Naoko's news, views and shoes thread

[Handley_Page]

What a lovely sunny morning! Rain is forecast later; I plan to go to a concert then so as long as I get the laundry in before I go, that will be OK. As I mowed the lawn on Sunday, I can view the rain with complacency.

Clear warm sunshine is throwing the shadows of the trees across the park, the birds are singing and the cats are watching them through the window.

I shall go out and hang the washing. The two cats insist on coming with me when I do this, and hang around glaring at any dogs who walk past, LOL. Then I shall have some more (decaff) coffee and a buttered bun for breakfast.


(sunglasses help with hayfever)

Good Morning, Duchess.
It might be bright, but its bloody cool.
You have reminded me that I have some shirts that need doing. I'll get them in the machine while I'm out at the GP, who, it seems, wants to talk about Blood Pressure,
for some obscure reason.

 

[Hypoxia]

What a lovely sunny morning! Rain is forecast later; I plan to go to a concert then so as long as I get the laundry in before I go, that will be OK. As I mowed the lawn on Sunday, I can view the rain with complacency.

Weather is unsettled here and forecasts are all over the place. Storms blow by to the north and south. Snow was forecast for today but the sky was clear. Thunderstorms are due tomorrow but who knows?

Assuming the further prognostications of clearness are true, we'll have a day to spray around the house for weeds and ants, mow the meadow's clover down to summer-trim level, and finish trimming low-hanging branches on our dirt road so the housecar avoids entanglement. We'll have another day to fit-out the coach, install and check new electronics, tune and pack the zithers, and arrange other necessities, all while Wagner's valkyries howl at us from loudspeakers. [/cue Elmer Fudd singing KILL THE WABBIT!]

We hope to encounter concerts down the road. And maybe some plot bunnies.

 

[MichaelinChina]

Gotta love the Australian wildlife!

I've had a kangaroo slam into my Subaru and it put the fan through the radiator. THEN I bought a bull-bar!

It's why it's insane to drive at night. Truckies do and that's why in the morning there are dead animals (everything from camels to rabbits) on the road and the roadsides. Never ever seen a dead crow by the way! Too smart!

Certainly agree with the words above about wombats. They sure do fuck up the undercarriage, as do wild pigs.

 

[beachbum1958]

What a lovely sunny morning! Rain is forecast later; I plan to go to a concert then so as long as I get the laundry in before I go, that will be OK. As I mowed the lawn on Sunday, I can view the rain with complacency.

Clear warm sunshine is throwing the shadows of the trees across the park, the birds are singing and the cats are watching them through the window.

I shall go out and hang the washing. The two cats insist on coming with me when I do this, and hang around glaring at any dogs who walk past, LOL. Then I shall have some more (decaff) coffee and a buttered bun for breakfast.


(sunglasses help with hayfever)

It's a lovely sunny morning here too, so I've got Her Royal Godship strolling around and admiring the view; the light is quite 'strordinarily bright and clear, if I still painted I might be tempted. As the sun's over the yardarm, she's got a long, cool Long Island Iced Tea to keep her company on the patio while I wait for lunch (I made a Burmese dish called Ono Kaukswe, which is a spicy crayfish, coconut, and coriander soup with boiled quails eggs, crushed chillies, and lemon grass, with rice noodles and various crushed and chopped condiments). I don't normally get a chance to cook complicated meals, Lori rules the kitchens, they're her domain and escape hatch from her job, and as I'm usually covered in grease, soot, or sawdust, I'm not allowed in there unless I've been boiled.

Our days are a little strange nowadays, and oddly out of kilter; normally Lady Boss is in her consulting rooms with her patients, Sabine's typing away in her outer office, and I'm pottering around the house, working on one of the cars, or out in the woods with the minicat and de-barker prepping logs to season, or shredding waste wood for the charcoal briquette company we deal with. Because she's really disciplined, I normally don't see her all day, she and Sabine stay in the consulting suite and work there nine to five, even though her offices are only a few feet from my study, so to suddenly have her with me all day every day is a little odd (not that I'm complaining; I could look at her all day long).

