10. Street music and art.

11. Learning sirens and signals and bridge up/downs over the days and nights. & loves ports. Drawing on dregs of earliest flag/shipping knowledge learnt from Poppa, early 50s.

12. Spectacular storms and lightnings, forked and sheet, purple, green, gold, simultaneously over 3 nights. Fantastic full sky theatre, viewed from 'own' encampment.

13. Glimpsing France on first morning de retour from St Margaret's-at-Cliffe, found by chance as nearest point and set-off for some Channel swims. A good lighthouse is undergoing restoration. Noting 2 Memorial benches, one for 'our beach boy'. More rambling, scrambling, then finding 2 plaques in a small scooped out overhang, remembering a lady, born 'only God knows when....' who was clearly a local character. Fresh sheet of A4 with biro notes, recently laid wild flowers. More to discover.

14. Really appreciating NZ Historic Places trust renewed Mem.shp which gives NT and EH entry...wow for this, all around Dover and beyond. Castle, walks, fortifications.

15. Whitstable Oyster Festival over the weekend.

This is becoming too long[plus ça change], so to
16. First cooking since 10 July hier soir. Vicarage eggs, ham, red peppers, shallot in an omelette, with half for today.

17. Back to norms and gratefully renewing Library books online[due yesterday]. Into town on bus pass shortly, also used around Canterbury.

Lovely days to you all. Catch-up read read[noun+pp - it does make sense:-)]and appreciated. sparrer- your splendid maman, thankyou for sharing her good life and infuriating moments with us. In you we see her good qualities differently, turning your own life about to the fine head of family and lady of will and purpose you are now. ccp - my admiration for anyone who goes the OU way to a Degree is high - and one of those saved w8r0s yellow lilies has come out to celebrate, I saw last night:-)
Wonderful relief and news on home and work and brave dd fronts, mhags, or MgrMhags as we must now say.
All good wishes for b4 the panel talk time, bop. You have unfair advantage from the off, I'd say, with Raffles as rôle model, in-house Life Coach.
pk-was v. near you at times.
#
Just googled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Margaret's_at_Cliffe. Goodness me.

Everywhere and everyone can be interesting.......

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Come on, put your hands together. Have a clap.

Oh no, I forgets to writ me ditty
You galls, were probly sitting pretty
No probs, I gets on with me day
Be back later, with loads to say
Except, not you lot, I not having a sh…

Have a good time!

Skint_yet_Again

sneaking in for a cheeky 5 before I go away in the morning:

1. last day at work over for 2 weeks

2. sun is still shining - hope the weather stays dry next week

3. went to Har vest er last night with DS for meal together before I go away and we both ordered steaks which turned out to be fatty and gristley (sp?) After commenting how bad they were the bill was reduced to £4.85 (drinks). The half we ate and the salad were nice

4. almost packed

5. naughty K FC & ice cream sundae for lunch. Saves cooking (and washing up) later

house_elf

Hi OS Pleasure Peeps,

Haven't posted on here for ages since getting new job. Be careful what you wish for. I have decided I need to get back to appreciating life again. My boss advise writing down 3 things that went well at the end of every day. I thought, I know a good place to do that. So, I will try........

1. Made Martha Stewarts fried chicken last night. A bit of a palava, but yummy. So much cheaper than KFC.

2. Ex battery hens settling in. So nice to listen to hens singing in the garden again.

3. Having a break from cutting down a very vigorous Bay tree. Drinking tea in the sunshine and talking to you.

4. Meeting a work colleague in the supermarket. Glad he looks well despite being off work for 18 months.

5. Doggie at my feet.

Happy Wednesday love HE :A

Caterina

Good evening all,

Here are mine today:

1. Good workout at bootcamp and it was not too hot so I managed to put a bit more effort.

2. Visited a neighbour who has not been well, discovered she has a large fig tree in the garden and commented about missing fresh figs. She gave me 3 ripe ones! I did not even know that figs can ripen in the UK. Lovely treat, already had one in my yogurt.

3. Reduced my cash health cover considerably and will save over £50 per month this way.

4. Heard from DD and DS still on their European journey, they are well and having fun.

5. Yummy stir fry using up sad veg in the fridge. The result was not sad at all!

Good night.

CCP

1) Bread pudding for breakfast again.

2) Spent some time earning my keep on the comps board helping to clear away closed competitions.

