Friday Five!

Awesome photos!  The second one is like a drone shot!

A picture of my husband in his ride last week.

Looking good! Chevrolet did a good job of mixing old and new when they redesigned the Camaro.

Looking good! Chevrolet did a good job of mixing old and new when they redesigned the Camaro.

Somebody is having fun!

Friday Five a few hours late:

1) Bit the bullet and had the Majestic Laundry come pick up several of my heavy blankets that have needed a wash for some time, on Thursday. He said they'd be ready yesterday or today. No call yesterday, so hopeful for today. (Said their washing powder did not have a scent. Hoping that is actually the case!) Will cost an arm and a leg, but it's better than having to walk a few miles, pay the machines to do them myself, and then schlep them home again. With all the rain, I'd have to take a cab. Which would then put the total cost up with what the estimate they gave me for delivery service was. I don't know why - paranoia I guess - but I took photos of them all before I sent them off.

[EDIT: The quilts/blankets were returned to me mid-day on Saturday, beautifully clean and quite dry. I'd definitely recommend these people, and will be sending all our blankets to them to clean and dry before we pack them up. They charged me £50 for three king-sized American heavy quilts and a crocheted full-sized blanket, and a six-foot runner rug. If I'd used the laundry in person I wouldn't have gotten out of there for a heck of a lot less, with how long they would have had to have been in the dryer, and they picked up and delivered for free. So I'm a happy camper.  ]

2) The Daughter still wants to go back to the USA. And to SoCal, specifically. I spent several hours and contacted a few apartment complexes, and the prices are such that we can't do it. I do not "earn" three times the monthly rent, so they won't even consider us. Although when I put in an "interest" through their websites I got calls from people doing hard-sells to get me to come tour them. Even though I told them: to not call, but please email; that we were in Scotland and wouldn't be available for a few months; and, what my income was. I finally got a bit short with one who phoned late last night (and gave the Daughter palpitations - she's still waiting for the grad school call). They were going on about setting up a virtual walk-through, and I had to say "look, please get confirmation on the income requirements first - otherwise we are wasting each other's time". Got put on hold, then they came back and said, no it's 2.7 times the rent. So.... There are complexes offering $1,000 off the first month's rent if you sign a year's lease, but because I don't have the ratio I can't rent a flat there. If the Daughter had a job, no problems. But she can't get one without already being there, pretty much. (I had that problem when we first moved out there years ago.) So we will not be going back there.  Which is kind of a relief, because it's really too expensive for either of us to live there on our own, and that's one of the major reasons I left. If the Daughter hadn't been wanting to come here for school I was still going to leave there. There will be parts of town where the landlords would be more flexible, of course,  but I'm not living in a place where I have to have multiple deadbolts, broom-handles in the window casements, have to carry mace when going out after dark, and where my garage/car gets broken into several times a year ever again. So, barring a miracle in the Daughter's favor on the employment scene, I'm not going back there.

3) On the good side, I made connections with a Realtor in NY State who was very helpful. Said I could easily rent a single-family home in a nice area for my budgeted amount while we settled in and scouted to see if we wanted to buy there and stay for the long-term. There are a lot of properties in my price range in areas that are decent. She sent me quite a bit of info and is available to answer any questions. A Realtor in VA was also helpful. Probably more jobs in VA, but... Unless the Daughter secures a job offer before we leave, we'll be going somewhere that has a cost-of-living I can manage without her income involved and where I can eventually buy a small place with a large yard that is near enough to a town center that I can walk to the shops. She will have to manage. At least it will be easier for her to apply for US jobs if she's in the US.

4) We went out for lunch yesterday to a place we used to go to often but haven't been for a while. The soup was tasty, but incredibly watery, they've jacked up the prices by almost 20%, and it was packed. It's a very small shop, but a lady brought her huge pram in anyway. (There's a good sized awning outside she could have left it under.) And then proceeded to take her two toddlers out of - and they didn't stop talking very loudly at her (she was ignoring them) for the remainder of our lunch. People were having to move the pram out of the way to be able to walk down the one aisle of the shop to leave. I have to say, I've seen an awful lot of kids here who act as if they are almost feral and their parents don't do a darned thing to correct them. Their jumping up and down on the bench was the point at which I asked to have my remaining sandwich wrapped for take-away and left. (If my kid had done that at that age she'd not have been taken out again for quite some time and there would have been direct consequences on the spot.)

