And now we go again...

foxgloves

Yes, that was sad news about TS - a young age to die, for sure. We both felt sad when we read about it yesterday. 
F

Baileys_Babe

I took was shocked and saddened by Tony Slattery's death, I was a fan. Thank you EH for sharing your memories and sorry for the loss of an old pal.

Greying_Pilgrim

Another one here shocked by Tony's passing - and one old enough to remember him from his C4 'Who's line is it anyway?' days.  Tony and Josie (Lawrence) were absolute pillars for that programme - so talented and able to make any subject funny.

Greying X

EssexHebridean

It stands out that in spite of the media's demonisation of him at the time, he really is fondly remembered by the majority of people of the right age. WLIIA was just a masterpiece in those early days - and he, Josie etc were just SO FLIPPING CLEVER in the speed of their reactions and their ability to come up with lines which could just reduce an audience to hysterics. Josie is absolutely adorable - and I swear she must have a picture in the attic as she barely appears to have changed in appearance from the pictures I've seen recently!  Richard Vranch too - known on WLIIA as the chap behind the piano but in fact a truly superb improviser in his own right - as well as being a brilliant musician of course. I used to go to the Comedy Store regularly back in the early to mid 90's and saw so many hilariously funny shows there including many people who aren't usually associated with the improv genre - Mike Myers of Waynes World fame started out in Improv and I saw him do a one-off show with the Comedy Store players where he just blew everyone away with quite how impressive he was - this was after he'd shot to fame so it was quite a "thing" to see him on the stage about 5' in front of us! Eddie Izzard meanwhile completely "died on his 'arris" to butcher the usual comedy parlance - at that stage he was entirely reliant on his usual stand-up persona and had precisely no ability to improvise at all - it was truly one of the most painful performances I've ever seen. Paul Merton meanwhile is a genius - and is very much in real life as he appears on screen. (Or at least, was then!) Very funny, very "dry" in terms of sense of humour, and about the only person I've ever seen improvise who breaks ALL the rules and gets away with it! (There is a basic rule in improv that says you never give someone a "closed" response - so if someone improvises a line that says for example "Hark! is that the Queen I hear approaching?" you wouldn't say "Nope!" in reply - as that gives nowhere for the scene to go. Paul could do that, and because folk expected it they were already prepared for the possibility and so were still able to make it funny.) 

Tony was also an excellent actor - I saw him quite a few times in the Play Neville's Island, first up at the Nottingham Playhouse and then down in London at the Apollo Theatre. His character Gordon did have comedy aspects but was also quite dark and brutal - and Tony portrayed him so convincingly! On the night of his birthday myself and two friends managed to get front row seats at the Apollo (which involved knowing you were going to get a bit damp at one stage!) and armed ourselves with a big banner saying "Happy birthday Tony". At the curtain call at the end we stood up and held it up - and he absolutely loved it, roared with laughter and applauded US, then gave us each a bottle of champagne afterwards as a thank you for making his day! Lovely memories! Stephen Fry said about him a few years ago the "he just doesn't have a malevolent bone in his body" and that sums up the Tony I knew - just unfailingly lovely.  

EssexHebridean

SO - MSE Stuff:
- Broadband and Council Tax have both gone out today as usual
- I suspect MrEH will need to feed his Oyster on the way home this evening - I can see he hasn't  done it on the way in.
- we are in separate cars again today as he needed to be sure to be in early and I didn't want to leave the house before 7am. Thankfully the budget does allow for that additional diesel spend when needed!
- Last night's tea used up the final sweet potato from a bag that had been lingering about for a while, and also a wrinkly red pepper from the fridge.
- The meal plan cites "Sardine & butterbean pasta" for tonight - I've got a tub of roasted tomato and garlic sauce from the freezer and the sardines and the butterbeans will be tins from stores. This is based on a Jack Monroe recipe from years ago with a few adaptions and is very tasty, but it's main bonus comes from the fact that it's an easy meal to throw together from ingredients we always have in the house. 
- FAR warmer temperatures still which definitely gives a heating advantage - I haven't bothered opening the living room curtains today either as we aren't in at all in daylight hours and we may as well get the advantage of retaining a bit more heat. 
- Tried out the mould removing gel stuff from the MHI people in a few areas in the bathroom and am pretty impressed to be honest - it's not perfect, but the bits it's struggling with in fairness are clearly a few areas which have been there for a very long while - and which I'd not been able to make a difference to with any standard cleaning materials in the time we have been in the house. This stuff has made a huge improvement, and I may try for a second application yet too. Other areas are completely back to white again. 
- The sealing strip on the front door also seems to be making a difference, so all in all money well spent and my first foray into trying their products has left me impressed. I see I have a 20% off code from them for orders placed within a certain time so I may check a few other bits that I was considering buying, too. 
- The £100 refund from the Octopods has landed and I have transferred it straight back against the CC towards the office door balance. 

