Naoko's news, views and shoes thread

[LadyVer]

Hey, Naoko. Nothing new here. Hope you're doing well.

 

[SamScribble]

Redzinger, we haven't been formally introduced; but please accept my condolences.

I knew that my own mother (a good Cardiff girl - although she had nothing against Swansea) was on the despatch list for more that two years. But it still came as a bit of a jolt when she finally made the leap. In her case, I have to say that the NHS vets did a wonderful job; not in curing her, but in easing her exit. She died with a smile.

Take care, Redzinger.

 

[Handley_Page]

Going with a smile is the best any of us can hope for

 

[TxRad]

Going with a smile is the best any of us can hope for

I smile every morning that I made it this far.

 

[Handley_Page]

I smile every morning that I made it this far.

And me, mate

 

[NaokoSmith]

Hey, Naoko. Nothing new here. Hope you're doing well.

Hi there!


All normal chaos here. I am marking some assignments on the module where they are always confusing and take a long time, and I have a sore throat. Not sure if it's a little cold in my little nose, or hay fever. I meant to go for a swim today but I think I will swan about at home and finish my marking. If I feel better later I'll mow the lawn.

Piglet and I both get hay fever, and this year as she's 12 we can have the same medicine. She is down for twice the dose that I am, which seems a bit odd. Admittedly last year she had hay fever very badly whereas I wasn't so stricken with it. Maybe I should just bump up my dosage.

Well, guys, I like to see a smile on a man's face when I wake up in the morning and will go to great lengths (ho ho) to get one

 

[NaokoSmith]

Tea or coffee, anyone?

I might go and have some laver bread on toast now. Or mark an essay and then have the laver bread on toast.

https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsouthporttimes.co.uk%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F06%2Ftea-and-coffee.jpg&f=1

 

[NaokoSmith]

OK, I marked that assignment and after I've had my laver bread on toast I think I might lie down quietly for a little while.

I don't know what it is with this module, that makes the marking so time-consuming and difficult.

Well, I do, actually, LOL. They put too much fascinating material in, and the students were so frantically involved in keeping on top of it, that they have never had time to bed in their study skills properly, in spite of strenuous efforts by us tutors.

 

[Handley_Page]

what's Laver bread ?

 

[curl4ever]

...they have never had time to bed in their study skills properly, in spite of strenuous efforts by us tutors.

Questions, questions!

If they go to bed in their study skills, does that mean they always sleep naked?

Or if they go to bed in their study, does that mean that instead of using a bedroom, they just have orgies in the study hall rooms?

Or do you tutors exert strenuous efforts to improve their study of bedroom skills?

No matter. Sign me up!!!

 

[beachbum1958]

what's Laver bread ?

HP, re laver Bread, see here,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laver_(seaweed)

 

[Handley_Page]

HP, re laver Bread, see here,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laver_(seaweed)

Good grief!
Eating seaweed ?
Wow!.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Good grief!
Eating seaweed ?
Wow!.

Seaweeds are eaten in many areas of the world, HP; in fact, even as close as to you as Ireland, where dúlamán (channeled wrack) has long been an important foodstuff. In Canada, Newfoundlanders traditionally enjoy dulse (another wrack). Japan, of course, makes good use of a variety of seaweeds.

And here's the classic Gaelic song about it...enjoy.

Dúlamán

 

[beachbum1958]

Indeed; I introduced Lori to carrageen milk pudding when we went to Cork not long after we married, and she loved it. It's made by boiling soaked carrageen moss seaweed in milk with sugar and vanilla pods, and rubbing it through a sieve, and it sets to a consistency somewhere between Tapioca pudding and blancmange. Lori makes it whenever her girlfriend Mairéaid brings her some fresh moss on her occasional visits. She likes to use it as a topping for fruit compotes, but I like to eat it just as is, set firm in a bowl.

 

[Handley_Page]

Indeed; I introduced Lori to carrageen milk pudding when we went to Cork not long after we married, and she loved it. It's made by boiling soaked carrageen moss seaweed in milk with sugar and vanilla pods, and rubbing it through a sieve, and it sets to a consistency somewhere between Tapioca pudding and blancmange. Lori makes it whenever her girlfriend Mairéaid brings her some fresh moss on her occasional visits. She likes to use it as a topping for fruit compotes, but I like to eat it just as is, set firm in a bowl.

