Evening/morning all:
Lindybird; Yes!! What was the Drama next door?? Oh by the way, remember the "Tiger Woods" event down the road where somone drove into a neighbor's garage? Well, heard it was yet another neighbor's young son, totally potted (drunk) who was coming home late and somehow mistook the gas pedal for the brake!! Apparently, the Fire Department was there, etc., and had to cut the (uninjured) perpetrator out of the car because the garage door collapsed onto the car. They've just completed the repairs.
OG. Ooooh. Another lovely butterfly. Thanks!
Alan: Watched the US/Ghana match - felt so bad for the U.S. team (but if they'd won, would've felt bad for the Ghana team!) They started off so lackluster; then picked up in the second half, but then hit (to me at least) a sort of slump toward the end of the second half, but picked up again in the overtime, but to no avail. It doesn't matter which team/player I support, I always feel bad for the loser. These people put so much time and effort into their games.... Soccer is so much more exciting than U.S. football where, as I've noted before, the players are all done up like Michelin men and spend most of their tiime in a pile.....
AQ: We had floor heaters in our church in Watford, and everyone huddled over them (and roasted!) during the winter months. I missed the "red card" reference in your response to Alan....."
Our new back gate got installed today. I worked in the garden (after footie!) and managed to decimate a Potato Vine. Was trying to "re-install" it on the wall, but thought I'd be clever and trim it. Big mistake. Oh well, it'll grow back.
Diane - Thanks for that warning.
Here are a couple of photos of 'Beaky' ... my magpie with the deformed beak (overshot is the correct term I think!). He has been a regular in my garden for 4 years ... this year he has a different mate ... in previous years his mate had a twisted leg, but this year's mate seems 'normal'. Beaky has to turn his head sideways, parallel with the ground to feed ... doesn't seem to stop him eating though!
Joan - avid bird and nature watcher in Northumberland!
Index Thread
Lovely pics of Beaky, DjoanS - wonderful how birds can sometimes overcome a difficulty, like the ones you sometimes see with one leg or a gammy leg.
Hot and sunny here: OH picked lots of strawberries this morning, so we went around a couple of friends distributing them and then ended up having a cuppa in sis-in-laws garden, with two of her delightful grandchildren. Her stairs problem has now been resolved with a bit of strengthening, and the carpet is laid, all needs now is for a friend to come & make good the plaster under the stairs which was damaged when the hammer came through! (don't ask, as they say, its a long story but basically the builder had cut corners and not done a very sturdy job on the stairs).
Diane: thanks for warning about Pete's Pond site, I do go there occasionally but havn't been lately as too busy watching various ospreys.
dibnlib: I saw the article on TV about naming of insects: thought it was a grand idea, as if they have cuter names or at least something more memorable than the Latin, folks might care more about what happened to them..... look at Ladybirds, everyone is quite sentimental about them just because they are red and have a 'cute' name....
Margobird: So pleased to hear that you have been dancing the night away! You must have enjoyed that. Never mind if you ache a bit next day, just say to yourself, it was cheaper and more enjoyable than going to the gym !!
Annette: Don't know the name of those roses on the archway, sorry: they were here when we came to this house...What is a Potato Vine please? Don't know that one. Sorry USA lost the football match.
Speaking of football...... there seems to be some sort of Match on in a few minutes, with England and Somebody or other playing..... will have to go now and watch it! Tell you about Next Door at half time.....!!!!!
DjoanS love the pics of Beaky.
Margobird
Oh Dear. Hope you hav'nt got your hopes up for a Big Scandal or something.... here goes....
Was watering my plants in the front garden on Friday evening, about 6.15pm. Could see one of my neighbours looking out of his bedroom window, down at the ground, at the garden between his house and ours... then he shouted "Are you All Right ?" - I could see his concern. I ran round our driveway to the gate of next door, and found my neighbour aged 90, lying on the ground.... She said " I tripped" , as my other neighbour arrived to join us (having sprinted downstairs in a panic). We helped her to her feet, having made sure that her legs were OK and that she had not hurt her head. By then, there were four of us, so we helped her into the house: she seemed to think she would be OK if she just sat down for a while, but I could see that her right arm was just dangling, that there was blood on her sleeve, and that the elbow joint was wrong. I suggested "Ambulance" to neighbour, and she ran next door to ring them. After about ten minutes, we were joined by a First Responder, we have these volunteers who come to assess people as long as it's not a traffic accident, when the Ambulance is too busy to attend right away. This was after he had been flagged down in the street by my neighbour, as his wife had given the wrong address to him and he was stopping 3 doors away! - they have lived there, themselves, for over 35 years...
The patient was making noises about just calling her Doctor to patch her up, as if a sticking plaster would do, when the First Responder chap lifted her sleeve to look at the bleeding: her elbow was about the size of a very large grapefruit. We gave her a glass of water and gently told her that it had to be Hospital, at least for them to 'look at it' - I looked at my female neighbour, and she looked at me... we knew that she would have to have some serious work done on that arm. Cut a longer story short, she has been in the Hospital since then, and has had to have a Bone Specialist to look at the elbow, as its shattered and will be complicated to set. I said to the first chap I mentioned above, what a good job it was he had looked out of the window and decided something was Wrong: I had been watering the plants only about a yard away on the other side of her hedge but she had not called out to me as she is very deaf, so did not know I was nearby - I could not see her as its a thick beech hedge - we decided that if he had not spotted her, she could easily have been there on the ground all night, until 4.30am when the milkman calls!! Shudder to think what that would have been like for a 90 year old with thin clothes on.
We are now watering the plants and flower tubs in her garden, and keeping an eye on the house for her. Don't know when or if she can cope at home with one arm, but she is a stubborn old gal so Watch this Space, as they say!
