Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening! Off-topic Thread

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening! Off-topic Thread

Good morning

 

Hello everyone,

 

Following a great discussion elsewhere in the Community Center started by @Annette33, there appears to be quite a lot of support for a dedicated off-topic thread where we can chat together and go off-topic. 🙂

 

With this in mind, I thought to begin with I would start this thread, where we can live a little more in the moment! My thinking is that when we are here in the CC, we can say hello or good morning (this could be at different times of the day, due to our timezones) to one another to let each other know we are here, and in general share more informal conversation between each other. This could be discussing what we are doing this week or even what we are planning on having for lunch...

 

If there is a particular discussion which is particular popular for example pets, we might want to make it into a new topic completely, so that we can make it easier for others to join in and carry on in the future. 

 

Exciting times! Enjoy. 

 

Lizzie

 


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

111 Replies 111

ah yes, finalizing our plans and preparation for another off road trip to Utah, about 5 hours north of here, starting Sunday for 4 days or so - reminds me to snooze my listing then.: we just LOVE exploring the unknown, camping off grid, then hiking and finding incredible petroglyph or pictograph panels from the lost culture of the Anasazi that just disappeared around 1300 AD. The ruins and artifacts are just all over the place here in the Southwest, but always in remote areas, you gotta put in time and effort to find them..... so off we go..

 

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and this is our goal for this time: Comb Ridge, fabled among archeologists for the hidden finds there14732115_10154648324894183_6223890174563284653_n.jpg

 

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@Lizzie Mr. Holstein and I are traveling to Lucasville, Ohio, to attend a fabulous swap-meet. It is around 202 km from our house. It should be raining and cold (50* F or 10* C). I am hoping the weather will discourage attendees and encourage vendors to sell at great prices. 

I am also working on a farmhouse cheddar cheese, and maybe a couple batches of soap this weekend. 

---> That's how I look at most guests, like cousins. And you know, some of those cousins are kooks.
Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Nothing spectacular this weekend. Lazy lounging morning with coffee. Later going downtown and a gallery opening with the 'usual suspects' crowd and where I'll meet up with somebody person I know from online. 

Tomorrow guest check out, laundry etc., and trying to figure out how to replace the rubber rings on my suddenly leaking bathtub/shower faucet. 

So happy spring has found us here 😄

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Very nice @Annette33@Robin129, @Bruce43 and @Andrea9. 🙂

 

Lovely photos Annette, I hope you are having an incredible trip? The location looks incredible, I love hiking, but I can't say I have ever explored quite a terrain as this - the colours are so vivid. 🙂

 

OOo I hope you breakfast was tasty Bruce, did you have anything special? 40c is certainly hot, your British guests are going to get quite a surprise when they arrive, certainly a change in temperature from here! 🙂

 

Sounds like you had a great weekend planned Andrea (perhaps the first half anyway) :). I hope you enjoyed the gallery, was it a jewellery exhibition? The question is though, did you manage to conquer the leak?

 

Aw Robin, did I hear you correctly, you make cheese...and soap?! This sounds very impressive. How did the swap-meet go, did you get collect anything nice? 

 

From my side, I went for a nice walk from North London down to the river and along the Southbank, which was lovely. I always enjoy walking through London as all the boroughs are really close to one another, so you see lots of different architecture, shops and actually if you walk though the city at the weekend it is so quiet as all the offices are basically empty, so it is really interesting and unexpected. 🙂

 

How is you day going?

 

 

 

 


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lizzie

Now slow down Lizzie....I don't make cheese or soap, I just search out good deals for the purchase of, and I am afraid you have me stumped on the 'Swap-meet' ....haven't been to one of those for years.

Keep up that walking Lizzie, I used to love that walk along the embankment from the houses of Parliament around to St Pauls....fantastic part of London, was a few years ago now. Last time I was there the London Eye was still lying down in the Thames!

Oh and Aldgate East!!!! Really dodgy part of town, old car bodies, fights going on in buildings all around! Came on this street full of Indian restaurants and they all had a spruiker out the front that had a deformity of sorts...an eye missing, an arm or a leg, I guess to engender sympathy to get you inside, and all of them professed to offering the meal of your life! And by god they did. I had been used to Indian food here in Adelaide where the only criteria was that it be hot. It would take days to get your taste buds back into gear again! But this Indian in London was just so good, for 50 quid we had all the Indian we could eat and washed it down with masses of Tiger beer and it was a totally new and wonderful experience for me!!

Cheers.....Rob

@Robin4 I think @Lizzie was talking about me. I make cheese, bread, and soaps. 🙂 

 

The husband and I went to a swap meet on Saturday. We did find a few nice things. I will share more on them later. 

