Thread 14 - TalkLair: “What The Hell Are We Supposed To Use, Man? Harsh Language?”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 13).

Summer should be well under way, but the chilly wind, grey clouds and pouring rain beg to differ. Looks like 2024 continues to be a washout - on the bright side, the Tories got washed out too! In the TalkLair, we remain hunkered down keeping cosy and warm. 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…

I did a cordon bleu cookery course many years ago. It was put on by the local council, and lasted 2 years. Quite a lot of the others went on to cook professionally, often running their catering business.

We did all sorts of fancy things including making consommé the traditional way, using eggs whites. You mix them with the stock, which should already be quite clear, and bring it to the boil. The egg white catches all the little bits so you throw that away and you’re left with a lovely clear liquid. Magic!

It was actually relatively easy. The stuff that’s taken away has a lot of flavour though so you have to start with very very tasty stock.

That course sounds great, I’d have loved to have done something like that. using egg white sounds genius, but realistically I’m not sure I could face eating it myself after pulling out the congealed white/bits mixture… it doesn’t take much to put me off!

MouseMinge · Yesterday 19:06

Today has been a tale of walking a "long" way, to the lift, from the lift, outdoors, to a shaded area that Snoop and I like. Same on the way back. We brought a wheelchair from the entrance which meant my boney arse could sit in comfort. Approximate length of long walk? About 600-700 metres each way?

Recovering from illness can mean that you need a good while to get any fitness back. After I had Covid (nowhere near as serious as your illness) it took weeks for me to get any fitness back. The walk to school and back is a bit under a mile, I had to take some tablets in for the girl, a week after I was better.

I got to the office and had to sit down for about 15 minutes. It was very embarrassing, they kept asking if I wanted a doctor, or a taxi. I went home and straight to bed until the late afternoon.

I'm in the getting over covid stage here, and I noticed when I went to do the food shop that I was more tired than normal walking round the supermarket, so perhaps it was that.

Those of my pals who got this latest Covid (quite a few of them) all commented on how utterly exhausted they were for weeks afterwards. I advised them all to take B vitamins at bedtime - not sure how many listened to me and acted on it.

My recent blood tests showed I was low on B12 so I'm currently taking a supplement for that.

For three or four weeks after I had covid I felt tired and grumpy so started taking B complex and it helped a lot. Still taking it now.

Victorian bigot - it’s quite fun using the egg white actually - you end up with a crust of egg white and gubbins and lovely clear sparking liquid underneath

I'm thinking that some dear dog friends I've lived with over the years would find egg white and gubbins very alluring.

Seamus would love egg white and gubbins! I'm going to buy posh tinned consomme because I don't think I'll have the energy for the cooking of it for a while. Tomato consomme sounds tasty and interesting, I shall do a little research. I like the idea of thinner versions of some soups and I love noodle soups but do love the noodles as much as the soup. I'm thinking maybe have a mad posh chicken noodle soup, Waitrose do a decent one, and just sieve the noodles, chicken, etc out. I'll have it at snoop's and Seamus can enjoy the gubbins. Francis might like the chicken but he'd definitely turn his nose up at the rest.

And HAPPY ANNIVERSARY @Britinme !

I wonder whether, if you blended it within an inch of its life and maybe then sieved it, onion soup would qualify as "clear". Because it's my go-to "feeling a bit under-the-weather" soup.

Speaking of which, MrG had some sort of snuffly chest bug at the weekend. He made an enormous fuss, which I ignored as I take the view that anything that doesn't stop him being a PITA is probably non-lethal. He's fine today, but I've gone down with a sore throat, streaming nose and chest-full-of-gunk. Could this be (whisper it low!) the dreaded common cold? I don't think either of us has had one since before the first covid lockdown!

I'd test for covid if I were you. If you're vaccinated the symptoms are very similar and there's a big spike in cases currently. Our symptoms were no worse than a bad cold.

Latest on FiL situation.

So DH and siblings made a huge leap forward last weekend. To "force" everyone to engage, DH insisted on a family vote about the house-selling thing and now they have all agreed on both the asking price and the agent! SiL has agreed to be the contact point for getting it on the market.

Meanwhile, we popped round to the house to take more crap to the dump do some more tidying, and caught FiL red-handed there about to start more painting. He then complained to us that his collection of wooden planks was "missing" - I'm pretty sure BiL took those to the dump on his recent visit (together with 8 car-loads of crap).