Morning all: Just spoke to my sister in the UK; she was in the garden and her OH popped out at one point totally disgusted with the UK/Germany game and threatening to abandon it at half -time to join her in the garden. Just checked on the score and it was 4-1. :-(
AQ: Thanks for "red card" explanation - I only learned about yellow cards while watching the US/Ghana game yesterday.
Auntie: Here you can ignore cactii for months and months and months and nothing happens.
Diane: Heat/humidity sounds ghastly. I've seen parts of the How the Earth..... series on PBS. Fascinating. We have, right off the bluffs here, the largest natural oil seep in the world - every now and then oil/tar washes up on the beach and it's all natural. Fortunately, we have miles and miles of beach so no biggie. (We have underwater drilling rigs too! But the move to intall more just went down to resounding defeat - as usual - even without the Gulf Oil disaster). Along the San Andreas Fault, tar bubbles up. In fact, a suburb of Los Angeles is called Brea - the Spanish word for tar). The Indians used it to waterproof their boats and when the Spanish arrived they used it to seal the roofs of their buildings. And, of course, there's the La Brea Tar Pit at the George C. Page Museum in Los Angeles, where they've dug up bones of prehistoric horses that went extinct in North America before the Spanish reintroduced them; also bones of mammoth, sabre-toothed cats. and an American Lion. It's a marvellous museum, right in the middle of the city. Are you a Mac or PC person? Maybe some of your former colleagues can clue you in on current freelance ops/contacts. Good luck with that. Thanks for the heads-up re Pete's Pond. That's not good news. What security system do you have on your computer?
Lindybird: Pretty clematis: White against dark green is always good. Potato vine, aka solanum jasminoides. Good you got your neighbor sorted out; you may be stopping by to help out once she's out of the hospital. Do they have those little "medallion" thingies over there that someone can wear like a necklace, then push a button if they fall or otherwise can't summon help? Here it's called Lifeline or something.... You push it and it automatically summons emergency crews. I think we also have devices that trigger your phone to automatically dial certain numbers in an emergency...
OG: What cooperative butterflies! Must like the camera
Margobird: You were dancing at the Al Green concert! Brilliant!
dibnlib: Hmmm. Interesting project that - "friendly" names for insects. Trying to think of something friendly about ants.... But Lindybird makes a good point about Ladybirds or, as we call them, Ladybugs.
Djoan: "Beaky" is a handsome fellow. Great shot of him with his improvised eating position.
OK. off to start the day. take care all and thanks so much for pix and posts. Wonder what Alan will have to say about the UK/Germany match!
Thanks to all for good wishes for our holiday - I could not reply yesterday, server (Orange) was down. Internet was restored to us today and what do I find?!! Can't log into 'our' pages. So now a very hasty reply, I haven't been able to scan all the pages - still not finished packing - but happy osprey watching ,everyone.
Linda how lucky your neighbour saw her it would have been awful if she had been there all night. Very kind of you to help out with the watering and keeping an eye on her house. Old bones don't mend well unfortunately an operation might be risky at her age.
LINDYBIRD what a good thing your neighbour was looking out and that the lady has kindly concerned neighbours looking out for her. Hope she goes on ok.
DJOAN love the pics of Beaky, esp the one of him feeding.
ANNETTE you will have seen that England is now also out of the world cup. OH is disappointed but I am not a football fan at all, looking forward to the 2nd week of Wimbledon, but we are away Thurs, Fri and Sat morning so will miss the end
Annette: 'American Lions??' wow. That's something to think about. Yes, we have medallion thingys, my m.in.law had one as we worried about her living alone - it called on the phone to a central HQ, and then a human took over and rang the people listed on her personal phone list. Trouble was, she had to keep ringing them up to cancel it, as it went off whenever she clutched the biscuit tin to her ample bosom to open the lid - about twice a week at least!
Weather was more comfortable here today with a nice breeze to moderate the temperature. All missions accomplished – only part of the garden not tidy is the Grasses bed at the front which needs a good clear out – unfortunately we have invasive “Gardeners Garters” (Philaris) and spreading dwarf Bamboos which need to be totally removed, but hopefully without killing everything else. OH tackles it bit by bit when not busy with something else. We shall keep some of the Bamboo, but in containers so it knows its place! We’ve moved stuff from kitchen and laundry area ready for boiler fitting and are now wondering where we shall put things when we have to empty kitchen cupboards as well for new doors etc – especially if Grandson or two is/are needing a bed at the time!
Margobird – pleased you enjoyed your evening out again – I hope Wednesday in London goes well too.
Diane - thanks fro warning about Pete’s Pond – hadn’t tried it for ages, and won’t now.
Dibnlib – trouble with weeding is that we have to do it all over again soon!
DjoanS – thanks for your pictures of Beaky the Magpie – feeding in that position looks very awkward, but if it works for him, that’s great.
Lindybird – all those strawberries – lucky you! Are these in your OH’s allotment? Pleased your SiL got her stair problem resolved – but it shouldn’t have been necessary if the job was properly done in the first place. So sorry about the old lady next door – so good that the other neighbour spotted her and you were all able to help. I do hope the surgeon can keep movement in the joint of her elbow – I nearly typed “fix the elbow” and then realised that wouldn’t be good! So pleased you can keep her plants watered and watch over her house. Do update us on her progress. Lovely word picture of your MiL’s false alarm problem with her call button!
Annette – we actually call Potato Vines by the Latin name here – so to us it’s a Solanum. I begged a few cuttings when someone was pruning one, and was told they couldn’t fail – so of course they did!
HeatherB – have a great holiday – is this one week or two?
A Hibiscus flower at Butterfly World:
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!