"What have you eaten" Parallel Chat

[Riva_Roxaban]

Not too difficult to make though.

I gave up tying knots years ago, but I would like to see a turks head or a monkeys fist knot on one.

 

[Antje77]

I gave up tying knots years ago, but I would like to see a turks head or a monkeys fist knot on one.

I can make both, the hard part with both the turks head and the monkey fist is the patience to work it tight after laying out the whole thing.
Especially if, like your doorstop, it goes around 6 times.

 

[Annb]

I've never managed to get my head around doing these fancy knots and can only watch in admiration as an expert makes them. My husband used to make decorative ropework and we have lots of things, still, with turks head knots on them as a decorative finish.

Well, here I am again - just after 3 am, first cup of tea beside me and back to normal. The procedure went well, although I am embarrassed to say I suspect I made a bit of a fuss coming out of the anaesthetic. Still, I suppose they are used to that. My memory of what happened is very vague. I don't enjoy being in hospital because I don't like the restriction on space and/or comfort. Also don't like someone else taking charge of what I can do with my medication and food. But the worst part was the travelling there and back. It turns out that the ferry did run, much later than its normal time so Neil could have come with me but there was no certainty that it would, so I had to fly - on my own. I knew I was fairly dependent on Neil, and am appreciative of what he does for me, but I never realised how reliant I have become on him. Things I had to ask people to do for me, Neil just knows and automatically does them. And it is so reassuring having him there. It also occurred to me that this was the first time since 1964, when I was married, that I have travelled anywhere on my own. Even before that, it was not a common thing for me to do - I was only 18 and always with my parents, or brother - other than a trip to Scotland and one to Amsterdam - both times with Tom waiting at the other end. I don't usually suffer much with stress, but this time, I did.

I've just had an e-mail to tell me that my brother's surgery has been postponed again, from Monday to Thursday! Both his wife, and I, are furious! That puts all of his blood thinning medication out of kilter again, just when he had managed to get his INR where it needed to be, so that he could go back onto Warfarin so now he has to keep going with this other drug, Fragmin which is really only a stop-gap. Fragmin is not usually used when the subject has low level of platelets, which my brother has, due to taking Warfarin for the last 42 years. So it's a bit risky for him. Somehow the people at the John Radcliffe hospital don't seem to realise the problems caused by these delays. Either that, or they don't care!

 

[Annb]

And beyond the purely medical issues, there are all the arrangements he has made to make sure his wife is OK and his children are available to help to get him to the hospital and hopefully, home again, after a couple of weeks. Both his son and daughter have asked for, and been given, time off work, only to have it cancelled twice. Now both employers are complaining about not knowing what arrangements to make, if they alter their time off again. One is just saying that it can't be done!

 

[Antje77]

Well, here I am again - just after 3 am, first cup of tea beside me and back to normal. The procedure went well

Very happy to hear everything went well, despite everything thrown on your path to make things harder!

The situation with your brother must be so frustrating, I'm very sorry.

 

[Annb]

Very happy to hear everything went well, despite everything thrown on your path to make things harder!

The situation with your brother must be so frustrating, I'm very sorry.

Now I only have to wait until someone sees fit to let me know what the lump really was and if there is any follow-up. That will take a while so I will have to possess my soul in patience. Not a virtue I normally display. The surgeon said that it will take at least 10 days if it's something simple, but if it is more complicated, it will take however long it takes for pathologists to get around to reporting. So I suppose, if I don't hear after 10 days, I can start to worry about it.

By that time, with any luck I should be getting over worrying about my brother. That'll keep me going meantime. To be honest, usually I don't worry about things until they happen but when it comes to my brother, it is a way of life - I was brought up worrying about him and he is, after all, the only one I've got.

 

[maglil55]

Now I only have to wait until someone sees fit to let me know what the lump really was and if there is any follow-up. That will take a while so I will have to possess my soul in patience. Not a virtue I normally display. The surgeon said that it will take at least 10 days if it's something simple, but if it is more complicated, it will take however long it takes for pathologists to get around to reporting. So I suppose, if I don't hear after 10 days, I can start to worry about it.

By that time, with any luck I should be getting over worrying about my brother. That'll keep me going meantime. To be honest, usually I don't worry about things until they happen but when it comes to my brother, it is a way of life - I was brought up worrying about him and he is, after all, the only one I've got.

