John watched (very carefully) over him. He snipped through them (and almost me, on one occasion), then used tweezers to pull them out ("Your skin is stretchy!" "Will there be a scar? I want there to be a scar.")
Then gave me a swipe with an antiseptic wipe and shot off to look up scar tissue on the internet. Leaving John to give me the all-important 'all better now' kiss ;)
John frowned and said there might be a slight scar from the stitches, because they were in for so long - but that was because it was quite deep. So, we'll see. I'm not sure you'd see it if I didn't tan quite so vigorously!
Had a fairly good day today. But got nights on Saturday and Sunday... still, means days with JOhn and Sherlock. It's not a bad trade.
I think allowing Sherlock to unstitch me has made up for my terrible sin of feeding the degus last night. I... wow, Sherlock has just leapt all over the room yelling about exploding whales, I just have to go and see...
...Well, thank you, HHHG - you've made his day! He's watching it over and over, identifying exploding sperm-whale parts!
Anyway, away from exploding animals, back to cute ones.
Look at them! How could I resist giving them a treat, looking like little tiny furry prisoners in their travel cage!
I clearly have no willpower when cute things look at me - I mean, look what I'm like with John ;)
Work is..worky. Got a few cases on the books at the moment, none of them...particularly out of the ordinary. Makes me feel old, when I think of deaths as 'ordinary'. It's..odd. It's odd looking at the younger members of the team. But good, too, to see their enthusiasm, as they learn. Although sometimes there's a bit....prone to imagining all murders and deaths are like something off the telly. Most of them are very..boring, if I'm honest. I mean, ah, I don't know. Sometimes I have to reign them in, make them look at the more obvious lines, not the wild ideas.
But you do need the wild ideas sometimes.
Speaking of wild - a bunch of wolves escaped from a zoo yesterday. Some of them were sadly shot, given the danger to the public. Made me think of Greg the Florist. Although he's clearly not an Essex Werewolf - definitely a WestcountryWereWolf ;) He'd have to keep his ears down, lay low in his castle ;)
Thinking about taking John away for a sneaky night somewhere before Christmas - what do you think? Good idea, right?
83 comments:
I'm impressed that you let Sherlock take the stitches out, you are very good to that boy even if you do misfeed the degus now and then :-)
A night away for you and John sounds like a very good idea, have fun planning it :-)
He was under very careful supervision! And he was careful.
Look at the goos! They've got such lovely little faces. :) I'm a soft touch ;)
cute things need treats its a law I'm sure of it :-)
Umm. Juxtaposed with the degus it belatedly occurs to me that maybe I should have suggested he ask permission to watch the exploding whale. Sorry...! - HHHG
Ha, don't worry - as if we could keep him away from an exploding whale! He absolutely loves it. Nature-y things are always fine.
John has already spoken to him about not forcing everyone at school to watch it though, because some people won't enjoy it like he does! (Which he doesn't understand.)
Thinking about taking John away for a sneaky night somewhere before Christmas - what do you think? Good idea, right?
I think it's a good idea... :)
I feel like even the degus look more grown up now.
They do! And chubbier :) Although maybe they've got their winter fur on...
Just thought it would be nice to escape for a little bit. Mycroft's home for Christmas at the end of next week, so wouldn't feel so bad about leaving Sherlock for a night or two.
Those degus were definitely giving you "don't you want to take us out?" faces, so I think you could say the treat giving was really all their doing!
Are they adult degus now? (I have no idea how to judge degu ages.)
Yeah, they're adult at about a year old.
Next week... Seriously, where is this year going??
I know! Sherlock's already being a grumpy little troll about the unfairness of him still going to school, poor kid.
Ah yes. Tis the season...
Do you know when Nicky's going to visit yet?
She said maybe the 21st/22nd.
All right, sounds good. I hope Mycroft and his mum have sorted things out by then.
Yeah, me too.
If anyone can, he can. At least he keeps a calm head when negotiating.
I've just seen your new blog heading :-)
I thought it more accurately matched my husband's blog. :)
I'm glad you didn't miss out on your 'all better now' kiss, Greg, that's the most important part.;) You should definitely take John away for a day or two, that'll be a great way to start the Christmas festivities. (I agree with Tina, great new title) :)
It'll be fun to have Mycroft home again (and blimey, yes, the year has gone so fast!). Once he gets back you'll be able to go and choose your tree, Sherlock, and tell him all about taking out Lestrade's stitches, I bet he hasn't done anything as cool as that.
Have a good day everyone.
Well, I did wonder if anyone would notice the change of sub title!
Very sad to see that Lewis Collins - star of The Professionals - has died. Who didn't want to be Bodie or Doyle??
Oh what a shame, I loved The Professionals too, they made everything look so cool.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it.
