Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 24: 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 23: Calmly through the day

Apologies that the prior thread filled up before I could create this one. Hopefully everyone will find it. Lurkers are of course welcome to unlurk.

Welcome, @lilymaek, and thanks for sharing your half-term news. How old are your kids? I have one of each also.

Apologies, @echt. Looking back through the thread, I see that I never properly welcomed you last fall. I had a cat that I had to put on a diet. We leave dry food out for them, and she was prone to overdo it.

We're back from dinner and just did cake and presents for DS. The restaurant was a gastropub kind of place. We shared fried calamari, and I had a lovely Cobb salad with chicken. It was so big I brought half of it home, so there's lunch sorted for tomorrow.

Thank you, MissConductUS, though no apology needed. I dip in and out, depending on what banal stuff strikes me from my Melbourne perspective.

Sooooo, I belatedly tied in some tomatoes today. Lesson: put the stakes in right away.

Glad your DS had a nice birthday dinner MissC Cobb salad sounds good.

Talking of birthdays Floof is 1 today and started celebrating at midnight with a tuna tin. This does mean he's asleep now. He had been cupboard bashing before.

Alpaca throw sounds lovely Hilda

Hope chemo got sorted Prok and you get to see that view again.

Went to Holiday Inn booked mainly on points and they also gave us 2 free breakfasts in the room and 2 free drinks evening before and went swimming. Saw DS twice. Also went to NT place in Norfolk and had flapjack and tea and looked round house and gardens. Wanted a lemon drizzle cake but they had none. Apparently the Russian mafia psychiatrist is our community one but current one says he was against DS ever being sectioned and wants him home though is very pro anti psychotics. So he might be OK though not keen on anti phychotics unless essential. Current psychiatrist will ask Maudsley.

DD is off to Paris with her boyfriend for Valentines Day.

That sounds cautiously hopeful about DS, Silkie, if you can avoid the anti-psychotics. I still haven’t cast off my throw (it’s meant to be more of a wrap/scarf but has grown to elephantine proportions 😂)

It’s been a beautiful sunny day here and even though I had to go to the dentist (a check-up only) I had a very enjoyable drive there and back in the sun. It was 12.5 degrees and if I didn’t know better I’d have sworn spring was here. I took some pics of snowdrops, catkins and hellebores out in my garden.

Which Norfolk NT silkie? there are some gorgeous ones and great priest holes

We had a fab walk with friends today, only 5.5 miles but stunning scenery and lots of history. Weather amazing for Feb half term so far…

Helena, it's been warmer than average here too, but I'm not going to see anything flowering in my garden until April or May.

Silkie, I agree that the anti-psychotics should be a last resort. That said, there are two major classes of them that work in different ways. Second generation APs are better tolerated in most patients.

Antipsychotic Medications

Not much new here. I'm still dealing with a lot of HR issues and am looking forward to going to my meeting in Florida next week.

We went to Blickling Estate in Norfolk Helena not been there before.

Yes MissC not sure about anti-psychotics but it would be a second generation one if it was, before Russian mafia psychiatrist was on about risperidone though they are risky in catatonia and can make it much worse. They are asking Maudsley's opinion. 3 psychiatrists think no psychosis, this Russian one thinks he needs it. Sometimes we go and its like old him laughing at same things, other times he's asleep which would expect with meds / emotions and occasionally there are odd reactions like saying about going out with his friend and he starts attacking bed with pencil but could be distressed he's in hospital. He keeps taking fire alarms apart on about 10 times now. They are really struggling though, he seems clearly distressed in there, headbanging, kicking esp around forced meds but also he is reluctant to leave his room ever. And if moved to social area he can go crazy other day he threw chairs, ripped up work, kicked doors, punched staff, threw ipad, he's normally really gentle, it could just be forced meds anger continued but hard to know. I suggested moving him back and when he's in room much better but one time they moved him back he pulled out all their swipe alarms on the way. It could be excited catatonia. All I know is the pre-medicated gentle sloth version was a lot easier to manage.

Got one report back today but its good in some ways but also says further assessments argh. It seems to be saying we are fine but very high needs child with unknown difficulties. Quite annoying as its been in assessment since September. Though someone said that assessment is as good as they get for a child like this.

Florida sounds amazing MissC

Beautiful flowers Hilda

Yes @HildaTablet

Beautiful flowers.

I love your flowers @HildaTablet - a wonderful sign that spring has sprung.. ( hopefully).

