5 OS pleasures in your day today - part 3

mhagster

Much the same as yesterday with added grass cutting 😆

CP early…the loveliest walk and then a good swim/chatter.
I’m very kindly inheriting someone’s old caravan decking for free! Yay! So wandered round to see it and it will need a good clean and paint but hey I can do that! 

Home in the afternoon. Cut the grass. Hung out a washing of caravan towels…then watched them get soaked before I could get them in! 

Had picked something up for niece so she called in to collect it ( this is when it started raining and I hadn’t noticed)

Friend called. 

Bit of an extended family drama so lots of calls and texts and to and fro-ing. 

DigForVictory

Forgive me but the last fortnight has been a bit demented..

topsyturphy - sometimes the 'bad for you' stuff just hits the spot So Completely. Tomatoes ripening? hurrah & yes Alnwick Amazing!

LaineyT - fish & chips taste wonderful by the sea as almost everything does? Oh yes, one's Own Bed... Love juvenile raptors! At least you top up the oil. Balanced diet very important. Love how a comfortable stable & TMS wholly sympatico. "flashes of airborne green" glorious! As soon as human cloning is sorted, could I borrow Capt S for a trial run - men who change the bed are very finite. Bacon butties & Ambridge, a reliable pleasure! Window cleaner has access now wasps & fledglings moved! Windy & rainy then cosy - glorious. A slow down feed bowl - ah, Labrador! 

PaulieHerts - awed at anniversary dinner plans!

mhagster - guests & sick dog, no wonder peace so welcome! Fingers crossed your rhubarb crown gets the idea. After guest washing & dried between showers! Holiday & 'to do' list? Respects. The only point of that heat - lots of line drying! You languish? Yegads is there no end to your accomplishments? (Unwillingly, ah.) Home grown sweet peas, & a ready-made bistro set! Phew the return of the coolth! Hurrah wallpaper in place - either your eyes will adapt or you'll paint over it. Power washed, ready for bistro set.

ampersand - aw, laying bait for young small person! Emporium avocado delights, yum! Delighted you turn a  dress into something unique and You. More of this heat & you can plan a vintage? Tom Hart-Dyke, orchid hunter I gather. Hurrah you delighting in the autonomous independent bonne temps as they appear - role model! Wish tech would cooperate better for you.

Purple kitten - Hurrah butcher pack raffle win, & welcome Swizzel! Gorgeous pink nose. Always the way - wonderful holiday, mountain of laundry & yikes the weather will not cooperate!

twopenny - gosh sea bathing after a day of domestic nonsense.

Frith - delighted to hear your competence outmanoeuvres patronising man! Alas had to do a bit of shouting. Forgive me, but "toad in the hols" sounds like a dish I should instruct the young to serve when I get there! Hoping smaller son is recovered? Washing in the relative coolth a definite pleasure. Very glad smaller son is better. Gorgeous Bee! What a wonderful match for smaller son! Bigger son has special charity shop mojo that can reverbe a £20!

Happycas - hoping the technology mends it ways for you! You winner! Good luck DGD! Sure you're right, sciatica a reminder to sit & read a while... All the setting up of TV will pay off in winter when your fingers are too numb to reprogram via the remote.

PaulieHerts - only the rooflines suggest this is not the Mediterranean to me! Swanage?!

Highdays - phew tooth mostly obedient & hurrah GD's engagement! Owch being bitten is most unrewarding.

OS pleasures recently

I come to spend quality time with mum, a treasure I failed to appreciate properly decades ago & now we chuckle together. So a sister inviting herself over for afternoon tea is not why I take leave. Aye well, only another 20 hours.

Mum asked if I knew what we’re having for lunch. Beef stew in about ten minutes “is he like this at home?!” Largely, yes. I am hugely fortunate!

I may have mentioned (possibly bored you rigid) that I have two lemon seedlings known as Sid & Diego. Well, this weekend m’lady mother became a Lemon seedling owner & is pondering names. Gregory the greedy lemon lacked something. Horace may be hungry but is (to me) foremost a cheese. It’ll make reminding mum the lemon needs feeding easier. [Sisters decided on “Limona”…] {Happily, have forgotten}

“It carries on not being a chew toy!” Sister has a new mop & bucket but her Labradors are not getting the memo. I may have to take up embroidery, as her Christmas present declared itself.

Could the CIFAS marker gave been put on by another sister?! (This mad saga runs & runs.) Ye gods… Thank the kindly ones they do not have any involvement in my finances. [And now the DVLA are extracting a digit, preparing to set their own CIFAS marker & sort sis her legal driving licence & render the old one deeply hazardous - excellent!]

Yikes! Asda NW have no pizza bases (so we had to have custom monsters instead)! Pizza for at least 4 meals.. (Plus freebie breadballs & garlic-&-herb dip [intriguingly sweet for a garlic & mustard ingredients list] for a snacky side nibble! We were coached by the staff.)

