Monday, December 10, 2007

Blood Test - Shopping - Xmas Tree - Boughton

Picture 1, contributed by AnonymousReg, is of AnonymousRob (extreme right of picture) up a mountain somewhere with friends. I am sure that further & better particulars will appear.

Maureen has also kindly provided us with a web-address for picture & photo mounting. Click here should take you to it.

We made an early start this morning. I did Santa runs to the Chemists, The Garage, and the Doctors. My blood test (which I suspect will be all over the place due to tablets change) was at 10am. Then Morrisons, pop in home to unload the shopping and then to Boughton for lunch with Bungus and Sandra. Sandra prepared delightful 'cobbaprolls' (there is always the essential conversation as to what they should be called) with a super salad garnish, and crisps and unlimnited tea or coffee. Followed by a smashing Lemon Cake (Sandra-baked and irresistible) and we had two pieces to bring home. Gorgeous ! Although Bungus looked a bit 'done for' (he had had the district nurse [not in a biblical sense] and other visitors before we arrived but mentally he was well up to his usual standard. We had a great time for a couple of hours, but around 2.45pm we felt we had to leave because we didn't want to overtire him, or drive in the dark.

We have lights which come on on timers and our Xmas Tree which Y did yesterday was so welcoming ! No cards on the hangars yet but they are arriving, more each day.

Comments.....Glad you have taken the plunge Jill with the slow-cooker and we shall all await a report on its first outing.

And how interesting that ring-dove grey reminds you of suede gloves/handbags. That grey always reminds me of aluminium saucepans ! Shows where our different preoccupations lie I suppose.

Thanks Bungus for your full and interesting comment. My Uncle Vince wore spats, but his were that pale buff colour. Your varied steak experiences folks, are fascinating. For the reasons you describe I have not ordered a steak while eating out for ages. My own view is that thickness is crucial. I always have the butcher cut steak 1" thick because I know then that I can produce a tender, moist steak, to people's choice, of rare, medium-rare, or well done but still moist. If I was asked for dried-out and rubbery, I would first slice the steak laterally into 3 one-third of an inch thick steaks and start from there Ha Ha !

I think the ballet-dancer/fairy should now be left in peace to enjoy her shafts of sunlight. Which brings me to doves and peace. I should have known - it came from the biblical description of the dove brining the olive branch to Noah after the inondation. Made so famous of course by Picasso's genius drawing. I just feel that the old boy wouldn't mind at all appearing in this humble publication.

A suitable place to end. Tomorrow evening we have our annual National Trust Social evening at Mansfield. Should be fun and we are looking forward to it.

Quotation ......You have AnonymousReg to thank for this one :-

"The recruitment consultant asked me "What do you think of voluntary work?? I said "I wouldn't do it if you paid me."

That will do for today. I is droopin' and need a lie down. Catch you tomorrow....


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I will just add on e fact and let others add further ones. It was Jan. 29th 1987, Maureen's birthday and as you can see she had black (Dark Brown) hair at the time. Like most of us now, it is no longer so.

Anonymous said...

After today’s luxury lunch of tuna and cheese cobs / baps / balm(cake)s / rolls (in N Notts only the long ones are called rolls) with optional crisps and Italian pickled onions followed by lemon drizzle cake and lashings of Morrisons Assam, I was only allowed a bowl of gruel for supper.
But, in the interests of consumer research I then tested Netto’s ‘Cake Collection’ mince pies. The cheap ones (49p for 6) are very good indeed but the luxury ones (99p for 6) are special, bigger and with buttery pastry, nuts in the excellent filling and a good strong taste of brandy. Twice as good? Hardly; and both are rather too sweet for my taste, esp the luxury ones. On balance I think I shall stock up on the standard variety. I am the only one in the family who eats them anyway. The ten I have left will probably last all week.
I enjoyed all my visitors and I wasn’t actually feeling done for at all (and how do you know what the District Nurse and I have going?); I simply could not get a word in edgeways so did my usual party trick of sitting in the corner and letting everyone ignore me. I need a substantial amount of drink to change from that mode and then I become the devil’s finest advocate on every subject..