Thank you, Joolz--happy Thanksgiving and happy Chanukah, too! (That's a lot of food involved, there... ;))
Yeah, who didn't want to be fishtailing around the streets in a Capri?
Hope your day is okay, Dangerous one.
Who didn't want to be Bodie or Doyle??
Heh. So which one were you aiming for?
Day's going all right, thanks. Getting some things done. Mrs Holmes rang me about her ongoing battle with Mycroft...I'm staying well out of that.
Don't blame you! Keep your head down.
Happy thanksgiving or Hanukkah to those who celebrate. I thought it was Wednesday today...
Oh, and Bodie - tall dark and handsome. Didn't want to be Doyle with the perm. Although he was better looking.. Maybe.
Am half jealous, thinking about it, that I haven't got a call from her maj regarding Mycroft. Maybe she can guess what id say ;)
Happy Thanksgiving and Hannukah to those who celebrate as well.
I am making cranberry sauce, because I found a recipe on the internet that made it look absurdly easy, so I'm going to find out if the canned goods people have been ripping me off all these years.
Good job taking out L's stitches, Sherlock! And good job Lestrade, for letting him. :)
ella
I can't exactly say it was a pleasure, but seeing him so happy was ;). Until I was eclipsed by an exploding whale in the excitement stakes!
I seem to recall a picture of you with vaguely Doyle-esque hair...
Well, you know, exploding whales. What could compete?
You can hush about the hair.
Maybe it'll be a new Valentine card next year 'I love you more than exploding whale offal'.
Putting in stitches? ;D
My family doesn't do a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but we had latkes (potato pancakes) last night, and we're having sufganiyot (fried jelly donuts) tonight, so I am happy. :) I hope everyone celebrating anything today had a lovely day, and I invite the rest of you to join in the Chanukah food fun at any point in the next week, because yum!
(I may possibly be a bit overtired... :D)
Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah to those celebrating :-)
(Why does my spellcheck spell it differently, ReRe? Is it one of those words that has multiple valid spellings, is it a transliteration thing, something else?)
Nameless--It's a transliteration of a Hebrew word, so there really isn't a "right" English spelling. I've seen Chanukah (which I prefer as being closest to the Hebrew pronunciation), Hanukkah, Chanukkah, Hannukah...so far as I can tell, none of those are wrong!
Anyone else see that survey saying people have sex 4.8 times a month? Interesting... (Or not, if you're Sherlock.... but he's off to bed, so we can ponder upon it!)
Is that people in relationships, or an average of everyone?
Everyone, I think? Although only you count - I'm too old!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25094142
Huh, interesting...
I'm too scared to ask what's interesting... ;)
I just find the concept that people would choose Twitter over sex...a bit odd.
me too. But then...I don't have a Twitter thing. Just a blog. Maybe I should stop commenting on the blogs in bed ;)
(unless he's asleep, right? Commenting when John's snoring softly is fine.
I'm only awake because my feet are hotter than the surface of the sun. It was probably them that melted that comet, in fact. Sorry. And he's asleep missing them in all their fiery glory. This is why I prefer cold feet. Because hot feet are horrible.)
Run a few inches of cool water in the tub and stick your feet in for 10 minutes. Should do the trick. (I've done that a few times in the summer. It's not a problem I ever have in the winter!)
Ella, I hope you found as I did that Cranberry sauce (and cranberry relish) is (are) super-easy. I made both for the dinner I went to earlier today. I also used less sugar than called for in the recipes, which to me tasted better. Got good reviews at the table too. Also, I added a little dash of Nutmeg and Allspice to the cooked sauce, and a dash of Cloves and Mace to the relish (which was otherwise a bag of cranberries and a whole orange run through the medium blade of the meat grinder, plus about 3/4 cup sugar)
RR, I LOVE latkes, but recently I've found that the ... shall we say, atmosphere in my immediate vicinity, is more congenial if I don't eat potatoes... So I may have to experiment with other ingredients. I've in the past added grated zucchini to the potato and onion, I wonder if it could carry the leading role...
S
S, I don't know why zucchini wouldn't work--my mother used to add healthy proportions of zucchini to hers, and my sister has used sweet potatoes in the mix. Really, I'd think any fried vegetable patty would be good, even if they don't taste just the same as potatoes. After all, potatoes are a New World import, they can't go back all that far as a tradition!
S, do you leave the rind on the orange for your relish? This was our first year making it. We also added apples and pears, brown instead of white sugar. Hubster wanted to add rum but I think it was nice without. It paired beautifully with ham.
Did you manage to cool down enough to sleep some Greg? I hope you got enough for today not to be a 15 cup day ;-)
Have a good one all of you :-)
Got a bit of sleep. I don't know, just couldn't, last night.
