I fully support the choice to remove the bins. I visited a beauty spot in Scotland recently that has a coffee van in the carpark. The young couple I took there went to add their empty cups to the already overflowing bin, and were baffled when I insisted they take them to the car, which was ten steps away. “But there’s a bin!” Yes you numpties, and the wind is already spreading its contents everywhere. Be part of the solution, not the problem.

Erm, more than a few arrived in chains, entirely against their will.

18 - I thought I was fat because waifs were in style, but my body was actually banging. I’m 72. I would most of all appreciate being arthritis free, with major organs all working at optimum.

Look after your knees, people.

When I think of crypto I think of that bloke grubbing through landfill for a lost hard drive. I think of Sam Bankman Fried. I think of Trump’s meme coin. Yes, I’m sure someone must be explaining it wrong to this old lady.

I used to drag my clothes into bed with me in winter when I was a kid. No central heating, no double glazing, no insulation, no carpets. Might as well have been living in a tent.

UK: I don’t know if it’s produced domestically, but pasta is dirt cheap. Own brand spaghetti can be under 60p a kilo. Tinned tomatoes are also cheap, so there you go - dinner.

Potatoes and brown onions are fairly cheap, ditto carrots.

Eggs, of course. £2.70 ($3.50) a dozen, medium free range.

People pay huge amounts of money for clothes with adverts on them.

Keep an eye on the Bering Strait though. A lot of Magats in Alaska, they might leave your back door open.

Same! Passionfruit also. Mmmm.

I have two feeds: one is “subscribed” for all the stuff I’m actually interested in, and the other is “all”, for when I’m up for a bit of US politics, Reddit-bashing and weird German memes…

I once stayed in a youth hostel rural Quebec and had a really weirdly hostile reception from people there, despite dredging up my very best schoolgirl French to try and make conversation. Turns out they thought I was from Ontario. When I revealed I was a Kiwi they were all suddenly very friendly. Too late!

https://youtu.be/0Wf5nFbA_YM

I’ve moved over to Branston now. The last Heinz beans I had were horrible - watery sauce, not enough beans. Branston is the bomb.

I wear a cheapish waterproof one while swimming. The pool has a clock but I can’t see it without my specs.

A long, loooonng time ago I met a woman who was one of the people dressing up as reenactors in an early colonial American settlement. She cosplayed as a weaver in a house that had a pond outside. Every day before she started work she would hoik her skirt up under her armpits and wade into the pond to pick up coins with her feet (she had very articulate toes). Inevitably she turned round one day to find a family of visitors gawping at her non-colonial underwear. She said the coins added up to quite a haul over the week.

Get in before the backlash - “bloody Americans, coming over here, taking our jobs…”

pleasant texture

I’d go with “rubbery”.

He’s only 60 - I thought he was much older than that.

I once moved into a house that had been lived in by a very elderly person. In the kitchen there was a pincushion hanging on the wall that was covered in death notices clipped from the newspaper. Kind of like doom scrolling, just super personal. Watching everyone you knew die, until it was your turn.

I’ve made myself sad all over again. :(

Cheap to buy maybe, but expensive to moor and maintain. A friend who bought a small second-hand yacht said his new hobby was tearing up £20 notes in a cold shower.