The Sturdy Soapbox

I wuv my morning cappuccino

I'm just unstoppable this morning, just look at my foam !

I did spit the dummy at 7 o clock this morning, I prepped my cappuccino and then it hit me like a bolt out the blue, I ay got no milk !  Used the last making one of these for Lee yesterday.

Zapped down to the shop on the estate and got some semi skimmed and straight back up here for a nice frothy caffeine fix with a choccy heart on top !

 

I may get two !

 

Perfect morning for walking

This morning was cool and fresh but sunny.  I did 2.78 miles and saw off 399 calories and as well as walking down by the cut, I found myself talking to a duck and had a walk round a cemetary.

Actually there were three ducks.  One asked if I knew the way to Amarillo and the second one wanted to know if I'd got any spare bread on me.  The answer to both questions was no and duck number three just quacked haughtily.

Had a visit from someone I've not seen for two years or so yesterday.  Lee is one of the lads who's a member of our local Flickr group.  In the past I've brought a couple of cameras off him.  He doesn't live too far from where I am now, up at the old flour mills which were converted into nice flats.

I'm expecting a visit from Beasty too some time soon, he's the admin for the Flickr group.

The Padstow set will soon be in session again, OBC and Val are going posing again on the boat.  I must text RIck Stein and tell him to stock up on mussels and lobster !  OBC is obsessed with mussels cooked in white wine and garlic.

Haven't got a lot on today which is nice.  The online course is finished, I vacuumed donkey yesterday and cleaned the kitchen and I don't have to transcribe the reports on brown beer sent to me written in wax crayon either !

Darlo dropped me off some potatoes last night.  Some came via Charlie Chalk, given to him by someone with an allotment in Warwickshire and she also gave me a bag of Cornish potatoes, which I have high hopes for.  The Cornish are a bit early, mind you it is July come the end of this week.  Following those, if we can find them, Pembrokeshires come into season soon too (and they are lovely too).

Gave her one of the curries I originally did for OBC's crew to "curry favour" and get a trip in to Padstow, a cunning plan that failed.  So madam went away happy, she's having it tonight (as it was still frozz yesterday).  As they say, fair exchange is no robbery !

 
Wally the Welder was born in the shadow of "The Boak" don't you know...

 

 

Listen up potato heads

OK, here we go:

So here's the allotment home grown potatoes with the Warwickshire dirt still on them.  Really looking forward to boiling those up and serving them with a bit of butter and mint.

Well spotted, there is s tinge of green in that front one.  Will have to see how deep that goes into the potato before making the decision to cook or ditch it.

Did you know that potatoes contain arsenic ?  It comes out during the boiling process, rather like the deadly toxin naturally present in red kidney beans.  Tinned ones are always pre cooked, but a recipe for disaster is to just put soaked but uncooked beans into a slow cooker.  The slow cooker doesn't bring them to a high enough temperature to remove the toxin.

That's why it is not recommended you use water from potatoes to make your gravy, use the water from the green veggies instead, it will have vitamins in.  Also, an old trick to make green veg look really green, used to be to drop a teaspoon of bicarb in the water.  Makes em lovely and green, but instantly destroys the vitamins in the food.

So if you didn't know already, you know now !

 

You don't see that very often

Used with permission via Flickr, a complete (almost) family of soxers, reckon mum was taking the picture.

Who lives in a house like this ???

Is it me ?  No.  Is it OBC?  No, is it Wally the Welder ?  No.  Then who is it ?

This is Madonna's London home.

My pal Andy works in this street a lot and he sees here popping in and out.  She's not waved to him or asked him in for a frothy cappuccino, but he has had his brush with fame.  Claudia Winkleman (who), smiled at him in the street.

I commented maybe she's got a thing for podgy old geezers with white vans...

 

Up with the lark

In complete contrast to yesterday, I was up at 5am and out on my walk at 5:30 a little longer this morning 2.04 miles 290 calories burned.

Did a couple of pics on my way round.  Nice thing about the Sports Tracker app I use, if you take pictures on your route, it uploads them to your page on their server where all your activities can be recorded.

These water lillies on the canal not far from the art gallery looked nice in the morning sun

Then when I got down by the art gallery, there was a narrowboat parked up in the wharf.

And here's the post modernist grain silo aka the new art gallery

It was really nice out there this morning, lovely and fresh.  Nipped into Tesco and had a right result.

