Monday Miscellany

Posted on November 9, 2026 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

  • I started last week really well, I was out of the house at 7am, on a 65 bus at 7:24am. All good. However, half term is over and so the bus was a bit more crowded. I want to give parents grace, raising children is hard and having to get 5 of them on a bus at that time in the morning is also hard but each of them had a phone and no headphones. On a crowded bus. Just no. Parenting is hard and while I’m not entitled to a child free world, what are we teaching children about shared space and consideration of others?
  • In fact the way people behave on buses has been irritating me all week. From the child screaming that no one is allowed to sit next to him on a very crowded bus, to the people who like to give their bags a seat, to the parents refusing to fold their buggy so a wheelchair user can get on. It’s a bus, not a car, you need to be considerate of everyone else. As I write this, I’m sitting with a bag at my feet and one on my lap because bags don’t deserve seats!
  • It’s finished. I can’t believe it, I think it’s the first kit I’ve finished the year I started it! Next up is a Trouvaille kit of Bamburgh Castle. But I might try and fix the issue on the kit with the bus!
  • This week has been foggy, the weather has been very old fashioned, it feels like the November weather of the 1980’s when it would have triggered a discussion about the smogs before the Clean Air Act (there were a couple but the first was 1956). No wonder asthma runs in my family!
  • It’s only the second week in November and I over it already, I find myself dreading the darker mornings, it’s just about light when I leave the house at 7am now but in two weeks time sunrise is 7:30 am and I’m unhappy about it!
  • Plans for this week are quiet, work, uncle Ian is coming to see Ma tomorrow (I’ve made the requested lemon drizzle cake!), Mum has a COVID jab on Wednesday, I need to start doing my back exercises again, something about this time of year makes my back play up, I had a really sore back this time last year and here we are again! One day you’re young and crazy, the next your back hurts and the bins go out more than you do!!

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Allotment Adventures: start Again

Posted on November 4, 2026 by nicdempsey

I was at the allotments both days this weekend and I even got some work done!

There’s no getting around it, the plot is a mess and I’m going to spend the next three months or so tidying up.

I started at the tomatoes. Picked the ones I could, cut down and weeded the bed.

I also then I emptied the potato pots and the used soil went on the bed

I weeded some of the main path but that’s o

Going to take more time than I had on Sunday. This bed was bugging me and so I also weeded that and the path next to it

Before
After

I had some random leftover plants that went into the larger gooseberry bed and that got a weed but alas no photos.

My aim for next week is more tidying. I’d like to cut down the raspberries and weed the main path to the table. And tidy up the compost bin area. It’s the right time for weeding as the soil is demo but not sodden. I need a wood chip delivery too but that out of my hands. If there isn’t one by the end of November, I may have to buy some!

One clear path

I took the garden waste bin home and realised that I’d left my tomatoes at the plot.

So I walked back and also cut some dahlias!

It’s not been the best gardening year but I’m chuffed about the dahlias!

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Allotment Adventures: Halloween Pumpkin Walk

Posted on November 3, 2026 by nicdempsey

This is mostly going to be a picture post but the team organising this absolutely knocked it out of the park.

We had a new route through, which meant that the 3,000 people who’d bought tickets to the event had weren’t all crowded up in the main space.

The decorations were amazing and all the various bar/food/cake stalls have done it long enough that the systems work.

Truly amazing work.

More amazing is that the team was up the next day and took all the decor down! I didn’t get to see the entire site, just the half between the Occupation Road gate and the main gate and that was epic!

