Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 22 September 2019

Evening all:  Off in the morning but will keep up with things here as I'll be taking the laptop as usual.

OG: Hope that injection helped; that couldn't have been pleasant!

AQ: What holidays are these for Miss 7?   Miss D. is big on geology; do hope all their enthusiasm lasts through high school!

Lindybird:  Your OH is amazing!

Take care all.

Good Morning. Just had to sign in again, which I haven't had to for a while.

Dry here, but its rained all night so my OH went off to golf wondering if the course might be closed as they don't let people use it when it will turn to mud and do damage for the future.

He will do the gloss painting this afternoon, as yesterday he only went out to buy the paint. When we begin a project, I have to "clear the decks" quickly as he starts as if someone has sounded a starting gun! And he absolutely hates for it to drag on for too long, so he keeps at it. I do point out that he must take breaks now, at his age.

Hope that OG had a good night and is not feeling any after effects of yesterday.

ANNETTE – These are school holidays between terms 3 & 4. Our school year runs from end of January to early December with 4 terms. Dau has booked Trio in for swimming lessons first week.

Hello, all. Just emerging from a few days of mania - again! Left here at 6.50am this morning to get the magazines printed - managed about two-thirds before our administrator wanted to start work, and finished afterwards. Almost like a full working day - I didn't get home until 2.15pm! Good job I don't charge by the hour - or even at all - church work is all voluntary! But it's done for another month. One strange thing perhaps someone can answer - why is it that in a 'quiet' month for me, when I have a bit more time, I scrabble around to get 24 pages. This month, when the rest of my diary is manic, why do I get 32 pages - which take longer to set, longer to print ... it's a mystery.

Lindy - your family wedding next year sounds a little like my niece and her man. They haven't quite got around to getting 'conventionally' married, but had a hand-fasting ceremony at Chalice Well, Glastonbury. Very strange and pagan, and there were several things I couldn't join in. Although I try to be open to other people's beliefs, there are some things I can't quite go along with ...

Don't know which bit of North Yorkshire you are going to, but I can recommend a very good (and not expensive!) hotel in Ullswater ...

Not got time to comment, except I'm so pleased to hear that things have gone well for you, OG. Enjoy your meal out with family.

My OH is busily trying to complete the painting, even though really he should be leaving some of it for another day. But he won't be told, so no point in my saying anything. We rushed out after our lunch to get our 'flu jabs, as they were offering a day of trying to get a hold of most of us and doing us en masse at a local sports hall.

Pat, I'm a little puzzled as the only Ullswater I know is in Cumbria......

I don't avail myself of the flu jab but it is a personal choice and of course not influenced by the fact that my GP gets paid more per jab the more he/she gives! If they can meet the target of 75% of patients who are 'recommended' to be injected, they get paid about £10 per injection. Fewer numbers = less extra income. All GP practices in Scotland are run as private businesses and therefore must try and earn extra income above what they get paid by the NHS for basic care provision.

Hello, Everyone, from one of the lurkers. Hope everyone's day is going well.
Apologies to Annette and Lindy (if I remember rightly, who commented on our then up-coming trip to the States) for my delay in replying here a couple of weeks ago. Things were fairly hectic before leaving and hectic still here in the USA (that's for us personally, although the politics here is about as dramatic as that in the UK--the plot continually thickens in both places, it seems!) Annette, the most we saw of Chicago was the airport but we've been to Chicago many years ago. Spent Tuesday last week through yesterday morning in Wisconsin, mostly in the State capital of Madison and also further north in north-central Wisconsin, visiting friends and a cousin. One highlight was seeing the wonderful exhibition of Birds In Art at a museum in Wausau (a corruption of a Native American word). This has been a yearly event for several decades and the paintings, drawings and sculpture are always fabulous. The exhibition this year runs from early September through early December. There were 800 people who had applied for their art work to be exhibited, but something like a hundred and fifty were accepted. The museum buys some of the art displayed every year, but they do own and display non-bird art as well at other times of the year. Should you ever visit the wilds of central Wisconsin in the autumn you should not miss this. But how many British would ever wish to or have a chance to visit any of the 'fly-over' States (a name for the entire middle of the USA used by those living on either coast!)? The exhibition is known to bird artists around the world, and the featured master artist for this year's display is a British man who had quite a few of his pieces on display.
We went birding there on two mornings with a another birder and highlights were several Turkey Vultures, a Red-Bellied Woodpecker, Mourning Doves, a couple of Phoebes, gorgeous Sandhill Cranes (one lucky woman we met has up to 30 gathering in the field next to her house before they migrate south--when she stops hearing them she knows winter is coming), a Pileated (or is it Piliated?) Woodpecker, and a possible Osprey. We saw that bird soaring overhead late one afternoon. There was a large wooded area near to where we were driving and we all thought the bird looked very Osprey-ish--it may have been a bird on migration looking for a place to roost for the night.
Drove to east central Illinois yesterday to help celebrate the birthday of a friend and we will be here until Sunday when it is back up to the airport at Chicago from where we'll fly to Alaska.

Gardenbirder: Just zoomed through your text. Will read closer later and then look for that bird exhibition. You shall have to fill us in on Alaska when you get a chance.

Lindy - oops! Sorry. My geography north of Watford isn't brilliant ... but I really should know the difference between Cumbria and Yorkshire, both of which I have visited extensively ... put it down to brain overload!