Reply to: test please delete

[NickFitz]

I came to the end of Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man in which he's having an unexpectedly dull time at the Front, and started on Memoirs of an Infantry Officer which picks up from the point where that ends

I may go shopping tomorrow. Then again, I may not. Tuesdays are usually a fairly quiet day at the shops, but I don't suppose any days are really quiet this close to Christmas

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea has been chicken in red wine sauce with chips and peas

Accompanied by the motorway cops with no added motorway but with unrelated dashcam clips

[NickFitz]

Lunch: Scotch broth and a crust of wholemeal

[NickFitz]

Links are up

[DoctorStrangelove]

MorningAfternoon.

Monday.

Grey.

Damp.

Dreary.

Sunless.

Warmish side of chilly in here at 13.6 deg, 12.5 deg in the kitchen, 13 deg in the leanto.

1027 mBar, 30.327 in Hg, 770.313 Torr, 14.895 psi, (unchanged), 66% RH (Lidl electric).

Shopping trip to Aldi & Tesco done dusted washed dried sanitised & almost put away. Made the mistake of buying more pitted dates and the bigger mistake of opening the packet. .

Walk (unabbreviated) walked in the grey gloom.

Bumped into a neighbour from down the road whose wife is in hospital with oesophageal cancer, the very thing that killed my grandfather in 1948 a year before he could get his pension.

Meanwhile on the 11th of December 2019 there was much discussion of dentistry by xogg, opm, and NF.

Lunch: brunch.

The afternoon was spent fettling computers: the ancient 586 sprang to life fairly readily (bits of it date from 1990), the Win2k box from about 2010 required surgery to glue new 1000uF capacitors across the really dubious looking 1800uF 105 deg caps next to the processor.

After which it sprang into life, though for how long is anyone's guess.

Its brother (same mobo & processor) has developed a fault where the audio bit crashes the thing which is rather irritating. I wonder if similar surgery might help.

Tea: soup etc.

Entertainment: bits of "Christopher Robin (2018)". Stone me, he had a wonderful relationship with his parents: thank feck for Nanny.

I am now utterly knackered.

Some dumb car search programme: Rusty capri, a surprisingly unrusty Lanci Delta Integrale (it came from Japan so no salt on the road, apparently). Got bored. Turned it off.

Oak Island feckwhits: the metal detecting moron finds a hatchet head: obviously it's Viking, innit. They're down the garden shaft drilling stuff sideways. Chap takes a wood sample from some random oak tree. Faffing about with some wall near that "unique well" near the pond near the sea. Now they're taking said walls to bits. Apparently they find gold in something or other. Probably 10 parts per billion.

Looks like this one is the last until after Xmas. Bah fecking humbug.

[ladymuck]

Yerevan, Armenia done in 23 moves (5x5 grid). Would have been 22 if I hadn't accidentally dropped a square one place lower than I'd intended.

Towel wash on. Dishwasher emptied and the washing up HWMBO did before he went off to work yesterday has been put away.

[ladymuck]

geez. - I have a kettle.
It boils water.
hot water = tea/coffee/mocha/whatever I like.
not a fairy hipster in sight.

I ain't no bearded hipster but once I tried coffee from a bean to cup machine, there was never any going back to instant tulipe.

The faff to clean it once a month is a minor price to pay for tasty coffee.

[NickFitz]

Morning denizens

Fairly sunny day out, though with quite a few clouds scattered hither and yon for decorative purposes. It's a warm 9°C and aiming for a positively baking 10° with the barometers up rather at 1017/1025mB

The Apple HomePods have just been delivered! After such a hectic weekend (one social event, one corner of the kitchen tidied up slightly) I'd forgotten they were coming, but they're here now. I've also been notified that my new recliner will be delivered a week from today. Some sorting out of the living room needs to happen before that arrives, so the pods will have to stay in their boxes for now

[sadkingbilly]

geez. - I have a kettle.
It boils water.
hot water = tea/coffee/mocha/whatever I like.
not a fairy hipster in sight.

[ladymuck]

Morning all

Dull and overcast again. Dry. Currently 10 degrees ('feels like' 8) with a high of 11 expected. Slight chance of rain early evening. Barometer up to 1031 mBar.

My coffee machine this morning told me it needed cleaning. What's really annoying about said notification is that it comes after puck forming thingumajig is in its working position so you can't remove it to clean it and you can't use the machine. You have to flick the proper power switch on the back off and on again, which clears the message and allows you to use the machine. You then have to turn off the machine using the standby power button on the front so that the puck thingy moves into position for it to be removed and thus cleaned. All very tedious.

For now, I have put a post-it on the machine saying "clean me" and I'll do that once I'm done with my morning coffee requirements and/or am looking for a procrastination task this afternoon.

I have a stash of descaling liquid that I bulk bought when I first got the machine about 15+ years ago but it very rarely demands that treatment. I also have water hardness testing strips that inform how you set up the machine but every place I've lived always gives the same result, so I don't know if they actually work.

[WTFH]

Morning all
Very light drizzle earlier on our 6.5km walk, now the sky is clearing.

eBay notification just in... coffee machine descaling liquid has been posted. Turns out the new coffee machine tells you when it needs descaling, and only gives you 30 coffees from the fist warning until it shuts down. Hoping the liquid arrives before I fall asleep.

[NickFitz]

Tonight's major festive motion pictures have been those Christmas classics Die Hard (1988) and Die Hard 2 (1990) in both of which lots of stuff happens

Monday tomorrow, but no work. It's a winning combination

Goodnight all

[NickFitz]

Tea has been sapporo miso, being the last of the ramen kits from Matsudai

They were all very nice, so I reckon I'll be ordering from them again

This was accompanied by an old, though not very old, episode of 24 Hours in A&E

[NickFitz]

Oh, and I put a tea towel wash on too

[NickFitz]

That's The Cruel Sea watched for the umpteenth time. No idea how many times I've seen it over the last fifty years or so

After that, I found time to deal with the pile of takeaway containers which I've finally accepted will never "come in handy"; so they're all packed up ready for a trip to the recycling bins.

Then I got around to assembling the new spice rack I got off Amazon a few weeks ago because the one I've already got has long since overflowed, resulting in innumerable small jars sprawling all over the bit of the worktop near the cooker where they live. At some point I intend to go through them as I know there are a fair few duplicates, due to thinking "Better get some paprika/cumin/star anise etc. just in case I'm running low" whilst shopping. As the new one rotates, I can literally rotate my stock to keep things under control and make sure they get used in the correct order

The old one will still be in use as the reserve storage area for duplicates, and can also keep the less frequently used ones where they'll be handy but not getting in the way