Egg Futures

Dear reader,  we are embarking on egg futures. 

 I'm not sure that they are listed on an exchange as yet but no doubt they will be soon.  Sydney, Chicago Mercantile,  London and the Deutsch Borse may be knocking on our door any second. In fact to get things started I marched into Bloomberg's offices. 

I have to say I was disappointed that they were not as enamored as I at the revelation that Mr Him has become an egg futures entrepreneur.

How did this new entrepreneurship happen you wonder? Well, he took some surplus eggs to work.  Two of his colleagues took boxes home.  The next day one of those colleagues sidled up to Mr Him. 'Can I have first refusal on the next box?'

Mr Him replied that Anna M is taking the next box to work for one of her colleagues. 

'How about if I give you a tenner in advance? ' 

If that's not egg futures I don't know what is! A tenner for future laying!

Mr Him proceeded to tell me that his colleague's wife wants to turn vegan.  The only thing stopping her is that she likes our eggs. 

The Delivery

Miss 21 has had a delivery!  Winging it's way across the Atlantic Ocean from South Carolina was a box.  This box arrived on Saturday.  I was handed the box by a courier. I walked it to the garden where miss 21 was sitting having a coffee. 

The first thing we discovered was that the clear tape used was stronger than our sellotape.  Running a pen along the seal did not work.  We needed scissors. 

Inside the box, carefully wrapped within paper were two squeezie bottles.  Ooh such excitement. It was Duke's Mayonnaise 

and a bottle of bbq sauce. 

 Both had made their way across the ocean from a friend in South Carolina. 

 Why you ask?

Well, a few weeks ago Miss 21 bought some Heinz Mayonnaise. She put a status  on Facebook that this mayonnaise was the bees knees,  the best she'd eaten.  This brought a reply from my US friend that Duke's was the best.  The conversation rambled on and then concluded with the two agreeing to post each other a bottle of mayonnaise.  I piped up that Heinz is American!  Yes,  but Heinz Mayonnaise is not available in the vicinity of the house of my South Carolina friend. It's not widely available in the UK either according to Miss 21.  She can only get it in one shop and has not divulged which shop.  I'm of the mind that she's making it. Our eggs are disappearing alarmingly fast and so are Heinz Ketchup bottles, now I come to think of it.

Finally a note to my new readers, don't forget I have another blog, Mutton-Style, which is more traditional.

Plumbing Genius

There I was on the train, surreptitiously trying out Snapchat, as you do. However,  I tell you there was nothing surreptitious about it by the time neighing, woofing,  beeping and snorting left my phone and reverberated around the carriage. Darn whatsinaming thing! 

Why did I try it?  Miss 21 thinks I should Snapchat. Have you tried it?  It is the most confusing app and that's before you find that you've been turned into a darn skittles-rainbow covered zebra sticking out its tongue.  Let me know if you want to see my Snapchats.  I'll add you to the circulation as I assault the ether as a growling blue panda.

In other news I've done a bit of plumbing.  Yes I've discovered that I'm a whiz in the region of bathrooms.  Our shower has been leaking for a while but this week it turned into Niagara falls. I worked out that if you stood in the shower and pushed on the tap thingummy attached to the wall then the leak stopped.  With a towel around me Miss 21 found me in the shower holding up said tap thingummy.  Get me a broom I instructed, please.  With the broom I levered the tap thingummy up against the wall.  The trouble with this genius solution was that the broom was not long enough to wedge against anything the other end except me. We needed another heavy object in the shower, and it couldn't be Mr Him as he had to go to work and sleep and so on.   A kitchen sink bowl filled with water was ideal.  This solution held for two days proving to the family that I and Miss 21 were plumbing geniuses.   It has been fixed now by a real plumber so sadly there are no pictures. 

With the success of my solution at home you can imagine that when the ladies rest room cubicle at work failed I came to the rescue.  What was once a perfectly normal sliding lock on the door this week did not reach between the door and the wall.  There was a half inch gap. In the next cubicle the sliding lock was too big for the gap.  A colleague and I puzzled over this.  I said 'Its as if the walls moved.'  Then I looked up and saw a screw loose, no pun. I pushed the wall and it swung back and forth.  I dived into a cubicle 'look, if you lean on the wall you can lock the door,' I exclaimed.  Whilst leaning on the wall I locked the door.  My colleague was then able to lock the other door.  The next challenge was unlocking the doors.. I'm still in there.  

Bills Restaurants

If you read my blog Horsham of the Doomsday book you'd know we had promised ourselves a meal in the old wool exchange crossed with old Town Hall.  Coincidentally we've also promised ourselves a meal in the new South of England taste sensation, Bills. Doubly coincidentally Bills is the restaurant in the old wool exchange come Town Hall.  This is a young restaurant chain that began in Lewes and is spreading it's ribs and burgers widely across the South. 

Mr Him heads for Bills

As soon as we entered I began a shopping list in my head. Chutney,  marmalade,  beer, chocolate, ketchup, beer (again ), teapot. teapot!  This is a restaurant that has associated sales down to pat.  I mean we didn't even  know we needed a teapot but as soon as we saw the rustic enamel pot we knew we had to have one. 

We were given a table upstairs amongst the chandeliers. 

Mr Him ordered ribs and was very impressed with the quantity. I had hummus and halloumi on a roll, chips and salad.  To follow was pecan pie for me and the best treacle tart I've ever tried for Mr Him. Bills beer had to be sampled, of course. 

On the table was an order form allowing merchandising to be done at the same time as drinking Bills beer and gorging on the feel good desserts.  Goods ordered are brought to the table.  A teapot was purchased along with marmalades.

