Silversea Water Cooler: Part 3, Welcome!

[MissSophia]

Hi Miss S! I have never tried the tissue paper idea. Thanks for that! I have oodles of the stuff so I will try that approach!

 

Surely if tea is good then champagne must be even better! :) Grapes and all that!

 

Yes M.....that for sure should cover my five a day! 😉

[jpalbny]

The Provençal rosé in my glass tonight tastes like strawberries. Close enough! Going to pour a second glass, but will try not to have five...

 

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[mysty]

That sounds yummy JP!

 

On another note, Dame Vera Lynn celebrated her 100 birthday. White Cliffs of Dover is one of my favourite songs. Happy Birthday Dame Vera Lynn!

[ShotsnCruises]

Morning coolers. I am more than half way through my long work week. Looking forward to that Friday off! We are having very special company over this weekend. My former director is coming over. She resigned shortly after I did, and we have bonded quite well as friends over the disaster that was our previous employer! I have the hubby on "cleaning" duty while I am at work. He doesn't complain too much, as I usually make up for it in good home cooked meals.

While I don't post the pictures like Jeff does, I bet I could give him a run for his money in a cook off! :D ;)

Well, off to settle into the office. Things are still a bit slow while I build a caseload. Not that I mind that right now. :halo:

[Camillus112]

Good morning!

 

Yesterday was our daughter's birthday and we, and her family (including three well behaved and well mannered children - DD gives me a stern look if I misbehave) enjoyed dinner at a nearby restaurant that has been opened since the 1940's. The decor hasn't changed; old worn out carpets of a flowery design, dark wood walls and frilly curtains, you get it. We were quite surprised that the food, though not as exquisite as Jeff's, I'm sure, was very good and presented in contemporary style. The chef, in full regalia with an embroidered camisole (or whatever it's called) came to our table to ascertain our satisfaction and chat for a bit. We had a lovely time! Off to Buffalo today, and we will dine at a well known Italian restaurant, Lombardo. Busy mid-week, and I'm looking forward to the Whisper in May....

[UKCruiseJeff]

Good afternoon all ....

 

JP! very much envy your decent Provencale Rose .... as you know I use to spend too much time there and we had properties there when we were richer and more imaginative. I have no idea whether this is technically true, but whenever we bought local rose back to the UK, even really good stuff it never seemed to taste the same. I don't know whether it is in the mind and whether it is simply wine plus environment equals better wine and cannot explain it in any other way. It is sort of the same with gruner veltliner which never seems to be the same when we drink it here rather than say Grinzing.

 

I was suprised to see that Vera Lynn was still alive, I'd rather presumed she wasn't but she was an icon of uplifting flagging spirits during the war.

 

Shots it may not have caught your eye or simply may be of no interest but some days back I raised the topic of mindfulness in the hope of gaining your insight. If you're interested. For what it's worth Shots I genuinely don't think my food is anything more than just OK, and I try to improve. Improvement based on dissatisfaction is the passion. So being in a competition with you would make me an easy target for you. However having said all that I think food piccies is up there with all the things that people on the cooler are interested in seeing. Many years ago I started a thread in another place called "Today we have been eating ...." and it lasted for many years with people all over the world posting what they had eaten with piccies and it became one of the most popular of ongoing threads that spawned lots of side threads on rice makers, pizza, etc. But I really don't agree that it's ok for you to say your food is really great and then deprive us of piccies, that's plainly unfair to leave us all in the air that way! So come on .... post some piccies. No excuses. :)

 

Camel's my post crossed with yours. It is so lovely when kids are brought up to behave well when eating out. That is one thing about say French Kids compared to say Italian and say Spanish we found. French kids seem to be brought up to eat out a lot and eat what adults eat and bad behaviour seems not to be tolderated, whereas Italians and Spanish seem to indulge their kids more and seem to allow them to be noise and run around a bit.

 

 

Yesterday was a burger and today was a square chicken and mushroom pie with mash.

 

 

 

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Edited March 22, 2017 by UKCruiseJeff

[ernieb]

Hello Jeff

It appears there are evil acts occurring in London near the Parliament building. Do you have insight as to what may be going on? Best wishes and stay safe.

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

J..... Burgers and pie look very tasty!

