The blethering goes on...thread 2

[ElephantOfRisk]

Still plenty to chat about. Remember this isn't fight club. Nice chatting required.....

I'm back at work tomorrow

Good luck @ElephantOfRisk 💕💕

Hope your day goes well @ElephantOfRisk let us know how you get on

Good luck at work @ElephantOfRisk. Try to take it at your own pace and don't get overwhelmed. Watch the amount of effort other people around you put in and copy them. That's something I've recently learned.
@Groovee, enjoy the freedom at last!! Hope the rest of the family are feeling OK.
I'm off today, ive been working all Christmas and new year so its good to be off. Retail is shit at Christmas but covid is making people a bit more nuttier than usual. So many customers forget we're fed up or angry or sick of wearing masks too.
Anyway, am hoping to go a wee run down the coast with dh today as he starts back tomorrow. Did you have your day out yet @ElephantOfRisk?

Thanks folks, fairly uneventful at work so far. No shitey emails and systems working.

We ended up going to Killin ssd. The falls were spectacular. We planned to go to a lovely cafe with award winning cakes, which was shut. DH insisted that the website said they were open on the 4th....which was fine but yesterday was the 3rd!

We found somewhere else and had toasties.

Was a nice wee drive and DH loved making use of the new car extra power for overtaking so he was a happy bunny despite the lack of award winning cake.

Enjoy your run @ssd.

That sounds like a nice day out @ElephantOfRisk, and fun to get the car doing it’s thing!

Glad work ok- touch wood.

Enjoy your well earned day off @ssd

There's nothing like a new car with decent acceleration @ElephantOfRisk

We replaced our hated old Vectra in the summer, going back to Mazda, this time a Mazda3 (rather than the Mazda6 we'd had before) which was just less than 3 years old. We still say every trip how much we enjoy driving it and how much better it is than the Vectra

He had a 1.6 injection engine in the last car but it's no comparison to the new engine - like shit off a shovel I think the phrase is

He's not a speeder or boy racer, he's pretty careful as he drives for a living and has never had points on his licence. But on these roads there are limited opportunities to pass so the extra power and acceleration makes it easy to take advantage of those opportunities.

Hope your day goes well today, Elephant.

DH's cake was perfect, thanks for encouraging me to try the ganache. I think it split a tiny bit, but it set fine on the cake and tasted good so I consider that a win.

Friends came to visit yesterday, and it was so good to see them because it's been about 2 years. But this morning one of them has had a positive LFT so now we wait. The girls are meant to go back to swimming on Saturday, so hopefully we'll be able to get PCRs for them on Thursday and have negative results so they can go. Giving PCRs to 5, 7 and 9 year olds will be fun.

Worth it to see our friends. Was such a good day.

It's too peoplely. Maybe isolation suits me.

Good luck back at work tomorrow @shouldistop hope it all goes well.

How was your day @ElephantOfRisk?

And good luck @shouldistop!

it was okay @WouldBeGood. Didn't achieve very much but was fine once I got logged on. Not any crisis or rubbish. Got another assessment with Occ health next week so we'll see how that goes.

Glad no drama @ElephantOfRisk.

I genuinely work with really lovely people and we have a lot of new starts too and they seem great as well. The danger is that instead of these new starts making our lives a bit easier and work more achievable, the clients see that as an opportunity to want more and the pressure doesn't get any better. We'll see. I still waver between thinking I might be able to cope better at some point to still thinking I'll never manage and have to find something else.

It's really helpful when your work people are lovely. Gets you through a lot of boring and difficult days.

I'm making borscht in the slow cooker for dinner tonight. It's pretty much ready but tea's not for another hour. I want to eat it now.

I've never tried borscht but there is nothing in it I don't like (I think) so I might give that try sometime - though i'd probably be the only one eating it.

We are having a ham I bought for christmas and didn't use but it goes out of date today. With spicy wedges, peas, roast tomatoes and egg. Was going to make macaroni cheese but couldn't be bothered

We're having sloppy joes for dinner, so nice! So glad baby ds is over a year now and we can have them again (they've got honey in them).

First day was good, just got my IT equipment set up etc and had a meeting with a colleague and boss to get me caught up on the changes.

When i was growing up, a sloppy joe was a stripey polo top.

Hope you enjoy and glad to hear the first day went well.

I used to make (hot) borscht for Christmas dinner but ds wasn't mad keen on it so I now make tomato and mint soup (also suitably festive colours).

That looks lovely prettybird.

The recipe I use is a Ukrainian one. It is so good.

That's the tomato and mint soup that I do now

Dead simple: sweat off some onions (or shallots), add a whole load of whole tomatoes (including their stalks) plus a load of roughly chopped mint, a generous amount of sherry, cover and simmer for about an hour. Blitz in food processor (and then I push it through a mouli). Season. For Christmas I add some red food colouring to make it properly red. Drizzle/swirl some cream when serving and add a mint leaf garnish.

That sounds delicious @prettybird

It's definitely soup weather just now. Am I right in thinking you do lchf @prettybird? Have you got any soup recommendations? I like most things except the dreaded mushrooms.