(Stevie) Shurely proper snow is not just going to bugger up Saturday but the whole weekend and very likely the LIRR to boot.

a) I use Troll, the Snowblower of Supreme Spiffiness to get rid of it once it stops falling. Two hours tops.

2) Snow on Saturday = shopping trips replaced by marathon Netflix sessions.

þ) LIRR broken? Stay-at-home day!

♣) Monday was a holiday anyway.

(Stevie) Excellent attitude. Similar to my Rain = Don't have to do any gardening.

[Rosie] Florida is cooler than it sometimes is this time of year, but still shirt-sleeve weather to this son o' the Midlands. No rain (yet - like cockroaches, it's always there waiting to make a pleasant time less so). This year we are infested with a band of thoughtless pricks all driving the same model of humongous pick-up (and all bearing New York plates wouldn'tcha know) and parking so inconsiderately that we've had to park several spaces away from our villa. Plenty of space if they'd stop being gits. I saw one of them wander out on Saturday night and almost hurled. Grossly obese with folds of fat tumbling down, it was wearing only a pair of jeans and *they* were at half-mast. Jesus! I've describe things that should not be in my Call of Cthulhu game that were less vomit-inducing.

On the plus side, the Stevieling and Mr Stevieling are thriving as a married couple, so somewhere the balance is in, er, balance. I brought some trains with me this time. British trains! Bit o' cork-faced foamcore, some old set-track from 30 years ago and the Minitrix Britannia will steam again! As will the Farish 97xx, the Dapol 57xx and 14xx and sundry BR diesels in intercity livery. Going to experiment with Peco's uncoupling gadget. It isn't as clever as Kaydee knuckles but the rolling stock is so light I dunno that knuckles would work properly anyway. When working right they allow some eye-popping shunting moves with only one uncoupling magnet. I'll have to seed a yard with Peco uncoupling magnets for a similar flexibility. On the plus side, the Peco device is supposed to work with the dreadful Rapido couplings fitted to the stock.

(Stevie) Magnetic couplings? Blimey, there's posh. Wouldn't last long if a big 28xx got hold of them. BTW I have seen 97xx's at Paddongton. They used to go down the Tube to Moorgate, condensing their exhaust. Horrible to drive; no draught, no steam.

I used to know a barman whose surname was Barrett. Trousers at half-mast I thought of him as Bumcrack Barrett. One of the things about being old is you never need be a fashion victim.

That big station I mentioned is Paddington, not Paddongton, which sounds a bit phallic and not something the starchy old GWR would approve of.

[Rosie] Well the results have been mixed. I won't have time to construct the test bed needed for the uncoupling magnet thing. The new Dapol 57xx and the new-then-stored-for-years Dapol 14xx run super smoothly over set-track including a dead-frog point. Astounding for an N scale 0-4-2. The two Dapol prairie tanks run slightly less smoothly, but are still impressive. The Farish 97xx I bought to replace the warping and hideously manufactured one I bought when I was 17 runs impressively smoothly too (and for some reason looks prettier on hte track than any of the other locos, even though the others are manufactured to a finer finish), as does the $20 from eBay class 08. The one I bought for just over 20 quid in '91 will sometimes not run in reverse, so I took the body off to diagnose the issue. During the testing, which did not uncover the problem, the spring from the rear coupler launched itself into oblivion and it seems they are impossible to replace these days. Another success there, then. And the Britannia runs very roughly. I think I will have to strip it down to clean the wiper contacts. It is all very annoying.

I want to do shunting operations with this kit, so I need a reliable coupler that can be remotely uncoupled. I think the kaydee knucles that work so well on US pattern stock won't work on the UK 10ft wheelbase stock because the action is one of lateral force applied by magnets and I think the lightweight UK wagons will simply derail. The Peco device is a metal strip that attaches to the rapido coupler, lifting it when the magnet is energised. Only thing is, they are only guaranteed to work with Peco unsprung couplers. Most of my rolling stock is fitted with sprung couplers.

Oh well.

(Rosie) I've not been ignoring you; my Internet connection went walkabout for a couple of weeks. That's 'phone, e-mail - the lot.
As far as pressure is concerned you are quite correct for readings at my humble abode.

