5 OS pleasures in your day today - part 3

balabooberlies

Last year I named a wee fox Nero.  All legs pure black.  He came to visit just now and sat at the bottom of the garden waiting for me.

As I was removing the last of the roast chicken from the carcass (making a stock)  I slowly put out some chicken bones.  My, he has grown and he is definitely a 'he'.  Can tell from his size.  Pure joy knowing he is not unduly afraid of me.

have a lovely day

bala

x

DigForVictory

Yipes, left it a while again. Feel I'm on the pointy end of someone's vicarious self improvement plan, but it's the weekend. And the Rudolph Run is done so that's one less pile of thing to fuss about.

bala - good to see you & with a money plant as well as the adored Tiggy! It's not easy, so one day at a time. If you've not read the "ball in the box" analogy, you may find it makes sense. OH taking up unwise ways. If he wants a pet, get him a gerbil (other small furry animals are available)  in a proper cage. Nero came a-visiting & got fresh chicken bones? Wonderful!

Ampersand - that marmalade looks wonderful

DundeeDoll - new laptop-grin! Owch, & cosset yourself a bit. Permission granted on engraved card like an invitation. Clutch, chew, shred as needed. Hoods are fun & anyone who routinely always gets it right spends too long with a mirror & not a book... (Well, so the Merton SCR quip goes.) Imagines 13 pairs on the line & thinks nearly qualify as Christmas decorations. Yeay, red squirrel! Muscular Christianity needed to illuminate Christmas tree? Brilliant!

LaineyT - isn't it great listing on eBay & getting immediate bids?! Sniping takes so much fun away... Lots of little yellow flags - excellent! A bumble on honeysuckle - both despite calendar - awed! Oven gave up ghost? Nicely in time for Black Friday or repairable? (Did last Christmas with range cooker without working cookers and only 2 working gas rings, this year will be So Much Better!) Once you start noticing archaeologists, you can't help but keep on seeing them. 

Happycas - the gran who accepts McDs have a role in the care & feeding of the young male is cherished! Most of our hospital trips end up via food. (It's not by accident the new car has developed its own cruet...!)

VJsmum - This Is Us reviews brilliantly. When you greet a chap with soup & freshly homemade cake, I'd hope to hear glad to be home! I covet a child there to drive you home even more than a nice walk & a pub lunch!

accidentalglixch - all the very best with your new home!

Frith - petrol is an odd pleasure, but a very real one. Zoom interview with bonus background & Congratulations! Invigilating is tough. All this "paid to read" is utter nonsense & a Uni mate was trained in how to remove candidates collapsing during Ramadan with minimum disturbance...  Another birthday for dad - well done.

Admiral - an example of how to live comfortably within the means - enjoy Not spending money! Albatross & land speed record - she'll read this & you'll be wearing the skillet for a bowler hat. Local emporium in reduced circumstances, oh dear. (Still miss ours & have to drive 30 miles to alternative. Each way!) A proper breakfast is a wonderful thing.

Purple kitten - oww, but as Good Deaths go, that has to be one of the best. Didn't realise beanbags had an inner - past explosive messes explained.... Ah yes coconut oil for the hair. Effective!

mhagster - forward planning! Car, & son's "pick a hamper"! Blasted escaping posts & belated happy birthday DD1!

[Deleted User] - a carpet of leaves is to be shuffled through!

PaulieHerts - you do capture the atmosphere of a place with your photos. Chesterfield rewarding? (I recall the market 30 years ago, blimey! I'm told its shrunk since.)
SuffolkSue, Broomstick, M&M90, villagelife, Cranky, House Elf, hoping you are all well, if not posting.

OS Pleasures recently

Re-reading the Toll Gate (Heyer) & enjoying the alternative universe.

Met my first photo of a family Bible page & am thanking the saints I work in electrons as my handwriting is usually even harder to read than that written in 1748. I feel for whomever added the death annotations a few decades later, & call blessings on whomever set out husband wife & 4 children & all their marriages!

Saw a lady in the supermarket queue equipped for the weekend with two bunches of roses & a bag of lemons. For her aunt, which I think should become A Thing - on visiting aunts take roses & lemons. 

In the rain I consulted with youngest on any food essentials: chicken & frozen fish he opined “& mars bars!” yelled husband. Most food groups covered….

