Come and tell us your dull and unexciting news 32: 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 a link to the prior thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5148913-come-and-tell-me-your-dull-and-unexciting-news-31-calmly-through-the-day

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

Note there is one minor change to the thread title. "tell me your dull news" has been changed to "tell us...". I thought it was more in keeping with the spirit of the thread.

The shingles vaccine is recommended for over 50's here, but, at least here in BC, you still have to pay for it.
Flu & Covid vaccines free for all, I believe.

@Umanresources I think I’d say something about being held up by other patients, the snippy receptionist and the empty waiting room. Politely, of course, but I’d still say it. That’s what feedback is for.

Good news that you’re getting your form together. I’m sure you’ll be doing this anyway, but do keep a photocopy, and perhaps even send it by registered post. A family member of mine badgered relentlessly to get my DM to apply for Attendance Allowance and was insistent on doing the application form for her, because she has an image of herself as a saviour to needy people, plus 'I know all about it because my friend works there and she's told me the right way to apply' (she’d never lifted much of a finger to help out DM before but hey ho).

Eventually DM gave in, Family Member (FM) did the form and sent it in and nothing more was heard. Whenever DM timidly asked about it, FM airily brushed her aside, saying 'it takes months, my friend says so'. In the end I rang the helpline to ask and they’d never even received the form, or maybe they’d lost it - but anyway, FM hadn’t kept a copy or had any proof of postage. I had to start a new claim from scratch and they don’t backdate so DM missed out on quite a substantial number of payments she really could have used. She did get it in the end, thankfully, though.

I’m on the train out of Washington in a lovely business class seat. The car is mostly empty, but I’m sure lots of people will board at the stops between here and NYC. It’s quite cold here this morning, about -3 C.

My meeting yesterday was pretty routine, then I went out to a posh steakhouse for dinner with some colleagues.

Insurance companies here are required to cover the full cost of vaccines, and are also dispensed for free by public health departments.

@DandyDandylion, lovely kitten picture. When ours were little they used to climb into the Christmas tree too. Your kitten looks a bit like Mingus’ litter mate Autumn, who sadly passed a few years ago.

I’m also posting another picture of the Christmas tree in my hotel. The hotel was lovely, but in a very noisy part of downtown Washington.

Thank you @HildaTablet i am indeed going to get copies of the form. A few more pages done today. I’m writing most things in draft form first. I need it to be perfect, I think I am quite OCD when it comes to form filling. I also have to have silence and at the moment I’m catching up on Masterchef the final.
We are having lobby for our dinner tonight as it was my mum’s signature dish. She was a very plain but homely cook. Every meal we had was cooked from scratch, as we didn’t get a fridge until 1976, we just had a larder.
It’s also the birthday of my late MIL who was an awful cook 😂 but she made the most gorgeous fruit cake. She was really scatty and apparently sometimes sent her sons to school with no filling in their sandwiches, it would be sitting on the kitchen counter when they got home from school. She was really lovely though.
It’s going to be a day of remembering both mums today. We’ll be raising a glass to them later. 🥂💐💐

Scammers have been at me since before 10. Claimed to be from my mobile company.

First call, I told them it wasn't convenient. When they phoned again, I told them that I needed proof that they weren't scammers. Was passed to their "Manager"...

Anyway, idiot features here gave them her email address...Thank goodness that the penny dropped by the time they wanted me to read back the "four digits" on the text I got.

I'm assuming that they used my email to trigger a "lost password" message and were then going for "two-step authentication" to change it.

The spiel was that I needed a new SIM because of 5G...Also said that the mobile company would "take control" of my account "for 48 hrs" and that I'd get my new SIM couriered to me on Monday...

I'll bet. I wonder how many iPhones and iPads they intended to order?

I feel like such an idiot, but at least I cut them off before the final stage. I phoned my mobile company and my account is fine. I've changed my password.

They even phoned back (from another number) after I cut them off - about an hour after that. I phoned back the mobile number and gave them that number. Had already given them all the others. They all started 077, apart from the last one - 074 - and the one that nearly got me: 020.

Thank you @Mumtobabyhavoc . Yes - that's what I tell myself: a little bit at a time is better than nothing.

