Friday Five!

D&D - Oh, I miss those long D&D sessions!  Times long gone by, I'm afraid.


I'm going a few hours early today, since I'll have to be at the allotment for most of the day and will be in bed with a hot water bottle, if it goes as in the past, after that.

1) I am way behind on getting all my fall bulbs, including some of the garlic, planted this year. The whole thing with the car breaking down messed up my schedule badly. Was over there for a few hours today, tidying away and tying things down that will stay out there over the winter. Also got the wood chip mulch on some of the garlic we planted a couple of weeks ago. Ran out of chips. But it was brisk - seriously breezy and occasionally spitting. There were a few snow pellets, so we've technically had our first snow of the year. Have to go back out tomorrow to do more. Thank goodness for alpaca-yarn hats and scarves!

2) The car is back. I am so happy to have my little 10 year old car back. Given the tariffs on the parts, it came in at a little less than I'd expected. Apparently they did not charge for the diagnostic service ($98), and were able to use after-market parts to keep the bill down. They could not explain the rather amazing noises it made, but it's fixed and should be good for some time now. It's nice to have a good mechanic that doesn't try to take advantage.

3) I made an applesauce bread out of my 1940s wartime cookbook earlier in the week, and finished off the last of it with tea this afternoon. It was full of dried fruits, chopped pecans, dehydrated apples from last fall, and homemade applesauce.  It's really, really good and so easy to make! And about a gazillion calories a slice, though. Lovely toasted.

4) I was able to get some bags of food to a local church food pantry. I get a small amount back from using my credit card every month, and I've been using that to buy pizza, snacks, and bubble teas. So now it'll be for the food pantry.  I went with nutrient-dense whole foods (dried pinto beans, split peas, lentils, brown rice, chickpeas) & pasta, etc., thinking someone could make those go a long way. But now I'm wondering if anyone still knows how to cook with basic ingredients? It seems like a lot of the food banks are asking for "canned soup, ramen, mac-and-cheese" and things like that. I'm thinking if the local immigrant population uses that pantry, they will be happy to find those foods, so at least it's there for them. I did try to phone the pantry repeatedly, and sent a message via their web page, but never heard back.  Called the rectory and they said to leave anything at all in a certain spot, so it worked out ok.

5) The daughter isn't feeling well. Can't get a telehealth visit until Saturday, so I'll make "allium soup" (chicken stock, garlic, onions, lots of black pepper) for her to slurp on tomorrow, with some nice fresh seeded wheat bread. She was supposed to help me finish up the planting, but we can't have her out in that kind of cold while feeling poorly. Better to stay wrapped up indoors on a cold day. Next week is promising to be properly winter, too. Watching the world go by, I'm so glad our pantry is well-stocked.

So it's Friday again.

1) I got the garden put to bed for the winter. All bulbs in, wood chips on top of the beds that had bulbs, all shovels, rakes, and implements of destruction cleaned and ready to go to storage. It's been chilly, but pleasant for the last two days. Since I'll be surprised if we have many more days like these it's nice to know the garden is now on autopilot until the spring. Did put in quite a lot of muscari, since last year the bees woke up and were trying to find flowers long before there were flowers out there.  Hopefully the muscari will be up in time for them in the spring. They are some of the earliest bloomers I could find. Put in snow bells too.

2) I have a big batch of Macoun apples simmering on the stove, to make into applesauce to can up and put away for the winter.  That is a relatively local variety and it's hit or miss if they're going to be available any year (apparently they're quite finicky).  Really nice apple for eating or for preserving. I still have some half-pint jars left, so I may go looking for more of them tomorrow. I found one of those old-fashioned apple peelers online, where you stick the apple on some tines and turn a crank, and it peels and cores them with remarkable speed.  Very glad to have found it, too. Cast iron, I think. The house smells good.

3) I have the plastic sheeting up on almost all the windows - just waiting until I finish tidying up the balcony before I put it over the slider door.  It's really amazing the difference it makes in keeping the apartment warm. It's gotten down in the the 20sF outside many nights lately and indoors has never gotten much below 67F.  Haven't turned the furnace on at all yet. There is some talk about the Polar Vortex about to go wonky in a few weeks, so it's good that we've got this done and ready. They are old windows, and they do leak a bit of heat.

4) My French lessons are coming along. If all I have to do is read the language I'm getting to the point where I could manage a trip to the grocery store. But I'm afraid I will never be able to understand spoken French.  I had enough trouble with East End Glaswegian! At least now there's like programs I could put on a tablet to take with me that would translate for me.

5) Leela the bettafish was quite ill for a few weeks and I though we were going to lose her, but the Kanaplex antibiotic I was able to find at a local pet store seems to have fixed her up right as rain.  I have never seen a disease hit a betta that fast - she had a very small discoloration on her head one day and four days later almost all of her scales had fallen off!  Every time I checked on her she was worse. Saltwater dips didn't help. Various other tried-and-true remedies didn't work. But the Kanaplex seems to have corrected that in about six days. No clue what she had, though.

That's all. Life goes on. (The daughter's work contract has been extended until summer, as several people quit before she was due to be laid off, and, quite frankly, they need her. Works for us. Fully remote.)

Fairly busy Friday today.

1. We are having our downstairs bathroom remodeled and have had workmen on site all week. Only another couple of workdays to go.

