Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 27: 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 26: Calmly through the day

Welcome to all regulars, lurkers, and new contributors! Everyone is welcome to join.

Lovely scenery Sprouts

Thanks, Sprouts. Lovely scenery. 😊

Productive day here. We moved into our house 4 months ago, having spent the previous year rennovating it (needed completely gutting). We were so low on energy by the time we moved in, I prioritised myself last in terms of unpacking and organising. Well, today was finally my turn! My 3 lovely DC helped me all day to unpack my clothes, build clothes rails etc, and now all mine and DH's clothes, toiletries etc are beautifully organised. Such a relief.
I've had a relaxing shower, now in bed and gazing out at glorious organisation. DH watching rugby after gardening all day.

Tomorrow will be spent taking all the packing boxes, unwanted clothes and so on to the tip and charity shops. Then giving everything a good clean, taking DS to rugby and one of the DD to swim training.

Congratulations on your very successful house renovation and move, @TheSweetEndOfTheLollipop. And thanks for the lovely rainbow picture, along with my apologies for not welcoming you properly earlier.

Beautiful picture, sprouts. To answer your question, some of the venues are hotels in the sense that they have some rooms, but hosting events is a bigger business for them. We're looking at a historic inn/national trust type property that's like this. Some are old mansions you rent and have to bring in the food and everything else. One place on the list is a deconsecrated church. Having a hotel wedding sounds to me like having it in a big Hilton or Marriott, which is not what DD wants.

We are back to the original date. I called around and found out that there's a wedding in my SIL's family on that date that too many people on our side have already committed to attending. So we're back to compromising on the venue.

In other boring news, today was the sixth Saturday in a row that it's rained. It's raining in Boston too, which is not great for DS after driving up there to see his friends and sister. And it's supposed to rain tomorrow during the regatta as well.

I may need to have some ice cream to lift my spirits.

Amazing view Sprouts.

Congratulations on your move Lollipop.

That's a quick dress decision MissC, DD sounds quite relaxed about it, no bridezilla tendencies there! 😁

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. I've done some decluttering tonight.

Mallards, I was also a bit shocked about the rapid dress selection. She really lucked out with the dress. It's perfect for her, and I'm glad she's buying it near her uni. It will make getting the fittings done next spring much easier. She is a very sensible young woman and will not be a bridezilla. Of course, it helps that she's 200 miles from where the planning is being done.

DH made chicken Franchese for dinner. It was delicious. I'm going to find something British to watch on Amazon Prime.

You feeling better @MallardsMoorhensAndLethe ?

@Mumtobabyhavoc I watched Who is Erin Carter, was very good :)

What's chicken franchese @MissConductUS ?

I'm up very early, stressed by the wedding business, I guess. I'll go for a walk shortly. I did watch some British TV last night - The Chelsea Detective and a bit of Ms. Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries, which is Australian if you want to be fussy about it.

Tilllly, chicken Franchese is boneless chicken breasts, pounded very thin and cooked in a white wine, lemon and butter sauce. DH breads them and fries them as step one, then makes the sauce in the same pan.

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/chicken-francese-recipe-1951951

Beautiful sunny day here , finally !!

It has spurred me on to keep going with my sorting and reorganizing!

So strange that I just cannot get motivated to do anything when it is absolutely monsoon rain outside ,which we have had no stop (it feels like !) all week !

I am happy to say , that having tried out ALL the chocolates in my lucky little find, that they were all perfectly edible and very enjoyable 🤣🤣🤣!

Oh dear, MissC, it’s not good if you’re losing sleep already, at this early stage. Fingers crossed the snags will be ironed out very soon.

We've been experiencing Storm Babet here (thankfully not very badly in my part of the country) and it was raining on and off yesterday. Today has dawned fine and bright with a blue sky. I’m going to go out and hack the garden back a bit. A loaf of sourdough is waiting to go in the oven later. I’m also planning a knitted head warmer for my niece who likes to wear that sort of thing - I need an autumn knitting project to be getting on with so we’ll both be happy.

MissC....I think your wedding planner is going to be worth their weight in gold at this rate !

Is the date DD has chosen particularly significant ?

In that ,it is anniversary of first meeting each other or first date ?

Amazing that she has her dress all ready !

Beautiful day here to, sensible thing would be to go outside but want to get house more sorted and so we are putting a lot of the kitchen things back. We have a special collection for 3 items and 9 sacks of rubbish very early tomorrow am so need to get that done too.

In theory on Monday the outside painters and the kitchen people are coming. I really hope the kitchen guys take their stuff and finish, it should be easily possible but there's lots of little bitty jobs like tiny bits of paint, 1 handle more, plinth above and below, 1 worktop cut a bit more and extractor fitted and tiles cut where cooker is for feet at front. They have a whole room full of stuff here, a tiny room but still, stuff in 1 kitchen cupboard, stuff in the garden. I agreed initially to it when they said would be 2 weeks, now at 2 months. Lovely guys and great work. Its difficult here to get people to work on listed houses.

