The Year Round Nigel Slater Discussion Thread - Part 5

[RainbowZebraWarrior]

Hello all, and welcome to this lovely space for our continued chats.

A bit of background for anyone not familiar with this topic:

The Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles readalong usually takes place here on Mumsnet between November and February each year - the Christmas Chronicles being a book written by Nigel Slater full of winter recipes and anecdotes - It has been running for a few years, and the contributors collectively decided it would be nice to have it running all year round.

So here it is. It is a place to appreciate all things Nigel-esque. Think seasonal food and recipes, enjoyment of nature, gardening, appreciation of the weather, and sharing of news and small moments of joy. It's a calm, cosy space for gentle chat and merriment so pull up a chair, grab a drink and relax.

A very hearty welcome to friends new and old!

@CrushingOnRubies Thank you... 30+ bites counted... although I squashed a huge mozzie last night...

I ditched book club. I feel exhausted and simply could not face it.
Everything is so dry here too. We have been watering poly tunnels and kitchen garden twice a day which is no small task, but still almost everything is either bolting or dying, or looks ripe (at least a month early) but tastes of nothing. Our poor horticulture manager has been in bits today as it’s been so much work for nothing in lots of cases and leaves the veg box scheme in a mess.

It’s lovely to be able to buy things intentionally and take your time choosing. I was lucky enough to be able to do that only once, when ex H and I moved out of our flat in London to a little cottage in the country just before we had dd1. We had a bit of cash in equity and were able to get some nice furniture for the first time, some of which I still have now. I was 3 weeks from giving birth and went bananas in Laura Ashley! I always remember it as a really lovely time.
DH and I have a mish mash of stuff, and we don’t have much that’s all that nice because the Doggos are no respecters of soft furnishings- and this house really only has one big room downstairs that we all live in so there is no way or preserving anything. One day I will have nice things again.

no sign of cat :( poor little fella. I fear he is gone for good. DD1 very tearful. (But still hasn’t actually been to look for him, whereas
Dh and I have flyer’d the neighbourhood and been out calling him. I feel half really upset for her and half annoyed with her. Neither of which will bring him back unfortunately :(

Have also been bitten a fair l. Thank god for the cream I picked up when I got bitten in Hong Kong (by god knows what I had a really pitchy blister about 1p in size) I don’t think the active ingredient is legal in the Uk but it works a treat.

That sounds nice and I may have to take a look this morning. Not that we get balmy evenings. It was flipping freezing last night but I sat out in defiance anyway. Cold again today. Had to grab an old, grey fleece yesterday, so today I have gone for an orange hoodie in order to feel vaguely 'summery' No midges here atm either. We tend to get an influx of them in early November for some weird reason. One last swan song maybe. The beach is plagued with sand flies which I hate, and yeaterday absolutely covered in pink jellyfish. I would post a photo, but they are not nice things, so I'll post this one instead.

Sorry to hear about the poor cat @piscofrisco

What a cracking picture!

it’s quite chilly here this morning too, but set to be hot hot later, and an hour and a bit south on the farm, 30 degrees. I start the day in joggers with shorts underneath then whip the joggers off Buck’s Fizz style at morning break.

Ive never lost an animal this way, and it’s awful wondering what might have happened to him :(

have a nice Tuesday all

That's a gorgeous picture @RainbowZebraWarrior

I'm fascinated by jellyfish, but they also freak me out a bit. The first time I ever went to a beach (somewhere grey on the west coast of Scotland) I almost stood on one. And I visited Cornwall when there was a huge influx of Portuguese Man o' War (should that be 'Men o' War' if there were loads of them?) and got quite stressed by people avoiding the warnings and paddling in the sea.

I'm sorry about the cat @piscofrisco, keeping my fingers crossed he still turns up.

The one good thing about not having been out much lately is that I haven't been bitten, they usually love me.

Quiet at work today - there's an event that I organised (last one of this 'term' before it all goes quiet for the summer), which quite a lot of the team are going to, but I'm at home doing admin and bits of packing, frankly delighted not to be travelling to/ in London.

Sending hugs pisco as thats obviously very upsetting for you. Keeping fingers crossed that the cat just turns back up again very soon.

I've just had the most lovely experience. Two kids running up to me on the beach shouting "Are you the lady who is always on Radio 2?" Haha! (I had a 'sea glass on Whitley beach' thing read out by Vernon Kay yesterday) So, after I said I was, they shouted for their Mum and Dad to come over telling them "It really is her. We told you it would be" Anyway, we had a lovely chat and they are here all week from Leicestershire. I apologised for the weather, but they said it was making a welcome change from 32 degrees!

Ah that’s so lovely RZW. You are the thread celeb.
I am shattered. It took me 3 hours 15 mins to get to work this morning due to a lorry fire on the A1. Work was very hot and tricky and I feel wiped out.

going to watch the Match in bed.

I heard about that lorry fire (on Radio 2!) and also some sort of of spillage of glass bottles on the same stretch of road. What a nightmare for you! Enjoy the match and a bit of down time, too hopefully.

Quick shout out to @LillianGish Hope you are managing ok with your DH still being away on World Cup duty.

Also thinking of @thebabessavedme and hope you are doing ok, especially with all the football related craziness (assuming you are still at the pub)

Sending love and hugs to anyone else who needs it at this time ❤️

Hi @RainbowZebraWarrior I'm still here lurking about, TBH I really haven't been myself lately, very low, feel rubbish and now I seem to have a bald patch in my hair which is getting me down.