We agreed that we would return to Bills. The food was flavoursome and the right quantity for us. The menu varied enough to suit both our tastes, the price middle of the road, the service couldn't be faulted and the staff were friendly.  

At home the teapot is our new toy. 

Bells

Dear reader,  for your amusement, purely your amusement I assure you,  I had a dabble  at bell ringing at the weekend.  This experiment exercise lasted 3 seconds.  I carried out this experiment exericse in the centre of Horsham on the Bandstand, as I'm not one to shirk an audience. Beer had been brewed especially for this calamitous cacophony and earmuffs had been knitted for the general populace of Horsham.

  

I mounted the podium with thoughts of Adele ringing in my ears. 

 I would not let Mr Him down.  Mr Him who I'd told,  'I've bell rung before.'  Once that pulley thing was in my hands it came back to me in a flood. I was at one, at one with the knowledge I'd never rung a darn bell in my life.  Horsham put on its multitude of knitted earmuffs. Words fell from Mr Him's lips.  They were dizzy words. Words misplaced and backwards.  I left the podium.

Mr Him marched me to Horsham church and shoved me up the bell tower.  I was to be shown bell-ringing. Real bell ringing.

Why was  Horsham subjected to my serenade? Read on dear reader for now my write up gets interesting.

Horsham was  celebrating 250th anniversary of the hanging of its church bells, so the quarter millennial of its peal of bells, in English.    Mr Him's father used to be a ringer in the local church, the very  tower Mr Him  marched me up.  Mr Him's father's name is mentioned on a plaque in the tower against Treble.  My name has gone up against Trouble. 

Last Saturday there was a 'free' ring as part of the celebrations. This meant that I couldn't charge Horsham to listen to my melody clanging. It also meant Mr Him's dad could once more  ring in the tower on the  tenor bell. (Free ring means  that any experienced bell ringer could go up the tower and have a go.)

Jesting aside it was fascinating being in the tower as the ringers rung out across the town and watching them pull to time.  One of the ringers did the calling whereby the bells switched places. The ringers lips moved as they counted their time.  A complicated business.  I had told Mr Him it was complicated when I got off the bandstand!

You may recollect I had written a blog on Horsham before. You will find it here

Adele

Dear reader, it's sometimes difficult to write a blog when trying to inject humour into it.  Sometimes lines are blurred with poetic licence to make a better story. An exaggeration, alternate slant to the truth or via ommission.  Recently a reader interpreted my writing in a certain way and as a result I received some negatively which caused me to go back and add more factual content for clarity.   I found it quite upsetting to be reprimanded for something that didn't actually happen but they had interpreted as happening.  I wondered whether the time has come to give up.  However I enjoy your company too much and enjoy writing so you will have to endure me for a bit longer.  Sorry about that.

This week my big event was going to the O2 arena to see Adele.  You have heard of Adele haven't you?  A cockney lass with powerful voice. A lot of cockney lasses have powerful voices but you wouldn't want to hear them belting out at the O2 I can assure you.  It's bad enough hearing them belting across the streets of Croydon.

Adele was on stage for almost two hours.  She didn't have a support act first.  That alone was superb in that concert goers got her for the full show.  She relates to the audience and was chatting, doing selfies with them and is quite the comedian too.

Miss 21 in silouette

Adele asked the audience to turn on their phone torches to light up the stadium

Miss 21 decided we had to leave 15 mins from the end but we only missed Rolling in the Deep! ! Only! !

I shall be downloading 25. I wasn't so keen on that album at first but it's grown on me. 

Our weight in Food and the Youths Explore the Local Woods

Last weekend was 18c, somewhere, not in my garden. It was meant to be in my garden but somewhere else got there first.  Still we made the best of our 12c.  We had Mr Him's family visit and between us ate 2.6kg  of gammon, almost.  I put some left overs in the freezer.  We also ate 2.5kg of potatoes, some carrots, cabbage and then a whole large home cooked apple pie and 15 gallons of custard.  Mr Him's mum and I polished off a bottle of wine between us. She looked very pleased about that after her second glass.

After the family left with their extra luggage, for which an airline would have charged an excess kilo fee, the son of Mr Him, the Automotive Engineer, Miss 21 and I decided to walk off our share of these kilos.  Here follows pictures of our walk in our local wood, which is soon to be built on.  The young people found themselves exploring new pathways, finding tree houses and climbing a victim of the recent storm Katy.  Good old fashioned, non-electronic fun.

Bluebells are starting to peek out

Is it an Ent?

Giant Moss worms!!

Just need snow and it could be Narnia

Is it a tree house? Who built it?  

Victim of recent storm

Lion King

Miss 21 also took some pictures.

With the wood checked on we stumbled home.

A Saucy Approach to Mr Him

Dear reader, I'm taking time to write to you over my lunch break.  The munching on my homemade seed cakes reminded me of a near delightful event Mr Him had yesterday.  As you know he's home alone this week flopping (my meaning of the word has now been enforced.)

So there he was,  flopping,  when the doorbell rang.  He answered it to be greeted by two attractive young ladies wearing aprons. 'This is going to be interesting,' thought Mr Him.

They opened their approach to him with 'what do you feel about vegetables? '

Mr Him didn't really know where this was leading so simply replied  'I'm getting more familiar with them this month thanks to my good lady.'

It turned out that the attractive young ladies were sort of offering him a meals on wheels but he'd do the cooking.  Basically they'd bring a box of ingredients over including vegetables and recipes and Mr Him would cook. I didn't ascertain, and not sure whether he did,  as to whether they would stay and eat it with him.

Over on my boring blog Mr Him. ..no he hasn't posted pics of the ladies and their aprons. .no he's posted a recipe of his own for you.  Butternut squash risotto. Here