What was your fasting blood glucose? (full on chat)

[dunelm]

good evening all

4.7 today

quite a pleasant day (if you don't count repairing toilets ) and Sunday lunch at mum's as usual, a sort of baked cross between bolognaise and eggplant parmigiana today with lots of cheese on top and veggies on the side and a few chips for Mum. A bit more carb than usual but I feel I have to provide a change sometimes

Toilet repair went fairly smoothly given the awful contortions the siting of said article requires to get to the plumbing connections. Always too close to the wall to save space in our little British bathrooms

Hope your day is treating you kindly

@dunelm - Congrats to you sister

I'm glad the jab went smoothly, out here in the Highlands our jabs are being done by the local Health Centres so it's familiar faces (well familiar masked faces anyway )

Nice vista in your painting and the colour you have chosen has provided a pleasing contrast

@gennepher - interesting colour blend choice in today's painting and very effective. Well done you for offering yourself a challenge I think it does us good to try to work with something unfamiliar sometimes.

@SlimLizzy - glad you've arrived safely after the trials and tribulations of the journey Errant seems to have decided it's home

@Muddy Cyclist - what a splendid and colourful dawn painting of Tryfan, I liked the sky to begin with but my appreciation for it has been joined by an enjoyment of the colours you have brought into the foreground, I do like the way you handle colour Good luck to the petition

art bit
thank you @lindisfel , I'll have a go

we have had some lovely serene sunsets here between the showery days, this is painted on the Hahnemuhle Britannia, I like it although it isn't cotton paper, the starch sizing does need a slight change of technique though, perhaps the 100% cotton paper they do would be good (I'm sure it would, but I'm less sure about the cost )

View attachment 49563

Thank you @geefull and glad that the plumbing contortions worked out. What a splendid sunset you have produced. Smashing.

 

[gennepher]

7.2 for me today - I had my 2nd vaccine yesterday so could be something to do with that or more likely because I pigged out the whole day yesterday (all low carb but sill a lot of food) just had a bottomless pit yesterday.

I wonder if the people doing the vaccines are all qualified nurses - does any one know - the 1st time the guy who did my vaccine didn't look like a nurse to me (anyways what does a nurse look like you say - he had both ears pierced and to me looked more like a soldier than a nurse?) and then yesterday the bloke who did it said his name was Peter? but spoke in broken english I thought and I was right when he said to me "take off your clothes" I think he meant could I take off my jacket - they have not convinced me and that's why I was wondering - it doesn't fill you with confidence ...

I gave you a funny emoji @Mrs T 123 but you need a hug too. I know what you mean.
I realised when I had my first jab (I have not been offered a second one yet ), but some of the female 'nurses' were obviously in training with giving injections. I say this because they were apparently practicing in their own cubicles with no patients and coming back out to check with the guy on the computer, who is doing all the paperwork, that they had the correct something or other in the needles they had just drawn out of the little vial. But they were not actually giving injections at this point. These ladies were the 'normal' looking ones, that is without ear piercings or tattoos.

But many of the others, in this case the men, looked like they had come from the local biker gang that ride three-wheeler trikes around here in a cavalcade (with their families, and children in their Sunday best as you used to say), and the bikers are tattooed to within an inch of their lives with various piercings. These are the appearances of some of the people who are giving the injections, the trained people. I didn't feel I was in an NHS rainbow hospital.

Like you say, I felt I had walked into the local biker cafe (they are lovely kind people even though they can look fearsome), and not into an NHS Covid vaccine inoculation hospital centre.

Appearance is nothing to judge people by. I know that. But our preconceptions of what we expect people to look like in certain situations EG in a medical situation in the UK, can give us a bit of a tummy flip, and we can be thinking what have we just walked into. Have we walked into a biker cafe, or have we walked into a medical hospital?

 

[SlimLizzy]

23.05.2021

7.10am FBG 4.8

Weight 51.6kg

Errant 4.5kg

Errant is home.

This is where Errant came from. The place where the Scaredy Cat adopted me during the first lockdown. Without cats company (at this point he didn't have a name) would have been unbearably lonely because MrSlim had returned to work in the UK to help manage the pandemic. MrSlim had previously officially retired for the second time, but with the need for his specialist training and tales of massive overwork from friends, he felt obliged to go back.

Am hoping his third attempt at retirement will be more successful.

