Monday, October 13, 2008

Busy Monday - Recuperative Nap

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Just managed to catch Monday's deadline ! It is possible for me, as blogmeister, to change the day and date to my choice but it would seem like cheating somehow. And subsequently I wouldn't know for sure what time of day I wrote the blog-post in question.

I started off with my statutory Monday blood-test and then called back home to collect Y, so we could go to Jean's for the National Trust committee meeting.

We announced are intention to stand down and not seek re-election next year. So did Jean, Peter, and Gordon and Sue - which will leave only 3 surviving members. And, after we had 'done it officially' we felt a great sense of relief. We've had a good 5 year run but will enjoy reverting to being ordinary members, able to pick what we go to and what we do. Peter and Joan, and Jean will remain close-friends anyway and, as Y e-mailed to Peter, we will be able to have little non-Nat Trst 'committee meetings' about subjects of our own choosing.

While in Mansfield I had a look at mobile phones in Currys, PCWorld etc., but didn't buy one. I aim to have a serious look tomorrow in Carphone Warehouse while Y has her 'nails' serviced.

After Mansfield, I ran Y down town to collect her London rail-ticket and to allow her to visit Bromley House. I managed to park just outside the Tesco Express on Angel Row and found a good excuse for going in for milk, bread, etc. - It is one of my favourte shops.

The first 2 pictures are of our dwarf Liquidamber entering its autumnal magnificence. If you open the link, I don't rate the commercial picture - they don't show the tree at all well. I use the adjective 'dwarf' advisedly because the non-dwarf strain can reach 80 feet high and is definitely not suitable for one's front garden.

We finished up eating 'lunch' ? around 4pm and had the left over cold chicken with 'potatoes fermiƩre' (I haven't forgotten Jill that you want the recipe and I'll sort it out soon). The chicken was great - flavoursome and still succulent and moist. I sometimes think one can best judge these qualities, second day and cold.

Y was quickly on her laptop, e-mail to Garry and Sue re the acorn-farm chap as a potential lecturer for Mansfield Nat Trst, and then other e-mails and things. It is rewarding to see her enjoying it so much. I can hardly wait for an opportunity to say "You are not still on that computer are you?" She can see the potential irony.

Then I found the need for a recuperative-nap strangely compelling.

Picture 3 is from Bungus's family archives. Picasa 3's 'text tool' is a great adjunct to a didactic tool-kit. It would have been tedious to have reached the same result in prose - "middle row, second from the right, etc.," which tends to make the viewer's eyes glaze over.

I had trouble last night with Picasa 3 though. There was a selection of 50 photos I wanted to store in Picasa Web Albums and the upload facility simply wouldn't work properly. In desperation I re-installed Picasa 2.7 which dealt with it effortlessly. So I now have both programmes running simultaneously with their icons side by side on my desktop. A bit resource-hungry I suppose, but what the hell ?

Comments

Reg ..... I accept your 'placing' of Beecrofts. But what was the name of the toy/model shop just round the corner from Angel Row ?

Thanks for remembering 'Lionel Hampton' and the Benny Goodman story. As I said when you were here, 'Led Zeppelin' sprang to mind - don't know why - nothing to do with it at all !

I had a dinky? or similar ? spitfire, and memory tells me the wingspan was little more than an inch.

4 ticks ...... I understand your frustration at the Hayley water-temperature problem, and we were only pulling your leg about 'nesh-ness'. With that sort of annual subscription, to keep the boiler in good order seems the least you can expect.

Your 'spitfire' pictures are super and I am taking the liberty of blogging them. See Picture on the right.

Re the 'echinacea' and your camera. Not really a problem - I will nip out and capture a snap as soon as the light seems reasonable.

And thank you for all that information about Beecrofts. All excellent archive material for this 'journal of record'.

bungus ..... I disagree about the 'sunrise'. The cropping you suggest would produce yet another boring sunrise picture and there is no shortage of them. The misty building and the goal-posts make it a 'record-shot' which was my intention.

Re 'troublesome programme' - please refer to our telephone conversation.

