Blood test first thing and then a little shopping for bread and milk and over to Bungus's for coffee. Then we went to The Bird in Hand at Blidworth where Bungus had booked a table for 12noon.Picture 1 is that table and, although I've probably published similar snaps before, this is the view at the rear, over the Nottinghamshire countryside and towards Lincolnshire. A fellow diner told us that, from the tower of the Church next door, on a clear day, one can see Lincoln Cathedral.
Picture 2 is the actual view through the window and just below the line of trees on the right, about a third in, you will see some watering taking place. In view of the wet August we were surprised to see a farmer finding it necessary. His soil could be particularly sandy or something. For clarity I've enlarged and inset the watering pump.
We had a nice meal - Bungus the meat pie and me the battered haddock, mushy peas, and chips. Sandra joined us and had a salad cob and chips. The chat flowed freely and we had some good laughs and it was very nice to see them both. Now Bungus is coming to the end of his clinic attendances, we should be able to manage more get-togethers. His dentistry will go on for several more weeks and he says the length of time is due to the Dentist being so busy. Whatever, it will be good when he is sorted.All being well we shall be WoW-ing this week, and Helen, Reg, and Brian are more or less certainties. Roy is, we think, back from holiday too.
I have the National Trust to deal with at Mansfield tomorrow. In the absence of Y, I shall need helpers, but Ron and June will be there for the Raffle, Jean is back from her holiday and Peter and Joan will attend. The lecture is about the walled garden at Clumber, which should be interesting. The website tells me it dates from 1772 so by now, they should have a reasonable tilth. I am looking forward and I'm sorry Y will miss it.
Comments
Jill ...... I sympathise about your 'comment' being 'gone'. Do you mean physically gone or metaphorically 'gone' due to being side-tracked by putting the kettle on?
It seems painfully easy to be side-tracked these days. I frequently start a task, go to another room for something to do with it, start doing something else, go to another room for something connected. It's pure chance that I eventually go back into Room 1 and find the uncompleted task still sitting there....... This isn't just a product of age I don't think. I remember as a boy going upstairs for a book, reaching the top of the stairs and going into the loo for a wee, and then going back downstairs without the book. Happened all the time.
Lucky goldcrest you ! I don't think I would recognise one if I saw one.
Like you, I think the only answer to this silly 'unsteady' problem is to take lots and lots of care. And be prepared to just stand there till one is ready to move off....... I was speaking to Peter's Joan only half an hour ago and she is just the same. The reason I nearly fell over at Rob's stagnight was that, having stood up I was embarrassed just to stand there for a while. So I immediately headed for the door and, a few steps later, I nearly paid the price.
Bungus ...... I'm beginning to feel embarrassed by all this praise for my snaps. Are you sure you feel OK? You'll be complimenting me on my prose style next !
Nice read about the bird-poetry and the Dorian Gray tie-up.
It's perhaps best to remove all naturist age-limits. I shouldn't have started such a daft thread in the first place.
The trug is a first-rater in design terms. We have two. A beautiful lapped-wood one and a foul green plastic thing. The wooden one is a joy for many different purposes, even tools etc. The plaggy thing is only ever for weeding and it is so awful it is lucky still to be around.
The 'things' Jill and Ro and Y and I eat with lamb and all sorts of things are not Yorkshire puddings at all. They are made with plain flour, egg, milk and water - all whisked together several hours before being baked for say 40 minutes in a hot oven. Their actual name is MUPUBATS , short for multi-purpose batter puddings...... I'm sorry you have been confused all these years.
I've just checked the 'p.s. to new readers' you mentioned. The font is small at this end, but certainly not in webdings. Perhaps other readers could let me know if their version is legible.
AnonymousRob ...... I have just received by e-mail your updated version of the Lumsdale bowl. Incy Wincy's advice was clearly as sound-as-a-pound. I must be careful not to run out of superlatives but............. it's magic. Definitely first snap in the blog tomorrow.
