Yawn Yawn Wakey Wakey 2024

Hello all. I must admit to yearning for one of those afghans you mention @Tui34, until I stood next to my friend who had one and the smell quickly put me off the idea. Thank you @Busy-Lizzie for the info about @Obelix-Vendée. You must have a lot to complete before next Thursday.

 

Morning everyone, a cold bright start here. More bulb planting today I think. I must chase the garage too, I had the gas struts that help lift up the hatchback replaced as the old were weak and not holding up in cold weather. They replied them n June but as soon as the weather cooled I was back to the same problem.

Sorry for my confusion re the signing out. I think it must be the phone, but if I come away from the site and go back I find that I'm logged out, sometimes it even logs me out mid post!!

 

Yesterday was spent doing a massive washup "pre no hot water tap" and bottling pickled onions. That required an amount of detective work to find jars, get production line of clean jars and lids, onions, sprigs of rosemary, bay leaves and small chillies, jug of vinegar lined up. I was part way through when I poured some vinegar into one of the jars and saw the vinegar spreading all over the work surface. I thought I had missed the top of the jar so tried again, more vinegar all over the work top. I checked the jar and found a hole in the bottom! Not happy. (Much later I remembered finding a sliver of glass in the sink after washing up and wondering where it had come from. Now I know) Managed to find another whole jar to finish the job. I now have 4 jars of pickled onions ready for Christmas.
I did a big Tesco online grocery shop in the morning which was due to be delivered between 10.00pm and 11.00pm but I had a phone call at 9.00pm asking if I would like it delivered in 5 mins. Yes please! Sadly my Christmas treat of a bottle of Warnincks Advocast was not available but I have time to hunt one down. Other brands available but not as nice, in my opinion.
Unbelievably I managed to get some dog towels and blankets dry outside, I just had to finish them off in the airing cupboard overnight.
Rob is a bit fed up not having his daily walk but everywhere is sodden around here where we usually walk and with short stumpy legs he gets so muddy.
It is a glorious sunny morning ideal for gardening except the water level is so high the ground is like a bog so no gardening again.

 

Good morning!

I wish I had your energy, @Busy-Lizzie . My Christmas cards won't be started for another week or so, and we have yet to write our "round robin" letter. I guess your imminent departure for France must concentrate the mind a bit, particularly with having two gardens to care for... mine was partly under water yesterday, and is now frozen, so pruning the droopy branches on the beech trees (which annoy OH when he's mowing) will have to wait a bit. But at least the sun is shining!

At the moment I don't know what to prepare for Christmas visitors. The plan was for our son & family to come over from England, just after Christmas; but DIL's father is unwell, so they may not make it. We'll no doubt be entertaining the Irish-based granddaughters and their parents, but our daughter is on a very restricted diet (FODMAP) to try to get to the bottom of her severe reflux, and I'm not sure what she'll be able to eat by then...

The sun is shining through the living room window onto the back of my head. It's quite warm! Still white on the ground, though - very beautiful.

 

As an impoverished newly qualified teacher I went to a railway Lost Property shop and bought myself a camel coloured duffel coat for next to nothing which served me well for years. My boyfriend at the time hated it. He said I looked like Paddington bear in it. I always fancied an Afghan coat and I was envious when I saw them being paraded on other people but they were too expensive for me and the smell was the final straw.

 

At university in the late 70s a gentleman of my acquaintance bought himself a very nice beaver skin coat from a charity shop couple of quid. This was lovely and warm and didn't smell. The problem was that it was a ladies coat designed to come to just below the knee and he was 4 ft 11" which meant he came down to his ankles. That meant with a hat he looked like Giles' cartoon character "Granny" from the Daily Express, but he was easily recognisable. He lived in that coat every autumn, winter and spring for the entire time I was at university.

 

Hello. I'm here and well thanks @Ladybird but had a very busy weekend and 2 nights of broken sleep followed by a full day at patch club yesterday doing Xmas projects and shared apéro and desserts at idday so was cream-crackered when I finally got home yesterday and started dozing off in front of PC and TV after dinner. Slept 10 hours last night.

We had more strong winds and mega downpours yesterday but it's bright today after a misty start and is still hazy but calm. OH is busy tidying up stems he's lopped off our mixed hedge to get them ready for his muncher and I've been making this soup for lunch. Now to go and finish my frock.