Nice to see you back @Annb and so glad it all went well for you. Fingers crossed that they finally go ahead with your brother's op on Thursday. Maybe new ferries will finally be forthcoming now that madam has placed an order with Turkey. I don't know if they're scheduled for your route or not but I find it sad that the order has to go overseas.

 

[Annb]

Nice to see you back @Annb and so glad it all went well for you. Fingers crossed that they finally go ahead with your brother's op on Thursday. Maybe new ferries will finally be forthcoming now that madam has placed an order with Turkey. I don't know if they're scheduled for your route or not but I find it sad that the order has to go overseas.

Sad, but the Scottish shipbuilders haven't exactly covered themselves in glory. Not sure that the Turks will understand the exigencies of sailing the Minch, however.

 

[Antje77]

Scottish clapshot sounds a bit like your stampot. I think it is mostly served as a side dish with some kind of meat - possibly haggis. It is potatoes mashed with swede and onion and originated in Orkney - maybe a Norse influence there.

Rumbledethumps, on the other hand is a mixture of potato, cabbage, onion and swede (a bit like the English "Bubble and Squeak" - even the names bear some resemblance). Often it can contain pre-cooked meat and can be topped with some cheese and finished in the oven. This was a very popular dish when I used to make it (years ago) for a Stornoway restaurant, but I put it into open pie cases for easier service. I still often come across people who remember those little pies.

Bubble and Squeak is an English dish made with left-over vegetables and meat. It is all mixed together in a pan and fried as a cake and then served in slices like a pizza. I gather that once upon a time the dish was mostly left-over meat and cabbage but gradually potatoes and other vegetables were added. It can be a side dish or a dish all by itself - really nice with fried egg on top.

Colcannon is an Irish potato dish, mashed with a green leafy veg (cabbage or kale perhaps) and I've seen some recipes that include bacon. For example:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/colcannon
I've never made it with bacon, but it sounds like a good idea. Problem for me is, I really don't like cauliflower in any form. Perhaps I might try it with frozen mashed potato, which doesn't seem to upset the BG too badly.

Good notion to take this conversation to the parallel thread, but don't worry about the one you posted on the main thread!

I love this kind of information, especially with delightful words like rumbledethumps and bubble and squeak thrown in!
The colcannon looks very much like a Dutch stamppot, although the cream sounds like a modern luxury addition.

When I use pureed cauliflower with the veggies, it doesn't taste like cauliflower anymore, at least not to me.
I purée id with a stick blender with a generous know of butter and some cream cheese until completely smooth before mixing with the vegetables, it comes pretty close to mashed potatoes to me.
I drain and let sit for a minute or two to let some more water evaporate before pureeing, it doesn't need any added fluid to get the right texture.
I was surprised how much it resembled mashes potatoes!

 

[Annb]

Scottish clapshot sounds a bit like stampot. I think it is mostly served as a side dish with some kind of meat - possibly haggis. It is potatoes mashed with swede and onion and originated in Orkney - maybe a Norse influence there.

Rumbledethumps, on the other hand is a mixture of potato, cabbage, onion and swede (a bit like the English "Bubble and Squeak" - even the names bear some resemblance). Often it can contain pre-cooked meat and can be topped with some cheese and finished in the oven. This was a very popular dish when I used to make it (years ago) for a Stornoway restaurant, but I put it into open pie cases for easier service. I still often come across people who remember those little pies.

Bubble and Squeak is an English dish made with left-over vegetables and meat. It is all mixed together in a pan and fried as a cake and then served in slices like a pizza. I gather that once upon a time the dish was mostly left-over meat and cabbage but gradually potatoes and other vegetables were added. It can be a side dish or a dish all by itself - really nice with fried egg on top.

Colcannon is an Irish potato dish, mashed with a green leafy veg (cabbage or kale perhaps) and I've seen some recipes that include bacon. For example:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/colcannon
I've never made it with bacon, but it sounds like a good idea. Problem for me is, I really don't like cauliflower in any form. Perhaps I might try it with frozen mashed potato, which doesn't seem to upset the BG too badly.

 

[Annb]

Good notion to take this conversation to the parallel thread, but don't worry about the one you posted on the main thread!

I love this kind of information, especially with delightful words like rumbledethumps and bubble and squeak thrown in!
The colcannon looks very much like a Dutch stamppot, although the cream sounds like a modern luxury addition.