Yesterday was unpacking, stacking things for storage and a start on the vegetable gardens. Was it cowardly of me to begin with the smallest bed? The waist high Sow Thistle was a deciding factor there.

Not internet connection yet, except on phone, it's a bank holiday, so have to wait until Tuesday for another attempt at that.

Lovely sunny morning, squishy and wet everywhere. Black restart outside the kitchen door this morning and yesterday I flushed two hares in the paddock, they bounded away out of our land, am hoping they returned as the paddock is not open for hunting.

An owl has been roosting in the stables. Mouse control? Lovely, except for the mess. MrSlim spent two hours washing some plumbing parts...perhaps we need an owl box on the outside of the house?

Lots to do again today.

 

[gennepher]

Sounds like many have had a successful day, jabs, travel and humour, brilliant and congrats to you all.

Lots done in garden today, noticed Greattits have vanished, we must have missed the babies leaving the nesting box.

Fjnished painting of Tryfan from the other side of Ogwyn Valley a track I know well from Mountain Biking but I have never done it at dawn which is when the painting is supposed to be so lots of guesswork regarding the light.

A4 watercolour....
View attachment 49562

Brilliant @Muddy Cyclist
A good dawn light. I was up on Easedale tarn a few decades ago and the dawn light was like that. It was magnificent to watch the day beginning up there, and the reflections of the mountains in the tan which were more perfect than the actual mountains themselves.
So a very good painting.

 

[Krystyna23040]

23.05.2021

7.10am FBG 4.8

Weight 51.6kg

Errant 4.5kg

Errant is home.

This is where Errant came from. The place where the Scaredy Cat adopted me during the first lockdown. Without cats company (at this point he didn't have a name) would have been unbearably lonely because MrSlim had returned to work in the UK to help manage the pandemic. MrSlim had previously officially retired for the second time, but with the need for his specialist training and tales of massive overwork from friends, he felt obliged to go back.

Am hoping his third attempt at retirement will be more successful.

Yesterday was unpacking, stacking things for storage and a start on the vegetable gardens. Was it cowardly of me to begin with the smallest bed? The waist high Sow Thistle was a deciding factor there.

Not internet connection yet, except on phone, it's a bank holiday, so have to wait until Tuesday for another attempt at that.

Lovely sunny morning, squishy and wet everywhere. Black restart outside the kitchen door this morning and yesterday I flushed two hares in the paddock, they bounded away out of our land, am hoping they returned as the paddock is not open for hunting.

An owl has been roosting in the stables. Mouse control? Lovely, except for the mess. MrSlim spent two hours washing some plumbing parts...perhaps we need an owl box on the outside of the house?

Lots to do again today.

View attachment 49566View attachment 49567

It must be so lovely to be home again - even though you have quite a lot of work to do.

 

[gennepher]

good evening all

4.7 today

quite a pleasant day (if you don't count repairing toilets ) and Sunday lunch at mum's as usual, a sort of baked cross between bolognaise and eggplant parmigiana today with lots of cheese on top and veggies on the side and a few chips for Mum. A bit more carb than usual but I feel I have to provide a change sometimes

Toilet repair went fairly smoothly given the awful contortions the siting of said article requires to get to the plumbing connections. Always too close to the wall to save space in our little British bathrooms

Hope your day is treating you kindly

@dunelm - Congrats to you sister

I'm glad the jab went smoothly, out here in the Highlands our jabs are being done by the local Health Centres so it's familiar faces (well familiar masked faces anyway )

Nice vista in your painting and the colour you have chosen has provided a pleasing contrast

@gennepher - interesting colour blend choice in today's painting and very effective. Well done you for offering yourself a challenge I think it does us good to try to work with something unfamiliar sometimes.

@SlimLizzy - glad you've arrived safely after the trials and tribulations of the journey Errant seems to have decided it's home

@Muddy Cyclist - what a splendid and colourful dawn painting of Tryfan, I liked the sky to begin with but my appreciation for it has been joined by an enjoyment of the colours you have brought into the foreground, I do like the way you handle colour Good luck to the petition

art bit
thank you @lindisfel , I'll have a go

we have had some lovely serene sunsets here between the showery days, this is painted on the Hahnemuhle Britannia, I like it although it isn't cotton paper, the starch sizing does need a slight change of technique though, perhaps the 100% cotton paper they do would be good (I'm sure it would, but I'm less sure about the cost )

View attachment 49563

Thank you very much @geefull
I like to give myself challenges. I didn't know if this one would be too difficult doing it on a small phone screen, it takes the same amount of time as it does on the large iPad screen in the same app. I was rather hoping it wouldn't take me quite so long!