Re monochrome. You are right about Eschler and I have created a link because most people only recall his line drawings, the never-ending staircase etc., and those 'hands'. In fact, until I researched the link, I was numbered amongst 'most people'.

You are right that it would have been good to hear Fuller 'preach'. Amongst witty clergymen I think that The Reverend Sydney Smith would also have been worth sitting in a pew for.

Which conveniently segues me to ......

Quotation time ......

"Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of every thing"


A Karen day tomorrow, - Y's 'nails' - and then who knows ?

Sleep tight (if anyone is still up) - catch you tomorrow

Hope I haven't forgotten much


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11 comments:

Anonymous said...

An early response to your late posting!

I find it hard to believe that it is five years since you joined the committee of NT.
‘Unchained Melody’ got it wrong when it said ‘Time goes by so slowly…”. Everything speeds up when you start going downhill.
I have no doubt that you will continue to exert influence; a group ‘eminence grise’?

I too would like the 'potatoes fermiƩre' recipe.
And I agree about cold meat. Decent pork is delicious cold, as is beef. Likewise turkey, duck, goose (not that there is much left over) and game of all sorts. And (I hesitate) cold leg of lamb, meticulously stripped of fat, makes a great sandwich with Branston or mint (or onion) sauce.

I too have had problems with Picasa 3. Making collages takes an age (estimated half an hour a time) and it seems to insist upon checking all thumbnails after every operation.
I intend to adopt your twin-system solution.
Don’t worry about being ‘resource-hungry’; you are extremely ‘resource-full’.

Lovely Spitfire pictures.
Elegant plane, elegant motor.
And a chance to correct my stupid error of yesterday.
1/72 is NOT eight feet to an inch (eighth scale); that is 1/96 (virtually impossible to distinguish from the current metric 1/100).
1/72 is, of course six feet to an inch and I am sure it was used for something; possibly Dinky army vehicles, possibly Hornby 00 gauge?
Reg’ll know.

It transpires that Sandra’s halfsister, Joan Dabell (nee Pitman), worked at Beecrofts, probably in the 60s.

I take your point about the sunrise picture. ‘Eye of the beholder’ I reckon.

You say ‘Eschler’, I say ‘Eischler’ but apparently it should be ‘Escher’!
Thanks for the link. His traditional works, and others, were unfamiliar to me too. I have always liked the ‘ducks turning into frogs’ best.

Anonymous said...

I thought it was 'Eschler' too.... somebody worked out a knitting pattern using his ducks facing alternate ways (and becoming other ducks) and I have always wanted to do it, perhaps as a cushion cover rather than a garment, but you need quite a large area to appreciate the design. I have spoken to gardener about us getting one of these dwarf Liquidamber trees. Is it a sort of acer? We had a bulb planting day last week, all six hanging baskets done, tulips down the drive in various pinks, pots and trough by front door. Still have daffs to put in round the bird bath and more pots..... The M & S bulbs were not too good, one packet had three out of five bulbs green and mouldy-looking (that is going back) and some of the other packs had one or two duff ones. Gardener said they were inferior (though of a more interesting kind) to the bags I had bought at Sidmouth Market when we were in Devon - fill a bag yourself for £1, mixed daffs and narcissus.

Will you have a problem getting people to take your place on the Nat.Trust Committee?

Anonymous said...

2nd post.

I cooked 4Ticks’ West Country Apple Cake yesterday. It looked good and tastes very good.
Just one question. How small do you chop the apples? Mine sank to the bottom making it a bit soggy. Or perhaps I added too much milk?
I’m struggling to keep pace peeling apples and Steph brought home a big bag of cookers from one of her customers! They look perfect so should store well.

On Sunday I bought some herring milts off Teco’s reduced counter.
I googled for recipes, not knowing whether to expect English or French as they had come from Canada.
The webpage which came up described what they are (I already knew) and concluded “If you fancy eating fish sp*** here’s a recipe.”
I rolled them in flour and shallow fried them in olive oil. Eaten with a little salt, pepper and vinegar I found the taste not unpleasant; very bland; not unlike brains or testicles; not at all fishy.
They were OK but I shall not be eagerly seeking them out again.

