Early Risers.

[MrWolf]

Nothing very exciting happening here. 

Breakfast, healthy.

Leaking flashing over Victorian bay window fixed by yours truly.

A hurtle up the coast two up on the BSA for tea and a butty. Not healthy but good!

Three paintings underway for online sales exhibition.

Sunday dinner planned for 5pm

I discovered some time ago that any brown dust in the kitchen cupboards was almost entirely down to the level of violence used by Miss Riding Hood to seperate tea bags and / or open boxes thereof. She's cute, she likes motorbikes, trains and me. I let her odd behaviour slide.

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by MrWolf
Stupid autocorrect

[iL Dottore]

2 hours ago, chrisf said:

...I might eat in a Michelin star place if someone else was paying but I don't move in those exalted circles...

That is definitely one of the myths around Michelin starred restaurants: that they are “super posh” and that they cost an arm and a leg. I have had lunch on more than one occasion at both one-star and two-star Michelin rated restaurants and have had change back from 30 quid. In fact the cheapest meal you can get from a Michelin starred restaurant costs about £3, although you would have to travel to Singapore to enjoy the meal (at a Hawker Stall called Liao Fan Hong Kong).  Nonetheless, there are plenty of one star Michelin Restaurants in London and the home counties where you can get a fantastic set lunch for under £30. 
Although a lot of pretentiousness can (and does) surround Michelin Starred Restaurants,  Ultimately it comes down to the quality of the ingredients and the quality of the cooking (which is why quite a few otherwise modest places are on the Michelin list)

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Oh dear, no....that's the offerings of food banks, left over from last Chr*****s.  Here's how do do it in style (iD, look away now....):

 

 

 

 

,

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

.....Another taste which I have never acquired is for turkey which has the unfortunate habit of reminding me of a cross between cardboard and and a poorly fed chicken which has not spent several months scratching round a proper farmyard. ....

Firstly, Mr Bear, those are indeed more than acceptable snacks: Cadburys milk chocolate bars may not be the zenith of the Chocolatiers art, but they are very enjoyable and very more-ish.

People think, erroneously, that because I am very particular about food I am snobbish about it. That cannot be farther from the truth. What I am interested in, what drives me to be a Gastronaught, is high quality ingredients prepared properly and with passion (and dare I say it, Love). For me, a piece of properly matured farmhouse cheddar, a well-made pickled onion and a chunk of good quality bread (plus a pint of real ale) is as good as, and enjoyable as, Michel Roux Jr’s Nouilles au Fruits de Mer.

In regards to to Turkey as a comestible, unfortunately unless you have access to free range turkeys that are slaughtered just before consumption you will be perennially doomed to a dry and tasteless cardboard like substance. When Mrs iD’s parents were alive and came for Christmas dinner, Mrs iD and I would pop across the border to France and get a free range turkey from a farmer who raised turkey, geese and ducks as a sideline to his egg laying business. Every year we would order a small turkey and every year we would turn up and find out that the farmer continued to think that “small“ was in excess of 15 kg. Resulting, again every year, in us waiting in the farm shop as the farmer went off to dispatch and pluck one of the smaller (4 to 8 kg) birds. We would then return to Switzerland with a still warm turkey - plucked and drawn, but still with head, neck and feet. Having the head and neck still attached is an important part of ensuring that your Christmas turkey remains moist and succulent, but that is a story for some other time (although if anyone wants to PM me I can tell them how I go about cooking the perfect turkey).

 

[TheQ]

Afternoon awl,  it's highly likely,  it will be the three of us, SWMBO, Ben and me. We will probably do our usual for Christmas prepare for a roast beef dinner,  but keep my eye open for a last minute fresh turkey.. 

 

Half a ton of coal has been moved,  further instalments will occur during the week. 

 

The beam above the front of the garage,  was painted cornflower blue.  That's assembled from 5 sections to make about 18 inches by 20ft long , it will need another coat or two.  Then about 40discs were glued with high grab gue to protect the expanded foam filling the ripples... The back can wait till next weekend. 

 

By then  it was quiet dark and horizontal drizzle...  So into the garage to-do lighting wiring,  about 2/3rds of the ring has been wired from which each led batten will be on a spur. One above the lathe area,  has been wired in.  I'm impressed with the light output from it. I'm considering buying more of the same type, for use in the muddling shed work shop  area.