5) It looks like Masala Twist, after being closed for a year, is reopened on Byres Road under a new name. Yea! And the Cheese Shop gave us heart failure, it was all gutted-out and empty. But it seems they are just remodeling and are not closed.      Unfortunately, our corner shop ~is~ closing.    They've been in business since the 1950s.  Stopped in to get milk on the way back from lunch and saw the sign. Asked inside and they said the lease was up and the landlord was raising the rent significantly. So the shop is closing. NOT smart of that landlord - with what's coming, they'd have at least had it rented if they'd just renewed the lease. Now that shop is going to empty and stay empty for a long time, and the landlord won't have any income from it at all. At least all the employees are being moved to other shops and not just laid off.

The sun is out. I wonder how long before it starts raining sideways again. Oddly, yesterday, it was snowing out of a clear sky, in between bouts of sun. Before it started sleeting sideways. Seriously, the weather here is nuts!    I'd chance going for a walk but need to be here for the laundry to phone so I can pay them and have my quilts back. Then again, if I went out for a walk I'd get a half-mile and it would just hail on me. So...

Happy Friday, everyone!

1.  My husband does not work tomorrow, so we will have a regular two-day weekend!  That means cheeeeeeeeeeese tonight!

2. I'm making a soft white loaf for the weekend and small French loaf to have with... ooh.  Scratch the French loaf.  We don't have pâté.

3.  My car failed MOT yesterday on rear shock absorbers.  The infuriating thing is it's the same thing my car failed on last year, we had them replaced, and it passed.  This year we took it for MOT to the same garage that fitted the shock absorbers last year.  The garage is now checking with the manufacturer about a warranty reimbursement, even though it's 1 year and 1 day since they were put in.  My husband is leading the charge in this dispute, which is rather un-British of him.  I like it. 

4.  Coronavirus has reached community-transmission stage here and in the US.  It's no longer safe for me to go out in public.  I never went anywhere, anyway, but I am sad.  I'll be missing a luncheon and panel discussion on Tuesday.

5.  Please don't let my abundance of caution scare you... I nearly died in November from a regular cold.  That's what I'm up against.  Most people (>80%) just have a fever, a cough, and feel achey.  Most of the severe cases (the remaining <20%) are in people over the age of 50 and/or people with pre-existing health problems, particularly cardiovascular, lung disease, and diabetes.  You guys have more lung capacity, so even a severe case will be easier for you to manage.  I'm just not liking my odds is all.  You guys are likely going to be fine.  But, still, if you all avoid it, that shortens the time it's circulating, which means I can go out in public again.  So stay well, people!  Er... for your sakes, of course.  This isn't about me.  Honest. 

How about having some nice fondue or a cheese board with that french bread? Hate to see you pass up an opportunity to make bread!

Ok. Color me cynical here, but I've had mechanics try to rip me off many times over the years. You replaced the shocks last year. At the garage that said they failed the MOT test last year. This year the same garage has told you the same thing. Shocks don't typically fail that quickly, unless you are constantly driving over severely rutted and pot-holed streets while driving too fast. I'd otherwise expect them to last four or five years at a minimum, possibly much longer. (I used to drive my cars until they were undriveable - 10 years or more, and I think I replaced shocks on one car one time in 50-ish years of driving.) Perhaps go to a different MOT center next time?

Stay healthy, JFK. Do what you have to do to stay healthy. Remember - handwashing. A run-through of "I've Been Working on the Railroad" with the full "Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah" bit added is just about the right amount of time. 