When I use pureed cauliflower with the veggies, it doesn't taste like cauliflower anymore, at least not to me.
I purée id with a stick blender with a generous know of butter and some cream cheese until completely smooth before mixing with the vegetables, it comes pretty close to mashed potatoes to me.
I drain and let sit for a minute or two to let some more water evaporate before pureeing, it doesn't need any added fluid to get the right texture.
I was surprised how much it resembled mashes potatoes!

Neil bought a cauliflower for me while I was away, thinking it would be a useful veg so I might just try it like that.

I've never put cream into colcannon either - very much an upmarket version. Trust the BBC.

 

[Antje77]

"What has your dog eaten today" isn't a thread yet, so I thought I'd post it here.

My dogs have developed a habit of visiting neighbour-in-the-garden multiple times a day, barking at his door to be let in, steal some of his cat and dog food and beg for a treat.
If they get a treat they'll ask to be let out again, cross the garden, enter my house through the back door, pass the hallway, the kitchen, up the stairs to the living room and either on the couch or onto my bed, which are apparently the best places for eating treats.
Or rather the best place to eat, period. They do the same thing with their dry food: Go downstairs to get a few bits of dry dogfood in their mouths and back up the stairs to eat them on my bed or on the couch. Being small dogs, they can only hold a couple of pieces at one time, so getting a full meal takes a lot of going back and forth over the stairs!

The last bag of dog treats were those dry biscuit type things, and neighbour laughed way too hard about the crumbs in my bed. It looks like those are finished now, because the dogs came in today with a new kind of treat.
By now I'm very sure neighbour picks the treats based on the effect on me when finding them in bed!

Oh well, at least I won't have crumbs in my bed for a while, dried chicken feet have that advantage over biscuits so I won't complain...

 

[Annb]

"What has your dog eaten today" isn't a thread yet, so I thought I'd post it here.

My dogs have developed a habit of visiting neighbour-in-the-garden multiple times a day, barking at his door to be let in, steal some of his cat and dog food and beg for a treat.
If they get a treat they'll ask to be let out again, cross the garden, enter my house through the back door, pass the hallway, the kitchen, up the stairs to the living room and either on the couch or onto my bed, which are apparently the best places for eating treats.
Or rather the best place to eat, period. They do the same thing with their dry food: Go downstairs to get a few bits of dry dogfood in their mouths and back up the stairs to eat them on my bed or on the couch. Being small dogs, they can only hold a couple of pieces at one time, so getting a full meal takes a lot of going back and forth over the stairs!

The last bag of dog treats were those dry biscuit type things, and neighbour laughed way too hard about the crumbs in my bed. It looks like those are finished now, because the dogs came in today with a new kind of treat.
By now I'm very sure neighbour picks the treats based on the effect on me when finding them in bed!

Oh well, at least I won't have crumbs in my bed for a while, dried chicken feet have that advantage over biscuits so I won't complain...

Obviously doesn't phase you, Antje. To be honest, they wouldn't be on my bed, neither dogs nor food. I have enough trouble with crumbs when Em shares my bed (which is apparently, one of her favourite places to retire to with a biscuit or so and a tablet to look at). At least, so far, she hasn't left any hens' feet there.

 

[Annb]

Now that I'm home and more relaxed, my BG has gone pretty high. A bit earlier it was 17.9. That was before breakfast so I took 60u of Humalog before my chicken Fu Yung, which shouldn't have needed that much, in itself. We'll see how it goes.

Edit: 9.2 at 3.50 pm. That'll do me.

 

[Annb]

I've told Neil not to let me buy any more meat until I've used all that is in the freezers either in raw form or as ready made dishes. I really have to get this in hand. Probably won't need to buy any meat for months. The big freezer needs to be defrosted - I thought it had an automatic defrost function but apparently not, so I need to reduce what is there and then find room for the remainder in the other freezers. It's going to take a while. It's badly frosted up because Em was allowed to get her own ice cream from it when I was feeling pretty bad and she omitted to make sure the door was shut - which it wasn't. The food didn't defrost, but the whole inside frosted up.

The small freezer is now pretty full because we found a supplier of one of the 2 soya margarines that Neil can eat and ordered a whole lot (freezer full) which was brought by a local carrier yesterday. That's getting on for a year's supply. At least we don't have to think about that for a while. The tiny freezer (bottom half of a kitchen fridge/freezer) is also full and needs emptying. There's some fish in there and some ready made meals but I don't know what else. It's all a bit of an adventure really.

