Lunchtime dogwalking wearing a coat Much cooler today, around 19C after last week's 32-33-34C, and I'm back at work (although still working from home) which means I do the lunchtime dog walk. I had to wear a waterproof coat and actually enjoyed the cooler temperatures that made me walk faster on the 1.6 miles to the potato warehouse and back. Thank goodness I've invested so much in boots and coats over the past few years. I have gear for every possible lunchtime meteorological condition from now until at least next April.

(pen) Well, don't hold your lightning conductor like that - it could be live.

The shipping forecast. Just been listening to a French person who said he liked listening to the French shipping forecast as he used to go sailing with his grandfather. Not just a Blighty thing, then.

I remember - 20 or so years ago - driving around somewhere near Aberdeen or Inverness for work and playing around with the Long Wave on the car radio and picking up what I presume was the Danih- or perhaps the Norwegian shipping forecast. It certainly wasn't German or French, but I could identify the names of the shipping areas.

Serendipitous discoveries Today my friend and I took a slightly different route on our walk round Wimbledon Village, and found Cannizaro Park, which neither of us knew was there.

[Simons] Hidden gem, isn't it? Make sure you go next June when the rhododenrons come out, it's amazing.

Corporate kindness Rare as it is, it generates a lot of goodwill when I see it. Especially when humor is also shown. See this recent example from Northern Rail.

"We are aware we have bees nesting at the end of platform 3.
Please do not disturb them.
Consider them as key workers and apply social distancing."

Oh hey, I'm accidentally switching to American spelling. Serves me right for getting in to a big document in US-English.

Tim Vine jokes. Merriment.

Cake.
It's raining and windy and grey and I just got soaked on a dog walk so any cake will do. I should have made one yesterday but was busy ironing. Banana bread tonight then.

Red wine, after a week on the wagon taking a no-booze antibiotic

The wobble on a good hot dog. This one hadn't occurred to me, but it is true, and this video link of the WobbleDog 9003i in action makes an incontrovertible case.

I shall now pause to observe a moment of silence for the few dogs injured during these experiments.

Still sunny at 16:00 on a Friday afternoon in January. Longer days in lockdown.

My car passed its MOT. First time for ages. That means I can still legally drive to Waitrose (one mile). The open-ended freedom this endows me with is positively scary.

More red wine. And more....

A dog sleeping on your lap and cherry coke with grenadine or pomegranate juice.

Waking up with a pulse and apparently Covid-free. Thanks to RFLT.

[Chalky] Radox-Filled Large Tub?

[chalky] Ralf Lemster Financial Translations?
Red Frogs Finishing Tuna?
Robots Liking Flambed Turkey?

Rapidly Fried Lark's Tongues?

S'obviously Roger Federer's Lunting Trousers.

Reeking Limburger For Tits?

[Stevie] I'm on a diet. As of now.

Playing "Take the first line of a novel" and then add "And then the dragons arrived." There are so many that work surprisingly well.

Of course, Harry Potter, LOTR, The Hobbit, and 1984 have all been popular ones.

These have been my contributions:

Not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. And then the dragons arrived.

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf stream and he had gone 84 days now without taking a fish. And then the dragons arrived.

Alice was getting very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do. And then the dragons arrived.

Marmalade tea and individually wrapped slices of quail salami.

Seeing on and working on my art car. Also, having others add to it.

Getting quite pissed on brandy and visiting the Morniverse, which is full of my type of people. (KagomeShuko) Are you sure you'e in the right game?

Having (and eating) leftover cakes I made for the in-laws' visit yesterday.

Throwing away stuff that even I can't think of a use for. Not so much that it didn't spark joy, as that it did spark 'what in holy hell even is this thing?' I have still got a stash of bits and bobs that I don't know what they're for, but it's smaller now. I'm keeping some of the more intriguing artefacts, at least for this round, because if I chuck 'em I'll never find out what they were. Curiosity and hoarding tendencies have managed to outweigh tidiness once again.

One of the stranger objects I had stashed are some screw-like objects with a fat smooth cylinder in the middle of the screw. So they're not cylinder-head screws, because there's thread before and after the cylinder part, which is considerably thicker than the surrounding screw. So what the hell are those things for? What are they called? I guess they're some kind of screw-hinge device?

[SM] Sounds like anchor screws used for attaching curtain rail holders. One side screws into the wall, the other into the rail holder. If they are beefy then they might be used for attaching sinks and other similar items. If they are massive, then maybe for holding railway rails to the sleepers. All these types have different threads on each end.

Some sort of curtain fastening arrangement seems to be the best explanation. I think I'll call that a win.

*Contentious statement alert* Most unidentified objects in abandoned drawers and neglected biscuit tins of 'things' are to do with hanging curtains. Curtains are the most complicated of household artefacts and no two systems are interchangeable or compatible.

[pen] Ha! You've obviously never had to deal with shelving units...

[Pabbers] Ha! I have a husband to deal with that sort of thing.

[pen] Now that's a bloody good idea! Why didn't I think of that?

The smell of new wood I've got a new fence, 'cos the old one blew down. I keep getting little whiffs of fresh DIY store fence wood through my window. While it's not as nice as freshly sawn timber, it still qualifies as a little pleasure.

OK, this is getting a bit meta, but also: Noticing Little Pleasures.

Because of this game, I always keep an eye (or a nose) out for little pleasures. And because I do that, I'm more likely to notice them.

Also, Getting meta :-)

[Simons] I'm all for getting meta. It's an element of mindfulness. I'm getting better at it on lunchtime dogwalks. Last week it was watching stormy shelf clouds skirting around me, and noticing the ash twigs blown off the trees onto the path looking like broken wands from Harry Potter and wondering what high jinks they'd been up to, this week it was noticing the twigs laid like directional arrows on the ground (did we used to call them Indian signposts or something? A long, long time ago at Girl Guides...). And how good the potato blossoms smell. And how the smell of the next field with onions reminds me of a fairground hot dog stand. Anyway, the point is, the more you look, the more you see.

*pays close attention to SM’s move*