I've been reading and they are saying that they don't expect Covid-19 to "peak" in the UK until four to six weeks from now, and then it'll taper off in an equivalent amount of time. The public health folks are also trying to get it to peak more slowly - less cases, but an extended period of time to lessen the strain on the NHS.  So hopefully by the summer it'll be history. We had been hoping to get down to London this spring, but that's not going to happen now. Unless we both catch it before then and get over it and there's proof we can't "re-catch" it again. We both have health issues, so that's not an ideal scenario, but it would let us travel again if it does happen. I'd like to get to London one more time before we leave.  In the meantime:

Friday Five:

1) The guys from Emmanus (sp?) are due sometime between now and 1pm to collect my donations to their shop. I had a devil of a time finding a charity who would take the stuff. Some don't "have a qualified technician on hand to check electricals" (?). Others wanted us to bring them down to them - not doable. So at least the homeless persons charity is sending some people to pick this stuff up. Hopefully the heaters will keep someone warm or at least get sold to someone who needs them and then the money help get someone into housing. The other items should sell.  (I do hope the collectors don't turn out to be no-show.)

2) We have made a significant amount of progress getting stuff boxed up. It's kinda sad. My living room has one wall now floor-to- ceiling in boxes, replacing the lovely bookshelves with the glass doors that were so nice over there.  The daughter has taken apart several of my smaller standing book-shelves units and I've gotten them bubble-wrapped  so that the movers just need to put the "international move" packing wrap on them. (Saves a LOT of cubic feet that way.)  As I'm pretty much out of bubble-wrap, we get to have a break for a few days until Amazon delivers more.  Having a heck of a time finding "fragile, this way up" stickers of appropriate size for a reasonable price, though. They are all tiny or ridiculously expensive. Thank goodness for permanent marker pens!

3) I am trying to eat down our stash of canned/jarred goods and got down a jar of cinnamon applesauce I had put up last summer. Made applesauce muffins, chopping some dehydrated apple rings into the  batter. Really easy recipe I got off the internet and it came out really nice! One of our jars of dark sugar is smelling a bit like rum, so I used sugar from that one.   And a spoonful of fresh ginger to liven it up.

4) I hope the weather clears for a while. We are going to book a "Rabbies" tour of the Highlands for next week if it's not going to be sleeting up there, just to get out of the house. The weather was lovely here on Wednesday and we got out for tea and a walk through the botanic gardens. The crocuses are just up and some of the daffodils are starting to bloom.   I love daffodils. (The daughter went to the shops on Tuesday and bought some that had not opened yet, and so on Wednesday morning when I came out to have a cup of coffee and watch the news on the tv there was a mason jar full of blooming daffodils in my living room. How nice!)

5) We are still waiting to hear the results of the Daughter's application to her last grad school. She was turned down by the other schools - competition is extremely stiff, so that's not surprising. She hasn't been culled out of the pool yet, so that's encouraging. They are very late in deciding this year, but other applicants are starting to post on GradCafe that they've been rejected, just in the last couple of days, so hopefully there will be some word soon. If I've got to get her set up to go to school in NY in the fall, I'll need to do some serious logistical planning in a hurry. (Unless they give her an aid package sufficient to pay for housing in NYC.)

Friday!!

1.) The band I lead got a 'distinction' in the music festival we competed in and I am over the moon and so proud of the band, who worked incredibly hard.   

2.) Tomorrow is the Scottish Brass Band Championship. We will see where we place. 

3.)  Spent the day yesterday as a judge for North of Scotland primary school STEM club of the year where they presented all the STEM projects they've been working on. Awarded the prize to a primary school from the Isle of Lewis who did a brilliant job of coming up with great ideas to combat climate change.  The future is bright. 

4.) Been an ongoing project to organise all the bedrooms in our house. We're getting there. Been not a lot of fun, to be honest.   

5.) Tired.Been out late almost every single night for several weeks. Hobbies are great, but it's been so insane. I need a break.   

Follow-up on my car's MOT failure.  The garage determined it was under warranty, so they replaced the rear shock absorbers with a better set, and we only had to pay the difference in cost between the cheap, shoddy ones from last year and the namebrand ones they fit yesterday.  We were not charged for labour for the replacement.  My car has now passed MOT, sorting out the failure was fair for all parties, and I'm happy.