Dh and I are going on holiday tomorrow and I'm having trouble mustering any excitement which is very unlike me as I love to travel and see new things.

Thankfully that means my world cup torment is over though😁no more serving posturing men who think shouting at the telly shows how masculine they are.

Hoping I will reappear in 10 days having cheered my bloody self up!

Lots of love to all Nigelistas x

Hope you manage to enjoy, my lovely. Hopefully once you are there you may be able to relax as it sounds like you've been properly rock bottom. Sending big hugs x

Yes. Both about 2 mins after I got on the A1 at our junction. Could go neither backwards or forwards. It was not ideal!

I hope you manage to relax and have a good time thebabesavedme, you so deserve it. My hair fell out in Clumps during the most stressful period of my life. Fear not, it will grow back x lots of love to you x

Ah.

DD has just said "Merde! La vie en noir" and gone to bed.

I don’t blame her. France were so insipid that I'm now struggling to believe it’s not all rigged!

For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to invite my Mum, and my PIL to watch the match with us tonight. This is a bad idea on so many levels, but not least the fact that I must now spend the day cleaning the house and cooking for their very specific dietary needs later before picking up the DSS’s. So I suppose I had better get up and on with it.

I hope England win but if they do it will leave me with another issue which is that DD2 lands back from Taiwan at 8.30pm on Sunday and as her Dad has again made himself scarce (no coincidence as it’s the World Cup final) I will be doing the 6 hour round trip to Heathrow to get her, thus potentially missing Englands World Cup victory. Though there are a lot of ‘ifs’ so I’m not despairing too much just yet.

cool and cloudy here but it was this yesterday and ended up sweltering.
Have a good day all

Alors!

To be honest I'm only invested in the football from the aspect of our work sweepstake, although I was out ages ago. We didn't have enough staff members though so all our pets are also entered, along with some random friends/ neighbours/ celebrities/ fictional characters. So tonight I will either be pleased for my English friends, or my colleague's cat 😄

I hope you can figure out the logistics @piscofrisco

Cool and grey here too at the moment. Another day of working and packing.

@RainbowZebraWarrior you're a celeb now!

@piscofrisco I do hope Dcat turns up safe and well

@thebabessavedme hope you have a lovely holiday. Where are you off to?

A bitty sort of day today, couple of online meetings, need to book a couple of appointments, a neighbour's popping round for a coffee and a chat and i have a couple of gym classes later.

I feel I ought to watch the match (although I will miss the first half hour at the gym) but I am really not a football fan. I'm a rugby girl at heart.

Do we think Nigel watches football? I mean he lives quite close to the Arsenal stadium but can’t really see him as a gooner somehow…

Popping in to wave. A few “tired” looking people in the street cafes this morning, courtesy of the double whammy of Bastille day and the football …

@piscofrisco I hope puss returns. It’s ghastly when they go missing. Dear little friends.

Normal chat to be resumed when I no longer have a daily diet of icecream and flambé-d crêpes!

No sign of him and today is a week :(
I don’t think you EVER need to end that diet @bimbles(I’ve been eating like Henry the eighth on steroids lately. I really must stop it)

I don’t see Nigel as a football person. Unless a sort of quiet football person that you think might just be pretending to be one like Keir Starmer. (I don’t think he is pretending to be one, but he looks like he is).

I hope Dcat reappears too @piscofrisco we lost one that way when I was young and it was really sad. One of ours is having to go in for an ultrasound soon, she has lost a lot of weight but bloods are normal, so we fear the worst.

I was at choir last night and missed the France Spain game, I thought I was going to see the last half hour but my mum rang all in a panic about something completely trivial and wouldn't let me go for ages, this particular trivial matter has meant that she has texted me over 60x, taken two hours of my in-person time and several phone calls over the last week, I am heartily sick of it.

I will be watching the match tonight, football is by far my favourite sport, I don't really follow any others but I'm mainly a league follower, don't tend to get excited about the international tournaments till the later stages.

You never know re Nigel and football - we were talking at choir about the football the other day, very few of them are interested, but one elderly lady who seems quite Nigel-esque piped up and said "I love it, I've got a season ticket at Fulham been going all my life"

Just been pegging washing out and my lavender border is absolutely full of bees. The border is 4m long and there must be hundreds of them. So lovely to see and hear them

<Waves to all and hugs as needed>

As @RainbowZebraWarrior is now officially a celeb, are we going to have a 'what would Rainbow do' and 'NotVeryRainbow' thread?!

@piscofrisco if England do win, would it be worth letting DD2 find her own way home? If she can travel to Taiwan I bet she can navigate England

Maybe. But I would feel awful as by then she will have been travelling for 23 hours and will be at her limit. It would be another 3 hours across London and out with a huge bag, and she wouldn’t be home til 1am ish.

Quick check in...

Keep enjoying the crepes and ice cream @Bimblesalong and enjoy the rest of your break.

Lovely Lavender @petitpasta The bees love it (as you've already seen)

Tonight will either make or break your plans @piscofrisco - not to mention make or break England fans, hearts, obviously - Good luck on all counts. I also have a useless ex, so you have my sympathies there.

Had a load of folk at the beach today asking why I was picking up fairly nondescript pebbles. Aha! (as Alan Partridge would say) Hold your apparent ordinary pebbles up to the light, and they may just reveal their secrets... Pirate glass will always bring me joy.

Right. Need to get my pizza in the oven.

Well. Here we go...