Monthly Archives: January 2020

Another Routine Sunday

I eventually prised myself from bed just after mid-morning. I had been up earlier but my back was so stiff I’d gone back to bed to get some warmth and do some straightening exercises. At that point I fell asleep and, as I say, reluctantly emerged. I’m tempted to say “like a butterfly from a chrysalis” but that wouldn’t be an entirely accurate picture.

We breakfasted on what was supposed to be smashed avocado and eggs on toast but Julia is such a gentle soul the avos were no more than moderately roughed up. It’s a shameful thing to do, offering any sort of violence to an avocado – they should really be filled with prawns and thousand island dressing. Or mayonnaise with ketchup, which is my version. However, this is the modern way and Julia likes it so who am I to complain?

After that we had toast and marmalade whilst watching The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was the 1988 TV version with Jeremy Brett. I like him as Holmes, but there are several other versions of the story which I prefer. Holmes really should be in black and white.

Then it was off to the laundry for Julia and off to the supermarket for me.

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Shopping

The laundry was crowded, because it was a dull wet day. The supermarket was not crowded, but the people in it all seemed to be on a mission to get in my way.

That was the first part of then day. On our return I wrote the first 240 words in twenty minutes as I cooked pie and beans for a meal that was a mixture of late lunch and early tea.

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View from the Driving Seat

I then frittered the rest of the afternoon in front of a fire, watching quizzes, snoozing and drinking tea. No, not all at the same time.

It is now 8.00. Washing up is done, the roast vegetable as are in the oven for tonight’s meal and the ones for tomorrow are boiling as I type. We will be having gravy tonight as we eat roast veg, Lincolnshire sausages and Yorkshire puddings.

Monday night’s veg will, with the addition of last night’s rice (which is currently frozen, to avoid food poisoning) and some other bits, will provide another go at veggie burgers. I will have two on Tuesday night with ratatouille (Julia is dining out for a birthday celebration) and on Wednesday we will both have veggie burgers and ratatouille. My capacity for repetition of meals means I can happily eat the same thing for three or four days if necessary.

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You could chart my life from pictures like these

The timer just went off – time for a trip to the kitchen, where mounds of steaming vegetables are waiting for me.

Later I will return to load some photos and publish the post.

The writing has taken 37 minutes according to the kitchen timers I had running at the time. I bet the photos and Tagss take at least another 20, if not more.

This blog hates me – it’s just taken twelve trouble-free minutes to do the photos and Tags. It’s trying to make me look like a liar by doing everything the easy way…

 

 

The Accuracy Paradox

There is a built-in inaccuracy to all my blog posts – I am not really the cheerful happy-go-lucky soul which I portray.

The real paradox though, is that I am, just before writing, one post behind my target. As soon as I start to write the words “I am one post behind” this has the effect of bringing into being the post that means I have caught up.

It means I’m never quite right with what I write. And to think that I thought the chronology was a problem…

Timewise I’m just about to start a post that shows some of the walk we undertook before the tea and biscuits I wrote about in the last post. This is my fault, I just found it easier to write about.

However, this is is a small time slip compared to the one that has occurred with the Scone Chronicles. I had one to write when I got shut out of WordPress and though I have been catching up I’m still not quite back in line. It’s a good one, but I seem to lack the relaxed time I want to just sit and write.

The swan was a bit too friendly and had no concept of personal space. I wasn’t using a zoom lens for that close-up, I was trying to pull back because I was so close I couldn’t get it all in the frame.

The stones on the hill have been put there by the water company as an homage to the various pre-historic stone circles of Derbyshire. To be honest with you, until I read that link I thought there were only three.

I have, to be honest, used the “Dramatic” setting for two of the shots. The other, taken into the sun with a newly-cleaned lens, did not turn out with quite as much flare as I was expecting. Clearly I need more dirt and finger marks on the lens if I’m going for maximum flare.

I’m now in a position to push the button and post. Then I will truly be able to say I’m up to date.

Scone Chronicles XXX

It’s definitely time to move away from Roman Numerals.

XXX is quite a good number  but it begins to get a bit unwieldly after that, particularly as I’m not quite sure how to handle 40. Is it XXXX or is it XL? It’s XXXX according to my old History teacher, who told me that this was the classic way, and that the subtraction style was a newer method. For “newer” think less than 2,000 years. It’s XL according to this chart, but even this chart can’t make 50 – 54 look good. (That’s L – LIIII, in case you were wondering).

