Amazon exiles discussion
Trackless wastes
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Today, I shall mostly be...
Val wrote: "nocheese wrote: "On FB, Joan Baez in her her kitchen singing 'Hello in There' for John and Fiona. Something in my eye.. ..."Joanie is a very special person. Funny, it was always Bette Midler's ve..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJPvc...
For them who avoid FB
Today I've been shopping, in the snow, then I came home and watched it snow until it turned to rain and then I watched it rain.Su took Rig out in the snow, I took him out in the rain, he didn't look over impressed with either of those experiences, although he preferred the snow.
Highlights of the day, I managed to score the last four bags of granary flour in Carrefour this morning to bring back to the UK on Thursday. I just need to make sure that they're hidden in the car along with the two packs of ten loo rolls so that I don't get hijacked on the way.
Second highlight, watching a Greater Spotted Woodpecker feeding on the trees in the garden this afternoon. First one I've seen this year.
Down on the allotment, mostly weeding and pruning, tidying and preparing. I'm holding off planting for a bit in case the restrictions tighten and we can't go there any more. At the moment, Michael Gove (lovely man!) has decreed that working my plot is legitimate and safe exercise, but that could change. I will plant tatties though, they can look after themselves.
yesterday - finely manicuring my lawn to the level of the 18th green at st.andrews - you could play snooker on the immaculate surface! aye, right! today - staying in to admire the above!
nocheese wrote: "Down on the allotment, mostly weeding and pruning, tidying and preparing. I'm holding off planting for a bit in case the restrictions tighten and we can't go there any more. At the moment, Michael ..."Same with our allotment, too early for planting, earth is cold yet. Today ready to plough (50 square metres roughly), a wee problem to get a litre petrol for tiller. Radish and lettuce already sprouting in polytunnel.
Next - to figure out how to protect black and red berries from birds, last year they ate everything, which has never had happened before. For strawberries already got good netting. Ultrasonic repeller didn't help. Starlings are paricularly cunning.
Post Soviet wrote: "...a wee problem to get a litre petrol for tiller..."Is there a shortage of petrol your way? There's a glut of it here. The price has dropped by about 15p a litre over the past two weeks. I wish I'd had time to fill up this morning.
Tomorrow I'm going to be planting sweet peas and dwarf narcissus. I'm sure they'll taste wonderful. Can't believe I'm excited about getting my first ever home delivery of groceries. I chose 8.00am - 8.00pm time slot as it was free of charge but I've had an email to say expect them between 10.30 and 11.30am - and I can track them too! Isn't technology wonderful?
Gordon wrote: "Post Soviet wrote: "...a wee problem to get a litre petrol for tiller..."Is there a shortage of petrol your way? There's a glut of it here. The price has dropped by about 15p a litre over the pas..."
Petrol should be aplenty, and you're right: considerably cheaper. Just haven't driven car since the lockdown, no idea how strict garda on the road are. Nearest petrol station is 6m from our place.
P.S. Done with ploughing & petrol, what a relief!
Val wrote: "Tomorrow I'm going to be planting sweet peas and dwarf narcissus. I'm sure they'll taste wonderful. Can't believe I'm excited about getting my first ever home delivery of groceries. I chose 8.00am ..."Sounds like early Xmas! '0)
And no eurovision this year!
whoa there, post! that's two strikes in the one comment!
Val wrote: "Tomorrow I'm going to be planting sweet peas and dwarf narcissus. I'm sure they'll taste wonderful. Can't believe I'm excited about getting my first ever home delivery of groceries. I chose 8.00am ..."Technology is wonderful, but the reason you can track them isn't for your benefit, it's so that their bosses can make sure they are sticking to their (often punishing) timetables.
Post Soviet wrote: "Sounds like early Xmas! '0)And no eurovision this year!c..."
Might be early Easter for me! I've bought eggs and blocks (always Cadbury's Creme Eggs) for my grandkids and their parents and I just may have to eat them all by myself!
