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…

Sympathies with the drain woes, Kuc!

When we first lived here we had drain issues and found out it's partly that our place is the only one on the run and also that the drain is ancient and a weird shape. The man who sorted it for us said that however careful you are about not putting fat down the drain, you still get a build up over time. He said to put more hot water down, which we do and it helps a great deal. Usually a sink full a day. The other thing we found is that any fat in the drain binds with coffee grounds and turns into a fat/coffee grounds cement, so now we put them down the toilet instead or on the roses. A lot of plants are very resentful about coffee grounds or tea leaves as they still contain caffeine, which is allelopathic. A few times a year I'll also use soda and boiling water on the outside drain.

If you get someone in, beware of Dyno-Rod. We had them in once and the bloke said it was our fault the drain was blocked as it was full of face wipes, which I've never used in my life.

How rotten, kuc, though I was inappropriately amused by your descriptions of your DDs! Only because my girls could do similar performances too, and often did, and I remember feeling pretty furious myself.

They're long gone now, with their own little scallys, and sometimes I miss their teenage years very much, despite all that.

Thanks all, I'm trying to see the funny side. I'm mostly boggled that DDs thought they could get away with pretending not to understand the laundry, when I taught them how to use the machines years ago.

But seriously I can still smell the drain, I think the malodorous molecules have embedded themselves in my nostril hairs 🤢I've chucked an entire bag of soda crystals down the drain, with a chaser of hot water. Seems to be flowing freely now, fingers crossed.

I'm going to remind DH about coffee grounds. We put them in the compost or on the plants, but obviously bits of them escape when he's washing up the cafetière. Where they doubtless seek out the bits of escaped fat, for a clingy and claggy long-term relationship in the drain.

Just remembered that in my last drain clearing session, I put my arm into a bin bag to keep the drain grot off which made a huge difference.

Round here they encourage you to put coffee grounds in the green bin (also, eggshells), which I do. Not sure that applies everywhere, though. I am a big fan of soda crystals. Big bag for a quid, does a good job cleaning all kinds of things.

Sympathies Kuc, albeit mixed with a bit of sniggering.

Meanwhile a big storm here has knocked the power out and put paid to the work I was planning to do on my desktop this morning. However I have improved the shining hour by turfing out the entire cupboard under the bathroom sink and tidying/sorting/slinging stuff away, which is one of those jobs I kept meaning to get around to.

New tree this year. Quite pleased with it, but it's hard to photograph.

"New tree this year."

Do you have a cat? Because if so that's a climbing frame, surely?

We have a couple of neighbourhood cats who would like to be our cats (or at least come in for a good nose around), but they generally confine their door and window stakeouts to the summer months.

Power still out here. Feels odd typing on my phone by the light of two oil lamps and four candles (not fork handles). If I get desperate I'll drive around in my car to charge the phone. DH is asleep and will no doubt complain if he can't sleep tonight. I am reading and occasionally scrolling on my phone but he only has a flip phone.

Have you not got a power bank?

Do you get a lot of power outages?

Sadly not :-(

BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn· Today 17:21

I didn't know Jenga did Christmas trees!

Kuc

I feel your drain pain, mine needs the rancid, congealed fat hoicked out, as well. The bathroom drain grate isn't too bad, just dog hair and well mulched garden detritus.

The kitchen one is far more malevolent, not least because my wife is a big believer in throwing waste food into the sink, as well as pouring used cooking oil down it.

... And then complains that the sink is rubbish, as it won't drain. Well, clogging the plug with food and sweet wrappers has the unsurprising effect of blocking the damn thing.

I cleaned the outside one last year and the Marigold ripped, it took many repetitions of hand washing to remove the stench.

Love that tree, bint!

Finally put my tree up yesterday. It’s a few years old (somewhere between 5 and 10, I think) and was chosen because its sparseness reminded me of the (real) trees of my childhood. It’s unapologetically plastic but looks vaguely convincing at first glance.

Oh and hope power is soon restored, @Britinme

There was a quite localised power cut here the night before I was due to deliver some online teaching a couple of years ago. I was planning what to do if it was still out in the morning and thinking well I could run the session from my phone and I could power that in the car. Took me a while to reach the obvious conclusion of using the car to get to a place with power and WiFi!

I hope your electricity has come back @Britinme! Are power cuts a frequent occurrence round your way? I remember them being a pretty common thing when I was a child, everybody knew where the candles and matches were kept... I specifically remember late one night that the World Cup was on the tellybox and there was a power cut - my Dad actually tried to phone the electricity board to complain!

I remember lots of them during the early 70s because of the three day week and all that. Not had to do a drain thing yet, that sounds grim as a very grim thing.

Going back to candles and Keanu Reeves, here's my t shirt.

Power back not long after midnight, hooray!

Fabulous t-shirt, Mouse! What's the story with the dog?

When we lived in the country we used to get one or two power cuts every winter - largely because most power is carried on overhead lines and winter storms would bring tree branches down on them. This is the first cut in the four years we’ve been in town, but it was a very bad storm that has caused outages and damage all over the state.

It's from the John Wicks films, @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast

In the first film he is mourning his wife who had arranged for him to get a Beagle puppy to look after and who would look after him to help him cope with his grief. Important to note that he is a required hitman. Anyway, he's home and his house is invaded by a few ne'er-do-wells who have come to, as they say, fuck him up. They do the worst thing in the world. They kill his dog. John Wick comes out of retirement to kill them all with great violence. In later films he has another dog, a Staffie but when I watched the first one I would seriously have cheered him on in burning the world down after those mofos killed his beautiful dog.

The dog on the t-shirt matches none of the dogs we see St Keanu of Reeves with in the films, but it's cute so I'm happy to part ways with realism because cute dog and cool t-shirt.

I bought more toddler food today and then stopped off at the baby section of the supermarket and bought some +12 months food (a deconstructed lasagne) and +10 months (a butternut and beef hotpot) the latter two are mashed up so much that I'll easily eat them. They may be my go to after this because they're cheaper and with a lot bit of salt and pepper they should hopefully be pretty tasty too.

Arf, @MouseMinge - the jars of baby/toddler food in our local Coop are weirdly located in between the loo-roll and the soap/shampoo/deodorant, so I often run my eye past them and think "Ooh! That sounds delicious!" The desserts look good too.

<on edit> ... but not as good as the Coop's own brand Venezuelan chocolate ice-cream.

I think they were in my old local Co-Op as well, @Gonners !

The ones I picked up are no need for the fridge small ready meals. I had the deconstructed lasagna this evening and it was rather good after a lot of seasoning. We really do seem to think that children should only eat the blandest of foods. Or the makers of young children/toddler/baby food do anyway. I can understand going easy on the salt but it tastes like there is none at all and no pepper either. Poor wee things.