5 OS pleasures in your day today - part 3

mhagster

Oh hello! 

Waves hello from business class lounge! I’m off to Australia! Not flying business class ( I wish!) but I’ve treated myself to lounge access as I have an overnight wait at Dubai so would much rather do it in comfort! I’d saved money from my wages every week to treat myself to something on the holiday and this is my treat to me! 

Will definitely be back to auld claes and purridge as we say in these parts when I get back but for a change it’s all about me for the next few weeks. I can’t wait to see my friends and hug my children and be in my happy place. 

It will be a very emotional trip for a whole host of reasons but it’s  been a long time coming! 

Catch up as and when I can 🇦🇺

LaineyT

Safe journey Mhags and enjoy the time with your loved ones.

DundeeDoll

Have a super time mhags. So many emotions! I too will need to go back to purridge when I get home as holidaying with my mum is never cheap. But we have had a lovely lovely time. She's here for another week whereas I'm off to Dordrecht tomorrow to see my eldest  
1) Up very early as we were meeting the others at the train station at 7:15 to get the train to Aquileia - we got there without incident and were met by our lovely guide who had been an au pair many moons ago in North London
2) wow. fabulous day. The ruins reminded me of school trips to Verulamium (now St Albans).
3) and the basilica is something else. So many amazing mosaics
4) and a glorious lunch - our guide ordered several local dishes for us to try 
5) and then home on a double-decker train - we sat upstairs of course. 

DigForVictory

Apologies - RL has been busy

ampersand - what stunning fabric! And a stash of stunning fabric - well you don't want to be bundled into a coffin in any old shroud do you? Argh post!

mhagster - conkers! And ulp, a King. Splashy time & cuttings - I love your visitors' priorities. "All the pomp and circumstance" or today's?! Can't really quibble, I think Anne's being completely superb. Happy birthday DD2's chap. Poor Haggis, trying to defend his people against strange trainer-carrying delivery folk. You have worked for buysiness class! Plus I back your auld claes & purridge to be well tailored & tasty. Have a wonderful time!

DundeeDoll - eavesdropping on organ practice in Venice, just cor. Pizza & salad yum! While vaporettos & Aperol are fun, the Armstong Mitchell crane would have me riveted... a double-decker train? Just Wow!

PaulieHerts - hugely impressed at so much swimming, but ulp car £

Frith - Bl**dy Men! (Our own Admiral excepted.) Hurrah travel videos! "probably in Andorra" -rapturous applause at parenting. reported as "small and mountainey"! Happy birthday to brother. Board games with asylum seekers - I suppose offering to play them at Colditz might not tbe the article? And Risk - eesh. 75 cows as you're tall - me not making 5'4" will just be quietly relieved dowries are no longer essential.

LaineyT - hoping bad night led to better one. Lovely to hear beautiful one has settled in so thoroughly she can find a mudbath. Slow cooker chicken tikka sounds wonderful! Ah. bacon butties and Ambridge...Small dog courteous but scanning for the fire exit?

weenancyinAmerica - hurrah Andorra & I love a stamp to pay off the national debt.

Purple kitten - miword what a day antibiotics, distemper jabs & I love the idea of a slow meander with a convalescent dog. Really hoping your GP is alert & prescribing & reassuring.

villagelife - very good to hear mum doing OK. You only get one. Oooh, tomatoes straight off the plant! Getting a jump on Christmas? Shrewd call! Cauliflower cheese is the business. Cheers parts other comfort food hasn't located.

Happycas - we were firmly instructed at work to be careful as the Queen's death could be triggering. I think that's a very fair description. Smitten that you do housework & shrug at gas prices rather than appear inhospitable.

mehefin - that's a fun prescription!

Admiral - issue kit Should work, private purchase is erratic. Glad your counsel is digging roads in time for Christmas too.

topsyturphy - hurrah DS2 cooking & in our house, cook is excused washing up as we don't have a machine. Fresh & free courgettes - glorious! Offspring & early starts - it's a slightly wry pleasure. 

Highdays - new shelves & batch cooking, very special pleasures! 

OS Pleasures recently

Middleson has set up House of the Dragon for me to watch. I gather it’ll be gory. The pleasure is his support of my interest. [Ye gods the hair! Both genders at well down to shoulder blade & then stunningly arrayed up.]

Started 'month in monochrome' photos. All about textures & capturing that in a photo, usually just using a phones. Fun! [OK it quickly grew into a collection of Himself’s things scattered caught in black & white, but the textures, the composition - I’ll look at them again next week & see if they stand as images in their own right.]

