Weekly MsCellany 6/10/24

You just know, don’t you, the exact moment when someone has passed on their nasty little bug on to you? I remember the 2008 sneeze from the friend with the flu who had still come to babysit, that finally robbed me of my voice for years; it happened when I shared a lift at Dubai airport for 20 seconds with someone who was sneezing explosively everywhere and in my subsequent virus-addled state lost my diamond engagement ring that I worn for 22 years. On Tuesday evening it happened at a LibDem fundraiser. I watched the culprit with increasing alarm as he sneezed and sniffled, the red in his cheeks not completely attributable to the ale in front of him. And two days later, as I commenced by [sic] drive up to Norfolk my sneezing started. My nose has been running like Usain Bolt ever since and it’s not fair.

I have been ill twice this year, with that wretched 100 day cough and then with Covid and post-Covid and each time it affected my breathing and singing for a couple of months and that is terrible.

When I am Queen of the World I shall ban viruses. Off with their heads! All they do is multiply and mutate and it should not be allowed. I am against Capital Punishment on principle but I would consider some harsh physical bashing with a comic book mallet for those who insist on struggling on through work or social lives, infecting all around them as they go. Or house arrest with gentle application of a wet mop to their shins, I think.

I like:

Franklin Lade food storage containers:

Since the end of my diet (first phase) I have gloried in batch cooking. I do like these Franklin Lade canisters, which the Internet told me to buy. They are made of borosilicate glass so they can go in the oven and the freezer, and their plastic lids just clip over the top. Behold two shepherds’ pies.

Boody in pink for October

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and the latest offering from Boody is in this pretty pink so I natch jumped at a pair before they all sell out. Made in bamboo and without an underwire, the full cup bra is supportive enough for normal daily activities, though I wouldn’t go on the treadmill in it. These bras lift but don’t separate, though, and leave you with a bit of a shelf, so if your girls need a little more structure in their lives when dressing to impress you might still prefer a bitey underwire. IYKYK

I don’t like:

Trades who turn up full of enthusiasm to quote for a job that you’d quite like done not in a hurry but soonish; who quote and then promise they can do it soonish, and who then disappear off the face of the earth, thenceforth uncontactable. This has happened with alarm people, electricians and joiners and not just in Norfolk. If you don’t want to do the job, just tell me please and I’ll try to find someone else. I swear it’s just a game. Or maybe they are casing the joint and lose interest when they realise that we have a big dog and nothing worth stealing, I don’t know.

Adios to our Aga

Our gas-guzzling Aga was decommissioned yesterday. Here is the final pic before she was dismantled and taken away. Sad, isn’t it?

We are, however awaiting the happy arrival of a new, electric model. If we can find a replacement for our disappearing electrician, that is.

Raffles’s bead

Since we lost our Raffles in January, his ashes have been sitting on our sideboard waiting for me to decide on a last resting place. Raffles wasn’t fond of water so he won’t be buried at sea, and I don’t like the thought of scattering him where people might walk through and trample him. If I’m honest his perfect full stop would be in the foil dish of an unfinished takeaway curry that someone has carelessly left under a bush but it might be too much of a wait until I stumble across another one of those. I had some of his ashes encapsulated into this orange glass bead appropriate for our ginger whinger by Pain in the Glass and I’m pleased with it.