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Oat and Raisin biscuit, tea, walking stick and my leg. Not my best work. Yes. it was a big biscuit.

The “scone” today is an oat and raisin biscuit eaten in the outside area at Carsington Water. We ate in the outside area so I could throw crumbs on the floor to attract sparrows. I was that desperate for a bird photograph. The results were, as you can see, not good. Most of the shots featured an empty space, half a bird, a blurred bird or a bird with its eyes shut. Of all my bird photos, and there have been some horrors, I don’t recall “eyes shut” being a problem before.

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Male Hose Sparrow Carsington Water

There is a reasonably good restaurant at Carsington Water but it’s upstairs and it’s enclosed. They would probably take a dim view of me throwing crumbs on the floor, and even if I did, the sparrows are unlikely to find their way in. Anyway, after a large breakfast we didn’t need another meal.

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Female Hose Sparrow Carsington Water

There is an RSPB Shop and a charity shop there. In the charity shop we bought a couple of books – a vegetarian cook book for Julia and a history book for me. It’s the diaries of an Olympic rower in the Great War. The title, Kelly’s war : the Great War diary of Frederick Kelly, 1914-1916 tends to give the game away. I am not expecting a happy ending.

 

Dressing Up Some Leftovers

We had vegetarian haggis and root vegetables last night. We didn’t  particularly want vegetables dressed up as meat, but Julia fancied trying it. It tasted exactly like haggis, because haggis mainly tastes of oats and spices.

I wimped out of the traditional neeps and tatties because neeps, it seems, are Swedish turnips, better known in England as swedes, and in North America as rutebagas. I like carrots, I like parsnips and I have no strong feelings about turnips, but swedes are a bit too strongly flavoured for my liking. As a result I generally eat them with other veg. That’s what we did last night – potato, carrot, parsnip, turnip and swede all mashed together.

Tonight I mashed the leftover veg and haggis together, added half a tin of chickpeas (also mashed), an egg, cumin, curry powder and black pepper and formed them into five veggie burgers. The actual plan was to do four, but there was some left over so I added a fifth. I left the mashed bits lumpy to give plenty of texture. Then I gave them 20 minutes at 200 degrees C, turning about halfway through.

Veggie Burgers

Veggie Burgers

They were very acceptable, even if I do say so myself.

The stir-fried veg was (loosely) based on the stir-fried sprouts and chestnuts we had at Christmas, though with no sprouts I used some wilting broccoli and cauliflower. Henderson’s Relish replaced the soy sauce. I also drizzled on the end of a bottle of Hoisin Sauce because the honey has crystallised in the squeezy bottle. and threw in one  teaspoonful of chilli and two of garlic from my jars in the fridge. I also threw in a few cashews and some almonds left over from other cooking.

Stir fried vegatables

Stir fried vegetables

 

The overall healthy nature of the meal was destroyed when I sliced a baked potato, left over from Tuesday and fried it with some chicken chipolatas left over from Monday. The chicken chipolatas were not a success, being dry and bland. I will not repeat the experience.

More leftovers...

More leftovers…

 

The header picture is an example of what happens when the lens steams up as you photograph food. Or, to be more accurate, when you are hungry and ready to sit down and the lens steams up as you photograph food. You don’t bother wiping the lens, you just switch off the camera and go to eat.

 

The Harry Dunn Case

Today, I have been preoccupied with the Harry Dunn case. I keep wondering what it would be like if one of my kids was killed in similar circumstances.

It would be bad enough to have a child killed, but to see a foreign government help them escape trial must add a whole new dimension to the case, particularly when it is supposed to be a friendly foreign government.

Nations should realise what messages they send with their actions. I know what message I am taking away from it. The message I am taking away is that the UK is not seen as either a friend or an ally, which I sort of knew anyway, and that the life of a British youth is not worth a fig compared to the comfort of an American citizen.

This will only be a short post. I don’t want to labour the point, and i don’t want to say anything to cause offence to American readers. It is, after all, a decision taken by the state, not by individuals.

However, I would like to know what any passing Americans think of the case, or indeed, have even heard of it.

And that. I think, is a good place to stop.

 

The Second of at Least Two Blog Posts

By the time I got through to the other room Julia had read the blog post and put a bar of Kit-Kat next to the chair. It was the most delicious thing I’ve eaten all week.

