Today I shall be Mainly...

[plaques]

I believe the golden rule of thumb with picking mushrooms is only to eat from the area that didn't kill you last year.
Shower heads, the modern trend with large area shower heads means that either the tank has to be 500 ft above the head or you install a £1000 pump that uses water at a million gallons a minute. Be careful with your choice.

[Tizer]

I am always wary about collecting mushrooms. I think I got scared when I studied mycology at university and started thinking every wild mushroom was potentially poisonous.

I'm like you ,Sue. In the 1970s we used to go out identifying fungi with a local history society in the Home Counties. We had experts so we were able to collect and taste a range of species with safety but were also warned off a lot of others. I guess what Wendy is collecting are what I know as horse mushrooms. I remember a friend of ours with a large garden used to have a visit each year from a neighbour who was East European and used to ask permission to collect them.

[Wendyf]

Field mushrooms and horse mushrooms are different varieties, but similar to look at.

[Stanley]

I read somewhere that the largest living organism on earth is thought to be the mycellium of a fungi in a forest somewhere.
Going to see Gillian with Jack this morning. I think she is going to be pleased with him. Possibly stop the ABs.

[Sue]

I believe the golden rule of thumb with picking mushrooms is only to eat from the area that didn't kill you last year.
Shower heads, the modern trend with large area shower heads means that either the tank has to be 500 ft above the head or you install a £1000 pump that uses water at a million gallons a minute. Be careful with your choice.

Ha ha love the comment about the mushrooms. Thanks for the advice about the shower head. I think what we are looking at is not so much of a power shower, more of a wide head to ease the ability to shower over our not very well situated ( but aesthetically placed) bath

[Sue]

Field mushrooms and horse mushrooms are different varieties, but similar to look at.

I still wouldn’t trust them! Midsomer Murders come to mind !

[Stanley]

[Marilyn]

I ONLY buy mushrooms at the Greengrocer or supermarket. Bad experience years ago...
Never again! Still love mushrooms though..

[StoneRoad]

Glad to hear that Jack is healing ...

Recent weather has been somewhat mixed - wet and windy at times, also just wet ! however, it dried up just enough to let me cut the big patch at the back.
I've managed to move the tomatoes into the big greenhouse ... that was a couple of days ago, and today I will check them and do some watering.

Yesterday afternoon / evening we had a power cut, and now the CH / HW boiler is sulking, not sure what is wrong so part of today we will be testing various options to find (maybe) the fault(s).

Today, I need to draft a letter to a railway in Leeds, about a vehicle damaged by fire (to follow up a phone call)

Also, I have to finished the laundry interrupted by yesterday's power cut - and some other chores. Luckily I had no reason to go into the freezers, so no problem there.

Another outside job will be to pick up some more windfalls (bramley seedling) I have more than enough to make some pies and crumbles etc. A friend has suggested trying to make cider - being unripe and rather bitter as a consequence might mean this will work ...
Still to wet to finish the grass cutting.

[Sue]

ED2A5964-05F2-49C4-A804-5E945E3B6ABB.jpeg

tnis has just appeared on a gardening facebook page

[Wendyf]

Timely!

[Stanley]

Trying to get my engine straight in my head. That's the trouble with my way of building them, they grow and metamorphose in my head and I can only see my way forwards by making the parts and arranging them in order!



Here's where we are at the moment. I think the progression is main bearings and blocks, eccentric and rod and then lace it up on a bed! Then I'll have the puzzle of a throttle linkage.....
Otherwise cooking (washing done yesterday) and thinking about Susan and Mick on safari in a game park in Kenya far from any internet connection!