 

Cam.....dining out with our two oldest grandchildren is not my favourite thing. They are young (5 years old and 3 years old) and not extremely patient. They are not loud or obnoxious. They just get tired of sitting still.

 

I had an interesting start to my day. And not in a good way! I got a call at about 8:30 am and the man asked for me by name. I did not recognize the voice and we are on a "DO NOT CALL" list so I asked who was calling. He said his name was Steven and he was calling from the Visa Department. My spidey senses started to tingle so I asked which visa department. He responded with my bank name. He went on to say that there was a suspicious transaction on my visa at 4:00 am this morning to Western Union. He asked if I had made that transaction. I said "NO". He asked if anyone else had access to my card. I said "NO". By this point my spidey senses were screaming at me. I asked him for a phone number to call him back because I was not convinced that he was calling from my bank. He said to call the number on the back of my card and talk to the fraud department. I asked him if I called that number and asked for him would he answer. He said I could talk to anyone in the fraud department. I hung up, grabbed my card and called the number on the back. At this point, I was shaking like a leaf. I spoke to a very nice gentleman and he verified that there was no such transaction on my card. He went on to say that if there had been a suspicious transaction the card would have been frozen immediately. He said there was no such hold on my card. He said it was likely a phishing call. I am so glad that I did not continue the suspicious call. I gave no card information and I probably saved myself some grief. The rest of the morning was spent herding dust bunnies. Not the best way to start a day!

 

Have a great day/evening all!

[turnip eater]

Hello Jeff

It appears there are evil acts occurring in London near the Parliament building. Do you have insight as to what may be going on? Best wishes and stay safe.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news

The Met (London Metropolitan) police are now giving a live news conference.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi Ernie,

 

Yes, it's our habit to watch PMQs each Wednesday and this happened a little after the end of that and we happened to be watching live news as this all started at around 2:40 pm

 

Basically a 4 x 4 driving over Westminster Bridge towards Big Ben mounted the pavement and drove along the pavement and mowed down around a dozen people and then crashed into the railings below Big Ben. So far the one of those has sadly died. It seems at the same time another person with a knife rushed into the grounds of Parliament and stabbed a police man and was immediately shot dead by a plain clothes policeman. At this time Parliament went into lock down. Basically much of central London is in a shut off state.

 

 

We've been watching it live for the last couple of hours and we're just about to have a news conference to tell us what happened.

 

 

Anything else new, I'll post.

 

 

 

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[ShotsnCruises]

Jeff, I wish I could figure out how to load pictures from my phone and I would be happy to share. Maybe I will play around with this on my lunch break. You are right, it is not fare to gloat about my cooking and not provide evidence! However, some of the most photogenic food I have ever seen was completely inedible, so visuals are only a third of the proof (smell and taste being the other two thirds).

 

Mindfulness, I must have missed your post, but it is one of my favorite topics to address in therapy and something that I believe everyone should put into daily practice. Mindfulness is core to DBT therapy (google it, very interesting), which I am trained and certified in. Mindfulness is the idea of being present in the moment and not letting ourselves be on "auto-pilot" just existing through the day and our activities.

My favorite simple mindfulness activity is to use all 5 senses and explore a meal. I like to examine the color of the food (what we see), how many unique smells I can identify. What is the texture and temperature (touch). Does it crunch, squish, sizzle (hearing), and obviously how does it taste! Using all 5 senses is a way to practice mindfulness daily. It also makes us slow down and enjoy the moment.

How many times have you rushed through a meal and hardly noticed what you were eating because you were so concerned about getting to the next "thing" on your list.

Just something to keep in mind.

 

I will try to figure out pictures now. I have a few foodie pics stored on my phone.

[ShotsnCruises]

My homemade deep dish pizza in cast iron.

[ShotsnCruises]

Can you guys see the picture??? I don't think I did it right.

HELP??

[jpalbny]

ShotsnCruises,

 

If you're using the phone app, it's easy. Here's a screenshot (which I attached using the phone app) illustrating how to start the process.

 

 

Right above the "I" in my predictive text box is a picture icon. Click it and it will let you pick an existing picture from your gallery, or even take a new one on the spot.

 

That's it. The app will upload your photo to the Tapatalk server, and write a link to it automatically. You'll see something like this in your post...

 

[i.M.G]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170322.../1c9253c657be927121002aa0dd77c7ba.jpg[/i.M.G]

 

Without the extra periods in I. M.G and the hyperlink. I put those in so the link would be nonfunctional, and you could see what the actual code looks like.

