Weekly Chat Sunday July 11th

Spain wins the World Cup (lovely seeing it on the new telly!). Fledges at LOTL and LG!  Life is good.  :-)

Back to catch up posts in a bit.

Caerlaverock chicks were ringed Saturday, then today the following on their website:

<<  Today has been a day of drama. During the morning the staff at the reserve realised there was only two chicks on the nest.  The survelliance team went to investigate and found one of the chicks, HH on the ground.  HH is the middle chick and we think that it spread it's wings and a gust of wind blew it off. Luckily it was not hurt though played dead when the volunteer arrived. The  bird was  put in a bag and taken to the volunteer's home where it was placed in a box.  Tony, our forestry commision expert then collected it.  He will feed HH tonight and return the chick to the nest tomorrow, hopefully none the worse for it's ordeal.  >>

Hello OG - Taking the gingerbread to France  - looks good and am sure it will be lovely!! My brother thinks that we will need another plane in order to take all the food - specifically - Gingerbread as mentioned! - Cheddar Cheese, Sausages,  Bacon, a whole Stornoway black pudding, Cream, Chocolate, Sirloin of beef, malt whisky (two bottles),smoked salmon. Some stuff will be frozen so even heavier.  Our gardening clothes are already there which is a blessing because I have only booked one bag to go in the hold. I really object to the way the airlines charge for baggage and because we are flying from Inverness to manchester and Manchester to Rennes and return, Flybe class that as four flights with commensurate luggage charges. All i need now is for the food to be confiscated. Watch this space---- An afterthought - it all looks like heart attack food but its just stuff that my brother can't get easily in Brittany. A wee treat for them.

Just caught up on all the fledging excitement :)))

Lindybird - I find that dust shows MORE in the sunlight.   dibnlib - re printed pics, can you use your printer as a scanner? Several pics in my gallery were scanned in, not such good definition but if you want to show us something at least that gets it there.

OK. Just watched the Spanish team leaping about and weeping with joy.  Feel bad for the losers (as usual). Went for nice long walk this morning before the game and heard a lot of thunder up in the hills; no rain or lightning that I could see. All a bit odd, this weather.

Diane: You've got to get out more! If only to keep that car battery going.  I managed to do my ironing - in the kitchen - while watching the World Cup - didn't have to squint to read the words either!   How nice that your foxy friend has decided he likes the neighborhood.

Margobird: Hope your show is rescheduled and that the wife in question was okay. 

Cathie: Oh brilliant. How nice to hear from you  I will tell you that there used to be a lovely flowerbed in the middle of a huge (well, seemed like it then) roundabout in front of the Town Hall. Also, the pond used to have old iron railings (green) and was such a pretty place to walk by.  Then they took out the flower bed and, I think,  the roundabout.  In those early days, the Parade and the High Street were both open to traffic, with lots and lots of stores - you'd see everyone you knew down there on a Saturday morning doing the shopping. You had a real sense of community.  Now there seem to be a lot of pubs and clubs.  I had dinner at an Italian place at the top of the Parade when I was there a couple of years ago - the food was really good.  And I stayed at a hotel on St Albans Road near the roundabout (or whatever has taken its place) and wandered around my old neighborhood (Denmark Street to be exact).  I walked down the Avenue too - my friend used to live in the house on the south corner at Alexander Road - and went to the library. I used to spend hours and hours there (no television when I was growing up).  I always wanted to go into that pub across the road from the library; never did - was going to on this trip but it was closed if I remember rightly and seemed to be less a pub than a club. Oh well.

Quietwoman: Welcome, as you can see, all sorts of things get discussed here. It's a nice place to keep in touch with folks after the birds have gone for the winter.  I've only heard of Roy through folks on these pages, but I do know they consider him the "man" when it comes to all things osprey. Not sure about that unhappy person who badmouthed Roy on the Diary page - funny how these folks come out of the woodwork;  he sounded very cynical.

TerryM: Yes, I  know what you're talking about re MWSnap. I've experimented with all kinds of settings and was so surprised to capture the images from both LOTL cams with no problem. Don't know what's going on when I try to do the same with the LG cam. Another of life's mysteries...;.

dinblib: Yes, I'm the La Plante fan. I liked Clear Cut (although gruesome in parts) and then got another one of hers from the library but  took it back after a day or so.  It was set in Los Angeles among movie types and I took an instant dislike to the main characters. We have a rubbish program here called Entertainment Tonight and reading her book was like watching the show and its hosts.

Heather: Love smoked salmon!  We have to buy ours but, as I mentioned a little while back, we have a Scot in town who owns the Santa Barbara Smokehouse and he allegedly imports Scottish salmon and "cold" smokes it. I think it's cold and not hot - Anyway, it's delicious and our local Costco carries it.  And where did you say you were staying in France and when should we all show up for eats?  :-)

OG: Lovely shots. Oh dear. I was worried about the LG and LOTL chicks in all that wind, but sounds like the Caerlaverock chick is in good hands!

Tonight Nature (a TV program) is about Mull, and today's LA Times did a special section (a tiny one because all newspapers are tiny these days) on Scotland with, of course, the obligatory photo of Loch Ness.

OK. Must do something constructive  this afternoon - there's gotta be something that needs doing!  Let me go see.....

Hello All, We have been out all day so just wanted to catch up.

OG, Good to see you back and that your son's problem has happily been resolved. So worrying for you though.

Cathie, Lovely to see you have found us on here.

Margo; Sorry about your concert but you obviously enjoyed your alternative time out.

Annette;  Like all new things, you wonder why you waited so long to buy them.

Quietwoman; I am sure you will find that we are all admirers of Roy Dennis on here and a numbe of us have bought his book, A Life of Ospreys.

Heather; Good luck with all that food luggage. I hate to think what it is going to weigh !

Linda, I agree with Terry. Sunlight really does show the dust more in our house and having all the doors and windows open in this hot weather, definitely doesn't help.

We have heavy rain forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning, but the garden really does need it.

Must go to bed now, it has been a long day.

Evening all: U.S. watchers. PBS's Nature has started - all about Mull and its wildlife, including sea eagles . (Is lovely in High Definition!)  :-)

BrendaH: Indeed, why did we wait so long!

Ooooh! They're interviewing somebody from the RSPB!! Exciting!

Diane/Barbara Jean: I hope you guys are watching Nature. They're in a hide filming (in the pouring rain!) a sea eagle nest w/chicks!!

Dibnlib - I’ve now read 2 Peter James. ‘Dead tomorrow’ & ‘Dead man’s footsteps’. Out of order but I takes what I gets at the library!!!! I like the complicated plots. Not a book I can read in one night, hurray. DMF was interesting as our TV has been inundated with ghastly series about the underworld of Melbourne. Tut, tut, PJ acknowledged "Victoria Police, New South Wales". Ooooh, Victoria won’t like that! NSW is a different state!

My morning was busy multi-tasking. First washing day, then minor shopping at Glenelg, followed by visit to possible wedding photo location (took pics for Bride1 & emailed them), then library to stock up on reading matter. Glenelg is a beach suburb popular with holidaying oldies and backpackers. It is school holidays and the shopping street was cluttered with kids & grandmothers (a few mothers) on a treasure hunt. ie Visit the bakery to collect a roll, then to greengrocer for an apple & banana. "Next on the list is ‘Cheap as Chips’, where’s that?" as they straggled and chattered along. LOL. The photo session was very interesting - lots of birds which I shall have to identify before posting (I have a birdie friend who knows these things). I was busy snapping away, turned, and this is what I saw & Click!:-