The Sunday buffet lunch at your local pub - it's quite a test of character, isn't it, have you ever thought? And at the same time it's quite a test of customers' decision-making powers - after all you may only have literally a few seconds to decide whether to put something on your plate or pass on to the next rack of stuff.
And sometimes it can all go horribly wrong, like it did for local man Lucas Shackleton at Gallstones (Worcestershire) pub The Plough and Harrow's Sunday buffet queue [Source: Onion News].
And on a grander and potentially more glamorous scale, cruise ship breakfast buffet queues are always a great opportunity to meet the stars and maybe break into show-business on your own account, but, on the other hand, the possibilities for screwing up are even greater here than at your local pub's Sunday Buffet Lunch. So it's a bit "swings and roundabouts", isn't it.
And at tea-time today when I'm on the couch, staring at my long-to-extralong-suffering wife Lois's flapjacks, and asking her if we've got any real achievements to record for my blog today, she replies "Potatoes!", and I can see what she means.
I'd forgotten that she's today harvested the results of the first of her potatoes-in-a-bag-on-the-patio projects, a first for us since we downsized to this new-build home in Malvern about 18 months ago.
our first potatoes from this year's "Grow potatoes
in a bag on your patio" project - nice!
flashback to January: we order a potato patio kit
from plants and seeds specialists Thompson & Morgan
This morning we drove to Worcestershire Royal Hospital, so that their Orthotics Department there could have a look at my foot. I recently had a new hip installed at one of the county's other big hospitals, at Redditch, on April 3rd. However, the operation's left me with one leg still slightly a tiny bit shorter than the other, so this morning, the hospital's young "Mr Orthotics", a friendly guy called Matt, took me into his consulting room and measured what the difference was.
After measuring, he popped next door to his "machine room" and there was a noise like some sort of power tool. The guy was making me a couple of free NHS insoles to take home with me, one for my outdoor shoes and one for my slippers. And it turns out that the difference between my legs is only 5mm, he says, which I calculate as being about one fifth of an inch.
What madness!!! Still, the insole is completely undetectable to the casual observer and also completely free, so the price is right at least haha!!!!
I showcase my undetectable shiny-new blue NHS insole -
stylish or what haha!
I've got the free insoles now, however, so that's something achieved today anyway. And Matt said he was impressed when he saw me walking along the corridor to his consulting-room, saying that I was "doing surprisingly well, and walking marvellously", considering I'd had a major operation on my hip only 2 months ago.
I asked Matt if he wouldn't mind putting that in writing, but he laughed it off: he's thinks I'm just joking, which is a pity! Memo to self: those forms I've thought of, I must get them all printed up, and do it soon haha!
Anyway, in summary, quite a good morning. This afternoon, by contrast, has been a bit of a washout.
Lois and I like to spend our afternoons in bed whenever we can - well, wouldn't you if you had the chance? But we couldn't do it yesterday afternoon, because a guy from Hillary's Blinds, Simon, was fitting a "motorised" awning over our patio.
flashback to yesterday: we try out the
"motorised" awning, just fitted by Simon of Hillary's Blinds
And today, Sam from LCH Plumbing and Heating had arranged to call between 3 and 5 pm to give our 20-month-old gas central heating boiler its first ever service. The boiler was brand-new in October 2022 when we moved into this new-build home here in Malvern, so I don't suppose there's anything wrong with it, but we discovered last week that if you don't get your boiler serviced annually it invalidates the insurance.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
Unfortunately, however, Sam texted me at 3:30 pm to say that his previous job he'd been doing today had run into difficulties and could he reschedule my job to next Monday. Sam's a nice guy and he'd clearly run into problems and didn't want to let his customer down, so we agreed readily to the rescheduling.
it's a "no-show" from Sam of LCH Plumbing and Heating
this afternoon - another nap opportunity (or "napportunity")
down the drain - damn !!!!
However, at half past three, it's a bit too late now for a so-called "napportunity": so, in summary, Lois and I haven't had a nap for 2 days running. And I feel we'll explode if we don't do it soon. It's all hinging on tomorrow - and we're forecasting a "humdinger". We'll be really "gagging for it" by then, so there's not much doubt that it's going to be a real "doozy" !
[You lazy bastards!!!! - Ed]
18:30 We settle down on the couch to watch an old episode of the 1970's sitcom "Are You Being Served?" on the Drama TV channel.
Take this scene - was it the first ever mention of Mrs Slocombe's famous pussy? Historians please note haha!
Or look at this "doozy" of an encounter, after Captain Peacock, not the world's greatest admirer of the feminist movement, said he never wanted to see the day when the floorwalker in the menswear department was a woman - much to the chagrin of Mrs Slocombe.
Aaah, yes, all that kind of stuff. It never gets old, does it haha !!!! [If you say so, Colin! - Ed]
19:45 Lois disappears into the kitchen to take part online in her church's weekly Bible Seminar, broadcast on zoom from Tewkesbury School. When she emerges, about 9 pm, we see a programme, nostalgic for us, in the new series "Secret France with Dick and Angel", on Channel 4.
Ex-British Army officer Dick Strawbridge and his artistic wife Angel, have at last finished doing up their French chateau in Channel 4's "Escape to the Chateau", a long-to-extralong DIY series, which, amazingly, they managed to "milk" for an incredible 9 seasons between 2018 and 2023.
Now, Dick and Angel are free at last to drive around France in their 1950's 4CV, and show us the country's allegedly "secret" side. All the "Dick and Angel" series are quite odd, to Lois and me, because all the actual information is imparted by the voice-over narrator, and the scenes where we see the couple together are mostly them larking about together in an amiable, if not exactly laugh-out-loud way. Nice work if you can get it!
But at the same time we can see why TV audiences find them engaging. In tonight's programme, Dick and Angel are in the Auvergne, one of France's least-well-known regions, with its incredible chain of volcanoes, dormant but not extinct - imagine that!
This is all very nostalgic for Lois and me, because Auvergne is a region of France that we've visited ourselves more than once, because we have a friend Annie in the little town of Doyet, near Montlucon.
flashback to 2003 - we drive our car on the "wrong side of the road"
through the Auvergne's volcanic region, and all the way
to the top up the famous 5000 ft Puy de Dome
I don't know if you know this about Lois, but it isn't really a secret that she can be a bit of a screamer, or at the very least a sqealer, whenever she gets excited, that is!
And one of the things that gets Lois excited is anything that could be remotely described as "mountainous", to put it mildly.
Do you remember back in the late 1990's when our daughter Alison was doing a study year at Pisa University as part of her Cardiff University Italian Language Course, and we were travelling by train south across France by to see her? Do you remember that time on the train when Lois squealed with delight when we caught our first glimpse of the French Alps, and everybody in the carriage stared at us?
flashback to 1997: Lois (51) with our daughter Alison (21)
on the balcony of Alison's flat in Pisa
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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