I love your painting. It is really beautiful on that paper. A great success.

 

[dunelm]

Good morning everyone from a bright and sunn stat to the day here in the dark and dangerous north.
The wonder wheel of a late lunch of mussels came in at 4.6 this am

Late catch up lunch with our eldest Granddaughter. It’s her last day at school this week - she has three exams to complete and then this forgotten year will be leaving. She will be back after half term to do prep work for college but then as a civilian.

Invites are going out this week for the number 10 wedding so board up your letter boxes. MP’s quizzing the quisling - the not to miss saga written by those nice folk at Spitting Image in collaboration with Sir Humphrey. The whole thing will be shown as a cartoon by Disney featuring Road Runner, Wyle E, Coyote and Elmer Fudd.

Another little landscape today. Took my eye off the ball a bit so just stopped. Hope everyone has a very pleasant Monday. I now need some koffy.

 

[gennepher]

23.05.2021

7.10am FBG 4.8

Weight 51.6kg

Errant 4.5kg

Errant is home.

This is where Errant came from. The place where the Scaredy Cat adopted me during the first lockdown. Without cats company (at this point he didn't have a name) would have been unbearably lonely because MrSlim had returned to work in the UK to help manage the pandemic. MrSlim had previously officially retired for the second time, but with the need for his specialist training and tales of massive overwork from friends, he felt obliged to go back.

Am hoping his third attempt at retirement will be more successful.

Yesterday was unpacking, stacking things for storage and a start on the vegetable gardens. Was it cowardly of me to begin with the smallest bed? The waist high Sow Thistle was a deciding factor there.

Not internet connection yet, except on phone, it's a bank holiday, so have to wait until Tuesday for another attempt at that.

Lovely sunny morning, squishy and wet everywhere. Black restart outside the kitchen door this morning and yesterday I flushed two hares in the paddock, they bounded away out of our land, am hoping they returned as the paddock is not open for hunting.

An owl has been roosting in the stables. Mouse control? Lovely, except for the mess. MrSlim spent two hours washing some plumbing parts...perhaps we need an owl box on the outside of the house?

Lots to do again today.

View attachment 49566View attachment 49567

Owls are definitely messy birds @SlimLizzy
Between the owl and Errant, they should sort the mouse problem.
Welcome home!

 

[gennepher]

Good morning everyone from a bright and sunn stat to the day here in the dark and dangerous north.
The wonder wheel of a late lunch of mussels came in at 4.6 this am

Late catch up lunch with our eldest Granddaughter. It’s her last day at school this week - she has three exams to complete and then this forgotten year will be leaving. She will be back after half term to do prep work for college but then as a civilian.

Invites are going out this week for the number 10 wedding so board up your letter boxes. MP’s quizzing the quisling - the not to miss saga written by those nice folk at Spitting Image in collaboration with Sir Humphrey. The whole thing will be shown as a cartoon by Disney featuring Road Runner, Wyle E, Coyote and Elmer Fudd.

Another little landscape today. Took my eye off the ball a bit so just stopped. Hope everyone has a very pleasant Monday. I now need some koffy.

View attachment 49568

A splendid landscape @dunelm

I think you stopped at the right time. Once we are distracted, even momentarily, it's hard to get back into the flow of it. So I think it's just perfect.

 

[dunelm]

23.05.2021

7.10am FBG 4.8

Weight 51.6kg

Errant 4.5kg

Errant is home.

This is where Errant came from. The place where the Scaredy Cat adopted me during the first lockdown. Without cats company (at this point he didn't have a name) would have been unbearably lonely because MrSlim had returned to work in the UK to help manage the pandemic. MrSlim had previously officially retired for the second time, but with the need for his specialist training and tales of massive overwork from friends, he felt obliged to go back.

Am hoping his third attempt at retirement will be more successful.

Yesterday was unpacking, stacking things for storage and a start on the vegetable gardens. Was it cowardly of me to begin with the smallest bed? The waist high Sow Thistle was a deciding factor there.