Forgive me please, one and all, but I'll pass on the seaweed.
And I LOATHE Tapioca, Blancmange, (& that stuff we called Frogspawn);
I had to eat that at school dinners; It fills me with dread to think about it!

 

[MichaelinChina]

Forgive me please, one and all, but I'll pass on the seaweed.
And I LOATHE Tapioca, Blancmange, (& that stuff we called Frogspawn);
I had to eat that at school dinners; It fills me with dread to think about it!

I believe Tapioca IS the stuff you called Frogspawn.
(As kids we were told it was Frogs' Eggs; same difference I guess).

I do miss blancmange, with a dollop of jam in it and stirred.
And Banana Custard (warm).

Here in China, Laver soup is on the menu in restaurants, with a beaten egg swirled through it. I don't mind it.

 

[Handley_Page]

I believe Tapioca IS the stuff you called Frogspawn.
(As kids we were told it was Frogs' Eggs; same difference I guess).

I do miss blancmange, with a dollop of jam in it and stirred.
And Banana Custard (warm).

Here in China, Laver soup is on the menu in restaurants, with a beaten egg swirled through it. I don't mind it.

At my school, there were two of those ghastly 'frogspawn' things; the only difference was the size of the bits. I've forgotten the other name.

 

[beachbum1958]

I believe Tapioca IS the stuff you called Frogspawn.
(As kids we were told it was Frogs' Eggs; same difference I guess).

I do miss blancmange, with a dollop of jam in it and stirred.
And Banana Custard (warm).

Here in China, Laver soup is on the menu in restaurants, with a beaten egg swirled through it. I don't mind it.

My wife Lori is an avid cook, and has taken to English dessert recipes wholeheartedly and enthusiastically; she's been sharing some of her Louisiana recipes with Naoko, and she makes an Easter Simnel Cake that has the neighbours breaking down the doors. She has a recipe for Strawberry Blancmange that takes me back to school dinners, I'm sure she'd have no issue with me sharing it with you if you'd like it...

 

[NaokoSmith]

Do you tutors exert strenuous efforts to improve their study of bedroom skills?

No matter. Sign me up!!!

You are a bad boy and I want you to report to my office immediately.


Mmmmm - what a lot of lovely seaweed dishes! One of my favourites is a Japanese seaweed and cucumber salad I sometime make in the summer to take on picnics to the beach - that seems particularly appropriate, and it's refreshing as well as nutritious. The laver soup and carrageen do sound delicious, as do all Tio's lovely seaweeds.

Sorry I have been conspicuous by my absinthe ... (hic!) absence. I have been stricken with hay fever - I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I have doubled up my dose of medicine and am starting to feel a bit more human, or perhaps I should say feline.

Anyway, I managed to get out for a swim today. I spent lots of time in the steam room, to get the pollen out of my sinuses. When I arrived, the pool was completely empty! I love that. I dive in (you are not really meant to do this as the pool is not supposed to be deep enough for diving) and swim slowly the length of the pool in the blue waters past the steel pillars on one side and the big windows looking out to the sunlit trees on the other side, then back again, then back again, then back again. You get the idea, it's very meditational and zen and stuff.

I met up with a pal and we went shopping for bras - only sports bras but we got in a lot of jokes saying 'yes, I will come and hold your knockers ... I mean hand' and teasing her husband, pretending we had spent a long time in the changing rooms sizing each others' boobs up by hand etc etc. We got the same make of sports bra so now we are bosom buddies <snerk>.

Last weekend I was in London. It was kind of a sad occasion, as we were scattering my aunt's ashes. However it was also jolly to get together with most of my cousins - there was one of course who refused to come out for the main part of the day in order to draw attention to herself, but came out in the evening to make sure we noticed her.

My favourite cousin and I stopped over in a hotel together. She booked into this exceptionally cheap place in Greenwich; we had a family room to share with Piglet. First piece of luck was that as they were short of family rooms they offered us two doubles at the same price instead! so we got a room each. (Well, I had to share with Piggles, but that it pretty normal.) Breakfast cost extra and looked exceptionally pallid, however I had noticed a big sign on the railings of a place next door saying they served full cooked English breakfast. It was carefully positioned so you could see it through the hotel windows.