(Rosie) It's 15:55 as I type - temp = 44.4ºC. Perhaps CdM is right.

(Dujon) Well, it's over 44.4 here. Wait a minute; that's Fahrenheit.
It's been a mild and rather boring January here - mean temperature 6.2, 1.9 above average. BTW the pressure reached 1050 for a few hours in S. Wales on the 19th. (World record is 1084, NW Russia, 31 Dec 1968).

*sigh* I'm so busy job searching. I am a teach on VIPkid, but I can't do the overnights that are required. I tried and it just didn't work for me. I MIGHT be able to do them sometimes, but I definitely couldn't support myself with that job. I really need a job, so prayers, good wishes, good vibes, etc, are definitely appreciated because I need something in my time zone . . . or at least in a U.S. time zone that might just make things a little off. Or a decently paying independent contractor job. The problem is that many of those don't pay decently.

Does anybody here use Facebook or Instagram? Just curious . ..

[KagomeShuko] Facebook, I've left my account to rot, and I find it increasingly creepy how much it continues to 'follow' me about. A pox on Zuckerberg and all his spawn. Instagram, no. I've got a Nerdica account I've never used and a slight Pluspora presence.

(SM) This (and the Other Place)is the nearest I get to Social Media, though I've had some useful interactions on YouTube comment threads.

Other than the strange name for the storm, most of the footie in B and NL got called off. So far a bit blowy here, but hardly a storm.

Getting quite windy here now. From the Met Office there is what is referred to on my weather group as a "Custard Warning", i.e. areas affected are coloured yellow. On the 0030 Radio 4 forecast Helen Willetts said the storm would be "impactful". Helen, you're a poet. Now sod off and speak English.
Naming storms like this, apart from being cheesy, is meteorologically unsound as they have much less of a singular identity than a tropical hurricane and can split up and do all sorts of funny things.

Gusts over 60 mph here, so far no trees damaged in the area, though elsewhere there has been quite some damage.

It seems as though your weather is as barmy as ours. After all the hot temperatures and bushfires we have now inundation. Yesteryear we had a total of 500.2mm of rainfall. Less than six weeks into the new year we have already had 534mm of drips and drops on our roof tops.

(Dujon) I had a look at OZBOM, excellent as usual, but it seems I've just missed the action. I find it more difficult to interpret synoptic charts for semi-tropical latitudes than for areas like Britain. Maybe just a case of what you're used to.
Your rainfall of 534 mm in 6 weeks is phenomenal. That's about 13 mm a day,every day. The "best" I've done in that style is 574 mm in three months, winter 2013-14.

(Rosie) Just an update for you. Jan - 95.8mm; Feb - 552.4mm; Mar ro date - 69.5mm; Total for year-to-date 717.7mm.

(Dujon) February 552 mm. No answer to that. What were temperatures like during your monsoon?

Not being boastful, Rosie, just celebrating. To answer your question re February, rain in mm and max temp in brackets ºC:
7th - 73.2 (32.4) ; 8th - 107.6 (35.6) ; 9th - 203.0 (36.7} ; 10th - 49.5 (42.2) ; 13th - 36.4 (31.9)
There were 16 rain days in the 29-day month, so the balance was scattered around the remaining 24 days.

(Dujon) Presumably the temperature was a lot below the maximum each day while the rain was actually falling. Looking at the figures I'd say they were all pretty violent thunderstorms. I'm extremely envious.

Sorry I keep dipping in and out of this place. I had hoped to join in a bit more after creating a more mobile-friendly skin. You can find it here but be warned. It’s somewhat experimental and plays fast and loose with flex-based layouts, which seem to be supported idiosyncratically across browsers. (My css was never that great anyway). I know for a fact it doesn’t work on Internet Explorer, if anyone actually still uses that, but it seems ok on Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc, as well whatever the latest stock Android browser is (I think).

Give it a whirl, tell me what you think, and if it works for enough people I might make it the default.

Not exactly the colour scheme I would have chosen, and what is that enormous decorative font? But it works (Samsung phone with Chrome browser). The automatic bold & italic is a major step into the Century of the Fruitbat, thanks!

