Pleased to see the font has found it's way home. I didn't like the 'serif' version as much as plain old Arial. I could re-open earlier posts and change it, but it hardly seems worth the faff.Picture 1 is the late evening sun shining through the red Maple in the rear garden. All its had is a severe crop. The dramatic effect is how it looks.
We zoomed around this morning and managed Ikea for a voucher as a wedding present for one of our neighbour's sons, then Lidl where perhaps ill-advisedly we bought 2 gooseberry bushes as well as shopping and finally to Morrisons for bread etc.... Then fish, chips and peas for lunch. Short nap before the Burglar-alarm man came to service the alarm.
Eventually tea, while watching Claudia with her daily programme about Strictly come Dancing.
Picture 2 has had more photoshoppery because straight out of the camera it looked boring. A little excitement this morning when I opened my wallet to pay by debit-card in Lidl, I couldn't find it. The details would be boring but I finished up ringing the company and they've blocked it and will send me another. Most helpful and understanding young lady who merited a tick in all the boxes. Much easier than it used to be 20years ago when I last lost one. Without a big fuss she put our minds at rest about the balance, and Y can continue to use her card to the same account while mine is being processed.
Commentsbungus ........Thanks for the Apple Scone Recipe which will certainly be tried and reported on.
Here is the recipe for The Bath Bramley Apple cake and The West Country Apple cake - each of those is a specific link to the underlying recipe. Both are superb. At least they are when baked by 4 ticks - it might be a different story when baked by RG.
Thank you for the family photos from yesteryear and you have used the text tool very
discreetly. At the right is Jessica's 'Barque called Colin' - again please accept praise for your adroit handling of the two juxtaposed frames. You must tell us more about Colin.
There was no real significance to yesterday's Picture 2 - the light and the detail of flora on a rotting log pleased me - is all.
Thanks for reminding us about Griffen and Spalding. Other long-gone quality shops were Dunns (gents outfitters) and the tobacconist Josiah Brown. An excellent name for his trade I always felt. I think the last proper Grocers to go was 'Hammond and Carlyle' on Alfreton Road.
Y will be delighted and amazed to hear you describe me as 'tidy'. Bit worried about the little labelled boxes though - you make me sound anally-retentive. My excuse is the tablets anyway.
I've known about your 'bridge and heght' phobia for years of course. Colin Fletcher is much the same. The only way to get him across any substantial such structure is to put him in the back of the car and cover him with a blanket.
Jill ..... I may have told you that I used to keep bees. Stings of course are frequent. And eventually I had one which was serious and the consultant at the hospital advised me to give up the hobby. Apparently most people build up a tolerance to bee-venom, but in some people (me for instance) become progressively less tolerant. And the results can be serious. On his advice I keep Piriton handy - it is an anti hystamine tablet.
The Show at Alexandra Palace sounds great but I fully understand your position especially with a 2 hour journey. We are on the verge of substantially cutting down our National Trust commitments. We want it to be an occasional voluntary pleasure - not a commitment.
Quotation time ....... To continue with GBS for another day ......
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one"
Hope you all have a good night - I'll catch you tomorrow
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That is a fantastic picture of the maple leaves. I once did a sweater in those sort of colours, it was a favourite of mine for many years.... Sunflowers - I take it they are a commercial bunch, bought somewhere? I bought some a few eeks back, but found they didn't last long as cut flowers?
ReplyDeleteAnd there was me thinking that the Colin the bark was a new puppy....
No, I didn't know you kept bees. Fascinating. We buy honey sometimes when it is available that comes from someone who keep bees in Twickenham, that is as local as we can get.
Have written down the recipes, Perry (son) has access to a v.g. bramley apple tree, and we have had some already. Apparently the crop is not as good this year as last, though.
Am still very stiff and achey this morning, so it will be a quiet weekend for me, I am sewing up a blanket I made of squares.....
Pleased to see the font has found its way home.
ReplyDeleteI too am pleased with the return of Arial (enter stage left berating Caliban) and agree it would not be worth the trouble of changing yesterdy’s font (‘But that was yesterday / and yesterday’s gone’).
