I know a young man who headed back to India for an arranged marriage. I expressed my extreme surprise that he would agree to marry someone he’d never met, and he said he trusted his parents to choose someone compatible. “After all, they know me better than anyone else.” I remain baffled, honestly. He seems an otherwise savvy, modern person. But there you go, happy to commit to a stranger.
I dread to think what kind of bloke my parents would have picked for me…
Ha ha yes, he was experimenting. I did wonder how he got on. Bright blue sheets I fear.
The kind that clip under the rim and turn the water blue. Some kinds you put in the cistern. https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/4e1b697a-ca2d-4243-96fd-b7ce27bdcabd_1.20c57db567797b6b4993bfb863b44d06.jpeg?odnHeight=180&odnWidth=180&odnBg=ffffff
Well that unlocked a memory. I was on a road trip around California and stopped off in a small town to do my laundry. An elderly gent was already in the laundromat and the washing machine window showed bright, bright blue. He said he recalled that his late wife used to use blueing tablets to get the sheets etc white. “I couldn’t find any at the store, but these toilet cleaning tablets are blue, so figured I’d try them.”
This is what my late mother used: https://www.retonthenet.co.uk/vintage-washing-laundry-reckitts-bag-blue-reckitt--coleman-hull-dolly-bag-1960s-nos-dolly-blue-5487-p.asp
Not really. It’s like a rock, but you can easily break it up with a hammer.
Charcoal?
Lol! It was quite a nostalgia trip for me to write about coal, and it never occurred to me that many people of course would never have experienced it. I’m 71 years old and grew up in New Zealand.
Our coal was pretty good quality, it came in large shiny chunks - some of them were too big for the firebox, so you had to break them up with a hammer. There was a lower grade of coal that was cheaper, but it didn’t burn as hot.
Filthy, awful fuel. Looking back I’m amazed we didn’t all get lung cancer or something, the amount of soot we breathed in.
Growing up we had a coal fire in the sitting room and a coal range in the kitchen. The range was a wet-back, so it heated water as well. Lovely and cosy in the winter but sweltering in the summer. We had a special coal shed. The coalman would carry big sacks of coal in on his shoulder and empty them into the bin. Coal on one side, firewood and kindling on the other. Mum had the knack of setting the flues just so at night to bank the fire, so that in the morning it just needed a couple of sticks of kindling on the embers to get it going again.
The range was a bastard to cook on. The spot directly over the firebox was hottest. If you needed it even hotter you could lift a cover off - it had a second ring outside that for bigger pans. Moving along from the hot spot towards the chimney were cooler sections. For the lowest heat you moved the pan to the back. There was so much shuffling around! And don’t get me started on the oven. And the constant film of soot, the gusts of ash when you shovelled in coal from the scuttle. Gross. I love my induction hob and electric oven.
Absolutely. My sister had brain cancer. The symptom that sent her to a doctor was “absence seizures”, where she would sit quietly, apparently awake, but unable to respond to anyone speaking to her. She said it was a very strange feeling, being aware but not really “there”. She died six months after diagnosis.
Ooooh ok, in that context I can see what the issue is. That is such a heads-up for me in terms of making assumptions based on my own privilege, and I apologise for doing that here. I’m very lucky to be able to discuss politics without fear. I wish you all the best.
Such a weird concept - you don’t trust someone who has a wide variety of friends? I have several very different hobbies/activities, so naturally there’s little overlap in my friend groups. Most of my friends are like this - for example one belongs to three choirs and I don’t know any of those friends. Or her kayaking friends, or her work friends. I’m giggling thinking how baffled she’d be if I started questioning her “loyalty”. Even my very closest friends have other friend groups I’m not part of. So what?
You haven’t met the man from Strabane, have you? https://youtu.be/XhGbpatmplQ?feature=shared
Oh that reminded me of one time I was in hospital really sick & an Indian doctor was examining me. She said, “Do you have any wessicles?” Ummm what is that? “Wessicles… I can’t remember the English word…” She tried describing wessicles and it hit me - blisters. “Yes, yes! Blisters!” She had actually been saying vesicles, which to be fair I would have to have looked up if I came across it in a book. We had a good laugh, she diagnosed me correctly, I got the right meds, and I recovered.
You should be ok if you stay focused and alert. When you’re in the driver’s seat you will always be in the middle of the road next to the white line, whatever country you’re in.
The trickiest part is making turns. Driving in Europe, the US and Canada I used to say to myself “loooong left and tight right”. In Ireland, you’ll be turning right across the oncoming traffic. It’s tricky because if you don’t focus, habit will take you on to the wrong side of the road. After a couple of days you’ll get used to it.
Hire an automatic, they’re more common these days anyway. Having said that, I never had a problem changing gears withe the “wrong” hand.
Enjoy! The Irish countryside is lovely.
I think any rational person who has the capacity for independent thought and has a shred of empathy for other humans will inevitably oppose Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
Agreed. I would only add that opposing that treatment of Palestinians is NOT antisemitic.
White tea is supposed to help control diabetes. Source: a tea shop in Darjeeling, India.
Live on TV, what a moron.
It’s novel. One bag left behind isn’t news (looking at you Lufthansa you bastards); all the bags left is new, therefore news.
When I was growing up in Dunedin NZ, our butter’s brand name was Huia, and there was a drawing of the bird on the wrapper. So it’s partly nostalgia, but mostly because it was beautiful, and sacred in Māori culture. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018657018/the-call-of-the-huia-remembered
Also usw for “und so weiter” - etcetera.