Hi all. Just starting this 'coz going out to birthday dinner with OH tonight (Indian - his choice). Back to catch up with last week's final posts later, (which included a great photo from OG's trip).
Annette – sorry Friday lunch was disappointing. So good that your friend is immersing herself in opportunities since losing her OH. Maybe you need to assemble a pile of G’Dau’s belongings and say “you find a way to take it now, or else …” – but we can’t bring ourselves to do that to our Kids or GandKids, can we? But it will be nice for you to see them both. Diane – hotel is searching for a suitable room for a later date to suit us – apparently there are some with separate bath and shower, they just hadn’t allocated one of them to us! – we would still like to go there, so if they honour our requests we shall accept. How wonderful to tick off a whole To Do list – hope you are having a good sleep. Interesting videos on the BC white bear. AQ – my mother used to give me money, as did my maternal grandmother. My father’s policy was “no money till she learns how to use it wisely”, but they both said I would only learn by having it. Lovely green ’n gold dappling of your Apple tree! Diane – very comprehensive list of “field” variations – and most would apply in the UK too – just not the big ones – LOL! Lindybird – pleased you enjoyed your shopping trip – hope you have a good weekend and a dry Monday for “Cranford”!
Weather looks ok here – got to shop today to eat over the unplanned weekend at home! Forecast variable, but will try to be in the garden. Painter man won’t be back this coming week as he planned another job for while we would have been away. So far, the job looks pretty good. Mr Chaffinch brought his first offspring along this morning – silly thing wouldn’t sit still to be fed. And as for the noise of the Starling feeds – can’t hear yourself think!
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!
Annette - Re son law in Afghan, he manages to phone home from Army phone about once a week but 'busy' is about the only word he uses when talking about things!! Last weekend the family heard nothing, and the children got a bit upset, having got used to a regular call. When he phoned early this week all he said was that he had been 'very busy'. I'm not sure how I feel about regular calls, for the aforementioned reason. What a difference from soldiers in older wars, who were incommunicado for months at a time. The other great thing is that we have a mobile phone text number, messages go through to a special line and we can ask him what he would like us to send him. ( We can sent up to 2kgs at a time free of charge to a British Forces Post Office address.) Apparently the guys pool a lot of their parcel contents and one of their aims is to get ingredients together to liven up the field rations! By that I surmise that he is not in a Big Camp------
Afternoon all,
Thanks for all the overnight chat,pics,links etc.
Only just catching up as we have been at the Van Hage garden centre this morning getting some lettuce plants for my raised bed. Also bought a couple of courgette and a tomato plant. Only got a relatively small garden so that is enough veg along with a couple of rows of beetroot and french beans and some potatoes in a growing thingy.
Weather is miserable today. Spells of heavy rain with temp of only 11.8c.
Just to brighten things up,here is a paoeny picture from Penrhyn Castle gardens:
Lovely pic of peony,Alan, and while I'm at it. another thankyou to all, for some super pics and clips, etc. We are like you, Alan, small garden and try to grow a variety of crops in pots and tubs. Have been planting out runner beans today - some in our big tub and some on next door's garden. My 92 year old neighbour has been helping me, or was I helping her? Not sure.
What a gorgeous peony, Alan. Loved that. You were lucky with the weather whilst in Wales, its not been as nice since you returned.
Rained here today most of the day - so not as busy at the supermarket as is usual on a Bank Holiday, as folks were waiting till afternoon, hoping it would stop. Managed to get some cheap frames yesterday for those pictures I mentioned a couple of weeks ago - got them in Marks & Spencers in the end, as although they are square pictures I found some suitable rectangular frames & have used the 'whatjacallit' edging - sorry can't think of the name for it - to make them look rectangular and therefore they fit now. Hope all this makes some sort of sense... Anyway, its a major relief to hang them on the kitchen wall at last. Now I have to be strong and dispose of some china plates which are surplus to requirements as we have run out of empty wall. (Can you believe that when I was young no-one could get much of a word out of me ??? !!)
Morning all: See we have a live cam today :-) Also good that Trucker Steve made it safely to Atlanta overnight and can now rest properly.
