That's one thing I want to have once the conservatory is installed and I can view the back garden properly is to have a bird feeder, cat proof preferably.
Posts by Heero Yuy
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Unfrozen some stewing lamb, looks like neck, quickly browned in a pan with a little oil. Some plain flour combined with a little water in a saucepan. Added celery (Frozen stock) onion and carrot. Mint, mixed herbs and a bay leaf. A shot of dark soy and red wine. Seasoning with (lo) salt and pepper. Put in the lamb and topped up with lamb stock made from a cube. Now set to slow cook, covered on the hob and with a diffuser for 3 hours or so until very tender.
If the gravy needs thickening for serving I'll add some cornflour mixed with water.
Will do roast taters, parsnips, steamed broccoli and sprouts.
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Superb down here too. Just spent a pleasant time in the local's beer garden with a couple of cool pints. It's only 13C but with little breeze and strong sun it was really warm. Forecast this week is more of the same and climbing temperatures.
Time to break out the shorts. -
We had several hours of sunshine on Wednesday but otherwise it's been grey. Not too cold and very little wind.
Just over a week to BST
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Definitely have to make sure there's no chance of interruptions.
Well it had the potential to kill the PC but I've put the side covers back on and it's still working!
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The ones I got seemed to flourish well enough despite the teabags. I think they're mostly grown locally in the Rustington area (about 5 miles to the West of Worthing). There's acres of glasshouses that way and several large garden centres.
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You observed a good few postings back that the "teabags" on the B & Q plants stopped the roots spreading out. I've uprooted some of the dead plants in a trough and that's exactly true. No roots outside the bags. I'll probably get plants from B & Q again this year as they seem good and the plastic trays are recyclable but I'll remove or slit the "teabags" before planting out.
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In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Theresa May made a momentous choice. After a day of acrimonious debate in her cabinet and inner circle, the prime minister decided that she was willing to take Britain out of the EU without a deal.
At Thursday’s European Council meeting in Brussels, EU diplomats wondered whether Mrs May was bluffing, but those close to the prime minister said if she cannot secure her Brexit deal she is determined the UK should embark on a no-deal exit.
Since announcing on Wednesday that she would ask EU leaders for a short extension to the bloc’s Article 50 process — to delay Brexit from March 29 to June 30 — people who have spoken to the prime minister said she is reconciled to the implications of what happens if the UK parliament continues to reject her withdrawal agreement.
“The mood has hardened on no deal,” said one person close to the prime minister. One Eurosceptic Conservative MP who met Mrs May on Wednesday night said: “She didn’t seem concerned about leaving with no deal.”Unfortunately this is behind a paywall but I wonder how true this is?
Might we really be on our way at last?
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Removed some of the fleece that's been protecting things. I have chives and tarragon coming up in the herb planter and a pot. Some begonias in a couple of pots that I thought had been mullered are actually sprouting from the roots so less things needed for the summer.
It'll be interesting to see what else has survived seeing as we never had any severe frost down here over the winter.
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Well she's off to Brussels with the begging bowl now.
MORE?!!!!!
Let's hope it's very thin gruel.
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Only took a few hours to copy my film library to the new 2T drive which is exclusively for HD films, nearly 400 GBytes of stuff but drive to drive internally much faster than off the USB drive as that's only a USB 2.0 port on the PC. I'll delete the films bit by bit as and when I need the space on the smaller 1/2T drive.
This is now dedicated to series, images, music and a torrent buffer.
Copied GoT season 7 off the USB drive and onto the PC as the smart TV is much happier accessing the media server on my network than an external USB drive. (Its media player sometimes crashes) Ready for a binge watch when we have a spare weekend.
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It'll probably be sneaked into highly processed rubbish like ready meals. "Other meats" covers a multitude of sins.
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Dry cracked feet is an unsightly beauty hang-up that can typically be sorted with any old foot buffer and some bogstandard moisturiser.
But now one devoted wife has taken matters to all new extremes after she filmed herself buffing her husband's "ogre-like" feet with a Black and Decker POWER TOOL.
Jodie Richardson, 28, first started giving her husband this baffling weekly treatment after the pair first moved to the Canary Islands from Newcastle.
Swapping trainers for flip flops played havoc with 47-year-old Taz's feet and the PR officer quickly began suffering with uncomfortable cracked heels.
He said: "I wear flip flops to work because it's really hot here and they make the skin on my feet hard."
Horrified by the state of Taz's "Shrek"-like feet, Jodie initially tried to help her husband out by buffing them herself.
But what should have been a quick task instead turned into HOURS of scrubbing and Jodie began brainstorming a more effective way to deal with Taz's problem... in the form of a power tool pedicure.
I guess with the right grade of grit it's a way.
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Meat grown in a lab could be on supermarket shelves in five years.
Experts say the texture is best suited to burgers and sausages but predict steak and bacon rashers will not be far behind.
Dr Marianne Ellis, of Bath University, said stem cells taken from pigs or cows will grow if given glucoses, amino acid, vitamins and minerals.
The key now is learning to produce enough and bring down costs.
She said: “The UK really is one of the key players globally on the scale-up.
“In terms of when we’re likely to see it in the supermarkets, probably the most advanced company is predicting four to five years.”
Think I'd still want "real" meat but I suppose if the price is right people will buy it.
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SSD for my main drive too. Far, far better than a normal drive.