That which hath been lost has been found again! My car keys, shoved somewhere safe, delaying my “back at work in the office” experience sufficiently to remind me why I hate that commute, have been found by the jangling of my waterproof coat pocket! Just phew! Now I can stop pretending to try to tidy my office at home.

Enjoying watching the racing, seeing the dark bays & the dappled greys up alongside the chestnuts. I enjoy the parade ring as much as the racing - I was learning on a rail at Huntingdon when Desert Orchid made a guest appearance - that horse knows & loves his crowd! 

Family tree climbing & I have met a Hercules Walter! He’s a delight - noone else has that plus his surname in the surrounding 200 years so pretty much any reference to him is to him, unlike all the Jameses & Charleses….

Argh! I have cleared the bed in the office so Middleson has a bed not a camping mat in the floor (this so his father can watch tv late) & now both blokes are smirking they’ll do as they please & my desk has stuff piled over under & around. [This morning, long shape bundled on the bed. So much for “it’s draughty!”…]

Observed breakfast for guest being prepared - red & white check tablecloth engulfing the folding exam table on which this to be served & me womanfully trying not to chuckle.

Aww the Welsh weatherman managed 24 hours drumming for pudsey & is at £1.6 million so far! [Last I looked] Not looking quite such a boy forever this morning but near-tears pleased at the generosity shown.

Wartime Farm - and we leap on it with glee, loving the team & the history. They look so young, relatively.

Ye gods, HM not at Cenotaph? She must be in pain & fury, poor woman. Duty is a tough call. [Yes I am That Late]

Piling Lego onto eBay - thin satisfaction it’s going & in time for Christmas. Sons pleased as it’ll all return to them in other forms! 

Husband deeply not keen on Christmas & New Year for obvious reasons, but I’m enjoying thinking about things I enjoy & planning them. [Acquiring in consequence of planning!]

Lemon seedlings in pot of Earth not ziplock bag on kitchen towel. Hope they survive, but in office so easy oversight (but also easy to overlook) Sis says “very auspicious” so waiting for boot to drop.

Intriguing survey in second hand things - I’m absolutely fine with a second hand Mah Jongg set (if it’s complete), as they’re usually more beautiful than the new ones. I’d be very dubious about second hand footwear after decades of being told not to, to grow healthy feet! (Although expensive boots used for one expedition & never again are somehow fair game.)

Told was chairing a team meeting & so sorted an agenda & primed a couple of folk on points, then it ran fairly smoothly. Phew!

Chatted with a colleague who has developed epilepsy & whose father died a month ago, we nattered rather than worked but it seemed to be what he wanted. 

Teased in the meeting for my Mah Jongg sets - it’s ridiculous that an Englishwoman buys then for their gardens!

My 30 year service letter came through - the version I wrote for myself was more specific & funnier, but my manager stashed a copy to make the “you survived” letter (in another decade) more entertaining.

Still giggling at the “impoverished fishing village in Derbyshire”….

Husband is planning to make quince jelly this weekend! I miss the womenfolk of my family when jam making, plural generations working, chatting, storytelling & creating together but he’s surprisingly good company.

Catching bits of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - I’ve forgotten a lot so it’s great fun! Dated a bit, seemingly, but I don’t compare, I just enjoy.

Himself’s preparing stuff to list on eBay. He does the photos & words, I do the grunt computer stuff. It’ll completely outpsych my Lego but I doubt the buyers will overlap much.

Gorgeous full moon as I drive to the office. If you must be up at 6am, the upside was the clear skies & the constellations…

There is an old cartoon showing a bloke, slumped at the controls of a speedboat, parked on a river, hedged in with densely growing exotic undergrowth. It’s captioned “how he hated Saturday morning shopping.” Well, having got most of the default list amidst a frenzy of better-in-case Christmas shoppers utterly devoid of seasonal goodwill & instead wracked with anxiety, I’m going back to dawn raids on Thursday mornings. It’s inconvenient for work, but it’s got to be better than Saturdays. Pleasure is stopping!

Spotted the plain well-wrapped flapjack Himself is partial to & acquized half the box. Some stashed in car to protect from ravening sons.

Right, health strength love & courage to all as have need & abundant layers as the mercury is dropping...

balabooberlies

Dig !

I moved the box last night and the ball kept hitting the button.  Today I will avoid moving the box by keeping myself busy.

As to the mouse, no sign of it, not even droppings.  Feels like a fairy tale.  Will spring into action when I find evidence.