Eurovision would have been some light relief. I watched the "Australia Votes" show and there were some really good artists and some likely tunes too but the singer/song that won (not the public vote's winner! The Judges made the final decision) didn't impress me all that much.
nocheese wrote: "Technology is wonderful, but the reason you can track them isn't for your benefit, it's so that their bosses can make sure they are sticking to their (often punishing) timetables. ..."I should have realised that. I'm sure a lot of the poor driving we see on the roads is because of "contractors" who are paid per delivery. I always feel sorry for the blokes delivering my many eBay/Amazon purchases - the latter have been delivered well after 8.00pm this week. As this is my first experience of home delivery I will be interested to see how cold the milk is and how squashed the bread and grapes are - hopefully all pass the test.
Well this morning was mostly spent faffing around about the grocery delivery. No problems with email and text updates but when the bloke came (and he seemed to have an empty van but took ages finding our order), he dropped off five bags and disappeared. Only trouble was they weren't our five bags. And there was no paperwork. And the most annoying thing was that much of it was cold stuff and I had to reorganise the fridge to accommodate it. Can't phone Coles, all communication is by text. Anyway, whether it was the text or the driver realising the error, he was back within 20 minutes and we exchanged bags (at a safe distance). So all's well that ends well. Eggs intact, milk cold and bread and grapes as good as if I'd picked them off the shelf myself. Everything stored away and we are now very well stocked - even scored a bonus of two loose tomatoes! The driver was lovely (when I said I had refrigerated the cold stuff, he replied "Yer a legend!) and I've told Coles I'm very happy with the service and the outcome.
Congratulations on your (eventual) successful first online shopping delivery Val :)
Everything we order from Ocado turns up chilled or frozen and it bugs me that the eggs are cold as I normally keep them in a cupboard rather than the fridge.
Still, if that's the worst thing I've got to moan about then life can't be too bad, can it?
Everything we order from Ocado turns up chilled or frozen and it bugs me that the eggs are cold as I normally keep them in a cupboard rather than the fridge.
Still, if that's the worst thing I've got to moan about then life can't be too bad, can it?
The only time one egg was broken, Tesco refunded me the whole box price. As it was a box of 10, I did all right! Apart from an occasional unwanted substitute, I’ve never had any complaints. As they no longer use plastic bags when possible, you can see everything except frozen anyway. The drivers bring everything into the kitchen and help me unpack. They will put things away for you if you want.
....trawling round the shops for the weekly spend. The main Post Office in Hitchin is no longer available, as it's in the back of a household goods department store, which was open last week but now closed.
Flour rarer than hen's teeth, but was easy to get tissues, toilet paper and kitchen roll, so pleased about that at least.
My neighbour left a pack of red lentils on my doorstep! Not been available for my last 3 deliveries so I’m thrilled I can make soup again. Pity I can’t give her any as a thank you.
Not wearing (sexy) thermal leggings under my jeans, hurrah! But, shhhh, don't tell anyone they might want to see. It's s'posed to hit 6 or even 7°C today.
Tim wrote: "....Flour rarer than hen's teeth, but was easy to get tissues, toilet paper and kitchen roll, so pleased about that at least."When I went yesterday morning the place was overflowing with toilet rolls. But I have plenty of those: I'd hoped to get a couple of kitchen rolls, but their space on the shelves was taken up with toilet rolls.
I got a bag of bread flour last week, although I had to take it from the top reserved-for-staff-do-not-reach-up-to-take-things shelf. So far there's been no shortage of bread, though. I've made a couple of loaves while I've been working at home but home-made bread goes stale so quicky that I don't want to make it unless I know we'll be eating a lot of bread over the next 24 hours.
Bread freezes well, Gordon, though home-made might be different.
Yes it does..i've been freezing shop bought bread for years......still can't get any flour to have a go at making my own though...nevermind.
Today I shall mostly be venturing out very early into the park for a combined walk/run which flouts the half hour rule by ay least an hour and a half and includes a visit to the allotment, but since there's no one else about is OK I assume. The afternoon in lockdown will be spent either painting the stairs or knitting my pansy jumper (no off colour remarks, thank you), or continuing my latest rewatch of the entire Line of Duty oeuvre so far. In the evening I have the role of 'shift buddy' supporting a colleague who is lone working from the office.
"my pansy jumper"wouldn't dream of adding off colour remark, but will it match my handbag, ducky, ooooh, look at the muck in here!