Follow-up on my car's MOT failure.  The garage determined it was under warranty, so they replaced the rear shock absorbers with a better set, and we only had to pay the difference in cost between the cheap, shoddy ones from last year and the namebrand ones they fit yesterday.  We were not charged for labour for the replacement.  My car has now passed MOT, sorting out the failure was fair for all parties, and I'm happy.

Oh good! Mine just passed, but will need new brakes sometime in the next few months. I'm glad I have a garage I trust here. They even had it noted not to spray anything in my car from the previous visits.

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It's Friday !

My Friday Five this week:

1) A week ago I was excited for my short trip to Orlando and Disney World on my way back home from Ascension mid-April. My flight booking requests were submitted, I had booked 2 nights at one of the Disney Resort hotels and was preparing to buy park tickets. This week, I have no idea what's gonna happen or if I will in fact get home in April... and I'm glad now that I haven't bought any park tickets yet, since they just announced that Disney World will be closed until March 31st and I guess that could be extended to April too (luckily I have free cancellation on the hotel until April 10th)!

2) I finally told my colleague here about the military guy who was sending me messages - as I'd expected, his reaction was more of a non-reaction... he was just like 'oh, I thought he was quite nice', and then when I said I didn't want to end up having to travel with him, he didn't really say anything!

3) Having said that, everything has gotten much better anyway - it seems that the guy's tour is going to be extended for a few more months, so he won't be leaving mid-April after all... however, there's a chance he might still be on the same flight as me as he mentioned something about going home for R&R in April. Then again, who knows what will happen with coronavirus by then... we may end up getting stuck here. Also, it seems he has now set his sights on one of the other girls here, who apparently is interested in him too (they've been hanging out and flirting for the last week)... only problem is: she's not single and has a live-in boyfriend back home! As a result though, I've felt a lot more comfortable around him this week and have started talking to him again.

4) I've also been socialising more with the det here the last few days. We had 4 new people arrive yesterday and they all seem nice (one of them recognised me from our base back home) - one is here from the Falklands for a few weeks and is living next door, so we spent a fair amount of time chatting last night. I also finally made it to the fortnightly mess quiz last night (which I've had to miss the last few weeks because I was working), and I had way too many G&Ts (yet still only spent £3.50... thank goodness for subsidised bars!) . I hadn't realised though how much my shifts have affected my ability to socialise here - there's a BBQ on tonight and a night out planned for tomorrow night, and I can't go to either because I'm working.

5) I'm supposed to be flying to Italy for a convention in about 9 weeks and I have no idea if it's still going to be happening or not, or if I'm even going to be able to fly to Italy by then... my entire tour in Ascension was planned around the Italy trip (I shortened the tour so I could get back home in time for it), but now I'm kind of hoping it gets cancelled or postponed so that I don't have to worry about getting back by then (postponed would be better because I don't think we'll get our money back if it's cancelled).

Happy Friday!

1.) Quieter this week, been good to be back into routine 

2.) Brass band came 9th out of 10, so we're relegated back down to the 4th section 

3.) Need more coffee this morning. 

4.) Lots going on at work, supposed to be on holiday (just London/Brighton) next week, but not sure now what we're doing 

5.) Really need to get into the garden and get things going. Feeling quite behind (well, it still has been snowing this week, so....)   

Ksand, regarding #2, I might've just said to the colleague, "He may seem nice to you, but it's a different matter for women.  We need to know we can trust a person... our lives depend on it.  His persistent attention made me feel uncomfortable."  I don't think men realize the level of trust women afford them.  Especially women of smaller stature.  #3, now that his attention is directed elsewhere and you can talk to him again, you should somehow subtly let him know that it is scary for women to get persistent unwanted attention from a man when the woman has made all the right signals that she is not interested.  He probably genuinely doesn't realize the effect he's had.  And as to #5, I know it's 9 weeks away, but I will be surprised if your convention occurs in Italy.

PB, sorry about your brass band's rank (and subsequent relegation)... but I missed your last week's five... congrats on the band you direct getting distinction!  Well done, you!

My five:

1.  As I mentioned, my car is now properly MOTed, and we only had to pay the difference in the cost of the replacement parts.  A fair result all around.  Yay!