Having a roast beef and Yorkshire's Sunday lunch and will also go swimming. Hope won't be too busy as it's half term.

This is how Floof watches the outside painters when they are at my window.

Visiting DS was talking abouth them getting a projector instead of a TV and that they might need some " x " leads for it to do "xyz" ...
(yeah!! ...I had zoned out at that point 🤣!)
Any reminded him that we had lots of leads and things....

He said ...yeah ...but ...hum ...

I told him to look in the box !

He was very impressed at how easy it was to check out the leads and things now that I had bagged them up individually 🤣!

Sneaking on to post some pictures of Iceland after chatting with @MissConductUS

It is the most amazing landscape ever, in a bleak and beautiful way. For once, high expectations were lower than the reality.

South Coast on the way to a volcano, Hot Springs, Gulfoss waterfall, lava field

Snorkelling where the N American continent is splitting from the European continent

Wow, that’s amazing, @DancesWithDucks, I’ve been to Iceland too and visited that point between the tectonic plates, but I certainly didn’t go snorkelling between them! The water looks crystal clear.

It is! so so clear. You could see to the bottom which was, astonishingly, 42m down at one point. It certainly didn't look it. 2 degree water and the rangers are very careful to keep Silfra protected, so it's all done through tours and sensibly you can't go off on your own.

Trying to reduce a couple more photos in size so they can be uploaded. Simply astonishing place!

Yes thanks Tiiiily much better now.

Good weather here too Bizzey got caught up on all the laundry.

The lava field is stunning Ducks. Is it wrong that I want to swim in the waterfall?! I expect it's unsafe.

Fingers crossed for them finishing it all Silkie.

It'll all come together in the end MissC.

Welcome Ducks Glad you had a great trip to Iceland. Love holiday photos.

Glad you are much better Mallards

Had the roast dinner and Floof had some of mine though Floof quickly jumped away when DH appeared like I was doing nothing.

Sorting out stuff for special collection. Also researching holidays.

Bizzey, the date she wants in June is shortly after she and her fiancee graduate from uni. It maximizes the time they'll have before he starts graduate school and she looks for a job. I agree about the wedding planner earning her keep. There's so much to do. She needed to decide on the dress very soon. They're all made to measure in China, and it takes months and months to get them done, so it's not soon at all from that aspect; it's just barely in time.

Hilda, I think I'll relax once we have the big, time critical things decided or in motion. It's everything that gets booked way in advance that we have to worry about. After the venue is set we have to pick and book the photographer. I don't need to get involved in things like invitations, flowers, etc.

@DancesWithDucks, lovely to see you back on the thread. Your pictures of Iceland are amazing. What a fab holiday that must have been. Post more if you have them.

I walked almost three miles this morning and took these at then end, just as the sun was coming up (aka Nautical Twilight).

@MallardsMoorhensAndLethe that waterfall had immense power. The thought did scuttle through that kayaking it would be amazing, but there'd be a very high chance of the kayak and occupant not making it! The 2nd pic below is of the bottom half of the falls.

The hot springs by the sea - now there was amazing swimming. The sea is so alive to swim in isn't it?

Couple more pics, one at a hot spring. Boiling spring. Plus my son's snake, who keeps creeping into our luggage and then into our pockets and exploring.

We were amazed by those hot springs, @DancesWithDucks. We went on a bus tour with a great guide and stopped off at the equivalent of a UK service station - just a little cabin really that served hot drinks and snacks - and wandered about a bit outside. Around the side there was boiling hot steam coming out of the ground from a spring that was just bubbling up, totally normal of course for Iceland!

I recall our guide saying that many areas can be heated by geothermal energy and it was incredibly cheap. People don’t even bother to turn the heat down in their houses to save money, he said they just open windows and doors if it gets too hot.

Yes! the earth is actually smoking and they just ignore it! Our airbnb was geothermally heated and it was beautifully hot but less beautifully ... eggy-smelly.

it had great underfloot heating and now I'm wondering if it was actually hot water from a volcano ... suppose it must have been!

What else did you see? :) we were there 5 days but could have stayed so so much longer

DH has drained the hoses and pipes that feed them for the front garden and deck. DS isn't returning until tomorrow, so I've picked up a rotisserie chicken for dinner, which the cats will enjoy.

The reds are coming out in the foliage, so we may be near peak color.

Unfortunately we were only there for a long weekend @DancesWithDucks - we went to Gullfoss and Þingvellir where the Parliament was - plus the Geysir and the Kerid crater. And bathed in the blue lagoon - touristy but amazing. Plus a fair bit of sightseeing around Reykjavik. Actually we did a lot for the amount of time we were there!

That foliage looks beautiful MissC. What’s the temperature like with you?