Thread 18 - TalkLair: "That's no moon. It's a space station!"

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 17)

We've had our heatwave - is this it for the summer? All is lush and green in our LairGarden, flowers are blooming, berries are ripening...

In the TalkLair, all the windows are open, the Pimms is chilled, the MN massive salad is ready to serve. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Exactly Gonners. As good a death as you could hope for with cancer, it seems. RIP Fags.

Yes, I'm glad she remained her inimitable self - and still able to get out and do things - pretty much to the end.

And while I'm posting this primarily for @RasaSayangEh, I think C/Grace/FMB would have liked it too. Vinyard duck patrol:

@NoBinturongsHereMate The duck vineyard thing is brilliant, DD will absolutely love it! I hope you've recovered from the sweltering heat of Leeds.

The bus home later was horrendously hot especially as rush hour traffic kicked in and it slowed to a crawl meaning no breeze through its tiny windows (I was searching Amazon for 'personal fans' in delirious desperation as if they could deliver instantly by drone ). All my fellow passengers looked as tormented and soggy as I did. It felt like the longest bus commute I've ever endured.

Finally, as the bus pulled away from the stop before mine, it lurched alarmingly, then set off slowly. Another passenger rang the bell and started to climb down to the lower deck. The bus lurched again then stopped abruptly in the middle of the road, nearly launching the man down the steps. I'd just moved to stand up, so we sort of made worried eye-contact. Then the bus started off again, we both went "Phew" and I followed him down... then just as we both got to the exit, the bus made a final shuddering jerk. The driver tried to restart the bus; a faint buzzing noise. I looked around at the passengers on the bottom deck - they looked even more boiled than the top deckers, and now all had expressions of dawning horror...

The bus driver sighed and opened the exit doors for me and my fellow escapee. We practically launched ourselves out into the relatively fresh air and skipped off like this. I did spare a glance back at the stranded bus with the poor unfortunate passengers and the building queue of traffic behind it.

Ah, the season of the coming-home-from-work-bus-breakdown. In 1980 I used to get the bus home from Birmingham city centre and it regularly broke down on Gravelly Hill road, which was quite steep. Everyone would trudge about half a mile up the hill to the train station and wait for a packed train. Grim.

Does anyone remember Ye Great Snow of (think) early 1991in London? It must have been reading week because I was working for my old boss in the City. So probably February. At some point people started to go home, or book into hotels, as a rumour spread that trains were being cancelled. I left about 4, by which time Waterloo was closed but that was okay as there was a bus all the way from St Paul's to the end of my road. Except there were no buses!

I walked the 8 or 9 miles to Barnes, following the bus route just in case one appeared. Ha! Fat chance! It took about 5 hours. Fortunately the final 400m-or-so down my road included a very excellent Indian restaurant that did takeaway and a great offie, so all was well.

That rings a bell, Gonners. I recall sitting on a train that never went anywhere and then walking home.

Bet the Indian restaurant and offie were comforting.

I overheated yesterday so didn't go out today. Mr Veg came home with a 7.5l plant pot filled with Morello cherries so I pitted them using a magical device from Germany and have made them into a compôte. They're from a tree we've been tending for the last ten years and this year has been amazing. The pic is from last week.

Ooh Vegemite- Morello cherry trees when healthy* are so beautiful when laden with ripe fruit. And that one is healthy.
There was one in my mother’s garden, so I’ve planted one in both gardens I’ve had since.
My current one is a bit poorly hence the asterisk and I got no cherries off it last year. This years been better though it still seems peaky. But I have enough to make jam when combined with white currants, and that’s what I really want it for - I adore morello cherry jam, and it’s hard to find to buy. I have made cherry brandy with it, which is nice but there’s something about the jam.
I made Logan/Tay berry jam last weekend. Cherry & white currant next, I think, then gooseberry & raspberry (sieved).

There was one in 1991, and another big one in the winter of 1995/1996 but I can't remember which side of the new year it fell. Before Christmas, I think, because I had a failed attempt to get down to MaBint's for a visit.

I miss snow! I think the big snow in 1991 was probably the year I trudged most of the way home from work (from Victoria to Kentish Town) because everything transport related went wrong.

I remember it snowing heavily in December in about 2010ish and my students being amazed that snow before Christmas was even possible!

This all sounds like a regular Maine winter.

I don't remember any impressive amounts of snow during my student years here, although of course I was mainly in the south and east.

