Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 20: 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.

Here is the link to the prior thread:

Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 19: Calmly through the day

@Prokupatuscrakedatus

Nydj Bhel looks great! I will ignore your Victoria sponge cake (which is calling to me, too), though, and stick to my red peppers. Well, I have no choice at th emoment. It is Saturday evening and all shops are closed until Monday morning.

Oh Prok, bhel is the perfect mix of crunchy and soft, sweet, salty, tangy, hot(spicy). Well, not really hot(spicy) because we don’t really eat very hot (spicy) food - but it is the perfect blend of everything else for us and other people a have theirs with more spicy heat than we do.

DH is sulking.

We had a couple drinks with friends at lunchtime and he has taken offence at an imagined slight. As a long term spectator of such behaviour I am unmoved and unfazed by it, this only serves to make him more moody.

Sometimes I feel I should challenge the behaviour, but truthfully it only impacts on him so I let it wash. He's currently rage filling the dishwasher, apparently unaware how thrilled I am by this

Champagne, it's doubtless the demon alcohol that has driven him to take offense when none was intended.

I've made more progress on the taxes by inputting DH's wage and withholding figures. The refund remains in sight, but the software has been known to snatch it back when more details are added.

I'm still really enjoying The Detectorists. My confusion now has to do with Essex. In the show, Essex is lovely. On MN everyone jokes about it as some sort of chav purgatory of overbuilding and tacky shopping, much as we do with New Jersey here. I don't know which to believe.

Miss ing Mass (see what I did there?!) would have been last resort, and most discombobulating. So instead DH cycled there and I drove with DC. My car is booked on Wednesday, I did pray this morning that it can be fixed and lives on for a couple more years!

DC2 had their second vaccine today, DC1 has made a big pile of homework much smaller. DC3 and 4 have done all their homework. DC4 had a riding lesson and pony club. I’m sitting outside DC2’s swim training, once it finishes I need to race to pick up DC1 from Church Youth Group. Ay me…

Champagne rage fuelled housework is much encouraged here. I do my best and most ruthless tidying when properly pissed off!

Nydj I will try and make bhel myself and tell you if it turns out like it is supposed to be.
That reminds me, when I had my 1st DC at midday on a Sunday morning, DH went across the street to an Indian restaurant and bought a range of starters for me and the midwives to eat before we all went home.

helena, I'm amazed you have the time for rage cleaning TBH!

DH is normally reasonably easy to jolly out of his mood once he's done the housework

He's currently sat here looking a bit mystified as he can't quite remember why he's annoyed but clearly doesn't feel that he should be on top social form. By the time he's up tomorrow (I'm on an early shift) he'll be as sunny as a freshly picked daisy, and completely mystified at any reports of a middle aged tantrum.

How lovely of your DH, Prok and yes, let us know how you get on with making bhel.
Miss it must be really tough to have both children back at uni - I hope the time until their return flies by.
Champagne I wish I could do rage housework when I am a upset. Instead, I just eat and read.
The different pizzas had to be postponed from Friday to today due to not important reasons. I can report that the pizza bases from Lidl did not go down well. Oh well, worth a try.

Nydj, they'll be back mid March. We'll adjust again, I'm sure. Re the pizza, can you get unbaked pizza dough portions in the supermarket? Here most have it in the refrigerated section. That will give you restaurant quality pizza. Making pizza dough from scratch is supposed to be pretty easy, but I've never bothered.

Pizza shops will also sell you portions of dough to use at home. It freezes beautifully.

DD told me she has her first boyfriend, seems from a very nice, academic family and he apparently told her to tell me and not keep him a secret . She is a bit young but I am glad she has someone to support her through things as well as us and school, she seems to have started dating him just after I was diagnosed. She was quite embarrassed about it.

Silkie, how old is your daughter? Mine was 17 when she started going out with her boyfriend. They're still in a relationship. It's been good for her.

She is 16, I know he is tall, good looking, intelligent and has a posh house, seems to have sensible parents and seems nice.

DD's boyfriend also comes from an academic family. They're lovely people, so we are really pleased for her.

@MissConductUS

We are back. ZZ, you got there early. We had an easy drive, just long.

Silkie, I'm glad they took such good care of you.

We stayed in a hotel nearby the night before so that we could get DD in early, then still have some weekend to ourselves.

She's so delighted to be on campus and in her 'proper' hall of residence. She's met her roommate who seems like she'll be a good match. We explored a bit and it's so much nicer than where she was last semester. They have a grandfather clock in the hallway as you come in, and a grand piano in the common room, and while we were there someone turned up with her cat in a backpack. I love how quirky it is.