Not sure it's the colour scheme I would have chosen either :) Being colour blind I always have difficulty choosing colour palettes. Most of the colours came with Bootstrap (which does the responsive mobile goodness), but there are a few that are specific to this site. If you have a css editor extension in your browser, the relevant attributes are the background in the .rab-bg-head, .rab-bg-flip and .rab-bg-flop classes. These cover the bluey tones that appear on the front page, and the top of the game page. The color attribute of .rab-bg-head a, .rab-bg-flip a and .rab-bg-flop a classes controls the colour that the links on the front page appear. If you come up with some better numbers than the ones I did, feel free to share!

The enormous decorative font is called Merienda. Again I can tone down the size if it's too much. (And if it's too much, you should have seen the first one I played with for a while...)

There's something going on here that I don't understand...

Is it to do with having very few cars running, local deliveries available and very few aircraft flying? Yes, as you suspected, you're in a time warp - this is the 1970's again, but this time you're old!

Don't talk to me about old. For blokes, it's the time that every bit of your body starts going stiff except the one bit you actually want to. Call that fair?

Have any of ever you become dog owners for the first time in your 50s? The windy miller and I are both now working at home for the foreseeable, and I anticipate that even after September I'll be working from home quite a bit. We're thinking seriously about it.
A friendly, middle-aged, middle-sized rescue dog of indeterminate breed would do us fine.
Any thoughts?

[pen] I'd say go for it. The dog will soon have you quickly trained. Alas, I am no longer a dog owner in my 50s, which has set me down the road of possibly looking for another.

Well I'd volunteer for the position myself, but I don't have a waggy enough tail. Go for it.

[Pablo] I know what you mean. My upper lip is not what it used to be.

(Pablo) Fair? Depends how much you spread your seed earlier. That doesn't include the bedroom floor BTW. Try being 77 and hoping for some gloriously horny old bat to turn up. It can happen.

I'm beginning to notice that the lockdown is having an effect (on me at least) similar to large quantities of alcohol in that inhibition is disappearing. Do other morniversers notice this? Who wants a fuck?

[Rosie] As I understand the Human Condition, everyone wants a fuck, but no-one is willing to give one.

(Stevie) Shurely I at least have indicated my willingness to attempt the required act. Success, of course, cannot be guaranteed.
Still ROFLMAO at your second item. Top drawer.

[Rosie] Er, something about alcohol increasing the desire but decreasing the performance? I believe you can get good beer goggles online these days ;-)

(Pablo) Androgen Deprivation Therapy Is even more effective but I've just come off it after 3 years. Hooray!

[Rosie] Ow! that sounds diabolical

(Pablo) Doesn't hurt, just reduces the libido (to about zero). Some men sprout tits but fortunately I didn't. A prostate cancer needs male hormone in order to grow. Deprive it and it goes "to sleep" and can then be zapped with radiotherapy. It seems to have worked. Well done the Royal Marsden.

Irrelevant bollocks or not, [Rosie], that's excellent news.

(pen) Tiz, innit. I look forward to putting the improvement into practice.

[Rosie] Good news indeed. Sometimes libido reduction just happens, no drugs needed. Wish it didn't. Or maybe red wine counts as a drug?

(Pablo) I don't expect at my age to go round shafting anything that moves (and certain things that don't) but it's nice to have a bit more energy, you could say.

First, Giertrud is in the ICU in the hospital in the city with the nearest hospital to the group home where she has been. Same issues that she's been having and is on oxygen. Was so sick that they thought she was non-verbal when she was admitted.

Second, that I do well with my new job. I REALLY need and am very thankful for it. I pray I do well and I hope it leads into me being able to do something that I really WANT to do. I have a few things and it might just be the company that I need to be with in order to get things going.

[Rosie]

Hidden text

Riiiight. So will the pornhub servers be featuring a "Hot'n'Horny Retired Chemist Action" category soon? Will "checking the raingauge" become a Rule-34 meme?

Found my old Mammod traction engine in the basement and decided to fire the old girl up to check she was in good repair after years sitting in a box.

The burns are healing nicely, thank you.

(Stevie) Not quite yet. You see, most people think I look about 6O but I know better. Rain-gauge? No activity all month ym Mhlas Huws. Forgotten how to do it. That's another thing.
(KagomeShuko) Best wishes for your new job and for your poor sister.

