dunelm
Master
I love fresh koffy but usually only have one a day - wandering about with extra wide eyes all day is not a good look.
I love fresh koffy but usually only have one a day - wandering about with extra wide eyes all day is not a good look.Had a cup of real coffee which Neil had made yesterday afternoon, instead of tea. Shortly afterwards I could feel my pulse thumping in my ears - usually a sign of elevated blood pressure. Instant coffee doesn't do that, nor, usually, does cold real coffee. But I think I'll stick with tea most of the time.
Had to edit again 2 typos. I'm getting worse.
Good planning with those sausages, hope bin day went swimmingly7.7 at 4 am. Pills and tea. 9.8 now.
Lisa didn't come yesterday after all - she works as a home carer and was asked to do an extra job at the end of her normal shift, so she'll come today. Just have to lift stuff off the floor again so she can get to it, so not a problem. Today is bin day, so I hope Neil wakes in time to get the bins out for collection. If not, I might give it a try myself. Legs a bit improved this morning.
Em will be here in about 45 minutes, so I'll prep breakfast. Maybe brown all the remaining sausages and only finish off one which she can have if she wants, or I will have. The rest I'll put into a stew later. Just finish off this cup of tea and then get going.
Yes, we have a four poster French bought in UK and repatriated. However the bedhangings MrSlim wants will be purely decorative at the bedhead.Not nice having dead chickens with heads still attached if you are not used to it. Probably affected your perception of taste of them...
Glad your curtains are now finished...
Not another pair to do?
Bedhangings? You have a four poster?
Probably a good idea for cold weather!
Not very tactful your sister...
I am glad you and Kiki are developing a relationship...
Used to enjoy steak and kidney pudding - suet lovely not now thoughIn army rations (during my time at least) we had small tins of steak and kidney pudding and apple pudding - both with suet - otherwise known as ‘babies heads’ and ‘sweet babies heads”. Both delicious in their own way.
Yes, these hens take some care but that cockerel should make for a good Cocq au van - I have a French cook book and for this dish it says, “take one proud cockerel”. Sad that your sister does not respect your decisions about Christmas but good luck with the play school curtains.06.12
6.45am FBG 5.4 amazingly good after midnight snack of chocolate biscuits.
Kiki got her first look at neighbours cat Oreo yesterday.
Having seen the kitten inside Oreo approached the house slowly with her tail up. Kiki sat bolt upright by the patio doors watching her come, then bolted for her bed when Oreo was about three feet away. Oreo is a sizeable cat and was a bully to Errant for many months, but they came to an agreement and she obvoiusly grieved for him. I was surprised by her apparently friendly approach to Kiki.
We are up early today because I turned the oven off after dinner. Big OOPS as there was a casserole still cooking. Discovering this at bedtime after some rather cross words, MrSlim put it on a low temp to cook overnight.
We had bought two farm reared free range birds. I wasn't keen on them coming with heads still attached. Does that make me squeamish? The hen for roasting turned out to be a bit tough. Putting the remains in a pie. If we have another will casserole it. The cockeral was in the oven as Coc au vin. I do hope my forgetfulness hasn't ruined it. The meat is very different from shop chickens Probably needs different cooking techniques to get the best from it.
Have finally completed and hung the door/window curtains and now have to tackle lengthening the "pair" hanging in the arched window. Playschool anyone? MrSlim is already talking about the bedhangings he wants me to make next...
Had a phone call from my sister who does not approve of our decision to stay in France for Christmas and probably thought she was being subtle but phrases such as "I would walk through fire to see my Mum" are not at all helpful and definitely do not improve in any way the sisterly relationship.
Flurries of snow have propelled me out into the garden for some more winter preparations. Few jobs to do out there still. Have been thinking to make mint jelly but a flock of starlings descended on the late fruiting apple tree and there might not be any fit to use now. Market day as well. Lots to do today so the early start should have been useful - but I have been indulging an unusually cuddly Kiki with some rare lap time instead.