[Stanley]

The morning started so well..... All I had to do was pick up my prescription from the chemists and call in at the surgery to collect a different sample bottle because they gave me one with boric acid in and for diabetes it should be plain. Got the medication from the chemist, swapped the bottle after waiting in the queu at the surgery and off home. When I got back I found that my Ramipril was missing from the bag. So, back to the chemists. Turns out the repeat prescription that had been sent over hadn't got the Ramipril on it. Nothing the chemist could do so back to the surgery. When I explained the problem I was asked if I ticked both items on the repeat order I handed in, I said no and I never have because I didn't know that was needed. This was of course an attempt to put me in the wrong and was a mistake. I asked where it said on the repeat form that the boxes had to be ticked, answer, there is no mention. Then I asked how I could get my Ramipril. Answer, when my doctor had written a new 'urgent' prescription. When would that be? They didn't know. Will it be today? They 'thought so'. So back to the chemist's tomorrow..... I'm sorry but the world is full of incompetence.

[Stanley]

Making my third attempt to get my pills.
Looking at the vexed question of pedestal bearings for the crankshaft on my engine. It's a bit of a puzzle at the moment!

[Sue]

I have often said that its administration and administrators that is wrong with the NHS not the care! In this cae a poor form devised no doubt by an administrator

Wendy and Keith arrive today and stay for a week. Needless to say the weather has taken a turn for the worse.


Did I tell you that a mouse ran across the lounge the other evening, it must have come in when we had the doors open. We primed the mousetraps with weetabix. Next morning the Weetabix was gone the mouse nowhere to be seen. Yesterday evening whilst Roland and Nicole were having aperitifs, Bob saw the mouse, again in the lounge, running on the same route. Still we could not find it.

Later in the evening I saw it again, this time we followed it, but when we thought it was up a blind corner it was gone. My worry was it was hiding in tbe kitchen where i have a number of covered trays or veg that won’t go in the fridge. We primed another trap with good quality french cheese just by where it had disappeared. This morning the poor mouse is deceased. At least now I won’t have to explain about the extra visitor to our lounge to Wendy and Keith. I don’t think thay are as used to it as us in this old farmhouse.

[Stanley]

You've reminded me Sue. Jack showed considerable interest in my little shed in the back yard yesterday. I have no doubt there was a rat under it. He's passed it as OK this morning. The little buggers are about and active!

[Stanley]

No butcher's this morning, they are on holiday so we might get a proper spell in the shed! Otherwise the normal round of looking after myself and Jack and not worrying about Susan being eaten by a lion.

[Sue]

A trip to Rennes this morning to get Bobs name on Keiths hire car so he can drive ot too. We are going away for a couple of days to the chateaux of Angers and Amboise and also to Leonardo da Vinci's last home in Amboise. Francois1 lived at the chateau and leo was just diwn the road. Rumour has it there is a secret tunnel between the two but I can see no reason why there would be

The trip to Rennes will also include a trip to a fabric and craft warehouse, always worth a visit. Then its a relaxing afternoon at home

[Stanley]

Have a nice day Sue...... But have you been reading the advisory notices about the effects of Brexit?

[Wendyf]

A morning in the archive room printing off the quarterly "Chronicles". Either gardening or cleaning this afternoon depending on the weather and worrying about a lorry load of chippings arriving for the yard.

[Stanley]

It looks as though it could be showery Wendy, you may be practising look, duck and vanish......

[Sue]

Have a nice day Sue...... But have you been reading the advisory notices about the effects of Brexit?

I ignore everything about Brexit, tbere is a lot of scaremongering and what will be will be , We will just have to get on with things whatever happens. Life is too short!

[Stanley]

What a sensible attitude! Good luck with it!
I could be working for Colin and Wendy. Col wants a weight making for a sensor to go down the borehole......

[Sue]

What a sensible attitude! Good luck with it!

It has to be, tbere is nothing we can do. We can’t sell up as there will be a rush to do that and the price will shoot down. We have done all this work to improve the value, to cash in on some future date to put money in the bank and possibly buy something smaller with lower maintenance. We have to ride the storm. I don’t agree with Brexit, i have signed all petitions I can etc, now there is nothing more i can do. Worrying changes nothing.

Off to Angers a day early today. The weather is not brilliant so we have decided to head for the Loire and a bit of site seeing.

[Stanley]

Shed plus Colin this morning and Spa F1 at 13:00......