Watching Scrubs and seeking out a good PS4 bargain.
nc - did you know the next LoD was scheduled for this Autumn? This bloody disease has a lot to answer for.
Yes I did know that Lez. Filming of series 6 was rudely interrupted. Wee Martin just made it home to Las Vegas by the skin of his teeth when the US stopped entry from the UK. He is now 'sheltering in place' by his swimming pool. They will restart filming as soon as it's safe, but we won't see the new series until next year sometime. I can recommend a binge of series 1-5, available both on BBCiPlayer and Netflix. They all look so young in the first series.
Waiting for my remnant parcel so I can get on with the orchid cushion. I need green thread...
.... yesterday afternoon. watching a pair of red kites floating across the garden as they go to and fro from a tree in the meadow behind the house. not sure if they're building a nest there, or just using it as a perch..... just now. spotted a treecreeper on the telegraph pole in the garden
Wow! Treecreepers are rarer than red kites these days.
I've been seeing a treecreeper nearly every day recently & they're often creeping about the village woods.Anyway, I'm hiding under a blanket with a hot water bottle in need of a really big hug, but no-one to give me one :-(
Can't be arsed to do much today, bit of cleaning, cooking, bin emptying, radio listening, forum bothering & then a walk through Ghost Village or maybe the woods later.
Just been notified some bin collections have been suspended, so I’ll be surrounded by paper and card, milk cartons, plastic containers, glass jars, etc, etc. At least I’ve got some room. What happens to people in flats and small houses?
The only change to bin collections round here is that brown bin (garden waste) collections are going to be four weekly instead of fortnightly and those already subscribing for this service (£46 a year) will get three months collections for free. Other than that, the weekly collection alternates between the green and black bins as usual.
People who are self- isolating or diagnosed as having Covid 19 are being advised that used tissues and the like should be double bagged, left for 72 hours and then placed in the general waste bin.
The local recycling centre was closed to the public the day after I had the new fridge/freezer delivered so I am now stuck with a huge cardboard box for the foreseeable.
People who are self- isolating or diagnosed as having Covid 19 are being advised that used tissues and the like should be double bagged, left for 72 hours and then placed in the general waste bin.
The local recycling centre was closed to the public the day after I had the new fridge/freezer delivered so I am now stuck with a huge cardboard box for the foreseeable.
No parcel today. Royal mail tracking says they've had a request not to deliver to our place, which I suppose means they're not delivering every day as I can't see why anyone here would tell them not to come. Hope for tomorrow...
Lez wrote: "Wow! Treecreepers are rarer than red kites these days."We have loads of kites here. They were reintroduced further to the south on the Chilterns (we live pretty much on the northern edge), and have since spread northwards. Some days I can count them into double figures around the farm. 😀
Grizzlygrump wrote: "The only change to bin collections round here is that brown bin (garden waste) collections are going to be four weekly instead of fortnightly and those already subscribing for this service (£46 a y..."Makes our £36 look a bargain.
"stuck with a huge cardboard box for the foreseeable" - can't you cut it up to fit in whatever recycling bin you (hopefully) have?
As it is, the recycling bin is always full when it goes out without trying to fit an extra box in there.
The plan is to cut it down to about half the size, so it will fit in the car, then fill it up with more cardboard.
The plan is to cut it down to about half the size, so it will fit in the car, then fill it up with more cardboard.
We destroy any paper/card/tissue waste we have by incinerating it in our garden. The only things we put out for the bin men, is general waste (every 3 weeks), and metal & plastic packaging & food waste...which is still once a week.Glass is taken to the civic recycling centre just half a mile away from us. Everything else gets incinerated. Granted, not exactly enviromentally friendly...but we're in the sticks here, so it's not issue. There's a guy up the road who's renovating an old 18th century farmhouse....& he's been burning his building rubbish for weeks on & off, nobody seems to mind!
Burning stuff’s not allowed here, you’ll get fined. Don’t know how this works - there are always several barbecues in summer.
You need to be environmentally friendly even in the sticks, Duke!
correctamundo! just because the fermer up the road does it don't make it right!