In Real Emergency news, there was a water issue but we got back to find (a) a sixpack of water on our doorstep & (b) the problem is now fixed. Splendid, water lugged to storage for next Real Emergency.

I’ve took off my SOS Talisman between gardening sessions, shoved it a pocket & it’s fallen out. That’s distressing mostly as it has the grief ring attached. A tiny circle (strongest shape in engineering) set with 5 little sapphires that just appeared in the jewellers window at the right time. I’m praying that’ll emerge and meanwhile dug out Eldest’s talisman - which is battered but just needs a bit of TLC to wear to work tomorrow. [Unloaded the laundry to get the clean black strap my lad wore, & there was the green-strap-&-my-talisman-&-the-ring glinting up at me!]

Bizarre emails turn out to be Middleson using my loyalty plastic at screwfix. My word, he’s working hard.

Ah, watching films together with Youngest - fun but slightly fraught as we have different tastes. I require a pinch of humour & he doesn’t.

Hurtling home lest our elders & betters come up with any handy little tasks for us (lost 2 hours to a census of kit that ought to be on file somewhere), I dropped in on Iceland & led Youngest astray by phone. Minutes later, home office powered & number crunching as he & I chill with fake Cornettos!

Hauling the young through the exciting new thickets of computerised accounting for a couple of days. One of the few times we’ll encourage them to try to break the software & discover all the security measures. (Or we would have done, had they read the pre-course stuff, got the software & actually tried. Still, maybe they’ll be more intrigued tomorrow.)

Mum sat listening, stroking cat. She sees we’re pleased by the DVLA but the speed of yatter I think is more than her speaker & hearing aids can decipher. Must try harder!

The Japanese quinces have attained 4 leaf seedling status & I am eyeing pots to bring them on into. And vaguely hopeful of home grown quinces to jelly…. 

Steve Hewitt’s interviews with Eddie Mair - so moving. Intelligence, wit, mortality, discovery - all in short interviews, sometimes with sirens wailing in the back ground, sometimes monitoring beeps.

Trainees communicated! I required all little yellow hands up or we’d make my co-trainer go over bending reports (a sight to wring the hardest heart) & they were unanimous & so we trotted over the closing poles of the perils of computer interfaces & then free! Free as a bird. (Once we’d filed the paperwork…)

Sisters grousing at no milk or rice in the house - I apologised for the former, but we bought a sack of the latter. Communications glitch!

Ah Scouts chilling. Remarkably athletic gymnastic & flexible even if a senior patrol leader Always rolled over a shoulder. All good tempered fun. (Next week, the end of year water fight.)

Erf, heat. Plus traffic - Dante was missing a trick omitting roadworks.

Still, visiting colleague has data, and was charmed sideways by the ideas of both a guest mug and sachets of frothy coffee. As usual almost the way, I end up washing up but he did have one of a series of five trains to catch. His abode near Barry island is not easily accessible by public transport, but (more importantly) the pizza community can deliver to him.

Hoping for yoga tomorrow as I did a forward roll with Scouts & my neck’s been clicky since…

Blood test season - hydration, warmth & distraction the keys to a simple fuss-free draw so I’m setting the alarm early so I can drink an entire pint of tea before presenting self to the nurse. That I may have to remember to take off my thick fleece (for warmth) will probably amuse her. Son has asked can’t I “just take them the mug of tea” & I’m feeling slightly got at.

Colleague got home & had a lovely Chinese - shame on my filthy mind for hoping his girlfriend knew & possibly shared. (It is possible I have been overdoing the early QI.)

Ah, yoga class! My neck is not clicky any more, all of me bends where I should & I’m ravenous.

Family zoom where three of us are wielding manual fans, sending tranquil wafts & the fourth has a clattering device moving warm air around.

“The sin more abominable than any other” in Britain - QI leads with queue-barging, reasonably. 

Mum’s in the Amber heat alert area, I’m just in the Yellow but still, ooof!

Bumped into this Pratchett joke & realised I don’t have a filthy mind, I’m just channelling Gytha Ogg…. “ How many witches does it take to change a light bulb? None. Granny Weatherwax would make you think that you have already changed it, Magrat would lecture you on the environmental benefits of candles and Nanny Ogg would point out that you can have more fun in the dark.”

I hadn't realised ferrets have a long-standing engineering reputation, given their talent for running cables through narrow conduits. Boeing aircraft & indeed the cabling to cover the royal wedding of Charles & Diana.

Pulled some weeds in the back garden - some will die of thirst. Not enough but it’s a start. Moved the flowerpots of white lavender onto the front garden as they need more sunshine. (I’ll research how to split them later, that they’ve survived this far is a source of delight.) Potted on eight little Japanese quince seedlings grown from seed. Repotted two lemon seedlings so they can grow bigger & keep Sid company. Stopped & sprawled with a ginger beer for several hours.

