Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 15 April 2018

dibnlib:  Sorry to hear the news, but agree with OG that your cousin's OH deserves a medal. He must be physically and emotionally exhausted but also, as you say, relieved - as must be other family members. Hope he can find some time to enjoy life a little bit now... My neighbors have been looking after the husband's mother for years and years - she died the other week at age 100. I don't think they know what to do with themselves now that they have all this "free" time.  

I committed any number of gardening sins this morning and it's only 10 a.m.; off out to see what else needs to be talked to!

Dibnlib - so sorry to hear about your cousin's death.  She had suffered so much, and now she is out of pain.  I can imagine her husband's very mixed emotions right now, which will mellow as time passes and probably end up as a blend of relief that she is no longer suffering and gratitude for the time they spent together.

Annette - I'm trying to think of the sort of 'sins' you could possibly have committed in your garden, particularly so early in the day.  My mind is boggling!

"I talk to my plants:

I say to them, 'grow!'

There are others I could put in your place, you know!

Some are more colourful,

Some are more bright -

And some have a heavenly scent in the night.

But my plants have their own ideas

About what is right. 

They look very seedy, not to say weedy,

And they try to play dead when I come with the water -

Should I give some, or maybe, shouldn't I oughter?"

THE TEA FLASK MYSTERY.  (or, how not to travel)

We rose early on Thursday, as we had many miles to travel, and the funeral was scheduled for 12 noon. My OH often makes himself a flask of coffee to refresh himself on journeys, and I usually just take a bottle of chilled lightly flavoured water, but I decided that as it was going to be a long day, I would make a flask of hot tea. We'd been given a small flask for Christmas, so I decided to use that, even though I'd never used it before. I made tea, plus milk, and fastened it up. On the trip, my OH got out his coffee, so I decided to have mine. Pouring it out, I found it had gone cold in less than an hour and a half!

Also, there seemed to be less tea.....   but I drank half a cupful of it anyway, as we didn't want to waste time queuing up in a cafe.

Later, I had some water and thought no more about it. We were able to enjoy our relatives' hospitality later, so were OK. When we finally got home, I got the strange flask and went to clean it. It was completely empty!!  I asked my OH where it had been kept, and he produced a hessian carrier bag. Which was full, at the bottom, with cold tea.

I then asked where the carrier bag had been, and he said in the footwell of the car. He rushed out to look, expecting to find a wet carpet, but came back with a gilet of his which he keeps in the car. It was soaked!  - mystery solved!

The gilet went straight into the washing machine, and the new flask headed towards the bin.

Footnote:  not the end of the tale, though, as next morning my OH asked what you should put on scalds. He had decided to take apart and then remake the flask, then fill it with boiling water to see if it was OK. It leaked out over his hand and he burnt his thumb. The fated flask is in the bin, properly now. Grr!

I'm not sure, now about my writing recurrent instead of redcurrent, last night: the darned spellchecker on here just insisted on changing the word "gilet" to "violet" and the word "footwell" to "footwear!"

Lindy, sometimes I despair with spellchecker. One of my annoyances is forever having to put the ENGLISH version into the dictionary. Oh, it doesn't like spellchecker either !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lindybird: Cute verse!  Liked your poetic license in the last line.  :-)   Too bad about the gift of the flask - and OH's scalded hands (rinse under room temperature water and if it gets nasty put on Silver Sulfadiazine.  But then I got confused because I assumed "gilet" was what spellchecker came up with.  Had to Google it.

PatO: "Sins" in this case involved ripping out some dymondia - a lovely and very hardy and drought-resistent ground cover that doesn't know when to stop!  I used to trim it neatly with the pruners (when it was younger); now, if it comes up against some rocks, it just grows up and over and then over itself, so a bit like walking on a sponge.  Was more gentle with the roses, which finally were fed for the first time this season.

Off to sort out dinner.

Unknown said:

Clare: I'm so very sorry about Limpy's diagnosis.

Absolutely fantastic.  Thank you so much.

By the way EJ is on the nest with her latest flame and they've had at least one successful mating session already!