Oi Blogger people - fix the frigging comments!!

Since about May I have been unable to comment as myself on my own and a lot of other blogs.  Having checked the 'known issues' the other day this has now been tagged as fixed.  No it's bloody well not.  Unable to see any obvious place to report this I went in search of help on the forum instead and by swapping to a pop-up comment box rather than having it embedded under the post I can now comment as myself on my own blog.  Hoo-bloody-rah.  Not an ideal fix as I don't like the pop-up box much but it'll have to do.  However, having just attempted to comment on  Azza's Blather (pop by and see her - it's entertaining) it seems I still can't comment on some blogs - hers wouldn't even let me comment as anonymous.  I just got locked into a mobius loop of word verification - log in - word verification - log in so I gave up.  Rather that than heave the whole PC out the window!
Oh - and if you want to utilise the less-than-ideal fix of having pop-up box comments go to Dashboard-Settings-Comments and click the radio button to choose 'Pop-up Window' then scroll to the bottom and save.  Tsk.  What a pile of faff.

New IT systems - pah!

Not enough hours in the day - especially when your company makes the 'sound' business decision to get a new system that takes OVER DOUBLE the amount of clicks/movements to do some stuff as it did before!!  How is that good business sense?  Anyway - I did not start this blog to rant about work - good at it though I may be, so that's enough of that.
Time has beaten me again and I must off to dinner with the Chaps parents.  Must check on how the piglets in the field opposite are doing when I get there...  :-D

Speedy 'Hola'

We had a nice weekend both in Dorset and at the allotment. Beautifully sunny day and much digging yesterday has left me rather knackered today!
Over the weekend we had lunch in the Wise Man pub in West Stafford. Pretty little village and a lovely looking pub, nicely done up inside. It is a meat eaters menu though, very definitely. There was a total of one veggie and one fish choice on the main menu; and as the fish was battered I chose the veggie option of sweet potato and butternut squash Thai curry. Oh dear - it was quite hideously sweet. Now - I'm not an idiot so I know both the veg in this are naturally sweet and I also eat and actively like both of them. However the sauce this was done in tasted basically like apricot jam had been used to make it. I found it quite inedible I'm afraid. That was once I'd waited 10 minutes to even try my meal as the dish was supernova heat when it was brought out!!
The chap had a steak purporting to be medium-rare but which was a little overcooked on arrival. As his plate was also supernova it was a lot more overcooked looking once a few minutes had passed but he said it was nice. Ma and big sis had a pork, cider and apple casserole and aside from leaving a few larger lumps of apple on the side of the plate declared it very good. A mixed bag then. I did mention to the guy who collected the plates that I found the curry to be very sweet. 'Mentioned' you'll note, not complained. Anyway he came back and told me that the chef said that 'all Thai curries are sweet' said in a slightly bolshy 'you're an idiot' manner that I found pretty offensive. [I used to work in customer service and in fact used to be a manager so I do know what you do and don't act like to customers even if they're kicking right off, or downright lying or whatever. None of which I was doing.] This was a shame as otherwise, as previously mentioned, this was a nice pub sympathetically done up after a fire a few years back. Also - as a big afficionado of Thai Green curry [to the extent of keeping a jar of the paste at work] I take issue with being told all Thai curries are sweet. No they're bloody not. A lot of them have coconut in yes - that does not however equate to sweet. Anyway - if you're a meat eater you'd probably find something to tempt you here, personally I don't think we'll be returning though.
As for the rest of the weekend Chap fixed some leadwork on Ma's roof and took apart the old coal bunker, earning brownie points in the process I'm sure! We visited the Fridge, a very good deli in Dorchester and spent the best part of £20 [!] on cheese, medlar jelly and a jar of pickled walnut chutney!! [Very nice cheese though - of which more tomorrow.] We watched the home nation rugby games in the 6 nations - unfortunately missing Italy beat France for the first time ever [YAY!] as that's when we were lunching.
We also dug over more at the allotment [oh woe my broken fork - how I miss thee] and now I'm aching a wee bit. At least the sun came out and I could get my hands in the earth once again. :-D

Hola!!

I'm back! Had a lovely and busy week off and have lots of blethering about it to do on here. This will have to occur tomorrow though as tonight I have to leg it from work so the man can come and fix the idiot gas meter that's shut everything off and is displaying 'Call Help' in it's little window. That makes it the 3rd time it's done this over the last few weeks - including Tuesday evening when the Chaps son was staying at mine and I wanted to a) make dinner and b) heat the house. [And c) make a good impression.] I wasn't too pleased as you can imagine so when I saw this message again this morning 'help' wasn't exactly what I called! :-D Hey ho, c'est la vie. The nice man on the phone has promised to request a whole new meter thing for me. I wonder if they'll pay for me to take a day off work so they can fit it too... [Yes - I am a cynic.]