OH doesn't know yet but I have a feeling that we may end up with 2 budgies.  My sister bought them for my Dad as he has always loved birds and being bed-bound she wanted to bring some to him.  Her daughter 14, but with the innocence of an 8 year old, has approved the lightly discussed idea of me having them.  She also told me that if everyone died she would want me to have her cats even though I am not a cat lover.  I am a cat lover, she has just never seen me in action with them.

So yes,

There should be an 'Aunty's Day' !

 

bala

x 

Suffolksue

There most certainly should be an ‘Aunty Bala Baloo ‘day Bala !
DFV thank you for nudging me ,been struggling a bit ,need to ‘Get a grip Mother ! ‘

Very nice lady at the hospice is helping 
was away in Oxford with U3A last week ,we went to Bletchley on the way which was fascinating,I broke my rule and bought a guide to give to DS as his boys would love it ,my ticket is valid for a year so hopefully I could go too 
Oxford was interesting,many places seen 
toBlenheim on the way home .First day of opening with the Christmas tat ( I mean festive decorations) up ,would have been nice to see the house unadorned ,but the grounds were lovely .
pleasure ( I think) today has been driving 30 miles to see 12 yrold DGS playing hockey .
goodness it was bitterly cold ,he is now at least 6 inches taller than me and seems to have entered the monosyllabic,grunting years before his 13 th birthday !

willtry and do better next week 

balabooberlies

Oooooh Sue, 'thanks' she says blushing.......

I went to Blenheim many years ago and I distinctly remember wanting to stroke a baby's bottom.  It was a beautiful bronze.  Sigh.....

bala

x

mhagster

Happy birthday to PK  Hope you’ve had a nice day! DD1 sent me a photo of the chair I’d bought her…I’d sent her money  

A twelve hours exactly day at work. Pfft! 

Out with doggy before the birds were even awake and I saw a fox just cross the road in front of me. 

Had to de-ice car . What a faff and at the opposite end of the day was just as bad! I’ll walk tomorrow as it’s to be icy again. I can be almost there on foot in the time it takes to defrost and drive. 

Work was mainly fine. Just checked my emails and have had a lovely response from a customer who I catered for this morning…almost makes it worthwhile going in at silly o’clock! 

Tips! 

And home to my dinner cooked! DD2 new chap (who’s very nice) had made pasta. And we had ‘too good to go’garlic bread with it. Sat and chattered. 

PaulieHerts

DFV Chesterfield market wasn’t up to much but the crooked spire and Christmas 🎄 tree festival were lovely.
OH was very disappointed in his team’s performance at Mansfield ☹️Beautiful morning here today. Stunning walk at Carsington Water.
Roast lunch in country pub.
Beautiful sunset view from our cottage.
Night all 💤

Purple_kitten

Aw thanks mhags, hope your DD had a wonderful one also :-)

A lovely birthday “weekend” I say weekend as I got presented with a whole box full of roses from DH. When he came back from tackling Mr T, and sorted us with reductions for Saturdays grub.

1 Watched Mary Poppins and watched Mary and the Witches Flower, love some of the Ghibli films.

2 There have been flowers and chocolate, and the most amazing Wind in the Willows ornament, that opens to reveal a hidden weasel necklace, its amazing,  I adore the wind in the willows its always carried forward with me from childhood.

3 We always used to go out and do something special, but it was nice to be in the warm, the trains are replaced by buses into London, and we didn’t fancy it so saving it until it’s a bit warmer.

4 Read some more Nigel Slater.

5 There’s been tea and cake, fluffy socks and candles a very hygge birthday, and we are about to order in from who ever is open this Sunday night.

Frith

Happy birthday, PK.

Pleasures for today (Sunday)

1) A lie in.

2) Hens OK.

3) A big roast dinner with enough vegetables spare that they will do for tea tomorrow.

4) Made Belgian buns.

5) Enjoyed the start of the new I'm a Celebrity. 

DundeeDoll

Happy birthday pk
my sister lives in chesterfield ph I know it well
1) made brown bread and butternut squash soup
2) coffee with mum and a catch up after church
3) glorious pink sky this evening while I was walking the boys
4) went to Verdi requiem - fabulous
5) gbf gave me and mum a lift, dropped mum off then he came back to mine to watch dr who on catch up - jeez my eye are so sore from not blinking!