An 11 piece decorating kit with paint rollers in 2 sizes, tray, three brushes and a dust sheet, £ 1.75.

As I've already written here in the past, I am not one of life's decorators and one of the things I hate most is the cleaning out of the rollers and brushes aftwerwards.  I did discover a trick though.  After you have washed out the roller thoroughly (you'll never get all the paint out), drop them in the washer.  They come out a great deal cleaner and if they are well washed, the paint residue won't contaminate your crusties as they whizz round.

Unfortunately for me, I have to attack the dark brown ceiling in the hall sometime soon and as I've put Kils n Kins to bed and will finish my boring course today, I have no excuses left not to do it.

Today I have housework to do and I am seeing one of the lads from our local Flickr group who I have bought two cameras off in the past.  He lives close by up at the flour mills which were converted into nice apartments.

Made a cappuccino this morning with a fresh pack of Tesco espresso.  My froth was superb and I topped it off with a little asterisk of choccy powder, it was almost a religious experience, I promise you.

Hope the day continues as nicely as it started.

Tired, tired tired

Been a busy week.  I put Kils n Kins to bed on Friday and sent April an e mail saying that I no longer wanted to be editor.  I won't launch into a hissy anti CAMRA fit, but this represents a classic example of a person knocking themselves out to produce something for which a group who put in little to bugger all, take all the credit.

I know for a fact that if it wasn't written into the national manifesto (or whatever a campaigning body has), they wouldn't put out a magazine of maintain a website, because it gets in the way of going on the piss.

If it was a paid position, I don't think I would put up with the apathy and arse scratching, but this is a volunteer post !  Well, nuff said about that.

Got up for a pee at 00.45 this morning.  It had been a hot day so my windows were open.  As I walked back into the bedroom, I heard the nutter downstairs shouting out of his window "can you turn the music down, I'm trying to sleep here".  Odd thing was, I could hear him, but I couldn't hear any music.

Along with his banging and ranting, this basically put the lid on it for me with regards his mental state.  He is obviously a fucking headbanger.  Pity, because compared to where I was living until February this year, this is heavenly until he starts up.  He made me jump this morning as it was so quiet, I was just about to slump back into the pit and go back to sleep, but I decided to close my windows instead in case he started again.

I took OBC's EFPV over to a Volvo main dealer today to get the official thumbs up that a 22,000 mile posh Volvo has a duff rear wheel bearing.  I picked up on it when I drove it a few weeks ago and it was a deal quieter then,  I've built in radar for odd noises on cars.  My Cavalier CD, I knew every tick that made and knew when something was amiss as was a wheel bearing a few years back.  Having EFPV for the day allowed me to go to Tesco and get stuff that would be too heavy to carry home other than in single trips, potatoes, pop and the likes (and I treated myself to a tub of ice cream).

Had a call out the blue from an old work colleague from twenty years ago.  Wonder she still speaks to me, we locked her in the boot of a 24 valve Senator in the showroom for over an hour once.  Hoping to tie up with her very soon and catch up on all the stuff that's happened in our lives since we worked together.

Won't be late to bed tonight, hope nutter stays quiet.

 

Calm down dear, it's only the internet !

Regulars here will know I don't have the highest regard for celebrity tweeters, but last week, John Cleese urged his followers to follow his friend, the film director Michael Winner.

I did and in the following days, have received some very amusing responses to my rare but in context tweets.

As well as his film directing, Michael is extremely well known for the insurance commercial catchphrase "calm down dear, it's only a commercial", less successfully paraphrased a few weeks ago in parliament by David Cameron.

I read many of Michael's "Winners Dinners" in the Sunday tImes back when I used to read newspapers and he seemed to spend a lot of time terrorising waiting staff and restauranteurs with viciously barbed reviews of meals both good and bad and of terrible service.

Not sure why he's tweeting, but I find them amusing, even if somethimes he does so in UPPER CASE.

His response to me this evening is shown below as is his Twitter ID if you fancy following him.

infuriating, but I LOVE this commercial

  I will also insert the extended mix below, but that does get a bit tedious. I particularly like the baka baka reference meaning idiot in Japanese. Guess who downloaded the annoying ringtone ? http://www.myxer.com/RADOX4MEN Hooky Hook everybody !