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Monday Miscellany: November

Posted on November 2, 2026 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

  • The allotment pumpkin walk happened on Saturday, 3,000 people and a lot of work (none of it mine!) I turned up to help at the bar!
  • I’m so close to finishing this cross-stitch I just need an uninterrupted afternoon, having to work is cutting into my sewing time!
  • I caved and bought the M&S version of Roses/Quality Street, they are nice and come in a tin, as all Christmas chocolates should!
  • Last week Christelle and I had lunch at Cote in Richmond, and the fizz came in coupes. I was not impressed
  • From the week before last. I arrived at mums to find she’d dropped some eggs. She didn’t clean it up in case she fell over and we do keep saying we’d prefer things on the floor to mum on the floor!
  • In my one adult thing, this week, I did my six monthly pension check. How much is in them, what the projections are and so on. If you haven’t done it in a while do as it’s good to know where you are and think about what else you could do. That could be checking your on track for state pension, confirming your retirement age, or using the pension tracker to find any old pensions knocking around. It’s worth it, I was pleasantly surprised!

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Monday Miscellany: Dead Cat Bounce

Posted on October 26, 2026 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

  • The clocks went back over the weekend and we got an extra hour (parents and pet owners probably didn’t!) and we are now in the season of the ‘dead cat bounce’. It’s lighter in the mornings for a little bit so I feel marginally better but it’s still getting darker overall so I’m still SAD.
  • My new motto for mum is ‘things on the floor are better than mum on the floor’. Her falls often happen as she’s trying to pick things up when she drops them and Ben and I are encouraging her to kick them out of the way for me to deal with later. Which means that last Monday I arrived at mum’s to find an egg on the floor! Which was easier to clean up than on Saturday she cut her finger as she fell and I kept finding blood on various surfaces!
  • I spent a day and a half off work sick last week. It was the weirdest thing, I started the week being really sick and spent the first half of the week feeling hungover, which is always unfair if you’re not drinking! Then I got this weird rash on my neck and under my chin, the rash on my neck was new but the one under my chin is usually a sign that I have a cold or asthma flare up, no cold materialised but I was running a slight temperature and I was very tired. So on Thursday afternoon, I called it and stopped working. A Friday off to just sleep, seems to have fixed me but it was odd. I running at about 85% of normal and feel that a couple of nights of good sleep will fix me.
  • I did get to see Christelle over the weekend, we went for lunch at Côte. Which has had something of a re-brand and I was very in-impressed with the wine glasses! Coupes are only good for cocktails in my world…
  • Last week I re-waterproofed my coats and a friend commented that it felt like I’d unlocked another level of adulthood. So this week in really adult things, I submitted gas and electricity meter readings and fixed my electricity prices for another year! Which should help because I’m paying £80 a month for electricity, which is bananas given how little time I’m in the flat! And also 17 years ago my energy bill for electricity was £19 a month and gas was £39. I budgeted £60 a month. Now for both it’s about £120. I have a better paid job now but not 203% better which is the increase in energy prices!
  • Plans for this week are the usual. I’m at mums until Saturday morning when I’m going home for the pumpkin walk to serve mulled wine! We are finally getting mum’s hot tap fixed on her bathroom sink today, (I’m very much looking forward to washing my face in warm water again!). I think my uncle is coming to visit too. I have an office day and it’s the last week of the month so I need to do reporting prep and also the boss returns from his holiday so email is going to go crazy and I have project to do for my training course. If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room!!

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Cooking: Cherry Almond Marzipan Cake

Posted on October 22, 2026 by nicdempsey

Last week, I saw this cake on instagram and mentioned it to Mum. The parent is off cake at the moment, so I was surprised by the enthusiasm from her so ordered the ingredients I didn’t already have at home (cherries and almonds) and baked it on Sunday.

The recipe is from Charlotte’s Lively Kitchen and I followed it exactly. It’s a cake you can serve with coffee or for afternoon tea but slightly warm and with cream for when you invite people to dinner!

A couple of notes from me. I didn’t have an 18cm deep pan, so it got cooked in my 23cm pan, which meant that mine is slightly thinner. I reduced the baking time by 5 minutes but should probably have reduced it a bit more and only baked for 40 minutes.

