January Chatty - Happy New Year!

[merry]

I do buy milk with my delivery - fresh for Mr M, who gets through it quite fast, but I now tend to use the cartons of long-life for myself, but Cravendale I find lasts longer than normal milk anyway. I never throw any away so presume it keeps ok, but then again we don't buy the four-pinters, as since Covid I have two deliveries a week.

I can always get an ASDA slot for the following day, likewise usually Waitrose and Ocado. Tesco you still have to book well in advance which is why I don't use them so much these days.

I have a weekday delivery saver pass with Ocado which is very cheap
I have a yearly Anytime pass with Tesco, not so cheap
A yearly anytime pass with ASDA, forgotten what that one costs
Waitrose as we know don't do delivery passes, and them charging for delivery at all is a fairly recent thing.

I don't begrudge any of these. I really hate big supermarkets now and we would certainly have spent a great deal more in fuel and wear and tear on our cars as we live 7 or 8 miles from the nearest.

Also I find I spend more in person as I see something in a fridge and go 'that looks nice, let's have one' - repeat over and over

As Eccles says, the subs can be a bit wacky, think 'red pepper' for ordinary pepper but they are always happy to take things back and sometimes you are lucky with a very generous sub, like twice as much as the thing you ordered (and you don't pay extra for that.)

I've started to get them to bring the crates into the kitchen and unpack them there, because I got fed up with bending over in the porch unloading the crates into my own bags. It was A LOT easier when stuff arrived in carrier bags. Ocado still send stuff in carrier bags which is a big advantage IMO and they buy them back from you at 10p a go. But I keep them and use them as bin liners.

I'm sure you will be pleased, OC. And Waitrose food is so lovely!

[merry]

Milbenkäse falls into a legal grey area: European Union regulations allow the sale of foodstuffs containing living animals if they are "prepared for placing on the market for human consumption".[2] On the other hand, cheese mites or their digestive juices

... I stopped reading right there!

Crumpet Weevils though

[eccles]

When unloading a delivery I usually hand a bag or two to the driver. They're always happy to help.

[mimosa]

For those who don't believe the last paragraph that I posted, I will draw your attention to the following.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milbenk%C3%A4se

What is the purpose of a crumpet weevil? Are these things actually in the food? Or are you just being funny, Eccles? Reuben and I are most interested in this. We've never heard of this at all... Yikes.

ME

[OurCreature]

I think Eccles doth jest about the crumpet weevil. When I read his tale ( Eccs!) I was interested in how the crumpet holes were made, and I found on the Internet that it is part of the cooking process where bubbles of air are formed, burst, and make the holes in crumpets. So boring compared with Eccs' wheeze!

There was a crumpet bakery in Cheltenham. When I was a student we had a field week based at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, and I and another student had to do some work in Cheltenham. We were waiting for our transport back to Cirencester outside a building from which issued a lot of clanking noises. My colleague was very tall - enough to look in through a high window to see what was making the noise. Can you see, quoth I. His reply was couched in tones of awe - There are thousands of crumpets moving along conveyor belts! he exclaimed. And not a crumpet weevil in sight.

[eccles]

[Wildrover]

Sorry to hear about your health woes OC. Your blood pressure is similar to mine and your cholesterol exactly the same (I thought 3.6 was low too) but your heart rate seems a little slow - I expect you'll end up getting a CT scan of your heart at some point. Anyway fingers crossed they get to the bottom of it - fainting is very unnerving.

I've not been online for the last 5 days as I've been trying to deal with having a new ceiling in my lounge while simultaneously clearing out MYF's house and moving all her furniture into my house along wiitth mmakingg several trips to tthe tip. It has been incessant furniture moving for 5 days and I'm knackered!

[OurCreature]

WR. It is 24HR ECG fitting day today. I have had to get up early to catch the 07:45 bus into Southampton and then catch a bus to the hospital to get me there in good time for the 09:20 appointment; I hope it is a real appointment and not a pretend appointment. As it is too early for the free bus pass to kick in I shall have to pay for the trip to the hospital, but the £2 for a single journey still applies so it should cost me £4. I shall be all right with the bus pass coming home. Let's hope I manage to stay on my feet.

[OurCreature]

I am fitted and back home. 09:20 was a proper time; my first bus was 10 minutes late and I just missed the bus I wanted to the hospital so had to get the next one, and I arrived at non-invasive Cardiology reception bang on 09:20. After around 5 minutes waiting I was in to have the kit fitted. 3 pads on my chest with electrodes connected by a cable to a recording ECG box which I clipped to my trouser belt when I got home at 11:15. I have a diary sheet on which to record various events.

In the excitement of keeling over on Friday I had forgotten to transfer my bus pass back to my little card holder; I'd dropped it in my shopping bag en route to Boots. So when I looked for it at the bus stop coming home I couldn't find it and it took me a little while to remember where I had left it. So I had to pay money going home! Never mind - when I take the kit back tomorrow I can leave to catch the 09:44 from home and not pay anything; I found my bus pass where I thought I had left it so that was OK.