Spoke to my brother last evening and he won't know if he really is getting his hospital bed until the afternoon of the day he is supposed to go in. So he has made his arrangements again. His daughter has taken her annual leave from work rather than a day or so to cover specific times. She will arrive in Swindon today. Assuming the bed is available, she will drive her mother and father to Burford, a village in the Cotswolds where she will meet up with her brother. He will take the time off as soon as he hears and will be able to rendezvous at that village about an hour after he hears. He will then drive his dad the rest of the way to Oxford (he knows the city, his sister doesn't). The 2 women will then return to Swindon about 3 hours after leaving it and the son will be able to drop his dad at the hospital and get back to his desk in about 3 hours or so. That keeps both employers happy. His medication isn't so easy to sort out but he's doing his best. He has just got his INR up to 1.8 - almost out of the danger zone but now has to start getting it down again, right into the danger zone for him, so that he can have the surgery (real safety for him lies around an INR of 4 but at 2 he is relatively safe). They don't make it easy.

 

[Annb]

Postie son was just in - no mail but he was just popping in to check how I am. Persuaded him to take home a boxful of frozen fruit which I had intended making smoothies with for Em so had divided little fruit salads into polythene bags. Plus some other bags and boxes of fruits. So he went on his way laden with them. He'll be home for his lunch break before they defrost but today's dessert is obviously going to be very fruity.

I'm pretty sure I have a box of cupcakes in the freezer somewhere - taking up quite a large space. Unfortunately, can't send them down for the hens - the last big gale destroyed the hen shed and pen which made the hens very happy - they've never been confined in their lives but had to be shut in because of current bird-flu regulations. SSPCA man said they should be culled - kinder to them than keeping them confined again and more realistic in terms of rebuilding something to hold them all in an appropriate shed. So that was yesterday's job for Alistair - rounding up and killing about 20 semi-wild birds. He was not a happy boy, but he did it!

 

[Annb]

So far my brother's bed at John Radcliffe hasn't been cancelled, so it's looking good. But, wouldn't you believe it, son's wife has developed Covid, and he thinks he might have it himself. So that throws the arrangements up in the air again. His daughter is waiting for the result of a test, so didn't come yesterday after all but will head down as soon as she gets a negative result through. She has to come by train from London to Swindon and the new plan is for her to drive all the way to Oxford now. It will be a late arrival, but so be it. Current plan B (really plan D) is just to get a taxi all the way from Swindon to Oxford. It will cost a small fortune but it will get him there.

And I thought I had travel problems.

 

[Goonergal]

"What has your dog eaten today" isn't a thread yet

But it would be a fantastic one!

@Pipp this is how my iPad lets me resize photos for upload:

After clicking on ‘upload a file’, select the photo you want to upload, and this screen will appear. Click on ‘show selected’ at the bottom:

This screen will appear. Click on ‘actual size’:

Then select size from the options given - need to be under 1MB for upload to be allowed:

If you want to upload a few, select them, and follow the same process. Strangely when clicking on ‘actual size’ you’ll see all the options look the same, but I find selecting ‘medium’ generally allows upload.

 

[Annb]

Well, my nephew and his wife have 2 weeks to get over their covid infection. That's because at the very last minute the hospital phoned and said - no op for my brother - again! His next appointment is on 31st March. By then, his daughter's annual leave will be up so she will no longer be available to drive him to Oxford. As long as his son and wife get over their covid in 10 days, he should still be OK. Other than that it will have to be a taxi which according to a website I just looked up will cost in the region of £75. Just as well that, despite being a pensioner, he is much better off than I am, so he can probably afford it. At least here, in the Western Isles, our travel to hospital is subsidised - unlike in England, from what I can gather.

Then, there is the issue of Warfarin and Fragmin to try to sort out again. Not sure what effect all this is having on the state of his blood or his aortic aneurism. I'm getting very worried. I know he has had "a good innings" and has had a pretty good life, on the whole, but I'm not ready to let him go. Of course, having the surgery at all is a risk for him and I am very aware of that but it seems so heartless of the medical people (more likely the admin people) to keep doing this. He says that he supposes that the bed he needs is given to someone more needy than he is, so he accepts that it has to be but still...his wife and I are furious!

 

[maglil55]

Rightly so @Annb . It's awful that it has been cancelled again. I'm still nursing anger over my last brothers case. It was so wrong that cancer patients were only getting telephone checkups, and the reoccurrence missed as a result. I don't blame the medical staff; they were doing as ordered by politicians. It's hard to take though so I totally understand how you feel.