If I mention I’m feeling thirsty I wonder if she will make a cup of tea? Or is that just being unrealistically optimistic?

The header picture is a banknote from the wartime occupation of the Channel Islands. Well, that’s the intention. At the moment I can’t access my photos – just one more glitch in a long list of annoying intermittent faults with my site. I’m hoping I’ll be able to access them before midnight or I’ll have to post without photos. (As you can see, it did start working again after I closed down and restarted – very annoying!)

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Jersey £1 note – German wartime issue

I’m rediscovering an interest in banknotes, though it’s only in certain ones. They need to be interesting and they it’s an advantage if they have a story. To a collector the Japanese note pictured below (if the system starts to work again) is ruined because somebody has written on it. But to me , the personal touch and the details, are what makes it worth collecting. Not that I’m going to start collecting them. I already collect far too much.

I’ve just been looking through some MRI banknote reference books (that’s Monetary Research Inc., rather than magnetic Resonance Imaging) and find there are currently over 220 countries issuing banknotes and over 2,000 colour pictures of notes. That is just the ones that are currently redeemable, not all the ones that have ever been produced – I’d hate to think how many that would come to.

MRI Catalogues - a treasure trove of information

MRI Catalogues – a treasure trove of information

 

 

 

 

The First of at Least Two Posts

I managed three posts yesterday – one in the morning before we went out, one when we came back and one because I had time to do it and no distractions. There was nothing decent on TV and Julia was in the dining room talking to her sister on the phone.

This proves that when I have time and inspiration I can write multiple posts. Time and inspiration, hmmm…

I’m going to think about that. I can probably improve my capacity for being inspired, and if I get plenty of sleep I can probably cut out the evening naps, though that’s not quite as likely. I did have plenty of sleep last night, but still managed to fall asleep when Julia went to cook the curry.

The new day came round too early and we left home at 7.05 to get Julia to the doctor for an appointment. That went fairly well, but she forgot to pick up a prescription for me. We found that out when we got to McDonald’s and my early morning cheerfulness, which is brittle at the best of times, quickly cracked.

The dispenser at McDonald’s was out of BBQ Sauce. This is the second time in two visits and the fourth in six visits. How difficult can it be to keep a sauce dispenser filled?

Back at the doctors, I allowed a woman to go through the door ahead of me (because my parents brought me up properly) and she spent the next twelve minutes trying to get a prescription for extra pain killers from a receptionist. It doesn’t work that way, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Sometimes I wish my parents had brought me up to be selfish and use my elbows more.

Then they gave me only half the prescription and I had to make them find the other half, then traffic built up and roadworks slowed us down…

As I say, we left home at 7.05. I got to work at 9.55. And at that point I realised, with a feeling of numb resignation, that things were not going to get better.

For lunch I had tuna with cream cheese, spring onions and lemon zest. It was a bit sharp. Tuna mayonnaise would have been easier, but I had cream cheese left over from the mackerel pate. It seems a bit wetter than mayonnaise and I had to drain it by leaving it a sieve for a couple of hours. More work needed, I think.

This seems like a good time to go for a cup of tea. Julia has just returned home and it will be nice to talk to someone. I say talk, but really I just saw her slip a bar of chocolate into her pocket, so I am nurturing hopes of being fed.

The header picture is a new Robin picture for Lavinia.

 

Scone Chronicles XXIX – Dry, Disappointing and Drizzleless

We saw an interesting sign today whilst shopping. It was outside Wagamamas, and advertises “Vegan Tuna”.

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Vegan Tuna? No chance!

This is slightly confusing from a grammatical point of view. As a lifestyle choice, this is unlikely as I can’t see tuna ever sticking to an ethical vegetarian diet. It is even less likely from a biological point of view as tuna are made of meat.

I’m also tempted to say that there’s something strange about a vegan eating something dressed up to look like meat. Not just vegans, any vegetarian in fact. I’ve never really been a fan of any vegetarian food dressed up as meat.

We had Thai green curry tonight, with mini corn cobs, mangetout peas, broccoli, carrots and cashews. You don’t need quorn or fake tuna to make perfectly good vegetarian food.

Talking of which, and getting back to the point, vegan tuna is made from dried watermelon. It looks like thinly sliced tuna and, it seems, tastes like watermelon. It’s £12.95 a portion. That seems like a comfortable profit margin.

