Abandoned Sur Our Estate

Eric's not sure how on earth he missed it, especially being red and partly on the pavement, but it appears we have an abandoned car on our estate ....... 

.... it could only have been there for a day or so, but someone on the estate must have been on the right on the button and reported it almost straight after its abandonment  .........

..... something Darrell has done in the past , but to no affect, as the car in question was deemed to be on "private" land, so it took at least another year after his report, before was eventually removed! 

Anyway, Eric is keeping beady eye on it and his hard hat handy, hoping against hope that he'll be around if/when the truck comes to pick it up, always a rufty tufty and manly observational occasion to those inclined, heaven help us!

A Marmite Double Whammy

Two random shops and two chance happens upon a couple of Marmite products, one of a limited edition type nature and the other, a whole new product to us, so, a non purchase of either would have only looked rude, so we indeed indulged.

The Elton John, I'm Still Standing, Marmite from Iceland was an obvious must, as our current supply was running short (three jars) and is supporting Elton's AIDS Foundation, the last jar in a series of four limited editions.  Somehow, we'd missed the first three, but thanks to the aforesaid Iceland, we secured this edition for £2.99, quite a bargain, if you'd care to look at the prices on eBay and Amazon, although, sadly, via resellers this doesn't actually benefit the charity!

Anyway, with "Elt" being part of Hugh's, Darrell's mentor of all things Marmite and charitable causes, circle of friends in his younger, naughtier days, it was a no brainer, but on this occasion we didn't feel a review of the jar's contents necessary.

Our next discovery was in M&S where we immediately spotted their Cheesy Clouds with Marmite ......

It was a risky purchase as the bag was small and the price high (in our humble opinion) at £1.40 a pop!  Just by feeling the bag we knew there were very few clouds within.......

....... made all the more obvious when we decanted them into one of our best Royal Doulton demitasse saucers.

We reckon we paid at least 11p per ball cloud, a mahooooosive commitment considering Darrell's stringent budget.

But, were they worth it? Well they were certainly Marmitey and the cheese was sufficiently strong enough to compliment and not be overpowered by the former, so that was good.  We wouldn't describe the balls as clouds though, as we found the "shell" a little tough with little within and not at all fluffy and cloudlike as we'd imagined.

Our thoughts? For taste, they delivered, the texture failed, as did the price, miserably, at £1.40. To be honest, we'd expect something akin to a family share bag, so perhaps 100 balls for our buck? Will we be buying them again, definitely not, we may be fans of Marmite, but we have our financial limits!  Therefore we feel we can only award M&S Cheesy Clouds with Marmite a paltry 1.5 altocumulus out of clear blue sky ...... disappointing!, very, very disappointing! 

The Fourth and Final Elton John Marmite jar | Elton John AIDS Foundation

Elton John x Marmite | Marmite UK

A Haunted Portrait If Ever There Was One.

Oh my, heavens to Betsy, mark Darrell's words, especially in this most poignant and bewitching month of October, when he says, he has a gift for sniffing out the unearthly .......

...... but if ever there was a haunted portrait of a very creepy gentleman, it's the one he spotted in an Evesham charity shop (Tracey Sollis) yesterday afternoon for the princely sum of £250, way out of our budget, so needless to say, no considered purchase was made.

And, to be honest, I've never been soooooooo glad, as said creepy, velvet wrapped, gentleman has those "knowing" sort of eyes that follow you round a room. I certainly couldn't live under such a gaze. This portrait and gentleman "have seen things" ...... unspeakable things!  

You also don't have to be a late, great, beloved Derek Acorah (RIP) to recognise that his horrible, bony fingers (ET-esque?) just have to be a coded sign or message from the unspoken past, for something dreadful of a nefarious type nature, they are truly unsettling.  I think the spirit of the month has really got to us this year because what are we like?

We Try Home Bargains Dubai Style Cookies

Well, here we are again, trying Dubai type comestibles, at budget allowing, the more affordable end of this viral chocolate type market ......

..... may we present Bergen Dubai Style Cookies from Home Bargains .....

...... costing the princely sum of £1.25 for a pack of 6, a little more than you'd expect perhaps for such a small number .....

...... however, coming straight to the point ......

..... we have to say ......

....... we absolutely loved them and would without question, buy them again as an indulgent treat!

.. and this at the very beginning of our review, which is pretty much unheard of! 

The chocolate was generous, rich and milky, the biscuit very, very pleasant, as was the pistachio cream filling, a little more would have been nice, but we're not grumbling.

They were truly morish and we were sad when we'd finished the very last one.

So, as you've probably already gathered, said cookies scored exceptionally high on our world famous Richter Scale of Noms ...... to wit 163 floors of the Burj Khalifa out of 163, with, as we said, not a single crumb left for Alice and Nigel, so Darrell's just nipped up to Home Bargains again, for a pack for them to for try themselves, PLUS a spare for laters!!!!  What are we like?

Colourful If Questionable Developments up Road!

 Oh my goodness me, it seems that the Black Store up the road .....

..... has undergone a recent transformation ........