But then there was the Big Snow of 2002 which exactly coincided with the day I made my final move from Cambridge to London to my new job. Fortunately I had already moved everything into my new flat, I was only in Cambridge to say goodbye to my old housemates. Another friend had offered me a lift to London, so we set off on the hour's drive. The sky looked leaden and threatening. We'd heard on the news about the possible snow. My friend said, "Snow! How bad can it be?" That drive took EIGHT HOURS and we only made it because (a) it had 4WD and (b) he'd topped up a full tank before we left. The worst thing was, we only had one CD in the car.

@PoppySeedBagelRedux fingers crossed that your Morello regains its vigour. They're lovely when they're doing well and a tree full of ripe fruit is a thing of glory.

I like the idea of making jam and may do that with the cherries I cooked yesterday.

LOL @ Blue @RasaSayangEh

There was some Big Snow on New Year’s Day 1997 in the north. I know this because I recently came across a photo of my brother and me sledding.

I remember a Big Snow in 2008/09 in the south east. And the Beast From the East, whenever that was. I miss snow.

The big snow in early 2009 is one I remember very well as work closed the campus not got a day or two but for a whole week. Then they decided not to pay sessional lecturers as we hadn’t taught. Thankfully an exception to the not being paid rule was made for me as at the time I was sessional but full time covering what should have been a regular post and I spent the week marking essays from home before picking up a lot of extra marking the following week because colleagues (with actual full time salaried posts) had fallen behind.

The only weather event that sticks in my mind, apart from the winter of 1962 (3 months after we came back from Singapore, so something of a surprise, especially in Dorset!) is a hailstorm in Girona in August 2000. I was happily pootling about on a very warm day in sandals, shorts and a t-shirt when we were bombarded with giant hailstones.

I kept a photo from the local paper of the clean-up. Let's see if it will upload ...

That's a lot of ice!

Bizarrely, the storm didn't even last very long - maybe 10/15 minutes? Catalans are quite a pragmatic people, and everyone just took cover in shops/archways/wherever and then calmly went about their business. This was probably much easier if you were in shorts or a skirt!

Random grumbling alert.

Our dishwasher has packed up (#firstworldproblems) and I'm unsure what to do. We're off on holiday soon, then not long after that the whole kitchen is being replaced. So there doesn't seem to be any point calling in a repairman.

I've consulted the manual and done a bit of vague Googling. The cycle stops after a random length of time, the water seems cold, with plaintive beeping. The error is a flashing light which apparently means "A technical fault may have occurred" and the manual says to switch it off and then on again (yes, really).

We're just going to wash up by hand, but I'm rather worried about gross stagnant water fermenting inside the dishwasher. WIBU to chuck some soda crystals in it and set it going for as long as it will tolerate?

This happened to us ... first the washing machine failed to drain fully, or spin. What with life being more than usually shit at the time I just used the launderette's service wash. Then the dishwasher decided to stop filling, with no sensible error message, so I washed up in the sink.

When I eventually called someone in (both were 3 years in to a 5-year warranty) the idiots sent a man solely to fix the dishwasher. He turned it on and it worked. He said it had probably been a bit of the plasticky coating from a tablet that had got itself stuck, and that it had eventually dissolved and shifted. I've switched to Ecover tablets which don't have any plastic on them.

As to the washing machine, he turned that on and it worked too. Maybe it just needed a bit of a rest?

@RasaSayangEh - is there an emergency drainage spout or anything?

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast Don't know!

The error message given by the manual is so vague. Even Google is not hugely helpful - a small handful of sites suggest it's an error with the anti-flood detector, one idea is to pull the dishwasher out and tip it backwards 60-70° DH said he'd rather not risk injury when we're about to go on holiday.

We've decided that we'll run a rinse cycle (or as much as the dishwasher will tolerate) every day to keep it 'fresh' and just wash up by hand until the kitchen is replaced.

@RasaSayangEh - a daily rinse cycle sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Hopefully it will be enough so that the contents won't be too grotty by the time you get home.

I am properly knackered today. Yesterday was the annual garden party at my main work and we've spent weeks preparing, putting in new plants and trying to keep everything alive in the dry weather. I could have not put in the new plants but thought they'd be better in mulched soil than kept in pots. The colourful beds were in stark contrast to the dry lawns, which have turned quite crispy. That and being eaten alive by biting insects, despite being slathered in repellent, has taken its toll and I'm sleepy today. Horse flies really can fuck off to the far side of fuck off-dome and then fuck off some more. The itching!

Saying all that, it all went off well. The guests looked contented and a few wanted me to give them garden tours, which was nice because I got to show off and that's pretty rare.

I'm glad I don't have washing machines and dishwashers in my life.