"What did you need that pile of wood for, dear parent?" we gently inquired.

"I was going to re-floor the porch!" was FiL's reply. 🤦🏻‍♀️

He is completely outraged at the idea that his house isn't a perfectly-formed treasure for dream family living, convinced that all it needs is a lick of paint in the airing cupboard and front gate, plus some replacement shitty floorboards in the porch. There's also an ongoing battle about the free-standing freezer (mouldy and stinky), a chest of drawers on the landing and a bookshelf in one of the bedrooms - reason being that all these "fit perfectly" into the relevant alcoves, and therefore the new residents will NEED to keep these, else he won't sell the house to them.

Oh Kuc, it sounds absolutely maddening, but hurrah for getting a decision made! I do feel a bit sorry for FIL too, as he is obviously panicking about his loss of control over things, but feeling sorry frequently goes hand in hand with a deep and abiding wish to kill. (I am staying at my mother's house after she had a fall....)

I hope your mum is ok @SqueakyDinosaur!

If anybody needs cheering up, I find this thread fascinating.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5136443-what-was-wealthy-life-like-in-the-1970s-and-before?

@Kucinghitam - Does FIL mean that he will refuse to sell the house to any buyer who doesn't agree to keep those treasures for posterity, or does he think that nobody will buy the house unless they're there? NB: if you don't know, whatever you do, Don't Ask!

My take was he'd refuse to sell to that buyer and my second take is that he will have little to no say in the matter and sometimes lying is the right thing to do.

@Kucinghitam I love that rich in the 70s or 50s thread. My godmother was properly rich, well her husband was and when they divorced she ended up with a very nice house where her bedroom had an en suite bathroom! Before that she lived in a very big house in the country, not a mansion but maybe a manor house? The main things I remember pre divorce are four poster beds and her daughter's clothes were beautiful frocks from Liberty's because I got them too. There ends my 70s rich life memories. We were not even close to rich but did really well on a dual wage that we would not do well on today and I do mean changed to equal what it would be in today's economy.

FiL genuinely meant that he wouldn't sell to anyone who didn't want his old furniture!

Also, he's been telling us for a while that he'd been chatting to somebody on the same street (he talks to random passersby all the time, no filter) and told them he was about to sell his house, he wouldn't take a penny under £X, etc. He said these people had talked to him several times about wanting his house.

We assumed it was his misinterpretation of some poor bugger trapped in conversation and trying to be polite.

But when we saw him last weekend, he said disgustedly "Those people! I just found out they only have one child! That means they won't get the full benefit of my house, so I'm not letting them have it!"

Arf! You'll have to arrange some sort of rota for entertaining (supervising) him on days when the agents are showing people around, to make sure he doesn't just happen to drop by with a chainsaw and a bucket of tarmac during viewings.

A friend of mine is having awful trouble with an elderly relative, childless and trying to play various younger relatives off against each other while rebuffing any help or care. The latest result is a fractured vertebra. Friend is very much hoping for a dictatorial intervention from the health service professionals.

Isn't anyone reading this and thinking, I'll be that old git soon? I know I am, and it's not a pleasing thought. Sympathies, of course, Kuc, for what must be a very trying situation.

I am absolutely thinking I'll be that old git soon, and wavering between guilty feelings about putting some sort of arrangement in place and gleeful anticipation of being entirely selfish and horrid to everyone.

I have a sad suspicion that a lifetime of repression and people-pleasing habits won't be easily shed.

Da da da da duh!

I got the mean ol, low down
Aged parent blues...

My mother (one of 10 children. 9 of them female) had Alzheimers which, with hindsight, set in many years before she was diagnosed. (She hadn't spoken to me for years, which was 100% not a problem!) I've now realised that all but 3 of them died with Alzheimers: the only male dropped dead of a heart attack in his 60s, my favourite stroppy aunt (the eldest, who had "authority" and was always on my side in the difficult teen years) died young of cancer, and the youngest remained perfectly sane, kind, sensible and enormously practical, and just ... well, died quite unexpectedly.

At 73 the clock is ticking for me, but in the meantime MrG (who has no family history of this) has now been diagnosed with the fucker and I just want to run away.

Oh shit Gonners, that is tough.