The Bluestocking - Invoking Split Pea Annexe B

[Magpiecomplex]

Welcome all, pull up a gerbil and make yourself comfortable!

If it helps this is a tale from over 35 years ago (and God does that realisation suddenly make me feel very very old)...

Also, No idea if they made tea for anyone else at the time.

I can't quite remember the tea conveyor belt set up all that years later, but you'll get the gist.

So, right at the very top of the building there were some fixed windows and the glass panels were starting to come away from the frames. We were sent up with a ladder, a hand brush, and a large floor brush and dustpan (way too big, heavy and cumbersome to take up a ladder) and some tubes of mastic to fix the issue before the glass fell on someone's head.

So I go up the ladder, use the hand brush to brush off many years worth of accumulated dust, dirt and dead flies and spiders etc. No dustpan to go with the brush so I just brush it off to land on the floor.

I cut the top off a tube of mastic which as these things tend to do flies off somewhere. Mastic up the window and move onto the next. There are two of us doing this and it's a massive room.

It's only when we have finished the entire room that the pair of us realised that a lot of the crap, and the dead flies and spiders and a fair few mastic tube tops we'd let drop to the floor had entered the tea supply chain.

Because the floor had been closed off whilst we were up there (and we were outside contractors) we hadn't realised that the great big hole in the middle of the rooms floor was were they emptied the tea into huge open funnels that went to the next floor down into various containers and conveyor belts etc down in the packaging facility below.

Looking down I could see there was actual tea in the container below and I could spot quite a few mastic tops.

My boss wouldn't let me tell anyone and by the time I got down to the next floor the container had already been moved to the next stage anyway as they'd started everything back up again.

I often wonder how many complaints they got in the next few months from their loose tea drinkers about dead flies, dead spiders and mastic tube tops in their 99 tea.

Why can I imagine @Boiledbeetle getting whacked out of her head on this?

I can't do nail varnish. I can do my left fingers but the only reason that I have a left hand is to make me look symmetrical. My left hand is an ornament and could no more paint my right hand nails than it could build a reflective telescope.

🙃 I've had, from someone elses packet the odd definitely dodgy brushed up of the floor somewhere cigarette that the second you light it you know is knock off. They are awful.

How people can smoke them regularly is beyond me. And I say that as a hardened smoked for over 40 years smoker.

Elf and safety was clearly not your bosses priority lol

Thank you, @Boiledbeetle , for the detailed explanation. At least it was a one-off event, although there might easily be ways of flies and dust getting into the containers anyway.

Link only for those with strong stomachs.

This reminds me of a colleague's description of peppermint tea (when a visitor rashly requested it)..."A Polo mint and some floor sweepings".

Laugh emoji needed again.

😂

I know 'tea' has a variety of meanings, but if you're expecting 'a cup of tea' and you get a tisane or an infusion.....😨

The dairy industry is gatekeeping the word 'milk' so you can't have 'almond milk' or 'oat milk' any more - I don't know if there's a derogation for coconuts and dandelions - otherwise how can you tell people the cure for their warts, if fasting spit hasn't worked, if you can't say 'dandelion milk'?😁

If I had my way, they'd do the same with 'tea'. There's tea, and anything else is an infusion or a tisane. So there😠

You’re right Marie.
I’ve just had my regulation 2 mugs of tea with milk and am onto my coffee. Proper freshly ground coffee with whole milk. After which I really need to get off my arse and do some housework.

+☕=👌= ?
oh look, there's no emoji for housework, surprise surprise
Forza, Errol! I should get offline and do some tidying too...

There’s 🧺 🧹 🧽 and 🪴more or less cover it. To be followed by 🧳 for a short break in north wales.

I've been wandering about in a less well-known rural area today. The little museum in a local town had a VE Day display in its front window, featuring...

Glad somebody noticed. Not me, Eir, broadband down for three and a half days. Jolly annoying.

On the good side, they have a designated line for very old people to complain on that gets you to a pleasant young person fairly quickly. Downside, there's sod all the pleasant young person can do beyond give reassurance that the fault is at their end not at the customer's.

It would be cynical to suggest that the repair crews probably get paid a bit extra for working on Saturdays, so they might have stretched the crisis out a bit. Just as well they probably all had something to do tomorrow.

Speaking of poor woebegone cats, Oscar had to visit the vet this morning. I'm told his heart and lungs sound fine and the racking cough for the far side of the room that's been waking me up at night probably is just extra bad hairballs, so he's had some cat laxative. Such a glamorous life I lead.

I've been trying to catch on on the Bluestocking and the penis obsession thread.

Sadly ahistorical - Sir Boyd Tunnocks didn’t invent the eponymous teacake until 1956.

PS the vet weighed Bocco Boo Boo - I'm glad because I thought he seemed a bit scrawny. The vet reckoned 6.2 kilos wasn't cause for worry.

for a short break in north wales.

In 1988 the milkman kissed me for the first time at the top of a castle in North Wales .

I feel your pain, Deano. I've been pretty ill all week, and I seem to be turning a corner, and was looking forward to a quiet weekend to get rested and recover some strength.

This just happens to be a day when a neighbour decides he's going to play extremely loud jungle music for hours on end. So much for the relaxing destressing weekend. He's been playing it since lunchtime, and I'm now starting to feel like Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom.

That sentence could be read in several different ways!

It was actually very sweet.

I was 16 he was 21.

We'd been going out a couple of weeks and all we'd done was hold hands.

We went out for the day, went to a lake then went to a castle.

And when we were at the top of the castle looking out at the most amazing view he kissed me for the first time.

That moment will forever have a place in my heart.

Good to hear from you Deano, sorry about the comms probs - Eir are a fecking nightmare, I left them years ago, they still owe me hundreds of euro for switching my phone package to a more expensive one without telling me. Twice.

At least the cats seem to be doing OK, bar the hairballs..

I had a fox visitor in the garden the other day who was scratching itself vigorously all the time and I thought 'Poor wee sionnach rua has the mange!'

Sorry poor human Sionnach Rua hasn't been well either, hopefully not the mange Get well soon

Anybody who has been following the penis thread is made of of sterner stuff than me, it deviated into some astonishing corners of gastronomy and animal husbandry😱

That's an 'awwwwww' moment from you, Boily😘

I've deviated the penis thread a bit more with a fungus pic.

Thanks for that, I won't even let my imagination go there

I didn't realise the penis thread was still extant, and found myself reading about ladybird willies instead!

La la la la la