5 OS pleasures in your day today - part 3

LaineyT

For yesterday,

Grey old morning so kept busy inside, mended a mini hole in the lining of my winter coat and checked my thick socks for any holes that needed darning.

Made a loaf and some savoury flapjacks that I’ve been wanting to try for a while. Very tasty and had one with my lunchtime soup.

The sun came out so sat on the back doorstep with a cuppa and my book, C dog fell asleep in the sun.

Over to see my big girl and she has a new neighbour in the barn, a rather handsome ex-racer.

Lovely sunset and our resident Robin singing his heart out.

mhagster

Hello. Just sent the words for a service off so my eyes are a bit crossed from being on the laptop.

Anyway up early. Beautiful sunrise.
Haircut and I’ve gone short and sweet…see how sweet it is when I have to try and style it! 

Straight on to work and met with a lovely family. 

Home, quick chat to sister, lunch and then sat at table writing all afternoon.
Had a call from a family member of theirs from Australia…almost 2 hours of chatter!! Finished my writing as the light of day was fading and sent it off. 

Two bags of stuff out for charity collection in the morning…sometimes they come exceptionally early. 

Been a bright mainly sunny day so washing was out and in and a couple of pairs of linen trousers to be ironed. 

All prepped for work in the morning. 

ampersand

Lainey, that savoury flapjack recipe would be interesting, pretty please.😁
Quick stop en route back to & squat, where this just caught my eye in the Graun, hence osp
1. Argyle Street ash in Glasgow wins tree of the year competition https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/25/argyle-street-ash-glasgow-wins-woodland-trust-tree-of-the-year-competition?CMP=share_btn_url
2. Another farewell, R's final midweek Communion earlier, before heading further East to another benefice, in fact 2!  Current incumbent keenly awaits her and husband's arrival, both ordained, to ease his round of 18 congregations. R has been terrific. 
3. Another lovely day and no real bite in the wind.
4. So many people are leaving 'free to take' apples outside their houses this year. & has taken a few for the ongoing grape jelly.
5. Near-ish uni friend's young lemon tree and crop, in a pot, with more flower buds opening, is amazing, ditto their scent.  Think we've sorted 15 October for our usual late birthday lunch, using &'s MrT vouchers, followed by happy Emmaus rummage.👌🫶🍷😃
#

Purple_kitten

Cooked up the reduced to clear duck, it seemed epic, it took a fair while, so we had that and wraps with cucumber. I need to sort out the leftovers.

A day of dragging the house back into a bit of shape.

Managed to clear some clutter from the office, a big bag of books and a bag of clothes.

Found a david tennant 2 part series, I nigh on held my breath at, watching part 2 tonight.

DundeeDoll

hmm doggie in the dog house - he thought 'Thursday' was 'turdsday' (see if the filter lets me post that!) anyway this is for good things so...
1) it was at least solid and on the wooden floor so easy to clean up
2) walked home with colleague - we always have a good laugh
3) mum's shepherd's pie for supper
4) fabulous choir practice - 2 hours (we have a very busy weekend, an ordination, harvest festival and evensong)
5) very much enjoying Philip Gwynne Jones' first Sicily murder mystery

LaineyT

Here you go Amps, I halved the quantities and omitted the spring onions for personal preference.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/savoury_breakfast_77374

For yesterday,

Into horsey town for a coffee and a catch up with friend, few bits from the emporium inc some rtc plums which were still hard so will make a decent crumble for the weekend.

Visit to the stables, long chat in the sunshine with my friend who came from the previous yard while our horses grazed around us, visiting now again for treats.

Capt S working from home so lunch together.

An afternoon in the garden with C dog, tomatoes are still going strong and with decent weather forecasted for next week I decided to leave them for a bit.

The gentle joy of a new series of ACGAS.

Admiral_Barbarossa

A knight inn the Shed!!!

PM2DD Just like when we played Man Utd off the park, we have never lost to them in a tinpot competition!  Same with Brentford!

The Life of BoP!

Yous nows I cans knot keep away!

Bins at the Docks this weak, on the derrick. Plenty done and cleared!

Doing shrimp inn poodles for dinner this evening. With chopped mushrooms, sliced pepper and home style hoisin sauce, Tom Puree, Soy and chilli. Available inn the discount surplus store at a price!

Has yous sin the price of chocolate. The emporiums are rip inn us off AVOID!

Buzby sends a

mhagster

Good morning. 

My Friday was a busy one! 

Up early. 

Out to work in the morning. A lovely service for a lovely family. I was being ‘shadowed’ by someone wanting to start on a similar career path. So had met up with her beforehand and chatted afterwards. 

And a quick dash home to grab a dog and head out again, 

we had a nice walk and then we both had lunch. 