Diane/AQ: Here, paddock is used as in UK and Oz (as in *** Francis novels). Out here, we keep horses in pastures (open fields, usually with other horses), or typically solo in corrals (from the Spanish) - a small area often enclosed with metal pipes). We also have English vs. Western riding with different saddles, tack, etc.; English riders wear jodhpurs and have been known to look down their noses at Western-style riders, who wear jeans, cowboy hats, and pointy boots! Traditional cowboy hats are a standard part of Western riding gear since they do provide lots of protection from the sun, etc. My daughter rides Western. When we were out looking for other boarding possibilities some time back, one manager made a point of telling us how well the English and Western riders go on with each other!! I do like the Oz use of the word station. There's a road off 101 a few miles north called Zaca Station Road, and I keep wondering what kind of station that was - not a train station for sure! One more thing to research. Sigh. We have "road hogs" too, but a "hog" is also a special kind of motor bike preferred by "Easy Rider" bikers.
Good grief. I only logged on to say hallo and already I've been digging about in the dictionary and thesaurus!!
Lindybird: It's nice to poke about in kitchen stores - I'm always amazed by how they keep reinventing the wheel with odd little gadgets for things I use a boring old knife for. We had Cranford on telly here! An enjoyable piece of froth. Grandson turns 20 tomorrow, but we're saving celebration for when granddaughter and her OH get here next week; then we'll have a cake for my OH, granddaughter's OH, and grandson! But what I intended to say was that I'm going to sort out photos of him taken from birth and arrange a collage in one of those frames that hold multiple pix? I did that for granddaughter a couple of years back and she was so thrilled!
OG: I'm going to make an effort to find somewhere else to meet LA friends in future. The Marmalade Cafe is nice, but in addition to not great food yesterday, it's also noisy and our waiter was a tad bored with his job. Thing is, the actual location is perfect and all other restaurants in the area seem to be in love with their Malibu image and consquently charge more $$$s. Granddaughter is coming June 9 and going home June 12. Her OH is coming too, so she won't be doing all the driving (but less room in car since yappy dog also visiting). Yes, I know - doesn't make sense to me and I suspect they won't have $$$ to rend a UHaul. Kids!!
Funny how mothers/grandmothers are always "slipping" money to offspring. :-) My OH doesn't understand that family tradition. My Mom used to say, "If I've got a penny; you've got a penny" when I was going through hard times - she always helped and I so appreciated it.
Heather: Hmm - yes, I understand the pros and cons of regular phone calls from s-i-l. Have not heard about too much action in his neck of the woods, so hope that continues....
Alan: Stunning peony photo. Again, as with lilac, we pay a fortune for puny bunches flown in from the northwest....
Running off now to Farmer's Market and Costco before it gets too busy out there (though I may be too late!)
Take care all back later.
Azerbaijan 11/4 favourites to win Eurovision song contest tonight. UK 100/1. Odds supplied by Ladbrokes.
Good Morning/Day to All and Everyone!
Gorgeous morning here in Chicago and it has cooled down considerably after 5 days of temps near 90f with high humidity. It's way too early for this kind of weather so I wonder if we are in for a long hot summer?
The President is home this weekend and I was hearing that security is so tight that some of the Chicago Transit Authority bus routes have been diverted from their usual runs. I don't know if he'll get to go out amongst the people much but I hope he does; he needs a serious wake up call about the state of things for all the folks out (t)here. John and I live in a very nice middle class area of the city and every Wednesday as I go to the job I'm very thankful to have, I pass a church with a line of ordinary looking people waiting for the food pantry to open. It all makes me very sad......
But I didn't come on to bum you all out.
I see we now have 3 wee Ospreys to watch! Huzzah!!! I'm very happy to hear about these little blessings.
I believe the young Peregrines in Evanston Illinois will soon enough be out flying and learning combat skills so I plan to go and watch them and perhaps take some photos too. Belinda the Peregrine at the Xcel King Plant watches over her little brood very lovingly, it's a really touching thing to see. All the wonders of the bird world and we are very privileged to see it all happening up close. :-)
Alright then, my garden is seriously overgrown and weedy too so I must attend to it. I hope to see you all here again very, very soon.
Great to hear from you, Caerann, and to hear that all is ok with you both. We are all enjoying the ospreys antics once again and hope that you have time to look in now and then, even if you can't post on here.
We saw Pres. Obama on our news this morning, as he visited the devastated beaches and promised he would do something - just hope that he can do something, and its not too late. All that wildlife threatened by the oil and peoples livelihoods too.
That sounds seriously hot to us, we only get those temps in a heatwave in midsummer here. Take Care of yourself : - )
Alan: Azerbeijan supposed to win this contest, and wouldn't be surprised as have heard the song and its not bad - also a very pretty girl singing it! We are as usual going to watch the introduction and then turn over to see the last of the Chelsea Flower Show progs. then we will return at the end to see the winner!
Looking forward to watching Springwatch all of the next couple of weeks, starting Monday night, hurray! also the last in the Herbridean series, which has been surprisingly good.