Thank you @ianpspurs and all the best with those grandchildren - do you get discount on the get me out of here book?The following has been edited from yesterday afternoon's draft in order to make me appear a (vaguely) nicer, kinder little boy since I would rather be on the nice list. Good morning from a cold and very esoteric enclave of The East on the Feast of St Nicholas. Three grandchildren now on antibiotics (see attached - who knew?), thanks be to God working through the NHS funded by the kindness of strangers. Two of them here in Suffolk couldn’t have their prescription filled in a town of 10k souls so dad had to travel to Newmarket. The little chap in Cambs - no problem. Hard to say definitively who broke the country ( I do strongly suspect though) but this is a mess. No amount of Boosterism or claiming it is all Putin’s fault will wash any more. Meanwhile, LC food in cold weather doesn’t morph into anything the most silver tongued orator could persuade me to utter that ridiculous yum nonsense or its absurd cousin lush. Today would be a very good time for my MP to knock on my door for a Matt Chat. I’ll feed him some dishes far worse than any he had in the jungle. Grumpy? Bachman Turner Overdrive say Hi, Today’s poem and art https://malcolmguite.wordpress.com/2022/12/06/the-good-riddle-gk-chesterton-8/ @Annb @Krystyna23040 and @dunelm - plus anyone my addled Brian missed - thanks for the good wishes for the trio. @SlimLizzy hug for the sister guilt trip. Sometimes being an only child is an odd blessing. I'm not at all sure JKP feel's the same way about the release from suffering of her sister at far too young an age but it does simplify MIL's situation. @gennepher thanks for the video and hope contained in that creative. @Krystyna23040 winner for the enjoyment winning out over the hair shirt route. In your case very much the road invariably not taken. @dogslife back under the snug duvet sounds good. @Annb torn trousers are very on point. I feel bad about my comments on food choices so sorry. This is close to something like a camel - (a compromise designed by committee ) https://www.ketofitnessclub.com/blogs/beef/beef-stew-dumplings. That might be ok to actually eat. We have made the dumpling mix but baked in the air fryer as one big slab. @alf_Josiah best wishes to all involved in the dental caper. @dunelm wonderful art brought to a fitting triumph with colour added. Thorough cleaning? (This) One does wonder about the link twixt the surge in Strep A and 12 years of down, down deeper down school budgets, NHS and GP savaging plus the Great Unmentionable. No, couldn't be. The last but one PM put his arm around us all and claimed The Deal which can't be polished a triumph.. TLDR meets TTFN
Office hours only these days Derek.I would think a Fen man in the tradition of Hereward the Wake would have took drawing a pheasant in his stride!
How are you going to reactivate your desiccant driers?Because the weather app said no rain, I was out very early in the garage to unearth something I badly needed , needed me to empty half the garage to get at it.
I was due parcels on Friday, I only ordered them last night, so I knew I was safe emptying the top half of the garage, and would have time to at least throw it all back in before it got dark. But I got about half the stuff out when some wheels jammed. I heard a cat caterwauling outside, so went to look for it. Couldn't find it. Came back to Midnight mountaineering in the garage. He was causing avalanche after avalanche after avalanche, and I couldn't get anywhere near him. Each time he came tumbling down, the intrepid climber was climbing again. There was an alert on my phone, and it was Amazon, telling me my two parcels were coming today via Royal Mail. Really? It was 8 am and I had to abandon what I was doing. They weren't due until Friday.
They were two desiccant dehumidifiers, because now my central heating has packed in for good, my ordinary dehumidifiers won't work to dry my washing in this cold.
What I was in the garage for were some small portable heaters from when I first moved here and there was no central heating then.
It is now 12:40 pm, and I am still waiting for the postie in his van, I need to be by the window so I don't miss the postie. No time frame, just that they are coming today. I sincerely hope they do arrive soon, because the sun is on its downward path in the sky...and I still have to find those heaters.
I was worried Midnight had come to a cropper in his mountaineering, he wouldn't come when I called, but the need to not miss those two desiccant dehumidifiers was my greater need. Just 5 minutes ago he came charging in, looking like he'd had the adventure of his life...he is now asleep on the edge of my electric blanket...
