Snow Hill

3 hours ago, brian1 said:

Thanks Bob,good luck.I met up with my aunt in Northampton, where she lives, recently.Her brother was there also.She only met him when I did for the first time in London.He has a half sister thru his dad.I persuaded him to ask her to get a Ancestry DNA,if that is linked to me it would prove that his dad is my grandad making him a full uncle.OMG this is complicated stuff,I'm getting confused myself.I come from a very dysfunctional family,but all the resulting offspring are down to earth nice people.Cheers,Brian.

If you think that’s is complicated, I have recently been in contact with 2 cousin after matching with them on Ancestry, both are the offspring of my father’s elder brother, by 2 different women, he was married with a young family at the time and non of his children were aware of their existence either. We are meeting with one of them, who is coming over from Australia in a few weeks time to meet his newly discovered family. 
 

In the last few days I have discovered that the daughter of a great great uncle in Idaho USA, was married 5 times, 4 divorces, one marriage lasted less than 3 months, apart from her first husband, all the rest were younger than her, from 1 to 15 years younger.
 

One of her sons was shot dead during a shoot out with the police, he was about to kill his wife and youngest child. 
 

I discovered all this when linking to one of my DNA matches. 

8 hours ago, Funboy said:

Maybe some of the crew may have it  and if so the 'clean' will not be much help.

A deep clean should include the whole of the ship, not just passenger areas. If members of the crew have Noro then short of quarantine for them for 48 to 72 hours not sure what else cruise lines could do to eradicate the virus onboard. 
 

When I was working the rules where if you went down with Norovirus or gastrointestinal virus is that you stayed off work for 72 hours after the symptoms have passed. 

Seems like a data harvesting scheme to me. 

2 hours ago, Balaena said:

Back in 2002 on the Oceana when the Noro was onboard all passengers were taken off in a port and put up in hotels for 36 hours while the ship was completely cleaned throughout and that was the end of Noro.

Perhaps that should be reintroduced, it’s known that Norovirus can survive on hard surfaces, soft furnishings, curtains and carpets for some time. 
 

A sunny morning here, 11C.

Churchyard opposite now being mown following end of “No-mow May”, remarkable how quick the grass has grown many headstones had disappeared from view.

I was awoken at 6:30 by a neighbour with a modified Nissan GT which has a very loud exhaust 😡

Today, continue planting bedding plants finally remove the the remaining part of raised bed and prepare ground for veg plant, that means weed suppression and gravel. 

Well you see some bonkers suggestions on community groups on a certain social media site, but the one I saw today is probably up there with the best of them.

Basically to put it into plain English, she was blaming the council for planting wild flowers and failing to do an impact assessment on the effect on hay fever sufferers.

17 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

I never darken the doorway of Wetherspoons and the prices I gave are for decent pubs and restaurants.  I am however aware of the Wetherspoons pricing because our local branch made the national news when it was named as one of the most expensive ones in the country.  Coming in top was one in Leicester Square, London where a pint of Corona costs £6.98.  Wetherspoons are not all cheap as chips and a lot of P&O customers do actually use them and naturally compare the prices with their normal haunts.

I haven’t been over to the “dark side” since I got food poisoning in one of their not so decent pubs, this was back in 2010. 

16 minutes ago, Eddie99 said:

I think that’s brilliant!

 

You wonder if there’s a crib sheet or whether the pickers just go native & make their own choices?

 

I believe Cliff has a vineyard in Portugal.  You may have missed a bullet there? 🤣

If there is a crib sheet then I wonder who decided that carrots were a like for like substitute for grapes which happened to us a few years back, the delivery driver did think that pickers were having a competition between themselves for the most off the wall substitution. 

5 minutes ago, indiana123 said:

 

 

I don't know why we laughed but  we did.  Our supermarket has had to do a substitute wine.

 

I asked for Gary Barlow's Sauvignon Blanc which I really like but got Graham Nortons!