And then I had to dash out to work in the next village to caravan…and that would be the last time I saw my key! 

Lovely family meeting. 

And got back to caravan and couldn’t find my key and was needing the loo. Luckily the site manager keeps a spare so had to go and get that and then get in. DD2 had called to say she would come down for a walk with The Pup. So I now have her key and will get a spare cut. Called the family I’d visited and drove back that way last night but no sign of key. Thankfully just on a key ring and nothing to identify it. Tad annoying but it happened! 

And home…at last! It had been a long day. Went to bed and slept for an hour and a half and then was wide awake for hours. 

And I’d promised a malteser slice for an event I’m going to so had to set the alarm for 6am to get up and make it so it’s set in time! Was just too tired last night. 

 

LaineyT

For yesterday,

The initial grey cloud lifted and it was a decent day.

Inspired by last weekend’s treat from Mr Sparks I made my own version of giant chocolate button shortbread, only problem was Capt S was WFH and the pile of chopped chocolate kept growing smaller!

C dog lying on the grass, fast asleep in the sun and memories of small dog doing the same bless her.

Home from a yard visit, ready for a cup of tea and a sweet treat.

Finally caught up on Monday’s Only Connect and clearing both walls, if you know you know!

DigForVictory

Oops, this has all got a bit out of hand - as has RL, but I have been reading & awed & thankful.

OS pleasures recently (well, this month)

Went through the bag of photographs. Much love and laughter, and the assumption this would go on. Difficult to frame the photo books now without explaining who half the people are, where, why it mattered - if at all. Will the lads thank me for this in another decade? (I don’t know who some of the folk in my wedding album are.) Not convinced of the merits of taking photos of photos.

Yeay Middleson taking my car for its MOT. That’ll step around the pink tax & spare me annual leave sat waiting.. The service plan I had lapsed so now it can hop from garage to garage for the most local &/or affordable care. 

The Bargello work cushion I darned the back of is continuing to crumble, so I’ve ordered another cushion cover to mount granny’s work onto. The one in green she did first, is now in the guest bedroom & is so worn the wool is missing in places & I may try to restore that as an education and appreciation. The back of that cushion is velvet, again so worn you can only feel the nap on about 5% of it. Mum’s utterly charmed I’m trying. I remember Granny sitting stitching, wearing the glasses she used for reading her prayers or preparing a breakfast kipper.

Flicking through a review of a biography of Larry Durrell (a man I only know through his brother Gerry’s rollicking “my family & other animals”) I am shocked rigid to find that delightful matriarch was en route to becoming an alcoholic. The devastating side of truth abrades the fun of that story, rather. (All her chaps went on to have dysfunctional relationships with booze.)

Fellow colleague & unexpected fellow wedding guest shared a few more of goddaughter’s wedding photos - lovely to see! (Also reminds me to avoid anything too wide brimmed in the millinery section, unless at strong angle, when I’m mother of the groom.) Home to find beautiful thankyou note from goddaughter! Setting up home, so the money won’t go on honeymoon but domesticity.

Sat awaiting tyres being replaced (MOT requirement) I observe the waiting room has a shelf of cookbooks. Someone’s got a sense of humour…

Oh howls scowls and other giblets, my new kindle is giving me backchat about my “side loaded” library. I think I may need to reach in, wipe the blighter & misdirect its internet connection before reloading. I take a dim view of being bullied by Bezos.

My old role of cricket match first aider has resurfaced! On a day I’m teaching but I’m back in the mailing list again, ah good.

Took mum out for coffee & triffids (Aldi lilies). She’s napping while her grandson preps a Chinese meal for lunch.

Interestingly, it’s quite hard to donate an unwanted wheelchair without some chit of robust engineering. (A Red Cross sticker dated 2018 doesn’t do.)

Mum ignoring her coffee for good housekeeping & mint humbugs. (We’ve winced at Christmas stuff on sale already, the humbugs were my response…)

Youngest, off shopping for the evening meal (via his favourite charity shops) has a lovely noir response to all well? text… 

Today I learned there is such a thing as a vetinary ophthalmologist. Imagination boggling at How you do a sight test on a hippo, let alone “better or worse?” with a cat?!

It feels very strange to put a table, thought to come from our great aunts house, out onto the pavement but mum leant on it & it tipped, being on tripod legs. So we immediately move the table out of range so it cannot harm mum a second time. [It’s gone! I see our neighbours have put a child’s trampoline out - now to keep mum walking past it!]

There’s a new term for old garlic “more desiccated than if it had come from Dracula's desiccator” - Youngest-as-Cook is unimpressed with me for not checking the succulence of the garlic…

Mum’s cat perched on the arm of the armchair, watching the mug of coffee steam. I’m not sure what he’s seeing, but he’s focussed.

