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Betty LaRue

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A good ending to an issue with my opticians that started just before lockdown and has now finally been put to bed.

 

I stood on my glasses in early March and miraculously straightened them good enough to wear, just. A quick visit to the optician to order a replacement pair. I wasn't due for an eye test for a month, but there had been no change in my prescription for some time. There was a 2 for 1 offer on, so I ordered a pair with thinner light weight lenses and anti-glare coating, and the free pair with normal glass lenses and no coating. They were just to be my spare pair. Visited the opticians shortly afterwards to collect both pairs as advised, only the lighter pair with the AG coating were there. They advised the others would be ready next week, they weren't and they couldn't track them. Then lockdown happened.

 

Had my eye test last week, brought up the 2nd pair issue. Another issue re the eye test, they told me I wasn't due a test so I should leave. I kicked up a stink and they apologised. They then reordered the missing glasses, but with the addition of the thinner lighter lenses and AG coating at no extra charge. Called in to collect this morning, no one could find them. It then appeared the frames and lenses were up stairs in the lab waiting for the lenses to be fitted. 30 minutes later I was walking away with them and was finally happy.

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1 hour ago, Ed Rooney said:

Good for you, Steve. 

 

I've had a lot of trouble with my eyeglasses in the last two years. I think (?) I mentioned it in a blog. 

 

My blog tomorrow will be about food photography for stock. 😎

 

Maybe I'm having problems with my eyeglasses too, because at first glance I thought it said food on a stick.

Could still be a good subject though. 😁

 

wim

 

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6 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

I'm gonna buy my next round of fruit at a street stand; I'm hoping they will be better. Maybe.

 

I alternate three breakfast: scrambled eggs, pancakes and fruit, and yogurt with 4 or 5 types of fruit—raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries and sometimes a banana.  Everything has a wholewheat muffin with it, except the pancakes. The pancakes replaced oatmeal, because of my. tiny kitchen, but that is not working out. 

 

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I have the questionable ability of remembering the way things used to taste. Store-bought chicken, tomatoes, strawberries, salmon, and other things have all lost their taste. 

I grew 4 tomato plants this summer, one being cherry tomatoes. Before they became ripe, I bought a container of cherry tomatoes from the store. All of a sudden, my tomatoes began ripening.

I thought I needed to hurry and finish off the store bought ones, after all, they were expensive. I ate one, then ate one of my home-grown ones just to compare. The difference in flavor was so marked I threw the rest of the store-bought ones away and kicked dirt on them. 😉

Edited by Betty LaRue
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My helper and I have been repotting most of my plants grown in pots on the ground or on a plant table, old and new, in terracotta pots (called masaterras de barro here).  PlantSnap id'ed one of the unlabelled new plants as a Madagascar thornless Euphorbia geroldii, also known as Thornless Crown of Thorns, or Gerold's Spurge, endangered in the wild because of habitat destruction.    He's coming back with more barro pots, two large and one medium sized for the Gerold's Spurge which needs good drainage.   I'll have new things to photograph.   The orchids are still on tree fern plaques or planted in plastic half pots that hang on the wall. 

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17 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

I  have the questionable ability of remembering the way things used to taste. Store-bought chicken, tomatoes, strawberries, salmon, and other things have all lost their taste. 

 

A real problem for all of us, so much fruit and veg bred for appearance and handling qualities, rather than taste. I find that gently grilling store bought tomatoes brings out whatever sweetness they may possess, but for hard tasteless strawberries there is no solution. Scottish strawberries possibly better than most.

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9 hours ago, Thyrsis said:

So many ripe tomatoes at the moment. Used a kilo of them to make a batch of chocolate habanero chilli jam. Think it might be rather hot!!

 

Same here, my wife wants to make chutney with them, but I feel that is sacrilege. We normally use end of season green fruit for that purpose. Gave a stack to our elder son who visited with the kids over the weekend. Persuading the Mrs to make and freeze muck using abundant courgettes and onions as well as toms.

 

Growing Tumbler and Gardener's Delight out of doors, but a much higher yield from Tumbler. GD in greenhouse doing much better, possibly not quite warm enough for it to be grown outdoors here. 

