UKCasual

I'm sorry to report the continued decline of Aldi's "Scottish Blend" tea. It is now beyond terrible. Awful. The worst. The worse of the worst. Even worse than that.

Naturally I'm not going to go from an Aldi special to Twinings. I'm not made of money. So, I'm looking for recommendations of a good cheap tea. Ideally one that goes well with your plant milk as well as cow juice.

If possible, Sainsburys, M&S, Aldi, Food Warehouse or Poundies. Maybe Lidl at a stretch. They others are too far away and require me going in the car, and I'm too ~~lazy~~ environmentally conscious for that.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Or Asda! For some reason I forgot that Asda is literally the nearest supermarket to the house.

Edit: We have established that everyone here is in fact old.

Like, I say that I'm getting old. I make jokes all the time about being middle aged. But I never really felt old until now, you know?

This realisation is brought to you not by random aches and pains, not by the ever-increasing number of grey hairs, not even by my long list of old lady hobbies.

But rather by how much I'm looking forward to spending a thrilling Friday night *checks notes* watching Top of the Pops reruns with the folks over on Mastodon. It's kind of hilarious because the rest of the week the #TOTP tag is usually all internet security and whatnot, and then we just shamelessly take it over for a couple of hours every Friday.

Missed it last week because husband was out somewhere so we caught up later, but it wasn't the same without the live tooting gang. Really excited to get back to the routine!

What have I become 😭

Tell me about your exciting Friday night plans a day early, that I may live vicariously. Or maybe join me in my grumbles about advancing age, idc, just distract me from all the work I'm not doing right now.

My kingdom for spinach that doesn't turn to watery mush after three days!

It's 2023! Get on it, science!

Gah.

@ukcasual

Makes you wonder who approves these layouts.

What's that in your fridge??

Sorry to utter the C-word in October, but I got into a conversation about this a couple nights ago where people seemed amazed that adults would still maintain a wishlist like this. I'm on the side of it's totally normal, but maybe I'm wrong?

Personally despite repeated attempts, my mam and grandma will not stop buying Christmas gifts. So I set up a wishlist on Giftster and they just have it bookmarked. I go through and make sure it's up to date a couple of months before Christmas or my birthday.

The husband also has a link to it so I suspect he falls back on that for inspiration quite a lot.

Normal or no?

I wish it was Sunday (Woah, woah)

In the ever-growing pantheon of fancy iced treats, I believe the humble lemonade lolly is still the superior choice.

And if you're turning your nose up at this right now, I encourage you to give it a go. Most refreshing, tastes like childhood.

@ukcasual

The two pound coins are especially manky, if that affects your suggestions at all.

With my car finally fixed (leaking water pump) at the last minute yesterday, I'm off to Snowdonia for a week of walking, reading and not doing much that I don't want to.

What have you got lined up?

My personal test-day for the end of Summer - the first day after August I have to put the heating on first thing. Soon it'll be setting the timer again. Fucking hate winter.

Here's your chance to brag about your recent amazing accomplishments.
Not go any? Just make some up, it's the Internet, it's designed for lying!

Look I know, Clarks are expensive. I knew this going in. I also knew the little guy had flat out refused to wear every other pair of shoes we'd ever bought him...I was desperate.

That said, I wasn't expecting to have to make a call to my bank manager to renegotiate my nonexistent mortgage before laying my phone down on the card machine.

Madness.

Making this post because for some reason this show has flown completely under the radar for many. I had no idea it existed until it was mentioned on a comedian podcast I listen to (Bud Pod).

Of course, the BBC have kindly deleted it from their catalogue. Not sure of the rules here re pirated content so won't post any links, but I found it on both Internet Archive and torrent (torrent is much better quality). It also features a young Benedict Wong, his character is so different from how we know him today!

Well worth a watch, especially if you're a fan of Sean Lock.

For those of you with older kids at home, what do you do regarding dig money?

I’ve got an 18 year old and the agreement was that as long as he pitches in around the house (bins are his responsibility - emptying into the wheelie bins and putting out whichever one it is that week) and attends his college course then he can keep his money. He’s at college 2.5 days a week and then work for the rest, clearing around £900 a month.

The issue is he is always fucking “forgetting” to put the bins out. Even when I’ve bought him a fucking echo so he can set up reminders etc.

There’s myself, my wife and the 5 kids (10-18) so there’s a fuckton of rubbish. Missing it even once causes massive ballache. Thing is, he’s always forgetting.

Came to a head this morning because, once again, he forgot. This is after messaging me last night 15 minutes before he was due home asking to have someone stay, so I changed all my plans to accommodate. And the shit didn’t put the bins out again.

I feel like I’m going round in circles with him and it’s beginning to really affect me. Stressing to fuck over bins, what even is that!

Only thing I can think of is to start charging him dig money now. I’m sick bending over backwards for him not to pitch in with this one thing.

Does that seem reasonable? Or am I being a crabit bastard? What amounts are people taking from their weans etc here? Was thinking £100 since I easily spend more than that on keeping the lazy shit each month.

Edit to add - Dig Money meaning money he pays towards household expenses :)

Not his first attempt, but I want to do whatever I can to encourage him to stay on the wagon this time. I don't have any experience of this, so I'd appreciate any tips from those who have been there already.

Edit 02/10: he's still clean!

BBC reporter visited a primary school to talk to kids about their favourite books and reading habits

What's music has been mesmerising, masticating & massaging your eardrums lately?

Not that I'm admitting this is a degenerate meal, but it seems to be looked down on by everyone I know and haven't convinced to try it yet.

• Basic plain pasta shells, cooked normally
• Drain water
• Add like half a block at least of chopped-up basic cheddar and stir it while it melts
• Stuff into six (this is the appropriate amount, trust me) Yorkshires
• Throw the pan away due to burnt cheese

Easy peasy, lemon....cheezy? I await your judgement.

*whoever replies with a penis joke first, loses

Should be a fairly normal day for me today, some hedge-trimming and so on in the garden on Saturday and then my SO is arranging a mystery trip for Sunday. It's been postponed twice so far and I have no idea what it is.

"News"

Next step is to run past to see how fast I can get it. Its on a massive downhill so might be pretty fun

By the way, this link is a Peertube instance (federated YouTube)

This bloody sign went up a little while ago and is set completely wrong. It's a 30mph road but I've had it sad face when driving past above 20mph, which has scared me enough to slow down pissing off everyone behind

Bloody cold the last day or so. Wore hoodie all day yesterday.