Any cheerful news today? (Nothing negative please! 🙂) (Part 1)

[Gareth]

Happy Birthday to your wife.

[Stella]

Cheerful News today is that, despite forgetting to switch off the gas under the “soup cauldron” yesterday supper time…
The only damage is one stainless steel pan with a very black-streaked-interior and the lid which echoes the dramatic warpaint phew.

The lid has enjoyed some tlc and is now gleaming on the draining board.
I’ll tackle the pan itself… later… much later… It’s enjoying a good soak at the moment.

[Shiba]

Good luck. I know how the hoops have to be jumped through when my daughter and son in law moved to Dallas and had to go to the homeland security interview, green card applications that cost thousands of dollars for the company and so on.

[Shiba]

I remember seeing Jamie Oliver clean burned pans by boiling water in them for several minutes to melt the burned on bits - worked a treat.

[JaneJones]

@Stella

despite forgetting to switch off the gas

I wouldn’t be without my timer…even carry it into the garden

[Stella]

Sadly, the soup was already cooked. I dished up half of it and put the pan back on the diffuser on the hob (not realising the gas was still alight, albeit very, very low). After eating the delicious soup (cheerful news), neighbours called us over… and the rest is a bit of a blur…

Memo to self… check the gas hob before going to bed/outdoors/anywhere

[Shiba]

Bit more pension paid out today, exchange rate must have been better.

[Shiba]

Thats the beauty of my induction hob, turns itself off automatically within a minute if I forget

[Susannah]

As a well experienced pot burner myself, I can highly recommend leaving said blackened pot full of water and plentiful bicarbonate of soda overnight. One large black disc lifts cleanly off the next morning and no need be the wiser

[Corona]

Even several nights, all crud will float off eventually

[DrMarkH]

Good news is that after 28 days our broadband (and that of surrounding villages) has been restored today. However, little opportunity to take full advantage of it 'cos we’re off to Cap d’Antibes in the morning. Chino shorts and suede loafers packed. Hopefully, by the time we get back, it’ll be full-on Spring - adieu boots and socks till November.

This evening had a final winter meal of pulled oxtail, spag and confited cherry toms - good combo.

All in all a good day!

[DrSukie]

I packed a box today for shipping - all my winter tops/sweaters (jumpers?), flannel PJs, cozy fleece robe, and I look forward to not seeing any of that stuff again until Fall in France!

[DrMarkH]

@DrSukie

tops/sweaters (jumpers?)

‘pulls’ en français -from very archaic, mid-C20th UK English ‘pullover’.

[JaneJones]

And un pull/les pulls is very hard to pronounce perfectly in French! One of my bug bear words as such a pure vowel.

[Gareth]

@DrMarkH

we’re off to Cap d’Antibes in the morning.

Ah, my old stomping ground when I worked in Sophia Antipolis. I loved Antibes, moreso than Cannes and Nice.

Hope you have a great time.

[AngelaR]

A few small cheering things -

• the sun has been shining every day recently and I managed to get a full weeks’ worth of washing dried outside for the first time for a very long time.
• I got an appointment with a new physio and am hopefully starting a series of treatments to remuscle my feeble back. He also showed me how misalignment was causing my hip pain, which is a relief - no need for a hip replacement just yet!
• Although I was upset that our beautiful garden is no more because there was little left after my partner got rid of the brambles, it does mean that I can start again with some new planting - going to nurseries is always fun!
• The wall units are now done in our new kitchen - I can envisage making a cuppa in the future without going into the barn to do so…

Life is looking up

[Corona]

Likewise sunny here and 1st dump run to the decheterie this morning for bits I cant shredd. Coffee and more shredding now and a cut of what we call grass this afternoon. It all looks better when the sun is shining

[Susannah]

Indeed! It feels here in the South that Spring is springing.

Our gardinier M.Mohammed has, despite fasting so without his usual p’tit café or even a goutte d’eau, been busy trimming and doing the twice yearly treating of palm trees so that we do not lose them to the red plague that decimated all those in Nice.

Finding a nest containing a little egg, which we looked at and thought may be a pigeon or a collared dove, he gently removed the nest, lay it on the terrace below and replaced it in the crown once he’d finished lopping and spraying. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I expect the mother would not return after such interference but one can hope all the same.