Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 4 August 2019

Enjoy the wedding, Pat. Hope the weather holds off long enough for the photographs.

Good morning, ALL. Sorry that I took time off for a few days – we had a very busy week with things going on at home. Still no news for J from the Christie – now over three weeks since his biopsy; yesterday he spoke to the doctor’s secretary who said she would give her a message to phone him. Now I shall have to look at my most recent post (not the one about power outages!) and remember what has happened recently.

I see I posted on Wednesday morning. The boys’ shower was successfully repaired that afternoon. I did use the time to catch up on correspondence – tried to write to sponsored twins in Ecuador but failed to write two non-identical letters for translation, so finally they were both the same and much overdue.

On Thursday much time was taken up thinking about the raptor situation, having received a reply from the Scottish Government to my letter about illegal killings. It was a good reply to all the points I had covered, but essentially still the same statement that they are working on it. Today the RSPB has asked me to donate regularly to a campaign on this matter “become a bird of prey defender”.

That day the cleaner was back after a week in Ireland, and in the afternoon we had the podiatrist; this was a stand-in as our regular young lady has started her maternity leave – baby was due that day but no news yet. We’re glad Louise is only taking six months off as this one seems rather hurried and less of a people-person.

Friday was planned to be a day out but that was cancelled due to the weather forecast; as it turned out, things here were not so bad after all, but we filled the day with various household tasks, which even included an hour in the garden in the afternoon. J went to his folk group in the evening. The rain became quite heavy (no light and sound effects as far as I know) and this morning there was water running down our road; it has stopped and started several times since. The birds are finding hiding places and coming out to feed between showers. We shall hope to go out twice next week – last week of J’s holiday.

Shocked to hear that you've still not had news of the biopsy results, OG. They're dragging their feet! Sounds as if you got lots of household tasks done. Well done on getting your points across about the tragic situation re the Scottish raptors -- it really is unbelievable that they're not a valued asset and a precious creature to be treasured by all.

Yesterday my OH was at a loose end for the afternoon, and decided to act on a throwaway remark of mine earlier in the week when I said that our front porch looked a little shabby. I said at the time that he should think about perhaps giving it a quick brushful of paint in the autumn. It is just a tiny porch between two front doors, as the house had an open porch once but this had been filled in with glass and a glazed front door.

So yesterday he asked me to remove the two pictures from the wall, and my vase full of dried grasses. Then he set to and wiped everything down before sloshing some white emulsion over the walls. All done in an hour, and left to dry!! One thing less to do in autumn!!

Morning all:  Daughter just landed in Phoenix (I keep an eye on the plane via FlightRadar24, not that that makes a difference to the plane!).  We had a good visit; were up at 4:15 a.m. today and got her to the airport just across the freeway at 5:30 for a 6:20 take off. We have two new airlines flying out of Santa Barbara starting this summer but not sure if that was the reason it seemed unusually busy.  Anyway, one load of laundry in; and heavily loaded dishwasher has just finished so things getting back to normal.  I see a nap on the schedule at some point today.

OG:  What a pain not hearing news of J's biopsy yet - that's a long time it seems.  How frustrating.  Re birds, we've noticed the hummingbirds are coming to the feeders more over the last two weeks; maybe they're bumper crop of natural food has dried up with the summer heat....

PatO:  Let us know how the wedding went.

Take care all.

Nice to read that you had an enjoyable time with your daughter, Annette. Hope you had lots of time for chatting.

I'm getting to grips with a new phone I've bought, as I thought I'd better get up to date and have a smartphone: sis in law says she finds it frustrating that she can't send pictures to either me or my OH (who has a phone which was used by Noah during the Floods, I reckon... ). So I bit the bullet and bought one while my son was staying, so that he could set it all up for me. Its confusing at times but I hope I have brain enough to find out how to use it properly.

Lindybird:  We upgraded daughter's iphone while she was here so my non-techie OH can use her old one - IF he ever feels like tackling it (I swear his flip phone is two days older than God)  What palaver that was; of course, she couldn't remember her Apple Password.  Arggghhh.  Think of it more as a computer than a phone....  I have a love/hate relationship with mine, but some of the features really come in handy.

The wedding was lovely. Quite informal but exactly right for the couple. The groom is a Salvationalist, and he brought some members of the Sally Army band with him - lovely! I even enjoyed their rendering of part of Beethoven's Ninth - I don't usually like 'arrangements', but this was good. Singing along with them was special as well. The bride looked beautiful, the groom (who I hadn't met before) was great - all in all a very happy occasion. They came over to what I refer to as my 'back garden' - the grounds of the place I live, which is just across from the church - for their photographs. I went down to see them and found myself acting as photographer's assistant - carrying bags, opening umbrellas, tying notices to posts, arranging the bride's train etc etc. Great fun. I wasn't invited to the evening do - I only know the bride because she was part of our party to Cambodia last year - but glad I had that informal time with them.

Smartphones … help! I have one. I use it because I get free phone calls, and I send the occasional text. Although I know how to take photographs, I don't - because nobody seems able to tell me how to download pictures onto my computer! While I was away I heard so many horror stories about roaming charges that it spent most of the trip in the safe! I did use it for WhatsApp messages, but that was limited to one family member, one friend and two people from church. They didn't always work … I really must learn to use it properly.

PAT O: Wedding sounds like my kind of relaxed do. You can plug your phone (using the USB connection that - at least with an iPhone - is part of the charger cable) into your computer's USB slot. You must have some basic photo software on your computer with an "Import" tab where you can just click and send the pix to the computer. When in doubt, Google "how to move photos from smartphone to computer" - there's bound to be more info than you need plus some YouTube videos showing how. I've used YouTube for all kinds of things from home repairs to plant pruning. Take care.

Back again. Was going to try to catch up with replies, then realised we shall almost certainly have a new thread tomorrow, so I don’t suppose many will read the end of this one. So, I shall just say “congrats or commiserations as appropriate!”

Just seen our local news – floods, landslides, road and rail closures all around us, within a few miles – we have been so lucky here!