 

Ben has taken me for the long walk,  exhaustion hit me about 2/3 way round,  I am knackered , a glass of red has gone,  it will be replenished shortly. Therefore ocular assessments will occur very soon. 

[MrWolf]

I recall as a little kid in the seventies, a nearby farm used to raise turkeys especially for Cxxxxxxxx and orders would be taken a month earlier. My father used to collect some of them and deliver them around the village or to some of his workmates. To this day Cxxxxxxxx still reminds me of a Vauxhall 101 with its boot full of turkeys. By the mid 80s, the farmer had passed away and his ramshackle little place had been turned into a Des Res. We had one supermarket turkey and that was it. It put us all off for life. There's other far more interesting birds to eat out there anyway.

 

PS. Avoid eating seagulls, even as a part of survival training. They are truly disgusting.

Edited November 1, 2020 by MrWolf

[Barry O]

Last time I had food poisoning it was from.. turkey.. so I avoid it at all costs.

 

Soon be time to head out to the Laser Clinic.. Pah!

 

I have eaten a splendid lunch.. just in case..

 

TTFN

 

Baz

[simontaylor484]

Good Afternoon all 

 

Well its arrived the first day of early retirement, going to try to get the motor booked in for service and Mot tomorrow for later in the month o havent done more than 150 miles since the last test. 

[polybear]

58 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Cadburys milk chocolate bars may not be the zenith of the Chocolatiers art,

 

 

Perhaps you may require some convincing but I've yet to encounter any form of Swiss Chocolate that comes anywhere near close to surpassing the taste of Mr. Cadbury's finest.....

 

[Northroader]

Remember the Yanks have taken over Cadbury’s, the chocolate ain’t what it was.

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

Sorry, again some skipping has taken place, as the pace on ERs these days beats my ability to keep pace - so generic greetings are on offer to all fellow ERs.

 

Today was bookwork, and some fettling of the electrics on the doll's house, which work well, but still needed some attention - and a new 12v battery box with a switch has helped a lot - we now have bright candle lights in there - and I have found at least four burnt out bulbs, which don't appear to be replaceable, so the chandelier will have to work with two, and we will need to source a couple of candles - will, it was a tudor house, so I suspect that some of the items on offer on eBay will be of no use, as they would suit a 1930s semi better.  While I was fettling, 30747 was sorting out the furniture into keep and sell - there is a lot of hand made stuff (keep) and a fair amount of mass produced tat (sell) - I suspect that the hand made stuff was the original furnishing, and the tat was added later.  A bit of research on the internet has revealed that the maker died last year, but we have been able to contact his family, to ask what further info that they might be able to furnish.

 

Back tomorrow after a visit to Johnstones, as we need more paint, and must buy it before lockdown, as we can apply it during same - though as pre schools are remaining open, 30747 will for the moment be staying at work

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[chrisf]

3 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

There is of course a way round that but it depends on who you happen to know or if you have family relatively close at hand.

1. If you are a single person living alone you can still become part of another household's bubble so you can visit their home.

2.  if you have, or area 'a carer' (which is not defined in these regulations etc - but might be elsewhere?) you can visit or be visited at home.

 

So maybe a good deed for Christmas might be to 'adopt' as part of your support bubble a single person who lives alone thus enabling them to enjoy a Christmas dinner - if nothing else - with others at the festive time.  As ever the thing about regulations and rules is not to barge through them breaking them willy nilly but to understand them to the extent that you find out any ways in which you might use them to ease the burden for others.

 

 

Now he tells me ...

 

Chris

[chrisf]

4 hours ago, chrisf said:

 

You can diss my seasonal repast as much as you like but it's a case of needs must.  I am spending more than I would wish on one meal and the prospect of not being alone on the one day of the year when no-one should be alone.  Perhaps I should have described it as pretentious rather than arty-farty: whatever, it is further upmarket than I would normally choose but it's one day a year - a day when I would so much rather have been in another country among friends.  It saves me the torture of slaving over far too big an item of poultry that seems to last for ever with no-one to share the experience.  I can cook OK.  Mostly I enjoy cooking and for most of the year I have to.  I might eat in a Michelin star place if someone else was paying but I don't move in those exalted circles.  Bully for those who do.

