Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 15: 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.

My next door neighbours have bought a load of fake lawn and are after someone to lay it for them. I think it’s vile, give me the real stuff any day, dandelions and all. They already complain about the tree at the end of my garden and they rented the house for a year before they bought it so it’s not like it was a surprise to them. Offered to cut it down for me - er, no thanks!

@HildaTablet I took a week off to declutter. I think I win a special award for “dullest annual leave”. Everything is now tidy and organised so maybe it was even worth it.

I am now in bed and I forgot to close the curtains. I am mildly annoyed with myself but not getting up. I might accidentally wake the snoring DP to do it for me.

@Sunbird24

I used the word ‘truncated’ in an email at work today. I’m not sure anyone properly appreciated it.

I would have appreciated it sunbird. We used to have a little game at work where we would aim to use similar phrases.

The best was the use of "post prandial high jinks" which was slotted in almost seamlessly

Welcome @MerryGoRoundBrain and @Whymrsrobinson and thanks for sharing your news.

The house stayed surprisingly cool today with the windows closed. That's one advantage of having a house that's built on the side of a hill. A good bit of it is underground.

For interesting company names, Nabisco is National Biscuit Company and Walmart is Walton's Market. The old Esso (now Exxon) name was a reference to S. O., the common abbreviation of Standard Oil.

I'm off to pick up a tex/mex takeoutaway. DH is in surprisingly good spirits.

It is raining again! Everything is growing, but damp.

For the lovers of acronyms: The brothers Albrecht founded a chain of discount supermarkets „ALDI“ (AL-brecht DI-scount).

Update on my home invasion (incase anyone was worried), no ants sited this morning! Your welcome...

@Prokupatuscrakedatus

It is raining again! Everything is growing, but damp.

For the lovers of acronyms: The brothers Albrecht founded a chain of discount supermarkets „ALDI“ (AL-brecht DI-scount).

Danke @Prokupatuscrakedatus!

I recently read a book which informed me that the ZIP in ZIP codes stood for Zoning Improvement Plan.

@Frazzledd Excellent news - we also had a recent home invasion and it was very annoying. However they too seem to have buggered off for now.

Reagrding arthropod invasions, spiders have been spotted indoors here for the first time this year and I have been around spraying all doors and windows with peppermint spray. I am very arachnophobic and spray every day in the summer.

Ah no, don't mention spiders.

I only need to set off at 1pm so am being lazy and having a lie in

Last night a 1 inch spider made a web down from our bedroom ceiling to around 20cms from my bed and went down it. I pointed out to DH but wasn't very bothered.

Then it did the same but the web ended right by my bit of duvet and the edge of the bed and the spider came down and got about 1cm from my bed. The spider appeared to look see bed and then went reverse, reverse and started going back up. I looked at the spider and pointed him out to DH and the spider curled up into a tiny ball. DH then heroically cut off the spiders web from above and put the spider out of the window.

Yay to DH!

I just made myself jump as I was going through my diary and turned a page and it said VAMPIRE. Then I realised it meant blood tests.

@Frownette 🧛

Have made the mistake of sitting down after my run and now I don’t want to get up again.

Frazzledd I am glad the ants have been deterred. I have a vivid memory of leaving an empty child's medicine bottle out by the back door one night, only to come down to it crawling with ants. This has etched itself upon my memory.
In other disappointing news I have failed my exam (which I knew had not gone well) and must resit in august

Well that sucks @sproutsandparsnips.

Does peppermint spray work? I appreciate that spiders need to live somewhere, but I’d rather it was not in my house.

Hand writing prescriptions for controlled drugs used to be a nightmare. I haven’t had to do it for years so I’d like to imagine there’s a better system now, but probably not.

The annual springtime invasion of spiders had begun chez Conduct as well. Even worse, the spider crickets have arrived:

Spider crickets: The bugs you don’t want in your house this fall

As the article notes, they are amazing jumpers. The faux tennis racket bug zapper is the most effective way of killing them. The normal spiders don't bother me as much, as they keep the level of other pests down. I've seen no ants as of yet, but when they appear we'll put out ant baits for them, which take a few days to work but seem fairly effective.

In boring entertainment news, I've started watching Home Fires, another WWII period drama. This one looks good and it ran for two seasons. The only thing that seems to be lacking so far are hot dishy American service members. Perhaps they're saving the Yanks for later.

I had my second Covid jab this morning, and felt massively outnumbered by the staff and volunteers at the vaccine centre (our local hospital). It was weirdly un-busy, with nobody at all in the waiting area - I arrived a bit early and was in and out before my actual appointment time had rolled round.

Hello all. Today I have been watching the plants in the garden wave about with the wind but not much rain.

I’m glad your DH is in good spirits @MissConductUS and I hope they managed to sort out his PT now.

I’m sorry about your exams @sproutsandparsnips - it’s so disappointing to get the results even if you expected it. Good luck for August!

I am very impressed by those of you who have managed to declutter and tidy your homes - it is dream of mine. I am unlikely to achieve it though because I am very lazy and have the added joy of living with a hoarder. If anyone ever needs a cable for anything at all - he’s your man. There are many other categories of items hoarded collected but it’s too depressing to list them all. Rest assured though, that all items are incredibly dull and therefore acceptable to mention on this thread.

@MissConductUS I did not click on that link because I am seriously arachnophobic and even a picture will cause a panic.

The peppermint spray does seem to help, yes. You create a "barrier" on every window and door that might be opened, and they supposedly don't want to walk across it. Of course I know that for the ones already in the house that could mean they stay in, but at this time of year there are presumably more out than in.

I have a long handled electric catcher, but I don't even have the courage to use that, I have to call DH. I ws once alone and had to catch a spider, and once I had it in the catcher I had to throw the whole catcher, with the beast in it, across the road.

I once lived in a country with far worse creepy crawlies than we have here. It was difficult.

DH has his vaccine appointment for Sunday morning.

OK. I am buying peppermint spray...

I spent 6 weeks in Australia once. I swear I did not relax the entire time I was there. Never saw a single bloody spider...

Many of the peppermint spray makers stupidly put a picture of a spider on the bottle. I can't look at the picture, so am less likely to buy their spray. It seems strange that they have not thought that the people buying their product are likely to be people who do not wish to see spider pictures...

sprouts next time lucky.

Hmm, with peppermint spray perhaps they should put nice looking peppermint leaves on the bottle.

Going out for tea shortly, got a fair amount of tricky paperwork done this afternoon so I'm looking forward to it.