test please delete

[NickFitz]

Lightning strike update from my brother via our mother: a senior chap from Eon visited, and was stunned; he declared he'd never seen anything like it, and that the house was definitely uninhabitable until they get the supply sorted out again, which he's getting them to work on as quickly as they can.

And the insurance guy, who'd been causing annoyance by seeming to treat matters in a somewhat lackadaisical manner, has also visited. He was apparently visibly shaken by what he encountered, and is now moving things along with a greater sense of urgency than he has hitherto shown

[Scruff]

Haven't BBQ'd all week. BBQs are on my roof terrace which gets direct sunlight. I've never been able to put any sunshades there as it's too exposed and they keep getting blown down.
The temp gages on the BBQs were registering 50c without even sparking them up.
The reason they are not in the garden is one of my neighbours kept whining about the smoke, which is off given I use pro charcoal which doesn't smoke. Which is more than I can say for him using cheap supermarket stuff with lighter fuel and gassing out the entire neighbourhood.

We used to have a moaning neighbour about our frequent braai activities. I reminded them of their constantly barking dog, and shouting whenever Chelsea scored a goal.

They shut up and moved quote shortly after their adjoining extension was built. So did we...

[NickFitz]

Iceland proved to be quite on the ball when it comes to celery, so a few stalks of that have been chopped up and added to the mix in the slow cooker, along with a couple of bay leaves.

And while hunting in the cupboard for the latter, I discovered a bouquet garni, BBE 30/01/2014. So I stuck that in as well, as it had been sealed in a ziplock bag and still smelt quite herby, so it might do something useful

[NickFitz]

The gammon joint is smoked, by the way.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Walk walked.

Subsequent shower enshowered, with head dunked in washhandbasin of cold water as well.

Shirts out of the TD and ironed.

Cottons out of the WM shortly.

Lunch: poached tomato and scrambled egg on Morrisons wholemeal sunflower and spelt toast (uncrust), red corner yog, 0.91 pints of good Glengettie tea.

Slow cooker activated. Today's, or rather tonight's, culinary masterpiece will be ham, yellow split pea and red lentil soup

I discovered that the celery in the fridge had gone extremely manky, unsurprisingly given that I only ever use it for soups and haven't made soup for two or three weeks.

I detest celery, which is odd considering I used to get a stick put in the lunch box back in the day.

Lightning strike update from my brother via our mother: a senior chap from Eon visited, and was stunned; he declared he'd never seen anything like it, and that the house was definitely uninhabitable until they get the supply sorted out again, which he's getting them to work on as quickly as they can.

And the insurance guy, who'd been causing annoyance by seeming to treat matters in a somewhat lackadaisical manner, has also visited. He was apparently visibly shaken by what he encountered, and is now moving things along with a greater sense of urgency than he has hitherto shown

Good to hear they're stirring their sticks at last.

Apparently positive strikes are much more damaging than negative strikes, or so I read somewhere.

I suspect your brother was rather lucky it didn't set the house on fire.

[NickFitz]

Her Majesty's Government said they were going to announce the results of their latest review of our local lockdown today. They've just announced that they aren't going to announce anything until Monday

[Scruff]

Her Majesty's Government said they were going to announce the results of their latest review of our local lockdown today. They've just announced that they aren't going to announce anything until Monday

They are still trying to find their way out of their paper bags...

[NickFitz]

Good to hear they're stirring their sticks at last.

Apparently positive strikes are much more damaging than negative strikes, or so I read somewhere.

I suspect your brother was rather lucky it didn't set the house on fire.

Very lucky indeed, I reckon. Apparently the structural engineer has now been over the place and said there isn't any fundamental structural damage, just a bit of a smack to one gable and some other bits of breakage here and there. So at least they don't have to knock the place down and start again

Looking on Street View, I see that there are cables from a nearby telegraph pole passing overhead to the houses up the hill behind his (he's in the Peak District half way up a peak) and going very near his external TV aerial, so one wonders if it might have gone for the pole, travelled along the cables, and jumped onto the aerial. But I'm not sure if that's the end where the damage was or if it was at the other end.

[ladymuck]

Lunch has been left over lamb curry.

Lovely cooling breeze coming in the window.

[NickFitz]

99%, 54bpm