I feel I must repeat a true story told by one of my visitors. My version may not be absolutely accurate but the essential is correct.
Aiming to give a party for a group of new acquaintances, they obtained the drinks from Aldi (if you don’t know it, think Lidl or Netto as a guide, rather than Sainsburys or Waitrose).
On the evning, one of the female guests approached the hostess and said, “This wine is absolutely delicious.”
“Yes, we like it,” said the hostess, “it’s from Aldi.”
A half hour or so later the same guest approached the hostess again.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” she said, “but I would love another glass of that delicious Fromaldi?”

As a general rule, I never have steak at home. That way it is a medium rare treat when I go out for a meal (and three quarters of an inch is plenty thick enough for me). I am seldom disappointed. And we have one friend whom I have seen send a very well done but still slightly juicy steak back to be properly cooked!
‘At home’ if we had steak it was invariably on Saturday as an Australian breakfast, ie, with a fried egg and bread.

If the dove was brining the olive branch I suppose the flood with which they were engulfed must have been salt water.
Where did you get inondation from? I cannot find it in my dictionary..
I am constantly surprised at the avowed communist Picasso purloining the biblical dove (but pleased that he did). One of best known logos in the world, apart from Shell perhaps?

Anonymous said...

Thanks, AnonReg, for the picture and the date. My guess, before I read your comment, was 1988 so I wasn't far out.

As you know Maureen is seated; the others are (left to right) John Hulme, Andy Wilson, Martyn Hulme and then myself. I look as though I've not lost much hair since then. The picture was taken on Catbells in the Lake District, overlooking Derwentwater which can be seen in the background.

We had a club trip to Lakeland Photographic Holidays; it was being run at that time by Dave and Lesley Dent. I was in a print postal circle with Dave and several other people.

We chose to walk up and around Catbells because Wainwright said it was "an after-dinner stroll with your granny." His granny must have been a helluva lot fitter than any of us! It took us all day but I did get two shots out of it that appeared in my successful ARPS panel.

It may have been at dinner that night that Martyn put salt on his anchovies and then decided they were too salty. We did warn him, though.

I don't think, RG, that you would have met either John or Martyn as I believe they stopped coming to EPS before you started.

In South Lincolnshire we only ever knew bread rolls as bread rolls whatever shape they were. It wasn't until moving to Nottingham that I came across baps and cobs - is there a difference between them? Elaine, who is from Manchester, speaks fondly of oven bottoms as well as barm cakes which, if I remember rightly, are totally different to baps and cobs.

Rob

Anonymous said...

I know of no difference between cobs or what other people call baps. If barms are totally different, then on Coronation Street they do not have what we call cobs and waht Cockneys (ie, anyone south of the Trent, inc what is now S Lincs) call rolls, ie, round things from
2" to 6" dia made of bread. They have bacon barms. Balm is yeast so I have always assumed a barm (or balm) cake) to be bread but I am always ready to learn!

Anonymous said...

Elaine has just told me that both oven bottoms and barm cakes are cobs! So I was wrong.

It appears that oven bottoms are larger and flatter than what seems to be a typical cob in these parts. Elaine, in giving her first answer to the question "What are barm cakes?" said "Muffins."

I understand muffins to be the same as crumpets but apparently not, as a muffin is also a cob. A crumpet is also known as a pikelet in Manchester.

Rob

Anonymous said...

Everybody probably has different answers!
A muffin, to me, certainly is not a cob. I do not think it can be eaten (enjoyably) untoasted and I am sure the mix is not that of 'standard' bread.
In north Notts, muffins had never been known, except as something referred to by Dickens, until the 1970s (?) when, quite rightly, they became popular. They may have existed prior to that in America, as 'English muffins' but whether they are anything like the 19C version we shall probabaly never know unless someone turns up contemporary recipes.
In Mansfield we always referred to crumpets as pikelets but I now believe the latter to be of about 50% greater diameter and half the thickness (and not so good). There is something else equally pitted and made from the same yeasty mix but about 9" dia and slightly thinner than a naan bread.
It might be worth googling them all unless the answer is Wikipedian in which case I may have written it!