 ........ causing not a little confusion, because whence it was almost totally and unmistakably black, quite frankly it's now a lot more yellow than black, which leaves us wondering weather it will, perhaps, undergo a more apt name change anytime soon.

And ....... according to Darrell, it's a shocking piece of work to boot, with no scrapping off of any of the old "black" paint, or the filling of any wanton cracks or crevices, let alone the merest hint of sanding! They were, in his expert opinion, "done" by whoever they got to do said job. Questions really need to be asked in Parliament on all sides of this! What are we like?

A Truly True Haunted Monstrosity?

Oh my lord, WHAT ..........

........ fresh charity shop hell is this? 

An extremely wan and faint looking Darrell returned from browsing our usually charity shop of choice, Vale Wildlife, saying that he'd born witness to something that he fears he will never ever be able to eradicate from his poor tormented soul. 

A lustre ware pot (made in Italy from the stamp on the bottom) of some kind (you just about see the turquoise just behind) with a pig, in a top hat, clashing a pair of cymbals, attached to the front, for which they were asking, unbelievably, £5?  He said he was now afraid that he will never unsee it!  If it had been between 50p and £1.00 he would have bought it, if only to rid it from the world!

He also half wished that he'd had the where-withal to Google Lens it, just to find more out about it and why it had been priced/prized so highly. Questions really do need to be asked in Parliament with this one!  What is he and "it" like? 

Testing Temu Products - 85p Finger Protector

You may remember, (or you may not), a month or so back when we erm, how shall I put it ..... were fascinated by a weird looking finger/toe protector type thingy we found on Temu .......

..... well on a slow news day, it would have been rude of Eric and I not to want a closer look and ........

 

...... order one out of  (1) curiosity, (2) purposes of insightful research and (3) the quest for knowledge beyond our usual realms! 

It took about a week to arrive, along with some tiny fish embellishments Eric thought might be funny to put in it when filled with liquid!

I'll be honest, when we had everything sat sitting in front of us in real life, we were a trifle underwhelmed.......

 ...... the whole idea just didn't seem quite as hysterical with the passing of time  .....

 ....... after putting our money down and committing!

However, we persevered, applying said protector to all our various available  appendages.

Unfortunately, the fish added nothing to our experiment, being far too pale to show through the blue of said protector.

Oh well we tried, but in this instance our expectations far outweighed the absolute hilarity we had first imagined, BUT undeterred ......... 

 ......... we know that there is still a rich vein of the unusual that we can exploit explore online, all requests and suggestions on a stamped addressed postcard please .......

In the meantime our purchase has been duly, very carefully re-sterilised and put away safely, just in case any of us is ever unfortunately struck down by an unforeseen fungal infection of the digits, any time in the future .........!  

A Valuable Lesson And New Word Learned

As you know, Darrell very much appreciates the romance of a chandelier, however, it has to be said, that he has had one décor disaster that has been an elephant in our bedroom for quite a while, until yesterday that is, when it all got too much for his sensibilities of a Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen type nature, with him deciding that he simply had to do something about the abomination.

When he first came up with the idea of colouring the droplets and cups with assorted permanent marker pens, the colours were quite solid and vibrant and with the addition of pink bead chains taken from a similar charity shop light shade, it was all rather bohemian. However, over time all the colours had faded and it became quite obvious that it was an amateur effort, which in turn caused Darrell great embarrassment. Previous efforts to remove the colour has proved futile and he'd just let it hang.

So what to do?  Well, the chandelier was duly stripped, after Darrell suddenly remembered (the night before in bed), that he'd got a bag of genuine glass droplets and beads at the back of a cupboard that he might be able to use in place of the old plastic ones.  His little heart rose ...... and then immediately sank.
 

What about the offending candle cups? He'd tried to clean them before but to no avail, so he set about looking for replacements on eBay, which is where he discovered that the cups actually had a very evocative technical name, to wit, bobeche!  Darrell was very impressed on learning this "professional" sounding term, but all the bobeche he found were glass and tres tres expensive for just one, aghhhh.

In desperation Darrell felt that all he could do now was soak his bobeche in a bowl of almost neat bleach ......

...... saying his prayers and crossing everything on his body that could possibly be crossed in this last ditch effort. Then he went to Iceland (the shop, not the country) for a few bits and pieces, as he knew he'd only be poking about in the bowl, if left to his own devices, waiting for them to "turn".

Upon his return and with the help of a generous squirt of Jiff and a scouring pad he was indeed triumphant.  Let's just say it was emotional and tears were shed.

All that was left to do was to reassemble the light fitting amid more tears of relief and joy.  He'd done it, the chandelier had been returned to beyond it's former glory, now being 50% glass, rather than 100% plastic ......

...... with Darrell vowing to never, ever tinker again, especially with a Sharpie .....

...... but, if he were to find another light fitting with similar glass pendants, well then he wouldn't be adverse to stripping it down in order to add a few more drops to his restored one!  Heaven help me, I doubt my poor, jangled nerves could stand it!

Word of the week .....

Bobeche: a usually crystal collar on a candle socket used to catch drippings or hold suspended pendants.