I still wish we called them ‘typefaces’. How, even in English, can a word that means a baby bath or spring also mean a style of lettering. I suppose it could be worthwhile if it confuses foreigners. But it’s an Americanism and therefore abhorable.
The maple is very striking but, even with the photoshopping, pic 2 does not excite me unduly. But it is at least as interesting as Colin.
I wish I had known you were buying gooseberry bushes – I would have asked you to get me one (for a year or more I have been promising to buy one for Alex when Netto next had them in, but they haven’t. Well, you wouldn’t expect me to pay Garden Centre prices, would you?). I shall be visiting Lidl next Thursday (via the Mill) and shall hope they have some left.
Unless you have 2 different varieties, or are thinking of starting another family, I think you will find one bush to be more than adequate. We get 5 or 6lb a year off ours.
I lost my credit card in Morrisons a couple of weeks ago.
I had paid with my debit card and then noticed the other was missing from my wallet. The checkout girl, other customers, and myself made a good search around because I was ‘sure’ I had seen it, but no luck. When I got to the car I lifted out my ‘bag for life’ and there it was in the trolley!
I went back up the travalator and told the checkout girl. Then I went down again. Then back up for a pee. Then down again and texted Sandra to say I was leaving and would pick her up from the workshop. She texted me back and said she had arranged a lift. So I went back up again and had a cup of mocha with lashings of cocoa powder and saw a Scotsman called Hughie who played for a while in our quiz team and whom I had not seen for over 10 years. He is even deafer than me so, what with that and his impenetrable Glasgae accent, it wasn’t a great conversation.
Heady days. Such excitement there never was!
I have copied the cake recipes, thanks to both, and will have a go.
Colin sits by the gate like a guardian. Perhaps he is a ‘bouncer’ – I must try!
He doesn’t talk to me yet, but I live in hope. I showed him your picture from yesterday and think I detected a flicker of interest (no more than that, he takes his job very seriously) but I don’t think it can have been a relative.
Was Josiah Brown on the left of the Square as you look towards the Council House (‘I wish they’d given me one like that - ours is only a 2 bed.') just before Queen Street / King Street?
The name I always liked was that of Messrs King and Cole (S Yorks I think) whose fuel merchants’ business was called King Cole. Doesn’t it make you wonder how they thought of it?
Then there was Burtons – not the ‘50 shilling tailor’ but the big posh grocers behind the Council House – they eventually took over Leckenby’s, Mansfield’s prestige grocery on Leeming Street where, as at Burtons, you could smell the coffee and bacon from outside (what about the Kardomah – and the Coffee House opposite what is now Waterstones?)
Perhaps meticulous is a more accurate word than tidy.
I have heard before about the build-up of bee venom. Probably you told me. You could have made it up. I would have done if I’d thought of it.
In my 30s I got hay fever from talcum powder (never had it before and seldom since). Went to the doctor who prescribed anti-histamine. In bed, that night, my heart started to thump so hard that it shook the bed. I was frightened. I went back to see the doc the following day and he said, “Oh, I must have given you a double dose.”
I wondered how long you would allow National Trust to be so dominant. They’ll miss you both.
But you do go into things wholeheartedly, don’t you?
I think your middle name must … Graham T’obsessive Marsden?
I’ll go along with GBS on delusion.
Jill:
Pleased to hear that it is not anaphylaxis – that must be frightening (see anti-histamine overdose above).
The last wasp sting that I had was courtesy of one that got into my shirt. I reacted strongly to that; a blister, 3” to 4” deep, threequarters the way round my waist. But no exceptional pain.
It is usually when they are trapped that they sting. Apparently, before I was a year old, my mother once sat me on one on her knee and couldn’t understand why I yelled - it chose me is why.
I once, in the cause of scientific experimentation, caught a scorpion in a tubular cardboard container about 8” deep and decided to set fire to it (I was on Duty Driver and it was a quiet night). I squirted some lighter fuel in and it came out at me like that ‘Alien’ monster came out of John Hurt’s chest. I let it have the room to itself. On another occasion I was also privileged to observe a group of fellow soldiers put 2 scorpions into a circle of fire. It’s a myth; they do not sting themselves to death, they try to run through the flames. I also had a great-aunt who emigrated to South Africa (and stayed) who was extremely ill for a couple of weeks following a scorpion sting.
