nordmann, thank you very much again for your in depth analysis. And in a well constructed message...I learned a lot from it. A bit envious of you, although I know I will never have the intellectual baggage you have. Nor the splendid use of the English language. I can only do my best ...

Kind regards, Paul.

The teacher of Spanish from the U3A Spanish group I attend (in normal circumstances) has emailed members of the class asking if we can download Zoom.  I had Zoom on the laptop that was stolen though I seem to remember there was a problem when we tried to use it (another group for something else not Spanish, not U3A - I have used Skype though).  I suppose it's worth trying Zoom as a workaround.

I forgot yesterday to ask...

And how it is nowadays with the Lady in retirement?

Kind regards from Paul.

I could not get into the site before _ the screen on my laptop died after Zoom meeting on Thursday so am using phone and still learning the phone and making loads oftyping mistakes but I may still read the comments on REs Hist even if I don't comment as much. Keep well everyone.

.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I could not get into the site before _ the screen on my laptop died after Zoom meeting on Thursday so am using phone and still learning the phone and making loads oftyping mistakes but I may still read the comments on REs Hist even if I don't comment as much. Keep well everyone.

.

Thank you so much LiR for the update.
And I am so glad that you are well.
Temperance said it too...one dare not dream that one lost the computer and no links with internet anymore...
I haven't even a phone to reach the internet...only a GSM (and they sell them now here as "senioren klaptelefoon" (they translate by seniores flip telephone)  to sell more expensif smartphones and to let look all the remaining GSM users as dumb with that goal?...)
But ultimately I have as rescue an I-pad Apple with wifi to my housenet...but difficult for me to type on as I type with ten fingers and used to a keyboard...on that flat screen and the letters close to each other...have already the experience...

And of course dear lady, kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

I haven't even a phone to reach the internet...only a GSM (and they sell them now here as "senioren klaptelefoon" (they translate by seniores flip telephone)  to sell more expensif smartphones and to let look all the remaining GSM users as dumb with that goal?...)

Eeee but by 'eck tha's in luxury!



Seriously though ... I don't even have a fixed line telephone connection and haven't had one since July last year (when the line went down during a thunderstorm, and Orange have subsequently refused to repair it because it's too expensive, or so they say, although they still continued to take my monthy payments) ... and there's no mobile phone coverage here either ... oh, and there's no ADSL cable here either, so I have to have my own, very expensive, independent satellite connection ... which doesn't always work either.

Mind you, the neighbour a bit further up the valley, isn't even connected to the mains electricity grid - they have their own hydro-electric turbine in the river. This has it's limitations but it does, mostly, work ... and he may well be laughing at all the rest of us when the whole electricity system collapses.

Quote :

Meles melesSeriously though ... I don't even have a fixed line telephone connection and haven't had one since July last year (when the line went down during a thunderstorm, and Orange have subsequently refused to repair it because it's too expensive, or so they say, although they still continued to take my monthy payments), and there's no mobile phone coverage here either ... oh, and there's no cable here so I'm oblged to I have my own, very expensive, independent satellite connection ... which doesn't always work either.

Mind you, the neighbour isn't even connected to the mains electricity grid - he has his own hydro-electric turbine in the river. It has it's limitations but it does, mostly, work ... and he may well be laughing at all the rest of us when the whole electricity system collapses.

 
MM, 

in the childhood, and because the grandmother was a merchant (most people hadn't one)



And about the 4 Yorkshire boys...
Lucky that the Yorkshiremen didn't speak dialect and that there were subtitles...
It reminds me about the jokes of my childhood...
You have four men: a Belgian, a Hollander, a German and an American...they are boasting against each other, who had in their country for instance the biggest airplane...of course at the end the American...but along the talking some "stereotyping" of the others too...

And yes, MM, I just realized again where you reside, there in your neck of the woods, there in the South of France, near the Spanish/Catalan border.
 
Kind regards from Paul.

PS: and I hope you have good "satelllite" technician in your neigbouring "village"?, town?, city?...MM, I don't want to be inpertinent and don't answer if you don't want on these inpertinent questions of mine...you know me now after all those years...