Feel sick these past few days- cold and achey with sinus too so am resting now.

@Silkierabbit I hope the latest recommendation means your DS can get home sooner rather than later. I hope you are doing ok- well as ok as you can be, and please know you are often in my thoughts.

Happy Valentines Day to all of you.

Silkie That sounds like things are improving a bit for you and DS. And Fluff seems to train your DH well.

Lovely fotos on the thread! Even some with sunshine!

And best wishes to all who are ill.

My chemo went well, hardly any side effects. But now DD is ill with a common or garden throat infection, her GP said nothing medicine can do, so I put her onto the usual home remedies. But now I am isolated in my room again, and everybody wears FFPs around me. DD can organize a household from her bed 😀

Living in the Turkish / Arabic part of Berlin the earthquakes are on all our minds. Nothing I can do apart giving money, praying and crying. Everybody I come into contact with at the doctors, in hospital, in my local supermarket, the man who repairs my PC etc. are all from a Turkish/Arabic background even if they grew up here - there is their village, older relatives, mates.

Happy St Valentine’s Day everybody! Hope you have celebrated the love in your life, whether that is a spouse, a partner, a friend, a child, a sibling or someone else.

@HelenaJustina

Thanks but Pancake Day is more my thing. Looking forward to Shrove Tuesday!!.
@Prokupatuscrakedatus Hope you ate feeling OK and your DD feels better soon

I Guess where you are there will be a number of exotic food stores. I used to sometimes frequent a Turkish baker in Camberwell.

I haven't really watched much news but have seen pictures of a number of little kids that have been rescued. A small amount of light in the darkness.

@Deathraystare
As it is Berlin, you can get food from all over the world.
And I live very central so I have most of it in walking distance. We have our favourite restaurants and supermarkets, though.

But could you eat Möppkes (made from pigsblood and rye flour) or Sauerbraten (the meat is horse), traditional foods of my home area? 😀

Prok the Turkish community here is in a state of shock too. DS's former GF is Turkish and he gets regular updates on the situation and the fate of friends of her family. Her family doesn't live near the current quake zone but were affected by the quake of 1999.
Glad your chemo isn't giving you horrible side effects. Steer clear of people with viruses.

Hilda lovely flowers. We have snowdrops here and a few brave little green shoots of some other plants. They will all be covered by sleet and a little snow on Thursday and Friday.

Silkies fingers crossed the Maudsley opinion will go in DS's favour.

Belated birthday wishes to your DS, MissC.

Have a lovely Valentine's Day everyone.
DS bought a huge supply of chocolate that should last us weeks until Sunday afternoon.

@Prokupatuscrakedatus

No I could not eat then. I have not eaten meat since I was 21. I am now 63. You do the maths! I never liked meat anyway.

I once had a twisted bread stick in Berlin. It was fine until I found a miniscule bit of ham in it!

My brother had a "Shergar burger" in France once!!

Prok I’ve possibly mentioned it before on this thread but we have black pudding in parts of the UK, which sounds similar. I’m from the North where it’s a big delicacy (or was). It’s made from pig's blood, oatmeal and chunks of fat, basically. There’s even a black pudding throwing championship….

@HildaTablet
That is more or less the same. A mining area?

Poor people used to get a pig to fatten and then had to sell everything usable - cuts, saussages, lard etc) They were left with the blood and bits of meat remaining in the pots.

@Deathraystare
We usually have very little meat, but I strongly dislike any fake meat products.

Yes, Prok! Many of the areas where black pudding was/is found were traditionally mining areas - Yorkshire, Lancashire especially.

Theŕ is a Finnish School dinner recipe called blood pudding!

Found the Finnish recipe - it is very much like Möppkes

Temperatures have risen to 8° and the sun has made a short appearence

In Ireland, there are versions of black pudding from Cork and the south west that are made with cow and sheep blood, plus the usual spices, onion, oats, barley, etc. It's called drisheen.

My ex flat mate was planning to see me before she went into town to see some friends. I thought it a bit ambitious as she lives in Colchester but she was happy with it but unfortunately now she said there are engineering works so cannot see me know (when are there not engineering works!). I said it was fine as I would hate her to go all around the houses and wait for hours on stations!

A shame but never mind it cannot be helped and gives me more time to tidy up at home!

That reminds me, the lovely colleague (sp?) who has taken over my workload will come over tommorrow to see me.
I will clean a little but our flat looks like an exploded archive at the best of times. Books, papers, packing materials etc.
But I will bake a cake.