Motley bits

  1. I have soooooo much catching up to do
  2. the SUMS puzzle hunt 2013 is over
  3. I am very tired indeed today, this is in part caused by #2 and will certainly be the reason for my not dealing with #1 yet-a-while.

All that I wish to do today is to do nothing at all. I shall do my best to achieve that aim. I shall sit here for ten minutes with a nice cup of steaming black coffee and jabber for a bit. After that, who knows?

The SUMS puzzle hunt went very well, mainly due to having two very clever extra team members (The Trundlebugs) who solved most of the puzzles. I fear that Mr L and I never bounced back from the prime piece of idiocy that was sitting up until 1am for the release of the first set, and then working on them until almost half past three in the morning… nor has Mr L’s workload helped much this year. Work is manic. Having put off his summer holidays until mid-November because of work pressures, Mr L is now faced with cancelling next week’s leave and deferring it until the New Year. It is madness.

I went to town yesterday – the cancellation of leave meant a quick revamp of our shopping plans. We had been planning a big shop as the Land Rover needs to go for its MOT. Now the LR (and Mr L) will not be going next week, so I had to go and stock up on some necessities whilst there was a window in the weather (oh, my, it has been wet here!) A bit of a waste of time then, my going and buying a book of ferry tickets for the LR. That, by the way, was hilarious – the girl in the ticket office was worried that we had the car number wrong. The letter was in the wrong place. Was I sure I was right? Should it not be on the other side of the number? I had to explain that back in the days of yore, when our Landy was made, that how they did number plates. Yes. Really. It’s right – just give me the tickets!

You know how Mr L likes to cook for me on Saturday afternoons? This week he has it in mind to go all Mexican and a Mole Negra is on the bill. He researched a number of recipes and bemoaned the impossibility of getting interesting dried chillies in time for the weekend. Dispatched to Kirkwall, with an instruction to buy any interesting fresh chillies that Tesco had to offer,  I found myself (as is my habit) in Kirkness & Gorie (where I purchased Dorset Red and Blue Monday cheeses, garlic-stuffed olives and a bottle of rosé port). In the course of conversation, I revealed to Duncan the weekend Mole plan: “Have you seen our extensive Mexican section?” he enquired, indicating the shelves to my right. I could not believe my eyes – there I saw pack after pack of interesting dried chillies! I got Anchos and Poblanos – these being the only ones that I could remember from a very complicated recipe that Mr L had read out to me. Anchos! in Orkney!!

Also yesterday: got my hair cut,  bought a bottle of Talisker Storm and also one of those £10 Finest meal deals from Tesco. That last was an aberration – I do not normally favour processed or pre-prepared foods – but it seemed like such a good deal and all that I would have to do when I got home would be to switch the oven on and uncap the wine. Unbelievable, the deal offers a Main course, a side dish, a dessert (all for 2 persons) and a bottle of wine. The wine alone was ticketed £6.87 so it was a real bargain (I got a veggie filo parcel for the main, with wedges as the side and a sticky toffee pudding for dessert).  In the end, we put the meal in the fridge and decided to save it for Friday evening. Mr L had his pork pie that he had requested especially. I had some of Monday’s bread with my Dorset Red cheese.

The planned whisky purchase was supposed to be “anything decent on offer, that I can use in truffles.” Well, the offers were thin on the ground and mainly the kind of whiskies that we normally eschew – The Glenlivet etc. All of them would be fine for truffles, but not what we would care to drink. The Talisker Storm was on offer and came out cheaper than the standard Talisker, our favourite whisky. Not, I think suitable for blending with chocolate, though I am willing to experiment!

[quote cite=”Royal Mile Whiskies” url=”http://www.royalmilewhiskies.com/product.asp?pf_id=2666600001929″]TALISKER Storm Distillery: Talisker The Talisker Storm is everything that you love about other Taliskers with the settings turned right up. Expect plenty of peat, brine and punchy flavours all wrapped up at 45.8%. Delicious![/quote]

I found this in the ferry waiting room – I felt very guilty about eating my delayed lunch…

wpid13952-BL_13_00091.jpg

Possibly this comes under the heading of “Only in Orkney” – where else could you leave a dog in a  waiting room without interference or alarm?

It was a very well-behaved dog and looked for all the world as though it were well-accustomed to lying on that bench.

I knitted on my Rivington cowl on the ferry, there and back. The edging will soon be done – one more trip to town perhaps.

After our tea, a long hot soak in the bath set me up for the last few hours of puzzling. We sat side by side in bed, with the lap top and tried to wrap our brains around a couple of unsolved puzzles. Teddy sat between us, purring mightily. He was a very happy cat indeed. Until Nell decided that it was time that we put her to bed. She was fussing about and finally jumped up and nudged Mr L in the face with her nose, hard. He yelped. Teddy jumped in surprise… and landed on my bare shoulder… digging his claws in for a secure hold. It hurts. A lot.

What else? Oh yes, I reviewed my Future Learn activity and elected not just to defer The Mind is Flat until a later presentation but also to ditch the Brands course. It just was not doing it for me. It seems only to promote the whole business and so many of the concepts jarred with my view of the world – not to mention my lack of awareness of brands and absence of exposure to advertising – I have not heard of most of the companies being used as reference points.  Time is short etc. I had hoped to enjoy the course and to learn the tricks so that I can counter them, but that’s not what the course is offering. So. Junked. Except for the fact that I clicked on the wrong course… and deleted the Android programming one in error. So. Now I have no courses. I am waiting for Future Learn to repair my record. Hopefully it will all come out all right in the end.

I must go, this has been a very long 10 minutes, one way and another, and I really must work out what we are to have for lunch!

Remind me to tell you the tale of me, the phone and the WiFi.

2 Comments

  1. November 13, 2013
    Reply

    I find our perspectives on shared endeavour rather interesting. Phil feels that you & S both solved most of the puzzles, and was feeling a bit disappointed that we didn’t contribute more.
    I am well aware that I lost interest part way through the week and slacked off. Still, I do have a very full-time job, so I don’t feel guilty. The house rather suffered while Phil was puzzling and I was working. He’s just taken 2 days to clean up. Now it looks much better.
    Anyway, we had a lovely time puzzling. Let’s hope the next puzzle week has more puzzles that appeal to me.

    • November 13, 2013
      Reply

      🙂
      Let us settle for calling it Team Work.

      Logica will be launching their annual armchair treasure hunt soon. It’s your busy period, though.

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