Decided to use the new Air Fryer to make a hamburger while Mrs Stevie was looking after her mother.

The burns are healing nicely, thank you.

[KagomeShuko] we're on the case.

Ah, the airfryer. It’s our patriotic duty right now to eat our bodyweight in potatoes every week to save the Dutch potato farmers whose produce is no longer being made into chips and eaten by hordes of diners and visitors. Airfryer chips/frites/frieten/patat every other night, innit?

Chips should be deep fried in beef dripping. There is no argument that can be effective against doing so.

Bugger! My May drought has been ruined by a brief shower Saturday lunchtime, amounting to 0.2 mm and therefore counting as a rain day. It still might be my driest month EVER, as people say, the Universe having been created in 1983.

[Stevie] I’d like to live a long time AND eat chips. Beef dripping is summingelse, although I’m not too keen on the lingering greasy sensation around the chops afterwards. As my dear daddy used to recite - and humour me here because we grew up 15 miles from Grimsby which had its own fishing port town reputation at the time - :
Little girls from Grimsby
Blue eyes and cherry lips
Every time you kiss them
They taste of fish and chips.

(pen) Nothing wrong with that. Award yourself an LLB, Lincolnshire Lip Balm. Sooooo much nicer than garlicky breath.

[penelope] And your point is? I agree wholeheartedly and unreservedly with Rosie. Watch out for avian pigs.

[Rosie] I guffawed! (which looks like it might be a Welsh word but I bet it isn't and now I have to go google its etymology.)

(pen) It does rather, doesn't it, but it's not in my copy of Y Geiriadur Mawr, ("The Big Wordery"). It can join my other favourite warthog. Incidentally arthog literally means bear-like and as in English the sub-text is "grumpy". BTW can't wait to hear you guffaw.

It's awfully quiet in here. Is everyone well?

[pen] The usual ta. My Chambers Dictionary says guffawed is onomatopoeic, disappointingly.

(pen) I'm very well, thanks, but bored stiff. Could do with a bit of conversation.

[pen] Well, how's Project Dog coming along?

[Simons] Had two hot leads this week (see what I did there?) but one (Stanbijhoun/Collie cross) was withdrawn from sale and the other (wire-haired fox terrier) was sold before we could go over to see it. We keep searching, and some friends are putting the word out for us too - which might prove more fruitful.

Well I have just enacted Project Beer and Project Less Hair, but I really ought to get on with Project Barstools, Project Chair and Project Plates. I have been having a smashing time recently. I should also enact Project Washing Up, but I particularly hate that one. But no space for a dishwasher, unfortunately.

Project Star Wars Rulebook is in the home straight, but that's a marathon, and there's still weeks at least before I'll finish it. Especially as there's content I'd like to farm out into a couple of other books which are barely into draft stage.

I am so thankful that I have a job and that I can work from home with this virus being so rampant, and especially now, that the area where I live has one of the highest rates of people infected with the virus (I don't go out and do all that much as it is - I prefer small gathers, but even those are happening much). Anyway, though, this job is tiring. I worked 50+ hours last week. I need to spend some time putting out job proposals when I happen to have time. I'm praying that I can start teaching theatre online somehow - and be paid for it, not just independently.

[KS] How is Giertrud?

Thanks for asking. She's not doing well. She's still about a three hour drive away from where I am. They want to move her into a nursing home because they said her medical issues are too much for her to go back to the group home. In a way, I think she will be happier, but I also worry about her. She's not supposed to eat anything by mouth, and she is very hard headed about what she wants to do and I worry she'll get a hold of food or the nursing home will make a mistake and give her food and then she'll eventually not make it because somebody won't catch her pneumonia. I'm quite angry at the medical community in Louisiana right now since nobody had actually tried to find what is wrong now and they just keep tossing her from place to place.

8o(

What Stevie emojied.