I had to laugh...I was so proud of myself, finally managed to do the "sit to stand" exercise with a 5kg weight again, two months after my hysteroscopy..and then saw one of the young mum's doing 7kg from a SQUAT. faints

Info that you definitely don't need: I went back to the gym after getting my hysteroscopy and a Mirena fitted for hyperplasia. There are warnings on the leaflet that if it's going to come out (more likely when you're overweight) then it'll probably happen in the first three months.

I've warned the pal who comes to one of the classes with me that if she sees me scrabbling around on the floor then I'm trying to find my coil.

Here's to them both, @Umanresources .

When a friend of mine passed a coil we were both surprised how small it was. Apparently not uncommon to flush them and then not be 100% sure if they are gone. She had very sudden and heavy bleeding though and this was her first sign of trouble. Don’t know how common it is to just happen, hope yours stays in place Weary. Us women really seem to get the rough end of the stick, even long after we have stopped worrying about getting pregmany 🫣
Uman when you casually mention lobby for dinner do you mean lobster, because that really deserves some kind of fanfare? I have tasted a friends in a restaurant once but that was a very special posh meal out. I’m not drinking tonight but will raise my cuppa to yours and all the other missing thread parents.
I dropped dd off for a guide sleepover today which the leader privately told me is always more of an over with all the excitement. Just one night though and it’s her birthday tomorrow so I’m sure they will make a fuss of her before I pickup. Also gives me time to wrap her gifts and clear some space in her room.

Love your garden Alondra

That's an amazing Christmas tree in the station MissC

Lovely necklaces MyrtleStrumpet

Love the kitten in tree Dandy

Great light pictures Havoc

Just completed second week of working full time and loving it but tiring. I went swimming twice last week and just done 1.5 hours gardening with DH as no rain today so we could clear 2 green bin full of leaves. I was not allowed to garden after surgery until 10th December but it's hard now with weather and short daylight hours. There's some bulbs still to be planted but otherwise sorted now. DD went to see her boyfriend in Bristol for couple of days in the week, they are both back here now.

Have woken to a wind storm: Temp 6c, wind 25kph, gusts 62kph. It was quite rainy last night and starting to get windy and I didn't realize a bit of a storm was coming in.
I've got a bit of a headache and am back in bed attempting to doze off. Baby is babbling away with s book. Havoc parked in the living room with Elf on tv.

Was out walking around Kerrisdale area last night. Christmas decos were underwhelming, but some businesses had lovely window decos and Christmas trees. Took dc to a restaurant for a late night snack and we shared a chicken pot pie and Havoc had some fries and a bit of a vanilla milkshake. An older man walked past our table when leaving and commented how well behaved the dc were. I thought that was very nice because I'm teaching manners and how to behave when out and have been venturing into restaurants at off-peak times / or if it doesn't look busy to give it a try.

https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/kerrisdale.aspx

https://www.whitespot.ca/menus/bc/breakfast/

Eeeep! Errant apostrophe!

That's a lovely compliment. :)

I’m loving all your dull and unexciting news, and such great pictures! I hope to get to know you all a bit in these threads 😊

I had a lazy morning after a hectic few days in work. Then went for a swim this afternoon, so I’m aching all over now. The ‘waterproof’ bag I bought to put my wet swimwear in inside my other bag is NOT waterproof, so I’ll be back to using a plastic carrier bag for that. Mildly irritating. On the way to and from the pool, there were men removing the last of a big old tree. They were trimming it (I thought) when I went past on Weds, but the whole thing’s gone now apart from a big old stump. The trunk was easily a meter in diameter, so that was an old tree, and it always make me sad seeing them get chopped down. I hope it was due to storm damage, and they’re not going to take down the rest of the trees in that row 😔

DandyDandylion; I think she may mean this. I've heard of it, but never made it; so I had to Google. www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=71b0560d14736a8c833179dca1fd1bb67af1e0a4149ac4390e373fbeea8daa8fJmltdHM9MTczNDEzNDQwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=2d893548-eb46-63fa-1a7f-207eef4661c5&psq=recipe+for+lobby&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZm9vZC5jb20vcmVjaXBlL2xvYmJ5LXRyYWRpdGlvbmFsLWJlZWYtc3Rldy00Mjc4MjQ&ntb=1

Sue, thanks for the link. I wondered, too.
Welcome @Orland0 Your mention of diameter made me try and remember the measurement from centre to outer edge. I had to Google. It's radius. 🤦‍♀️

Bizzey, doing ok?
Miss, home safely? Hope train was uneventful.

