January Chit Chat

Is Katie on holiday?  Haven’t heard from her in a while.

Maybe she's still trying to put her bookcases together!

Seriously, hope Katie and everyone else is o.k.. My heart aches for you all, knowing you're struggling with the virus again. Please be careful and stay safe.

Thanks Lizzy 


It’s nothing short of a war ... but we know what to do ...

Have been wondering the same since before Christmas, guys. Hope all is well with her and her

family...........

Hi folks!  Yes, got caught up in getting my house together and the whole Christmas and new year stuff.  

How's everyone been?  Hope you're all ok?  I'm still eating Christmas chocolate.

Hi Katie , chocolate sounds good to me right now.  Doing good considering the madness that is going on over here.

Hi, Katie! Glad to know you had a good holiday and the house is coming along. Things here are crazy, but we're doing o.k.. Some of that chocolate would be great about now.

If I see one more loaf of banana bread I'll scream! I've tried at least a dozen recipes for it so far and I'm all bananaed-out. Is baking banana bread a thing in the UK the way it is in the US now?

Oh yes, there's no escaping the bananabread here either.  In fact, I made a batch the other day.  Made it in a cake pan and called it banana cake, just for a change, but we all know it was really bananabread in another form.

It's my own fault. I keep buying bananas and then not eating them.

I know! The road to hell - or in this case banana bread - is paved with good intentions. It's time to find a new use for bananas! I found a new recipe for banana "breakfast roll-ups". If it turns out decent I'll share it.

Meantime, it looks like soup is the next obsession here. At least there's more variety in soups than in banana bread.

Bread, cake, muffins, rollups - it's all bananabread in disguise, I'm telling you!

And yes to the soup thing, too. Everyone I know has got a soup maker for Christmas!

LOL!!!!!!!!!! A "soup maker"? Is that like an Instant Pot or a slow cooker? Can you make anything else in it? I'm the soup maker in this house and we just use a big pot! Seems to do the job pretty well.

Last week cabbage soup, this week chicken soup, next week...who knows? ONWARD!!!!!!!!!!! So many soups, so MUCH time!!

Come on, Katie!
What the hell is a soup maker?
Just like Lizzy I use a big pot!

In Germany, everybody now has a Thermomix. My youngest sister actually has one for about ten years now, but since more people are at home, have the time to cook and don't want to spend so much money on takeaway, tbey spend about 1,500 Euros on this machine, and when you listen to them, you get the feeling that cooking simply wasn't possible before. I mean, everyone has had a stove, an oven, pots and pans etc before, but cooking has started for them with this machine.
My sister always says that her tomato soup is much better when cooking it in her Thermomix than in a pot. And then her son came home from a friend and said: "Mom, I know your soup is drlicious, but I've just eaten a tomato soup at my friend's home, and this one was simply unbelievable!"
So my sister called the other mom to ask for the recipe, and it was a canned soup , but from an organic company, so some vitamins might be left. My sister them bought the soup and loves it as well, so at least it's a good alternative when you've got no time.

Haha! As far as I can tell, a soup maker is like an electric pot, but it also chops and blends the ingredients inside and this makes soup quicker than the way we normal people can in just a normal pot.

I'd love a thermomix. Some friends of mine have one and they also claim it's the best thing there ever was - to the point where I still don't know what one is, but I want one anway.

Soup maker is the best thing I’ve got .... Morphy Richards is the brand .... about 50 euro. 

I love that everyday I can just throw stuff in and 9 times out of 10 something delicious comes out ... 21 minutes for smooth, 26 for choppy .... I love to add a can of beans and it still comes out smooth but not watery... or soak 50gr of cashews nuts for ten minutes before you start - dump in and it makes everything creamy...

I’ve had some mega disasters(curried parsnip - but I forgot I had already put in left over smoked haddock  ... but that’s the only way to discover the diamonds...

I'm with you, Katie. I don't know what a Thermomix is but it sounds like a miracle machine. It does sound a bit pricey though. I wonder if they sell them here in the US. I've never heard of them. Amazon, here I come!

It seems to do everything but wash it self.

I think it's sold in the USA, but might be under a different name.  Not very helpful, I know.

On an entirely different note; have any of you been watching The Serpent?  I think it's a BBC/Netflix co-production about a psycho killer on the hippie trail in the 1970s.  I started watching it one evening last week and had to stay up all night to finish the series and a week later, it's still with me.  I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

Sorry, never heard of it - but I haven't checked out Netflix for a while. I have a list as long as my arm of things to watch but I never seem to get to them. I don't know where the time goes.