One of the tricks to peacefully sitting reading with the cat flaked on mum’s lap lies in keeping the coffee coming (as well as Good Housekeeping). That her hearing aids are on another floor also helps.

Virtuous daughter act gluing back on loose bathroom tiles. Then decanting Youngest’s stew into a clean pan so the original one can soak. (This ‘continuous stirring’ idea hasn’t taken a grip.)

“Trolley theology is poorly understood”! Youngest as we were speculating on what the ‘please do not use’ trolleys under Costco were awaiting…. Frolicking with groceries or mustang wild untamed unbridled? We pondered what might be trolley heaven.

Alert went off. Wouldn’t wake me but it got through. 

Watching the Lunar Eclipse on iPlayer as we have total cloud coverage. There are months when astronomy really isn’t a credible hobby in Lancashire without a live feed from Webb.

Yargh, new work phone. Deeply fussy about things. Very deeply fussy. [Up to second level support fussy... I’m about ready to nuke the site from orbit.] {Think it’s sorted…}

Caught up with two colleagues in other silos queuing for phones - remembered one as daddy of toddlers (1 at Uni, 1 in 6th form - Where did those years go?!) & the other is familiar but what did we do? Still, good to chat & laugh & reconnect with bits of past even as being hauled into present & future with these new phones.

Proposal to build wind turbines - I said please wait, as technology moving so quickly that by the time these are on stream they may be out of date, but the peat landscape & ecosystem they’ve damaged is lost forever. (Slightly startled the chairman agreed with me openly!)

I enjoy AJ Hall - deft wording, excellent characters, strong plots & very well chosen wording.

How to word your out of office to say Schrödinger never had a car on the MOT ramp? It’s not just dead or alive but also potentially hideously expensive and the insurance doesn’t care.

“It’s working, it’s just a bit daft in the unit.” Ah, these professional terms…

“British crime night” - when the lads drive our TV, I don’t get to see much detail but my imagination is happily pondering French crime or Australian crime…

Youngest has clipped his hair & I have tidied around the ears & nape. Honour satisfied all round & he hoovers up.

Scouts! Familiar and new faces, familiar susuruss of chatter, the shock to some of security to prevent another Southport (and some hadn’t heard of that!) and the auld reliables sneaking for the bunch of keys & swing the sock.

Youngest has enchiladas awaiting my return.

First wet cold night when I dive under the duvet & snuggle it around me & just grin. I’m a latecomer to the wool duvet but my word it’s a pleasure.

Heritage open day volunteering. Wonderful how sunny with a good drying breeze it is down here, and son sounding cautiously optimistic up the hill. Meanwhile some young lad has been brought in after school, & has found the piano! The history is optional for some. (Gosh I underestimated our chairman.)

Diego my raving extrovert lemon seedling (of some 3 winters) is looking rather enfeebled as bits have responded badly to the great prune. This was a result of the great leaf drop, having been moved to admit the Christmas tree & taken umbrage, but I’m concerned that another Christmas may do for him.

Some idiot left a bag with microphone & musical equipment in Salford today - all a bit exciting for an hour and then calm again. So I doffed Social Trousers for yoga skins & diligently bent & stretched happily. Only downside is they’re not exactly thermal.

Sage into desiccator ready for Christmas sage & onion stuffing. It’s a Dig family tradition just I’m early in getting the leaves dried.

Awww, Youngest volunteered to go get things from a store so I could save my short legs for the big supermarket. Not wholly sure this is a good precedent but competence is honed by experience. (Wonderful pause over ‘lead’ meaning cable or flex & me blinking at it bewildered. Shares in mum plc took a hammering.)

The supermarket had sacks of compost at pennies a time so I got a fivers worth to help tuck things up for the winter. Youngest didn’t even ask why, just loaded them into the boot then up to beside the plant nursery. I am so blinking lucky in my lads.

One brother on another “well, he’s still alive, & he’s got our umbrella.” (O the rain it raineth on the just & on the unjust fella, but chiefly on the just, because the unjust hath the just’s umbrella…. Well, so we learned as children & taught the young, & Youngest definitely feeling both Just & peevish damp.)

It seems doves brood. Well, so I infer from VCM’s reading from Paradise Lost. Next time I hear someone referencing a dove, I may remember to try the brood/sulk interpretation. Deepening the existing dubious reputation for eccentricity, but can I help holding strange things in the brain?!

Reminded Youngest he has his flu jab tomorrow night whilst I have to wait another month. «Youth & beauty, eh», he grinned, knowing full well it’s anxiety & hard cash…

The insurance job has not happened so the whole ground floor has been prepared & nothing has happened but at least nothing has been damaged. [All change Sunday 28th seemingly.]

