The General Chat Thread (2016-2022)

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Spent yesterday at the Good Food Show in Birmingham. Bit of a mixed day really - probably why I haven't been for ten years. A very expensive day out and lots of 'gimmickey' products on sale, and foodstuffs that seemed to have been created by marketing departments as opposed to food lovers. There were exceptions though - spent a long time talking to pepper (as in ground peppercorn) specialist which revealed a whole new world of taste - how pepper can be used, not only to enhance but to carry and prolong flavours. Worthy of a post of its own when I get chance. Also bought some kimchi (long been on the to do list) and some water buffalo steaks.
Overall I wouldn't recommend the experience. The facilities were pretty dire - no excuse for people having to sit on the floor to eat their lunch just because the event organisers were too tight to hire a few more tables and chairs. And no excuses for the woeful inadequate facilities at the NEC, long queues at all the ladies toilets, broken lifts, escalators, skywalks. A better time to be had at smaller local shows. Next month brings the Nantwich International Cheese Show. That's always a good day out.
 
Wow, sorry to hear about your wild weather, @Cinisajoy. I know you live down that way because you're near family, right? I know that is the only reason I would put up with weather like that. I wouldn't last a year if hubby's company had sent him someplace hot when he was transferred. At least our south-of-Cleveland weather was basically the same we put up with here in MA. It just seems lousier because we aren't living near family.
 
epicuric said:
And no excuses for the woeful inadequate facilities at the NEC, long queues at all the ladies toilets, broken lifts, escalators, skywalks. A better time to be had at smaller local shows. Next month brings the Nantwich International Cheese Show. That's always a good day out.
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Sadly I must agree with you. We have found that in many cases the bigger the event the less you, the visitor, are catered for. It seems to be that at big shows etc you are simply a 'number' - another 'punter' to be squeezed dry. Small events [of all types] always seem to be much friendlier affairs.
 
Cinisajoy said:
Google Odessa Texas weather. No, on second thought don't. We had hailstorms two days in a row.
Half the town looks like a disaster area. Nearly every house and many businesses have boarded up windows. Every house on our block suffered damage. On one side of the street there are no back windows. The other side of the street there are very few front windows. Some got side windows knocked out too. Not to mention all the car windshields that got shattered.
Actually it is a several block radius. One church had one window knocked out in the first hailstorm. The second hailstorm got the rest on that side of the building. And the hail went through the board they had put over the first window.

We have had heat plus humidity. My house is 83 right now. I just looked and it is still 105 out but at least the humidity has finally dropped.
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OMG @Cinisajoy is everyone ok?
 
Sorry to hear about your crazy weather, Cin.

I can't see past my deck today, it's so foggy.

My neighbor across the street put in a Koi pond in his backyard last week and is having a "pond tour" today for some carp club. There's a big sign in front of his house "Pond Tour Today". then another sign in his driveway "Pond tour: begin here".

A tour? You could jump over the damn pond. I guess the club just walks around it looking at the fish. With all of the rain and fog today, I wonder how many times the visitors mentioned that the fish don't mind getting wet. :rolleyes:

I am really tempted to put on my hip waders, vest, and hat and go over with a fishing rod, asking where they put in the pond...:D
 
@buckytom the fish in our pond (which we found after we had rented the place... scared the living daylights out of me when I was draining the pond by hand thinking it was a stagnant mess that I didn't want as a breeding ground for mossies right next to the veranda and being new to Australia I was still on the 'I don't know the wildlife and its all fatal' mentality. so not knowing there were 3 very large goldfish in there that were brown in a brown stagnant mess of roughly 3-4 inches of water.... suddenly whats in the bucket is moving around and jumping up at me! you get the idea).... anyhow, you only really get to see them if they are either sunbathing first thing in the morning after it has been very cold overnight or when it is foggy because there is far less chance of the kookaburras taking them then!

Our pond - well 2 of them. there is a 3rd off in the distance...
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Our fish

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We now have way too many fish in there after they had a successful breading season!
 
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So after freezing weather overnight - a lovely warm sitting room to get up to this morning we now have blue skies and sunshine. A friend down the road an hour away has dense fog! And I have a week of -3C overnight and 15C during the day to look forward to! Yippeee....
 
Wow, your ponds are beatiful, SNSSO.
I always wanted one, but now in bear country, I'd just be setting up a sushi bar for them.

I'm waiting for my neighbor to find that out. Hopefully his little dogs won't be the turf to go with the surf.
 
After a night off, I had a productive day today. I cleaned the birds' room, including scrubbing the floor and walls (birds are very messy), then got at the pile of boxes that have heen taking up one of the garage bays since I closed out my storage unit near our old home over a year ago.

It was bittersweet finding boxes of old stuff that I haven't seen in years, some containing things from my mother-in-law and father, both of whom are now deceased.

But then I got to a few boxes that totally skeeved me out. They apparently became a home to some mice over the past few years as they were loaded with dessicated droppings and chewed bits.

On top of that, something got into a large bag of hickory wood chips causing the the entire bag to go moldy. As I was dumping it in the woods behind the shed, I realized that I was standing in knee high poison ivy all around.

As soon as I was done, I took the longest, hottest shower that I could stand.
 
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Hair o' the dog, brother.

A nice Shandy, or a Bloody Mary might help.

I should go post my Bloody Mary recipe. While you pray to the porcelain god.
 
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