Snow Hill

That is very worrying, my OH is coeliac and we haven’t had problems previously as we were assured that gluten free meals were prepared in a separate kitchen in order to avoid cross contamination. From what you have said that no longer appears to be the case and I am afraid a “sorry but we try our best” response is not acceptable.

I was in the front garden this afternoon removing a few weeds, when the the was a cacophony of car horns and a screech of brakes at the end of the drive, the reason, the local idiot who frequently rides his electric scooter illegally along the street at probably close to maximum speed. He was weaving between cars going both ways and almost collided with the car that slammed the brakes on. The driver, young woman with a baby in the rear, took some time to recover, I checked that she was OK, she said she was and only a had short distance to home. She was going to get her partner to download the dash-cam footage and send to the police.

When I first saw this picture this afternoon I thought someone has made a chocolate Harry Kane for Easter 🤣🤣

Remember seeing him with Cockney Rebel at Wolverhampton Civic Hall in the mid 1970s My 3 favourite songs Make me smile (Come up & See me) Judy Teen Mr Soft

Not quite the same but a number of well known stores have been heavily fined in recent years for allowing items to obstruct fire escape routes. On cruise ships the corridors are designated escape routes, thus Cruise Ship operators should ensure that these are kept free of obstructions as much as possible or risk action from the appropriate marine authorities.

A H& manager I know would have removed items firsts and asked questions later, he was a former fireman who has repeatedly said that obstructions in corridors has be a hazard he has experienced numerous times in his career. Hence why he removed thing and then tells the person responsible about it afterwards.

I understood that Eavesway were dropped as an official partner of P&O in favour of Intercruises a few years ago. On Intercruises website under FAQs there is this question What happens if we are delayed getting to the ship? We allow the coaches a cushion of about three hours between estimated time of arrival and ship departure time for just this eventuality. As we are the official coach connection service for your cruise company, there is a facility for the ship to delay departure for a period of time. There is no such question and answer on Eavesway. So it would appear going with Eavesway there is no guarantee that the Cruise ship would wait

Now they have got fed up with going after Harry & Meghan, the gutter press are starting on the P of W. Perhaps someone should camp outside the homes of editors and owners of these sewer newspapers and start taking and publishing pictures of their every move.

I fully enjoyed following all 65 days of the cruise, not something I think we would ever do, unless we win the lottery! I found the description of life onboard and the various ports and excursions very informative and I thank you for that. I hope the throat has improved and if not then hopefully you GP can provide treatment for it.

To be honest I couldn’t care less whether the photo was edited or not, I do it with mine on occasions, as do many people. She has said that she didn’t do a very good job of editing and apologised, so that should draw a line under it. As for not where her wedding ring, she had been in hospital for a period and has been recovering, many people lose weight after hospital treatment, I remember my boss a few years when she returned to work after 4 months off, she said “before any speculation I am not currently wearing my wedding ring as it may need to be altered after I lost weight, I didn’t want to wear it in case I lost it” That could quite easily apply to the Princess of Wales, but wouldn’t be newsworthy.

A rainy morning here 7C, doubt I will be continuing to empty the soil out of raised bed this morning, it’s a long narrow one, the wood is rotten and I am replacing it with a large veg planter, which will be easier to maintain given its location. So I will be spending some of the day planning what to put in garden and where and place an order for new staging for greenhouse, I won’t be watching Crufts. 😬

I have one of those as well, we compost most of vegetable and fruit waste in it, plus soft plant waste and some lawn mowings. Other woody cuttings get shredded and composted in dalek compost bins or used as a mulch to reduce evaporation from soil. The liquid from the hotbin makes great liquid fertiliser.

Many only do the test to find out their ethnicity and are not interested in researching their families, unfortunately it’s the way Ancestry market the product. Currently helping some one find out what happened to her mother’s younger brother, who she believes was adopted at the age of 5, we have a possible match to him in Canada, but so far no response from him, quite frustrating.