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

Hi Shots, yes ... as you mentioned your day job I was hoping to engage your interest on a few ramblings back in posts #640, #644 and #647 amongst others.

 

Re piccies, the simplest thing is to load forums on your phone and take piccies with your phone and use the app to upload them. Have a play, no one will compalin if you play.

 

I'm pretty clear about food. I hate food that is averge or worst dressed up to pretent it's fine dining to succker in the gullible. I like food the speak up for itself. In other words food with good ingredients, simply cooked and placed neatly on a plain white plate. There are far too many people who clearly aren't particularly foodies that seem sucked in by poor'ish food ostentatiously presented. Evidently small portions are supposed to also to indicate it is fine dining. So my stuff has nowhere to hide, and it is what it is. I'm also interested in what I need to learn and do to make it better. I've been lucky in that much of my work with clients (including SS would you believe has been conducted in the kitchen whilst cooking) ... but that's all history!

 

M, it sounds like you had a narrow escape. Normally the scam is they stay on the line whilst you hang up and you believe you have cleared the line, you dial the number on the back of the card and they pretend to pick the phone up. But they have never cleared the line. Looks like you had a good escape.

[jpalbny]

Mysty. That is really weird. Keep an eye on your card carefully. Either Steven was a rookie, or there's a new scam out there because it is not helpful to the scammer if you get off the line and check with your bank.

 

Jeff et al in London. Crazy stuff.

 

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[Tothesunset]

If in doubt, stop the call and ring the card issuer from another phone. Some scammers keep the line open that they have rung in on and when you dial your card issuer the scammer is still on the end of the phone, fooling you into thinking you have reached the issuer.

[UKCruiseJeff]

Sorry if I'm seeming pedantic as the telephone technology may be different in different countries. If you are asked by someone over the phone to call your bank, if you can only do so from a mobile, or use your landline only after you are absolutely certain the caller has cleared perhaps by dialing another number you know so that you know the voice of the person answering.

 

In the UK a person can put the phone down believing they have hung up but the person who last called can still be there on the line when you pick it up next. Some better fraudsters will play a recording of your dial tone to give reassurance.

 

 

 

 

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

We crossed TTS!

 

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

JP,

 

Yes, it is a relatively so far minor not major issue and reactions were fast. Sadly one fatality so far. Poor people on the London Eye have been trapped on it for three hours. Seems a bit unnecessary.

 

Evidently some French students were on the bridge.

 

 

 

 

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[UKCruiseJeff]

Sad reports that the policeman who was stabbed may have died.

 

 

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[Tothesunset]

Sadly, judging from the pictures on the TV news, there would appear to have been many casualties of the car's dash along the footpath - many lives have been irrevocably changed, I fear.

[mysty]

So very sorry to hear of the calamity and casualties in London!

 

Thanks all for your advice and concern. There was a dial tone when I dialed my bank and I got the recorded message that I always get prompting me to enter the card number and was informed that the call would be recorded for quality assurance purposes also as usual. I was given the menu choices as usual and the person who answered asked me security questions before continuing. However, reading the comments from fellow Coolers I am going to be even more careful in the future! Thanks for that!

[UKCruiseJeff]

So very sorry to hear of the calamity and casualties in London!

 

Thanks all for your advice and concern. There was a dial tone when I dialed my bank and I got the recorded message that I always get prompting me to enter the card number and was informed that the call would be recorded for quality assurance purposes also as usual. I was given the menu choices as usual and the person who answered asked me security questions before continuing. However, reading the comments from fellow Coolers I am going to be even more careful in the future! Thanks for that!

 

Just don't presume that all you heard wasn't a part of the well engineered scam. They normally pre-record and play back all you heard and they can then pick up your card number from the tones you enter and then use it in combination with the answers to the security questions you helpfully answered.

 

I hate to alarm you, but you may wish to double check now as the reassurance you received may have been from them as a part of their scam so that you take no further action and they get on with taking cash.

 

Best to check ....

[jpalbny]

Simplest way would be to call your bank and ask if there's a record of you having called them a few hours ago. If so, less cause for alarm.

 

I forgot if you said whether you have the number from this morning's call on your caller ID, but if you do, report it to your bank.

 

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