My usual "system update" check 'post' also for funny stuff

Giertrud called me recently. She is now at the nursing home Legacy in Plaquemine, Louisiana. She sounded much better and much happier than she has been for a long time. She told me that they did a swallow test and that this time it was different as they put a camera up her nose and watched her eat live. She said that they give her a medicine to break up secretions and that it tastes bitter. However, it seems to help. She said that when she eats, they saw that secretions seem to pool in her throat. She told me that they are going to soon try to allow her to eat soft foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She's been going to speech and physical therapy and there is somebody who helps her remember how to brush her brush her teeth. She also said that she sleeps sitting up. That might help with the secretions.

We actually talked for over a half hour. I could mainly understand her. The conversation didn't get too repetitive. She's in room 421 and she loves her 420 jokes, so of course she had to say it was a minute past time to smoke marijuana. We mainly talked about the dogs and dogs that we've had. She didn't dwell too much on Krueger and Nala and agreed if she is ever able to come home, small dogs like chihuahuas are much better for her. They at least have to be calmer.

So, I'm praying that she is finally in a place that can help her get better. Who knows what will happen if she gets better, but right now, not much really matters with this virus.

I'm sure the nursing home environment is better for her than the group home. She was actually out in a public area and able to call me.

(KagomeShuko) I wish her the best and I'm sure the whole Morniverse does too. Maybe things are on the up. We all hope so.

(KagomeShuko) That does sound like a positive improvement. My best wishes to you both.

So, it seems like the issue with Giertrud isn't going away. I got a call from the nursing home/rehab facility and they said they were sending Briana to the hospital because it seemed like she aspirated. I don't know what that will mean for her eating. I know she was thrilled to be eating again.

Hey all. So, when they called for the mandatory evacuation from Lake Charles, I picked up a few things and got out. I didn't take time to pack up tons of things. I didn't want to get stuck at home or in traffic. I went north and found myself in West Monroe, Louisiana. I found one single hotel room. It was literally THE hotel with a room vacancy that I could find. Somebody had ended up cancelling that night. So, I had my service dogs, no change of clothes, and my laptop, basically. I had a few other things, but I couldn't pack up everything because of my back problems and not wanting to get stuck in the traffic or in heavy rain. Lake Charles is in awful condition. My house had a tree fall through the roof of the back of my rooms. So, the roof and ceiling is all ruined in two main rooms, maybe a little bathroom, and a little area where a file cabinet can fit. Some people have helped me with donating some money so I could get some clothes and eat and should be able to travel when I check out of the hotel on September 4th. My job is one that I do from home as it is. At first, I thought I wasn't happy with the company, but they have really stepped up. They payed for the hotel from the day Ii checked in and then checking out on the 4th. I will have a host up in Tennessee while Lake Charles and my house are all being repaired. Lake Charles does not have any running water or any electricity. I think it was only one life that the storm, itself, took. I know another one was taken when somebody fell off of a ladder. Most of them seem to end up being because people will get a generator, they won't get a CO alarm, and they will run the generator and they will place it somewhere they think it safe and it may seem so, but CO gas seeps into their house. That's sad and it is sad seeing all of the destruction in my hometown. I know we will rebuild, but it certainly hurts my heart.

(KagomeShuko) Life is dealing you some lousy cards just now. At least you have somewhere to stay and don't forget you will always have friends here.

I made it up to Tennessee. My host will be home this evening. I'm sad for Lake Charles. There are people who rode out the storm. There are people who were only able to leave for a bit while the storm hit and had to go back. They say it will be at least three weeks before electricity is restored to the city. Water is iffy and if people can get water, it is under a boil advisory . . . which, if people have electric stoves, is basically impossible for them . . .

[KagomeShuko] Let's hope this brings out the best in neighbours so they can help each other until things start to get back to normal. A colleague was with her family in Florida and was caught in the storms there a couple of years ago - she blogged in detail and very movingly about the incredible neighbourliness she experienced. I hope that happens for your community.
And don't forget to take good care of yourself too - without feeling guilty. Without that, you can't look after anyone else either.

Another fortnight, another two weeks working at home, and still no closer to being able to return to the UK for a visit. (Complicated by my UK family's bubble to protect my sister who's about to start chemotherapy to complete her treatment for ovarian cancer - thankfully she should make a full recovery.)
Feeling a bit exiled TBH. Distracting myself by walking the dog loads and have raised 200 quid for Cancer Research as a result - and have lost weight - so it's not all bad.

