Rambling on...

Hiddenidenity

Have a lovely day US, then enjoy a good night's sleep in the new bed x

Stressed66

Hi Uncanny Scott, I just wanted to say I have twice been dumped in the brown sticky stuff by partners who swanned off leaving me with large mortgage and children to finance. I know how hard it is and also how easy it is to get into difficulties as there is no other way to put food on the table other than robbing one credit card to pay another. I am now okay and save each payday. I did end up homeless though but my sister took me in luckily. I didn't even feel like getting my life together for a while, like yourself. It is hard to feel self value when the person you loved wipes his feet on you and your love on the way out.
I just wanted to say that I coped by writing directly to each creditor and asking them to freeze interest payments which they did and that made the problem get smaller each month instead of bigger. I still buy from charity shops and donate regularly to Shelter and similar. This is something you can try as it not only clears the debts, but it rebuilds your self esteem in spades. Being in a bad situation, does not make you a bad person, far from it, it makes you stronger in the end as you have faced adversity, conquered it and survived.
I am so glad you have support and it is important to concentrate on the years to come and not ruminate on the 'missing years'. Hope you rebuild a good relationship with your children and you don't need to see them to communicate. I don't know how old they are but stamps don't cost much or paper and envelope. Good luck, look forward to hearing how things go.

UncannyScot

Evening folks

Finished the bed building YAY :j
Just gonna get a shower, sort dinner and catch the new episode of The Big Bang Theory.

Been a good day despite BeeTee OuttaReach playing silly beggars with our IT...
They're laying in new cabling so as to "improve our systems" :rotfl: and it has been one c**k up after another. They say it should all be completed by next week... aye, we'll see...

Anyway, off to get things done and fed n stuff. Back laters
Hope you all had a good one
:A

UncannyScot

Hmmm... why did I think the new episode of BBT was on tonight when it's on tomorrow?
Was that what they call, "having a senior moment"? :eek:

Well, I watched Marvel's Inhumans... hmmm might be alright... will keep with it for a while.

Not much to report MSE wise...
The brew is... erm... brewing. Will be adding the hops on Monday (30th) and then bottling off two days later. Calculated abv is approx. 6.3% atm... all going well it should be 6.5% or more after conditioning. Smells really good too
I am playing with label templates atm for my bottles and hope to have some nice designs done for them soon... will post up piccies if anyone is interested in seeing them...

Have added a generous splash of brandy to the fruit mix for the Christmas cakes... will keep topping up until end of November and then get ready to bake n decorate etc.
... yes, there will be pictures of the finished decorated cakes

Will be prepping the recipe for Grans' mincemeat for the mince pies at weekend... will be giving the finished mix a good generous helping of 15 year old malt (Glenfiddich, just like my Gran used...) and aye, I will have be having a wee dram in her memory too.

Right, I'm away to bed.
Sleep well folks
:A

UncannyScot

What a difficult day at work today...
Due to the "improvements" that are... erm... allegedly being made to our IT network and broadband, we had zero service.
No internal network and no internet... a day's work lost basically.
I managed to continue working as I had an up-to-date USB back-up of my current projects. However, I will still need to update the project files on the network and then catch up with the test / lab work once IT is back up and running.
IF the IT Network is still down tomorrow and over the weekend then our (ha-ha) service providers will be hit with a loss of business claim. Directors are... ahem... a bit upset, to say the least.
My boss warned me that if I say to him, that I did advise them against using that particular provider, one more time he will throw something at me... :rotfl:

Just goes to show how dependent business is on IT now and that despite having back-ups etc the effects of having no systems just seems to stop folks working...
One of our "senior" engineering techs (due to retire next year) was reminiscing about what it were like when he were a young tech and PC's were rare and expensive etc. There was a team of them and they all had to share one computer and had to book time on it and so on... of course none of the young uns believed a word of it

This evening I shall be catching the new BBT episode and trying to unwind from a hectic day.
Hope you good folks had a good one
:A

joeyjimbles

Very inspiring stuff - well done.

