Early Risers.

[PupCam]

5 minutes ago, BoD said:

Did you also spot that it shares data with 57 partners.

 

That was the ironic bit so, no, I wasn't the only one to spot it 😀 

 

It's all a plot I tell you.

 

 

[DaveF]

Another fine bright day but  the forecast of 19°C was just about right.  There has been a gentle breeze off the sea all day.  

 

I got a couple of other odd jobs done after I wrote on here this morning, once they were finished it was time for coffee and a phone call from a friend which took most of the rest of the morning.  After lunch I got my accounts done, eventually I got to within 1p of the bank's figure for my current account so decided to accept it.  The garage has been looked at and some deciosions made, the sempervivums will wait until the greenhouse is a little cooler.

 

I had a walk near home, just a short walk along the road to the grass field and then round the field so about 1.2 miles in all.  While walking along the field I saw two children on scooters, 2 cyclists and 3 people walking.  The field is in the middle of the estate of owner occupiers with quite a lot of retired people.  Everyone must have been at work or watching the Olympics, it isn't usually quite that quiet.

 

As I arrived home the postman was delivering the post, later than usual at 2.30p.m.  I received a birthday card from my aunt for my birthday at the weekend.  She posted it second class in a village near Nottingham yesterday, so very good service from Royal Mail. 

 

I think I may watch a very old episode of Poirot this evening or else some cricket..

 

David

 

 

Edited July 31 by DaveF

[Ian Abel]

HUMP Day, and more importantly it's our anniversary and the "meaning of life" one, i.e. 42, thank you Douglas Adams 😀

 

Yesterday, nothing much as it was too miserable outside so the day was spent working then reading, crossword puzzles and a peaceful dinner.

 

Today, we're off to a restaurant the Mrs has been wanting to try, has very favorable reports from Jemma and Brendan a week ago, so we'll celebrate there.

 

Mrs off midday to visit a friend whose husband died suddenly last week 😒 he was fit, vegan and took care of himself, however family had a history of heart disease and he succumbed.

 

Weather miserable first thing sunny 22c, high humidity and poor air quality! Later rising to 34c same general conditions but forecast thunderstorms late in the day.

 

Carry on.

[Ian Abel]

18 hours ago, Erichill16 said:

 

ION

On the way to my club this evening caught a bit of the Olympics on the radio. FYI gymnastics doesn’t come over too well on radio.

 

Had to laugh at this... one of the first times ('80s) the Mrs was back in the UK with me, we were scanning the radio in the car for something to listen to and ran across a "Birdwatching" program on either BBC3 or BBC4. It took quite a while for her to stop laughing 🤣🤣🤣 I also think she secretly considered the sanity of the British public.

[Tony_S]

48 minutes ago, Ian Abel said:

Today, we're off to a restaurant the Mrs has been wanting to try, has very favorable reports

Will there be a Douglas Adam’s style “Dish of The Day”?

[Gwiwer]

8 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Will there be a Douglas Adam’s style “Dish of The Day”?

Only if they wish to meet the meat. 
 

“Waiter - bring me volume 3 of the wine list”

[southern42]

' afternoon all from red dragon land.

🌞Hot  but a breeze to keep it reasonable to do a spotaweedin, or rather grass uprooting, later in the afternoon. A couple of more square feet accomplished. More to come.

 

ION

Two TOTF🎶 sessions. This morning's was best - before the sun got a hold. I gave up during the second session, this afternoon, as the flute was sliding all over the place - to put it politely! 🥵

I will try again this evening...

Now time to do din dins.

 

Take care. Be good. Stay cool!

Polly

 

[iL Dottore]

As much as I pride myself on “eating well” (as in quality and origin of ingredients, quality of prep and cooking) I am not immune to the siren temptations of the Dark Side.
 

And in the interests of transparency and honesty I will list some of my temptations (note that, also in the interests of transparency, this list doesn’t contain those dishes which I eat rarely due to either how complex and time-consuming they are to make [Lasagna Verdi alla Ferrarese] or dishes where the ingredients add up to a fair amount of things I shouldn’t eat in more than small quantities [such as Spaghetti alla Puttanesca due to lots of salt from the anchovies and the capers]) 

 

So, without further ado, here’s my “Darkside” list:

• Pork scratchings (low in carbohydrates, definitely not low in salt or fats, and one of those nibbles where you can’t stop at just a handful or two)
• Cadburys fruit and nut bar (okay, I know that in comparison to Swiss chocolate, Cadburys tends to be towards the “tile grouting“ end of the chocolate spectrum, but there’s something immensely satisfying and redolent of my childhood in a bar of Cadburys fruit and nut).
• Fried bread (whenever I am in Britain I always try and have at least one or two decent full English breakfasts [sausages, black pudding, bacon, scrambled eggs, grilled mushrooms, bubble & squeak – if going – and devilled kidneys – also if going. But, NO tomatoes, tinned or otherwise and certainly NO baked beans - of any kind. But no matter where I go for my Full English, I have yet to see “fried slice” on the breakfast menu. Stale Chorleywood process sliced white bread fried in bacon fat is so terribly, terribly bad for you, but oh so terribly, terribly tasty as well!)
• Chinese takeaway sweet and sour pork – the old fashioned definitely inauthentic type (you know, those deep fried crunchy balls of batter with a chunk of sweet pork inside served together with a neon- orange sticky sauce, containing [at least] chunks of pineapple, unidentifiable green bits and (sometimes) cherries. As authentically Chinese as @PupCam, and again so very bad for you and yet enjoyable in rare and small quantities because of the fond memories it evokes). One mustn’t also forget the accompanying side dish of “house, style“ stir-fried noodles.
• Hardees’ sausage and egg breakfast biscuit (definitely a “must go to” breakfast dish after a night in the emergency room in the hospital I worked-in in the US. A biscuit (basically a savoury scone) a “sausage” patty and an omelette style egg ”patty”. I remember, after one rather gruelling and draining double shift in the emergency room with nothing to keep me going but a LOT of coffee, walking into my local Hardees on the way home and ordering the lot: one each of their sausage & egg biscuit, bacon & and egg biscuit, sausage & bacon biscuit and the piece de resistance, their chicken fried steak biscuit)

For many reasons, not the least being nowhere in the proximity of most of the above, I haven’t had any of those for many a year – with the exception of a recent trip to London, where in the company of @bbishop, I ended up in a pub where in addition to having decent grub and a really decent selection of beers, they also had fresh home-made pork scratchings.

 

I indulged!

 

So what is your culinary Achilles heel?

 

Do tell!

Edited July 31 by iL Dottore
Punctuation

[New Haven Neil]

'Indian' curry.

Bombay Mix.

A full Manx (no tomatoes, or mushrooms..... bleah).

Anything in the Chinese.

Guinness (now have the 0% though).

Pepperoni pizza (banned since diabetes)

 

[BoD]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

So what is your culinary Achilles heel?

Ham, egg and chips with tomato ketchup. * ** *** 

 

It was one of the things we were brought up with. ****

 

* it has to be a thick slice of good ham.

** eggs - plural and fried of course

***  and when really decadent some of the chips used to make a chip butty.

**** probably goes some way to,explain my type 2 diabetes.

 

Edited July 31 by BoD

[skipepsi]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

As much as I pride myself on “eating well” (as in quality and origin of ingredients, quality of prep and cooking) I am not immune to the siren temptations of the Dark Side.
 

And in the interests of transparency and honesty I will list some of my temptations (note that, also in the interests of transparency, this list doesn’t contain those dishes which I eat rarely due to either how complex and time-consuming they are to make [Lasagna Verdi alla Ferrarese] or dishes where the ingredients add up to a fair amount of things I shouldn’t eat in more than small quantities [such as Spaghetti alla Puttanesca due to lots of salt from the anchovies and the capers]) 

 

So, without further ado, here’s my “Darkside” list:

• Pork scratchings (low in carbohydrates, definitely not low in salt or fats, and one of those nibbles where you can’t stop at just a handful or two)
• Cadburys fruit and nut bar (okay, I know that in comparison to Swiss chocolate, Cadburys tends to be towards the “tile grouting“ end of the chocolate spectrum, but there’s something immensely satisfying and redolent of my childhood in a bar of Cadburys fruit and nut).
• Fried bread (whenever I am in Britain I always try and have at least one or two decent full English breakfasts [sausages, black pudding, bacon, scrambled eggs, grilled mushrooms, bubble & squeak – if going – and devilled kidneys – also if going. But, NO tomatoes, tinned or otherwise and certainly NO baked beans - of any kind. But no matter where I go for my Full English, I have yet to see “fried slice” on the breakfast menu. Stale Chorleywood process sliced white bread fried in bacon fat is so terribly, terribly bad for you, but oh so terribly, terribly tasty as well!)
• Chinese takeaway sweet and sour pork – the old fashioned definitely inauthentic type (you know, those deep fried crunchy balls of batter with a chunk of sweet pork inside served together with a neon- orange sticky sauce, containing [at least] chunks of pineapple, unidentifiable green bits and (sometimes) cherries. As authentically Chinese as @PupCam, and again so very bad for you and yet enjoyable in rare and small quantities because of the fond memories it evokes). One mustn’t also forget the accompanying side dish of “house, style“ stir-fried noodles.
• Hardees’ sausage and egg breakfast biscuit (definitely a “must go to” breakfast dish after a night in the emergency room in the hospital I worked-in in the US. A biscuit (basically a savoury scone) a “sausage” patty and an omelette style egg ”patty”. I remember, after one rather gruelling and draining double shift in the emergency room with nothing to keep me going but a LOT of coffee, walking into my local Hardees on the way home and ordering the lot: one each of their sausage & egg biscuit, bacon & and egg biscuit, sausage & bacon biscuit and the piece de resistance, their chicken fried steak biscuit)