Giertrud passed away today.

[KS] So so sorry to hear that. You're in our thoughts.

[KS] Sad news indeed. I'm sorry for your loss.

[KS] So sorry to hear of your loss. I have just been re-reading some of her contributions here: she will be missed.

[KS] Sincere condolences.

Sorry for your loss. Very sad to hear.

Vale Giertrud.
Chin up, KS, time does heal - as I can verify (my daughter was killed earlier this year in a MVA.) You seem to have had a bad trot of late, so it's time to think positive and take care of the future. Good luck.

[Dujon] Please also accept my deep sympathy; that is just awful to hear.

Thanks, CdM, but I should not have let that slip. Grief is very personal thing, so, please, no more messages, everyone.
That is not to criticise KS as Giertrud was a contributor to the MC community.

After such a period of respectful silence, I propose that we now resume doing what made us all come here in the first place - to celebrate life, intelligence, being funny, and being too-bloody-clever-by-half with words.
You go first.

I shall, penelope.
See, I've done it.

This is the one place that keeps me sane. That and the piano.

For me it's my collection of singing potatoes.

[SM] Are they accompanied by a Maris Piper?

Well they are now...

(Boolbar) V good. But can he do the theme from MASH?

I did wonder what Rosie was doing in the piano.

(Dan) Poking around with a screwdriver, as ever. Got a Yamaha keyboard - no strings attached, and you can play it with the headphones at two in the morning, fortified with a good slug of brandy. Some aspects of life are not bad.

[Rosie] Being able to use headphones is incredibly liberating, isn't it? To say nothing of being able to select from a wide range of voices. Since getting my Yamaha wind midi synth about 15 years ago, my sax has sat in its case, its leather pads slowly turning to stone. Every now and then I think about getting it serviced...

[Rosie] I look forward to the time you will tell us of the triumphant performance of "The Ride of the Valkyries" at 2am, the removing of the headphones to discover the blue flashing lights and banging on the door and the dawning realization that the headphone plug was not pushed all the way into the socket.

Mrs Stevie is an expert at doing this with her iPad so I get to listen to her dreadful musical theatre stuff at full blast because she did not realize that the reduced volume in the headset was due to half the signal still going to the external speakers.

(Dan) Play your sax, man. It's not an instrument I can play but picking up the 'bone and giving it a whirl is most satisfying especially if you find something to play along with (stuff on YouTube usually).
(Stevie) I've occasionally forgotten to plug in and muttered to myself "this doesn't sound right" followed by "plug it in, twatface". The neighbours are upstairs, sleeping the sleep of the just, and are not disturbed, so I have ascertained.

[Simons] Do you dance the mashed potato to their tunes? Are they called the Tuber Tunes or Tater Tunes?

Has anyone gained a new skill during enforced home-staying? I've been at home for 7 months now, but worked 40 hours a week throughout.

[pen] I learned the front crawl. Actually, I had a series of lessons before lockdown, and then the pool closed, but since it opened a couple of months ago I've been practising. I can just about do a 25 metre length without stopping. The skill of breathing air and not water is the difficult part.

I've improved my typesetting and CSS skills. And finished (bar user feedback) a writing project that's been lingering for years.

I have had more work to do since I've been working from home. I'm sure my boss thinks I'll go idle otherwise.
Other than that I've learned how to play a few modern board games and apply liquid eyeliner without looking like a ham-fisted goth.

I can now reliably get a top D on the 'bone and as a result all the windows in the house are broken.

[Boolbar] Are you interested in roleplaying games? My project was a rewrite of Star Wars 1st Edition D6.

[Simons] I've never tried. As I now live alone I needed something to do in the Covid evenings other than stare at a screen. I've been pitting my wits against various board games' solo modes.

[KagomeShuko] I'm trying to work something round 'Spud-u-kelele' but I haven't managed anything yet

As travel and eating out has been off the table for the past few months I have expanded my cooking horizons by doing a different cuisine each weekend. My youngest is fairly fussy but I've managed to do French, Spanish, Italian, Greek, Israeli, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian, Jamaican, Southern US. I've learned some new techniques and discovered some great recipes. But the waistline has taken a hammering so the adventurous cooking has stopped for a while.

