Hubbys chicken casserole

Posted on September 15, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged casserole, Chicken, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2063, Food, Garlic, overpowering, pungent, TasteLeave a comment

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

One day hubby turned up from his work at a pottery with a very large casserole pot. He’d bought it and wanted to cook for friends.

We decided to make a chicken casserole and invite a few friends over. I was working that evening so he said he would prepare it. I told him what to do, put the chicken in the casserole pot, add carrots, potatoes, onion and a clove of garlic.

I came home to hubby and our guests. He opened a bottle of wine and we decided to serve the food. Unfortunately the smell of very pungent garlic wafted from the pot. My hubby had put in a whole bulb of garlic in by mistake. We were only young and were not used to the strength of the garlic. The flavour was too strong for us. I think we ended up having fish and chips from the chips shop.

Anecdote on wiper blades

Posted on September 15, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged anecdote, Broken, Car, Driving, Funny, Humour, Memory, side to side, String, Tied up, Windscreen wipers2 Comments

My windscreen wiper motor broke down on the way back from Birmingham once, so we titd a string to one wiper, put it through the driver and passenger windows and tied it to the other wiper, We got cold and wet but at least I could see what was going on. Hubby pulled the string side to side while I drove! We got some peculiar looks on the way home! Especially when we stopped at traffic lights… People were laughing at us!

I remembered this after reading about the woman from America who invented windscreen wipers in the 1890s after seeing a tram driver struggling to see the road through his window in a snowstorm in New York.

It has to be Chinese

Posted on September 14, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Chinese, Chopsticks, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2061, Food, Indian, Life, Memories, Mother, Tasty, vesta chow meinLeave a comment

What are your favorite types of foods?

Our mother would take us out for meals occasionally when we were children. Sometimes it was Indian, but mostly Chinese. I like the flavours, the textures, the combination of ingredients. Duck with hoisin sauce, chicken chow mein, special fried rice, beef with spring onions and black bean sauce. All kinds of other things. I just like it, although I have read that the Chinese food in the UK is not authentic.

Mom got us to use chop sticks which added to the unique and special feeling it was to eat out. In those days the only other form of Chinese food was Vesta Chow mein which came in a box and you added hot water to it I think, and fried prawn crackers. But they were good memories.

It happened again!

Posted on September 14, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged 2am, Aurora, camera shake, England, Midlands, Night, Northern lights, Parkinsons, Photography2 Comments

Auroras again. Last night at 2am. Looking West. This is a 60 second exposure taken on my phone camera which stacks images when my phone is set on night exposure. Midlands in England. How can I be so lucky? Never seen them until this year.

How did I know it was happening? I saw the weather forecast again so I decided to look out at midnight, but that photo was mainly blue with grey white splodges. So it was overcast. Then when I looked again just before bed the sky was darker and something seemed to be happening so I took a few photos ( I can’t explain how dim it was and I basically just risked taking a picture.) the main problem is trying to keep the camera still by leaning against something as my Parkinsons is getting more shaky

No, I am a supporter

Posted on September 13, 2024September 13, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Compassion, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2059, Follower, Help, leader, supporter, Thinking2 Comments

Do you see yourself as a leader?

There are too many people who think they have what it takes to be a leader. But you can do other things, like being a follower, a loner, a supporter.

If you care about people or things think about using your compassion and being a supporter in some way. That could be financially, or morally, or emotionally. By supporting others you can reinforce friendship, but also possibly productivity, or yours and theirs emotional wellbeing. As the saying goes, love one another as you would like to be loved yourself. X

Aurora Borealis

Posted on September 12, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged aurora borealis, camera shake, faint green glow, Layers, night photo, Northern lights1 Comment

View from the north Midlands of England.

Just looked out of the backdoor, almost midnight and I could see a star so it’s clear but looked odd so I took some 60 second layered Night photos and the northern lights are vaguely visible again. Looking West up the hill over the roofs. It’s shaky because of my tremors.

My memory (phone)

Posted on September 11, 2024September 11, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged cleaning phone, clearing up, deletions, file sizes, Life, Media, Memories, Photos, thousands of photos, WordPressLeave a comment

Why does my phone switch itself off when I try and take a photo? I think I might have too many photos in my phone memory and I don’t optimise them enough. When I do try and do that the picture sizes are reduced but the originals stay on the phone. So I have to go through them all to remove duplicates. This also means that all the photos are stacked under one date (today’s), but I have to do it. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to do it now. It also means that the photo sizes here will be reduced.

My dilemma is that a lot of pictures here are large and they are taking up a lot of space, so I sometimes have to take off photos from my blogs to give me a bit more room to add new pictures here. So if you find a blog of mine here without a picture? Well that’s the outcome of not being able to afford a better package on WordPress. X

Tranklements

Posted on September 11, 2024 Posted in Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged bits and bobs, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2058, dialect word, England, Fun, Midlands, Old fashioned, Stuff, Things, tranklements, Word4 Comments

What’s your favorite word?

Tranklements is an old fashioned word meaning bits and bobs, a collection of odds and ends, shiny things like a magpie would collect.

I think it is an old historical word from the Midlands of England. Certainly I’ve only really heard it used in The West Midlands around the Birmingham area. I think its a dialect word.

In context you could say I’m just getting my tranklements together if you wanted to gather your lace making kit or a bag full of knitting stuff. Or bits of costume jewellery, a bag full of paints or makeup.

I like it because it sort of explains what it means just in the sound. It should be used more often!

The Great Orme

Posted on September 10, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged bronze age, cable cars, chair lift, copper mines, Great Orme, History, Llandudno, Road, Steam engine, summit, Town, Trains, victorianLeave a comment

The mountain by the sea

A pier stretches out into the water, a grand hotel sits behind it on the shore. Drive round the coast and rise up to the summit by road, or use the tram service, which takes you past a bronze age copper mine. Or up the cable cars to the summit cafe. There is a small nature reserve at the top where indigenous plants are encouraged to grow. The mountain stands above Llandudno in North Wales. The town itself has grand terraces of three and four storey houses, hotels and apartments. Many of them from when the town was a Victorian resort and tourists arrived on steam engines. A good place for a day out.

Bara brith for tea.

Posted on September 10, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bread, Food, Fruit, Life, Llandudno, spices, Tasty, tea shop, Treat, Wales, Welsh, Wikipedia, YeastLeave a comment

With a cup of tea.

Just back from Llandudno in Wales where my sister bought me a Welsh fruit loaf for a treat. I just had a couple of slices with some butter and a cup of tea. Very nice. Apparently it’s lost favour with younger people but I’d urge you to try it.

Wikipedia says :

History:

Bara Brith derived its name from the Welsh language, bara meaning bread and brith translating as speckled. It was traditionally made in farmhouses by adding fruit, sugar and spices to the basic bread dough to make a sweet treat for special occasions. It has subsequently been used as a colloquialism—to “over spice the Bara Brith” means to do something to excess.

We got two loaves from a little tea and cake shop in Llandudno.