Just heard a setting of "the twa sisters" that’s new & the whole story is glorious. Says an elder sister, cheerfully (traditionally I drown a sib & am “betrayed” by an instrument made of sib’s body parts eg hair or bone ). OK, maybe you have to be a sibling & dark folk enthusiast to enjoy it.

Ordered mum an advent calendar: I checked with her - she’s looking forward to it. Sometimes the familiar helps with the gruesome First things. Now to nudge the lads along a similar path…

In the whacky comedy that is funeral planning, one sister got in a bus to find it was taking her Away from home & needs a train back into town. There will be tears, so right now I am enjoying the laughter.

I was pondering buying a bumbag so I can hear a fire alarm & shrug at work, (eyed Himself’s gear & thought “can’t!”) then found my old ResponsePak & it still fits around my waist. Huge pleasure that old friend reappears and has a positive future role. Also slightly bigger, so small first aid kit can go in…

Aw youngest has set up bookends to get full use of his wardrobe!

Handed over the last sharps bin! OK that’s a really odd pleasure but clearing things & hanging onto things - it’s all pretty weird.

My Opal plum tree will arrive on Friday! I have booked leave. To go south & see mum so who will be home to welcome my last anniversary present?! Ulp, but it’s all sortable. [Update, arrived! Excellent, I can have a son prepare its bed  so it can recover from travel shock & never be asked to move again. Or perhaps not quite yet.]

Have to say shopping with youngest is bizarrely restful. His sense of humour is blacker than mine & very comfortable.

Scouts! What do you want to do? “Pet a capybara!” (OK I now know where to find gregarious rodents for hire locally) - and dear gods 4 corner football is still wildly popular (there are still formidably noble toed young folk leaping & yelling gleefully). Huge credit to the young leader who moved the troop onto another game & who has just the right affectionate nastiness to require scouts to hurtle up & down in relays along the hall, through a hoop, with a beanbag on their heads… I am so glad to be back! 

Ah, the simple pleasure of cold pizza for breakfast. 

Hurrah! I’ve a little forest in a box! Or orchard is perhaps the better word. Son dryly amused that the guidance on opening the box was inside it… Just oops, I’ve a Mirabelle plum not the Morello cherry I ordered. (Now to see how quickly they can sort this out! Very - they’ve apologised, asked if I can deal with the extra plum & the cherry tree will be sent forthwith!)

Our Queen has died. As black ties become staple wardrobe apparel, I note Google has gone monochrome, which is admirably restrained & dignified like the lady it mourns. 

Beautiful Moon to grieve in the light of.

We were invited to a Premier Inn for breakfast (some relatives are gloriously unaware) & old habits die hard. Single portion “pots” of marmite, honey & Nutella (all for different chaps) “fell” into my pockets.

There are plaintive Mews & anxious cries “no! Mum! The cat is in the cat-basket!” - hearing aids are not always the answer but the cat will get his check-up Anyway. (If find yourself humming “hip hip hip hooray, the cat is in his basket”, I can only apologise!)

The cat behaved very well. It seems they like height, even in a cat basket. He will be rewarded with chicken. (Not too much, we want it curried!)

Mum’s TV is not working so her plans of sitting in a squishy chair watching TV are troubled. I looked at TVs in Which? & in Currys, & eventually sis & I realised we just do not understand what mum’s TV setup runs on & so have set up 3 icons on mum’s computer - BBC1, BBC2 & BBC news. With this, she will be able to watch the news & the state funeral & after that we will either have her TV setup fixed or something ticking along beside the squishy chair! [I switched the fritzed thing off, sis switched it back on again & lo, it works!]

Youngest lad is cooking like a trooper - the next 3 big meals are all thought through & the appropriate extras acquired. I am so proud of him! 

Had a blonde moment buying milk without a card - the shop assistant couldn’t have been nicer or (when I returned) more generous with the £2 coins!

Back home, trying to decipher an error icon on the washing machine! Wholly new to me.

Emotions are sloshing around & I’m putting reminders to take cuttings of rosemary into the diary so m’father is seen with the aromatic posy. Aunt planning something with Old Man’s Beard (& so I of course reminded her to check with him first…)

May the Scottish nation forgive me but the crown of Scotland, whilst ancient & honourable, looks like a child’s plaything. Then I look at the ‘children’ who have borne it and think it fearful.

