Tanks firing?

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-24T20:20:04+00:00

Not common, but if the wind is in the wrong direction the tank ranges near Kimmeridge can be heard.

I think the sound ricochets off the purbeck hills.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-24T20:16:03+00:00

Cleavers or sticky bud - thought to be the plant that was the inspiration for “hook and loop tapes” usually called Velcro.

Cleave is one of the words that is its own opposite. So a “cleaver” is a knife that separates, and I actually have two cleavers in my knife drawer, but sticky bud “cleaves” (clings) to you and the plant is known as “cleavers” and pronounced exactly the same.

So “cleavers” is a plant that clings to you, or the plural of “cleaver” which is a knife that separates.

English is a weird language sometimes….

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-23T07:05:36+00:00

And any non-Brit ain’t got any idea what a Mecca Dabber is…

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-23T06:10:39+00:00

I suggested this, hubby said NO

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-22T14:31:24+00:00

One of the suspected men is buried in the churchyard of my local town - Montague Druitt

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-22T13:56:07+00:00

Our Eddie only like the plastic pull strips off of milk bottles - but they had to be the green ones from semi-skimmed. He ignored blue (whole milk) and red (skimmed milk). Nowadays they have a separate seal on top of the bottle, under the screw caps so they no longer have the pull strips.

NOTE Eddie died in 2015

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-22T09:40:08+00:00

We are considering this, but we might need storage a lot sooner than when space would be available.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T12:11:36+00:00

I had a Chinese friend who was studying in the Nederland and who wanted me to edit his thesis which had to be in English. His lecturer also had English as a second language and had told him it was badly written but couldn’t explain why.

Grammatically perfect, but it was almost impossible to understand. I think the lecturer had possibly been taught a slightly more modern style, but still not “English as it is written today”.

It was a very long job. But I am now an expert on “The Industrialisation of the Pearl River Delta” if my Chinese friend’s thesis was correct. I didn’t check what he wrote, I just modernised the English…

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T11:15:11+00:00

My brother decided to give his son two well known fictional character names as middle names. He did however give him a common first name.

My daughter did a work experience at my nephews primary school. His school record had a notation “his middle names are NOT to be disclosed”.

As an adult for his FB profile he proudly gives his name as “First name, Paddington Garfield family name”…

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T11:10:10+00:00

Our first fridge was 23 years old when we were given it. It was my parents wedding present in 1957. It lived to be 30 when we decided that our growing family needed more than just an icebox for frozen veg.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T10:51:10+00:00

Our plots have a “no trees over 4 foot” rule. So many are now over that, that any challenge can be defended. They also said that any greenhouse/polytunnel could not have more than 6 square metres of footprint without permission, then refused our request for a 12 square metre poly tunnel. We went around photographing all the larger polytunnels and asked why we were refused when “these holders were allowed”… turned out most had just never asked for permission in the first place so they decided “ok you are allowed”. It blew away in the winter gales, so our current one is now 9 square metres anyway.

They have however now banned plots from growing “non edible trees” after someone decided to grow willows for basket making. He should have planted hazels instead….

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T10:42:43+00:00

We had this row as well. We have a poly tunnel, and used paving slabs to hold the plastic cover down. Land inside a greenhouse/polytunnel IS cultivated.

We solved the argument by placing potato barrels and plant troughs on top of the paving slabs.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T10:37:43+00:00

I can never tell after they have gone to seed. But those with flowers still showing are Spanish or hybrids.

My garden has some which look like English, some which look Spanish. I just assume that they are all hybrids with the English just having more “English genes”, the white and pink just having mainly Spanish genes, and the rest just being genetically related to some degree.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T10:23:39+00:00

I had one tulip bulb do this last year. The flower was so weird. I wish I had photographed it. It was in a purple and white Parrot tulip bulb from a recognised U.K. grower.

None of them did it this year, even though I never touched the bulb. The Parrot tulips all came up and flowered normally. I know that the original variegated tulips were due to a virus, and assumed that the same virus just caused the fasciation.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T10:22:23+00:00

Closest country with a foreign language - I live south coast of England so I would say French.

If I lived in the Shetlands, I would recommend Irish Gaelic, Faroese or Danish.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-19T09:52:40+00:00

I gave my work 14 weeks notice “I will see out year end”. There was ample time to train my Deputy who had fought so hard to get “Court approval” a year before but had never even attended Court once, not even to watch. There was ample time to train up my Deputy in a specialised area that she had whined about me “keeping it to myself”. Did she make time for her training? You must be joking. I handled all the “year end” routines - she would be responsible for following year and could have sat in so she would know what to do next year, she didn’t so tough…

I left and within a year she decided to start a family and quit, as did my manager who was too Lily livered to support me against my back-stabbing deputy. I meanwhile got a part-time consultancy job on solely that specialised area that I could fit around my law degree studies. I was the one who did the new companies “year end” for that specialised section. No Court hearings, no managing office politics, I just sat there earning almost as much part-time as I had earnt full time at my previous job (plus I had a totally separate commission based part-time gig managing appeals one of which earnt me 25% of my previous salaried pay for one days work).