I was right. I showed Sandra the blog photo of the Lidl salad tray and she said “That’s about enough for somebody who doesn’t like salad.”

On Radio Nottingham they have been discussing the merits of establishing a local currency.
Many of you will recall that in the 1960s, when milk was generally delivered daily house to house, we used little blue discs as tokens.
At the time I had a girl friend who lived in Carlton.
On one visit to my house, she noticed the tokens on the kitchen worktop and obviously had never seen such things before.
“What are these?” she asked.
“Local currency,” I told her, “They are known as Farnsfield groats.”
She believed me - which I correctly thought to augur well.

Anonymous said...

Bungus. 1/72 scale is near enough OO Scale which is 4mm -1 ft. or 1/76.2
RG
The model shop on Mount Street was Beatties of London Ltd., More trains, and plastic kits than flying/working models. I can't find any up to date info. on Google so I assume the have gone the way of many things either, bust or taken over by a big multiple.
The mono pic. of the Spitfires is one of my more successful ones (depends of course how you judge success) It won me a Car Coat and was used on the front cover of the Triumph Sport Six Club Magazine.
An even bigger acalade to me was, when I gave a copy to Cliff Rogers (R-R Chief Test Pilot) who had been flying the Spitfire. His immediate comment was "That's going on my desk and I'll fly it even lower for you next time"
Strangly I don't remember it doing any good with Camera Club judges.
You will note the date as being 1987 proper photography in those days none of your digital stuff.

I have just been into refubished Kimberly Libary to look at the new exhibition area. Looks like we shall be able to hang about 30 prints instead of the previous 70 They (County Council) Have spent the earth on the stair case and mezzanine balustade. But to me not only a waste but brushed stainless posts and rails with chrome plated fittings looks awful Perhaps Bungus could go and 'snag it'

Anonymous said...

RG

Glad you liked the Spitfire pic's. We love the car but it's getting to be a bit of a chore. We don't know what to do as our children & grandchildren all want it. That's 5portions to sort, Deb says she should have it because she's the oldest, Nick says he should have it because he is son & heir, Sophie wants it, as for quite a few years she was our only grandchild, then Abbie & Lucy appeared on the scene. Oh dear, it seems that the sensible thing to do is to sell the thing and invest the money in a minicash ISA for them to share when we pop off. I don't know what their reactions would be. It's a problem.

Went to Morrisons for coffee this morning with the Arts Group Committee. Our meetings are usually held there, we find a table at the far end of the room and nobody bothers us. Improvements have been made and they are now serving proper, bean to cup, coffee which is to be recommended. It's only
99p per cup, which was quite large but you have to help yourself. You select the correct cup and find the correct machine then place the cup under a tube and press the correct button. Be careful, it comes in decaf.. as well as the proper stuff.


Bungus.

Pleased you tried the Apple Cake, sorry the fruit sank. In reply to your question about chopping, I chopped mine quite small. Size about 1cm. cubes. I suppose I should have added notes to the recipe, sorry. As with cherry cake & flour, I decided that the fruit perhaps should be coated with something so I put the spices into a bowl with the fruit and coated the apples with it before adding to the mixture. Very moist & delicious. Yum.

I really like the picture of your ancestors. I don't have any of mine from that far back but there are some of himself's lying about somewhere.

Herring Melts, my father would have these when they appeared inside the fish which we had quite often when I was very young. I always wished that the fish wouldn't have so many bones as, by the time I'd sorted them all out, my meal was cold. Even then, I used to get something to choke on. Mother would cook them, the melts, in melted marge after dipping them in flour and Father would eat them with toast. We didn't get to try them but I don't think I would be able to put the stuff in my mouth. Sweetbreads though, Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Anonymous said...

'Oops' I put melts instead of milts and didn't notice until after I sent this.

Anonymous said...

Are milts what my Dad called 'roes'? White, sausage-shaped things? My Dad always tried to buy herrings with them in, he liked his fried and on toast, but my mother and I didn't like them. I never liked herrings much either, too many bones, but I did/do love kippers, the flavour makes up for all the messing about. I know you can get fillets, but they don't taste the same to me....

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