I have an excellent sateliite technician, Paul, ... it's me! I installed the whole system, mounted the antenna and 'pointed' it correctly, and generally got it all working. Although to be fair on a couple of occasions when I've had software problems I have given access, remotely, to the techy boys in Strasbourg, Nantes, Bordeaux or wherever they are, to tinker with my PC, and they've always done a good job too.

Meles meles wrote:

I have an excellent sateliite technician, Paul, ... it's me! I installed the whole system, mounted the antenna and 'pointed' it correctly, and generally got it all working. Although to be fair on a couple of occasions when I've had software problems I have given access, remotely, to the techy boys in Strasbourg, Nantes, Bordeaux or wherever they are, to tinker with my PC, and they've always done a good job too.

MM, and even in that field...chapeau...we say "van alle markten thuis" and they translate by: jack-of-all-trades, but when I search for that word:
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/jack-of-all-trades
they say:
If you refer to someone as a jack-of-all-trades, you mean that they are able to do a variety of different jobs. You are also often suggesting that they are not very good at any of these jobs.
and that is just the contrary of what I meant...

I hope we can in the future have whatever link to make connections via this nordmann Norwegian board

Kind regards from Paul.

And having not heard that much about the lady in retirement the last days and knowing that she had difficulties with her laptop screen and condamned now to type on such a stupid smartphone small screen, I feel with her. And there confined by the recent plague in that big house alone...

Just a thought: As the desktop is now old fashioned (the granddaughter says that they will at the end become more expensive again as "vintage")
refurbished ones becomes cheaper. (And BTW that old fashioned Paul still works with it)
I had a look on the internet in our area
https://www.remarkt.nl/computer-monitor.html?price=100-150
And even available overhere from the "bond gepensioneerden"(association of retirees?) via subscription. Or perhaps via a "social association"?

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul I still read the site but only for a few minutes. I still don't know all the smart stuff my smart phone can do but I know more than I did a couple of weeks ago.  I used the laptop to join a Zoom meeting on Thursday but 4 inches or so of the screen was greyed out on the left.  I've done a bit of far from expert sewing and have also been familiarising myself with the microwave.  I've had microwaves before but never used the grill/combi setting.  The leader of the french U3A group emailed me and asked if I'd like them to get me some stuff so I accepted so I have enough to be going on with
 After the bank holiday I will contact the council who are organising a scheme of volunteers to do shopping for the elderly and for vulnerable folk of all ages.
Stay well everyone and have as good an easter break as is feasible in the circumstances.

Thank you very much for this comforting update Lady in Retirement.

Kind regards from Paul.

Already watching some days the BBC series : The Musketeers...Not bad...not bad...But yes nowadays and perhaps in my time (the Fifties) in Belgium, it would be "kinderen toegelaten/enfants admis" (children allowed)...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04ww8fq/episodes/player?page=1

Sadly we can not watch the I player outside the UK. But it is perhaps better, now I can watch it each time apart and with Dutch subtitles (on BBC entertainement)...
As I see it it is the third series, today the fifth episode:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07c173d

And I found on the internet about the third series:



Not bad, not bad at all...

PS. And again wondering how it could be with our "lady in retirement"...

Kind regards, Paul.

Welcome back Normanhurst...

All those remembrances...the hospital and all that...how is it now with you?...

Kind regards, from Paul.

Yes, it's nice to see some people back to the board who hadn't posted for a while.  I'd say the house where I live is medium sized, Paul.  It's not a mansion though I have a fair-sized garden (ribbon development between the two world wars though the field at the back of my part of the ribbon has been built on for many years.  The part of the ribbon across the road still backs on to a field/fields but that's because of the river flood plain not because anybody thought 'Oh, what lovely green fields'.)

I had a parcel of staples delivered from the County Council today (it's a scheme they run but it's up to a person to contact them - or a family member or neighbour or social worker of a person).  They asked if I had any dietary requirements and I said yes, vegetarian and coeliac.  I didn't know ham spam and chicken broth and pea and ham soup were vegetarian!! but it is free so I am not going to complain as it was given with a good and kind heart.  I think it is a one-off though - very vulnerable people may get a repeat.  Still it will keep me going for a while - there were some tins and veg and fruit and fresh apples and bananas with eggs and milk (although I have a milk delivery)and I have about three tins of veg and some fresh (well fresh last Friday) potatoes, onions and bananas.  I am out of spices so may see if it's possible to order them online.  I have to watch my salt consumption and some of the veg can  be a bit bland without flavouring.  Sorry I've gone on a bit.  Someone is bringing me some cat food tonight (someone I know not a council employee).