For many reasons, not the least being nowhere in the proximity of most of the above, I haven’t had any of those for many a year – with the exception of a recent trip to London, where in the company of @bbishop, I ended up in a pub where in addition to having decent grub and a really decent selection of beers, they also had fresh home-made pork scratchings.

 

I indulged!

 

So what is your culinary Achilles heel?

 

Do tell!

Food.

[DaveF]

Fish and chips

Full English breakfast

Steak and Kidney pudding

Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate (not fruit and nut - nut allergy and IBS) just as a change from good dark chocolate

 

Most of the time I am sensible, otherwise my gut lets me know!  I rarely go out for meals now.

 

David

[jamie92208]

5 hours ago, BSW01 said:

On this day, 7 years ago, I made my final appearance as a paid employee and ever since then I’ve loved every minute of my retirement. Although I do miss seeing and chatting with my former colleagues, I don’t miss the stress and pressure of work at all. 

This month it was twenty two for me.  Can also  say that I have thoroughly enjoyed it. 

 

Jamie

[PupCam]

3 hours ago, Ian Abel said:

HUMP Day, and more importantly it's our anniversary and the "meaning of life" one, i.e. 42, thank you Douglas Adams 😀

 

Many congratulations to you and Mrs Abel  Ian.

 

 

[polybear]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

As much as I pride myself on “eating well” (as in quality and origin of ingredients, quality of prep and cooking) I am not immune to the siren temptations of the Dark Side.
 

And in the interests of transparency and honesty I will list some of my temptations (note that, also in the interests of transparency, this list doesn’t contain those dishes which I eat rarely due to either how complex and time-consuming they are to make [Lasagna Verdi alla Ferrarese] or dishes where the ingredients add up to a fair amount of things I shouldn’t eat in more than small quantities [such as Spaghetti alla Puttanesca due to lots of salt from the anchovies and the capers]) 

 

So, without further ado, here’s my “Darkside” list:

• Pork scratchings (low in carbohydrates, definitely not low in salt or fats, and one of those nibbles where you can’t stop at just a handful or two)
• Cadburys fruit and nut bar (okay, I know that in comparison to Swiss chocolate, Cadburys tends to be towards the “tile grouting“ end of the chocolate spectrum, but there’s something immensely satisfying and redolent of my childhood in a bar of Cadburys fruit and nut).
• Fried bread (whenever I am in Britain I always try and have at least one or two decent full English breakfasts [sausages, black pudding, bacon, scrambled eggs, grilled mushrooms, bubble & squeak – if going – and devilled kidneys – also if going. But, NO tomatoes, tinned or otherwise and certainly NO baked beans - of any kind. But no matter where I go for my Full English, I have yet to see “fried slice” on the breakfast menu. Stale Chorleywood process sliced white bread fried in bacon fat is so terribly, terribly bad for you, but oh so terribly, terribly tasty as well!)
• Chinese takeaway sweet and sour pork – the old fashioned definitely inauthentic type (you know, those deep fried crunchy balls of batter with a chunk of sweet pork inside served together with a neon- orange sticky sauce, containing [at least] chunks of pineapple, unidentifiable green bits and (sometimes) cherries. As authentically Chinese as @PupCam, and again so very bad for you and yet enjoyable in rare and small quantities because of the fond memories it evokes). One mustn’t also forget the accompanying side dish of “house, style“ stir-fried noodles.
• Hardees’ sausage and egg breakfast biscuit (definitely a “must go to” breakfast dish after a night in the emergency room in the hospital I worked-in in the US. A biscuit (basically a savoury scone) a “sausage” patty and an omelette style egg ”patty”. I remember, after one rather gruelling and draining double shift in the emergency room with nothing to keep me going but a LOT of coffee, walking into my local Hardees on the way home and ordering the lot: one each of their sausage & egg biscuit, bacon & and egg biscuit, sausage & bacon biscuit and the piece de resistance, their chicken fried steak biscuit)

For many reasons, not the least being nowhere in the proximity of most of the above, I haven’t had any of those for many a year – with the exception of a recent trip to London, where in the company of @bbishop, I ended up in a pub where in addition to having decent grub and a really decent selection of beers, they also had fresh home-made pork scratchings.