I am not fond of horses either. They are too big.
I’ve never met an armadillo. I’ll make do with Colin who is nice enough, if somewhat taciturn.
The National Knitting and Stitching Show sounds far too much.
Is Alexandra Palace the big place on top of a hill on the right hand side as the train from Nottingham nears London?
Having always had access to a Bramley, I have found them pretty consistent croppers. My dad's had over 100 lb most years. And ours has done as well as might be expected considering its age (I reckon it is probably 150).
'ere's a good 'un I've not heard for a long time. At the fruit stall to the rear of Eastwood Post office this morning. Lady holds up some oranges, "'re these sour" reply from the stall holder "these are what you want" showing her some tangerines. "I add some o'them last wick, Thee made me tabs laf".
ReplyDeleteDesite this entertainment, remind me not to go into Eastwood on a Saturday morning. We parked at one end of town, rear of the Police Station, Walked nearly to the other end of town doing a bit of shopping,in the pound shop, and then walked back, best part of an hour I suppose. Both directions were solid with traffic the whole time. Thank goodness we've got a by-pass I just wish they would use it. Nottinghamshire traffic planners have done their job well extending bus stops out into road nearly opposite one another. The traffic lights around the Sun Inn never seem to be in sync. properly creating even more hold up.
I remember when if you didn't have a suit on shopping in Jessop's you were not properly dressed. Until the take over by John Lewis you were addressed as 'sir' especilly if you had an account.
Those were the days.
Thanks for the autumn leaves collection of my favourite colours. And the Sunflowers which resemble my favourite flowers which are Daisies. Do you Know why the bark is named Colin?
ReplyDeleteI'm so pleased to have contact with someone related to the Pearson family. Never understood why they went away, been in mourning ever since. Threatened to lay a wreath outside the door every Christmas but wasn't allowed. Never did complete my Dinner Service but the dishwasher is still working.
We were only allowed to enter Griffin & Spalding if we wore our Sunday best, wouldn't dream of calling in at lunch time whilst working in the city. I worked for a time at Beecroft's, do you remember Beecroft's? Learned all about dolls there until they moved me into the office where I did everything from answering the phone to comptometering numbers for keeping the accounts, counting the cash from each of the tills, checking invoices etc., etc....
Did someone mention a Dinky toy Spitfire? I've got a real one its the Triumph version, will send a pic for RG to show you. Do you still have yours? Himself is, at present, flying a simulated radio controlled model one on his computer.
I was stung by a wasp on the 2nd. finger of my stitching hand in the middle of a session at college the subject was City & Guilds Embroidery & Design. Couldn't carry on stitching that day as I couldn't hold the needle.
We went to Lidl on Thursday and bought 1 Gooseberry bush only but I saw a Blueberry bush sitting next to it and bought one of those as well. Hope they grow well as I like Gooseberries and have developed a taste for Blueberries with my porage too.
Went to the Knitting & Stitching Show at Harrogate 2 or 3 years ago with some of my Friday Art Group. We went on a mini-coach from Ripley. Got thoroughly worn out walking the aisles, ate lunch sitting on some steps because the tables with chairs were all fully occupied. Bought a Water Brush, heaven knows why it was at the K.& S. Show, but it has been useful. Enjoyed the day though. I haven't been invited again. Perhaps I just filled a vacant seat because someone cancelled at almost the last minute. Hey ho...
Do try the recipe's for apple cake and let me know what you think. I preferred the moist one with mixed spice, West Country Apple Cake. Next time I make the Bath Bramley Apple one I intend to add some mixed spice to the ingredients.
We are on a search for chairs made of cane or wicker for our Garden Room, as it is called. (The Conservatory). I'm moving my studio stuff into the, recently built, porch, (jokingly called The Orangery), at the rear of the bungalow. It won't be so hot in the summer. I didn't think thee chairs would be so expensive. Might drag himself off to an auction or two.
Tea time. I'll buzz off now and heat up the soup.