Nothing thrilling, but I did finally get a job in May. I don't like it, but I've learned how to do the job.

Broken windows, liquid eyeliner, breathing water...
I wear far less make-up now BTW. I used to wear it six days a week, now only on Saturdays. I'm saving a ruddy fortune.

[nfras] When you start up again I've got a recommendation for a chicken recipe so simple even I can make it: a Fillipino staple called Chicken Adobo. I do have to admit, there's only about six data points on the entire graph of Things Simons Mith Has Successfully Cooked, but that's one of 'em. It's a really everyday dish, so there are many variant recipes to choose from.

[Simons] I'd love it, thanks. I like to try new foods, even if the youngest can be a pain in the bum when deciding she doesn't like it before she has tasted it.
[KS] Doing a job you don't like is really hard, so I definitely feel for you.
Mrs Nfras decided to try crocheting. She bought the wool and hooks and stuff. Anyone want some second hand wool and crochet hooks?

Chicken Adobo. I think that's the recipe I used, but there's dozens of variants readily findable online. If I did it again I'd try one of the variants that uses ground pepper rather than peppercorns. But the overnight marinade is definitely a bit to keep in. I got the recipe from a Fillipino Google plusser I used to follow, for whom adobo was a much-loved childhood dish.

The past year has allowed me to ignore the garden to a great extent, but being out of work has forced me at least to plan stuff and mow the grass. The Bismarckette decided that this year's project would be tomatoes, and bought a bunch of grow-stuff necessary for the production of the red veggies-fruit-whatever. They were supposed to grow into big, fat tomatoes, but stubbornly refused to get above the smallish size, and the plants tended to brown, apparently due to a lack of calcium in the soil. This was addressed by decorating the soil with crushed eggshells (Bismarckette, success 0/10) and mixing gardeners chalk into the soil (yours truly, success 10/10). The final crop ended up with a unit price of about three quid, which is about par for the course with the Bismarckette's projects.She was then miffed to see that tomato seeds that Mrs Bismarck had thrown around the side of the house had actually grown into two full-scale tomato plants with absolutely no effort.
We've been here for fifteen years and have finally found out what the tree at the bottom of the garden is. The previous owners planted it, but it was in the shade of a massive Leylandii hedge and grew hardly at all. When we chopped the hedge down a couple of years back (as a result of The Neighbour Who Does Not Like Trees invoking a local by-law that no hedge can be more than one metre 50 tall), the tree took off and this year produced eight fruits which on inspection by the health authorities were pronounced to be quinces. Quinces are massive fruits and have a very strong pear-like perfume. Mrs Bismarck has Plans for them, though what remains to be seen.
Funnily enough, The Neighbour Who Does Not Like Trees was hoist by his own petard this year, when the inheritance of the next-door house was sorted out. The old Italian Neighbour Who Grows All His Own Food died at an advanced age last year, and his son of 75 years turned up with wife and dog. It seemed that the laurel hedge forming the border between their gardens was a matter of inches inside the wrong garden (I was called out to verify the position of the boundary markers and swear on oath that the small fence between us was mine, and not his), and he was forced to dig the lot up. They don't joke about property limits around here, I can tell you.
Now I have to research in depth the pruning of quince trees, nut trees, and figs, and also think of something to do with The Shady Patch Where Nothing Grows under The Neighbour Who Doesn't Like Christmas's hedge. Which I did not pay to have trimmed, that did NOT happen.

I'm one of the lucky ones who (a) still has a secure job and (b) can work from home. But the downside is that the WFH has been much harder work than NWFH, as I have had to adapt a lot of materials and plans for distance/online learning. My video editing skills are improving, but that's about it. Though I have welcomed the opportunity to cook and bake more: those are not new skills for me, but in recent years I had been doing less and less due to being time-poor and having lots of good restaurants and cafés nearby.

