5 OS pleasures in your day today - part 3

DundeeDoll

many thanks re. doggy update laineyt
1) glasgow for the day - beautiful train journey and we managed to get a table for 4
2) fab day listening ot 7 phd female students giving talks - bit of a busman's holiday but excellent to be able to support and give feedback
3) home for left overs from yesterday - i toasted the one remaining sandwich - love left overs!
4) football - very full pub, great game, was ambivalent to result
5) walked back with DrM and the sky is beautiful - love being in Scotland in the summer - north never gets dark in June

LaineyT

For yesterday,

Small dog continues to improve, she is on a diet of chicken and rice as the antibiotics can cause an upset tum so that’s a big tick in her box!

We decided to risk going out for breakfast but when we got to the farm shop the cafe wasn’t open yet due to problem with water supply so we picked up some snorkers at the butchers counter along with some other bits and come home to cook them. Small dog delighted as that meant she had a taste of snorker too.

DSIL and lovely gf arrived as Capt S was taking them to the airport, good catch up and I did them a charcuterie & cheese platter for lunch. They kindly bought me some flowers so now have three vases full around the house.

Off the travellers went so small dog and I had a walk around the field, surprising a deer as we went. I definitely needed a coat as the wind was coming from the north but good to be out.

I am a big Tom Hanks fan so watched Angels & Demons, my beloved was home around 8 so not too late, opened a bottle of wine and had some cheese too.

DigForVictory

mhagster - desk only clear for a moment Figures! Yikes & I thought Scotland was Civilised for house sales. Great Big Hugs! Just So much love & courage & best wishes. Somewhere karma is choosing an Anvil. Meanwhile you have a pressure washer, and an RTC tea,

DundeeDoll - fellow alto, share your pain. And love of left overs!

Happycas - I could go for wafting with a sunhat & drugs. The repeat prescriptions ones are functional rather than fun, but a trug has both capabilities. Mouse in a house in a wind - awed and intrigued....

LaineyT - its lovely who you meet, stocking up on a good wine offer! "no cricket to watch so caught up on HIGNFY" - wholly reasonable, chicken & rice is good healing food, with snorkers for carers!

Purple kitten - to see an owl swoop & land on a fence post. Beautiful. "marmite and cheese sausages"? I think BoP may damage the new tech - is this Proper Food?

Highdays - blimey the perils of bitey things! And well done managing to relinquish control to heal.

OS pleasures recently

Community cardio! Trying to get a car bump started in the supermarket car park - me gasping thinking a tannoy asking 'has anyone got jump leads' would do the job better, but it’s communal, four strangers shoving a fifth with a toddler cheering in the back.

I was almost amused for the Frenchman blueing money in his mistress til it turned out she may not be his mistress & Marine le  Pen is only appalled if it’s taxpayers money - “He can be generous, in love with lots of different women, that’s his personal life. But using taxpayers’ money, that is a different story” That’s both wonderfully French but also bizarrely “duck house” English… (The mistress? is in solitary, regardless of her wiles, as the other women prisoners accused her of witchcraft!)

Meanwhile on Coopers Hill, cheese-rolling is back, & the opportunity to damage yourself thoroughly has international fascination and participation. What I love is that it’s rugby players at the bottom catching utterly out of control folk “ The organising committee has a medical tent, and a line of rugby players catch the rollers at the foot of the hill; no very serious injuries were reported.”

There’s a possible temporary promotion going, so I’m scripting my application & thinking that frankly it’s a lot easier telling bedtime stories to sons. Set piece combat, hurtling pursuits & the occasional dragon are fine. Demonstrating awareness of the bigger picture is trickier! [I had a rush of trainees & modesty & missed the deadline but then heard it had been mis-advertised so will be back round again.]

Utterly smitten with how one colleague handles finicky eating colleague when both away for work. “I have whatever he’s having, then slope off for a McD if I need to later.” Awed at the calm support & pragmatism!

This was up in the family kitchen through my childhood & this I still hold onto “With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.” I do not regard reliable knees as things of youth to gracefully surrender, however.

Wondered if you could get more than 4 faults making a havers of the puissance wall & reckoned if the rider came thoroughly unstuck too, yes possibly 4 plus 8 but seems improbable at Olympic level where this point regime applies.

My TV is emotion sensitive - repair shop galloper model working & the screen breaks up. So me to iplayer to boggle & croon!

There are times when the domestic chat is a bit odd. “I want a photo of the worms in your shower!” - I thought he’d been out in the inflatable kayak that has inflatable buoyancy “worms” (15’ long about 1’ diameter, looked dashed surprising emerging from my bathtub) and I thought these would be adding a distinctly Lovecraftian touch to his shower décor. Turns out he’s been out in the one man kayak which doesn’t unpack its tanks to dry. <pouting slightly - try to take a supportive maternal interest & no…>

In class delivering training on Monday & at least one is a gamer for fun so the eyeball breaks will be hybridised with a Scavenger Hunt to get them out of their offices/ work nests/ chairs. Bar of soap, wooden spoon, potted plant or similar, toothbrush, latest paper through door (will waive political impartiality rules, any flyer will do be it ”vote for Sid” or “buy Wilf’s pizza”), painkillers, cleaning chemistry, tea towel (bonus points if amusing, clean sock - suggestions welcome! Also what might trainees find easily in the office that they have to get up from the desk for?

