Thread 11 - TalkLair: “The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles.”

[Kucinghitam]

Whoops, missed the filling up of the previous thread! (thread 10).

Although the nights are gradually drawing in, the new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey inside. The hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

We put our tree up on Sunday, without too much trouble. I have all the presents, I took daughter out a few times, to pick what she wanted and had a session on Amazon. I wrapped everything yesterday.

Forgot the cards and now I'm on a ship for 4 weeks.

Unusual Christmasses, Pike and Sinner. (Idly wonders what Christmas Day on a ship is like).

By the way, has anybody seen Elderberry lately?

I think I've seen her about, maybe on the Irish dance thread?

Norwegian ones are usually good, especially if they have any Polish crew. Usually some decorations and three different Christmas dinners, the Polish one being pork and carp. The Norwegian one is usually mutton chops with green beans and sprouts.

And lutefisk. Lutefisk should be avoided like anthrax.

Italian and French ones have booze and the Italian ones usually develop engine trouble for a couple of days. They just stay on station and get stuck into the wine!

I have assorted festive food on my upcoming Ocado and Abel and Cole orders and have belatedly posted the three cards that need to get to the other side of the world but that’s it so far.

It’ll just be me, my mum and my brother. There will be presents (if I get my act together), nice food and a bit of booze. The nice food will start on Christmas Eve with the Ottolenghi and Tamimi clementine and almond syrup cake with chocolate icing as it has every year since the Guardian published the recipe.

Our tree is a pre-lit plastic one that looks fairly real (unlike its lime green Tinsel predecessor) but it’s not up yet. Maybe this evening or maybe this weekend. There will be sparkly baubles and fairy fairy-lights dancing in the fireplace.

Good to hear the treatment schedule is all planned out, Mouse. When does it start? It must be a daunting prospect, not least that you have to have people do stuff to you pretty much every day, regardless of what it is. I wish you every strength and appropriate levels of stoicism, as well as a reminder to cast aside all stoicism when necessary.

Lutefisk should be avoided like anthrax.

Cod cured in lye, what's not to like

The tendency to explode?

Come on, people! Who doesn't love the texture of slime and the smell of ammonia?

That description sounds like a morgue that's gone off.

It's almost tasteless, but the texture is, well, unusual and not at all enjoyable!

I woke up a little while ago and saw a What's App video from my daughter, who was trying to catch a pied wagtail in Boots. She was asking the staff for a net, or birdseed! One woman told her it was a wagtail - "Yes, a pied wagtail," she responded.

Somehow, she caught it and took it outside, she said she could feel its heart going like the clappers. Not bad for a ten year old, I feel.

She’s a star, Sinner!

Your daughter is a bit bloody wonderful, Sinner!

Thank you for all the lovely comments.

Today was another good one. I popped to the chemist to pick up a large bottle of liquid morphine. Brought it home, had a small dose, back pain, chest area pain and various creaks and growns gradually eased. Snoop and another friend came to pick me up for a couple of hours at a very large Emmaus charity shop, although it's really more of a large building with separate areas full of just about everything you could want. It's very dog friendly and I dog bothered like a total queen. A golden retriever called Jack let me have a full on my head resting on his back cuddle. Bliss. I had a bit of a funny turn so we went to the cafe area for soup. It was lush! Festive soup, which was basically all the Christmas dinner vegetables blended to make the soup with two good sized stuffing balls. I managed to - carefully - eat it all! That's going to be my plan for my Christmas dinner. I felt a bit rough afterwards because my stomach was screaming, "WTF was that, you mad twat?!" Worth it! I bought some old, one was 30s or 40s, patterns for baby clothes because yesterday I became a not by blood but love and choice, great aunt to a beautiful baby girl. I'm so very happy that she's here at last.

This evening I made it to the monthly music pub quiz which is five minutes from my front door. We did very badly but in the first ever game of Cheese Bingo, we won and the prize was lots of good cheese. I brought home some truffle cheese and will be grating some into a bowl of cream of tomato soup. Yum!

So! All in all a lovely day and a lovely evening with pretty damn fine people. The shift in my mood since yesterday is huge and I'm embracing it. Thank you all so much for being here for the many varied moods of that there Mouse. You are all a tonic and I love spending time with you. I hope you all know that you are a great bunch of lads. x

Oh Mouse how lovely to hear you sounding cheerful, and congratulations on great auntitude. I became a great aunt when I was about 35 on account of my brother being ten years older and having his children young, and my nephew and niece being born when I was in my early teens and then having their children young too. My oldest great-niece is now 32 and the youngest 18 so it wouldn’t surprise me if I manage to be a great-great aunt some day. I did hear that the 29 year old niece was contemplating motherhood.

I'm glad you enjoyed your Christmas Dinner soup, Mouse!

That sounds like the most excellent Day @MouseMinge , I am so glad for you and wish you many more like it. Me and Gail are world class dog botherers, and one of the first questions we always ask each other about or day is "did you meet any dogs?"

Also @SinnerBoy, your daughter sounds amazing.

Owt that moves, she loves it!

How's the job search?

@SinnerBoy your daughter sounds like a most excellent bird-rescuer!

@MouseMinge what an excellent day that was. So many highlights, from lovely drugs to lovely cheese!

Yes, she's graduated from ladybirds, spiders and butterflies!

Has anybody else just had a refusal to load MN? I just did, Chrome said the site is unsafe, but I clicked go ahead anyway.

We want to see grandaughter's nativity play last night, which was the usual blend of hilarity, sentiment and chaos. In short, wonderful. The little scally in question gave an energetic performance, dancing her heart away - apart from a very noticeable pause where she stopped to fix something invisible on her sleeve and then got back into the dance.

I must have seen dozens over the years. I'm completely unapologetic about loving them, despite the usual reservations about religion. There is usually enough love and kindness there to paint over any bizarre faithy stuff.

That sounds a splendid day, Mouse. I have both truffle cheese and dog-bothering envy.

Lovely to know the bird rescuing is a family tradition, Sinner.

I'm the same about carol services, @angelico53. I've been an atheist for as long as I can remember, and I'm not even from a Christian culture. But I bloody adore carols, especially when sung by a lovely choir in a lovely decorated church. I just don't say any of the Goddy prayer bits (DH and DDs do, although they are also atheists, because they like the tradition of saying it).

We always go to DDs' school carol service and the one at our local church. And will happily accept any invitations to others (or, at a pinch, any old carol sing-song on a street corner).

Has anybody else just had a refusal to load MN?

No problems here.

We had a bird rescue drama here the other morning. Heard a loud thud against the living room window and looked out to see a bluetit face down, wings spread, outside and making a strange rasping sound. I went out to check on it and it was alive but stunned. I picked it up and held it in my cupped hands and it woke up after a few minutes and slowly became more alert. After a few minutes more it flew into a nearby plant. It was a beautiful little bird and the image of the outspread blue wings has stayed with me. That shade of blue is incredible. Its lightness too, it can't have weighed more than a couple of tea bags. I've now ordered some of those anti bird strike stickers.