---> That's how I look at most guests, like cousins. And you know, some of those cousins are kooks.
Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Robin129 @Andrea9 @Lizzie @Rachael26 @Annette33

Well there you go from @Robin4 to @Robin129 this I guess was always going to happen one day! There are six @Andrea's, a couple of @Anna's, three @Linda's, five @Deborah's, even a couple of @Lilian's.....so sooner or later our paths were destined to cross! 

And of course with a name like Robin you are going to be creative. That is really great that you are making your own cheese....don't quite know about the soap bit......fat and I aren't great 'bedfellows', it seems to prefer me more than I prefer it!! I would love to know more about your cheese though....like red wine, I am a great consumer, I would love to get involved with that seeing as I know I am never going to be a good winemaker!

 

There is not a lot I haven't had a go at though throughout my life...any country person will tell you farmers are pretty resourseful people!

I even had a go art art a few years ago! Here is a self portrait I did when I thought, if I ever became famous I could enter myself in the 'Archibald' ...(Australian annual art prize)....

Just kiddin, but I do think I captured myself ok...

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Hey @Robin129 keep up your great creativity, from the Robin's I have met we can all claim fame to, 'a life well lived'!

 

Cheers from one of four....... @Robin's 

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Aw @Robin4, I am sorry I must have included the wrong mention here. Have you ever considered making cheese? Perhaps not...moving on! 🙂

 

I think you must have ended up on Brick Lane, there are some great curry places around there. I bet you wouldn't recognise the area now though, Aldgate East has changed quite a bit, lots of new buildings. I occasionally dabble in a run now and again, and I have run around there, it is incredible how close you are to the Tower of London, Tower Bridge and London Bridge, which is now home to the Shard building (which looks out over the whole of the city).

 

Here are a couple of photos (although these were taken a few years ago now) 🙂

 

Shard

 

Tower Bridge

How was your weekend Robin? 

 

Just mentioning you in here @Robin129. Sorry about that! 🙂


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

This is hilarious - we now have @Robin129 and @Robin4  😄

 

(on reading the cheese and soap bit @Lizzie was asking about I did a bit of a double take  wondering what I'd been missing about @Robin4, and thinking that that was maybe what he's been feeding the alligators with (cheese, not soap)!

 

Well I bungled up my quiet Sunday after my guests check out. On finally starting to  clean for today's guest I decided to fix the bathtub/shower double faucet (armature) that had started a slight stream of water no matter how tight the knob was turned. Goes without saying I managed to unscrew it all, clean it, but destroyed something, so useless.

This morning off to get that part, only to hear they don't carry such old models anymore  😕

Thank goodness the handywoman in me had measured the pipe distance between hot and cold inflow in case I needed that info.

The guy was impressed, but I still had to get a whole new armature. Then order a 24h plumber for the afternoon and cross my fingers I'd still have time in-between to clean up the plumber mess before my guest arrives.

Bit of a stressful day, but they came much earlier than expected, and it all cost about half of what I'd been fearing.

 

What a day. Last year it was my apartment lock, the year before it was glueing and screwing together a mattress support that a heavy guest had managed to damage. So thankful I don't have same-day turnovers!!!

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lizzie

Brick Lane....yeah got it in one, I had forgotten the name of it, but thanks for bringing that back. As soon as I read that it all came washing back to me.

We had done a tour of 'Lords' that afternoon got the tube and ended up having to walk down a few quite scary streets to get to Brick Lane. The streets were littered with unwanted posessions, you could hear fights going on in surrounding buildings, sort of have expected a TV or a frypan to come flying out of one of the upper floor windows at any moment. We almost felt like we should be walking in a circle protecting each other! I would love to show you the photos we took, you would get a laugh out of how it must have changed!

Thanks for bringing that back to me Lizzie.

 

@Robin4

Well it had to happen one day - Aussie Rob you are no longer the 'One and Only Robin on Airbnb'. 

@Robin129 Welcome and perhaps you will share your cheese recipe - Aussie Rob is well known for his love of cheese (he serves his infamous cheese plate to guests and gets rave reviews!).

Best Wishes.

 

Right now I just make some basic cheeses, a few fresh like ricotta, lemon, and paneer, and a farmhouse cheddar. I also make butter and yogurt. I hope to expand into some goat milk cheeses now that West Virginia has passed legislation permitting herd sharing. There is no way I could have a milk goat at my home, not enough property. 

 

I make a few soaps, either traditionally with water, fat, and lye, or with goat milk, fat and lye. I don't add fragrance because that would force me to follow labeling regulations for cosmetics if I sold them. 

 

We picked up some galvanized feeders, bucket, and milk cooler, a great old lamp with marble base and green glass body, at the swap-meet, and an old silver-plate coffee server I hope to use to make a rain-chain out of.

You can follow me on instagram at robinholstein_wv if you like. My facebook page is robinsupcycle (Robins Upcycle). I post stuff on those sites about my projects and pets. I haven't decided whether to make a separate page for the airbnb stuff.