Glad ours is still included as part of regular collections no additional fee, my green bin was emptied this morning. I managed to fill it with the Ivy I removed from the garden wall this week, I borrowed my neighbours bin and filled that as well. I would shred it but the leaves tend to clog up the shredder.

We have a small lawn, but large borders takes me about 20 mins to mow and same time to edge. I invested in a cordless hedge trimmer a few years ago which trims the hedge quite quickly, then I just stick cuttings in shredder and stick them in the compost bin.All this gives me some exercise and saves having to find a gardener to do it, plus I enjoy doing it.

This will be second church closure in our area, the Methodist Chapel closed 3 years ago due to the lack of a congregation, their average was 3 each Sunday, no longer sustainable. There used to be 5 Methodist chapels of various types, in the ward in the last 40 years, all 5 have closed, 2 are now apartments, one is a hostel, one is home the other was demolished. Once the church gets closed we will just have one Anglican Church in the ward and one on the outskirts in the neighbouring ward. Had the extent of the damage to the church by ground movement not been so bad, I suspect it would have remained open, but the church is on land under which mining took place and to secure its safety would be at considerable cost. Given the cost and poor attendance there is no real alternative to closure sadly. I remember school morning assemblies, they were boring, I was glad to to get to the first lesson. When I got to the 6th form the head scrapped the religious aspects and switched to a more secular type of assembly, in which achievements of pupils in and out of school were recognised and notices about school activities were announced, all done and dusted in 20 minutes.

Interesting post on our community page today after the announcement that one of the 3 relatively local CofE churches is to close permanently following a Order raised by the diocese. The church is in the Historic England at risk register for around 8 or 9 years and is now categorised at the top level of risk. The church was closed in 2022 for safety reasons and they moved to the local secondary school, a dual faith school. The estimated cost of repair is in the region of £1m to £2m as the some of the issues are caused by ground movement beneath the church. The church has an active congregation of 9, a PCC that consists of 1 person, a treasurer from another church covers the financial aspects of the church, but according to sole church warden expenditure exceeds income and the church is no longer sustainable. However that hasn’t stopped people making comments, such as the Church of England is well off it should cover the cost of repairs. The church is the heart of the community (well for 9 people). It’s an historic building it should be saved etc When asked whether they attend or not the answer was none of the 50 or so people who commented had attended a service there excluding marriages or funerals. One didn’t know where the church was as she commented on the wrong church. The expectation is that the church will close, the weekly services at the school are going to fortnightly, due to lack of attendees and the Diocese is merging 2 benefices. People want to the money spent on the church but have not intention of attending, as the church warden said the church it’s the church building that is closing not the church. Joint services are planned with the other 2 churches, so those who wish to attend can do so. I am not a church goer, but the hypocrisy of some of the people annoyed me this evening and I feel for the church warden and so of the comments she is having to deal with, some of the more extreme have been removed by the admins.

Given your sore throat has lasted this long I would suggest an appointment with your GP at the earliest opportunity, as I said earlier my brother had a similar situation, which turned out to be an infection of the larynx, caused him to loose his voice for a long period.

Apparently according to AuroraWatch (sky, not the ship) there is a quite a good chance of seeing the Northern Lights in northern England and Scotland this evening.

I have not seen any ads within threads, I access via IPad not sure whether that makes any difference

Snow has stopped and turn to rain, and starting to tun misty, think it will be a day spent indoors. Currently 3C but feels colder when I nipped out to bin to put recycling in it.

I have Virgin O2 I get free roaming in most of Europe and I can extend that with an additional bolt on package it costs £6 a day. https://www.o2.co.uk/international/o2-travel

Morning, 0C here and snowing heavily, first snow I have seen all winter, despite what Meteorologists say it’s still winter until spring equinox.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus

We did a Fly Cruise to Malta in 2017 on Oceana baggage went from airport to ship we didn’t see it after check in at Birmingham until we got to cabin, going back went from ship to airport next time we saw it was on carousel at Birmingham.