Heard a strange intermittent rumbling - gent & I awaiting car MOTs peered & shrugged & after increasingly baffled & frustrated minutes (curiosity is an itch no antihistamine can cure), I looked Again & saw a secretary feed her shredder! Happy cries of delight - fiend itch resolved… poor woman bewildered & apologetic - tried to explain not any issue other than roaring curiosity! [Owch - much £]

Youngest lugging repotted lemon seedlings into sunshine. 

Funeral on Friday, so health strength love & courage to all as have need & please uphold me about half four when I will be trying to read John Donne & not loose my place, voice, or countenance utterly. Happy travels & may the weather cooperate with all your plans!

Frith

Pleasures for today (Tuesday)

1) Not a bad sleep.

2) Had waited about a fortnight for the local doctors to email the right paperwork for smaller son. (We haven't been through the door in over 3 years). Turns out they had decided not to email it but to hide it behind the desk and not tell anyone. Anyway, it has been done.

3) Off to the new jobcentre to try and complete a UC claim for smaller son. This took 3 ladies about 45 minutes. Turns out one of them is (probably) related to me! She also has a disabled child so understood the complete lack of ID that teenagers have and that I will need a home visit. 

4) Had a pot of tea in M and S afterwards.

5) Went to the tip for 4 bags of soil improver. Carried the first 2 bags to my car before the man had walked over to me. This spurred him on to carry 2 bags in one go (of course) - which he couldn't manage! 

6) Spent a while moving plants in the garden then throwing the new soil around. It makes everything look very compostey and weed free.

7) Went to watch the football with smaller son. A 0-0 draw but our least favourite team in opposition (very violent) and a truly appalling referee. 

The club did a draw for all season ticket holders (smaller son is one) where someone would win £1000. To everyone's delight, it went to a lady who is always there and who goes on the coach to every away match. And it is her 90th birthday in a few days! 

topsyturphy

Pleasures for today 

1. dog walk with the pupster, she had a paddle, she had fun - still not sure why I wanted a white puppy as she needed a bath on return home.

2. Bathroom clean due to no1

3 trying new recipes - chicken tray bake with chicken thighs - another 1 to add to the list - but will add chilli flakes next time

4. Getting a drs appointment due to sore ear, infection - pleasure being now got treatment to ease pain

5. Mini ice lolly from freezer.

villagelife

Hugs to DFV - you will be in my thoughts on Friday.

1. Messages with a friend before work.

2. Lovely words from a friend at work. They showed me that people do care and appreciate.

3. Took some cob nuts to the community fridge. It has started up again and will be once a fortnight. Managed to buy a bag of food for £5. All stuff that was needed and a couple of tins of soup which DH will eat.

4. Enjoying fairy cakes DH was given. Homemade by a patient of his. Always very good.

5. Watching bake off.

Happycas

Good morning.  Bright and sunny but with an autumnal tinge

PK - that doesn't sound good.  Please insist on seeing someone today.

Mhagster - have a wonderful time with your special people and poignant memories.

DfV - sending you hugs and strength for Friday.  The support from your sons is perfect - a mix of the practical and the humorous.  Just what's needed at such a time.

Lainey - so glad you and pony are happily ensconced in the new home.

The garden is benefitting from all the rain and looking beautifully lush and green.

We bought a new seedless grape vine.  We have two vines, bought as a present from DS, but they are wine varieties and are more pip than grape.  Hoping the new one is more easily edible.

Glad Only Connect and University Challenge are back.  I can only answer one of two questions each time but then am ridiculously pleased with myself when I do.

Happy 🌞 day everyone

LaineyT

My thoughts will be with you and your family on Friday DFV

For yesterday,

Deep clean of the bathrooms, only a pleasure when done!

A warm, sunny day so washing still being dried on the line.

Visit to elderly friend in the afternoon, she talked about her memories of the Queen as she was lucky enough to meet her twice in her professional life and even made a posy for her in HM’s racing colours.

Home and Capt S had cut the grass so that lovely smell as I walked through the garden gate.

Baked ravioli for tea, then the return of a tent based cooking show.

PaulieHerts

Have a great time in Australia MHags, you sprang that one on us!
Thoughts with DFV 😘
DD your Venice reports are making me want to back there, went for a few days over 10 years ago 😊
Frith, love your son’s videos, oh to be young again 😊
A swim yesterday morning which I enjoyed more than the walk in the country park afterwards, which I struggled with,  lunch at the pub after that was good though 😊
Have a good Wednesday everyone.