 

Found a local food bank who will take fresh fruit and veg. Our allotment society sent a stack of stuff and when we got there found that they were overwhelmed with supplies of oranges from local supermarkets and shops. We were persuaded to take a couple of large boxes, an unexpected treat. Another delivery scheduled for Wednesday, interesting to find, what, if anything, they want rid of!

 

Finally we visited Durham city today, and I took a load of photos as stay at home holiday makers had descended in their masses. Was amused to watch novice oarspersons trying to row boats on the river. People going in circles or unable to get away from the jetty, should have shot some video!

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3 hours ago, Bryan said:

 

Same here, my wife wants to make chutney with them, but I feel that is sacrilege. We normally use end of season green fruit for that purpose. Gave a stack to our elder son who visited with the kids over the weekend. Persuading the Mrs to make and freeze muck using abundant courgettes and onions as well as toms.

 

 

I have a great soup recipe which uses onions, tomatoes, courgettes and red peppers, all of which we grow. I just chop and freeze the veg now and make soup in the autumn. 

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18 hours ago, Bryan said:

 

Was amused to watch novice oarspersons trying to row boats on the river. People going in circles or unable to get away from the jetty, should have shot some video!

Some years ago, I drove something like 12 hours to go on a Boundary waters fishing trip with 7 other women, in Minnesota, bordering on Canada.
I only knew one woman, who I used to work with before she moved back to Wisconsin from Oklahoma. Neither Shelley or I had ever paddled a canoe. There we were, paddling and portaging down a stream to reach a large lake and eventually to camp on one of the small islands on the lake.
Neither of us knew who should guide the canoe, or how to paddle without cancelling each other out. So we bounced from bank to bank, running into overhanging branches, getting poked and scratched, mumbling an occasional curse word and having paddle-stalling laughing fits. The other women had offered to put each of us with an experienced person, but no, we wanted to be together.
I’ll never forget it. Most fun I’d had in years. Most exhausted I’d been in years. Hey, carrying a canoe over our heads was hard work during the portage part which involved huge backpacks, too. We usually lugged the supplies, tent, water and packs to the deeper water, then went back for the canoe, repacked it all again until the next portage spot.
Fun stuff. My introduction to blackflies. Which wasn’t fun.

Edited by Betty LaRue
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11 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Oh my—as soon as thee days grow chilly, I'll be down for a bowl of that soup.

 

A small piece of hot chilli pepper, left in the soup for maybe 30 mins then removed, makes all the difference. 

 

Doyou have a slow cooker Edo? Cheap to buy and the easiest way to make tasty soups, just sling the stuff in, add some water, set it to auto and leave for two or three hours, the time isn't critical.

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2 hours ago, Sally R said:

 

Betty, you have reminded me of an hilarious time I had with my friend Natalie in a canoe on a school camping trip in our last year of high school. It involved canoeing down a river with some minor rapids. Somehow we kept finding ourselves going in circles, at other times caught up in an overhanging branch and stuck between rocks, and then at one point we even managed to sink our canoe. Somehow water got in it and the next thing we knew it was on the bottom of the river with us standing in it in the cold water. One of our teachers came along in a kayak, looked at us pitifully and got our canoe off the bottom of the river so we could get back in it. We were by far the last ones to finish the paddle. I remember a lot of hysterical laughter while also being exhausted and soaked, but having had a wonderful time.

 

 

Sally this reminds me of a canoeing trip organised by a colleague at work. It was efficiently carried out with a preliminary training session in a swimming pool, where we all had to capsize the boat and safely get out. That went Ok, but the next exercise involved righting a capsized kayak with a person suspended upside down within it. We worked in pairs and it so happened that the lightest person was paired with a heavyweight and of course the little guy found it impossible to right his partner's boat. Others came to the rescue and no harm was done, but we did find it all very amusing. Then came the river trip. It had been a dry summer and the water wasn't as deep as usual. Normally proportioned people had no difficulty, but a few rotund individuals kept grounding in the shallows and getting stuck, again a cause of much merriment. Thinking back it was a great place to work, canoeing was only one of a range of activities that we got up to. 