Quotation time ........ I have decided to dip into my newly rediscovered leather-bound 'Hand-Book of Proverbs' and it's a treasure trove. Published MDCCCLVll for you Latin scholars.
"There's nothing agrees worse, than a proud mind and a beggar's purse"
.....very true, whoever you were.
Sleep tight - Catch you tomorrow - unless exhausted by Mansfield Nat. Trst.
.
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3 comments:
When I said the comment I started had gone, I meant just that - it was off the computer, just your blog was there, when I got up comments again it was empty....about ten minutes gap, as I actually made tea, etc.
I got purple gobbledegook, is that the webring things you re talking about?
Lovely view from pub, so glad Bungus, that you managed to get there. I think you must have put the evil eye on my MuPuBapuds, they weren't very nice, too spongy for our taste. Don't know what I did or didn't do?
When I first got up your blog earlier, all that was on it was the first picture, it finished with the phrase abou Bungus booking a table for noon. I could have commented then, but guessed there would be more to come, so I didn't. At that point did you think it was not in the public domain?
Watched Kevin Whately in a thriller (?) on ITV, took me most of the first episode to work out the relationships. I've now got it straight, but will I remember it until next Monday for the next instalment?
G, hope all goes well at the NT tomorrow, just remember not to jump to your feet.....
Up to 8,500 former members of the armed forces are serving sentences in UK prisons, it has been claimed.
Who said 'BRING BACK NATIONAL SERVICE'?
Yes, we did indeed spend an enjoyable couple of hours or more at the Bird in Hand where, in spite of eating difficulties, I enjoyed my meat pie and, unusually at lunchtime, 2 pints of bitter.
’The Bird in Hand offers a wide selection of drinks…’ says the website but, to Graham’s lager disappointment (I nearly said ‘bitter’ disappointment), it doesn’t include non-alcoholic Beck’s.
The excellent landscape view from the window tables is a real bonus although my inbuilt compass tells me that we were looking south towards Nottingham rather than east-north-east towards Lincoln (a check on the map tells me I am right, which is nice). I do not doubt that climbing 200 church tower steps and turning half right gives a view of Lincoln cathedral. It can often be seen from ground level at Laxton (which is, of course, nearer by several miles).
I was once involved in a survey of a walled garden at Wollaton. The delightful discovery was the fact that the walls were hollow, with fireplaces and chimneys at intervals, the warmth of the brickwork aiding the growing of peaches, etc.
You will no doubt be told if Clumber has a similar feature.
I too spend much time going up stairs for things I forget as soon as reaching the landing (luckily I don't live at Blidworth Church). But, as Sandra says, it will stop me getting ‘bungalow legs’.
All I know about Goldcrest is that they are smaller than the Wren which always used to be regarded as the smallest British bird.
Don’t worry about the praise for your photos. And your prose style is always superb (all right, small pinch of salt).
I just feel I should be nice to you occasionally, esp as your computer is irritating you and you keep nearly falling down..
Our trug is a lapped-wood one which unfortunately is starting to disintegrate. We have a smaller wooden one much less refined which I don’t like. New good ones are understandably expensive.
Jill:
Your complaint about losing your 'comment' reminded me of the Monty Python 'dead parrot' sketch which I was listening to only yesterday (free CD in The Observer).
To stop your Comment ‘going’ I would suggest clicking on the little minus sign at the top to disappear it. Then, when you wish to return, you can click it back again at the bottom of your screen.
Yes Jill, the purple gobbledegook is in the Webdings font. If you highlight it, copy to a Word document, and there highlight it and change the font to, say, Arial, you will be able to read the message which could save the Western World.
We used this code a lot in MI6, taking advantage of the natural lack of imagination of foreign spies.
I’m suspicious about this new MuPuBapuds thing. As Shakespeare said, ‘A rose by any other name still only goes with beef and sausage’.
Although it seems unlikely, you didn’t use self-raising flour, did you? That certainly makes them spongey.
I say ‘them’; personally I prefer half a large pudding to three small ones.