I was curious about where you have the idea on soaking the fruit for a month? Normally you don't need to do it for weeks - a few days will be great - as oversoaking can cause the fruit to ferment or to lose it's integrity so it goes too soft.
So maybe 5-10 days max and then you can bake the cakes, wrap them really well and 'feed' them with your chosen tipple every week by doing the stabby thing with a cocktail stick and pouring over a spoonful or so. Then you can do the almond paste about two days before you want to do the icing, ideally a couple of days before you want to give them to their lucky recipients.
But you may have a different recipe and as a baker I'm really curious to know what it is.

UncannyScot

Hi joeyjimbles fruit mix isn't exactly soaking in Brandy for the month, just a splash each week for about 3-4 weeks. The fruit mix just seems to absorb it and it really aids the rich flavour of the cake...
Once the cakes are baked they will sit for a couple of days and have a wee splash each day then left alone for a day prior to coating in apricot jam and putting on the marzipan... left for a day and then the icing and decorations go on
That's how my Gran did it...

Seasidegal58

UncannyScot wrote: »

What a difficult day at work today...
Due to the "improvements" that are... erm... allegedly being made to our IT network and broadband, we had zero service.
No internal network and no internet... a day's work lost basically.
I managed to continue working as I had an up-to-date USB back-up of my current projects. However, I will still need to update the project files on the network and then catch up with the test / lab work once IT is back up and running.
IF the IT Network is still down tomorrow and over the weekend then our (ha-ha) service providers will be hit with a loss of business claim. Directors are... ahem... a bit upset, to say the least.
My boss warned me that if I say to him, that I did advise them against using that particular provider, one more time he will throw something at me... :rotfl:

Just goes to show how dependent business is on IT now and that despite having back-ups etc the effects of having no systems just seems to stop folks working...
One of our "senior" engineering techs (due to retire next year) was reminiscing about what it were like when he were a young tech and PC's were rare and expensive etc. There was a team of them and they all had to share one computer and had to book time on it and so on... of course none of the young uns believed a word of it

This evening I shall be catching the new BBT episode and trying to unwind from a hectic day.
Hope you good folks had a good one
:A

I feel for you on the work front Uncanny. We had a systems “upgrade” at work a month ago and everything now seems to take twice as long to get anything done! :mad: I’m seriously thinking of tracking down an old Olivetti Golfball and bringing it into work! I wonder if your youngsters have ever heard of that?:rotfl:

I haven’t watched BBT but DD and OH think it’s hilarious.

Hiddenidenity

Hope you've had a good day US x

UncannyScot

Seasidegal58 wrote: »

I feel for you on the work front Uncanny. We had a systems “upgrade” at work a month ago and everything now seems to take twice as long to get anything done! :mad: I’m seriously thinking of tracking down an old Olivetti Golfball and bringing it into work! I wonder if your youngsters have ever heard of that?:rotfl:

I haven’t watched BBT but DD and OH think it’s hilarious.

Thanks Hidden despite continuation of work issues I have had a good day.
Hope you have had a good one too.
Remember, if you ever need an ear, I'm 'ere

Thanks Seasidegal58 I remember the Olivetti computers
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX81...
Then a 48k Speccy Plus...
Then a Commodore 64...
Then an Amiga 500...
Then an Amiga A1200+...

Amiga / Commodore went bust and support for the machines was reduced to just us nerds

I bought my first windows PC in '98. Then an XP System, then Windows 7 Pro, avoided the abomination that was Vista, ignored 8 and I may yet upgrade my home PC to 10 as my PC at work is running it and it seems to be alright, so far.
So, erm... Yeah... I'm a bit of a techy, nerdy, geek when it comes to computing...

Anyway... we had another day of no connectivity... apparently it's a server problem... nothing to do with the cabling at all... which is odd, as prior to the new cabling being installed we had no issues whatsoever...
Hmm... my money is on an installation engineer making an error within our servers set-up for networking and internet communications, possibly an error with our ISP address which has resulted in a denial of service.
I have advised that this possible scenario is checked and if correct rectified ASAP...

Monday morning is going to be... interesting

This weekend I am going to be busy, as I need to action a total blitzkrieg on the housework.

Hope everyone has had a good one today
:A