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On 08/08/2020 at 14:37, Thyrsis said:

Lots of euphorbias in our garden here in the UK. Great value as they are always green and they shoot up big flower heads every year. Almost indestructible!

 

We get lots and lots of rain here from late May to October, then mostly dry from November through mid-May.   Anything from Central Mexican mountain foothills through Costa Rican mountains generally can do well here, also some Brazilian plants like the Maranta species.    I'll see about the Euphorbia geroldii -- they're supposed to be perpetually in bloom if happy.

 

Orchids here are just garden plants.  This one got a bit of sunburn at the top of the plant. 

 

 

2C63FGX.jpg

Oncidium sphacelatum. 

 

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Bryan, I'm in a move-out frame of mind right now. Don't want to acquire more stuff to be moved. I've been considering getting a slow cooker for about 20 years. Hmm.

 

I bought berries at a stand yesterday. They were fresher and tastier than what I get at the supermarket. Of course it's summer. 

 

I think I've run out of photography tips. Nobody needs to hear my ignorance of flowers and shrubs, and the only thing I have to say about wildlife is don't try to pet an animal that's attacking you. Architecture? "Oh, that's a big building! It looks sort of newish." And landscapes? "Ohhh, that's pretty! But where are the bistros and pubs?"

 

Edited by Ed Rooney
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2 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

Bryan, I'm in a move-out frame of mind right now. Don't want to acquire more stuff to be moved. I've been considering getting a slow cooker for about 20 years. Hmm.

 

I bought berries at a stand yesterday. They were fresher and tastier than what I get at the supermarket. Of course it's summer. 

 

I think I've run out of photography tips. Nobody needs to hear my ignorance of flowers and shrubs, and the only thing I have to say about wildlife is don't try to pet an animal that's attacking you. Architecture? "Oh, that's a big building! It looks sort of newish." And landscapes? "Ohhh, that's pretty! But where are the bistros and pubs?"

 

 

I mean this in the best possible way....are you related to the kind faced, grouchy essayist, Andy Rooney??  I couldn't help but hear his voice as I read your comments above.  😀

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I'm not related to Andy, or Wayne, or Mickey (Joseph Yule Jr.)—that I know of. But I'm flattered and won't object to any comparison to Andy as a writer. He was first rate, I think (lots better than me). And yes, he did have some rash opinions. 

Edited by Ed Rooney
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22 minutes ago, Sally R said:

 

That sounds like a lot of fun Bryan, and it's really nice when workplaces do things like that that bring people together. There is something about hapless people in canoes splashing about that is very funny. Also, apologies for spelling your name wrong before which I just realised I did!

 

No problem Sally.

 

I'm reminded of another watery incident, this time with a sailing dinghy. I was relatively new to sailing, and had survived a number of duckings due to capsizes, but had encouraged a colleague to come sailing. We meandered about on an inland lake without incident, but then returned to shore. I jumped off the boat to secure it when I became tangled in one of the sheets. The wind blew up and took the boat, so I frantically struggled to free myself. That achieved the boat headed off without me. The look on my friend's face was a picture, a mixture of panic and trepidation. I had to shout instructions for him to control the boat and return to land. Confess I had to laugh, but it took a while before my mate saw the funny side of it. Older sailors might know the type of boat involved, an Enterprise, renowned for its ability to cast the crew into the water.

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Well, yesterday, not today, but booked a holiday to Greece.

 

Yes, even given the current world state! Of course, things could go horribly wrong in the next 4 weeks, but I won't book anything during school holidays,  and if I was having a "staycation" here in the UK, but I have my reasons for not

 

Fingers crossed things remain good til we are there. My partner and I have been very cautious since all this began, especially with him working in care, and we both are in serious need of a timeout.

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34 minutes ago, Thyrsis said:

It's rained at last, won't have to water the garden!

The big storms seem to have missed us though.

 

Last night we had thunder, some lightning and not too heavy continuous rain, and a little more this morning. Our cat chose the wrong time to go out. He must have found somewhere to shelter, he wasn't too wet when he came home 40 minutes later. I only had to water a few pots close to the house that never benefit from rain.

 

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