I am toasty warm under my leccie blanket.
Please please come soon postie....
By the way I unearthed my slow cooker. I left it in the garage, but I was wondering, is it cost effective with electricity in these exorbitant electricity times?
If someone tells me it is, I'll bring it in...
Hi @lindisfelHow are you going to reactivate your desiccant driers?
It needs heat to get them dry again.
Silica gel is the usual desiccant.
That is a lovely bed @SlimLizzyYes, we have a four poster French bought in UK and repatriated. However the bedhangings MrSlim wants will be purely decorative at the bedhead.
Relationship with Kiki. Not quite what I wanted. She is a feisty girl, not often a lap cat and attempts to pick her up or stroke her without permission are usually greeted with teeth, sometimes claws as well. She no longer bites hard, but she still nips frequentlyView attachment 57937
That jumper is still damp. This extra hour turbo blast cost another 30 pence, to no avail. It is not even worthy of being repurposed into leg warmers. It has bitten the dust - binned.3 am I woke up. The desiccant dehumidifier is off, as it should be, so I check the water. Pretty substantial for two hours. One jumper was bone dry. The other needs more. So the desiccant dehumidifier is on turbo charge for another one hour. That damp jumper will be biting the dust (it has long arms...scissors...leg warmers)...I need to source a couple more easy drying jumpers. There should be some good stuff in the charity shops as people are clearing out for Xmas...
There isn't really any guidance on how best/most economical it is to dry washing with the desiccant dehumidifier. There are several settings on each button, so a heck of a lot of combinations. Oh, by the way I would normally have a much larger load than that, about 2 to 3 times that amount hanging on the door frame. And my normal dehumidifier in warmer weather would generally dry that kind of quantity in one night.
Back to sleep. Amazon have kindly given my 3 cat food parcels to DPD...so that joy awaits me when I wake up.
This is not magic, if you raise the temperature of the room it will cost you input power in electrical units.Hi @lindisfel
I didn't understand electrical desiccant humidifiers until a friend explained. She has no central heating in her house, but needed to dry her washing.
This is the one she has.
I chose a different one with different specs for my needs, and it's sold out now. It says it works at 1C.
It is 7C tonight in my bungalow, so I am about to test this
I needed one that had laundry mode as well, on the one I choose apparently it makes quite a bit of heat, which some reviewers found bad for the summer. But I already have three conventional dehumidifiers for the summer so I was delighted to pick this one. I'm about to test it out fully now as I have just done some hand washing.
My friend explained how much it could actually raise the surrounding temperature of the area it was operating in. It is only the one that is labeled a desiccant humidifier that will raise the temperature this much, the conventional dehumidifier does not do this.
Here is a bit of blurb online that I found that explains it the way my friend explained it.
"A desiccant based dehumidifier draws the air in from the room over a filter and passes it over a rotating wheel that is full of a desiccant material called Zeolite which absorbs the excess water out of the air. The wheel is now saturated and needs to be regenerated. A heater in the base of the dehumidifier works with a second fan to draw the moisture out of the wheel. The warm, humid air is blown into a condenser where it turns into water and drips into the dehumidifiers tank. The warm, dry air is now blown into the room and the heat used during the drying process is mixed with the dry air to ensure that the air that comes out of the dehumidifier is not just drier but 10-12°C warmer than the air that came in."
My friend said her desiccant dehumidifier raised the surrounding air up by 17C
I find that hard to believe. But if this model can raise the surrounding air by 10C I will be highly delighted.
I still have my old heaters to try out, but I will try those tomorrow. ..
All the best
Thank you DerekThis is not magic, if you raise the temperature of the room it will cost you input power in electrical units.
Despite the claims about warming a room with a small heater on the net, I don't believe it can be done without equivalent energy input in electrical units. I would want to check the power going in with a meter.
You may well be able to warm your house cheaper than gas and certainly electric with red diesel or kerosene but these can be fire and monoxide hazards.
Please try to keep warm, gennepher, in the coldest weather it has serious health implications.
Best wishes
Derek
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