Family tree climbing, I got Tuttles! (Along with a lot of early Latter Day Saints). Via the lass divorcing my cousin, oh the irony. Still my little cousins have family Everywhere.

I need to go to bed (more teaching tomorrow) but ooh what have the jurors made of Trump? Pleasure in speculating… and wow, yes! Thing is he can nominally be President from a cell. Ok the foreign visits are off but ye gods…. I wonder if Melania has a get out of jail-visiting clause on her pre-nup? Foreign dignitaries come to meet the First Convict - and how do you run an intelligence service into a jail cell (ask a mobster?!) Fewer places to leave papers though.

There’s a date for grief café “loss of a sibling”  looking for a speaker & as one of my sisters is being difficult, I wondered about offering to speak, from the experience of the little sibling that pushed… I couldn’t. Not without a Really Good alibi.

There may be “health­ier and more sus­tain­able chocol­ate” in our future. I’m fine with that, Just Don’t Tell Me. What’s the point of an illicit treat if it’s good for you?!

I do love the Derby. Even if I prefer the parade ring to the winners enclosure, it’s all full of kinetic potential.

Potatoes “versatile & flavoursome” - er, there are days the advertising language leaves me a little anxious. As versatile can mean quite a lot. 

Health Strength Love & Courage to all as have need, & may Karma land as hoped for. Along with sunshine, parasols & managing to avoid the political raffle if wished.

Frith

Pleasures, in vaguely chronological order, from Thursday 23rd onwards:

1) Took smaller son to have his ears suctioned. This would turn out to be the first of three visits. Of course he had the worst wax known to humankind. The maximum male adult ear canal is 30mm. His are 40mm. None of the equipment can reach the "far end". The poor man at Specsavers had sweat dripping off him after 50 minutes! One more appointment still to go. 

2) I went with my brother as he was working in Goodrich (Herefordshire). He gave me some courgette plants that are doing well and will need planting out soon.

3) Played chess. My opponent gave me a chess book.

4) Went round the charity shops (floody town and canal town) and bought some Woods Ware ready for my sister's birthday plus a top for me.

5) Played badminton in the leisure centre. 

6) Smaller son went to New Road to watch the cricket with my brother. I sat in Waitrose and did the crossword in their free magazine and had a pot of tea. Went round the charity shops and bought another top!

7) My brother came here for the Manchester City v Manchester United game.

8) Lots of garden tidying and weeding. Have seen the fox a few times. 

9) Starting doing the gloss. Have done the door frames downstairs and 90% of the skirting. Nothing upstairs yet. 

10) Went through all my direct debits and found the account numbers etc so am more organised with that. 

11) Finally managed to sort out British Gas who seemed to have no record of me and had lost the one payment I had managed to make. 

12) Enjoyed the Great British Sewing Bee and the Race Across the World finale. 

13) I pulled the living room carpet up and took it to the skip (and the completely decomposed underlay). The 1960s plastic tiles are OK underneath so it can stay like this for as long as necessary. The smell has gone (!) and you don't have to jump over the bald patches or the ripples in the old carpet anymore. 

14) Met my sister and my niece. She had learned to ride a bike and to swim over the previous fortnight. 

15) Had a blood test and blood pressure check. Found the results on the NHS app today and all fine. Awaiting the ferritin result (always slow) which is the critical one for me as it has been as low as 5 in the past. 

16) Went with my brother to his work in Symonds Yat. Had a walk around and an orange juice in the Old Ferrie pub. Sat back in my brother's car to wait for him. Read the Waitrose free paper. Immediately turned the page to a feature on Symonds Yat and the good food in the Old Ferrie pub !

17) Another chess game. This took 2 hours and I resigned. 

18) Went to my neighbour's house (not immediate neighbour) for the first time. It is the same house and same orientation as mine. Her garden is smaller son than mine but makes mine look very harsh and stark. I have bought some soil improver from the tip and will make my top lawn circular (or undulating) and fill the edges in with more plants. 

19) Offered a lot of postal vote opening. 

20) Bigger son and his girlfriend came here to help me take my fitted wardrobe down. Found 1961 newspaper under the base. I've taken half of it to the tip today. I got the steamer out and removed all the ancient wallpaper from behind it. 

21) Went to the pub for lunch with my friend. 

22) Watched the Champions League final with smaller son (on the laptop) and ate pizza and toblerone. 

23) I watched (am still watching as I type) the local motor racing that we sometimes go to and saw my brother!