And now for a far more pleasant subject - my lunch with Bob yesterday at Bella Vita. We got there quite early but it was nice to study the menu and have a drink before ordering. Bob had a half of Peroni and I had a ginger beer and then we kicked off with scampi a tartare sauce dip and a small side salad for me and Bob had some sliced warm (toasted really) ciabatta bread. For main Bob had a huge vegetarian pizza and the red chilli seeds were too hot for him so he had to scrape them and the chillis off. I had risotto with king prawns and cherry tomatoes cooked in it and a side dish of baked new potatoes, plus a big glass of Pinot Grigio Siciliano while Bob made his Peroni last a bit though eventually he gave in to the red hot chillis and had a cold Pepsi. To finish Bob had 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream while I had a slice of warm chocolate fudge cake with quite a lot of chocolate sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. They still haven't got a coffee machine that works, much to the chef's distress, so that was our delicious lunch. I put one of Lynsay's Xmas vouchers towards the cost, and we split the remaining £60 including tip between us.

I was glad I didn't have far to walk to Bob's car because I felt slightly wobbly but I was a bit better when I got home though I spent most of the afternoon asleep with Mina on my lap.

[eccles]

Regarding strange creatures in the UK, I admit to spinning a yarn about crumpet weevils. They are not weevils at all but moth larvae (bombyx mandarina). Spinning a yarn, geddit?
There is another strange creature native only to the UK, the wild haggis. It lives only in the Scottish Highlands having been hunted to extinction in England and Wales.

https://bylines.scot/lifestyle/culture/ ... o-fiction/

.

[eccles]

Good luck with the ECG thingie, OC.

[OurCreature]

TY Eccs.

[Furby]

Finding things where you thought you left them is a success. Bad luck about having to pay and the £2 bus fare is a really good improvement because don't have to negotiate fares with bus drivers who never seem to know anywhere on their routes these days.

What will the tests show in the end. Will they say things like don't be searching for hidden or lost items it's very stressful but doing the washing up is still fine.

I have gone right off crumpets for some reason now. I will order potato cakes for next week.

[merry]

That was Tillys Crumpets in Cheltenham. I used to cycle past it every day on the way to school!

ECCLES! you tease! you have put Furby off her ctumpets now! And now I've seen how cute a wild haggis is, I may never be able to enjoy Burns' Night again.



OC, so sorry you are having a rough time of it at present. I think I'd take a taxi to any appointments for now rather than a bus. We have a lot of appointments to go to at different locations with Mr M and I just like to make it as easy as possible and if that means a taxi for some or part of the way, then so be it.

I enjoyed reading about the meal with Bob King Prawn Risotto sounds nice. I think often of the Lobster Risotto I had on two occasions in San Francisco, with great longing.

Welcome back, WR! don't injure anything else with all that lifting!

[mimosa]

I knew it!!! I smelled a rat, but I had to ask to make sure. You guys.

ME

[Furby]

If there is a bus that goes that way I would vote for getting the bus. Merry will be thinking of her mobile phone life with Ubers apps and all that.

How difficult is it to get a coffee machine I am surprised the restaurant hasnt got one yet. Lots of places are going bankrupt so should be lots of equipment for sale. Perhaps coffee is going out of fashion it has to be downhill for it doesn't it and restaurant are ahead of the curve.

[eccles]

Lepidopterists might have spotted the rather obscure pun when I mentioned I was "spinning a yarn" regarding bombyx mandarina, otherwise known as the wild silk moth.

OC, hope you had a decent night's sleep with that contraption tied to you.

[OurCreature]

I had a reasonably good night's sleep Eccs - it was only a little ECG tape recorder box.

It was a good thing I did that post on Wednesday just before 1:00 pm because while I was dozing through the snooker on TNT (watched on my computer monitor) some chaps who were laying a cable for an outfit called Gigant decide to slightly move a BT cable close to where they wanted to put their cable and managed to knock out the landlines and internet for a fair number of homes in the area, including mine and another chap in the close who is with BT as well. That was sometime between 14:30 and 15:15 yesterday.

My phone is still out but a helpful BT Techie helped me get back online. When BT decided in July to renew my Broadband contract instead of renewing my Line Rental Saver which was what I had asked for they sent me some new kit - an EE mini-hub to link my router to the EE network though I never knew it was there because I didn't open the box. But I grizzled about the unasked-for renewal to Techie Logan and he told me what should be in the box. In addition I have an engineer coming on Monday morning. So I did what Logan told me and I am back online though my upload and download speeds are reduced - but they are fast enough for what I need.

I might try my phone on it as well. Meanwhile I got the buses to and from the hospital (free this time!) to hand back the kit. Results should be with my GP in 4 or 5 weeks.

Foot Clinic day tomorrow at 09:00 - another early start!

Furby, it's the plumbing required for the coffee machine that is the problem - there isn't a lot of room in the kitchen for it and it would cost quite a lot of money for them to install, even if they could find the space for it.

[eccles]

It looks like you have joined the ranks of Mobile internet users then OC, albeit temporarily.
Who's a clever old Logan then.

[Furby]

Horrible things to happen do gang up together don't they.

5 weeks seems a very long time for results with all the technology these days should be able to plug it in and print the results out.

I try to just fight off anyone trying to renew me. I am ignoring fibre broadband and smart meter police at the moment because both will mean I need my house rewiring and I can't see how moving out can be possibly managed. So sticking with what I have while I can seems best plan.