Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 21 January 2018

Thank you Diane.

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Michele – Welcome from DownUnder. I started following ospreys after visit in 2008 to LG & LOTL. I live with OH in Adelaide near the beach. 2 Daus & families on other side of city.

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Our heatwave will continue for another week. Bleah.. Max temp a mere 39 C yesterday but the house is now so hot & does not cool overnight. Sleeping difficult. A/c is working hard all day. As OG said it is easier to get warm than get cool. I can’t take off any more clothes and remain decent! Fingers crossed that no power outages.

You know you're in an Australian Summer when . . .
The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.
Hot water now comes out of both taps.
You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.
The temperature drops below 35C and you feel a little chilly.
You discover that in January it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.
You break a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.
Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, "What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death?"
You realise that asphalt has a liquid state.
Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.
The cows are giving evaporated milk.
The trees are whistling for the dogs.

When I returned from church, OH greeted me with news that Dau had phoned. Family are dropping in. When? This morning. Are they here for lunch? Don’t know. (Either they bring fish & chips or I supply whatever I have in freezer for such occasions). Time passes. It’s nearing noon. I ask OH, What exactly did she say? They just were leaving home to spend a couple of hours at beach and then come here. What time did she ring? Don’t know. Ah-ha. I have to put on detective hat. I was out roughly 9 to 10 am, so she phoned, say, about 9.30. It would take them ¾ hour to drive to beach, plus 2-ish hours. They won’t be here for ages. Let’s have our lunch. OH was quite happy to miss lunch but I can’t. Now I sit waiting with one eye out front window. Men!

Evening all:  

Diane: Thank you for the cheery start to the week.  Poor Masked Boobies, their name doesn't do them any favors.

bjane:  My daughter, granddaughter and great-g'daughter are up in Prescott Valley, which has grown tremendously since granddaughter first went there almost 10 years ago. Then tend to avoid the Phoenix area (too hot, too busy, etc...). I'm sure the same is true there.

MicheleD:  How nice to have you pop in - and someone in the neighborhood!  I lived in Long Beach (Belmont Heights) up until 2005 when OH and I retired (I used to work in Costa Mesa) and remember driving to Disneyland back in the early 60s through areas that were still pretty rural. How long have you lived there?

Lynette: Hope you had a nice b/day celebration.

AQ:  Ha-ha - those definitions could work for many areas this side of the globe.  Gosh, that exchange with your OH sounds awfully familiar too.

They're apparently opening up the 101 freeway on Monday morning; no evacuees are being allowed back yet - they're going to do a phased "repopulation" as the utilities are hooked up again.

Daughter arriving first thing and busy week ahead....

Take care all.

Annette - It must be awful for those people waiting to go home.

Dau, her OH & Trio duly arrived, sandy, and made a beeline for bath & shower. MissL then fell asleep, the others were ravenous, demolishing savoury bics with vegemite or peanut butter, while the sausage rolls thawed in toaster oven. Great excitement as they saw dolphins swimming close to shore. MissJ was dissuaded from bringing Gran a blob of jellyfish. When they left after 2 hours, MissL was still asleep. MissJ looked as if she would sleep in car on way home. One more week of summer holidays. School year starts on 29th and I suppose nanny duty again.

Good Morning, Everyone, and Happy Birthday to Lynette (or did I miss it, yesterday?)

Thanks to Diane for starting us off again, with the lovely pic: they're great birds, I like to see them especially when they land so awkwardly!

AQ -  Sympathies, both on the grim temperatures and the annoyance of Other Halves!! Hope it cools down, soon. Just saw an item on our TV News about a job being advertised in the north of Australia, as warden of a huge National Park. The job sounds pretty demanding, even though it's glamorous, as it's a large area full of crocs and tourists. They've had a lot of applicants!

Made big pot of chicken stew last night, so as to eat some and freeze some, from one of the packs of meat I bought the other day. Ate a portion each, with a bit of stir fry veg and accompanying glass of white wine, then had a job staying awake on the sofa until bedtime!

Today's pic:

Not sure if I put this on once, a while ago, but isn't it beautiful?

It's snowing here, now.....  very pretty but unlikely to settle on the ground as the ground is so soaking wet from all the rain we've had.

When my OH came in, cold from his dog walking, I read out to him AQs list about the heat!!

Well, an interesting day. Not only was my head in the clouds but so were my feet. It happens quite often given our altitude. Heavy rain was forecast and sure enough it materialised. No Sunday lunch round the corner. Revert to stock for dinner. At least tomorrow is forecast to be dry so weekly main shopping should go ahead. Goan pork vindaloo with pilau rice and red lentil dhall. Before anyone says how can you eat a vindaloo, this is based on the original recipe that the Portuguese sent their pork, marinated in wine vinegar for the voyage around Africa. Younger SD won't eat a hot spicy curry but she loves this one!

Like to have the recipe when you have time, FORESTBOAR!

Thanks DIANE for start to the week.

AQ - can empathise re conversation with your OH!

ANNETTE- enjoy your daughter's visit. Have you got a lot of things planned?

Rain here now, temps supposed to rise. That would be good!

Hello , people.  Our snowfall today (not supposed to fall at this level) was the heaviest and longest we have had!  Very wet snow, and some showers of rain occasionally falling now - could be all gone by morning.  Also getting noticeably warmer.  Just enjoyed Hoisin Noodles with chicken, cashews, beansprouts and peppers - cooked by J.  We had various plans for going out in different combinations morning, afternoon and evening and he volunteered to cook as he was to be the only one at home at the right time, but in the end most of the timetable changed!