I did some pickled shallots a few weeks ago now @Goldenlily26 after getting OH to peel them cos he doesn't cry. Not my favourite way to eat onions but I found a recipe that should make them sweet as well as sour. Can't cope with them too vinegary.

As we can't get decent Xmas crads here @Busy-Lizzie i've taken to doing my own - embroidered. Very zen once th eholes have been punched. I'll put some on the craft thread later. Birthdays to deal with first tho - I, OH and quite a few friends all have Saggittarian birthdays and then we start thinking Xmas.

Got to love a purple coat @Penny_Forthem and yes, it needs to be long enough to cover hips and thighs @Ergates cos who wants a wet bum? I have some lilac wool to make a smartt coat one of these days. Offered it to Possum and she was almost rude! Much too flamboyant for her. I told her about the poem - when I get old shall wear purple - but she's a long way off yet.

 

Forgot to say @Liriodendron - for Xmas, prepare ahead all the foods you can such as terrines, desserts, mince pies, cakes etc on the assumption people will be there and then add the FODMAP stuff near the end when you know where you are. Even if you end up with more than needed it'll keep, frozen or well wrapped for you and OH to feast over the Xmas and NY season. We often don't get to our Xmas cake till March or later when it becomes post-gardening-all-day-energy-boost cake.

 

Me!! Whoo-hoo!!
Rigel. I wrote a kids' book many years ago and used the name for the 'villain', Rigel Woof!

It's a lovely day here, so I'm not going to art, but planting the last of the tulips from FG. Something has dug up the ones I planted a few weeks ago. Not pleased.
Fantastic result @Goldenlily26. When I was a chutney maker, I won a Great taste award for Honeyed pickled shallots. It was my worst nightmare! Peeling the blinking things! Could just eat one now, though, with a hunk of crumbly Cheshire!
I'm on a roll today - I had an Afghan coat. If it got wet (which was most of the time) it stank, but I loved it. Mum hated it with a vengeance!

 

It was my cousin, who, at that time was steward with British Airways (I was on the last BOAC as it flew out of Auckland in 1971) - anyway, he had purchased it in some far off land and I think I paid a tenner for it. It was warm, I have to admit but the 2 other girls I flatted with made me leave it on the landing at night!!

 

I had an Afghan too but it was fake suede and fake fur so didn't smell when damp - just as well as I was a sudent in Salford so lots of rainy days....

As we watched Mastermind last night OH scoffed at me telling Possum it was educational. Who picks up tips form progs like this? How do you know it's true anyway? I told him any well researched book would have you absorbing facts about people, places, history, geography and so on and masterminders don't just read Wikipedia or TicTacky when researching their subject. "Bah! I just read the story." Explains a lot, especially as he mostly reads golf magazines and it takes him a month to read most books whereas I get thru 2 or 3 a week.

 

Sorry @Penny_Forthem but you are wrong. True, Rigel is in the Orion constellation but the names of the three stars in Orion's belt are Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. My team member said Rigel. Love Rigel being used as the name of your villain.
All this talk of lush pickled onions is really making my mouth water. I can empathise with your flooded garden @Liriodendron as mine has been like that most of this year.

 

Well you live and learn @Ladybird4 thanks for putting me straight!
And here's me thinking 'I know this one!'

 

Good afternoon,
A lovely day here today, but somewhat chilly with a frost first thing - made the gardener a hot drink (he’d come to prune back a tree for me).
We had a lovely Christmas lunch yesterday with our coffee morning “natter” friends, so that is the start of the festivities for us.

 

Thank you, @Obelix-Vendée - that's excellent advice which I shall act on. Interesting talk of pickled shallots & onions: daughter's booklet about her diet says she can eat one or two pickled onions, but not fresh or dried ones. Likewise tinned mushrooms but not "au naturel". I can't remember the ins & outs, but apparently the polywhatsits (or whatever) which ferment in the stomach get leached out into the vinegar or water.

Thanks for the sympathy, @Ladybird4 . Actually, this garden drains reasonably well, though the soil is a heavyish loam. We're on limestone and I think the water goes down the cracks - there are caves not all that far away. (There's also a big dip in our lawn, known by OH when mowing as "the declivity", which we hope isn't a sink hole...) It was the melting snow plus a lot of heavy rain which had flooded one corner, but it's already a lot better. It's 4C out now, and a lot of the frost has gone, except for the shadiest area next to the back of the house.