Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

Tea has been Sainsbury's "hog roast style" pulled pork shoulder with apple sauce and stuffing balls, with chips. I bought the pork thing primarily because it was on special offer (aka Nectar Price) to me in particular, and it sounded worth a try. It was pretty nice actually; don't know if I'd bother again, but I might

Idiots are letting off fireworks despite it not being 5th November. They were doing it last night too, despite it not being November at all then

One pleasant thing today was opening the banking app and seeing that Halifax hadn't taken a mortgage payment despite it being the 1st. I paid it off too late in September to prevent the direct debit last month, so it went out then got refunded a couple of weeks later when they'd completed their processes. But this month and, I hope, for many more, neither rent nor mortgage are going to anyone!

[xoggoth]

Walk with loony lady 3 earlier. Not too bad, tho one muddy bit. Just had one of those scam loft insulation calls. Maybe HMRC is all a scam, tax does not really exist.

[NickFitz]

Are these crows crows or jackdaws?

I recall watching a crow crow chasing a squirrel along the grass & up a tree on one of my walks.

I like crows & jackdaws.

Definitely crows - I've had the binoculars on them before

The crows were back, browsing either side of the big lawn, while a squirrel was wandering around halfway between them. I thought it might be a different squirrel, but it casually worked its way round until it was close to one of the crows then made a run at it! The crow flew off, followed shortly after by the other. So I don't think we've seen an end to the feud yet

Lunch has been a Pukka sausage roll, re-baked in the air fryer. They're pretty nice compared to some shop-bought sausage rolls, though not as good as Greggs

[DoctorStrangelove]

Are these crows crows or jackdaws?

I recall watching a crow crow chasing a squirrel along the grass & up a tree on one of my walks.

I like crows & jackdaws.

[NickFitz]

Incredible scenes! One of the crows just chased one of the squirrels (presumably the same one as they've previously argued with) all the way from the larger art deco block, across the drive, and across the big lawn until it scampered into the relative safety of the central flower bed, under the roses

This wasn't just the crow swooping back and forth in its general direction as I've seen before; it was flying along, matching the squirrel's pace, right above and behind its head, occasionally changing angle to thrust its talons to within an inch or so of it

I don't know what that particular squirrel's done to annoy them, but the crows really aren't happy with it. For a reference sample, there was another squirrel just across the lawn past the flowerbed, and the crows completely ignored that one. So I'm pretty sure it's a personal inter-species beef with that particular squirrel

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Grey day again, and also fairly mild again, being 11°C with a promise of 14° for a bit this afternoon. The barometers are down a bit more, though again not very significantly at 1012/1020mB

I had a nice lie-in sans any kind of alarm or scheduled activity. Might pop out this afternoon, depending on whether I can be bothered

[xoggoth]

Another cr*py night sleep. At least had a nice erotic dream. Plumber came earlier and fixed the loud hum problem. Prob ll3 walk later, if I can think of anywhere not knee deep in mud.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Morning.

Friday.

Grey.

Sunless.

Dismal.

Chilly in here at 16 deg, 16 deg in the kitchen, 14 deg in the leanto, 12 deg in the saltinghouse.

1020.5 mBar, 30.135 in Hg, 765.43 Torr, 14.8 psi, (unchanged), 68% RH (Lidl electric).

Meanwhile on the 26th of November 2019 much fish was consumed by various denizens, whereas NF informed us of the advent of the online Amstrad CPC games emulator which he found adequate but not up to emulating the Real Thing quite yet when playing a game written by his mate Sean back in the day.

Shirts in the WM.

Shirts out of the WM & pegged out on the line. Slow drying day.

Smalls in the WM.

Smalls out of the WM and pegged out on the line.

Cottons in the WM.

Freecell score: 95%, running average: 79%.

Cottons out of the WM and pegged out on the line.

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the grey gloom.

Lunch: there was brunch.

Freecell score: 93%, running average: 79%.

