Gunpowder, Treason and Crepes

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Here we are again.....

And CDiff wants me to contact the Bakeoff team for free recipes

I could lend you my bake off recipe book MI they'll be free. No?
Sorry about your poor DSis. Your DM will be ok. If she's having the chemo as an out patient all she needs is someone to do the driving. And some small nutritious meals after. Can Ddad do that?
I have emailed ConS and told him he may now get up off the floor. Oh the delight . Who said "revenge is a dish best served cold" ?

MI - if your sister is infectious it's probably best that she doesn't go with your Mum.

I've had a lovely Skype with DD - all is well and she just wanted a chat.

Have wrongly estimated my cheese for my lasagne and put all in the middle hardly leaving anything for on top. It is not looking quite as it usually does.

Oh god my mum suggests she cooks for us on Sunday. She's mad. And I don't know what to order soup-wise...

My dad is possibly able to heat up something. He has doggedly refused to learn to cook over the years, and she has enabled this.

Oh MI, I wish there was something we could do to help. So sorry your sister is unwell.

Hatty - glad dd is ok
BD - hope the meeting went ok- was thinking of you today
Herbs- that's a complete bummer about the coat. In your behalf. TKMAXX is in fact where I got my weather proof number, which is not sporty looking at all. Thank heavns.
Rose- hahaha. That'll learn them.

I have had another calamitous day.( after the key incident) waking up at 9.45. This morning I was meant to start at 10am. My system is still in recovery after rushing to make it on time( ha!)after this I spent 1.5 hours driving round, trying to park at the hospital ( air was blue ) leaving only half an hour in which to see Dad, who was right grumpy by the time I got to him
Now home and a kamikaze pigeon has committed suicide by flying into the lounge window . Not only poor dead pigpen but we have not got a long crack in the glass which will cost £££ to fix as it's a sealed unit.
Rahhhhhhh!

Cremo, you're not doing well on the birds and animals front, are you...

TK Maxx had twelvety million padded and warm parkas, but only one faintly decent 'just waterproof' one, and it was a 10 so rather snug. Sports Direct had a mildly decent Karrimor one, at half price, but the 14 was too big, and the only others I could see were about three storeys up a wall. And there were no nice young men to get it down for me, and no mirrors. So I huffed off.

And huffed to Asda looking for a pumpkin to carve. Failed to find one, bought £20-worth of other stuff, then saw them on the way out.

Not as calamitous as Crem's day, however.

Crem, that's really not what you need. On birds and animal (or cross thereof), we found an enormous wasps nests in dd1's eaves cupboard - think two pumpkins worth. The man came out today and said it was the third biggest he'd seen this year. Anyway, much poison squirting and all ordered to stay indoors for an hour and job done....

I lost ddog1 for over an hour today. I must admit I thought she was dead. I stood howling in the rain, dh had to come home from work, when she finally rocked up, looking very bedraggled. I actually feel quite drained by it all - I think it is all the anxiety of taking on ddog2 coming out.

The dog trainer comes tomorrow, to try to teach ddog2 not to eat the chickens. Frankly she has NO HOPE - this dog can smell an animal a mile away and has a chase instinct as big as a house. I fear the chickens may lose their free range status!

We are having Chinese as I am done in!

I have a friend coming to supper. Made a curry. Defrosted various other curries from where they are lurking in our freezer. Wished I had MrsS's ability to do Proper Job and still come home and cook Proper Food.

A midweek supper, eh MI? How very lovely. Not quite sure why I never do this. Must be the protracted event that is DS's bedtime...

Have had brainwave re coat. I could just buy some waterproofing spray from Amazon for existing coat. Anyone done that and not totally destroyed their garment?

Meeting went okay (hooray)
Here it was the ubiqutous pasta bake.... I too wish I was like MrsS and could turn out a proper meal every day....
Cremo - :(

Herbs - would it make the seams waterproof though? I had a lovely waterproof coat, most excellent, until I got caught in torrential downpour and it leaked in all of the seams and I got soaked.

I am a bit of a failure on the Proper Food front this week, MI. We had fish fingers last night, with potato wedges and peas, and tonight we are having steak with jacket potatoes and salad. We did have curry on Monday though - a chicken dhansak and a most excellent butterbean one (from Shelina's Mauritian cookbook).

MI - I'll do your interview for someone who hates their job if you can give me a false nose name, dark glasses and a wig.

Have had a house full of kids today and am v tired now. Still they all played nicely and even managed to get outside for a bit between drizzles. I did fancy the cinema this afternoon, but there wasn't anything I wanted to see expect the Steve Carrell film and we're planning to see that at the weekend.

Spent the rest of the day doing admin/laundry and not getting as much done as I'd planned, as always. Does anyone have any good ways to deal with the avalanche of paperwork that seems to arrive on my desk daily? What do you guys keep, of all that stuff? Household bills? Bank statements? School info? I have mostly gone paperless on banks, but where does all the rest of the crap come from?? It clutters up everywhere and makes my (admittedly already messy) house looks like a crap heap. I used to keep on top of it better, but now just have no time ever.

Hope things go ok for your mum's first treatment, MI, and that your sister feels better soon. Perhaps your dad will turn over a new leaf, because he will have to?