I am to listen to a podcast & spend 40 minutes waiting to get to the bit relevant to my sister - can you get transcripts?! Then called back half an hour after lights out to talk about micro budgets…

Son rummaged his father’s chest of drawers & found warm gloves. I hadn't a clue, but am so glad the family continues to be looked after.

Back to the family tree climbing, found several juicy branches, a royal academician who “looked good in robes” & the family’s delight in eye catching names (an Orlando! amongst others).

Google doodle on quadratic equations had me blinking & wondering why you need them - ah parabolas, structural engineering & optics amongst others. Good, a valid reason for the bewilderment.

Colleague feeling the cold as the season rolls was tickled when I listed the relative merits of silk & merino & named 3 camping shops & 1 bike shop that might allow him to try for size…

Scouts, naked flame, marshmallows - a traditional combination! I can smell woodsmoke, & love it. The squeaks as fire steels & ferro rods worked - a bit of encouragement & they were scattering sparks like a sparkler. Some even onto the target kindling. (Oops, this file is older than I realised.)

Cautiously amused at Australia’s bio security response to a batch of nappies but the beetle involved is a complete fanged tribble. You do rather wonder how A got into B but that’s a minor horror relatively.

Youngest is supervising a quick wash of my social trousers for work tomorrow, so alas I miss out on bedtime hug. I must organise my wardrobe better.

Found thankyou letter to mother of the bride still in draft & promptly sent it, over a month late but still bubbling with the happy memories.

Aw, the former army cook who now makes our pizzas at the local supermarket proudly showed me a photo of his son in full uniform (busbies galore!) leading the honour guard for the royal visitors.

Sis took mum, a bag of windfalls & two emptied squash bottles to Apple Day where someone brings their industrial juicer & the village gathers to gossip, chop, crank & carry home bottle of fresh pressed apple juice whilst the pulp goes to feed local chickens. Mum was utterly crackered by it but rightly pleased at bring part of this community shindig.

Won on an embroidery thread bundle so I can consider colour matching or just trying Bargello for the fun of it. (Contemplating a cushion cover repair then maybe a needle book or something small!)

Took cuttings as if you don’t try, you can’t hope. And hope gets you through some really sticky places.

Oooh iPlayer - never seen an only connect tie break before, fraught!

Got home to see note from youngest as to him taking the air & so made my own brew.

He cooked sausages & pasta, & I got in tired & hungry & I was so grateful! 

Dropbox filled, and triggered another teams involvement which should be great fun. Some days I love my job!

Walked a novice colleague through how a visit had gone, what we did exactly right, what we could have done better (ahem, blush) and what the next steps will be - we’ve another visit tomorrow for him to implement the teachings. (Rarely have I been so glad of a recent MOT & new tyres: four of us & my little car handled somewhat differently!)

Scouts! (Dear heavens this file is three weeks old!) lots of happy games, one small cut on the finger [first aided into a finger puppet to his delight] and three invested (Always reminds me of weddings, without quite the same stress!)

Departing Scout (off up to Explorers) brought a tub of Roses for the leaders in thanks (aw!) so brought a random few home. Yum!

Youngest very tolerant as I work back from setting off on a visit to Miele to figure when to eat a meal… 

I love working with really experienced colleagues. Two words, tiny prompts, & we got all the records. ‘Spike’ & ‘book’ - whilst I specialise in electronic records, I’ve spent years alongside paper records & I know what a spike, a calculator & a biro add up to, and there the totals were…

The apple has not fallen far from the tree. I am asked for tins, or delivery boxes, so he can put things away Properly. If he can replicate his father’s handwriting labelling, I may burst into tears but I doubt that’s part of the plan.

He asks permission to Hoover! Ok at ten to midnight, but he’s smitten with a wild desire to clean, who am I to say him nay?

Another version of epilepsy for beginners sent. OK, it’s just one aspect of the MS that killed his mother, but my robust pragmatism on blood draws, EEGs, brain scans is apparently comforting.

Every year I look up “Do oaks shed their leaves?” anxiously & every year am reassured. Shall not race out & croon to them pleading for another year, promising a larger pot…

“I gather there’s an Old Person in there.” Youngest doesn’t know my birthday?! I yell through the door the birthday is tomorrow &  so amicable working relationship restored.

Ye gods, he has redeemed himself. Toad in the hole with mash, peas & gravy (thick & juicy enough to score as pie filling) & me sprawled happily.

Those bargello cushions? Have been machine-stitched onto their backing at about 16 stitches per inch. Pleasure is I have the most worn one largely peeled loose and am contemplating sharpening the quick unpick to an even finer point.

Thankyou all for your patience. Wishing you all health, strength, love, & courage as needed and stubbornness and layers & reliable warm dry feet.