 

Cant make out whether it was a brilliant substitute and good thinking or stupid.   Both wines are adequately drinkable too  but that is only my humble opinion!!!

We order 6 bottles of our favourite Rioja with our online order a few weeks ago, when there was a 25% discount offer on, they only had 5, the substitute was a bottle of Rioja more than twice the price of bottles in the in the order. Not tried it yet, but it looks good.

A very sunny morning, blue skies and 12C, with a light NW breeze.

I have been up since 6:30, I have plant 6 tomato plants in the 2 growbags in greenhouse, topped under water reservoirs for capillary matting on greenhouse benches and done a load of washing & put in the line.

Will mow lawn later once the overnight dew has gone, a quick trip to garden centre when they open for some compost to refresh pots before planting up.

My OH is away dog sitting for my MIL, whilst she is hospital after a fall, I will be cooking dinner later and taking it over. 
 

4 hours ago, Josy1953 said:

I have just seen that there has been an eruption of the volcano in Iceland.  We have been to Iceland and feel sorry for the people whose homes are in the path of the lava. It must be awful to not know whether you will have a home to come back to.

It’s the same area as the earlier eruptions this year, the town of Grindavik and the Blue Lagoon Spa have been evacuated, most people in the town had moved out in November last year when the previous eruption began. The previous eruption was declared over, just over a week ago, but the volcano took no notice. 

https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/iceland/reykjanes-peninsula/current-activity.html

7 hours ago, kalos said:

Seagulls maybe on some folks naughty/ pest list but they are also

on an amber and red list for survival and that's no laughing matter for

them either ,through no fault of their own.

 

We have several country parks where family's take their kids to feed

the swans and ducks and some gulls have made it their home ,simply 

to get a share of the food offered to the ducks etc.

Think they should call them "land- gulls" as doubt  some have even 

been out to sea , the nearest coast is around 60 miles away .

Or just call them gulls, if you look them up in a bird identification book, the word Sea isn’t mentioned. 
 

https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/a-z?search=Gull&page=1

58 minutes ago, Megabear2 said:

My last employer refused to let me leave 30 minutes early to visit my mother in hospital and I therefore never saw her.  I lived 100 miles away and had a long train journey involving crossing London and overhead trains.  I'd worked there 13 years.  I left shortly after, however my friend had cancer and was made to take holiday and unpaid leave to have her chemotherapy.  This was a leading London lawyer.

 

Employers unfortunately can be very cruel about absence.

Fortunately the bank I worked for was the complete opposite, when my stepfather died my boss told me to take 10 days paid compassionate leave to support my mother. 

12 hours ago, NewWestwardbound said:

 

#72   

 

Posted 13 hours ago

   19 hours ago,  molecrochip said: 

 

- Most ships operating out of UK reporting high cases of norovirus.

 

A further question if I may. To whom do ships operating out of UK report cases of Norovirus, and are such reports accessible to members of the public? 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

@molecrochip Did you have a view on the above?

 

 

You could submit a FOI to Southampton City Council for those sailing out of the city. 

https://scccrmportal.southampton.gov.uk/services/foi-submission-form

25 minutes ago, Snow Hill said:

I believe they should be reporting outbreaks of Norovirus and the like to Public Health England. 
 

 

If you want to read about the procedures for dealing with outbreaks then you can find it all here, although publish in 2007 still applicable today.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f0280ed915d74e6227e0f/2007_guideline_norovirus_cruiseships.pdf

A a damp and overcast start to the day, on a yellow warning for thunderstorms this afternoon, so not planning to go anywhere today. 
 

I have some work to do in the greenhouse to prepare tomatoes for planting in the final locations, but not sure if I want to be in a metal framed greenhouse during a thunderstorm. 

4 hours ago, NewWestwardbound said:

A further question if I may. To whom do ships operating out of UK report cases of Norovirus, and are such reports accessible to members of the public? 

I believe they should be reporting outbreaks of Norovirus and the like to Public Health England. 
 

3 hours ago, kalos said:

Morning ,Mr Blue Sky is living here today ,very bright morning .