Just watching a Christmas movie on Netflix with Havoc. Baby is wandering around exploring (getting into things) and intermittently changing diapers, getting milk and giving snacks.

Well, I've blocked all the scammer numbers. Got an unexpected delivery - half a dozen bottles of win from my BIL and SIL.

It's very sweet of them: it's a loooooooong story, but we didn't know that they even existed until DH and I had been married for a while. DH was in his 60s before we found out that the existed and were able to meet them.

I still remember the look of disbelief on his face when we found his sister: "I've got a sister!" (It's a common enough story for his generation, I guess in his 20s he found out that his older "mum and dad" were actually his grandparents.)

Anyway, they're lovely folk and an unexpected blessing. Thanks to them, I have two nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews.

Yes, that’s more or less lobby, although different towns have different recipes, as do different families. We actually use minced steak, carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, beef stock and herbs. It’s a very inexpensive meal and we used to have it once a week. I was a single parent, and a student, with 2 young children and one of my friends had a husband who was a miner in the 80s and didn’t have much money. We used to say that we were using the cookery book, 100 ways with mince. We were ecstatic if we found a new recipe. Leftover lobby would be wrapped in shortcrust pastry and called meat and potato pie. We once went to another friend’s house and we had roast beef. My son, aged 6, asked me what it was, because we’d never had it at home. I explained that it was “joined up mince”. We’ve always called roast beef by that name since. 😂

'Joined-up mince' - love that, Uman! When I was a kid we used to have a lot of inexpensive meals as Mum and Dad didn’t have much money. A minced-beef pie figured on our regular menus too, with the mince cooked with onion.

The train was uneventful and I’m home, havoc. We’ve just had dinner, and I’ve unpacked and done my laundry from the trip.

We watched the annual Army Navy football game. Army lost. We live fairly near to West Point, so this is a big deal here.

Glad to hear it, Miss. How did you sleep when you were away? I looove a good sleep in a nice hotel.

So, it's Saturday night and we're up watching The Grinch on Netflix. We had sundaes and are now drinking apple cider. I made an easy version on the stove: apple juice, star anise, cloves, cinnamon stick, orange slice. Teaspoon of spiced rum in mine. Livin' on the edge over here.

And earlier I took dc to look at Christmas lights. Destination was two specific houses, one in East avan and the other in Burnaby.

https://www.duplessischristmas.ca

This is the house in East Van. The lights change colours and there is music playing. Pictures don't do it justice. I took video, but can't post it here.

I adore the Christmas lights pictures!

"Joined-up mince" is brilliant. I was so shocked when the father of a friend pushed meat into a mincer on the kitchen table. I hadn't realised where it came from till then.

I had a slow day yesterday, heating all the used candle containers upside down on kitchen roll on a baking sheet in the oven. The wax and wick remains dropped out and with a quick wipe the containers were usable. The wax on the baking tray could then be poured into the bin. Don't pour it down the sink as it will set and block the pipes.

DH discovered Tanqueray's negroni mix, which said 5 servings in a 500ml bottle. We had smaller servings. I've bought some dried orange peel and orange bitters to serve with it. The cost per kg of dried orange peel is £180 in some cases.

Collecting the candles and wax melts I made earlier this week later then going to a carol service to see my DM, DB, DSIL and DN and my other DN.

MyrtleStrumpet; What a good idea for disposing of candle wax. I was contemplating putting mine in the microwave, but I think I'll follow your example instead.

@@DandyDandylion

Mum's coil was never removed It got 'embedded' and the Dr said it wasn't doing any harm where it was!

All this talk of minced beef reminds me that as a girl I insisted on mince in stew! I never really like meat much but preferred mince meat to lumps of gristley beef! I was turned off by it going orange and oily (mum probably did not drain off the fat too well- it would have been the cheapest mince - all fatty!). If it sounds like I am picking holes in mum's cooking she was an excellent cook most of the time. Loved her pies, puddings and cakes!