2.  I had to go out into the world on Tuesday (to the MOT place).  It was the first time I've been out of the house since 27 February, when I went to my last guitar lesson and then came straight home.  I think I understand people with agoraphobia, now.  I genuinely felt like everybody was infected and I was afraid to touch any surfaces.  When the woman at the desk offered my keys back to me, I stared at them for an awkward amount of time before reaching out to take them.

3.  I need to make a white loaf for the weekend.  I'm not sure what else, but I think I want extra bread.  Some kind of fluffy buttery rolls, maybe?  We're having roast chicken on Sunday... dinner rolls to go with that would be lovely.

4.  My mother sent me a text to check in on me, and she used a phrase my dad used to say all the time.  I replied with the appropriate response.  Now I really miss my dad.  But my mom wasn't wrong... it was the right phrase for the situation.

5.  I'm making roast chicken on Sunday!  In my oven!  It will have crispy skin!  You guys...!  It's going to be wonderful!  #HashtagThereWillBeGravy

1.  The cruise we have booked for my 40th this weekend has DRASTICALLY dropped in price (like half).  We are actually cancelling and going with the 14 night one out of Southampton instead as it's a cruise we wouldn't otherwise be able to afford.  Royal Carribean is running a "Cruise with Confidence" campaign where you can cancel 48 hours prior and get a full refund.  Pretty awesome. 

2.  Work is awful.  We are forming the list of redundancies which will be announced on Monday.  We have had £1.8M in work cancelled in the last 24 hours.  And it was already bad.  I'm safe for the time being - so long as we keep trading.  Very scary times.  Glad we have strong savings.

3.  We hope to use our savings for an extension.  First quote received and it's WELL within budget.  Super exciting.  Just hope we don't have to use the money to cover lost salaries, but it will be what it will be.

4.  Steve Martin and Martin Short are still on for tomorrow and we are still going to go.  We are driving to Royal Albert Hall, eating at a lovely steakhouse, and walking everywhere.  They cancelled last night's performance but did that a day in advance.  I like to think they would have annouced Saturday's annoucement at the same time, but I'm sure it could cancel right up until....

5.  I am happy that my "plan for all scenarios" is working well in our favor.  It's a bit commical to see that we keep good stocks of all the items people are freaking out over.  I have medicine for a village!  If anyone local needs anything (or by post), I'm your girl.

Stay safe everyone.  Be smart, diligent, but try not to panic.  There are only two things in life that are guaranteed, death and taxes.  It's horrible to think people will lose their life before their time.  And unfathomable for it to be anyone I love.  Don't think I'm not serious about my precautions.  But I'm trying to be considered and smart with my choices.  But I'm not panicing. 

Love you all!  There is a sniff of spring out there.  Hopefully we can get a great heatwave that will kill a lot of this off.

And if you are going to get it, get it now, while there is plenty of capacity within the system!

4.  Steve Martin and Martin Short are still on for tomorrow and we are still going to go.  We are driving to Royal Albert Hall, eating at a lovely steakhouse, and walking everywhere.  They cancelled last night's performance but did that a day in advance.  I like to think they would have annouced Saturday's annoucement at the same time, but I'm sure it could cancel right up until....

We have tickets for Sunday and are supposed to fly tomorrow......  If they're going to cancel, they need to cancel now. But why cancel the Belfast and Birmingham shows and not London? Makes no sense. 

We have tickets for Sunday and are supposed to fly tomorrow......  If they're going to cancel, they need to cancel now. But why cancel the Belfast and Birmingham shows and not London? Makes no sense. 

They have cancelled. 

Really poorly handled by ROH.  Apparently Steve Martin & Co posted on social media yesterday that they had cancelled the last half of their tour and were back in the US and glad to be home.  This moring ROH was insisting the shows were still going ahead and reselling turned in tickets.  Naughty.  I don’t blame them for cancelling/postponing.  But they should have notified people.  Still waiting for an email…..

I saw on instagram and twitter. I contacted the ROH today to ask about it and they said it was still on. I'm fuming.
The other stuff we had tickets for have cancelled already too .So really not much point for us going south now.