One word BRIDGERTON ...

Oh Holy God ....

Larry king passed a way he was 87.

That was a bit of a surprise. He'd come so close so many times before it was almost as if he was indestructible. Maybe that's why I thought he was older than 87.

I’m not sure what was King’s cause of death.  CNN reported that no cause was given.  But he had gone into the hospital in December with COVID.  He also had lung cancer and multiple heart attacks over the years.  He was tough to have lasted as long as he did.  

I just finished watching ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ on Netflix.  Wow!  Really fascinating and entertaining.  Has anyone else seen it?  Not sure what to make of WWHS’s comment on ‘Bridgerton’ ... LOL ...  but think that’s my next indulgence.

Haven't seen Queen's Gambit" yet, but I have seen a couple of episodes of "Bridgerton". WWHS's comment is spot on! WOW!

Re: Larry King's death. I saw that it was complications from covid 19. I'm guessing all the illnesses he had in the past contributed, too.

In the UK it was reported his death was because of Covid-19.

My next binge-watch is The Man In The High Castle. I didn't realise they'd made four series of it already, otherwise I think I may not have started it!

Here's something a bit different. Salisbury Cathedral (with organ recitals) has become

a vaccination centre!

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/salisbury-cathedral-turned-into-mass-vaccination-centre-complete-with-beautiful-music-20210125-p56ws5.html

Wow!
I just love Salisbury Cathedral and find it simply stunning!
AND it's the model for Ken Follett's 'The Pillars of the Earth', one of my very favourite novels. 
AND some Harry Potter scenes were filmed there, so we had a guided Harry Potter tour there when we visited the cathedral some years ago - one of me and my daughter's highlights of those holidays. AND it's very close (just about ten miles) away from Stonehenge. That was a truly great day!

It's actually a good idea to use a cathedral as a vaccination center: lots of space and very centrally located.

A medic monitors people who sit and wait after receiving their vaccine at Salisbury Cathedral. [size=9][size=11]CREDIT:AP[/size]
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For our free coronavirus pandemic coverage, [size=15]learn more here.
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Measured against the towering marble columns of Salisbury Cathedral - an 800-year-old architectural wonder in England’s south - the 1000 elderly locals who have been asked to gather inside look alarmingly small and vulnerable.
But after their visit they are, at least, a little more hopeful. In a rare fusion of church and clinic, the cathedral has been turned into a mass vaccination centre under Britain’s war-like effort to crush its disastrous coronavirus outbreak.
“This building has been here for eight centuries to give glory to God and serve God’s people,” says the Dean of Salisbury, Nicholas Papadopulos. “Right now, the best way we can serve God’s people is by getting jabs into their arms.”

Twelve vaccination booths have been set up in the cathedral’s transept. [size=9][size=11]CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES[/size]

Of all the town halls, stadiums, conference centres and other venues commandeered for the rollout, Salisbury Cathedral is unique. Its two organists, David Halls and John Challenger, play soothing hymns for 12 hours a day as residents aged 70 years and older shuffle in and roll up their sleeves.
“You want to get the tone right,” says Challenger, the cathedral’s assistant director of music. “We’re aiming for music which is calming, recognisable and going to put people at ease. Many of the people here are vulnerable and haven’t left their home for a long time.
“This is an amazing thing to see and it’s an absolute privilege to be part of it.”[/size]

Salisbury Cathedral boasts the UK’s tallest spire and best preserved original version of the Magna Carta but is perhaps best known for being dragged into the 2018 nerve agent attack against ex-Russian military officer-turned British spy Sergei Skripal. In a Monty Python-esque television interview, the two Russians accused of carrying out the attempted assassination - Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov - claimed they were only in Salisbury to admire the cathedral’s splendid architecture.

Patients receive doses of the Pfizer vaccine.[size=9][size=11]CREDIT:AP[/size]

A little over two years later, pews have been replaced by a demonstration of conveyor belt-like efficiency. The Chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel has been cleared out to make room for refrigerators and trestle tables where medicos carefully prepare the vials. The magnificent Gothic cloisters are the perfect space for people to queue before entering. And in the cavernous nave, people sit and wait for 15 minutes to be monitored for any serious adverse side effects.
“I just feel very relieved,” says Lilian Jackson, 88, who with husband David, 90, was vaccinated over the weekend.
“We have been isolated for a year. We won’t rush back to normal any time soon but it is nice to know we might be a little more protected.”

