Tag Archives: lentils

Soup, Medallions, eBay

As usual, there have been all sorts of things happening, but five minutes later they are forgotten or I have decided that they aren’t interesting enough to write about.

At the moment, Julia is out at a meeting (she’s still on the committee of a local group and has been for about ten years. She must have been Chair for at least five.) I keep telling her it’s time for a change. They need fresh leadership now. She’s not doing badly, it’s just that I think she’s done enough and could do with a rest from it. She was on the phone this morning when I ws still dressing and continued for another hour. This our day off!

I have two pots of soup on the go – Tomato and Lentil and Lentil and Bacon. Yes, I always have plenty of lentils in. And tinned tomatoes. And somebody gave us some leftover ham earlier in the week. It’s all from a pig so it’s bacon enough for me.  We will have soup and sandwiches tonight, with a salad garnish to try to look healthy. Tomorrow I will have soup for lunch, and the same again on Friday. I’m having Saturday off so we may well have soup for lunch then too. It’s cheap, healthy and convenient, which are all good.

Citizenship Medallion – est Lothian Council (reverse) by Tower Mint

Over the last few months I have been making a collection of British Citizenship medallions – they have been giving them out since at least 2005. This afternoon I listed all the ones I know of. It’s the sort of thing that collectors do. I have a list of 15, including two different varieties for Birmingham. There is a vast array of prices, anything from £2 to £45. I buy them when I see them at up to £10, as that’s about what they are worth in my opinion. The amusing one is the Brent Council one from London. It’s a well produced medal and very rare. I know it’s very rare because on of the eBay sellers currently selling one tells me so. Two others are rare and the other five haven’t offered an opinion on rarity.

If there are eight on eBay they aren’t rare. When cataloguing things some people put a rarity rating in the catalogue. Eight on eBay means it’s common. Like a lot of other things, people see one described as rare and decide to use the description themselves. They are all about £35 – £45 and I have news for them on that score too. They hardly ever seem to sell. But eBay dealers are born optimists . . .

London Borough of Harrow, but I expect you spotted that already.

 . . . and the back.

Talking of which, I put a medal case on eBay yesterday. It is custom made to hold a particulat pair of medals – the 1902 and the 1911 Coronation medals. The dates are gold-blocked on the lid and the 1902 medal has a very recognisable shape.  We hummed and hah’d on price. Someone who wants one would probably pay a lot of money for it.  But someone who wants one is probably a very rare customer. We went for the lower end of the price scale and set a new selling record – 11 minutes!

 

Black, White and Orange

No, it’s not a post about post-Brexit sorting of foreigners, it’s a post about me trying to find an inexpensive bird food.

I was tempted to say “cheap” but it was just a bit simple, so I thought I would wait and see if a better chance for a pun presented itself.

It could be subtitled: “A Confession Regarding Lentils”

Several articles have told me that birds will eat uncooked lentils. I eat uncooked lentils, because I can’t help it when I’m cooking – I just like the crunch. They are reasonably priced and you can get them from the supermarket, which is more than you can say for nyger seed.

So I spent £15 on a bird feeder with three chambers. I could just have bought three cheap feeders for about £7, but I had to show off…

 

The first picture shows the feeder full, and I feel it looks quite good.

The second shot shows the feeder next day, with two thirds of the sunflower hearts gone, and a third of the black sunflower gone.

So, sunflower hearts are a very popular bird food – I think we knew that. And the black ones aren’t quite so good, but still popular. I think we knew that too. But birds don’t like uncooked lentils. I’m pretty sure that I could have guessed that too. It just seemed wrong, and with my birds, in June, nothing ate the lentils, even when they were the only choice. I left the feeder hanging with just the lentils in. Nobody ate them, they just ate peanuts and nyger.

So, cheap food doesn’t pay, don’t believe all you read in books and you don’t need flashy feeders.

I should have known it was too good to be true.

😉