Well, now we have a real need for the HHGttG term "beljam".

Yeah, I'm feeling a bit lazy. I'm in the middle of a fortnight off, the windy miller and I noodled around the Ardennes and Luxumbourg for a couple of days (ate and drank too much), and we're expecting The American Niece and her boyf in a couple of days, but I'm still doing the same amount of cooking and cleaning as normal. Have I forgotten how to holiday?

[pen] Know what you mean, there's always the idea of doing it better yourself, just not at home, which equates to a holiday. This year went B&B&restauranting with Frau Bismarck, the brother in law and the kids in Brittany, just to make sure that no-one had housework. Normally it's a rental as we have several sprogs and that gets expensive. It cost an arm and a leg but achieved the aim. There had been a plan for an invasion of Prague in rental accommodation for the same price, but wife plus sprogs 1 and 2 refused.
Would you be one of the few Dutch families without a camping car?

[Bism] The windy miller refuses to camp. I think he did it wrong (ordinary field, earth closet, insects) when he was about 18 and it put him off for life. I love it, have slept in the car and camped and caravanned everywhere (including the arctic circle) but even though I tell him the secret is air mattresses, a campsite with loos and showers, and a good pub for food nearby, he won't listen. And we don't have kids, so we do hotels.
So today, mid-way through our holiday, I am taking pleasure in jam-making (double batch - he keeps buying plums and strawberries from stalls at the side of the road and not eating them, so they get stashed in the freezer), ironing, and hoovering. I would get bored on a beach or watching the world go by at a pavement cafe, wouldn't I?

[pen] You wouldn't be around Larochette, would you? I remember 2 days there in the main hotel with a bunch of grill/barbecue kiosks along the road which did great meals.

Or you're all asleep. So what's everyone up to?

Helping to make a drum head about 40 inches across. Another will be made in a few weeks to go on the other side of the drum, which itself is about 40 inches deep.

Never seen a pizza used for this purpose before. Woodna fought ittaby terribly resonant.

Can't think of a drumming/pizza pun at all. There must be one!

(pen) Music for strings is occasionally marked pizzacato = cheesily.

His syncopation's a pizza work.

[Raak] Why do you need a 40x40 drum? Are you taking up Taiko or planning to serenade the neighbours with the Dies Irae of the Verdi Requiem? (I ask out of professional curiosity as a percussionist)

[Raak] Will the drum be lit from inside?

[Pablo] I've been playing taiko for about 8 years, and right now I'm in the Swiss mountains at a taiko festival. [Stevie] I will see if I can persuade our Benevolent Leader.

[Raak] That explains that then. Taiko in the Swiss mountains? Bit like gamelan in Siberia innit?

This just in: Swiss budget for avalanche precipitation mortars exausted before winter season starts! Government said to be considering alternative approaches to clearing the ski slopes. Film at eleven.

Hello. Just performing a server upgrade.

Rab! Good to see you.

Taps on the glass? How big is it FFS?

[Rosie] Screen. I mean screen.

Do we need a Prime Minister? I don't see why. A Composite one would be far more multi-faceted.
(pen) You take me far too seriously.

[Rosie] Oh no I don't. ;o)

Only a feeble one-rumble-and-a-bit-of-rain here last night. Other places not far away have had exuberant electrical displays, crashing thunder and joyously roaring downpours leading to surface water flooding and hazardous driving conditions south of the M4 corridor. So why not the B269? Come on.
(pen) Thank God for that.

It's cooled down a bit - now 21C or so and 16 at night (which is nice) but we haven't had any decent rain for about 3-4 weeks. even the promised donder en blixem didn't amount to very much, it seemed to swirl around us but dumped very little rain on us.
And I've got new shoes and a new coat and everything, ready for rain and inclement weather.

Thar be not much rain in Beds either me hearties!

Arrr, Cap'n, if it be rainin' in yer bed, yer mun ha' left the porthole open again!

[Rosie] Yes, it was rather damp in Newbury last Thursday evening. I avoided it by 12 miles or so, but watched the lightning from a distance while nervously walking the dog.
The very slow-moving storm finally reached us about 4am, and continued till nearly 6am. The closest lightning strikes were just under a mile away, but were some of the most powerful I've heard. Fortunately, we live on top of a chalk and flint hill, so it drains very rapidly down to the Thames, so the roads were largely OK by 7.30am.

[Rosie] A couple of weeks ago there was a "gully washer" in Florida the likes of which the world hasn't seen since Mrs Noah smashed a bottle of Manischewitz across the bow of the ark. It only lasted for about 15 minutes but dumped inches of wet. This isn't super-rare in that neck of the woods, but it has been years since I was caught in such sheer amounts of ruined holiday.

The last time was on the causeway connecting Kennedy Spaceport with the mainland. Sea on both sides and lightning poking it periodically. I turned to Mrs Stevie and said "I know you won't like this, what with the Stevieling being in the car, but we have to let those two people on the motorcycle in or they could be killed". I looked over at the bike to see it laid-down and no sign of the riders. They had taken refuge in the ditch. The alligator-infested ditch, which we had been warned many times to keep clear of on account of hungry alligators of a particularly grumpy disposition. Now that is rain.

I have a soft spot for the rain in Singapore, which turns up for thirty minutes at carefully defined times of the day. Allows one to plan, don'tcherknow.

[Bism] my recollection was of a rainy season that deserved its name. When were you there?

[Sup] You've unmasked me there, only been there once in February, weather was as I described though.

The windy miller and I are off to the 24-hour Citroen 2CV race at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday. What fun. Ages since I've been to any motorsport-related (I use the term advisedly) events. It's been nothing but windmills for the past eight years.

(pen) For a short period I drove one of those. They can do 60 on the flat. Handling characteristics of a London bus; power of a Sinclair C5.

I think the ones on the track last week had been pimped. Quite a lot. Great fun, free entry, free grandstand seats, disgusting toilets.