This isn’t actually the thing I was going to write about. We had coffee and lemon drizzle cake at Costa Coffee this afternoon after we bought socks.

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Coffee and Cake

The coffee was good, but it should have been considering the price and the fact that it’s pretty much the only thing they do. On a volume to cost basis it was reasonable value as it came in a cap that is smaller than some of the mixing bowls we use at home.

The cake was very lemony in a nice fresh way. Sadly it was also quite dry and very lacking in drizzle. This would be acceptable in lemon cake, but not in lemon drizzle cake. I won’t labour the point but it doesn’t say much for your professional standards if you can’t get the drizzle right on a lemon drizzle cake.

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Dry, disappointing and drizzleless

I will say no more.

 

 

Birds, Breakfast and Books

We weren’t quite sure what to do this morning, so we turned over and went back to sleep. By the time we awoke, blogged, ate a slice of toast with Frank Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade and stepped outside, the frost had melted from the car and the birds were singing. We appear to have several Great Tits in the garden and I feel that avian romance is in the air.

First call was breakfast at Sainsbury’s, but I’ve covered that before. It was good today. I’ve scored it so that you can compare them, but it would feel like cheating to do a full write up again.

Portion size – good

Sausages – excellent and herby

Hash Browns – crispy and delicious

Beans – average, after all opening a can and heating beans is not a skilled job

Mushroom – excellent

Toast – average, another unskilled job that is difficult to do badly

Eggs – excellent to the point of “almost perfect”. Much better than last time.

Bacon – succulent, thickish and almost perfect.

Service and cleanliness were also better than last time.

After that we went shopping at theEast Midlands Designer Outlet. It wasn’t too crowded, though the shops aren’t that exciting, a bit of a re-run of our recent Springfields visit.

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East Midlands Designer Outlet – though it could be anywhere

We went to a few shops – Julia bought some new slipper socks, some bedsocks and some new socks for me. It was a sock sort of day. These were the only things she could find of interest in M&S. Her slipper socks are pink and white hoops with a gold thread in them. I remarked that they were rather girly and would look good in a disco. This view was received coldly as she pointed out that they were the only pair left.

In The Works I asked if they would be getting more stock in soon as I had yet again failed to find three books for the 3 for £5 deal. The assistant positively looked down her nose at me and informed me they had a good selection that was replenished weekly. I begged to disagree and we left it there. She looked offended and I felt patronised.

I’ve been to five of their outlets recently. In one I failed to buy a book. In one the covers are curling up because of damp. In two I have failed to buy three books for the deal.

It’s getting to a stage where I might as well buy off the internet – there are some really cheap deals out there on books I actually want.

We had coffee too, but that is a different post.

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East Midlands Designer Outlet – though it could be anywhere

 

 

The 51st State

No, not the film, though it is an excellent film. If you like violence and black comedy.

I am, after a recent post, and some associated comments, thinking of starting a serious political movement to integrate the UK into the USA.

Ideally I would incorporate the USA into the UK as “British Empire 2.0” but I can see that there are slightly more problems that way. I’m not sure, for instance, how keen Americans would be on the idea of reintroducing tea as the national drink, and I’m also looking for a way to get rid of the royal family that doesn’t involve the Romanov Solution. All in all, the 51st State solution may be the way forward.

It may be 52nd or even 53rd by the time we get round to it, but the idea will be the same.

Part One is to establish a political career for myself based on one big idea. It worked for Nigel Farage so it can definitely be done. Let’s face it, many recent politicians have functioned perfectly well without even one idea.

The quickest option would probably be to find a gullible American tourist and sell them the country. There is precedent for this, which is how Louisiana and Alaska both found themselves in the USA. Anyone who can offer me enough cash can have it. We’ll have to hammer out a few details but if I could have a $5,000,000 deposit I’ll get back to you from my newly registered office in a country I have yet to select. I have a list of likely destinations here. Some, to be honest, are better than others.

If not, there’s the political option. It might take some time, but look at all the problems we could solve. We could be a state, Scotland could be a separate one and North and South Ireland (like the Dakotas or the Carolinas) could also be states. Wales could even have a go at independence within a federal framework. At one stroke we get rid of the Royal Family and loads of political problems.

I don’t really have any pictures to go with this one – I can’t find the one with pigs with their snouts in the trough, which always reminds me of Westminster for some reason.

I will try my best. Something seasonal, but no Robins.

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Tampled Leaves – Arnot Hill Park