Chitchat thread #24

[greenishfing]

I slept like a log until 6am. I would have got up then but it felt cold so I snuggled back down, dropped off and had the weirdest dream involving a mini train, a bag of spanners, a dinosaur and a thief who was stealing bedding off the washing line. Unbelievably, it all made sense at the time.🤯🤯🤯

I made the banana loaves yesterday. I hope that I did it right as I doubled the recipe (I am well known for forgetting to double or half one ingredient when changing a recipe). They look and smell good. I'll deliver one to my brother in law later today.

It's only 3°C here at the moment but the sun is out and it is drizzling at the same time.

I'll feed the birds next and have another coffee.

[Nicos]

I hadn’t noticed, but we had a frost this morning. It wasn’t there when Hibou went out at 7am, so it must have happened after that.
Love your dream gf

I’ve just been reading about veggie shortages in the uk…hopefully it’ll encourage people to grow their own and eat more seasonally, as well as preserving more foods like our grannies used to.
Not easy when you’re used to picking up what you want when you want though.
When we moved to France I decided to dip strawberries in chocolate for Valentines Day. Could I find them anywhere?…nope. I asked several assistants in several shops and they all came back with the same response…. “They’re not in season” followed by a very questioning look. That was my first wake up call to buying seasonally.

[Florence Fennel]

I've found it difficult to get free range eggs and found out only yesterday that there aren't any, they're all barn eggs due to the hens being kept inside because of disease. A poultry farmer on radio 4 was in tears yesterday. It was so sad to hear him. I hadn't realised the extent of the problem.

[Snoop Puss]

Morning all.

Well, first off, that Jaffa cake recipe looks fantastic, GF. Worryingly so. I've downloaded the recipe. Looks much nicer than any that I found. Oh dear and double dear! I see it says "Put some Jaffa joy in your belly". More like on my belly in my case.

I'd never even heard of an automatic watch, rary. Had to look it up. It sounds like a lot of money, but it also sounds like these watches have very complex mechanisms, so probably worth it. I'd do it if I were you and it were my watch. Or I'd ask my family to club together and have it done for me as a birthday gift, making it doubly pleasurable.

I suspect those smiles were on their way to visit Flo and to check out Frank. Hope they don't make him too boisterous, Flo, with their larking around.

Dull here at the moment. A thunderstorm with rain is forecast for this afternoon. Pah!

Still, lots to keep me busy indoors again, so might as well try and make productive use of my time. Mr Snoop has purchased sand for the asparagus beds. Will try and deal with those this weekend.

Have a great day, everyone.

[Florence Fennel]

I'm looking forward to the smiles Snoop, Frank could do with some playmates

[bramble]

A beautiful sunny morning here but just 3 degs.
Must visit the post office this morning and then out for a walk.

Yes Nicos, they are blaming the shortage of veg on the bad weather that Spain has had.
No sun or heat to ripen them so here comes a price hike.
Personally, I will buy frozen veg until the panic passes.
Have a good day all.

[greenishfing]

Mr GF has just informed me he "needs" some of his favourite boiled menthol type sweets when we go out. I used to buy bags of them at the local chemist or petrol station but they have both stopped selling them this year. I'm just wondering where I'll get them. I could do with more bread flour too...... thanks to the greedy blackbirds. I must admit I never let my stock get too low ever since it disappeared off the shelves in lockdown. I wonder how many bags got hoarded in cupboards and eventually thrown away? I refuse to go into the city centre and pay the extortionate parking fees and then have to walk miles, so I'll try the small town in the other direction which is much, much more compact, has small independent shops and free parking.

My step daughter emailed last night to say that her hip replacement has been successful and hopefully she'll be going home from hospital today. She hopes to be feeling fit enough to come to England for a holiday later in the year. We haven't seen her since before Covid.

I was just thinking how supermarkets and foreign travel have changed our expectations of fruit and vegetables. When I was young I'd never even seen a pepper, avocado, any lettuce other than iceberg, garlic, sweet potato, mango and so much more. As for oils (sunflower, olive, rapeseed to name a few) ......unavailable. Lard, butter or margerine were the only options.

Time for elevenses now.

[Florence Fennel]

I didn't know pasta existed or oil until after I married GF, I thought spaghetti was in tins and beef dripping, lard and butter were the only fats my mother cooked with!

[Florence Fennel]

My grory hop has just been delivered and I've never heard Frank bark so much. He's very loud for such a tiny dog, which I suppose is not a bad thing

[Snoop Puss]

I remember the whole family watching the BBC April Fools spoof about spaghetti trees and believing every word of it. No reason why I wouldn't. Like you, Flo, I'd only ever seen it in cans and was always amazed that some came in the shape of rings while others tins contained stringy bits. Never understood why till much, much later...

[Florence Fennel]

Never knew about mayonnaise either, it was always salad cream in our house

[Bren In Pots]

As a kid we had meat and veg every day except for Friday then it was fish and chips. It never altered.

[greenishfing]

I remember school lunches were the same......no choice, no chips, no pizza, no salad, no curry. Meat, veg and gravy, fish pie on Friday. A stodgy pudding and custard. I think we needed the energy. No packed lunches either.

[Florence Fennel]

If you had a packed lunch in my school you were classed as either posh or weird and the radiators in the dining room were insulated with discarded sago pudding

[Florence Fennel]

That's probably why I went home for lunch (walking both ways) and hated it if on some rare occasions I had to stay at school. I made that journey, hail, rain or snow, with my mother while at infants, my friends through juniors and seniors and then I became weird and/posh