Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 1 October 2017

Here's today's pic:

It was 30 C today after 28 yesterday. Thank goodness showers tonight and tomorrow should be 10+ cooler. No nanny duty in school holidays. Dau + Trio coming to tea tomorrow eve while her OH has a work dinner.

Enjoy your break from nanny duties, AQ!  That sounds hot...... Hope the showers arrive to cool you down.

Heather: I revere Woody Guthrie, and I have CDs of his original recordings. This is my favorite Woody Guthrie song (sung by Bruce Springsteen). 

Clare: I was going through my favorite links to find that Guthrie song for Heather, and I saw this one that I thought you might like (because it's more metal rock). I may have already posted this for you; I can't remember. 

That's a lovely, haunting song, Diane, and new to me. The second one has some great guitar playing, and I also like the Elvis Costello version, as I like his stuff.

I've been out with Bonnie for a good walk, before it thinks about raining here.  My OH will be back home tonight. Although he's not a noisy person, it's been quiet without him.

I rang my sis-in-law to check that the Awful Cousin has left this morning, and she was almost weeping in relief.  She said that she had gone for a long hot shower afterwards, and sung "Halleluja!" in the shower!!  She has been staying with her for over nine days and every day has been a trial.

For instance, after we took A. Cousin out to lunch and she was disappointed that there wasn't lamb on the menu, she insisted on going to buy a large piece of lamb shoulder so that it could be cooked to her liking. My sis-in-law duly prepared it for Sunday evenings meal, and left it in the oven to finish off, with the roasted vegetables, whilst she drove a couple of miles away to fetch other sis in law and her OH to share it with them.  "Don't touch the oven while I'm gone!" she admonished, "It will all be OK".   When she got back with them, the oven was off and stone cold:  "I thought it smelled done!" said Awful Cousin.....   the vegetables were ruined as they had soaked up all the fat in the pan.....

Here is my log of my recent holiday:  please just ignore it if its boring to you, I know that some like to hear about it but others hate to hear of these things. I just thought you might like to share in my pics. and memories.

We drove down on a Saturday, as we wanted to stay the night en route so that there were no worries about our reaching Southampton in time for the sailing on Sunday - its a long way and a lot of motorway from here. We stayed in a Premier Inn (which is like a motel, for those of you not in UK) and it was very comfortable. We lolled on the big bed with a bar of chocolate each and had an early night as we were both exhausted from rushing around previously.

Next day, we drove for about an hour and a quarter into Southampton, where luckily my OH had been before and knew the way without any problems. The docks were well signed and we found the big car park where we could leave our car for the duration. We asked the attendant if we were in order, as we had pre-paid, and he gave us directions to walk to the ship - "Its that little boat over there!" he said, laughing - it looked H U G E even from a distance.

We duly gave in our cases and then registered ourselves:  this involves having your photo taken for ID purposes and I subsequently noticed that the persons looking at the screen when I boarded again were trying not to laugh, so I assume that I had made some kind of awful screwed up face when she took the picture, LOL!! Then we excitedly boarded the ship.

We were told that our cabin may or may not be ready:  as I had a case plus a bag of shoes, and my OH had a bag plus a backpack of other stuff (jackets etc), we went to find our cabin which was very handily near to the lifts but not too near as that can be noisy.  It looked good, and our cabin steward introduced himself. Our big cases were outside ready for us. We dumped everything and went to find some lunch. After a nice buffet, we walked around the outside of the ship: it seemed never ending.

We went to put some stuff away, then felt the ship start to pull away.  We went back to the deck to see the town disappear.  This is what I saw as we pulled out of Southampton, which has a lot of docks for both cargo and passengers, plus a regular ferry to the Isle of Wight. Some of the sailors were waving at us, we must have looked enormous to them.

Also quite a few sailing boats, which looked so graceful.

As we left land, we saw a couple of these:  not sure what they are! Some kind of defence buildings. This was taken out of our cabin window: it was raining by then.  Next door cabin had a big balcony and you can see it on the right.

Hi all - just rushing out but thought you would like to know we had a sonic boom here in Suffolk this morning - it really did sound like an explosion, I thought someone's boiler had blown up and other local people called the police as they thought the Sizewell Nuclear plant had blown up! - I think that would have been a bit noisier!! Here's the BBC link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-41496812

Harelady:  I know they can sound very loud, I've heard a few, including once when Concorde went over us. You must have wondered what on earth......!