Not internet connection yet, except on phone, it's a bank holiday, so have to wait until Tuesday for another attempt at that.

Lovely sunny morning, squishy and wet everywhere. Black restart outside the kitchen door this morning and yesterday I flushed two hares in the paddock, they bounded away out of our land, am hoping they returned as the paddock is not open for hunting.

An owl has been roosting in the stables. Mouse control? Lovely, except for the mess. MrSlim spent two hours washing some plumbing parts...perhaps we need an owl box on the outside of the house?

Lots to do again today.

View attachment 49566View attachment 49567

Welcome home - even if it is in a bit of a state - messy creatures those owls but has been on mouse patrol while Errant was away. Hope that Mr Slim can get the lawnmower going but you may need a scythe.

 

[dunelm]

A splendid landscape @dunelm

I think you stopped at the right time. Once we are distracted, even momentarily, it's hard to get back into the flow of it. So I think it's just perfect.

Thank you @gennepher and I think that you are right. I like to do my painting in one go and if I do go back to it, I invariably mess it up.

 

[Krystyna23040]

6.8 this morning. Perhaps due to the Montezumas 100% consumed before bed.

Rhododendrons were stunning at Sheringham Park and we had a lovely 4 mile walk through the woodland. They have just started stocking Mr K 's favourite sausage rolls but I didn't find out until after I had bought him a cheese and red onion marmalade sandwich.

Instead of relaxing when we got back we tackled a heap of admin stuff - so were really tired which is probably why I secumbed to the Montezuma 100% later that evening.

 

[SlimLizzy]

Interesting, clay or earth walls as per the materials of the past that regularly were used in good old England.
The great wall of China was built from rammed earth on the lowlands.
Perhaps we will go back to it when we can no longer use concrete products.
D.

@lindisfel The floor is earth, walls are granite and over a metre thick. It took Son2 nearly a whole day to drill through one.
@geefull Errant is indeed back home.
@gennepher It's lovely. The best thing is having a shower without banging elbows.
@dunelm lawnmower repair was effective.

 

[Muddy Cyclist]

Wonderful range of colours, Smashing. oh to be back in Snowdonia.

Thank you. Iwill be next week, looking forward to it but I shall be at the end of the Lyn Peninsula, expectingctiwds

 

[gennepher]

Fbg 6.5

A very pink dawn and sunrise this morning.

I watched it for about an hour just drinking coffee. I couldn't get on with my painting on my pixel phone because I had forgotten to recharge it and it was dead as a doornail this morning.

Oh, by the way, Mrs Blackbird is now in the process of making nest number 5. And it is in the clematis on top of my willow arbour. She has obviously got the first lot of twigs, for this new nest, from somewhere else other than my thatch, because that is now covered with army camouflage material. And she is obviously lining the nest number 5 now, because she is taking out the mud and leaves out of the round holes in my horse rubber mats (the ground in front of my camouflaged thatch swing is always damp and the sun rarely reaches it and consequently I have slipped frequently, so at the equestrian store I saw these rubber mats for horses stables so I got some, they have a very good grip for my feet).

So, Mrs Blackbird is doing a very good job of cleaning out all the gunge that has gathered over the winter in these holes, so these rubber mats will now have a good grip again for my feet.

Finally my Pixel phone recharged, so I was able to do this morning's painting in ZenBrush3. It took me over an hour to do do. I have to be honest, I thought by doing digital paintings on my tiny pixel phone screen (2 inches by 3 inches ish), would be quicker to do than on my large iPad screen. But that's not the case. It takes pretty much the same amount of time on each device whether the screen is small or large.

Have a good day.

EDIT: I have just viewed this painting on my large iPad, and I have to say I'm much prefer viewing this painting, on my small tiny pixel screen, the same size as it was painted in. I am assuming that a lot of us are probably looking at these posts on our smaller phone screens first thing in the morning. So this is making me wonder if I should paint on the small tiny phone screen in future. Because I'm guessing that a lot of us do not use laptops anymore. We probably still have them but we don't use them all that often. Maybe I'm wrong. My old netbook is still Windows 8, and I haven't used that in years, I don't know if it will charge up anymore. But I keep it just in case I need to use it. So perhaps I ought to dig it out from wherever it is....