I see reference to 'The Musketeers' above.  I saw some of it.  I think they have changed the novel(s).  It's a goodly while since I read any of 'The Musketeers' but I think Constance (Coustance?) was bumped off in the books but the character was still alive in some of the later seasons of the series.  The lady who played Queen Anne in the version of the 'Musketeers' above had smallish roles in a couple of my guilty pleasures 'Game of Thrones' and 'Merlin'.  Still, Dumas took some liberties with historical D'Artagnan - if the lady who writes the blog 'Party Like 1660 ' is to be believed - I used to look at that blog when 'Versailles' the TV show as on (another guilty pleasure) to check how accurate the show was - the programme took some liberties with history but it was well acted (in my opinion at least).

Thank you so much, LiR, for another update, there in your neck of the wood, and the desrciption of your "mansion".
I am glad that things are rather well with you, given the circumstances in which we live nowadays.

As for the "musketeers" thanks also for your "take". I wanted to expand in an apart thread, not so much about the musketeers, who played outside the novel of Alexandre Dumas not an important role in geopolitics, but the figure heads were a Cardinal Richelieu, a Louis XIII, a Charles I, all machiavellists. A Richelieu, who didn't care to "work" with the Turks as it suited him. And then you had the perhaps even better Cardinal Mazarin. For instance I haven't understood why a Charles I after, if I recall it well, a rapprochement with France and certainly no Puritan Protestant (rather a Catholic leaning one?), then turned coats with supporting the Huguenots in La Rochelle. A pragmatist as his father-in-law Henry IV (Paris vaut bien une messe), a "Bismarck real politik" avant la lettre? Or was the situation more complex?...but yes that is for the new thread...

Kind regards from Paul.

'Staples' above meant basic food supplies of course though I"m sure folk knew that (well food and a couple of loo rolls!).

LadyinRetirement wrote:

'Staples' above meant basic food supplies of course though I"m sure folk knew that (well food and a couple of loo rolls!).

 
LiR, glad that you explained it, while that one from the Belgian "folk" didn't understand it. I could guess it, and I understood that it couldn't be the first meaning of staple
https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/staple_1
 
PS: In the weekly command to our local supermarket that they bring at home without charge (fee?) I always include a pack of loo rolls, you never know. As my partner and I don't want to go back to the "ancient" method of paper cutted from advertisement papers...

Kind regards from Paul.

I'm jogging along okay at present though I haven't got through all the chores both household and intellectual I want to do.  I can't use my ironing board at present (why when one thing goes wrong do several others go wrong also?).  If I'm to do any work from home I need a laptop with a fully functioning screen really.  I don't mind having a go at fixing a new screen to the appliance (though I'd have to send off for one first) but I don't want to tinker with my laptop unless I can reactivate one of old ones.  I was going to mention about the American people protesting about the coronavirus restrictions (have they a death wish?) but I see it's already been mentioned on another thread.  When Temp mentioned some time back about the handmaid's tale being a possible foreshadowing of us entering into a dystopian world I thought she was being unduly pessimistic but now I think maybe she had something.  Of course not all Americans are the "thick necks" as Paul calls them but there is a sizeable minority who are.  I worried about some citizens of that country being very open to believing conspiracy theories but we've had people in England (and I acknowledge that this matter has been mentioned on another thread) try to burn 5G masts.  I don't know why people will believe some random person on YouTube - and it's not always stupid people who go 'down the rabbit hole'*.  Not much I can do about it though.

Looking at the picture of the old phone upthread, I was using a late 1970s phone until 2012 when I hooked up to the internet at home (well a BT engineer hooked me up) and I acquired a more modern phone.

* In case anyone from overseas is a bit puzzled the phrase 'down the rabbit hole' means in this context to be sucked in by conspiracy theories - it's an allusion to Alice falling down a rabbit hole in the  book Alice in Wonderland.

