Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 7 October 2018

Wrote a response early this morning and apparently didn't hit the Reply button.  Wonder what else I thought I did.....

Rosy: Things here are waaaay past funny.  

Retirement definitely not restful; just different.  You don't have those predictable eight hours a day at work where colleagues(for the most part) act in a halfway reasonable manner.  I had a colleague once with two young boys who said she came to work for some peace and quiet.

I returned home about 8.30 pm last night, somewhat weary, sore back, swollen ankles. Long distances sitting in bus, tho’ broken every 1½-2 hours by short stops for facilities or a wander or photos. Very enjoyable. 579 photos to process. More details later. Reading back, some quick comments before I find my kitchen.

Pat – C-mas has been on display in shops for a month already here. We say it should not start before the annual C-mas pageant (2nd .Sat in November).

Wendy – Councils are not very bright. Ours sends out a street sweeper the day before the rubbish collection. Never mind, the wind will blow the loose stuff into our front garden.

Linda – Welcome home. Did you see our Dau#1 & OH in Barcelona?

Annette – I have adopted this as my motto. Seen in craft shop on weekend.

Good Morning.  Glad you're home safe after what was hopefully an enjoyable jaunt, AQ.  Love the motto!!

Dry here and rather cloudy, but more sunshine predicted. Lots of ironing awaiting me, plus a visit later to sis-in-laws to compare holiday notes: she has been in Lanzarote where the temps have been high, in the 30s!

Also must buckle down and write an email at the request of our Travel Agent, listing all our woes. It could take some time......

ps.  AQ, may have passed your daughter in Barcelona Airport:  it's new, and H U G E!!  - we found people who were getting lost!

Bursts of unexpected sunshine - very welcome but not across my (dusty) computer screen, thank you!  Still crossing fingers for a dry spell when we go for my blood tests and our flu vaccine after lunch - also going to enquire about shingles vaccine now we are over 70!

Good to see posts from so many - hope HEATHER is okay.

Hope you get the much wanted dry spell, OG.  We will have to contact our surgery as we have once again missed the annual "mass vaccination" for the flu jab which they organise.  I was told last time that I may be able to get a shingles jab too, in spite of having had it already (the shingles, that is). My OH had the jab when he was asked if he wanted it in addition, last year.

We had an ambulance outside in our road yesterday afternoon and wondered if it was for our kind neighbour who often has chest trouble, and goes into hospital occasionally when he has trouble breathing. But when my OH inquired, they said it seemed to be for the young couple next door with the baby - hope there has not been an emergency there.  The ambulance stayed for some time as if the paramedics were giving advice and support. We haven't been round to ask, as we noted that several family members turned up, probably to give support.

Forgot to say yesterday, that when drawing the curtains downstairs in the morning, I heard something familiar, and was rewarded for gazing up at the sky with the sight of a huge skein of geese, all honking madly, going west.  There must have been about 40 of them altogether, in three loose groups. I just love that noise!!

Hello! My visitors left at 6am today to start their long journey home. It was soo good to spend time with my brother and there were a few tears as we said goodbye - should it be 'au revoir'?

I feel quite deflated and would love to get into bed and pull the duvet over my head - but as we had a family meal last evening there are pudding dishes etc to wash up. I really hate coming down to a cluttered kitchen! The girls washed all the pots and pans and loaded the dishwasher before they left.

I will attempt to make some sensible replies here at some point -

Good to hear from you, Heather: of course you're bound to feel a little tearful as your brother left, but lets hope its not going to be too long before you see him again.  Nice that your guests helped load the dishwasher so you don't have too much to do.

It must be hard to get motivated when you are on your own.  I know I often only get out of bed because I can hear my OH clattering around downstairs, he is an early bird and is always busy. I'm another who has all 'mod cons' in the bedroom:  TV, radio, stereo, my tablet and a pile of books by the bed. I usually write my first post of the day on here, whilst drinking my 1st mug of tea before I start on anything apart from seeing the latest Newscast.

I see there was another discussion about breakfast on here:  my OH likes to add some juicy sultanas to his daily porridge, he says it makes it much more interesting.  He's had porridge for breakfast since the dawn of time, so we were pleased to hear about it when it was announced that its good for your heart.  (Mind you, whilst away, he's been busy filling up his arteries with cholesterol by having two eggs, bacon and sausage for breakfast every day!!)

Lindy - From what I saw on my cruise (my first) last month, your OH was very restrained with his breakfast.  I limited myself to the same every day - muesli, fruit and yogurt followed by scrambled egg, one sausage, mushrooms and a hash brown.  Far more than I usually have at home, but there were a lot of long corridors and flights of stairs to walk it off!  I couldn't believe the amount of food some people put away - and the amount some people heaped on their plates and then left.  Quite depressing, really.

Heather - you deserve a bit of a rest after your visitors.  Don't push yourself too hard.

Morning all:

Heather: Funny how goodbyes get more significant as time goes by. Maybe you could go visit them - it's not so far away.  When are you off to see the Danes?

AQ: Glad you had a good outing, but oh, I still have to find time to sort through my Southwest trip and now you and Lindybird are doing the same thing. Hope everyone else is ready for all the pix.  Ha-ha - but if it were only one layer of dust!  Talking of which, I see OG has once again discovered the downside of winter sunshine.

Lindybird: Glad you found that credit card. I'm sure the porridge will offset the damage all that bacon and sausage did.  That would be a bit alarming to see an ambulance for the young neighbors. How old is their baby?

PatO: Read some ghastly report recently about the amount of food the average household wastes each year. :-(  I could graze on bits and bobs but that's not for OH who likes "real" lunches and dinners.

Well, I treated myself to something wonderful last evening:  I drove up to Vandenberg Air Force Base to see the launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket - AND the first ever West Coast attempt to recover of the first stage rocket!  Very successful and quite the spectacle.  And the noise was unbelievable.  You just don't get anywhere near the impact when you watch it on TV.  Such raw power!  I was telling a friend that the cracking and popping from the engines as the rocket rose above us sounded as if the sky was splitting apart.  Thousands of people came to see it and parked along the roads around the base (all very orderly).  I wish I'd read more before I went about what goes on between the launch and when the rocket returns to the base. I was listening to the broadcast on my iPhone but it was a bit behind the actual events. At one point the exhaust formed a fantastical swirling cloud above us through which we saw the subsequent stages of the launch before the satellite was deployed. There was one small light I was watching and I wasn't sure what it was - it turned out to be the returning rocket, which was invisible in between engine flares; the largest being those slowing it down immediately prior to landing, when this huge light suddenly appeared, much closer than I expected.  This part of California had been warned about sonic booms and lots of noise, but we didn't hear them until the rocket just about reached the ground - and the noise was indeed tremendous, echoing around the sky for quite some time. The really annoying thing was that even though I had my phone poised to video it, it somehow didn't start when I pushed the Video button.  Grrrr. Well, it did on the two most insignificant parts of the whole operation.  My niece had the same problem with some of the videos she thought she'd taken during her visit her.  Still, all in all, a fabulous experience.

Anyway, now I have to get ready for the family.  They were planning on leaving their house early and were going to call at the first stopping point (Congress, AZ) but I haven't heard so assume they got a late start....  

Take care all