Hope all those who were feeling not too good are better today .

 

@Snow Hill Nice result but it could have been worse , if you had

said "upon delivery ,hide behind garage ,you could have ended up

with the driver there for hours but at least found your parcels on 

your door step .😉

You were lucky ,we had the postie drop ours in a dustbin on the

wrong street !!    All we got was a guy phone to say sorry .

 

All take care 🙂

 

 

Doubt he would have the intelligence to find the garage, as access is from a side street. He came again yesterday with another parcel that was ordered same time as the previous ones and did exactly the same. Again the door camera caught him dropping and running off without ringing the bell. 
 

Fairly successful day today,  I raised a complaint about Amazon Delivery regarding driver leaving 2 parcels on front step in full public view rather than our alternative safe place. Noticed from the cameras that he dropped the parcels, never rang the bell and was gone in less than 30 seconds, on the delivery email he had stated that he left in safe place. Amazon took complaint seriously and have passed complaint to fulfilment team and have credited £20 to my account.

Second success was to negotiate my Ancestry subscription renewal, getting a 25% discount for forthcoming year after around 10 mins on phone.

So how do they deep clean a cruise ship in a few hours? 
 

Do they wash all the bed linen, pillows, duvets at 60C?

Steam clean carpets & curtains?

Use Anti-Viral fogging methods? 
 

15 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

All this talk of food is making me hungry!

 

I’m playing my own personal game of ready, steady, cook this week. We are off on our travels next week so using up what’s left. Its not so much what OH wants to eat but what I can “create” from what’s left in the fridges. 
 

I have come up with some good recipes over the years by bunging together what’s left. I discovered roasted cauliflower, fennel and lentil soup as a result of having to use up a whole cauliflower and it’s delicious. Tonight it’s a Mediterranean beef stew as I had olives, red peppers and sun dried tomatoes to use up.

 

Does anyone else do this before they go away? I hate food waste.

We do it all the time, any vegetables that are not quite at their best get turned into soup. My OH is a dab hand at conjuring up a meal from various ingredients in the fridge to use them up.

43 minutes ago, lincslady said:

My very old-fashioned mother-in-law once asked me if the French spoke French all the time,  wondering how we got on when we used to go there frequently on holiday.  That  is admittedly many years ago, and she was over 70 at the time.  I did gently remind her that my DH had School Certificate French, and I had A level.  To be fair, she had not been further 'abroad' than the Isle of Man.

We often start of speaking French to someone, only to find they reply in English so they can practice, very annoying when we are trying to practice our French. Same has happened to me in Spain when I was trying to practice my Spanish prior to my aborted job move to Malaga. 

48 minutes ago, Josy1953 said:

Being Michelin pensioner I need as many people as possible to keep buying Michelin maps, atlases and tyres, I had  Michelin satnav before they were standard in equipment in cars. 

I remember a Michelin maps and guides manager telling me that they once had a complaint because the France guide didn't warn people that people in France didn't always speak English.  

We have the Michelin Guides to Brittany and Normandy, we find them very useful much better than any other guides we have seem. I also use the Via Michelin website to plan route in France, gives details of Toll charges, we have a Tag, so no scrabbling around for change on arrival at toll booth as we did when we first went, our friends in Brittany advised us to get one makes it much easier. 

I was looking for a new French motoring atlas for our forthcoming trip to France, our current one is from 2018 and knowing how quick new roads are built in France, thought we better get a new one.

Looking at the reviews for a couple I came across one which said 

“I wouldn’t buy this atlas too much green and not enough roads”

A review of the Michelin Atlas, probably the best atlas you can buy for France. 
 

We use the inbuilt satnav in the car but my OH likes to follow the route in atlas, an will suggest stop off places in advance.

49 minutes ago, terrierjohn said:

It's easy to apply for a postal vote, and you dont need to remember your identity card.

We have had postal votes for the last few years, mostly for local elections as we have often been away when they took place, we always vote in every election.