Saturday, June 06, 2009

Quiet Sunday - Gone cold again - 52F - 16mph ENE

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I bought this gadget in Ikea yesterday and have already used it successfully several times.

They must have a proper name but I can't remember what it is. The idea is to put a spoonful of leaf-tea in the wire-mesh end (it opens by compressing the two arms against the spring) then you put it in your mug and pour boiling water over. Obviously, when your tea is a suitably brewed colour you take it out.

Ingenious ! The one we had at home wasn't spring loaded and had holes in the metal rather then mesh. The results so far have been more than satisfactory.

The rain has been extremely heavy and our poorly draining bits are awash. Going down now though (6pm) because it has stopped raining. Also very cold and an ENE wind with 29mph gusts. I am so sorry for people just about to set off on holiday. Let's hope it brightens and warms up abit.

For lunch I cooked fresh Sea Bass and decided to oven-bake it which worked well. As accompaniments I did Jersey Royals and Mange-toute peas. Followed by a Y jelly and Greek Yoghurt. Delicious.

Microsoft have introduced a new search-engine, to rival google. It is called Bing and has one or two nice features. As 'google' now does, it offers suggestions to possible sites when you enter a search term. But a new nicety is that, when it opens a list of results, it offers a summary of each site before you decide whether to open it or not. This is achieved by hovering your mouse over the right hand edge of the listed site. So easy and useful when you get used to it. I could become a convert !

Picture number 2 needs no explanation. It is a cartoon by Bob.

As usual, beautifully drawn.

My responses to your comments

Jill ..... You may be right that John & Yvonne are now heading for home but yesterday we received a real post-card (the sort with a stamp) from Port Fréjus. This apparently is located between Cannes and Saint-Tropez.

Lucky old you, going to Alaska while it was so unspoilt.

I wasn't as much in favour of the Sheila Hancock Poetry programme as you were. I realise that much of her chosen work was relevant to what she had found comforting after the death of John Thaw. But I think she has milked this dry. Maybe I just don't like the woman very much.


Bob .... I think we do the same as you. In the first place, years ago, we set ordinary cooking coriander seed. Then harvested some seed from the result, and have simply kept it going ever since.

The service buses I have used very occasionally are, as you say, and Y affirms, uncomfortable. Her main complaint though, is the thoughtless behaviour of the clientelle.

Coaches on the other hand always suit me fine. So long as we sit on the driver's side so I can stretch my really bad left leg down the aisle. I would go so far as to say that I actually like and enjoy coach travel. Maybe because it's mostly with our Mansfield National Trust chums whose company we love.

Alaska to Siberia via The Bering Strait is just a walk. When the sea is frozen, which it mostly is. My memory tells me there was a move afoot once to build a land-bridge. Don't know what happened to the project.

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Quotation time ......

"To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world"


Sleep tight - catch you tomorrow



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5 comments:

Jill said...

May be it is called a tea infuser? I think Lakeland do them?Coincidentally I have just bought a tea-pot with a metal mesh container (removable) in it to hold fresh tea leaves. The Bristol Museum used similar ones, and we were very impressed with the quality of the tea. I bought some Whittards English Breakfast loose-leaf tea, but haven't tried it yet.

I rarely have any problem on buses, find our local ones reasonably comfortable, and the clientele are not (usually) how Y describes hers.

Sea Bass sounds good, we had salmon, though it is more like beef casserole weather here at the moment, cold and wet.

bob said...

“Quiet Sunday – gone cold again...”
Who said our weather is unpredictable?

Paddy Tipping has presented a Parliamentary Bill for Maximum Wage.
Viva Cuba!
Our Labour County Councillor was re-elected.
Pleased BNP didn’t do enormously well.

We have an infuser (thanks Jill)like yours.
Also usable for bouquet garni.

Yvonne should try the bus to Retford... no-one else on it!

I might like Alaska; I loved the (sub)Sahara.
Talking of Alaska... Stephanie has gone to the West Indies...
of her own free will.

Mansfield Community Hospital is reliably recommended if choice given for X-Ray/Scan appointment.
On Sutton Road opposite Top House (William IV) it occupies former site of The Institution where my mother’s late brother George was training as a Workhouse Master prior to conscription, aged 18, in 1939 (postwar he became a QS).

Jill:
Maybe your roads are better repaired than our country lanes!

I’m doing a beef casserole today!

Unknown said...

All this fussing about with tea leaves is beyond me - what's wrong with tea bags?

For those not in Nottingham - the weather here at 1.30-ish is diabolical though Debra tells me that in London there is brilliant sunshine!

Good win for England last night but they were lucky they weren't playing a decent team - they would have been at least 2 down inside 25 minutes.

Disappointment with the local elections - L.Ds. might have increased their percentage share but didn't really do as well as expected. Though thank goodness Brinsley got rid of their BNP councillor.

Pete said...

Weather here on the IOM has been weird to say the least.Glorious hot sunshine all last week for practice with one of the riders, Cameron Donald doing a lap at an average speed of over 131mph. Unfortunately he came off on Friday, dislocating his collar bone and will take no further part....Yesterday the weather turned very wet, windy and cold and the races were postponed until Monday as organisers thought that today would be similar. It hasn't been up until now as we've been blessed with warm sunshine again. Thousands of bikers all over Ramsey. For those interested you can see my latest offerings on my site...

David said...

JD ran a similar advert to your 'clubbing' cartoon. I think it said something like 'wouldn't you rather be out clubbing' when he was a night club manager in Dumfrese. He was asked to stop his 'clubbing' campaign by the local police when someone was severly wounded outside his club by being repeatedly hit with a blunt object.