[Bis] wow - a Quince! That's quite a thing to have. They are rare.
A couple or four years ago I did a fruit-tree pruning course with the local protected landscape foundation (in Dutch - I was v proud of myself) and did a few volunteer January pruning sessions in a heritage orchard. The point was to get myself out of the house on January Saturdays and get more involved in Dutch stuff. Anyway. I've successfully pruned our baby fruit trees (they all came from Aldi) and the neighbour's pear tree (which is much bigger and gave a bumper crop as a result - phew). I imagine quinces are similar in that fruit-bearing wood is last summer's growth so you only cut off enough twigs to make sure that every fruit-bearing stick is strong enough to carry the weight and that every twig can see the sun. The Dutch are pretty good at growing fruit, so maybe I've learned the high-production method, but there you go. There'll be videos on YouTube I'm sure. And it's coming up to tree-pruning season - when the trees are dormant and you really don't feel like going outside and stretching up so that your vest becomes untucked, baring your midriff flesh to the elements. Or maybe that's just me. Good luck!

[nfras] I'm at least blessed that I can do thejob as long as I have my laptop, headphones, and WiFi and that it can be done from anywhere with those things.

I work Customer Support or Restaruant Support for Bite Squad - which is a third party food delivery service like Postmates or Dash.

Restaurant support is better than Customer support, but both can get irritating. Customers complaining are the worst, though. There are some that are fine, but plenty that are very rude.

I am in sales, so working from home is not a new habit for me, and for the first time in months I have all of the kids and Mrs Nfras back at school.
My previous company decided to shut down all of APAC on the 1st of April but I was lucky to pick up another job pretty quickly. My previous manager is still not working so things are pretty tough in the job market.

I thought quince was a made-up thing eaten in medieval banquets like hippogriff or capon. Learn summat every day. Is your tree now a listed structure? Some years ago The Neighbor from Hell broke another of our fences so we decided to replace the lot, had the land re-surveyed and it turned out we owned about 12" of one corner that had been on the other side of the broken fence. Then, he put up chainlink alongside our stockade fence. Why, I'll never know since by code we had to show him the pretty side. Now TNFH periodically trims the honeysuckle that grows between our fences and throws the debris over into our yard, presumably because he has forgotten that we fenced to the property line so the vines are growing on *his* land. Total git.

(Stevie) I have two quince bushes in my garden and at this time of year they drop their fruit which are yellow and somewhat smaller than a cricket ball. One year I thought I'd have a look at them. They're as hard as nails and if you really chucked one at someone it wouldn't do them a lot of good. Heavy equipment is needed to open one then you find a large cavity full of seeds and a tooth-breaking outer part with a pH of about 0 like conc. sulphuric. I would have more success making jam out of boiled-up breeze blocks than I would out of these buggers.

Have any of you participated in the delightful sport of cracking macadamia nuts? This a tough game involving plenty of hilarity for spectators, loads of frustration for the nominated cracker and much exuberance exhibited by all when the aim is achieved.

(Dujon) Macadamia? Isn't that what road surfaces are made from? Not surprising they're hard to crack. Maybe that's a British joke.

How the hell did that happen? Here I am, sitting in my home office (the top bedroom) eating instant noodles at my desk and working through lunch again as if it was perfectly normal and I had been doing it for for nearly nine months.
Which I have.

Oh, is that why everyone else disappears for an hour and leave me to take all the phone calls...

[Boolbar] Phone calls? I don't talk to anyone anymore.

[penelope] Good policy. You wouldn't believe how much bollocks people are talking these days.

The Stevieling and Mr Stevieling celebrated their first anniversary in lockdown.

That'll be one to tell the grandchildren, assuming there are still human beans on the planet by then.

I can hardly wait until this pandemimc is over. I know, we can't have a timeline because who knows when it will be over. I still hate this and REALLY want to be able to hug people again.

People on my street are now out on the walkways in front of their houses making noise with whatever's to hand: pan lids and ladles are popular. Many still in their pyjamas. In the rain, I might add.

(Dan) Glad you live in a civilised place but what about Banjo Crossing, S. Dakota? ©P G Wodehouse.

Wodehouse really is timeless, isn't he? Effortfully, I will be brief: Nothing has changed about the Dakotas.

I'm still in Knoxville and have to head down towards Lake Charles later this week - slowly. There wasn't any celebrating that I know. I wouldn't get into any of the comments on my local news's Facebook post as I heard from others that the crazies were at it again in the comments. They never care about good things and fair things that happen.