 

Chris 

 

I am afraid that I came too close to losing my temper when I wrote this.  My apologies.  What I have chosen for Christmas dinner is probably not the best or finest available and that's just the ingredients.  I would rather not have felt belittled when I described it.  I am sure that my friend did not intehd that it read that way but that is how it came across.  Scorn is a powerful weapon and should be handled with care.

 

Chris

[Coombe Barton]

At Christmas there will be one of me. Haven'

t decided what I'm cooking*** yet, but it will be both festive and tasty. I've only been away for a Christmas lunch once. To Mother in laws, many years ago (1985-6??). She put the sprouts on on bonfire night.

I cooked for the family ever since until 2018 when Sandy couldn't cope, and with COVID-19 I'm not risking anything.

 

Could be duck or goose, depends on what I can run over between now and then.

 

 

 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Coombe Barton
I'm trying to be funny.

[Barry O]

Back from the clinic. It hurts more than it did the first time. Going back in 6 weeks to get the other eye done. 

 

Snake and pygmy fir tea.apparently suet based dumplings are being added to the items already in the slow cooker

..yum, yum. And the anti Bear minefield is in place and active..  @chrisf any dinner which foes not require being part of the catering team is worth every penny.Enjoy the repast!

Baz

[The White Rabbit]

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

People think, erroneously, that because I am very particular about food I am snobbish about it. That cannot be further from the truth. What I am interested in, what drives me to be a Gastronaught, is high quality ingredients prepared properly and with passion (and dare I say it, Love). For me, a piece of properly matured farmhouse cheddar, a well-made pickled onion and a chunk of good quality bread (plus a pint of real ale) is as good as, and enjoyable as, Michel Roux Jr’s Nouilles au Fruits de Mer.

 

This struck a particular chord with me as I too believe in simple/unsophisticated/'common' food, with good quality ingredients, cooked well. Maybe I'm just a peasant, too ignorant to appreciate the sophisticated ways of my betters, but I do like 'home cooking' of simple dishes. Perhaps that's why we have a bread-maker, grow some of our own veg and shop at farmers' markets (or did pre-pestilence). Death to E-numbers! 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning.  Ah, once again the day did not go to plan!

 

Mrs H OK today which is an improvement, the weather is (*&^% awful so not much has been achieved really, bar shopping, a job for Mrs NHN making archery trophies and playing with the things in the garage which are not the two wheeled toys.

 

Hope all went well Baz.

 

 

[New Haven Neil]

I see Baz reported in!

 

No lockdown here, as the only cases are incomers who have to self-isolate anyway.  Borders are mostly closed, basically only returning residents or key workers.

 

As the UK is still cut off, the big news is there are no newspapers.  I have never understood the fascination with UK newspapers here, as yer average Manxie has no time for the UK at all, yet newspapers are held as items of great need, value and revere, right up there with chips, cheese and gravy.  And you thought it was all kippers here, eh!

[Erichill16]

2 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Perhaps you may require some convincing but I've yet to encounter any form of Swiss Chocolate that comes anywhere near close to surpassing the taste of Mr. Cadbury's finest.....

 

SWMBO would agree. ItS got to be Cadbury s, not Swiss, Belgian or anything else. She’d rather have a bar of Cadbury’s than something from ‘Hotel Chocolat’ but try telling that to the people  who buy her chocolate for her birthday. 

[Coombe Barton]

3 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

ItS got to be Cadbury s

Haven't had Cadbury's since Kraft took over and reduced the cocoa content.

[PeterBB]

35 minutes ago, The White Rabbit said:

 

This struck a particular chord with me as I too believe in simple/unsophisticated/'common' food, with good quality ingredients, Death to E-numbers! 

Many E-numbers are absolute essentials but over time E-numbers have been vilified by incorrect generalisations and prejudice.

