Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 12: Calmly through the day (

[MissConductUS]

I've started a new one. Please join us and share the boring and mundane things happening in your world. It will be calming for all.

I have just finished work and am making a start on my next chapter of The Wild Robot by Peter Brown. It is a book aimed at 10-12 year olds I suspect, but it is written so simply it makes for soothing reading.
I like this thread....it is nice to know I’m not the only one who likes calm mundane news!

Welcome to our little oasis of niceness and normality @furrycat1978

I've got very behind on this thread and have enjoyed catching up with all the not-too-exciting news.

I made a chocolate cake in preparation for DH's birthday on Sunday and need to ice it tomorrow. I was considering making chocolate ganache for this purpose, rather than the usual standard buttercream, but I only have single cream, not double. Apparently that should still be OK, though I've never attempted this absurdly low-fat version....

Welcome, @furrycat1978, I'm glad you like it here. It's almost like an anti-MN or a MN alternative universe.

Are you up very late or in a North American time zone?

@MissConductUS thank you for the welcome ... am enjoying everyone's news... I thought you'd like to know that I am watching more paint dry today, once I get painting!

Hello and good morning, grey skies and above 0°C here.

@MissConductUS
The word for your new towels is: flauschig (regarding texture)

@HildaTablet
I once managed to disgust and nauseate people on a MN thread, because the recipe for traditional German Butterkrem includes raw eggs (so temperature and storage of ingredients, cleanliness of the cooking gear and the quality of the eggs are very important + the cake has to be eaten almost at once or kept very cold).

Welcome @PCRB and @furrycat1978! @Sunbird24, 'oasis of niceness and normality', I like that.

Towels look good @MissConductUS. I find that you don't realise how bad the old ones are until you get new ones.

@soddingkitten, that's really bloody annoying about the windows. How much longer do you have of this?

I have had a half hearted go at cleaning the bathroom this morning. Insofar as I have sprayed the bathroom cleaner over the bath and walls, and walked away, leaving it to 'soak'.

This morning on Duolingo, I asked for a table for two people and a horse. I also had the importance of properly reading the sentence you are translating hammered home to me when I was horrified at having to translate 'We are eating Duo'. Then I realised that my eyes had slipped over that crucial word 'avec'; we are eating WITH Duo. I thought the app had taken a dark turn for a moment there.

Good morning all. I am having a lazy morning on my iPad and still in bed. More of @MissConductUS‘s brownies to be made this afternoon - DS has insisted requested that we double the ingredients and make two batches.
I found an easy biryani recipe for instant pot so plan to make that for dinner today.

That's interesting Prok I've just looked it up and it appears to be a custard base made with eggs that you whip softened butter into? I like the sound of that......can you make a chocolate version?

@HildaTablet You can refine the basic traditional recipe
250 g soft butter
250 g Puderzucker (powdered sugar)
1 - 2 egg yolks

with anything you like - chocolate, mocca, cognac, fruit juices, rum, amaretto ....

My DGM was the one of her innumerable cousins, aunts and inlaws, that had to make the butterkrem at family events.

Those towels look beautiful and very fluffy too @MissConductUS

Thank you Prok, very interesting!

Ooh those towels are lovely.

I need to put a wash on, but I reeeeally don’t want to move off the sofa.

The sun is shining in London. I have hung washing on the line for the first time this year. The beehive is lively with loads of bees flying back with huge pollen loads.

Happy Saturday, lovely people of the thread.

I did 50 minutes on the stationary bike, worked out with hand weights and took a shower. The towels are fab, so soft and thirsty! And flauschig!

It's going to be cold and rainy here today, but at least it's not snow.

Good luck with the brownies @Nydj.

Those towels look lovely MissConductUS but I must take issue with the tumble drying of them. Surely this will make them soft and fluffy? Instead of hard and scratchy?
Trying to finish an assignment. I have hung out washing and the air smells like spring

The best thing you can do to towels is hang them out in the sunshine and a breeze, tumble dryer comes a (close) second as far as fluffyness goes. Though I prefer my towels scratchy.

I have written my 'handover' (5 pages) for my collegue, who has to do my work as well as her own (with a little help from another collegue).

I'm in the tumbled towels camp. Soft and fluffy every time. Though all of my washing is currently hanging in the garden for the first time this year.

The DCs new gigantic Lego set has arrived. DH has built some of it. I'm about to commence my shift and build the Batmobile.

Tumble dryer all the way. Hard, scratchy towels do not bring post shower happiness, at least for me. The only thing I dry outside are the cotton bathroom rugs, and then only when it's warmer. We have a hammock on the deck so I drape them over that.

I've just been to the supermarket. There's still a lot of snow on the ground so as the rain hits it's making fog. Lots of fog.

My kids never did legos for some reason.

I'm eating a honey crisp apple for a mid-morning snack. Do you have that variety in the UK?

missconduct I can get them here!
The common winter apple in my area is Boskop and in summer it's Elstar.

soddingkitten, that's really bloody annoying about the windows. How much longer do you have of this?

Tomorrow will be day 8. 🙁 Based on what the plumber said, the boiler should be functional at some point in the week beginning 16 March. 😭 The weather has warmed up, so we are counting our blessings.

I’m with Prok on preferring scratchy towels. New beach towels are the worst with their shiny, slippery finish. 😖 My favourite swimming towels were the trippy 70s ones my Grandma gave my Dad in the 90s. They were huge, scratchy and quite thin so covered me well at the pool, did their job and dried quickly between swims. DH and I have never had a tumble dryer and I don’t care. Scratchy towels all the way!

I found a shop open in town still selling clothes during lockdown (in many shops they are screened off as “non-essential items”) so have purchased bigger pants (underwear) for DS2 and mens’ trousers for both boys. The lockdown shop closures have coincided with growth spurts and keeping them clothed is a major headache. I’m hoping schools aren’t going to insist on uniform when they reopen next month, as we’ll be replacing largely unworn uniform with new if they insist. Plus the uniform shop is closed like everywhere else. 😩

sodding there’ll be lots of other families in the same situation so you should be able to do swaps with someone, or sell/buy decent barely worn secondhand stuff.

I’m visiting my bubble, we’ve been out for a sunshine walk.

@MissConductUS Not in the US, no...I’m just working late into the night.
I’ve just spent a good hour and a half pruning a rose bush in the sunshine.

I'm in the scratchy towel fan club.

Debating what to make for tea to have with Quorn nuggets that isn't chips.