Temp wrote:

Quote :

You are not well; I am grumpy and bored; and most of us are no doubt going slowly bonkers as we contemplate the next few weeks. We need Res His (sans huffs) for our herd sanity.

"Wire Happy" is the phrase, Temp.

Guests of the Third Reich

Have you been to Markies yet? If not, then you should. Get some retail therapy. I was at M&S at 9 this morning. No queues, in fact there were more staff than customers. Loaded up with goodies and was back home shortly after 10am
Lunch today consisted of a bowl of King Prawn Bucatini, followed by an individual sherry trifle and a conference pear. Then a good walk in the sunshine. Lockdown is easy.

Television isn't really up to much, so this week I will be watching 50s Sci-Fi:

Last night's viewing, Them 1954:

If you're into schlock/horror and 1950s sci fi this channel on YouTube is a veritable kryptonite mine at the moment.

Cult Cinema Classics

Not sure how Shirley Temple fits into the above categories, but they have her too. And this was my own highlight in yesterday's viewing schedule, a very strange 1961 thespian outing for a young Johnny Cash (who amid the histrionics, crappy dialogue and over-acting engaged in by everyone else in the cast comes across as an actor of Gielgud status) where the plot, such as it is, hinges on hoodlums who obligingly run a door-to-door murder business.

Sherry trifle? Sherry trifle? Oh, Trike, I thought you were cruel last week with your M&S Chocolate Fudge Egg taunts, but a mention of sherry trifle is beyond the pale. At least you didn't post a picture.

I may venture out to M&S next week. Like MM (and others?), apart from my walks, I have been nowhere and only spoken (or shouted across the required two metres) to other villagers since a couple of weeks before the lockdown. I actually got the Spanish Inquisition from the Corona Neighbourhood Watch last night - people I have never met before who wanted to know if I was "on holiday". I told them I was staying at an Air B&B down the other end of the village - a longish vacation that was now in its 24th year. That shut them up. Another chap - one of a gay couple who always wave and chat as I go past their cottage - said I must have walked miles over the past few weeks. I told him that if this lockup lasted for 100 days  I should have walked to Manchester. He did make me laugh - he simply said: "But what on earth do you want to do that for? You'll only have to walk all the way back."

Nearly time for the daily trudge now - I should get to the outskirts of Taunton this evening. It's going to be a glorious twilight here, even without sherry trifle.

PS I had never heard of "wire happy" before - thought it was a modern expression connected to the TV series The Wire ( a programme that I found utterly baffling). But no. Just googled it, and stumbled on this rather interesting discussion - although your link is better. I suppose Res His is our Barbed Wire University!

Barbed Wire Disease

PPS Didn't go on my walk tonight. I'm weeding my cobbles and actually having a lovely time listening to the blackbirds. They always sing their hearts out at this time of the day. Still thinking about sherry trifle though - that's probably going to be the incentive for my escape bid - perhaps tomorrow.








I

Temperance after my fifty years contact with the English language, intensified the last 18 years by the "fora" I had nevertheless to seek for the noun "trudge"...
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/trudge

Kind regards from Paul.

PS: You can't always weed your cobbles"
PPS: You have to be fit at your age to do that daily "trudge"...thirty eight?...

I've managed to get my printer to print again but my mobile phone (android) has stopped rotating to landscap   viewe and is set to allow auto-rotate. So I don't know ehat is amiss.  It's not a brand new phone of course. Did anyone see the item where the manager of an Australian supermarket had declined to take returns from someone who had denuded the shelves of loo rolls.  The man who purchased them was having difficulty selling them because Australia was stopping people ship things over state lines and Ebay had closed the profiteer's shop I think because of his greed.

Paul wrote:

PPS: You have to be fit at your age to do that daily "trudge"...

The irony is that I - like many other people - am possibly going to end up fitter at the end of all this (if we survive, that is) than I have been for ages - simply because we are all determined to get out for that allowed hour of exercise a day. Funny how when something is forbidden it becomes something you want to do! I normally do regular exercise/dance classes for fun, but but nothing really strenuous or demanding. I  am actually very lazy about cardio work: even manic gardening doesn't really count unless you are digging or otherwise regularly getting out of breath. Walking at a moderate pace every day, on the other hand, is really excellent for heart health, and I am now walking at least three miles a day - sometimes more -  out of sheer boredom. I feel really pleased if I do a sneaky two hours rather than just the permitted one - and so have outwitted the Corona Watch! Wildest, most authority-defying thing I've done in decades! I am actually enjoying it, so "trudge", with its connotation of "miserable slog", was the wrong word. I'm just so lucky I live where walking is a pleasure - I'm noticing flora and fauna (are birds fauna?) I've never been aware of before.