24) I've been asked to do some canvassing locally as there is the tiniest chance we might be able to get rid of our MP. (He's the one who sent his secretary to collect some "toys" for him and lost his ministerial post). 

mhagster

Nice to ‘see you’ frith and sending you love DFV 

Up and out walking at 4.40am. Just us and the birds. 

Dressed for yesterday’s weather which was absolutely not todays! Went to supermarket dressed for summer in a linen dress and came home and put a pair of joggers and a jumper on!

Chat with friend on phone.

Did a bit of patio cleaning .

Hoovered my car. 

Watered my front porch plants…then the rain came on.

Had a very nice RTC individual steak pie with sprouts…I must treat myself to other veggies now I’m not moving! 

And had just finished when I had visitors who were inveigled into helping me with something more suitable for a much taller person than me! He laughed and said is it a tall person job? Absolutely! They brought treats for doggy! 

DundeeDoll

I have just finished the totally unhealthy and old fashioned chocolate dfv!
1) organ note stuck so we decided to do whole service with piano - music all lovely
2) remembered to take vouchers to Mr T so that made nice dent on the weekly shop bill
3) very nice salad using quite a few of the left-overs from Friday - always satisfying and very tasty
4) MrG phoned to see if i wanted to go to westfest (annual local free festival) with him and his wife. i was only half way through my annual appraisal form for tomorrow so of course i said yes it was fab
5) MrE and DrM were manning a stall - once they'd done we all met in Mennies for, in their case, well earned pints. Watched the T20 with DrM and now home to finish my appraisal form. 

Happycas

Good morning.  Bright and sunny.

Since last time. 

 Unfortunately little brown mouse didn't make it through the night.  It was a very cold night.  The only pleasure is we gave it its best chamce.  And it wasn't eaten by a gruffalo.

Breakfast with DD and fiance.  Handed over a dress I'd altered for her.  She'd got it from Vinted.  Lovely but with strange almost jodhpur hips!  Sorted.  And fiance's birthday present.  They will be in Italy for the occasion. 

DS came for coffee and biscuits and a chat.

DGD came for English revision.  The new anthology is introducing me to some new poems.  Always a good thing. Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland for example.

Yesterday was beautiful.  Sunny and warm. Dead headed and weeded and pegged out lots of washing and had an afternoon ice cream.  Lovely!

Let's hope today is as good.

Happy Monday everyone

LaineyT

👋🏻 Waves to Frith

For yesterday,

Early start with small dog, no problems just the usual need for a wee, stayed up so as not to disturb Capt S and his lie-in. Sunny start and a wander around the garden, cuppa in hand.

Over to see the beautiful grey one, it was lovely and warm so decided on a bath for her.  I have a limited window to get it all done as she’s not keen on spending a lot of time in the hot wash so it’s always a race to get all of her done! She stood in the sunshine to dry and I chatted with my friend.

Home, steak pie in the oven and out into the garden but then we had a power cut so lunch was a little delayed. Caught up with the Archers while we were eating it, then downloaded ISIHAC as well.

Evening wander with small dog, she was running around and having a fine old time then tripped up the back door step going back in and hurt herself so an extra painkiller popped into a piece of cheese, it’s been a week!

We had some cheese too along with a glass of wine, heading towards summer solstice it’s light until late and the bats are just coming out at bedtime.

Frith

Pleasures for today (Monday)

1) Not a bad sleep.

2) Spent about 2 hours removing the final bits of wallpaper from where the fitted wardrobe had been in my room. Then filled all the dents and cracks with polyfilla. 

3) Spent 2-3 hours in the garden putting in 2 new borders (this side of the retaining wall which is about halfway down). Eventually I want the top lawn to be curving or an oval and to have much deeper borders around than at present. There are strawberries but all the birds are stripping them faster than I can pick them!

4) Mowed the top lawn. 

5) Took smaller son's computer chair back to Currys. What a palaver! Eventually had to go home and get him and his bank card to get a refund that way.

6) Made pittas for tea with yesterday's chicken plus salad and guacamole. 

7) Started watching series 3 of the Outlaws.

8) My school friend phoned. 

LaineyT

For yesterday,

Made a loaf first thing, washed a couple of yard coats and did a few surveys.

Tea break in the garden. Our table & chairs are near the honeysuckle so wonderful smell and the gentle hum of all the bees.

At the yard, you wouldn’t have thought that girlie had had a bath the day before given the state of her, oh well gives me something to do I guess! She eventually went out and I watched my friend working her mare. She had been to a clinic the day before with a gentleman who had trained at the Spainish Riding School and now teaches all aspects of dressage including doing all movements from the ground, would love to teach mine to Passage.

Home, a chook was roasted with new pots and buttered cabbage, small dog had her share.

Tried watching the footie but lost interest so caught up with the latest series of Canal Boat Diaries, bit of gentle boating.