Rewatched Queen play Live Aid on YouTube. Some technology is a benevolent gift from the gods. (Really? 40 years ago? Just it was & is incredible.)

Got into a conversation about dungeons & um rather too publicly opined that we’ve put a lot of work into not scaring the neighbours (so far) & so should arrange for a dungeon elsewhere with better security, carparking & paramedic access. Remembered my audience sort of just in time but now Dig & Dungeon are slightly more linked than I quite planned. 

Middleson (Middlesin suggests autocorrect & kindly I modified the vowel) has a heck of a career as declutterer. He’s just plied me with tea & Closed Questions until I got to hang onto a total of 20% of the cookbooks & he’s doing expectation management on the naval history volumes… I swear when I move into my retirement villa (apparently it has to be within easy commuting distance for him, so Wales is out) I’ll be packing my bed & linen & a fought-for-every-book library… (As yes, I have a kindle and yet...)

We have a box of disposable hair caps which I got Himself for bread making & Middleson (hair length does not need a comb) tried one in & in seconds “it’s hot!” Why did he think we wanted them?!

Youngest is just a joy to shop with. Silently determined to get in, get & get out. With the occasional “ooh!” when he sees I spotted jammy dodgers on promotion & have thoughtfully laid in a stash for him. (It’s not blackmail when it’s a game for two players, is it?) [My beloved idiot left the icecream in the car, wrapped in the car blanket. They’ve not yet changed shape but the cold snack is at now refreezing away]

Seems the limited edition Bruce-played-Anfield tee shirt is out of stock (despite being bought online on the day) but they are reprinting red on black a second limited edition, which I will get. 

Trying to be a good mum & not ask what the dickens has Youngest been up to that he’s not signed into UCAS yet. Of course being on the wrong course is uncomfortable, but you can only get onto a better one through UCAS. And Clearing has started.

Sisters crooning over mum’s day lilies - which are legion & i don’t think have ever been split, so researched & dropped a photo essay on how to into WhatsApp so this autumn, we can move a bit of the family garden to sister’s.

It’s taken over 20 years for me to find out son likes white chocolate. The Iceland fake magnums in white have his name on them, their cornettos have mine….

I thought Middleson had been given a passable grounding in gardening when he worked as muscle at a garden centre but he still think rotavation will ‘cure’ bindweed. Have had to explain (with weblinks) that this is alas not the case, & several years careful savage chemistry may be partially effective. He’s learning!

Slightly to my irritation, Amazon are inviting me to look at a selection of “novelty bracelets” that have the SOS talisman on. Half right. 

Dear gods the heat. Messing with my sleep (a most unpleasant shock) so I arrived in work an unexpectedly sentient & thoroughly !!!!!!-off zombie. And hours after my return home I have all the vim of an unplugged hoover.

We are to eat the leftover enchiladas but there aren’t enough so youngest is donning his headphones to play “melancholy mariachi” as he hunts further Mexican food. (I was fine with leftover sausages, but he had standards.)

Oh I do love QI: “welcome to QI for another reckless poke of the screwdriver into the fuse box of the unknown”…

Definitely late to Shardlake but only started the Zoe Boehm books this weekend. That I read Herron is thanks to Martin on R4 & A Good Read! (Love that having fallen, he had located & read the next volume already. Can So Relate!)

Sis has a mug with a familiar pattern on it & it turns out that it’s a Palestinian pattern & yet All us sisters are muttering where have we seen that before?! I googled &  recognised a plate my aunt uses…

Cousin who is both a godly matron & authorised to run various services/ LLM/ Reader, has been wrestling logistics to get a new vicar formally in situ, apparently requiring a collation & induction, both words with ecclesiastical meaning separate from the ones I think of. All achieved so now much relief !

Ah Youngest. Life is never dull. “I was inspecting the onions. For Wickedness.”

Cousins walking around Mont Blanc sharing glorious view photos & debating the wildlife (was that a juvenile vulture?) when Edinburgh cousin reminds them marmots should be fledging & “we’ve heard peeps”… 

When did Coke take over as lead fizzy at Costco?!

Ah, the annual end of year Scout water fight. Some scouts (& young leaders) come with pressurised water rifles, others forget even the clean dry change. Some take being drenched with a gasping laugh, others with high pitched screams that distract local dogs, but everyone seems to love it. (Perhaps not the dogs.) I keep wearing the official pale shirt & necker & get solidly drenched while the rest wear the section polo shirts & get likewise drenched but less obviously.

Youngest inspecting his hairline for signs of “the Norwood Reaper” & I reassure him his paternal gene complement goes for a pelt not any thinning patch & that anyway worrying about it positively triggers hair loss…

Waiting for the weather to be clear for three hours so I can wash the bedlinen. I’m resigned to not blasting sunlight for a while but reliable breezy not-raining will do!