PS One for MM - the house martins (or are they swallows or swifts?) are back!! Saw about twenty swooping about last night! Joy! (Hence all the exclamation marks.)

Temperance wrote:

I feel really pleased if I do a sneaky two hours rather than just the permitted one - and so have outwitted the Corona Watch! Wildest, most authority-defying thing I've done in decades! I am actually enjoying it, so "trudge", with its connotation of "miserable slog", was the wrong word. I'm just so lucky I live where walking is a pleasure - I'm noticing flora and fauna (are birds fauna?) I've never been aware of before.

Temperance,

Temperance wrote:
"so "trudge", with its connotation of "miserable slog", was the wrong word"

The same in French and Dutch, Temperance, as I see it: "une marche pénible". The most neutral translation that I find in Dutch is "trektocht" (hike, trek, backpacking)...

PS: When I just entered, Temperance, it was to edit in my yesterday's message the sentence "PPS: You have to be fit at your age to do that daily "trudge"...thirty eight?..." without "thirty eight"...
I find it a bit "misplaced" now...you know me...writing before thinking...sorry...

Kind regards from Paul.

I donned a facemask, registered my déplacement dérogatoire on the government website, and ventured out to the supermarket yesterday afternoon. I actually didn't want to go as I'm quite happy in isolation at home, although I realise that I am incredibly fortunate to have a big garden and to be living out in the country, rather than being stuck inside, in a small flat, in a city. I had enough food for me to last at least a couple more weeks, but I was nearly out of tinned cat food: I'd still got plenty of croquettes but my three do like a lump of juicy 'Whiskers' on top.

Temp, you mentioned a liking for broccoli and having run out. Had you thought about growing it: now's the time to get it sown? You could plant it amongst the flowerbeds or in pots and tubs if you haven't got, or don't want, un vrai  potager.

Without the distraction of guests I've been in full 'Dig for Victory' mode this year with seedlings taking over all the dining-room window sills and potatoes 'chitting' in egg boxes in one of the bedrooms. Even with all the DIY and garden centres shut I've managed to increase the amount of land under cultivation by building two more raised beds using planks (and screws) taken from some old disused decking. These I've now filled with home-made compost, sieved soil and old horse manure scavanged during my daily walks. My broad beans should be ready to start picking in a few weeks and I've got a few leeks still growing from a spring 2019 sowing; lettuces, onions, beetroots and carrots are all sprouting, and I finally got my main-crop potatoes planted at the weekend. Tomato, pepper, courgette and pumpkin seedlings are hardening off and will be ready to plant out in a week or so, then they'll be aubergines, swedes and brussels sprouts to pot on and plant out once the broan beans have finished, and then summer sowings of French beans. And they'll be summer fruits to pick too. All this gardening has kept me busy, kept me fittish, and will give loads of veggies, provided the dreaded slugs don't take too much, all for very little cost. If it wasn't for desperately needing the money, I could quite happily never have another guest ever again.

PS Temp: My house martens have been back about a month now and have been busy repairing their old nests under the eaves, so hopefully they'll be some babies soon. Also the cat's pregnant again. Oh and Doggy-Dog brought in another, or probably the same, live hedgehog a few days ago: he doesn't hurt them and they eventually uncoil and wander off into the garden, but I do wish he wouldn't. But he ho, life goes on.

Sorry MM to interrupt your conversation with Temperance, but I had to seek about "marten" and that seems to be in Dutch "marter" that I thought to know. Although I am not sure anymore, because you have also "mink" and "weasel", but I will talk to you in the "café" (Tumbleweed Suite) about it...
Regards to both...

I think MM meant "house martin" which would be the Dutch "huiszwaluw" (as Temp spelled it in her own post).

A marten (with an "e") is indeed a mammal resembling a weazel or stoat as in the Dutch "marter".