Herbs, I re-waterproofed our old ski jackets with spray from Decathlon and it worked fine. But that was in snowy conditions as opposed to torrential rain.

MrsS, I was thinking of you for MI's article!

Cremo, that sounds awful

Just been to see Northern Soul with a friend and it was great - took me right back to the 70's and the music was fabtabulous
My new phone arrived this afternoon, so I am trying to get to grips with it!

Herbs - buy the nice coat and take an umbrella?

Beachy - aren't the wasps all dead by now? Or will be, once the first frosts come? For the first time in ages we didn't have a nest in our eaves this year. The new uPVC fascias and guttering probably rained on their parade. In fact, I barely saw a wasp this summer.

NU - I feel your DH's pain regarding curtain rails. We also have a crumbling plaster issue above the window in our playroom (the one where the DDs pulled the curtain down) - we just shift the brackets around, redrilling and patching furiously as we go. The rail is up at the moment, but it won't last. Luckily, you can't really tell that the centre bracket is about 3 inches off-kilter.

Wilbur - I have a system! A drawer into which all current paperwork goes. Eventually, the drawer won't shut, so I turf it all out and go through it; paying, filing and chucking as I go. The stuff for filing goes into a huge filing cabinet. Eventually the filing cabinet won't shut, so I turf it all out and go through it, chucking and stuffing old papers into a box in the loft. We are just waiting for the ceiling to come down.

Crem - what a pain about the pigeon. We have had a few, but none have cracked the glass. Actually, a sealed unit is cheaper than you think; might not be too bad.

It has been quite a chilled week so far - even though I've been working, having DH at home has removed a lot of the stress associated with getting DCs up and out in the morning, running them to such-and-such, keeping the house tidy.....leaving me to waft out of the door every morning in a very relaxed fashion. It is nice to come home to him too (aaah).

herbs, I was looking at consoling websites and came across this
hope it helps a little, even though I may be missing the point.

CV I wish. The window is 8ft across and 5 ft high. Naw gonna cost A Lot. But !! , have just thought of insurance. < digs under own dung heap of paper documents, to unearth such a thing>

Crem, we have similar problems with the conservatory windows. I cried when I found the body of a male bullfinch as I knew he was one half of a pair which visit the sunflower hearts. Fortunately (?) we have never had a large bird.

Wilbur, in an effort to remove the large pile of papers on the kitchen dresser I introduced a box file for arriving post, so now we have that plus the large heap....

MI, thinking about you and DM. I used to drive my DM to the hospital for her treatment every Friday afternoon; I always felt like a spare part, though. It might help your DDad to step up to the plate if he has to do a simple thing.

I usually cook in the evenings although DH does do some meals (he started when I had my knee done and has continued). I find that deciding what we're having is the worst thing, so now we do a menu list once a week which is much easier. I also do double quantities of some things which I then freeze. I haven't had a pizza since the DC left home!

Crem, what a series of catastrophes, I hope that is the end of them.

Wilbur, no idea! I shove mine in a cupboard until it doesn't shut. It mainly seems to be endless communications about appliances and financial stuff that I don't understand so don't dare throw away (I am not sure tighter regulation is working if the upshot is novellas every three months from pension companies that no normal human being can make sense of - no better for transparency and bad for the trees). School stuff apart from reports I bin once dealt with as it is all online, bank stuff I keep as I am freelance but am not sure I would otherwise as it is all online now too. Bills ditto. Some organisations have such dreadful websites you can't rely on them though.

MI, I hope it goes OK, and I think you are quite right about the timing.

Rose, excellent news.

Oh cremo that wasn't a good day. I suppose it was a relief that the sun set on that one. Not that there was any sun here yesterday. We were like drowned rats once we got back!
Wilbur we suffer from what I call "Piles" in our house. When they get unwieldy and keep falling over I have to tackle them. Get are then sorted into mini piles. With post it's on... Unopened mail, file or bin and urgent action. Recently a new mini pile has been added called ' moved out DS2's non redirected bills. Them it's DHs job to brave the filing cabinet which I abandoned long ago on account of his incomprehensible filing system. Having says that he can always find what we need in it.
When people come round I hide my piles in various cupboards.
Beachy your wasp story is making me twitchy. I sleep under the eaves at home.....
After a protracted text conversation I have forgiven ConS and we are having a meeting on Tuesday. HerrD who is hiding behind him might have to brave my wrath for a little longer...
Having brekky with DD on the harbour. Sun is out. Lovely jubbly.

Rose, that sounds delightful.

The sun has just come out here so I have hung the washing out in hope. DH is now painting the wall after he has filled in the plaster damage. We might have the new curtain pole up tonight. We have a very large front garden surrounded by tall conifers, but I still feel exposed sitting with the lights on when it's dark outside, if you see what I mean.

I have just made MrsS's almond cake again, this time with the poppy seeds. I am a bit disconcerted to see that they look like flea eggs (Nucat had a big problem)!

I hate to tell you this NU, but the black bits aren't flea EGGS. They're flea SHIT. The eggs are white.

OMG, Herbs, I am now hyperventilating. At least it does mean that Nucat has less of a problem than I thought.... (And I can happily eat the cake)!

We have fleas

NU, I'm sorry I'm being so hopeless re the piece I'm meaning to talk to you about - life slightly on top of me at the moment.