Finally, I made this with the kitchen aid and it was very easy (would have been easier if I hadn’t knocked the flour off the counter!), it’s low effort, high reward because it looks so pretty.

Anyway this is a lovely cake and I throughly recommend it.

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Monday Miscellany: Rain in the Wrong Places

Posted on October 19, 2026 by nicdempsey

Happy Monday!

  • October is really beginning to October, sunrise at 7:30am and getting up in the dark sucks. This weekend I started doing 25 minutes with the light lamp, it does work but I don’t like it.
  • Last Friday, Mum had a hospital appointment, the heavens opened and we got very wet. It’s a theme the last big rain we had was when Mum had her flu jab.
  • As a consequence this weekend, I re-waterproofed my rain coat and my winter coat. which was simple but it was the first time I’ve ever done it..
  • In Saturday the weather was much better and we came across a sunbathing cat on the way to the farmers market
  • I’m also really close to finishing the cross stitch that Mum bought me last Christmas, all I really want to do is sit and sew..

Plans for this week are a haircut, work, seeing Christelle and surviving the October-ness of October!

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Sunday Music: The Temptations – Can’t Get Next to You

Posted on October 18, 2026 by nicdempsey

My parents musical taste was broad. Mum was responsible for the Motown part of my education. We even went to see the Temptations at some point in the 80’s….

This popped up on shuffle the other day and it’s just good…

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Recommended: Vimto Electrolyte Tablets

Posted on October 17, 2026 by nicdempsey

I have a very sensitive stomach, it’s not debilitating but fruit and veg goes right through me.

It could be IBS but I’m not in pain, there’s no blood and honestly given how difficult it is to get the doctor to take me seriously for things that do hurt, I’m ok to just deal with it.

Someone suggested that some electrolytes might help and when they suggested it, we were in a heatwave and anything that made water taste different sounded like a good idea, especially when I found out that you could get Vimto flavoured ones!

I bought mine from Sainsbury’s but I’m guessing they are available in most places.

I have them in the morning when I’m sitting in front of the light lamp and while I can’t say they’ve made an enormous difference to my stomach, my hands and ankles aren’t as puffy after exercise so that’s a small win and getting a pint of water down me first thing in the morning seems to help me overall!

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Friday Links: When Will There be Good News?

Posted on October 16, 2026 by nicdempsey

Happy Friday! I’ve not been doing Friday Links much because the world feels like a bin fire and it seems that there is no good news. So some of these links will be old..

About 1,500 Britons a day quitting their jobs to become unpaid carers. I can believe it, my life would be much easier if I didn’t have to work, but then I would have no pension and no money and where would I live? I’m lucky that I work for a really supportive company that has been understanding of me working from Mum’s house but if they weren’t, I probably would have to give up work. Which means as I age, I’ll rely more on the State for support. The 10 days paid leave or paying carers allowance to people who are caring even if they are above the income threshold, is a small amount of money for a saving down the line. I currently burn through all my leave doing things for Mum and I can’t afford to take the 10 days unpaid leave I could get. If I had the carers allowance it would allow me to take the leave if I needed. It sometimes feels like the system is designed to squeeze everything out of me, before it’ll help.

Badenoch’s inheritance tax gambit makes no economic sense

Israeli settlers attack olive farmers and Washington Post journalist in West Bank. This is unsurprising but still bloody awful…

How Shakhtar Donetsk made Stamford Bridge home: ‘We brought smiles to children under attack’. If we’re not playing European football it’s good to see Stamford Bridge being used for this..

They asked for 80 homes – she gave them 157! Council-housing miracle named Britain’s best new building

Stevie Wonder review – playing ​his greatest album in full, he knocks everyone sideways. This surprises me not at all, Mum took me to see Stevie Wonder years ago, best concert ever, the man is amazing…

The Good List: 6 Things to Add Joy to Your Day This is a US list but the last one, about Brother of the More Famous Jack. So true, go and find a copy, it’s such a good book, and I have several copies of it!

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