No holds barred rant - UtilityWarehouse.co.uk consider yourselves named and shamed

Now I'm normally careful to avoid mention of personal friends on here for obvious reasons but I must share this with you as my blood is absolutely boiling.
Dear friends of mine very recently lost their 12 year old beautiful boy in a tragic cycling accident. They are feeling like their world has ended as you can imagine. Today the mother receives the following email:
"We are sorry to here of your loss, that is hard to imagine let alone experiance, please accept our haert felt sympathies. now isn't a good time, but it is sort of, if you would like to know more about how we could help you help others just hit our site when you are ready and ring us on what it has to do with helping others and we will empathetically explain. our sincere best wishes J***& A***"
The site is: http://www.opportunityisnowhere.co.uk/
I must point out as well that all the shitty spellings are their own.
If you click the link it takes you to the aforementioned Utility Warehouse where I am making full use of the 'contact us' option. I encourage you all to do the same.
This is my message:
"I would like to register my intense disgust at you contacting a good friend of mine who has just lost her young son. Such incredible insensitivity is truly breathtaking. I think you can count on the fact that you've just lost a hell of a lot of potential custom. Not only is it on Facebook I'll be publicising it on my blog as well. Don't use other's tragedy as a springboard to advertise your services, it's disgusting behaviour and you should be truly ashamed of yourselves."
I know it's too much to hope such reprehensible people will get the message from this but perhaps if we all do it - people - I'm asking this of you but it aint for me.

Tempus fugit

Walking into work this morning and noticing the hazlenuts and conkers forming on the trees suddenly brought it home to me how much of the year is already gone. What have I achieved thus far? If I'm honest - naff all. Not of the big stuff anyway. I feel like I've been moving in a torpor through the year so far and am only just beginning to realise it's time to come out of hibernation again and get something done. Given that half the year's already passed that's a depressing thought. I really must get better at giving myself a kick up the ass from time to time. Chin up eh?!

Hmm - one feels that at a juncture like this one really ought to come up with some sort of "list of positivity charged stuff which I'll conquer before the year's out" or some other wondrously upbeat thing; however, the problem with those is that if you don't manage to tick every one of them off (damn - never did trek up Killimanjaro this summer) what you are left with is merely a device for staring your own failure in the face. And I don't think any of us need any more of those than life already feels the need to supply. So - no list for me. [Yes - that was a longwinded way of saying it but I have always been of the ilk of 'why use one word when 12 will do' and yes for a second time, I used 'and' to start a sentence with and I'm fully aware that you shouldn't but hey - sometimes it just fits. We're not pretending this is highbrow prose or anything after all.]

On my non-list nebulous *thought-board: - STOP STOP STOP - I started putting stuff down, then I thought 'ooh, it'll be all neat if I bullet point it' and what did I get? A sodding list!!!

Suffice it to say I would like to get various bits of my life in order and should that be attained, then see if I can do anything fun with the remainder of the year. That juzshy and upbeat enough for y'all? *wry smile*

*Thought-board: I just invented it but I like it. A non-corporeal cork-board kinda thing for collating thoughts all on the same topic.

The 3 R's, or - Take a bit of damn responsibility

Not the 'painfully coerced into fitting a twee phrase' 3 R's of Education (Dur - 2 of them don't even start with R - and you're using them as related to Education - frak me you really tried for the irony there huh?) but the rather greener Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

It was only when I read recently that you should also try and do them in this order that this became blindingly obvious to me as well. It is obvious - I just hadn't ever formed words round that nebulous 'but everyone knows that' concept that we all like to spout sometimes and probably have 'The Man In The Pub' to thank for. (Let's be honest here - quite often the cry of *'B.E.K.T.' is more out of affronted embarassment and annoyance at oneself for not ever having put such a blindingly simple concept into a succinct pet phrase that all can easily grasp and moreover, that you can trademark and make a bundle from every time a newspaper uses it, than actually because you had ever devoted any time to thinking deeply about it before. :-) But I digress...)

Reduce - does what it says on the tin. Easy example - take your own shopping bag with you = therefore using less plassy bags = less resources used to make said plassy bags plus less of them being disposed of after they have fulfilled their purpose. (Love these people's concept of guerilla bagging.)

At this point I will say that I have zero intention of explaining why these should be good things for us to do. If you have made it thus far in life and have no idea what I'm talking about you are either a) approx 3 years old in which case I'm sure Dora the nauseating poppet or someone similar can explain it to you or b) you have been living under a rock for the last few decades in which case much the same answer as a) applies I would imagine.

Reuse - what we are stuck with and can not get rid of under the Reduce principle we should at least try and reuse as much as possible, so the best possible 'value' is got from the energy and raw materials that went into making it.

Recycle - can be pretty energy intensive hence why it should be the last option of the 3 green R's.