I'm on my third...I'll try to ration it after this ;)
John just texted me. I assume he's at the allotment. "Think the Christmas Fayre would like a chard stall? Lucky dip where every prize is chard? Throw the hoop over the chard to win it (you couldn't miss). Could Santa give every child some chard?"
It sounds like you all got a visit from the chard fairy, it does!
(I wonder, if you make chard "chips" the same way you make kale "chips", will it taste good?)
Wanted to ask--do you have anything like Black Friday shopping over there? It's completely bonkers in the US, you could get seriously injured trying to shop today...
You eat the stalks off chard too, so not sure how that would work.
We have 'black Friday' sales here, mainly very big retailers giving discounts on electronics. Mainly online, given everyone is at work. It's not really a big thing.
Boxing Day sales would be our equivalent. My idea of hell.
From the recipes I hunted up online, you'd cut out the stalks, just use the leaves. It's an option, anyway.
The online sales here used to be in the Monday after Thanksgiving; this year they started Wednesday, at some sites. :/ The post-holiday sakes seem to be mostly of things like Christmas decorations and wrappings--and, of course, things to spend gift cards and returns on. I stay home!
Kestrel, yes, the entire orange. The only tiny bit I trimmed out was the little hard nubbin where the stem was attached. And of course it was a seedless orange. Adding apple and pear sounds really good too! I'll remember that for next year.
RR, sweet potatoes sounds like a good idea. I don't eat them often enough to know if they have the same .... atmospheric .... effect. Time to find out.
I make a point of not shopping on Black Friday, I think it's pretty crass... moreso this year since some stores decided to stay open right on TG day, and you know they didn't consult their minimum-wage employees about who had to work which shift. :P
S
I think my cranberry sauce was a success. It was very tart. I've been trying to think of what I could do to give it a little more....flavor complexity? without increasing its acidity by adding grapefruit or oranges or whatever. Or just piling in more sugar which I don't want to do.
My friends might be asked to eat a lot of different sorts of cranberry sauce in the near future.
Ella
What did you put in it, Ella?
Glad you all seem to have had a nice time.
I've realised I know nothing about America's trading rules surrounding Christmas or Thanksgiving, let alone Sundays or other holidays. I can still remember being amazed you couldn't buy much alcohol in supermarkets in some places though! So different from here. The whole drinking culture is.
(And before anyone says it - I know there isn't one rule - they'll all be different depending where you are.)
(And before anyone says it - I know there isn't one rule - they'll all be different depending where you are.)
Cranberries (3 cups), orange juice, a bit of water, and brown sugar (3 Tbsp). I know oranges are a fairly common addition but they make my mouth hurt so I don't like eating them.
And, er, did you mean traditional rules, not trading rules?
Ella
You could put some ginger and cinnamon sticks in the cranberries. And alchol, if you like that sort of thing ;)
No, I meand trading - as in when shops are allowed to open on holidays/Sundays or any other restrictions. Like here, more and more small shops do open Christmas Day, but big ones aren't allowed to.
So far as I know, there aren't any blue laws anywhere for holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving, but it used to be that stores had enough respect (or compassion) for their employees that they gave them those holidays off, so the stores were closed. Now, at least for Thanksgiving, they are opening earlier and earlier on Thanksgiving Day itself.
(Blue laws don't only ban alcohol sales on Sunday, the idea is to keep it a day of peace so they ban selling anything but groceries and whatever the locality that enacted them deems necessary for purchase on Sunday. I don't know how they can still be seen as passing the First Amendment test, because I can only see them as an establishment of a particular religion, but they did pass constitutional muster at one point.)
(I could be wrong about laws banning commerce on Christmas or other holidays, but I never heard of any. Of course, I live in Godless New York. ;))
Ooooh, ginger and cinnamon, that sounds worth trying, thanks. :)
Yeah I don't know of any trading laws like that...except, of course, for the part where selling alcohol on Sunday makes Jesus cry* (this leads to frustrated football** fans in certain states every week, because they have to remember to buy their beer a day in advance). Instead, we keep with our general American principle of trusting employers to do what's best for their employees and respect sacred things.
We do have major football games on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Plus the Superbowl. Again, because we must respect sacred things. Like football.
Ella
*we can all tell how much respect i have for blue laws, yes?
**American football.
I had no idea you couldn't buy alcohol on a Sunday! I just knew that some places you had to go to a 'liquor store' (Offy, as we'd call it) because you can't buy it with the rest of your food shopping - seemed odd to me. We just get it with the weekly shop.
I think part of the reason more shops open on Christmas Day here is the greed of business, but also it reflects our far more multicultural society now - not everyone cares about Christmas!