Now, because she's incapacitated (until I say she's not) I'm chief cook and bottle washer, dog groomer, domestic goddess, and groom and exerciser for those idiot horses. I never fully appreciated what hassle Lori goes through looking after those hulking creatures; when God wanted the world to know what 'stupid' looked like, he made horses, and our two seem to live up to that standard. Lori's taken to wandering around the tack-room, but I hid all her boots, helmets, jodhpurs, britches, jackets, and blousons in the overhead feed bins, where she can't reach them, being a shortarse, and accidentally padlocked them, so if she takes the horses out, it'll be in her underwear (cor, that's a thought, Lady Godiva in Fredericks of Hollywood...) or a cocktail dress, because those are her hacking options right now.

Sabine is still off sick, she's staying with her parents in Bonn until she feels like coming back, and Lori won't go back in her office just yet, she still has nightmares about what happened in there, and I can't go in there and retrieve files and stuff because of patient confidentiality, so she can't work just yet. Oh dear, how sad, never mind...

She's banging her glass on the table and yelling, so either refills are required, or she wants to come in out of all that fresh air and sunshine and healthy rain, duty calls...

And now it's snowing.

I promise you, when Her Holiness is up to it, I'm taking her home to Houma to see her family, the fug of Louisiana has got to be better than England in the spring.

 

[TxRad]

BB, as soon as you land in Louisiana buy the gallon bottle of Mosquito repellent. Not being born in that area you have no immunity to the buggers. They can drain a foreigner or a Yankee of every last ounce of blood in just a few hours.

 

[jaF0]

^^ Drink a gallon of 'Shine, let'em bite you, then watch'em fly around in circles crashing into each other.

 

[beachbum1958]

BB, as soon as you land in Louisiana buy the gallon bottle of Mosquito repellent. Not being born in that area you have no immunity to the buggers. They can drain a foreigner or a Yankee of every last ounce of blood in just a few hours.

Hi Tx, Lady boss tells me the state bird of Louisiana is either the brown pelican or the mosquito, but thanks for the tip; I usually rub a mix of soyabean oil, lemon oil, and Greek Catnip oil (all available from my local Holland & Barrett healthfood store) as the little bastards can't stand it, and it lasts longer than DEET. When I was sweltering in the wilds of Papua, and the Niger delta, it was the only thing that worked for more than an hour or so, like the store-bought repellents. Also, I smell nice and minty/lemony, instead of like a chemical toilet...

 

[legerdemer]

Hi Tx, Lady boss tells me the state bird of Louisiana is either the brown pelican or the mosquito, but thanks for the tip; I usually rub a mix of soyabean oil, lemon oil, and Greek Catnip oil (all available from my local Holland & Barrett healthfood store) as the little bastards can't stand it, and it lasts longer than DEET. When I was sweltering in the wilds of Papua, and the Niger delta, it was the only thing that worked for more than an hour or so, like the store-bought repellents. Also, I smell nice and minty/lemony, instead of like a chemical toilet...

Huh, have to write that down. Great tips!

As a bye-the-bye, the food in Louisiana is to die for....

 

[Handley_Page]

It's a lovely sunny morning here too, so I've got Her Royal Godship strolling around and admiring the view; the light is quite 'strordinarily bright and clear, if I still painted I might be tempted. As the sun's over the yardarm, she's got a long, cool Long Island Iced Tea to keep her company on the patio while I wait for lunch . . .

Now, because she's incapacitated (until I say she's not) I'm chief cook and bottle washer, dog groomer, domestic goddess, and groom and exerciser for those idiot horses. , . . . so if she takes the horses out, it'll be in her underwear (cor, that's a thought, Lady Godiva in Fredericks of Hollywood...) or a cocktail dress, because those are her hacking options right now.

Sabine is still off sick, she's staying with her parents in Bonn until she feels like coming back, and Lori won't go back in her office just yet, she still has nightmares about what happened in there, and I can't go in there and retrieve files and stuff because of patient confidentiality, so she can't work just yet. Oh dear, how sad, never mind...

A sideways thought; with Lori having stopped work kinda sudden, who's taken up the slack on her patients ? Is it a 'routine' procedure or a mad panic, as it were. ?
Or Victoria's Secret ?

 

[beachbum1958]

Huh, have to write that down. Great tips!

As a bye-the-bye, the food in Louisiana is to die for....

Indeed; Lori's family are all Cajun, she effectively grew up in Dulac and Houma, and she cooks Cajun food all the time; as I type, I'm eating a plate of beignets I defrosted and fried this afternoon, Lady Boss had a craving for caramel beignets, and who am I to argue, so I went with it, cracked open a bottle of her caramel sauce, and tried to not make the drool stains too obvious...