It's Reuse I wished to comment (/rant - you know me) on today and some spiffy ideas a bunch of us over on the Cottage Smallholder site came up with for garden related stuff. If you're not too bothered about the looks of your items all the time, particularly for those temporary solutions, there is a wealth of stuff out there that can be utilised in the growing process. Plastic food containers of all kinds can be pressed into service as seedling trays or pots (plastic/polystyrene cups), then 'growing on' pots of differing sizes. This is a great re-use as otherwise these containers would be going straight into the recycling (hopefully) bin but are durable things with much life left yet.

I got to thinking - what about a reuse for those odd things that no-one uses but you all seem to be stuck with? Specifically the plastic egg trays that come in new fridge doors have always vexed me with their pathetically hopeful pastel tinted plastic non-usefulness. Chirpily they sit there taunting you with a non-existent 50's 'futuristic' world where all would be rounded, pastel, and yes - plastic. [Is this only me or is anyone else thinking - 'YES - I too know that vexedness?'] Then it hit me - we all save our old egg boxes to chit potatoes in right? (Ok - that's for a given value of 'all'.) Why not round up your friends and relieve them of their plastic egg trays (unless they're actually using them - I've yet to see any doing the task for which they were spawned) then you have easy clean durable trays for the spuds - chitting thereof, and can pass any cardboard egg boxes onto your chicken owning friends - hopefully in return for an egg or 2. Ta Daa!! (I'm quite pathetically pleased with this flash of inspiration.) I think it may even count as Upcycling; like recycling, but reusing/retasking items to give a finished product of greater use/value than the original constituent parts. I have grand plans for a shed along these lines but they have yet to come to fruition...

For more (and far better as lots are from other people) ideas along the same lines you can download our tips as a pdf or a word doc from the original post here, courtesy of the lovely **CSH people. (Designed to be printed out double sided.)

Anyway - apologies for the many asides in this post but hoping it may sprinkle a little inspiration and please share your top pet ideas.

*B.E.K.T.: But Everyone Knows That

**CSH: Cottage Smallholder

Brekkie fit for a PM...if we had one.

Well, it's now the morning of the day after the great debacle that was the latest general election [or it was when I made this brekkie and post - updating later gets confusing huh?] and - surprise - we have a hung parliament. Which as far as I can see means naff all will happen for a bit longer - so the difference is?...

Anyway, I made this rather scrummy omelette with a couple of the aforementioned flat field mushrooms from Stokes, some tarragon, 1 egg, a smidge of dbl cream, S&P and cheese melted on top. Served with buttered toast and a dollop of mayo on the side it's not the healthiest of brekkies but substantial enough to keep me sustained through a morning of...well...er...'news' telling me the country was...well...er...'undecided'. That's those that got to vote of course. Those not turned away at the door because the system/people couldn't cope or they'd run out of ballot papers [!!!] or people were taking 25-30 mins to vote. (Surely you've made up your mind by that point? I mean - what can you do in there for that long? "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo...")

I must admit though there was the odd enjoyable moment in the coverage. The first ever Green got in -go those crazy kids in Brighton! Several declarations I saw had booing when the BNP [hwaak-ptuh] result was read (and they lost all their seats :-D ). Best of all though was the comedy gold duo of Jeremy Paxman and Boris Johnson - is there anyone better for comedic value than those two together? Throw in Ian Hislop and I'll never complain about the licence fee again, promise.

Arghhh!!!!

Well - I had a nice long post all typed out and off I went to find a link and the entire t'internet followed by my pc had a massive effing up fit and lost everything. Goramit I'm sick of this happening!!!

I went to find the link to a sensibly sized blank printable seed packet template I found here.
I have ordered yet more seeds this time from T&M (For my Ma!) but am only now wondering if they'll turn up in time as the last lot I had from them took over a week to arrive. If it's later than next Thurs / Fri that's too late for me as that's when I'm off to visit. These along with various other seeds are forming her Mothers day gift of a 'Front Garden Rescue Kit' as the whole thing had to be dug up last year to put a new soakaway in; whatever one of those is. It involved a lot of mess and concrete and the loss of years of care and attention lavished on the garden anyway. Today I've managed to get the labels with a pic on printed for them all, handy for colours etc. The rest of the details I'll maybe write freehand or if I can work out the correct spacing print onto the template sheets. I'm hoping she'll like it anyway.
Off to the local pub quiz tonight with he of the 'win' at the weekend and friends various. Wish me luck!

False sense of security

The weather that is. Incredibly misty start, walking alongside the river on my way to work and couldn't see the other side, or the river in fact. Gorgeous day the rest of it though, far too nice to be coped up indoors.

Really do feel a frustration when the first odd nice day of 'Spring' comes along and here I am slaving away over a hot keyboard answering the same damn fool emails over and over again. It does get my goat rather when people are just completely incapable of reading for themselves and just rely on me feeding them the answer. Grrrr. Phew - rant over methinks!

Anyway, may see if I can do a sneaky lunch swap and leave early tomorrow in order to see what poor state my allotment is in after this weather. Gonna have to be 2mo as apparently the rest of the week is sleet. Bleargh!