3) Got home to find that a fox had been using my patio as a litter tray and it STANK! After some thought I decided to try putting some biological washing powder on the area, leaving it for a bit and then washing it away with warm water, and it worked a treat - no more stink! :cool:

4) Cooked a sausage and onion plait for dinner, and made a nice big one so there's LOs for lunch for the rest of the week.

5) A new Simon's Cat cartoon.

Kittikins

1. Got back tonight from a good course for new teachers, courtesy of my union


2. Had a lovely looooooooooong sleep when I was feeling ill yesterday and missed the least useful seminars, apparently. Felt much better this morning


3. Missing DD like mad but glad she's having a lovely holiday with my parents.


4. Came home via Ikkea and Co$tco - and was reasonably sensible in both places


5. Bought a solar lamp at the first shop, have been hankering for one for a while.


6. Going to meet my co-teacher at school tomorrow morning to talk planning and look at my classroom


7. Watching a fascinating programme about China.


8. Yummy food whilst away, back to the no carbing tomorrow!


9. Reading all your pleasures

Frith

Busy day here!


1) Went into Worcester to meet my school friend and her 3 children.


2) Found another nice t shirt in the charity shops for bigger son.


3) Popped to see the school friend who visits on Sundays!


4) Off to the middle of the Black Country after that for lunch with another friend I hadn't seen for ages - not this year, certainly.


5) Went to Ikea on the way home.


6) Watered the allotment and brought back: peas, runner beans, courgettes, tomatoes, 2 misshapen beetroots, dahlias, sweet peas and gladioli!

mhagster

Good morning from a very wild and windy Melbourne. It's a bit crazy out there this morning weather wise!

My Wednesday pleasures ( as I fell asleep on sofa , along side OH ....woke up at what I thought must have been early hours of morning to discover it was 9.30pm....we live the rock and roll life out here!)

Another excellent day at work! Busy, busy but in a good way.

Receiving lots of lovely feedback ( including from you guys) about our visa. This will make such a difference to us , mostly financially.

We will be entitled to receive child benefit, not have to pay those damned international fees ( even though we were living here, working here, paying taxes here) , son will be able to get a concession travel card and save 50% on his train fares.
Victoria is the only Australian state that does not offer international students a reduction in fares.A lot of international students will come from overseas and be funded by their governments or on a reciprocal exchange with an Australian student.....we had to pay hard earned and struggled for cash each time. We are hoping for some refunded money for this semester as his visa status has changed. He is at uni today so will find out.

We do not have the right to vote. We have to become Australian citizens to be able to vote. To do that we need to have had 2 years as permanent residents.....not sure that's what I would do.ask me in 2 years time! However , I will encourage my children to , as it gives them more rights , if they decide to stay here long term.

We might not be here forever but are here meantime and the visa gives us a sense of permanence rather than being temporary, which is what our previous visa was. It was due to expire in a months time and we had big decisions to make if we did not receive permanent residency visa.
Our jobs are here ( we are all lucky to be working at the moment) and kids are in a very different education system from back home. Which would have been a challenge , especially for DD2 , if we had to return to UK. DD1 finishes school in a Couple of months but DD1 would be returning to a year level halfway through a GSCE course.

We lose the perk of travelling home for free but this does free us up to take our holidays when and where we want! We were grateful for our free trip home but it tied us down to just going home ( hope that makes sense!) there is so much still to discover and visit in this neck of the woods and we were traipsing back home . ( don't get me wrong as I have loved every minute spent with friends and family) they are all more than welcome to pop out here for a visit! Would even bake them a cake

We all went out to our local Thai restaurant for dinner.....I pushed the boat out and ordered starters! I think we were all starving as every single plate was clean!

Home....I was watching the games but obviously dozed off!

ampersand I had seen your original post and then wondered where it had disappeared to? Then I wondered if I had dreamt it!

Right I'd better go and wrap up warmly but put my sunglasses on as the sky is blue and sun is shinning ( at the moment, heavy rain for later) but the wind is very string and very cold. And head out for day 4/5 at work.

Sleep well

villagelife

1. Beautiful walk in the morning wth my dog.

2. Spent time in the garden when I came home from work.

3. Managed to get expense claim in before time.

4. DS1 and DS2 being talkative and no arguing.

5. Washing dried on the line.