Shirts in off the line, slightly damp, iRoned & airing upstairs.

Some cottons in off the line & iRoned: airing upstairs.

Smalls in off the line & airing upstairs.

Cottons in off the line at 16:45 & met the TD: cleaned the spiders out first.

Tea: chicken in white sauce etc. Nice enough.

Cottons out of the TD & roughly iRoned: no water emerged from the TD though.

Entertainment: book. other book. other other book. other other other book.

Tina Turner 2000 concert.

Some mad buggers exploring disused metal mines in Wales. Fecking mad as a box of frogs looking at the state of some of that timber.

More Tina Turner.

Fleetwood Mac The Dance tour 2000. Don't know half the songs.

Perused various sites about VLF (very low frequency) radio receivers: for some reason I remember an ancient Practical Electronics article from the late 60s about "whistlers", "Chorus", and "Sterics" which are all low frequency radio generated variously by lightning and stuff interfering with the earth's magnetic field.

Having found half a dozen circuits I'll now do nothing with any of them. .

[NickFitz]

Tonight's viewing started with a new Traffic Cops

And then the major motion picture premiere was Apple's The Instigators (2024), a decent enough yarn involving an attempted heist on a corrupt Chicago mayor which, inevitably, goes wrong in various entertaining ways

Then I found time for another chapter of Casino

I decided I don't really need to go shopping tomorrow, so I probably won't, or at least not in the morning

Goodnight all

[ladymuck]

Evening all

It's dark out. Earlier it was cloudy but dry. Currently 12 degrees but the high was 16. Barometer down to 1024 mBar.

Overslept this morning and then had a busy day with my crayons. Finally came up with a plan to convey the information required based on the customer not knowing what they want. Review by ConsultancyCo was highly positive so that's a relief. Apparently my concept is very novel and will be a superb starter for the discussion that's needed.

So the working day ended on a positive.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been homemade sweet & sour pork with fried rice

This marked the first outing for my new rice cooker. It does a considerably better job of cooking rice than I've ever managed

[NickFitz]

Another week done!

Only six more weeks till I knock off for Christmas

[eek]

The 10 year old KitchenAid Nespresso machine is leaking a bit too much, so I'd started to research replacing it. Note that it's not the KitchenAid bit of it that is faulty, but the seals around the pressure bit. It is repairable, according to youtube videos, but it seems a tad complex to do.

There's an offer on at the minute where on one of 2 machines, you get the machine's value in coffee back over a 12-18 month period. The two machines are a £170 basic one, or a £499 Sage with a few bells and whistles and a far bigger water tank.
Now the fact that you get your money back in coffee means it doesn't really matter which you go for (in a sense, and if you're happy to order as much as we drink), but I was leaning towards the more expensive one, while The Wife was keener on the lower cost option.
Just happened to log in to John Lewis today to see if they still had the free coffee offer, and not only that, but for Black Friday. the expensive machine was on offer at £299.

New coffee machine ordered.

Had the Sage one for years - it's brilliant especially the milk bit...

[NickFitz]

Lunch: leftover pork cutlet in a wholemeal bap with apple sauce

[WTFH]

The 10 year old KitchenAid Nespresso machine is leaking a bit too much, so I'd started to research replacing it. Note that it's not the KitchenAid bit of it that is faulty, but the seals around the pressure bit. It is repairable, according to youtube videos, but it seems a tad complex to do.

There's an offer on at the minute where on one of 2 machines, you get the machine's value in coffee back over a 12-18 month period. The two machines are a £170 basic one, or a £499 Sage with a few bells and whistles and a far bigger water tank.
Now the fact that you get your money back in coffee means it doesn't really matter which you go for (in a sense, and if you're happy to order as much as we drink), but I was leaning towards the more expensive one, while The Wife was keener on the lower cost option.
Just happened to log in to John Lewis today to see if they still had the free coffee offer, and not only that, but for Black Friday. the expensive machine was on offer at £299.

New coffee machine ordered.