My sister put walnuts that had been soaking in maple syrup in with her cranberries and water and simmered it all down into lovely goop that we spread over a block of cream cheese. Then we smeared the combination onto crackers and were happy.
The blue laws were in places like Massachusetts and most of them preceded the Constitution. But they're disappearing, gradually.
New Jersey still has blue laws in a number of counties (including the ones closest to NYC, which is how I know about them), and I think there are a number of states that still have them scattered around. They ARE slowly dying out, though, since having stores closed on Sunday means a loss of local sales tax revenues, which have to be made up for with higher homeowner taxes.
My state just recently passed a law that allows general grocery stores to sell alcohol. This makes it a lot more convenient! Before, you had to go to a state approved liquor store, and they were all closed on Sunday. Now, you can pop down to the grocery and pick something up. It's also a big boost in taxes.
My state also passed a law that allows pot to be sold. Not sure how that's going to work out, but I'm thinking it's going to be handled like alcohol used to be.
If nothing else, it's interesting to watch it all unfold.
For a long time in my state, you couldn't buy alcohol in grocery stores, only liquor stores. Then grocery stores won the right to sell beer. They're currently trying to fight for the right to sell hard liquor (or maybe they won the right, I haven't really been paying attention).
The liquor stores fight it as hard as they can because they know that if you can get all your liquor at the grocery store, they might go out of business, or have to change things around to cater more to the "specialty" crowd (craft beer, more expensive product, etc). Since most liquor stores aren't chains and are owned by individuals, they do get some traction from the anti-giant-corporations crowd. But it's probably a losing battle.
Ella
Yeah, offies are more likely to be wine shops now. But definitely a dying breed.
Home time!!
My sister put walnuts that had been soaking in maple syrup in with her cranberries and water and simmered it all down into lovely goop that we spread over a block of cream cheese.
Okay this sounds amazing.
Ella
The cranberry sauce over a block of cream cheese is yummy, I did have that at a cousin's house one TG a few years back. She also did a very clever cranberry salsa, which was cranberry sauce mixed with a jar of regular salsa.
3 TB of sugar does not sound like much for a bag of cranberries, that would be pretty tart. I used 3/4 cup (recipe called for at least a cup, but I like things less sweet)Ginger and maple syrup sound like good additions, cinnamon could be too. I am considering using some curry spices next time, just because I like them... garam masala, cardamom, things like that. Not so much as to overpower the cranberries, but to make people think, ooh, what IS that?!
As for the blue laws, I don't miss them much (not that I buy lots of liquor in any case) and I don't care so much if stores want to be open on Christmas, but TG isn't a church holiday, it's for everyone to be with family/friends. Even having things open then would not bother me SO much, if I knew that only people who WANTED to work that day were coming in, not people who were told they had to, or who felt like they'd be fired if they didn't. Alas, I don't think wal-mart treats their people that nicely.
S
I'm unsure if cranberry sauce will be required for our Christmas Dinner, but it is nice to see people enthusiastic about culinary traditions.
My thoughts with people in Glasgow - sounds horrific.
Jesus... first reports saying it's the police helicopter, crashed into a pub. I very much doubt everyone's okay. Just terrible.
Just reading about that, absolutely hideous. :(
... And I've just been reading about Black Friday fights among shoppers in the UK! Here
Just heard about the helicopter here as well. My thoughts are with Glasgow. :(
Ella
Ro - yeah, God knows how it's becoming a 'thing' here, but it is! It's bizarre. I sort of get it for the multi-national online retailers - they know people will order things from abroad on their websites, so may as well offer similar deals in the country, I guess. And I suppose Wal-Mart are just pushing it in their bricks-and-mortar shops too.
All madness. I'd be content with a bag of nuts and a clementine ;)
You didn't get a lie in before starting on your nights then, Greg. Are you working with Sally or is she too scared to be on nights with Greg the wolf.
Have fun with whatever you have planned for the day. :)
No lie in. But I'm flagging fast. Going for a snooze soon! Stayed up too late last night watching the news.
Went for a swim this morning, in the vague hope it counteracts some of the cakes/biscuits.
Ooh, I could kiss Ramsey! :)
I'm sure he'd be thrilled ;-)
Good luck with work tonight, I hope you managed some sleep to get ready for it :-)
You'd better watch out, Mr Watson Lestrade, or you'll have a jealous husband on your hands. ;)
Hope work goes quickly for you and you get back home to your boys for a (possibly) nice lazy Sunday morning.
Joolz - I left him watching rugby players!
On an obbo...very boring. Quite cold.
Are you watching a murderer?
err..I hope he won't become one. Right now he might be a very horrible person. Or might be an innocent(ish) person. I hope to find out!
If you're very good, there might be a surprise waiting for you later...
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