 

I indulged!

 

So what is your culinary Achilles heel?

 

Do tell!

 

Rumour has it that A Certain Bear might just have witnessed A Certain Doc have a bowl of Onion Rings for din dins; I don't recall any mention of them being Artisinal Onion Rings either....

 

What would Bear choose to have if marooned on a desert island?  Pizza? LDC? CF's?  Nope....toast & Marmite....

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

Warehouse day today.  Warm?  Oh yes, and some; umpin' & dumpin' loads of stuff in & out of vans doesn't help either, funnily enough.  Nor do vans with big windscreens & knackered Air-Con....

 

No Donuts today 😢 - but one of the grown-ups is leaving, meaning sarnies & cake was laid on 😁; I also discovered that the CEO cooks a VERY mean LDC - it was Gluten free as well, apparently.  Full marks awarded.  The cup cakes were a bit special too - complete with ikky stikky stuff on top.  Big Tick

D-word?  Postponed for today....

 

The Hospice had an item donated a couple of weeks ago - the person donating mentioned that it was "worth £2K".  It was - and a bit.  Huge, huge Tick to that person.

 

BG

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. My forbidden favourite is Danish pastries despite them sending my BG into orbit. In my yoof I must admit that I was out on the beer every Saturday night and had an Indian take away on the way home, usually a chicken korma, I haven't had either for years. The Indian restaurant I frequented was in London Road Romford a few doors before Cotton's Park which was opposite the Green Line bus garage, and might possibly be known to one or two ER's.

[Grizz]

Help I’m mellllllllllting…..in former sub tropical Sussex….now Tropical Sussex.
 

It is soooooo humid. I’m not predisposed to humidity. I am predisposed to cooler, dryer climates. 
 

Had to break open the emergency cabinet containing bottles of Harvey’s best anesthetiser this evening, just to survive. One more shift this week and then it is home to DK for peace and quiet in Nordjylland, where I can indulge in being anti social and not talking to anyone, if I choose so to do. 
 

Possibly going to chuck in a job tomorrow. Depending on the results of the row that I’m inevitably going to have in the morning regarding people changing safety critical standards without notifying me or consultation…..or following any sort of change management process. With the explicit intention of removing all timescales for elimination of rail defects. What could possibly go wrong. Wnackers. 

 

 

[monkeysarefun]

Hamburger with the lot!

 

 

 

 

and a regular chips - with chicken salt. And a carton of chocolate milk.

 

Always brings back great memories of surfing holidays up the north coast  and pulling into small coastal towns to seek out the takeaway joint.

Edited July 31 by monkeysarefun

[polybear]

11 minutes ago, Grizz said:

Possibly going to chuck in a job tomorrow. Depending on the results of the row that I’m inevitably going to have in the morning regarding people changing safety critical standards without notifying me or consultation…..or following any sort of change management process. With the explicit intention of removing all timescales for elimination of rail defects. What could possibly go wrong. Wnackers. 

 

VSBT's; if it does come to that then I'd be inclined to state that in any formal "poke it" letter - if it does all come home to roost for the worst possible reasons at some point in the future it'll help cover your ar5e rather nicely.

[polybear]

2 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Hamburger with the lot!

 

 

Swap the burger-bit for a layer of chips....

[PeterBB]

Retirement ... was one of those who was fortunate enough to enjoy all three of my 'careers' before finally 'retiring' at 74.    Any problem with retiring yes no 1 - no days off because once retired always retired!.  No 2 - it seems there is always something to do - colleagues may remember we moved a year or two ago and SWMBO has clocked up over 100 things that have been 'done' - usually requested when finally getting down to trying to plan a new something that runs on parallel strips of metal on what promises to be 'the final one'.  At the current rate of progress it will be.

Anything else - yes ... how did I ever find time to go to 'work'!

 

Food - yes I do eat - very partial to Bakewell Tart - preferably without the icing and love chocolate biscuits and marzipan ( the latter worth accepting a bit of cake if there is plenty of marzipan).  Interestingly a number of foodstuffs not now eaten or drunk have turned out to be detrimental health-wise.

 

Currently just on 30 degrees here but cannot complain because I absolutely hate the cold.

Edited July 31 by PeterBB

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[DaveF]

Ian,

 

Congratulations to you both.

 

David

[The Lurker]

Congratulations to Ian and Mrs Abel