 

[The Stationmaster]

This villain (read on Flavio ) had an amusing start to the afternoon - Charlie cat is sitting outside the back door on the patio looking at nothing in particular when Mr Fox passed right in front of him, and me, moving at a fairly respectable, but somewhat hurried and worried looking, pace.  Hardly surprising because Charlie's mum, Poppy, was chasing the fox round the garage and them down across the lawn.  I fortunately stopped her from following foxy to his lair behind the big bramble bush.  A few minutes later I headed out to take the car fora tyre stretching trip and there was foxy standing waiting by the car, I wasn't sure if he fancied a trip so I suggested he moved on which he did - very much at his own pace; clearly the cat is better at frightening  and chasing off the fox than I am.

 

Cadburys chocolate - banned in this household since the Kraft takeover and much of the production being moved to Poland.  And thanks to frequent acquaintance with it in working years when I was regular visitor to Brussel, I became fairly partial to Belgian chocolates.

 

We are fortunate in having some good eateries round here although one of the Italian places is somewhat pretentious.  A gastro pub we visited recently was jam packed today judging by the number of cars parked outside and they're no doubt getting ready for a takeaway season once they can no longer serve on site.  Paul Clerehugh (no star but he probably deserves a couple) is a self taught chef who grows much of what he serves at his pub venue - including some of the meat as well as the more usual home grown veg -  is also doing takeaway so might be worth a try during the coming lockdown as his usual A List clients will no doubt be staying away.  The chef at another pub which did top notch food had also previously held a Michelin star when cooking in somebody else's restaurant but he moved on to doing only pop-up dining because he couldn't make the pub profitable enough despite specialising in some very nice old (C16) English dishes.  At one time he took home grown veg as part payment for meals provided the veg was useful to his menu and it was of good quality - we paid for our sweet course on one occasion with courgettes and runner beans.

 

Price and the stars aren't always a guide.  One of the best dishes of lamb cutlets I've ever had was at a roadside restaurant halfway up a mountain in Portugal where you could see the cats sleeping on bags of spuds in the kitchen if you sat at the right table.  And you used to be able to get beautifully cooked horse meat steaks at a café hidden away on a side street in Boulogne.   But undoubtedly the nicest piece of kangaroo meat I've ever had was in a fairly pricey restaurant on Darling Harbour in Sydney.  And Cathay Pacific's business lounge at Hong Kong airport did a very more-ish line in noodles the last time I passed that way.  Talking of food a roast chicken (described by Waitrose as 'free range') will shortly be arriving on the dinner table courtesy of Mrs Stationmaster.

[Tony_S]

2 hours ago, chrisf said:

What I have chosen for Christmas dinner

I was rather pleased you mentioned Christmas dinner as it prompted me to talk about it with Aditi. Quite a lot of Christmas dinners  in the past for the wider family were provided by us. On the few occasions they were not here we still had the  turkey based meal. Aditi liked it as it wasn’t part of her childhood and Matthew wasn’t too bothered about turkey but loved all the bits and pieces that accompanied it. So after Matthew died we didn’t know what to do but decided a nice meal and chatting about “do you remember when...” was what we were going to do.  I really am not in the least bit bothered about festive meals but Aditi does like the Christmas meal. So anyway I asked and she said she would like the same this year. Because she is very organised she already had a Christmas delivery slot reserved (not with Santa Claus)  . So she added turkey and beef to the list. I have suggested that an emergency chicken is added to an earlier shopping delivery to go in the freezer, just in case of failure to deliver by Waitrose. 
Tony

[tigerburnie]

This C*******S will be just 2 of us this year on the day, probably Beef roast, there was a time when we had what I shot, Rabbit, Hare or Peasant, depending at what jumped out if front of me, I cannot access my supplier so no game this year as I no longer have access to affordable land. We do eat Turkey, but a crown is too much for just 2 of us, when it's our turn with the family, then we have free range Turkey, which is always very nice.

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Just watching the motor racing, though I know the result its exciting at least. Just had a Tandori for dinner, thats all that I fancied. Time to put the kettle on, be back later.

[Sir TophamHatt]

Evening

 

A pretty good day I think.

Made a great roast dinner, now settling down with a glass of wine, Christmas pudding we bought two years ago and watching Ready Player One.

 

I'm learning to really appreciate good days.

[Sir TophamHatt]

40 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

... there was a time when we had what I shot, Rabbit, Hare or Peasant, depending at what jumped out if front of me

 

Wow, didn't think they were still around!