We just left her to unpack, as 4 people in one double room is about 2 too many :-)

I'm still really enjoying The Detectorists. My confusion now has to do with Essex. In the show, Essex is lovely. On MN everyone jokes about it as some sort of chav purgatory of overbuilding and tacky shopping, much as we do with New Jersey here. I don't know which to believe.

Doesn't New Jersey have nice bits too though? I'm only going by what someone told me years ago.

Essex is funny because the rural bits are absolutely gorgeous, and (at least some of) the urban bits are really rough. One side of my family is from Colchester, which is somewhere you must never visit :-)

ZZ, there are some very nice towns in NJ, but not much is rural. I think it has the highest population density of any state in the US. Lots of rough parts too.

The Colchester Museum gets mentioned regularly in the show.

You were lucky to get into your daughter's dorm. We were told that due to covid restrictions only students could go in, so we had to wait in the car while she moved her things in.

Miss ah yes, I remember Toni now. I must re-watch series 3. I've never been to Essex, so I'm not sure, but it is the butt of jokes. We did go to neighbouring Suffolk last year and that was lovely.
We're currently in Chester for a few days for DH's birthday, about to go for a ( hopefully short and novelty flat) run.

MissC, I live in a county that adjoins Essex and can confirm what ZZ says - Essex is full of contrasts. It's a large county that has a coastline with towns like Clacton (famous for its pier and funfair-type attractions) and Frinton (a big retirement area). It's historically been popular as a place for Londoners, especially what could be termed working-class Eastenders, to relocate to. But inland it also has beautiful unspoilt countryside and a lot of very affluent picture-postcard villages/small towns like Thaxted and Finchingfield. There are some lovely stately homes to visit, like Audley End near Saffron Walden (which is another lovely and very ancient little town). And Colchester was the capital of Roman Britain.

So basically they chose it well as a location for The Detectorists; it's very plausible that they might find buried relics (even if they rarely do ). I enjoyed it too, it's a little gem of a show.

I lived in Saffron Walden in Essex for a couple of years and it really does make you rethink the whole Essex stereotype. The town square is most picturesque and the green spaces around the town centre are most unexpected. When DD2 visited me with 2 of her friends she was delighted with it, especially the medieval turf maze on the Common and, just a 5 minute walk away, Bridge End Gardens. It's a lovely town with friendly people.

Then you head south east towwards Colchester and Chelmsford and the stereotype starts to make sense. It's a county of two halves Brian (an English joke you'll only get if you remember football shows from 1970s English television). I like Essex, it's got just the right mixture of weird and 'normal' to make life interesting.

Thank you all for the insightful views on Essex. It will contribute to my enjoyment of the show, which is delightful.

You might have noticed some in my post about dropping DD off at uni and @ZZTopGuitarSolo's reply, it sounded like we were talking about the same place.

After getting her concurrence, I can reveal one of those cosmic coincidences you run into from time to time on the internet. ZZ's daughter and mine attend the same small, very prestigious, and selective university. We figured this out last summer when I mentioned some storm damage to one of the dormitories that she was aware of too. They are in different years and as far as I know don't know each other.

A bit odd, innit?

Miss zz Small world, or so they say or "Sachen gibt's!"
DD is still studying online. Luckily the 'Regelstudienzeit' (time in which you have to finish your course) has been extended without detriment. So perhaps she will actually meet people in person some day.

Miss how funny. I love things like that, it’s all for a purpose!

It's so funny isn't it? Of the relatively few Americans who are on MN, two of us have kids at the same teeny college.

Mathanxiety how are you coping with your snow? I bet it's pretty.

My dishwasher ( under warranty) broke on the 5th January. Noel Leeming still haven’t found an electrician to come out and look at it. Sent photos of the error code electrician ran a mile…. I’ve just given Noel Leeming the number to contact the manufacturer and a name because they didn’t have the info!! 24 calls, requests and pleading, been passed from pillar to post….. if nothing doing by Thursday I will be standing in a Noel Leeming store and loudly but politely announcing that if goods break it will take over 3 weeks to get a fix.

The dishwasher breakdown has of course occurred just when the garden is producing kilos of plums, pears, tomatoes, onions. Making serious amounts of jame, tomato relish and HP Sauce without a dishwasher is a PIA ( first world problem I know). I’ve made 40 jars of preserves so far and my hands and nails are ruined ( allergic to rubber gloves)…. Grrr hate dreadful customer service but hate washing up even more….. also hate having items on the draining board ….. don’t even talk to me about managers who say they will call you back and don’t….. am waiting fir COVID to be blamed next…..