Of course he could have been referring to weazels who are good at negotiating ladders ...

Crossed posts with Nordmann ... Yes Paul, you are correct, I spelled it marten and not martin. Mea culpa.

The birds making their nests under my roof and swooping around Temp's garden are martins (with an 'i') ... strictly house martins Delichon urbicum in Temp's case and the closely-related crag martin Ptyonoprogne rupestris for me (I think ... although the two species are very similar, both in appearance and in their behaviour).

Martens (with an 'e'), as you say, are related to weasels and stoats (ie slinky, squirrel/cat-like carnivorous mammals). There are pine martens, Martes martes, in the UK but they are very rare. They are rare too in the south of France however here we have the closely-related stone- or beech-marten, Martes foina, (called un fouine in French) and, as I live in a forest, I do very, very occasionally see them: they are not particularly rare but they are secretive and mostly only come out at night.

House martins (the birds) supposedly bring good luck when they choose to nest on your house ... martens (the mammals), should they ever get into your house, are seriously bad luck. They will eat, or at least chew, almost anything including electric cables, waterpipes and roof insulation, as well as robbing food stores, stealing fruit from trees and killing domestic poultry.

nordmann wrote:

If you're into schlock/horror and 1950s sci fi this channel on YouTube is a veritable kryptonite mine at the moment.

Cult Cinema Classics

A most useful link, Nordmann. There is a channel, Talking Pictures TV, which shows old movies, Jamaica Inn and the Sherlock Holmes films make regular appearances. Some of the others, I've never seen, so this will be handy as the lockdown continues.
Last night's was:

Temperance wrote:

PPS Didn't go on my walk tonight. I'm weeding my cobbles and actually having a lovely time listening to the blackbirds. They always sing their hearts out at this time of the day. Still thinking about sherry trifle though - that's probably going to be the incentive for my escape bid - perhaps tomorrow.

I first encountered the phrase "wire happy" in the film The Great Escape, Ives the Mole eventually cracks and tries to climb the fence in broad daylight. There was an episode of Colditz, where one of the inmates fakes the symptoms in order to be repatriated. The twist in the tale is that he genuinely becomes neurotic and is confined to an asylum when he eventually is sent home.

Walking's good, your car must doing about three months to the gallon. Time to get it loaded up with sherry trifles.

The new CWS is great. Richard Branson, Victoria Beckham and is that Philip Green? begging for handouts!!

Flying Officer Archibald Ives finally snaps:

Oops, MM, now I see...Paul.

Triceratops wrote:

Quote :

Walking's good, your car must doing about three months to the gallon. Time to get it loaded up with sherry trifles.

 
Trike, as it is new to me, we have perhaps similar, but not "that". You have also quite good stuff there over the Channel...



I have to say that the water came in the mouth watching this. And yes when I see all this preparation, it is for me! better to buy it in the "patisserie"...I hope that I don't twist the blade in the wound now for Temperance ...waiting another day...I will see if there is something similar available overhere...

PS: What I saw in the preparation is something similar to our (it seems to be "rolcake" in Dutch).  We say: "roleau" from the French "rouleau". MM you can imagine what I found on Google with that term...



Kind regards, Paul.

Whatever that picture is trying to represent - and I assume it's trying to be some sort of 'swiss-roll', which you wouldn't usually put in a trifle anyway - frankly it looks fairly bland, meh, even bleurrh, to me ... but chacun a son gout, an' all that.

Should you really want to try to understand trifle - although does anyone really understand trifle? Or even want to? - then I suggest a look at the discussion following the first post here: Dish of the Day page 9 ... "November 28, today is trifle day".

Good luck with that, but bon appertit nevertheless .

If you want to forget about Covid for half an hour switch on BBC4 at 7pm and watch the Joy of Painting.

Total chill out.

Reading the items above on the mobile phone, the text is very small and I misread Trike's entry above as the Joy of Fannings.  Fans do have an interesting history of course
One of my colleagues at the Natural History Museum went to the Fan Museum to draw some.  I also read "happy wire" as "happy wife".  Well there is a saying "happy wife, happy life" i.e. if your marital partner is content your life will be content.  I'm poodling along with everyday* tasks and have been doing my Spanish homework in preparation for the Zoom meeting tomorrow.  I know quite boring.
* And there's plenty more where they came from.