One of the best upgrades I ever made on that machine. That's why I had one on my HP 450 probook laptop for the OS and apps. I can use a USB bulk drive for the data. Also reasonably drop proof, a must on a lappy.
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We still have to binge watch Season 7. At the moment it's on a USB drive but as the "Smart" TV isn't to bright on those (Its player can crash) I'll transfer it to the media server now I have the space, ready to watch before Season 8 is available on downloads. Don't want ad breaks.
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Still have Win7 and no intention to change that anytime in the near future.
What many people don't know was that after the debacle that was Vista MS reworked XP SP3 and called it windows 7. On my i3 HP lappy I have W7 Professional but with classic shell to give back the XP look and "feel".
CPU on my main/media PC is AMD Sempron. (Athlon 64 core) old but with the system and apps on an SSD is still a very usable machine. I also need to support some old legacy 16bit DOS programs for various clients and XP serves this purpose .
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Fitted the PCI card but then had a days search on the net to find a suitable driver for XP. Card mfr is no more (Microcompter Research, Peterborough) and I couldn't find a specific driver for the card out there. Eventually I got a generic one for the SATA/RAID controller chip that's on the card. System is happy with it.
I still had an issue with the PSU cutting out so I pulled the box and found what I expected: Duff bulging capacitors. I replaced 4 eventually that read no value on my test meter. PC booted quite happily, XP found the drive and mounted it. Now partitioned and formatted ready for data.
Hadn't quite banked on so much faffing about, still it's done now and there's a spare bay, SATA channel and cables for the next expansion. A little cable tidying inside is needed and I'm not putting the covers back on until it's been re-booted several times. Still I did take the opportunity to clean out the accumulated dust inside.
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That almost guarantees that Brexit will be delayed and wont happen on March 29th, at least its made some people happy.
I don't think that's the case Ron. Unless the EU agree to an extension of A50 it happens as it is cast in UK statute. Bercow by his actions has effectively ruled out bringing the A50 bill back to parliament for a second vote.
Why would the EU agree when there's no change in the "deal". They (the EU) have ruled out opening up fresh negotations on the "deal" many times so nothing would be achieved by an extension, even if it could be forced through parliament in the short time available.
Given the games being played I can't see anything significant happening in the next week or so that will stop a proper exit and a final end to uncertainty. At least I hope so, I for one am totally fed up with Brexit not being honoured.
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Quite a few Tory politicians are saying they still won't vote for it, and I can't see Labour or the SNP voting for it, so there is still hope.
Fingers crossed.
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Crackling was superb, mind you with my dodgy teeth I had to be careful that is was pork and not tooth that I was crunching into, five spice in the rub really came through. Meat was nice too. I've sliced the remainder up, wrapped in cling film* and frozen it for another time. Either re-heat or diced into noodles with some other veggies like onion and peppers for a quick meal.
* I double wrap so that it's film to film in the layers. That way it's easy to just take a slice or two and simply peal the film off each side.
I do the same for bacon, ham, beef etc. Ideal when you can pick up reduced bargain sliced meats from the deli. Great for a quick snack in a deli roll.
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I'm sure that if a royal needed your kidneys or else you would be sacrificed by the establishment.
I don't trust them at all.
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Picked up a small (~900g) pork loin crackling joint on Friday reduced from £5.98 to £2.89. Going to roast it later, salt treat the rind for 30 mins to draw out the moisture and then a second salting with some Chinese 5 spice added for extra flavour and killer crackling.
Nothing else special here just roasted as per the pack instructions. Served with some Bramley apple sauce as well as gravy. Selection of roasted and steamed veggies. I'll use about half for our dinner and then slice and freeze the rest for other meals.
Some time since we had roast pork so a nice little treat.
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It's been windy, dull and drizzly all day so far. Not too cold though out of the wind.
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You don't need brains to be a Boss.
When the body was first created, all the parts wanted to be Boss. The brain said, "I should be Boss because I control all of the body's responses and functions."
The feet said, "We should be Boss since we carry the brain about and get him to where he wants to go."
The hands said, "We should be the Boss because we do all the work and earn all the money."
Finally, the asshole spoke up. All the parts laughed at the idea of the asshole being the Boss. So, the asshole went on strike, blocked itself up and refused to work.
Within a short time, the eyes became crossed, the hands clenched, the feet twitched, the heart and lungs began to panic, and the brain fevered. Eventually, they all decided that the asshole should be the Boss, so the motion was passed. All the other parts did all the work while the Boss just sat and passed out the shit!
Moral Of The Story: You don't need a brain to be a Boss----any asshole will do.
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So, the government will now go for an extension to Article 50.
Kick the can down the road again and destroy democracy still further.
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Single pies but they are a decent size and properly filled. AFAIK they're the same ones that you get at the chippy or the footy.
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Are these the pies that come in tins
Indeed they are. Don't fancy them at all. I'll stick to home-made or Pukka pies when available at a decent price. Currently £1 a pop at Sainsbury's 'till next Tuesday. Freezable and also cook from frozen. Stock up while you can.
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For 140 years, Fray Bentos has been the leading Scottish pie maker. Now, it finally has its first vegan offering.
The new pie, the Vegetarian Balti, which launches this week at Morrisons and B&M stores nationwide, is a spicy puff pastry filled with potatoes, onion, pepper, tomato, carrot, and peas.
There's something so wrong about this. Fray Bentos is synonymous with meat pies.
I didn't realise these are made in Scotland, with the name I thought they came from somewhere like Argentina.
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Little effort required here.