(I have the recipe if anyone's interested)

Her brother sent her a large canister of Filé as a get well soon gift, so now her tongue's hanging out to make proper gumbo, and she makes her granddad's recipe red-hot Jamabalaya that has the neighbours for miles around circling like prairie wolves, so when she's fit enough, I think we'll have a Jambalaya, Boudin and gumbo cookout, God knows, we need the warmth...

 

[beachbum1958]

A sideways thought; with Lori having stopped work kinda sudden, who's taken up the slack on her patients ? Is it a 'routine' procedure or a mad panic, as it were. ?
Or Victoria's Secret ?

Most of Lori's patients are either small children or young adolescents, so her colleagues at the hospital have had to re-jig their schedules with their adult patients in order to accommodate hers; the children are more susceptible to change, so moving them to a different female therapist in the same department is a lot less disruptive and challenging than fitting them in willy-nilly with other therapy groups all over Oxfordshire and Warwickshire. All it means is that the infants masquerading as adults she works with will actually have to do some work for a change...

She does worry what it's doing to her kids, but the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, the General Medical Council, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists are quite adamant; 90 days stand-down is required in order for them to be completely satisfied there are no more serious repercussions following her cranial surgery. They've suspended her License To Practice until the Brain Injury Unit at John Radcliffe sign her off, which is SOP, it should be no problem, as all her CAT scans and MRI's are clear and consistent.

Lori never wears Victoria's Secret, she doesn't like their ranges; she shops at Fredericks when she goes home, La Perla, Agent Provocateur, What Katy Did Next, and some place called 'Liberty in Love', and I only know this because every time I open my closet all this vintage-style frilly stuff cascades out on me, (because apparently having her own dressing room is insufficient closet space for Her Sacred Holy Godship, so all my suits and shirts are scrunched up in a corner of my closet to make room for all these actually quite nice jiggly, satiny things), and I have to take the empty boxes and packaging for recycling and endure the funny looks from the shaven-headed, tattooed, toothless tip attendants...

 

[TxRad]

Hi Tx, Lady boss tells me the state bird of Louisiana is either the brown pelican or the mosquito, but thanks for the tip; I usually rub a mix of soyabean oil, lemon oil, and Greek Catnip oil (all available from my local Holland & Barrett healthfood store) as the little bastards can't stand it, and it lasts longer than DEET. When I was sweltering in the wilds of Papua, and the Niger delta, it was the only thing that worked for more than an hour or so, like the store-bought repellents. Also, I smell nice and minty/lemony, instead of like a chemical toilet...

The Pelicans and the mosquitoes are about the same size and color.

Large doses of B12 are also good at dissuading the swarms from landing. I have no idea where to even start looking for Greek catnip oil. In any case, if you ever saw a full grown bobcat you might rethink catnip. Not to mention the occasional Black Panthers that show up every now and then.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

The Pelicans and the mosquitoes are about the same size and color.

Large doses of B12 are also good at dissuading the swarms from landing. I have no idea where to even start looking for Greek catnip oil. In any case, if you ever saw a full grown bobcat you might rethink catnip. Not to mention the occasional Black Panthers that show up every now and then.

It's really in your microbiome!

From the Smithsonian...

 

[legerdemer]

Indeed; Lori's family are all Cajun, she effectively grew up in Dulac and Houma, and she cooks Cajun food all the time; as I type, I'm eating a plate of beignets I defrosted and fried this afternoon, Lady Boss had a craving for caramel beignets, and who am I to argue, so I went with it, cracked open a bottle of her caramel sauce, and tried to not make the drool stains too obvious...

(I have the recipe if anyone's interested)
...

Yes, please! I'm having a Pavlovian response.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Good Morning, Duchess.
It might be bright, but its bloody cool.
You have reminded me that I have some shirts that need doing. I'll get them in the machine while I'm out at the GP, who, it seems, wants to talk about Blood Pressure,
for some obscure reason.

How was the session with the GP? Is that the stern female one?

It turned bloody cool here too! In fact, it started hailing just as I was cycling back from the concert (and lunch in the Deli Cafe). The good news: the hailstones bounced off my head so I didn't get too wet. The bad news: that bloody well hurt!

beachbum, so glad to hear Lori is being forced to take it easy and is recuperating well.


