WEEKLY CHAT (non-osprey) SUNDAY, MARCH 8, 2015

Egads! We have to put the clocks forward tonight!  Seems like we just put them back 10 minutes ago.  :-(

  • Evening all: Out for dinner tonight with friends - a very noisy Thai restaurant. Food was good, but we'll order takeout next time.

    dibnlib: Looked at Haatchi on Google - a happy ending for the dog; not sure what the prognosis was for the little boy.

    OG:  Lovely shots! Is your new shed any bigger than the original?  Does it double as your greenhouse?

    Lindybird:  I think they call those winds haboobs here - the huge dust clouds that have swept in from our Southwest deserts to cover places like Phoenix, Arizona over the last few years.  Anyway, it can make driving impossible and breathing very difficult.  Not sure if they/it are related to Siroccos or not. Hope it's gone now anyway and stays gone!  Do you take Chapstick with you? I always get very dry when I go to Arizona - not only desert-y but high altitude too.

    Wendyb: Clueless again here - where are you going by helicopter?  Ten days with no phone or interent sounds like bliss.

    Heather: Medicare offers colonoscopies for the over 50s here; they probably reckon it's cheaper in the long run. Too bad the scheduling was is(?) so frustrating - when is your OH's test scheduled?

    Anyway, have a good Sunday everyone.

  • Morning, Annette, and thanks for starting the new thread.  Our clocks don't go forward until the 28th so you're only 7 hours behind us now.

    It's a beautiful, sunny morning here but I don't know how long it'll last.

    Our herring gulls are red listed birds.  Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.

  • Good Morning, All, and thanks to Annette for starting us off again on a new week. The winds died down gradually here in the afternoon, leaving us with a dusty taste in the mouth and yellow floors! The apartment has white tiles which we sweep usually every other day, and the maid mops once a week. Now everything, and I mean everything, has a fine coating of sand on it, in spite of the double glazing on the windows. Mind you, we slept with the bedroom window open a crack last night for the first time this holiday. Annette: I wear a smear of Vaseline most of the time anyway. Today is forecast to be warmish with occasional clouds. Tonight we are going out to dinner with four friends (2 couples) to a favourite restaurant. Last night we dined on Herby chicken with a microwaved baked potato, there is no oven here. We are so remote that the electricity comes from a generator which operates for a few hours each day. At night we have lighting from a battery which stores the power, just enough to keep the fridge going too. Over the years we have had fun with the generator breaking down regularly! But now, the whole building is going to have mains electricity which is to be installed next month!! It has cost thousands of Euros to bring the main cable up the road from the town.
  • Hi, Lindy!  That sounds brilliant - it still seems amazing that some places still don't have mains power in this day and age.  Saying that one of the places I interviewed at didn't have mains power, and my last workplace didn't have a mains water supply!

    Our herring gulls are red listed birds.  Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.

  • Clare Lundy has never had mains anything. In the old days they brought bottled gas over so cottages were lit by gas mantles. They now have generators but electric is cut off between midnight and 6.30am. Many years ago before this unseemly rush for wind power they installed a turbine. After a few years it was dismantled as deemed uncontrollable and expensive to maintain. All that's left is a slab of concrete. Which in a few years time that's what will be left in our stunning countryside.

    Gale subsided late evening so we were lucky. Bright start to the day...

  • I know what you mean, Wendy.  Too many people seem to want to bury our countryside with development, especially housing.........it's not even good housing, it's horrendous shoe boxes which people will be as miserable as sin living in.

    Our herring gulls are red listed birds.  Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.

  • Clare they are throwing up homes in my nearest town which I don't think has a real brick between them. Predictions are their life span will be shorter than the average mortgage...

  • That just doesn't make any sense at all - the only people that will benefit are the ones looking to make a quick profit.

    Our herring gulls are red listed birds.  Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.

  • We have a main much "praised" developer building everything between Elgin and far beyond...

    Oh and they all look the same.... yawn zzzz

  • Would they be the same people who were building on the southern outskirts of Forres in 2013?

    Our herring gulls are red listed birds.  Think about that the next time you hear some flaming idiot calling for a cull of them.