A vaccinator calls for the next patient inside the cathedral’s transept.[size=11]CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES[/size]

Papadopulos first offered to turn over the cathedral back in December when regulators granted emergency approval for the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.[/size]

In the nine weeks since, 6.6 million people in the United Kingdom have been given their first dose - the third highest rate per capita in the world. That’s more than one in 9 of the adult population, or 79 per cent of all people aged over 80. The medical miracle couldn’t come soon enough, though: Britain’s official death toll is expected to top 100,000 on Tuesday and the virus is still raging out of control.
“There is no shrink-wrapped, safe, clinically-tested way of being a human being,” says Papadopulos. “We are constantly exposed to danger and peril.
“Here, we proclaim a faith which is grounded in the experience of real life and in real life plagues happen, earthquakes happen and people do terrible things to one another.


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Salisbury Cathedral becomes Covid-19 vaccination centre

Along with cathedrals in Blackburn, in northwest England, and the central city of Lichfield, Salisbury Cathedral has opened its doors as a vaccination centre.

“I have been praying that we might learn from this experience about what really matters. What really matters is each other - how we relate to each other, how we look after each other, and what unites us.”
After getting a call, letter or text from a GP advising they are eligible for the vaccine, people arrive at the cathedral with a form and are assigned one of 12 booths in the transept.
They hand over the form and an administrative assistant assigned to each booth enters the patient’s details into a central database which also registers whether they will be given the Pfizer vaccine or another developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca. The vaccinator talks about the jab, obtains various verbal consents and then puts the syringe in an arm.[/size]

A few steps away, NHS staff take the vaccines out of a fridge and dilute the concentrated solution with 1.8 millilitres of sodium chloride. The vial is then gently inverted 10 times and handed to the vaccinators, who are able to draw up to six doses from one vial.

Patients wait in the cathedral’s historic nave for 15 minutes before they are allowed to leave. [size=9][size=11]CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES[/size]

“It’s all just incredible, I’m in awe,” says 81-year-old Roger Leary, who got the jab. “It’s such a huge enterprise to vaccinate the whole country. Like others, I’ve been a bit worried about falling behind but you’ve just got to trust it.
“Thankfully, the system is working. It might not be perfect but it has never been done before and I think they have done a fantastic job so far.
“And there could not be a more suitable environment to calm people’s nerves. This is England at its best.”

People queue for the vaccine in the cathedral’s 13th century cloisters. [size=11]CREDIT:AP[/size]
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Amazing place - built in 1220 and completed in 1258 - just imagine being on that project.


And while I'm here, a lot of snow has fallen in these parts - hope the Clooney twins had fun in

their garden - if they're still here.

PAN how much snow did you get there?  I love the snow and we haven’t had a decent snow in the Washington area in almost two years.  Maybe the twins made their first snowman.

 It looks like the twins can play in the snow whether they're in Sonning or LA. Can you believe SNOW in MALIBU???? Amazing! Here in NYC we're just freezing!

Actress Cicely Tyson has passed away she was  96.

Actress Cloris Leachman has passed away she was 94.

Well WASHINGTON finally got a snowfall.  Only about 3 inches but it will have to do.  I feel for Lizzy and annemarie.
New York is supposed to get hammered tonight and tomorrow.  Hope you both stay warm and safe.

Doing good it has been snowing since last night. It is beautiful right now but it will be a ugly mess by Wednesday.

Donnamarie - You jinx!!! You're the one who wanted snow and we got it - in spades! Went to sleep last night hoping it might not be too bad. It was barely snowing and there was maybe 1" on the ground. Hah! Woke up to a blizzard and @ 10" already on the ground and predictions that it will keep snowing until possibly Wednesday with @18" to 24" total. It's starting to feel like we'll never get out of the house.

Had to laugh, though. Among all the storm advisories was the reminder that outdoor dining will be cancelled for the day. Gee, ya think? Wind chill of 18 degrees and a blizzard. Who wouldn't want to eat outside?

Captain Sir Tom Moore has been admitted to hospital with covid 19 and pneumonia. Please say a prayer for this lovely man.

We are getting all the snow we haven't gotten in years in a couple of days.

We had quite some snow since New Year - more than over the last years. And since I live in a wintersport region, everybody's really frustrated because restaurants and hotels have to remain closed. So in every other year, they would make quite some money...

But since people can't go away skiing and we're the closest skiing region for Hamburg and Berlin, they come here for day trips and are shocked that restaurants and ski lifts are closed and so are many toilets. So I guess you can imagine that people living there aren't that happy about that invasion. Especially since most tourists storm the same few places, leaving hundreds of other beautiful place aside.