Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 12 July 2020

LINDY Glad everything is fixed for you. My friend called off dog walking as she had a poorly tum overnight. I was going to walk on my own but OH said to wait for him as he would like to walk too. He had just started prepping for a courgette onion and tomato quiche so we won't be going out for a walk for another 20 mins. He made a delicious apple tart a few weeks ago and this is his first attempt at a quiche. I hope it is as good as the tart.

All sounds yummy, Dibnlib.

Annette: I saw the competition winners on Facebook. My favourite is the American Dipper, so well captured.

Drizzly here again today, but we're hoping to get out for a walk shortly. Some friends of ours may appear today as they said they would try to come down. They live in a different part of the N West from us, so we never meet them except here. They have been isolating as she has multiple health problems, so we will be careful and see them only outside.

LINDY - hope that your friend made it OK and the rain passed you by. I wonder if you have made it to the shop yet...
DIBNLIB- the quiche sounds lovely! I've got quite lazy about making pastry even though I could whizz it in the food processor in seconds. Actually, I've gotten quite lazy about a lot of things !
AQ- Perhaps the bakery would be kind and give you their recipe for sultana scones - BTW how do pronounce scones down under? Here, it varies in different parts of the country.

Not much happening here today, I pulled a few weeds before the rain came.

LINDY/HEATHER The quiche is for supper this evening so I will let you know. It will be served cold with salad. Heather, it is bought, ready to roll pastry.

I use that, also :-)

I make pastry when it's just "ordinary" - anything else, such as puff pastry, I buy.

Heather, I can't remember what I have and haven't said, so perhaps I forgot to mention that we went to a large supermarket yesterday & stocked up on things: we wore masks and were quite shocked that so very few others were wearing them: the virus is quite rife only a few miles away, in Anglesey. Perhaps the Welsh are rather resistant to them.

More problems today, as although we can get hot water, we have to juggle the controls a certain way every now & then, so it's not right yet. My OH has been busily wiping down the panels of the outside of the caravan, and weeding: one of the annoyances of the other residents has been that whilst the site has been closed, nothing much in the way of maintenance has taken place. They seem to have given themselves a holiday.

A good chat to our Youngest today, who was hoping to bring the family soon, but as not many attractions are open yet, indoors, and we are also having problems, he will not decide yet.

We went to have a bracing walk on the seafront this morning, but it was just grey drizzle so we had to be satisfied with sitting by the sea watching the waves. Eventually, we treated ourselves to an icecream.

This afternoon is much warmer and is gradually becoming dry. We will go home on Friday, which promises to be a good day weather wise! Our friends have finally arrived - we saw their car but have not approached as its a real pain when you come with lots of stuff to unload, and people just want to talk. (Which happened to us on Monday)

I hope you enjoyed that quiche, dibnlib. Sounds yummy. On the rare occasions I use pastry now, I confess to buying ready rolled. I seem to make rather a mess of rolling it out evenly now.

It must be wonderful to see and smell the sea now Lindy, even if the weather is not good. You have to have an ice-cream for the seaside experience,
It was a blocked shower drain that I was cleaning yesterday. Thames water is very hard. My dishwasher gobbles up salt. I have a water softener, but kitchen supply has to be separate apparently. I have a water filter for drinking water, but it does not improve the hardness much.

AQ and anyone interested, I had a very nice glass of rose from Adelaide this evening. The wine writer said to buy it up now as the Adelaide hills bushfires wiped out the vines for the 2020 vintage. Happy to do so, especially as it is on special offer in Waitrose now. I like drinking rose any time of the year. I hope the vineyard can recover.

Any excuse for a naughty ice cream, Rosy!

We never bother to put any salt in the dishwasher, so there's a big difference. I was used to drinking hard water as a child, in Bedfordshire, and found the soft water very strange when we moved north. My father once said that the hard water we drank made us children grow stronger bones!

I love Australian wines, and rose is a favourite - good to drink with almost anything, and even refreshing on its own.

Must get to bed as a full day tomorrow, we hope.