OneGuyFromBarlick

It's so dark this morning. Today I will have my fourth Christmas meal of the week, only another two to go! Not all big meals but get together over food with friends from different groups and places. It's arts turn today, yesterday was walkers lunch, Tuesday was sewing group lunch, Monday present swapping with my old university friend. Tomorrow is craft, then Saturday we have invited 5 friends for the full works. They will all be away over Christmas visiting vegetarian relatives, so we are doing a tirkey dinner. It's going to be a fat Sunday!


Ho ho ho everybody

Sorry Sue, I wouldn't thank you for a full Xmas dinner..... (Old Scrooge.....)
You all know what I will be doing.....

I always think of this topic a day late, so yesterday I was mainly travelling to York by steam, however Network Rail failed the Duchess of Sutherland on gauging between March and Ely so we didn't pick her up until Peterborough. Although the old dear has done the journey several times (I went on it myself last year) it appears that the station platforms have grown and the train will no longer fit! The scrappy apology from Network Rail was not explanatory nor worth the paper it was printed on.

However we sat adjacent to a great couple and their friend and poor old Steve hardly got a look in at the journey itself. Photo to follow when I have worked out how to do it again.

Stanley wrote:Sorry Sue, I wouldn't thank you for a full Xmas dinner..... (Old Scrooge.....)
You all know what I will be doing.....

Well Stanley you will be pleased to hear it works out cheaper than other options for 7 people, especially
buying the stuffed turkey crown from Lidl. This lot all have hearty appetites. It may be a Christmas dinner but take away the turkey and a Christmas pud option and it could be any other evening dinner for 7


It's a bit of a celebration we haven't seen our friend Clive in over three years and Wendy and Barry for two. We haven't had friends for a meal for nearly a year due to our major house updating. We are on the last leg now. Fireplace down, new one in and plastered. Just the last bit of decorating left. It will be nice to see Clive, he withdrew into himself after his wife died, and he has starting socialising again

I intended no criticism of what you are doing Sue. Just expressing a personal opinion. And yes, I can see why it is an economical option. I haven't cooked for seven for yonks!

Just talked to my mate Sarah in Perth. She's just come in from a row on the upper reaches of the Swan River on a perfect morning..... I shan't be doing anything so exotic! I shall be fighting my way to completing my piston rod!

Again, slightly late (by 8 hours) having a 60th birthday party (early by 8 days). Fine blues music supplied live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWjAbjQeVDM

Well that was a good evening. It transpires that none of us arevhaving a traditional Christmas meal on Christmas Day for one reason or another. We pulled crackers and all the usual and talked for hours. Loaded the dishwasher about midnight and in bed by 1.00. It was a thouroughly enjoyable evening.

Another meal today, this time the French group, with French quizzes and supposedly French conversation

I am finishing the toile for Claire's jacket for her wedding. After a provisional fitting yesterday I am hoping it us now right, ready to start the real thing.

Art tonight

You have a busy life Sue.

It's a bit full at the moment...or should I say I am full........

Makes me tired just thinking about it. My mother would have said that you have a wheel up your bottom! (Sorry about that!)
I shall be doing wonderful things in the shed once I get my act together. Overslept this morning!

A quiet day today, nothing planned except a two hour stint at the hospice shop this afternoon. I shall pop over to Claire's this evening so she can try on the toile of her wedding jacket. All activities seemed to be winding down for the holiday season.

Keeping up with Oz and making slow but steady progress on my steam cylinder. See Shed Matters.....

Today I shall be mainly licking the wounds of what was my bank account. A suspect leaking valve turned out to be a slightly buckled wheel, due in no doubt to the many potholes I try to avoid when driving. Then the addition of anew tyre needed. Then I got home and Honey (Sam's best mate) wouldn't put any weight on her back legs, in fact she had wet herself in her bed. One out of hours trip to the vets was the final insult to any ideas of thrift.

Oh, and by the way, Honey made a miraculous recover in the vets, standing and walking and then squatting on the floor for another you know what.

Ah well!

Today is a Jeremy Ford art day. Pilates tonight

Christmas Gremlins, Julie!
( remember last year, it was my washing machine?)

I approach my washing machine with reverence lately, cos I remember the hassle this time last year. You just hope your white goods don't carry a memory... I address it like a beloved child every time I stuff it with washing.

Probably because I have given the local vets enough money over the years to fund someone's retirement I now try to adopt a "stay calm and lets just give it 24 hours" policy with animal problems that don't involve injury. This isn't popular with my husband who panics....or my son, who never lets me forget that he DID have a cracked bone in his elbow that time when he fell off a mate's quad bike 25 years ago.

Don't feel bad, Wendy.
My son says I would never allow him to have a day off school "unless he had blood coming out his eyeballs"
He is almost 38. And it is true. ( ever since I caught him sticking the thermometer in his cup of tea! )

Mind you, there was that episode of quinsy, when he ended up in hospital...

I don't feel too bad about the elbow, but I've always regretted the broken nose!! He came home from school one day when he was about 8 with a bumped nose (never confessed to how it happened) it didn't bleed and there was no bruising around the eyes..poor lad always had a runny nose so you couldn't tell what was going on inside! It wasn't until a few months later that it dried up enough to see there was damage inside. He got the septum bit fixed but he was apparently too young to have the bone reset so they told us to go back when he reached 16. By that time he liked his now definately squashed nose and refused to have anything done.

I think I invested enough money in my son's buck teeth ( thousands!) that I was numb to minor stuff. ( they came from his father's side)
He ended up with the perfect smile and is very photogenic ( unlike his mother) so I am satisfied.

Meanwhile, this evening, my button pushing husband ( no glasses on) has got us to a very strange place indeed on the smart TV. This has taken some sorting. I have finally restored our viewing...though out of the corner of my eye I see he is experimenting again with the remote control buttons. He will drift off to sleep shortly, with the remote control in a death grip. At this rate, I expect to be forced to watch the shopping channel all evening!
He often wonders why he wakes up to find me in bed, reading.
He thinks I abandoned him

I managed to avoid a broken nose as a child - but only just. I was playing in the garden when the prop slid off the washing line and hit me on the nose. Blood everywhere, but amazingly no broken bones.

When we have TV problems Mrs Tiz allows me to attempt to restore normal service and when it still doesn't work she steps in and puts it right. Of course, that's pure luck and if I'd had the chance for another go I would have sorted it.

If Mrs Tiz is anything like me, there will have been times when she was tempted to tie your hands behind your back so that you could not tamper with the remote control.
Of course, when things start to go wrong he stabs at more buttons to fix it...blaming the remote control for its stupidity.
( always blames the equipment).

They do say that if you want to hide something from your husband, you should file it marked "Instruction Manual".
( one place they will never look!)

Julie, look on the bright side, Honey is OK!
Maz, I think you exaggerate a bit about Dave. An incompetent man? Never!!!
I've broken one of nearly everything, including my skull...
Not sure what I'll be doing today apart from the fact it will be forgetting my worries in the Shed!



If you put steam on this cylinder it would work.... This is progress.