When Piglet and I went to investigate, it turned out to be a super wine bar! At first we had to go round the back and beg them through the kitchen door to open up. However they were nothing but charming once they were properly open and the food was top dollar. The vegetarian breakfast looked so good that I ordered that, although as you all know, I do like my meat . It included halloumi, courgette and potato hash brown, baked beans cooked just right in a little brass saucepan. My cousin is vegetarian so she was over the moon about my find, when she eventually got up and came to join us for brekkie. I had a tough battle with her so that I could pay for her breakfast (even though she had paid for the hotel room). She works security at a Certain Rugby Ground, and had just come from making sure all ran smoothly at the Army and Navy match . She must have been a bit weakened by arm-wrestling the soldiers and sailors into submission, as eventually she let me pay.

So for about half the price of a hotel in the centre of London, we got to stay in this little place with Greenwich just round the corner, and have a really good breakfast. I only had two regrets. One was that, to my great surprise, they didn't have any marmalade to have with my toast. It was the sort of place where you expected Cooper's Thick Cut Oxford. The other, that although I was wearing my top boots, I wasn't going hunting so I couldn't have a bumper of claret with my breakfast.

However, I was so enthusiastic about the wine list, which I'd been able to glance over while waiting for my freshly cooked breakfast to arrive, that some of the better elements of my extended family agreed to come back to the place with me later for supper. We had chilled glasses of Manzanilla sherry and a delicious bottle of Picpoul de Pinet.

It was my turn to be arm-wrestled into submission as my aunt (obviously the other one, not the one whose ashes we had been scattering earlier) insisted on paying and even thanked me for introducing her to the Picpoul de Pinet, while I thanked her for coughing up for it. (I would've insisted on paying - especially as I had rather greedily had a glass of Sauternes with my dessert, but then I knew my cousins would think they had to pay for themselves too, so after decently protesting for a little while, I graciously gave way.)

 

[NaokoSmith]

I forgot to add that I braved my hay fever yesterday, put on my sunglasses and went out plying door knockers, rather than squeezing my knockers into sports bras, on behalf of The Party.

It was the Welsh Assembly election. Everyone-else was saying What wonderful weather, and they didn't mind going out campaigning when the sun was shining so brightly. I was hiding behind my dark glasses and nobly suffering in the cause. It was worth it, since I knocked on one door and the guy said: "but the election is Thursday," and I said: "This is Thursday," so he went out to vote. We were worried that my really good local Assembly Member wouldn't get back in, and she got an increased majority - at least one vote of which was my personal achievement.

 

[oggbashan]

Congratulations on the campaigning. But what are the Welsh doing electing some UKIP members? Wales must have a flawed electoral system.

Electoral excitement was minimal here. All we had was a choice of people for Police Commissioner. The only candidate who actually spent money advertising himself was disqualified at the last minute for an undisclosed minor conviction from 20 years ago.

The other candidates were political party nominees including the rabid nationalists (and I don't mean UKIP!), except for a sole independent.

The electoral officials in our polling station had brought giant thermos flasks of coffee and two or three thick paperback books each.

The turnout is unlikely to reach 20% of the registered electorate.

 

[stickygirl]

Didn't vote - I watched Grayson Perry instead. Despite the appalling record of Rotherham, it still returned the same same. I will however be raising my lazy ass for the 23rd

 

[Handley_Page]

Electoral excitement was minimal here. All we had was a choice of people for Police Commissioner.

The turnout is unlikely to reach 20% of the registered electorate.

Our local event was more like a day of mourning. That said, we didn't have anyone to actually vote For, apart from the local 'Crime Commissioner' (Why do we need one of those ? Crime is quite capable of organising itself, surely ?

Didn't vote -
I will however be raising my lazy ass for the 23rd

I fully intend to cast my vote on the 23rd June.
Quite which way is as yet unknown.
I get a thing called "Full facts" via my e-mail. Compiled by a bunch of 'Independents'.

 

[JackLuis]

Electoral excitement, or perhaps excrement is raging in America. Between now and November we will be flooded with pandering to perverts and it looks like Hillary will win, unless the DOJ indites her.

You should thank your stars you're in the sane UK.

 

[stickygirl]

I get a thing called "Full facts" via my e-mail. Compiled by a bunch of 'Independents'.

Full facts?! Can you send me a link? Without turning the thread crimson with political blood, Brexit makes as much sense as Scexit

You should thank your stars you're in the sane UK.

Every day Mr Luis

On a happier note, the house martins are back It's summer