Oh I see it was actually "wire happy" but I'm not going to edit it on the small phone keypad.

Thanks MM for the reply and yes I spotted it on 28 November 2016. Thank you.
Kind regards from Paul.

Tell me, oh fellow Res Historians, does this make sense?  I rang the Borough Council to place an order for food today and was told that gluten free food wasn't 'on the list'.  I've sent an email querying this.  The volunteers do the shopping at the Co-op and I know the Co-op has a 'free from' section.  The chap  told me that dietary special requirements are dealt with by the Council - I rang the County Council and they said they only help with 'very vulnerable' people and those who are 'shielding' who have had a letter from the Government.  I've sent an email to the Borough again because I can't be the only person over 70 living in this local authority who is gluten intolerant. There is an assisted shopping line for the Co-op.  I could try that but of course it's close of office hours now.  I've sent an email to Age UK to ask if they have any suggestions.  I do realise that I am fortunate to receive any assistance but honestly you couldn't make it up.

One of the Baptist churches in the town has a list of volinteers shopping for folk in isolation so I've placed an order with them so should be getting something next week.  The volunteer brings a machine so I'll be able to pau 'off the card' .

Meles meles wrote:

Should you really want to try to understand trifle - although does anyone really understand trifle? Or even want to? - then I suggest a look at the discussion following the first post here: Dish of the Day page 9 ... "November 28, today is trifle day".

Such an interesting trifle conversation back in 2016. I'd forgotten all about it. Gosh, how happy and carefree we all were back then! Love Mrs.Beeton's preposterous trifle dishes.

Don't stifle the trifle indeed!

Still wondering about the all-important class question - is jelly in trifle a trifle vulgar, especially raspberry jelly?

And having pooh-poohed Paul's youtube with it's white swiss roll I was suddenly struck with doubt and am now a trifle uncertain as to its inclusion. The trouble is I just don't like trifle and haven't actually eaten any since childhood birthday parties, so I'm not the best person to consult.

Meles meles wrote:

And having pooh-poohed Paul's youtube with it's white swiss roll I was suddenly struck with doubt and am now a trifle uncertain as to its inclusion. The trouble is I just don't like trifle and haven't actually eaten any since childhood birthday parties, so I'm not the best person to consult.

Swiss roll in a trifle is most definitely an abomination, far more shocking than the occasional heresy of raspberry jelly. It has to be those proper "trifle sponge fingers", which should be split open, smeared lavishly with raspberry jam and then soaked in sweet sherry. Proper custard, cream and flaked almonds on top. This is trifle heaven.

Cranachan with whisky, honey, double cream and raspberries among the ingredients.

Trike, as I see it, not bad, not bad at all...



And yes Scottish...lucky that there are subtitles...is that Scottish? Or just another "strain" of the English language?

Kind regards, Paul.

MM, I met on distance yesterday a young couple passing along the street and from afar seeing my beautiful red-rose (purple?) azalea. More than a square meter of flowers. And they asked what kind of bush it was...I said that I didn't know it, but thinking after a while I said perhaps a rhodedendron???but wasn't really not sure about it...and after they left suddenly I remembered "azalea"...seeking on the web with Google (who else nowadays?)...I saw:



But then I saw that it was in fact a Rhodedendron...after further research on Belgian sites I saw that gardners made a difference between azalea and rhodedendrons...if you have a comment I will try to explain what they say is in their eyes the difference.

Secondly: a disaster (une catastrophe)
It has to be started I think when we were in Spain some month ago. All our buxusses are gone. Perhaps waited too long...the "buxusmot" (box tree caterpillar?)...I think it will be finished...some dozen... et en plus: two with a diameter of one meter...sigh...

PS: Busy on Passion Histoire with the "German Sonderweg". I didn't guess it would take that much time to  study it and make coherent and well founded contributions...

Kind regards, Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

And yes Scottish...lucky that there are subtitles...is that Scottish? Or just another "strain" of the English language?

Kind regards, Paul.

Subtitles??? Seriously???

Temp, M&S awaits. Couldn't see any sherry trifle this morning so had to settle for tiramisu. Chocolate fudge Easter Eggs on sale at £2 each.