Grasping the nettle

This afternoon Fester and I were out in the garden having a look at the crops in our raised beds.

“There’s a nettle coming up in the ffa*” I said “I’ll have to get my gardening gloves on and deal with that.”

“No” says my environmental scientist husband with three degrees “it’s one of those dead nettles.  Look” as he pinched a leaf between his thumb and forefinger.

A few minutes later, when I had stopped laughing, he said “I sometimes worry about your reaction to my pain.”

*Welsh for broad beans

Well he did ask

This teatime I was looking wistfully at The Guardian Holidays page in G2: Steam Railways of Austria, Little Trains of the Pyrenees, Historic Railways of the Isle of Man and Scottish Highland Railways.

“I think we’ve been on all the trips on here” I said to Fester.

“Which one?”

“The Scottish Highland Railways.  Rail travel from Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh - well I’ve done that twice, both directions.”

“We have” says Fester.

“Journey on the steam hauled Strathspey Railway.”

“Yep” says Fester.

“Cross the Glenfinnan Viaduct from Fort William to Mallaig.”

“Twice” says Fester.

“Visit the Highland Resort of Aviemore.”

“Several times”

“It says here ‘Fully escorted by a friendly experienced tour manager’.  Can you imagine what we’d do to a friendly experienced tour manager?  We’d give the poor soul a nervous breakdown.”

“We had one of those when we went to Norway” says Fester.

His travelling years were before my time which is why I asked “A what?”

“A friendly experienced tour manager.  He said ‘If you’ve got any questions just ask’.  So I said ‘What’s the capital of Ecuador?’”

This, dear reader, is why I love him.

New image

The portrait which originally adorned this blog was taken at Middle Sister's 60th birthday tea at the Ritz in December 2009.

It's high time the image was updated.

So here is the new portrait, taken at the end of May, at a do with old university friends, where drink was taken and I was letting my hair down.

Thunderthighs thoroughly disapproved of my two 'girl' friends and I returning home at almost midnight.

Tesco talk

Facebook’s “On This Day” just brought up this from 2015 …

Thunderthighs usually accompanies me on the 'big' shop and this week we had a lot of Tesco extra points coupons.  Once he'd got all those sorted he asked me 

"Can I get something for the weekend?"

A little surprised I enquired what he meant.

"Oh, you know, food and stuff for meals"

When he came back I asked him if he knew "something for the weekend" is a euphemism.  He knows what a euphemism is, but not what it was.

"Well in the old days when a gentleman had his hair trimmed on a Friday the barber would ask 'Would Sir like something for the weekend?'. It's a euphemism for a condom."

"Oh Gawd!" spat out with some disgust.

I'm not sure if he was more horrified at the idea,

or that I knew about it,

or that I was the one telling him.

A few steps then a very adult and husky

"Thanks for that Mum. I might have put my foot in it."

They never tell you about this sort of things in the baby books!