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…

I imagine they've made it even more difficult since privatisation. I once got stuck for about 5 hours on a train from somewhere like Salford (it was a LONG time ago, but that was the general area!) to London and didn't get home until about 3 in the morning. They refunded the entire fare, including the taxi fare from the London terminus home, in the form of a (paper) credit note. The bloke at my small SW London station was obstructive, so I made it clear that I had all the time in the world and was perfectly happy to let other passengers buy their tickets but I wasn't leaving. I ended up with a month's season ticket to Waterloo and enough credit left over for two weekend returns to Poole. (I have absolutely no idea why we went to Poole!) This was all the better because it had been a work trip and I hadn't paid for the original ticket, so I was only out-of-pocket to the tune of the cab fare. 😆

One of my worst train delays was a journey back from work when they lost power to the track just outside Vauxhall (so basically within sight of Waterloo). We were all herded into two carriages where we remained huddled together in the cold and dark of a winter evening while they fetched the rescue engine. From Bournemouth.

A colleague on the train after mine got in to Waterloo an hour and a half before me. But at least the compensation thing worked as rather than making us apply they had people apologising at us and taking our ticket details and addresses on the platform at Waterloo. One poor sod was being put in a taxi to Manchester.

Sounds like a fabulous shopping experience @Gonners! DC bought loads of clothes on holiday, they were delighted to be in a country where they’re within the average height range for an adult woman

I went to bed at 7pm last night. Woke up at 2am. Forced myself to stay in bed and amazingly managed to fall back asleep until 6. I feel really quite rested.

Mochi has been circulating between all the family members but right now I’ve got her

I'm glad you made it home safely after your coach misadventures! It's not what you needed after a 13 hour flight!

I am such a twerp that I have only just worked out that this is the new thread.

Now I'll go back to the beginning and read it.

This is entertaining:
https://www.the-londoner.co.uk/scarlett-letters-closure-left-wing-bookshop/

That reads like the ultimate purity spiral eating itself!

That’s bizarre. It seems to be a story populated almost entirely by people with very little grasp of reality.

Efforts to clear the kitchen in preparation for the Big Rip Out are underway. Who knew we had so much bloody stuff in there? <cries>

God, I bought 20 IKEA storage boxes when we did ours and still had stuff on counters and shelves!

Maybe you should just hand over all your stuff to the former booksellers.

LOL!

I dread to think how many boxes would be needed to contain my kitchen. I really should get rid of some of it.

Clearing the kitchen sounds like a nightmare. I bet you've got one of those drawers where things that have no obvious place get put and it's absolutely crammed with them. I bet every home in the world has one of those drawers.

You have to have somewhere to keep radiator keys, can openers that don't work, sporks, those things for opening corned beef . . . .

Don't forget fuses, bits of wire, matches, two screwdrivers, a receipt from ten years ago, a paperclip, oven bulbs, pencils, 30-year old solar-powered calculator etc.

I wrote a whole poem about that!

Welcome to the odds and sods drawer

Welcome to the round, red rubber gadget
for unscrewing stiff jar lids. My aging hands
call on you more often than they used to.

Welcome the Ziploc bag full of strong blue
rubber bands from the stems of broccoli.
Welcome too the bag of wrinkled twist ties

from wrappers of artisanal loaves.
These are the connectors, the fasteners,
things that hold it all together.

Welcome the little flower-printed hammer,
concealing in its handle several
screwdrivers of diminishing sizes,

cunningly threaded inside each other,
announcing that its owner is practical
with hidden depths like a matryoshka.

Welcome to spare button batteries, used only
for the baking scales. You last for years -
will you still be alive when I need you?

Welcome the single-edged razor blade
for scraping burned residue from the hob
when attention strays and pots overflow.

Welcome the anonymous pieces of plastic
whose use is long forgotten yet I keep
in the hopes of remembering one day.

Welcome finally to the comical
cast-iron monkey with one arm stretched up
to hang on the edge of a window frame

the other stretched down to hold a macramé
plant hanger I no longer have. I can’t
use you, but you were my mother’s

and I can’t bear to part with you,
so you live here and flash me your grin
when the drawer opens, as it does daily.

That's lovely, brit! And very reminiscent of my own drawer(s).

That sums it up beautifully @Britinme - mind there’s an equally random collection of stuff somewhere in every room of my house I think.

An offer you can't can quite easily refuse: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5388410-the-most-impressive-cf-ever?page=1

The ego of that chap is astounding!

That's lovely, Brit. My step mother once told me that if someone didn't have one of those drawers she wouldn't trust them.

I like the sound of the hammer with screwdrivers of diminishing sizes in its handle.

Love your poem @Britinme! We have a Drawer of Doom and a Drawer of Random Utensils. The latter is greatly favoured by Anoia, the Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers.

I showed DH the amazing offer of the Garden Thinker and he was very sorry that we live in Leeds, so far from where this towering intellectual needs to do his philosophising.

Ha ha, Brit! Apart from some unique bits and bobs, you've described our kitchen, down to the strong, blue rubber bands from broccoli!

We keep the small blue rubber bands from spring onions and the big strong ones that sometimes come with the post. They get used too.