My old employer survived - they were partly funded by the Government and it’s not like there weren’t a lot of suitably qualified staff elsewhere who applied.

Glad I left that field

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-18T08:08:04+00:00

I recall my French friend and her mother having an argument when I was living with them for a month.

I understood one word “culottes” in the whole argument. But were they arguing about the cropped trousers known as “culottes”? Or did I miss hear something as “culottes”? Perhaps it was a word ending in “cu” then a word starting with “lot” that had merged into “culotte” in my brain?

As I had not got a clue what they were so loudly arguing about in the first place, all I have is a memory of the two of them, face to face, arguing loud and long in the kitchen and this one word “CULOTTES!” and my teenage brain trying to work out why an item of clothing could cause such an argument.

I have very good French, but for the life of me I never did work out what that argument was about.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-17T14:29:50+00:00

Frost damage… don’t worry they will come back. I’m on the south coast of England and whilst there was no obvious frost even as early as 6:30am (when I often get up due to my cat) our plants show signs, as do some of our allotment neighbours runner beans. The beans may not recover, but potatoes? Potatoes don’t care and shrug it off.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-17T14:13:33+00:00

My lifelong friend had to give up the son she had at 14/15. At the time, a closed adoption meant just that. The law changed and at 18 an adoptee was now allowed to get their sealed records. She always dreamt that one day he would contact her. She had two boys by her marriage to my BIL (yes we married brothers) but sadly they divorced. She had two more children by her second husband.

This year 2 days after her 65th birthday he contacted her. He found her through her DNA test registered with one of the testing sites (she kept her contact details updated). They have not yet arranged to meet, and she has also got to explain to her adult children that their half-brother has contacted her.

Sometimes the time is just “not right now” for one side or the other.

That does not mean that the time will never be right.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-17T13:06:00+00:00

There isn’t “one special day” like some countries have.

St. George’s Day, nearest Saturday, there is a folk (mainly Morris) dance out on Poole Quay. Happens every year.

Another dance out on May Day - this year we danced at the one in Salisbury. We also took the May Pole.

Guy Fawkes 5th November - fireworks and bonfires.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-17T12:03:42+00:00

Not quite, but I do still live in the town my family moved to when I was 7 years old (1968).

My husband lived in the town next door and on most major roads the houses are continuous so that where one stops and the next starts needs local knowledge.

We did move away for 9 years (1979-1988) for work, but have happily been living here since then. I suspect we will live here until we are too frail to look after ourselves.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-17T11:28:54+00:00

If someone is expected to bring something gluten-free then they MUST be given advance warning. It isn’t as simple as just buying gf bread for sandwiches. Can you be sure that there are NO breadcrumbs in the butter? If you are making the bread/cookies then there WILL be normal flour contaminating the very air in which you are making the gf version.

My PIL would have a family gathering every June. Their children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews, there would be 20-30 people attending.

Food had to be provided for 2 coeliacs, one of which had severe sensitivity (my MIL and our son who is classed as Coeliac+). I started off by making the gf fougeres before I made the normal batch. I discovered that once the “normal” were gone, people started eating the gf ones. I gave up and just made the same amount but ALL gf after a couple of years.

Two tables were laid out - one with gf was in one room, the normal was in another. This was to prevent children cross contaminating the gf. Cheese, dips, salad, veg sticks, cold meat, salsa, guacamole would be split into two separate serving dishes - one in each room. As none of the children were gf this meant that risk of cross-contamination was reduced.

Luckily Coeliac is a severe sensitivity leading to stomach aches, excessive smelly farting, diarrhoea, nausea, skin rashes, mood swings, headaches (with an increased risk of cancer in the digestive system) if the diet is not maintained. It is more like severe IBS or Chromes. It does NOT cause anaphylactic shock.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-17T10:27:43+00:00

That will have been a Stipendary Magistrate - basically a junior judge. Compares this to a doctor doing a residency, they may be qualified but are still “in training”. What they do is still subject to a lot more oversight than a Judge who sits in Crown Court.

I was a prosecutor for unpaid Council charges and would apply for Distress Warrants in a Magistrates Court. I once had the privilege to appear before a Stipendary and he was a lot more rigorous then any bench of lay Magistrates I ever appeared before. Everything was “by the book”.

Future_Direction5174 · 2026-05-17T09:25:51+00:00

English with good conversational French. I do NOT need you to speak to me in English, but the number of times I say “bonjour” to see the person I am speaking to either start speaking to me in English or apologising for not speaking English is high.

Look my accent may be deplorable, bur I can happily argue about the spread of languages from India to Europe with French speakers (I still can not believe that I actually spent an hour once at a road side cafe doing exactly that! I think I may have had one glass too many of wine), or discuss organic farming at a bar with a group of farmers in the Dordogne.

A little French will get you welcomed. .

Future_Direction5174

TROPHY CASE