---> That's how I look at most guests, like cousins. And you know, some of those cousins are kooks.
Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Morning @Robin129@Robin4@Rachael26@Andrea9@Annette33@Bruce43,

 

I hope you are all good. 

 

Your cheese sounds amazing, all you need now is some nice crackers and a chutney and lunch is made! 🙂 My teamate Jim (who manages the Italian speaking CC) recently came back from Italy and brought me back an amazing smoked cheese called Provoletta affumicata. It is like a smoked mozzarella and if you like smoked cheese, the smell will blow you away. Yum! It would be lovely if you could share some of your photos here (click on the little camera icon and click choose file to upload your photo). 

 

Robin (Aus) (this may get tricky with the names) 🙂 - I've just seen your self-portrait, this is very impressive, is there anything attempted?! I'm picturing you parachuting out of a plane with an easel strapped to you as we speak. hehe

 

On a different slightly random note, I was traveling home last night on the tube (metro) and in my carriage was a guy who was doing gymnastics around the train poles, he was incredibly strong, swinging from the bars and doing flips...it certainly was unexpected to see and everyone around me was gripped. These little things do come as a nice surprise at the end of the day, so I thought I would share it! 🙂

 

How are your weeks going? I can't believe it is Wednesday already (already Thursday with you Robin).

 


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lizzie

You go through life having a few successes Lizzie.....Mind you, I have made a dic*head of myself a few times too thought!

I was really happy with that oil though. I had a good teacher....and I think we can all achieve what ever we have a go at when we really want to. And I really did want to paint! My teacher said, "In a portrait the eyes are the hardest...you can make Jesus Christ look like the devil, just with the eyes"! So I did just my eyes on paper maybe 80 times before I got the result I wanted. Those eyes tell you a lot about me, although that phone shot does not look anywhere near as clear or expresive as the actual canvas. I envy those street artists who do shots like that and get it together better in five minutes than the two weeks that it took me!

Did you see the link to that jump? That was a serious amount of fun!

My main challenge now is to get this house finished and I finding all sorts of quirky ways to do that.

As I said I have totally changed the layout inside this old house!

What was the old bathroom has now become half the lounge and half the new kitchen behind..

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Once I did all the forming, roof work and gyprocking I ended up with this recessed panel in the wall in the new lounge...

DSCN1126 b.jpg

 

I wanted to make some sort of feature of it and one winter Saturday morning about that time it was foggy, Ade and I were sitting in the rear Den looking out into the garden when these four Adelaide Rosellas came and settled in the Elm tree in the garden. I took a picture of them and that night while Ade and I were having a drink or two she said....."Wouldn't it be good if we could have that picture blown up and put into that space"!!

Next morning I 'hot footed' it down to Atkins Technocolour with the camera card in my hand and I said to the girl on the front desk..."Can you blow this up to a large size for me"....she said "Sure can, what size would you like, we will maybe be able to get to 90cmx50cm before it starts to get a bit pixelly"!

I said...."Oh no, I want it 3 metres by 1.5".....and she looked at me like I was a complete lunie!!

She went and got a tech from out the back and we discussed it together and invited me to come out and see what could be done. He fiddled with this and that for about 10 minutes and said ....'That is your 3m x 1.5' and proceeded to print it onto a sort of wallpaper. $1,300 later I left and this is the result of that....

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It means something Lizzie because it's not some south sea coral island...it's our back yard. And just to add insult to injury, I motorised that TV! It goes down behind the little sideboard when not in use! 

And directly behind that this was the toilet and laundry after I knocked the walls out, blocked one window and put in another and started recladding....

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And this is how the Kitchen looks now....

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I have finished about 70% of the work I want to do here and I just hope I can get it completed and just enjoy it before I am too old and have to move into a nursing home!!

Cheers.....Rob

Andrea9
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Hey all! Clocking in to say hi!

 

@Lizzie Life's good, striding along and even if we only have city pigeons and nothing near as beautiful as the Adelaide Rosellas that took a break in @Robin4's back yard!

 

Provoletta affumicata - I haven't eaten it yet, but those are the wacky-looking gourd-like cheeses, aren't they!!

 

Robin, you're a man of all talents, looks like! That wallpaper looks amazing! And not everybody can boast such a one-of-a-kind! which probably softened the pain of handing out all that $$.

 

That first knock-down construction pic? My eyes had a hard time focussing, almost as if it was a collage - I think it looks great and would love that as a painting. Really, I'm dead serious.

The re-modelling has turned out beautifully. There's something about re-constructing: if it doesn't kill you, it can certainly make you feel uber-happy!

 

You're also very talented painting. Maybe you'll find the time to get back to painting when you finish the house? Ehm, well, we actually all know there is no such thing as a really finished house... except in architectural glossies!