test please delete

[NickFitz]

Walk briskly walked and, thanks to running up and down stairs and sawing then carting away thick branches of buddleia: all three rings closed

Still grey out, and a bit humid.

[ladymuck]

Amazon finally arrived, having taken some time because the bridge over the river is a real bottleneck during rush hour; he was stuck at the junction there for about ten minutes, gradually getting closer. So I now have a new Remoska, to replace the one I broke a few years ago!

I shall be using it to make tonight's dinner

I have never heard of a Remoska before. Having looked it up, I'm rather curious!

[NickFitz]

I have never heard of a Remoska before. Having looked it up, I'm rather curious!

It's a cracking piece of kit. Being from the Warsaw Pact era, it's built like a tank, but it's very energy efficient and does a really good job

Tea has been chicken casserole, made in the Remoska. Absolutely delicious

I brown the chicken thighs a bit in a frying pan first, then give them about an hour just in the sauce, which I deliberately over-dilute a little. Then I layer sliced potatoes on top, with a bit of thyme and salt and pepper, such that they're just barely covered by the sauce. The potatoes start cooking in the sauce, but that soon reduces and the fat that has floated to the top takes over, and because the heat from the Remoska comes from above, it works really well at gradually crisping the top. Meanwhile, the steam from the sauce beneath keeps rising. So you end up with a layer of nicely flavoured potato slices which are good and soft all the way through but with a thin crunchy layer on top. Meanwhile, the chicken has become lovely and tender. I've never been able to get that approach to work quite as well using a normal oven

[ladymuck]

^^ Well that's a new thing learnt / discovered today!

Dinner was some pasta with the last of the whatever it was that I called it last week. Ended up with loads so that'll be another meal, maybe two.

Watched Fake or Fortune. Orientalism art or some such.

And just the one episode of Oak Island, wherein the ground around the H8 shaft is giving way.

[NickFitz]

It's a cracking piece of kit. Being from the Warsaw Pact era, it's built like a tank, but it's very energy efficient and does a really good job

Actually, having handled it a bit more, I think this new one isn't quite as heavy as the old-style one. It's virtually identical, the only differences being a minor change to the design of some handles and so on, and still solidly built, and it functions exactly the same way and just as well as the old one. But they seem to have managed to find some rather less massive materials to make some parts of it, along with a few other improvements like a Teflon coating on the underside of the lid making it easier to clean. The old one was probably made of depleted uranium or something

Telly has been the rest of a Yorkshire fire brigade programme on iPlayer that I'd started watching a while ago and forgotten about, and some more Paddington stuff

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Another grey, 14°C start though it might get as warm as 20° later. There was a vague possibility of rain this morning but that's evaporated, leaving just a 50% chance of some around teatime. The barometer's drift downwards has accelerated slightly: now 1005/1013mB

[WTFH]

Morning all

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Overcast again, dry at present. Currently 14 degrees with a high expected of 21. Rain forecast for early evening onwards. Barometer down to 1015 mBar.

Doing a 'CASM' course today and tomorrow. Lots of Agile buzzwords and nonsense. Very light touch on content - 214 slides over two days, with about a third of those being title slides.

Today's Kantar diary fact is:
The first battery-powered taxi cabs appear in London 1897

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Dry.

Grey.

Chilly.

Sunless.
November isn't it?

19.4 deg in here.

1011 mBar, in Hg, 72% RH.

Thursday by all accounts & the apparent passing of the recycling engineers earlier.

Finals dream again, ho hum.

It was something about DSP or somesuch this time.

Oh the Horror.

Oddly I appeared to be my actual age in this one, so WTF I was doing worrying about a DSP exam is beyond me.

Especially since I know next to nothing about DSP.

Entertainment: NCIS S16 E1 again, well it was on & it was raining out.

Walk briefly walked in the ongoing drizzle.

Lunch: Heinz potato & leek soup with Morrisons wholemeal sunflower and spelt bread, bramble jelly sandwich on same, a red corner yog, 0.91 pints of good Glengettie tea.

Entertainment: Car SOS: Hillman Imp: a right rust bucket.

Amazingly enough panels are available for the thing, as in pressed by some company or other, no doubt at considerable expense.

I wonder what the disc brake conversion cost, and the fuel injection using 4 throttle bodies and an ECU.

"Trail Street (1947)" with that Randolph Scott chap as Bat Masterson.

"Trucking Hell" S4 E4 (part of).

Another binbag full of redundant paper and more added to the recycling pile.

Tea: chilli con carne & rice, some stewed apple & custard, 0.91 pints of good Glengettie tea, a yog.

Entertainment: Discovering Meryl Streep.

Elementary S6 E20

Comedy Legends: Billy Crystal on Sky Arts.

Skin A&E on 5*+1.

[NickFitz]

Finally got confirmation of the extension to the end of September