I never knew which female was which in the Kevin Whateley drama. Or what time it was.
It was very like being at home with 3 women creeping about silently (nothing to do with my ears needing syringing) including a stroppy teenager (allow for hyperbole). I quite enjoyed the programme though.
Diary:
Arrived early today (Tue) for my routine appointment with the surgeon at King’s Mill Hospital – a week early to be accurate.
Sandra was not altogether pleased as she had postponed a physiotherapy session to come with me – postponed it to NEXT Tuesday so it will need changing once more.
But at least we shall be able to go to Lidl again! And they have a good wine offer coming up.
The main entrance to King’s Mill has been moved to the skyline dominating new block which is magnificently and impressively spacious – like a cross between a cathedral and a shopping mall. But I dare say they will eventually find something to clutter it up with.
I made a lady helper in the charity shop smile. Sandra passed over a bag of purchases –
“Can you hold this?”
I considered the question before replying “Yes.”
No doubt it was better if you were there.
In M&S last week I queued up from the wong end to buy a shirt.
"I went to the wrong end," I said to the woman who prior to my arrival had been at the back of the queue.
"Of course you did," she replied, "You're a man."
The following should have been included yesterday.
Dan & Emma collected us on Sun and took us over to Newark to the Food Fair on the Market Place. In spite of the wet and no proper shelter other than under the edges of dripping canopies, we enjoyed it. But it cannot have been good for the stall holders.
We bought a number of goodies, including baklava (it was delicious but I cannot see how it helps bank robbers), French goats’ cheese for Sandra, plus, for me, a French creamy cow’s cheese and 100g of Welbeck Estate’s new Stichelton (a very pleasant blend made in traditional fashion on the estate). Also a 25% offoffer on their ready meals which unfortunately expires on Aug 31st.
The other three lunched on paninis from the panini van while I had a dish of paella which was very pleasant even though I dropped my plastic fork and couldn’t be arsed to get another so ate it with my fingers – messy but strangely satisfying.
The biggest shock and disappointment was the White Hart, on the Market Place, where we went for a sit down (outside) and a drink. Externally this is a fine, externally restored, mediaeval building (with parts from the 14C I believe) but what a miserably scruffy and unattractive interior. I expected a salubrious place, perhaps rather more like the Saracens’ Head at Southwell or the Hoste Arms at Burnham Market, not something like a cross between the Geordie Club and the Carpenters Arms at Boughton. The Wetherspoons across the square, a lunchtime gallery of builders’ bums and four-letter floozies, is a palace in comparison. I felt totally let down.
Dan kindly bought me a very good mocha coffee from an excellent stall – I was offered a choice of 6syrups, including hazelnut, ginger and caramel; l opted for chocolate. I also bought myself an ostrich steak for dinner on Tue or Wed and a chilled tray of Ackee & Saltfish which I thoroughly enjoyed for my tea with rice and peas (garden peas, that is, not the traditional W Indian gungo [pigeon] peas or red kidney beans). It contained a simple list of basic ingredients with no additives or colourings and I would certainly be happy to have it again.
All-in-all a good outing.
I've got webdings as well but, strangely enough, I haven't got webding nerves, at least not yet. Maybe on Saturday.
Where has the Sports Desk gone? Too busy eating all the pies by the sounds of it! Very little news about the Stags and even less about anything else. Did you see that the Stags have had two players included in the England squad? Sadly, only the England C squad and not the A team.
In the absence of any Sports Desk, I've had to read the Food Section very carefully. I'm sure the two have got mixed up but I've sussed it out before too much damage has been done. As they say, a Stichelton in time saves nine. This is what I have found from my deep anal-ysis of the puddings and pies news:
Finnish football (I wish somebody would I hear some of you cry) results:
MuPuBapuds 2 FC Bugu 1
Gobbledygook Sunday League:
Ackee & Saltfish Wanderers 1 Little Fallinova 1
Shock and disappointment at White Hart Lane when diners are told Berba's off the menu.
I trust that clarifies everything.
Rob
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