Listening to Wendy Watson explaining how come she got to be the first point of contact on hereditary breast cancer & much smitten by her robust “You’re not defined by two breasts.” 

We’ve taken up Mississippis again on zoom (whether mum is cheating by hanging into the desk is her business) as baby sis needs to improve her balance. We each stand in one foot & I count “one Mississippi, two Mississippi” etc hence the Mississippi’s name.. 

At the end of zoom we wave to each other & I don’t stick to the Royal family gestures, but virtue from Bollywood & nursery rhymes so “Dig, what Are you doing?” was answered with yet more of the silliness & “making mum laugh”.

Health Strength Love & Courage to all as have need. Along with layers that can cope with wind & cold & heat...

mhagster

DFV I’m so very glad you found your Talisman and ring. I misplaced a ring a few years ago and was distraught. Found it in a very peculiar place! 

DigForVictory

mhagster it appeared very much as answer to vehement prayer after a lot of distraught hours - the chaps felt very close!

Frith

Pleasures for today (Thursday)

1) Not a bad sleep. 

2) Looked round charity shops. An Incredibly large new shop has opened in canal town. Found 4 books from the series my sister is reading, that she wanted for her birthday. 

3) Watched Man in Seat 61 YouTube videos on the TV during the afternoon, for inspiration. 

4) My brother popped round. 

5) Watched England beat Sweden in the Euros. 

LaineyT

For yesterday,

Into horsey town for a few fresh bits food wise plus dropped a couple of items off at the CS.

Morning visit to see the beautiful grey one, I made the error of giving the horse opposite a treat ( with owners permission ) and we both laughed as my stroppy mare stamped her foot on the floor as if to say no, they are mine!

An afternoon nap.

The farmer started the harvest at just gone 3 and by 9pm both of the big fields were done, in the 18 years I’ve lived here this is the earliest they have ever done it, couple of weeks before Lammas.

Watched the footie, exciting stuff.

ampersand

Osps from CUBG fountain this arvo -

1. Still with this book:

2. Golf commentary on R5 earlier: 'There goes Tommy Fleetwood, looking like a half-eaten Mars bar', describing his outfit. We know what he means!😄

2. So many butterflies and damselflies in so many colours and sizes everywhere in CUBG today.  Lots back at &squat too.

3. Doblo in Doblo ICU. Orange transmission symbol came on, meaning & limped back last night, but made it, DG.  Check again Monday, 🤲 🤞.

4. Taking other people's family or group photos in CUBG, especially around fountain today. They're always pleased.
5. So are the muntjac who come in -

 They love munching &'s hibiscus.

mhagster

Hello! Just sitting with the patio doors open and enjoying the breeze and the birds. 

Up early. And it was heavy rain and I thought hmmm…will I / won’t I? But I did! Down to CP had a soggy walk and then optimistically turned up at the pool with my 2 other regulars. Pool hadn’t been  opened but chap came over and did open it and said he wasn’t supposed to open it if it’s raining. It was a wee bit of drizzle! Anyway the rain cleared and then the sun came out and me and my swimming pal were in for a whole 2 hours! Chatting and swimming back and forth! Couldn’t believe the time! 

Hot shower, watched something I’d downloaded and then back up the road. 

Had a work call. Now I’m going on leave but had been especially asked for so I’m fitting them in! So made arrangements for that and had a nice chat. 

Famdram stuff going on so lots of calls/texts etc!

Hoovered upstairs/ car/ half of downstairs/ with the rest to do …was just having a wee break! 

Purple_kitten

Got on with a lot of gardening, strimming, mowing and cutting back the weeping cherry that’s too big for its boots, then chopping it all up and into manageable bags for a tip run.

We had lunch sitting out in the garden.

Cleaned the house up a little, and fresh bedding for all the ferrets, which is also hanging on the line hoping to dry between rain showers.

So used to the thank you but emails, I almost missed an interview request, a pleasant surprise, as it’s a role I thought I was very suited to.

Fish, carrot and courgette for dinner.

The bird feeders literally heaving at points with woodpeckers and various little birds, while one little ferret was chasing off the pigeons who dared to land in the garden

Frith

Pleasures for today (Friday)

1) Not a bad sleep.

2) Went to the coffees morning and did a crossword puzzle. 

3) First of 4 days at work completed. 

4) Made quite a nice tea. Diced the courgettes dad gave me last week and roasted them with sumac and cinnamon. Cooked pasta then made a pasta bake with the courgettes, yoghurt, feta then cheese, porridge oats and chopped nuts on top. 

5) Watched more videos on travel and we both like the idea of Narvik via Malmö.

6) In bed ready for podcasts. Tomorrow I'm going to work then we're off to Shrewsbury to watch the football.