Tech XXIII (Chadicle Fellowes Society) wrote: "correctamundo! just because the fermer up the road does it don't make it right!"The fermer will have one or more permits allowing him to burn stuff, as we do. 😉
I didn't say he was a farmer or that it's a farm. I said a guy was rebuilding an old farmhouse! So...he's a builder!! The farmhouse itself hasn't been a functioning farm for half a century. It was owned by some old boy who used to sell mobile caravans from there, but died a few years ago. The place hasn't had any modernisation for several decades..so it's now being renovated by a small building firm for it's new owners. There's quite a few of the original farmhouses near us, that have long since stopped functioning as working farms....now just private residences without any land attached. They're all slowly being 'swallowed up' by modern residential developments around them..and the wild, sometimes pretty moorland that they sit on, ever shrinking in size by modernity. Our nearest neighbour (if you call being 3/4 miles away a neighbour!), their place is still called a farm, even though is hasn't run as one long since before we moved to our current ex-miner's cottage. :)
Anyway...just reiterate, enviromentally unfriendly or not, there are some things i will never put out to recycling..and that's any documents, receipts & sensitive paperwork containing personal info, addresses & bank details etc. I always incinerate those. It's not illegal to use garden incinerators in rural wales. I don't know about Welsh towns or cities though...i've never lived in urban places.
This morning I've made my first attempt at shopping in the socially separated world of Tescos. Managed to get most of what I needed not everything, spaghetti, Thai rice and yeast in particular and I can understand that, but why the heck has nobody got any root ginger?I have to say that the Tescos 'one-way system' with staff marshalling people round was complete chaos. Works great until some dithering idiot stops to consider their option for 5 minutes in the sweets and crisps aisle, no overtaking allowed, and clogs the whole system up.
Derek wrote: "This morning I've made my first attempt at shopping in the socially separated world of Tescos. Managed to get most of what I needed not everything, spaghetti, Thai rice and yeast in particular and ..."Snap. There was a mother & daughter who had a trolley each and stood side by side while they dithered and discussed endlessly about what fatty and sugary snacks and ready meals they should purchase to stuff their already corpulent bodies. I'm afraid I overtook and I had to go back to the beginning at least twice for stuff I'd missed on the first pass. We had run out of soap bars but there was precious little bog-standard stuff so in the absence of a multipack of 4 Tesco's own brand I picked up 4 individual bars which breached the 3 of any bar code (so I could have had 12 bars in 3 multi-packs but was a social pariah for trying it on with 4 individual bars). I hardly ever shop but the Mrs has been switched to processing Universal Credit applications flat out so one does one's bit I suppose!
theDuke wrote: "there are some things i will never put out to recycling..and that's any documents, receipts & sensitive paperwork containing personal info, addresses & bank details etc. I always incinerate those. It's not illegal to use garden incinerators in rural wales. ..."I have a small shredder and shred all paper items that I've finished with - includes junk mail, paid bills (from the previous year), receipts, envelopes, etc. The shredded paper goes into the three open compost bins we have along with household scraps (not meat or fats) and lawn clippings. We're not allowed to burn anything and our old incinerator (made of concrete blocks) sits doing nothing in the garage.
Today I planted seeds of spinach, silver beet, rainbow chard and dwarf curly kale. I have little hope of them amounting to anything. I have no idea how old the seeds were, my small plastic greenhouse is full of holes and should anything sprout, it is bound to be consumed by snails, slugs or caterpillars. While cleaning pots to strike cuttings I encountered a gecko, 2 caterpillars and a praying mantis. Wildlife is alive and well in my garden.
We've had a mallard sitting on the wall between one small garden at back of house and the yards. She brought down 14 ducklings into the garden this morning (a big drop of perhaps five feet!). With a bit of help she was able to bring them out and set off on the trip to the brook. Fingers crossed most or some at least will survive.
Amazon exiles
Books mentioned in this topic
Time of the Child (other topics)This Is Happiness (other topics)
Time of the Child (other topics)
Mog's Christmas (other topics)
We're Going on a Bear Hunt (other topics)
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Joanie is a very special person. Funny, it was always Bette Midler's version that got me tearing up.
I was also dismayed to read in the comments:
"We lost Joe Diffie today and Tom Rush & Jackson Browne are also positive for it."