I'm mostly back to doing yoga daily again - as the new year Yoga with Adriene challenge this year was only a week long I've picked back up on one of her old 30 day of yoga challenges from where I left off when I was working through it before. Once again trying to make it a habit, although not mandating to myself that I "must" do it every day, but more like "I'd like to do it most days" which is a bit kinder and less of a setting up to fail! 

starnac

I loved WLIIA. Tony Slattery was hilarious. Very sad to hear the news. It's lovely that you've got such fab memories of him EH

Our Octopods refund has hit our bank too. They must be going through a pile of them  

I do the 30 day yoga with her too. Not as regularly as I should though! Although my physio was impressed by how less tight my calves were at the last session. So the yoga must be doing something  

EssexHebridean

Starnac it never fails to amaze me how fast regular yoga makes a difference - and I KNOW I'm doing  my future self a massive favour by keeping it up regularly! 

rtandon27

Another fan of YWA!  I did her daily sessions for years when it was still on utoob (before her paid for app) and it made such a difference to how I felt physically and mentally! 

After not having done any yoga or Pilates for a couple of years I decided to get back into both as I started to stiffen and ache exasperated by a chronic illness.  The daily practice habit almost seems more important than the length of time of each session.  So last month, I started 10 minute Pilates sessions though an app from my health care plan and this month added 10 minute yoga sessions using a SaraBethYoga challenge on utoob. I do them separately, the pilates during my coffee break in the morning in a quiet lockable no windows room, and yoga in the evening winding down before bedtime.

EssexHebridean

It always amazes me what a difference the yoga makes - I really must grab on to that as a reason to keep it up too, and you’ve given me a good idea RT, as I ought to bookmark the shorter sessions so I have them somewhere I can easily find them when I don’t have much time but still want to do something. Half the time I find that not being able to easily find the right session is - not an excuse exactly, but a reason for ending up saying “oh well I’ll just give it a miss today…” 

in the spirit of “doing something” and wanting to get back to some form of proper exercise that I can actually do, I decided to go out and sort the big bike out today. Got the cover off, sprayed the chain and gears, plus the moving parts of the brakes, pumped up the tyres (back one could do with a bit more really) and then said I’d just take it for a mile or so ride to see how everything was. Ended up doing a 4 mile loop which was all going swimmingly until the chain hopped off as I came back on the uphill stretch of one of our old roads (now a cycle and pedestrian route). I did eventually manage to get it back on again and finish my ride, but my fingers are now ingrained with a level of chain-grease that makes it look as though I haven’t washed my hands for a month… 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’ve twice before had the chain do exactly the same thing on that bike in precisely the same place, too - very odd, and more than a bit annoying! 

Wordle in 3 - MrEH took 4 so smug points there.

MSE stuff:
- meal plan done, lots more freezer diving in my future
- shopping list done
- Lil’s this morning - a fraction over £25 spent but £7 of that has been transferred from the holiday pot S it’s Eat Natural bars we’ll take with us. I also spotted they had the big boxes of J@cobs crackers from Christmas down at £3.99 so pounced for one of those.
- Al’s this afternoon for a few bits I couldn’t get this morning. Spotted they had more cranberry sauce at 29p a jar with stupidly long dates, and also some caramelised onion chutney, same price, same sort of dates so nabbed 2 jars of each. £4.59 spent there. 
- The man came to review what needs doing to fix our patio door seal, and has gone away with the manufacturer of the door and is going to do some googling to see if he can get the part
- free exercise via the big bike - lovely to be out again, I need to mentally bookmark how much I enjoy it AND that it’s absolutely fine to stop for a rest or just get off and push if I can’t cope with hills! 

- washing run through last night at about 5p under SVR electric rates - I’ll take that as it’s about as good as it’s getting right now.
- washing pegged out through the day which at least got the worst of the moisture out of it. It’s now on the airer in front of the rad in the spare room

- split down some more bits of plank to boost our kindling supplies as we’re running low of cut up stuff - we’re going to do some more sawing up on Sunday I think. That should include some more bits of pallet which MrEH can cut to length and then I can split.
- a further batch of coleslaw made, some of which will get eaten tonight
- remembered to parboil the wedges to make them quicker to cook this evening (they’re in the oven now and the Agile rates are still a bit over SVR)


MrEH had a rugby match tomorrow, then that got cancelled, but now he’s been asked to play for another team so he’s a happy camper - and I have a nice lazy Saturday ahead although if I’m not feeling the use of unaccustomed muscles too much I may take the bike out again weather permitting. Other than that it will be odds and ends around the house, maybe a walk, and some quality time on the sofa with my book! The only thing we do have in the books to do is the farmer’s market first thing, and we’re going to head straight from there to the farm shop for the marmalade oranges. 

lucielle

Well done on the bike ride!  It sounds like everything is going smoothly. 

L