Well, what a bunch of busy bees we all are! Everyone seems to be taking their day at breakneck speed. Thank you all for expressing good wishes to DS1 – he’s negative! Just a really bad cold. I hope he has his nebuliser set up and ready to roll. Thank goodness he’ll be able to go to Auckland on Sunday for his corneal transplant…such a worry about his sight. He has a lovely partner who will be driving him up and down, and then taking a week off to look after him post-op – a lovely, caring, practical, down-to-earth farm girl who milks cows, launches her boat, catches fish and guts them, takes her team of dogs up into the bush and walks for miles and miles. He’s in good hands.
Kaimoana - I LOVE your solution to Doodle’s Trouser Troubles. Very ermm…70s. No, you’re on the fig jam list …I would have posted this morning after the dentist, but I had a big box of fruit, eggs and jam to go to the family down south, and it was all I could manage in one hit. I’ll get it in the post on Monday, though I’m afraid the veges are sadly diminished by the storm. I have lots of fresh figs and chillies, though, and herbs of all sorts. Do you need lemons? Not long now till the Lumpy Limes will be ready to go, too. Great you had a lovely time with the Kuia, and are still enjoying your haangi food.
Grammaretto - hmm…Colleen sounds an interesting character. You will really have to try to get the romance going. Your poor sparky, no home to go to, working all these long hours, he obviously needs a good woman. You are so lucky to have someone to –help—force you to do a clean-out. How lovely to have the DGC for pottery! Hope your DGS is having a wonderful time on camp – the weather here is absolutely perfect, so they’ll be in heaven enjoying the freedom. When my DC were younger, they went on camp every year, of course, and invariably every year, someone ended up in hospital with something broken/cut/damaged. All part of the learning experience, until someone started getting all nanny-state about it, in the UK at least. When we used to run our Roman Legion at the prep schools where we were teaching in the UK (so, so amazing!), we wanted to have a campfire in the woods, to cook damper like a legionary (!), we were told we had to have a fire warden, complete with fireblanket/extinguisher, qualified first-aider, and something else present. The barbarian hordes were forbidden to climb trees to ambush the Roman Legion. All the joy, gone, because the two of us, of mature years and considerable experience, were regarded as incapable of ensuring the little boys’ safety. Sad.
Muse - I do hope all is well with MrM. MrJ is also waiting on a hernia operation, which of course he could not have on Monday, owing to a virus (not covid). I just KNOW I shouldn’t have read a biography of Lord Rutherford last week - he was so occupied with being a genius and splitting atoms and all that he forgot about his hernia, and didn’t get it seen to in time. I hope Mya has learned her lesson – it’s a tough one, isn’t it…that chasing/herding instinct is so strong. If it’s any help to your DD and DGD…there’s a member of the family who was ermm…invited to leave school at 15, with no quals, owing to behavioural issues. All he wanted to do was join the army. Which he did, only to be discharged 12 months later, following an injury. At a loose end, he saw an ad for a nightschool class in geology, became hooked, did his school quals by correspondence, studied geology at uni, invited to do his Masters in the USA, wrote a fab thesis…the rest is history. There’s always hope! Well done on spotting the error in measurements! I hope you hear from your DS soon… xx.
Doodle - I am so sorry to hear about the Dean. What a shame, when you have a man of his obvious charisma and spirituality, so essential in a time of trial, but age counts against him. His daily contact obviously meant a lot to so many people.
So, I’ve had an MOT in eyes, teeth, and next will be hearing. New glasses will be ready next week, I hope, teeth fine, except the work done, sadly, by an NHS dentist. Now I find my hearing is going. Ageing is a right pain, isn’t it? At least I’ve escaped the familial hearing issues that go back at least 200 years. Gt Aunt Lily was not allowed to marry her cousin Willy because of it. My DGM, DM, sis, bro were all deaf prematurely, and 3-4th cousins I’ve met on Ancestry are wearing aids in their 20s. Now, all I want is some advice to get rid of the large red pimple on the end of my nose!! Argghh!! I had my French group here yesterday, and they were all like “Oh, you’ve caught the sun, out gardening!” Well, no… How come I get acne in my 70s? Anyone else? We read together a very interesting article about the greatest lies in history – all about Marie-Antoinette and her “let them eat cake” comment. She didn’t say it. Instead, she opened homes for unwed mothers, soup kitchens, adopted orphans. Poor woman, a victim of her upbringing and circumstances. Omicron is rife in our little town now, and we conducted our class outdoors in the shade, no hugging, socially distanced, but still with lots of fun and laughter. One of the lovely ladies brought me a jar of her home-made fig jam …