Hullo Hypoxia, Michael kiss, TX, jaF0, legerdemer, Tio

 

[Handley_Page]

How was the session with the GP? Is that the stern female one?

It turned bloody cool here too! In fact, it started hailing just as I was cycling back from the concert (and lunch in the Deli Cafe). The good news: the hailstones bounced off my head so I didn't get too wet. The bad news: that bloody well hurt!

Some more blood Tests he wants !

 

[beachbum1958]

How was the session with the GP? Is that the stern female one?

It turned bloody cool here too! In fact, it started hailing just as I was cycling back from the concert (and lunch in the Deli Cafe). The good news: the hailstones bounced off my head so I didn't get too wet. The bad news: that bloody well hurt!

beachbum, so glad to hear Lori is being forced to take it easy and is recuperating well.

:

Thank you, Lori sends her thanks too (somewhat unsteadily, she's been fending off the chills with a roaring fire and big mugs of chocolate laced with various spirits, so more than slightly squiffy!) She did suggest we go and get in a tree and decorate it, seeing as it's bloody freezing, it keeps snowing, and we have roaring fires going in the kitchen, the dining room, and the sitting room; it actually feels more like Christmas than Christmas did...

 

[redzinger]

Just a quick drop in - good to hear Lori is recovering nicely.

I may not be around for a while - my mother's had a heart attack and I'm going to be in Wales a lot in the next month or so, looking after her dogs, and possibly, her. She's in the local hospital atm and waiting for a transfer to Morriston for further tests/an op. We know so far she has a couple of leaky valves, but something else may be going on. She has near-permanent indigestion, which is probably just a symptom of something else, and struggles with side effects from every single medication she's on.
Came back to London tonight for a brief check on the house, to find out she's taken a turn for the worse tonight. Feel so impotent here.

 

[beachbum1958]

Just a quick drop in - good to hear Lori is recovering nicely.

I may not be around for a while - my mother's had a heart attack and I'm going to be in Wales a lot in the next month or so, looking after her dogs, and possibly, her. She's in the local hospital atm and waiting for a transfer to Morriston for further tests/an op. We know so far she has a couple of leaky valves, but something else may be going on. She has near-permanent indigestion, which is probably just a symptom of something else, and struggles with side effects from every single medication she's on.
Came back to London tonight for a brief check on the house, to find out she's taken a turn for the worse tonight. Feel so impotent here.

I'm so sorry to hear that; I can only guess how worried you must be. Please believe me when I say our thoughts are with you and your mum at this worrying time.

Will

 

[colddiesel]

Ah, something which lies down in your path and stops you getting on with your work is just like Basturd Line Manager!

Hmm,' possibly; unfortunately there is a shortage of 2 ton cars with a cast iron block, V8 engine in South Wales.

In New South Wales on the other hand, the aforementioned feral pest could be employed as a lollypop man on a highway crossing. Probably fits his talents, and given the shortcomings of our drivers, he wouldn't need to fret about collecting a pension.

 

[NaokoSmith]

Some more blood Tests he wants !

Oh poor HP

Thank you, Lori sends her thanks too

Really good to hear she is recovering well. Give her big (gentle!) *hug*s.

I may not be around for a while - my mother's had a heart attack and I'm going to be in Wales a lot in the next month or so, looking after her dogs, and possibly, her.

So sorry, Toria. Hoping for the best for you both.

In New South Wales on the other hand, the aforementioned feral pest could be employed as a lollypop man on a highway crossing. Probably fits his talents, and given the shortcomings of our drivers, he wouldn't need to fret about collecting a pension.

*Wistful sigh*

 

[MagicaPractica]

Good morning. Up with a sick munchkin.

 

[SamScribble]

Some more blood Tests he wants !

It's just a theory (at this stage), but I suspect that my local clinic is making blood and bone manure out the back. They have certainly taken enough of my blood. Thankfully, they haven't yet turned their attention to my bones.

 

[Handley_Page]

It's just a theory (at this stage), but I suspect that my local clinic is making blood and bone manure out the back. They have certainly taken enough of my blood. Thankfully, they haven't yet turned their attention to my bones.

Now there's a thought for re-cycling at the local graveyard. . . .

 

[TxRad]

It's just a theory (at this stage), but I suspect that my local clinic is making blood and bone manure out the back. They have certainly taken enough of my blood. Thankfully, they haven't yet turned their attention to my bones.

There was this one nurse but she was more interested in boners, if i remember correctly.