2. We had our first frost accompanied by heavy snowfall this week. Although I had cleared the driveway yesterday to give the workmen access to our very steep driveway, we had a load of snow slide off the roof overnight so I had a load more clearing to do.

3. I cleared the snow and ice off our car and moved it onto the road before the work vans turned up. When our veggie box delivery turned up we split it up as usual and I delivered our daughter’s portion to her. Normally the car would be in our garage but is full of bathroom gear at present.

4. I walked into town to drop off our Christmas lunch order at the cafe where we meet up with 6 friends each week. December 12 is the day we all have Christmas lunch.

5. I booked our car into the garage for a check-up next week. I also decided to put in on charge overnight.

Oh, wow, heavy snow and no garage for the car is a pain in the tush, for sure! Hope your loo is done soon so you can have your garage back.  Kind of you to clear a path for the workmen - hopefully they appreciated it.  I had seen in passing you folks were due for snow, but thought it was just going to be a dusting. (I still can watch Sky and I have an ap on Roku that lets me listen to any of a couple-dozen radio stations from there, including BBC4 - so I can still get the shipping forecast, etc. Most are music and, so, useless, but there are a number of news and of talk-radio channels that make for interesting listening.) Heavy snow and shoveling is tough on us "old" people, so be careful to not do too much at once.    Had a cousin who was basically a pencil-pusher at work all day who went out to shovel heavy snow one day in his sixties and managed to end up in the ER with heart problems brought on my the strain on his cardio system.

The weather wonks  here (the "science" ones, not broadcast news) are making more and more noises about the Polar Vortex becoming unstable ln the next several weeks, which would unleash bitterly cold weather in the northern hemisphere and potentially, at least here, some massive snowfalls, too.  Hope it doesn't happen, if it's going to, when you're having your annual meet-up. (What a nice tradition!)

Oh, wow, heavy snow and no garage for the car is a pain in the tush, for sure! Hope your loo is done soon so you can have your garage back.  Kind of you to clear a path for the workmen - hopefully they appreciated it.  I had seen in passing you folks were due for snow, but thought it was just going to be a dusting. (I still can watch Sky and I have an ap on Roku that lets me listen to any of a couple-dozen radio stations from there, including BBC4 - so I can still get the shipping forecast, etc. Most are music and, so, useless, but there are a number of news and of talk-radio channels that make for interesting listening.) Heavy snow and shoveling is tough on us "old" people, so be careful to not do too much at once.    Had a cousin who was basically a pencil-pusher at work all day who went out to shovel heavy snow one day in his sixties and managed to end up in the ER with heart problems brought on my the strain on his cardio system.

The weather wonks  here (the "science" ones, not broadcast news) are making more and more noises about the Polar Vortex becoming unstable ln the next several weeks, which would unleash bitterly cold weather in the northern hemisphere and potentially, at least here, some massive snowfalls, too.  Hope it doesn't happen, if it's going to, when you're having your annual meet-up. (What a nice tradition!)

Thanks. Where we live in N Yorkshire on the edge of the North York Moors National Park we get a lot more snow than the coastal towns 5 or 6 miles away from us.

The last time the Polar Vortex broke down here I think was the winter of 2017/18 when we were hit with “The beast from the east” and had frigid temperatures and loads of snow. It may well happen again soon.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/polar-vortex-weather-forecast-stratospheric-warming-b2870749.html

The UK could be facing another cold snap as the weather phenomenon that brought in 2018’s ‘Beast from the East’ looks set to have “significant implications” on the country’s weather.

The Met Office said “winter has arrived early across the UK, bringing cold Arctic air and a complex mix of weather hazards” after a week of ice and snow weather warnings across stretches of the UK.

Temperatures are set to increase this weekend as milder, more unsettled, Atlantic-driven weather moves in with cloud, rain and winds, but a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event in the next week could see colder weather return in the next two weeks.

Oh yeah, I remember "The Beast from the East"!  That was our first winter in Glasgow, if memory serves. (Might have been the second.) Unpopular as it might be to say it, we really enjoyed it. No cars on the road, so everyone who went out had to walk in the road itself, and it was quiet and quite beautiful. A few enterprising guys were doing cross-country skis down Great Western Avenue with backpacks full of groceries on their backs one afternoon. Still remember that, he had some absolutely huge leeks tied on the back of it.    Of course, it was the daughter's first real winter, having lived in SoCal for almost her entire life, so that made it kind of special. We went out every day and took so many photos.

You and yours are set up to deal with all that, right? No worries about losing heating if the power goes out and stuff?

Oh yeah, I remember "The Beast from the East"!  That was our first winter in Glasgow, if memory serves. (Might have been the second.) Unpopular as it might be to say it, we really enjoyed it. No cars on the road, so everyone who went out had to walk in the road itself, and it was quiet and quite beautiful. A few enterprising guys were doing cross-country skis down Great Western Avenue with backpacks full of groceries on their backs one afternoon. Still remember that, he had some absolutely huge leeks tied on the back of it.    Of course, it was the daughter's first real winter, having lived in SoCal for almost her entire life, so that made it kind of special. We went out every day and took so many photos.

You and yours are set up to deal with all that, right? No worries about losing heating if the power goes out and stuff?

That winter was our son’s first winter here after moving from south Texas so he had lots to learn about cold, snow and how to drive in it.

I think we are well set. Lots of snow and ice is not uncommon here.