 

[Muddy Cyclist]

good evening all

4.7 today

quite a pleasant day (if you don't count repairing toilets ) and Sunday lunch at mum's as usual, a sort of baked cross between bolognaise and eggplant parmigiana today with lots of cheese on top and veggies on the side and a few chips for Mum. A bit more carb than usual but I feel I have to provide a change sometimes

Toilet repair went fairly smoothly given the awful contortions the siting of said article requires to get to the plumbing connections. Always too close to the wall to save space in our little British bathrooms

Hope your day is treating you kindly

@dunelm - Congrats to you sister

I'm glad the jab went smoothly, out here in the Highlands our jabs are being done by the local Health Centres so it's familiar faces (well familiar masked faces anyway )

Nice vista in your painting and the colour you have chosen has provided a pleasing contrast

@gennepher - interesting colour blend choice in today's painting and very effective. Well done you for offering yourself a challenge I think it does us good to try to work with something unfamiliar sometimes.

@SlimLizzy - glad you've arrived safely after the trials and tribulations of the journey Errant seems to have decided it's home

@Muddy Cyclist - what a splendid and colourful dawn painting of Tryfan, I liked the sky to begin with but my appreciation for it has been joined by an enjoyment of the colours you have brought into the foreground, I do like the way you handle colour Good luck to the petition

art bit
thank you @lindisfel , I'll have a go

we have had some lovely serene sunsets here between the showery days, this is painted on the Hahnemuhle Britannia, I like it although it isn't cotton paper, the starch sizing does need a slight change of technique though, perhaps the 100% cotton paper they do would be good (I'm sure it would, but I'm less sure about the cost )

View attachment 49563

Thank you gor your nice comments on my colours in the Tryfan painting.

That's a very peaceful and pleasant end of day you have painted, what a view and the sky colour is perfect. I know what you mean about the cost of paper I'm paying between £20 and £24 for 12 A4 sheets which is why I hate it when paintings go wrong.

Winner for successful toilet repair.

 

[lindisfel]

@lindisfel The floor is earth, walls are granite and over a metre thick. It took Son2 nearly a whole day to still through one.
@geefull Errant is indeed back home.
@gennepher It's lovely. The best thing is having a shower without banging elbows.
@dunelm lawnmower repair was effective.

Thanks Slim lizzy,
Ah, so that exposed surface with a beam exposed is part of the external render?

I thought my house walls were thick with c.2 feet of sandstone.
D.

 

[Muddy Cyclist]

Fbg 6.5

A very pink dawn and sunrise this morning.

I watched it for about an hour just drinking coffee. I couldn't get on with my painting on my pixel phone because I had forgotten to recharge it and it was dead as a doornail this morning.

Oh, by the way, Mrs Blackbird is now in the process of making nest number 5. And it is in the clematis on top of my willow arbour. She has obviously got the first lot of twigs, for this new nest, from somewhere else other than my thatch, because that is now covered with army camouflage material. And she is obviously lining the nest number 5 now, because she is taking out the mud and leaves out of the round holes in my horse rubber mats (the ground in front of my camouflaged thatch swing is always damp and the sun rarely reaches it and consequently I have slipped frequently, so at the equestrian store I saw these rubber mats for horses stables so I got some, they have a very good grip for my feet).

So, Mrs Blackbird is doing a very good job of cleaning out all the gunge that has gathered over the winter in these holes, so these rubber mats will now have a good grip again for my feet.

Finally my Pixel phone recharged, so I was able to do this morning's painting in ZenBrush3. It took me over an hour to do do. I have to be honest, I thought by doing digital paintings on my tiny pixel phone screen (2 inches by 3 inches ish), would be quicker to do than on my large iPad screen. But that's not the case. It takes pretty much the same amount of time on each device whether the screen is small or large.

Have a good day.

View attachment 49569

A mighty fine Willow you have drawn, so good on such small devices.

 

[Muddy Cyclist]

Brilliant @Muddy Cyclist
A good dawn light. I was up on Easedale tarn a few decades ago and the dawn light was like that. It was magnificent to watch the day beginning up there, and the reflections of the mountains in the tan which were more perfect than the actual mountains themselves.
So a very good painting.

Thank you.

 

[lindisfel]

Have had grey squirrels in the garden of late.
In this area they are killing our Reds with squirrel pox so need catching and eliminating.
One was trapped last night.
They also take nesting young birds.
D.