Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 12 July 2020

Lindy: I so enjoyed seeing your granddaughter studying the calculator so intently. We need more women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)! Yay for her!

AQ: I hope you feel more positive soon. Just remember: You and I are tough rural folk. We are people of the land. When the going gets rough, we just grind our heels into the dirt and face the wind. Take care of yourself, dearie.

Thank you FRIENDS for your supportive words. Given time my latest load of miseries will pass.

LINDA – How nice to see a cutie wearing a dress, an old-fashioned smocked dress too, rather than the shapeless (though convenient) onsies.

Drilling noises from Grand Design’s interior, on Sunday!. Now the roof is just about finished, it is hard to see any progress.

Just a thought

Keep looking up. . . that’s the secret of life. (Snoopy cartoon)

Evening all:  Thank you Diane: Very sweet of you to consistently start us off.  t's much appreciated but please don't feel obligated.  AQ and I usually come puttering along at some point. :-)

Lindybird:  Lovely photos and like Diane I was also intrigued by the photo with the calculator.  Children really do seem to have an immediate affinity for techie things.  I also liked the photo of them all waving bye-bye. :-)   If I miss you tomorrow, have a lovely relaxing time in Wales.

AQ: I do hope you're soon restored to your funny self soon.  Hugs from here.

OG:  Indeed, the logistics of getting Ms. D back home  was the question left hanging when g'daughter and I hung up the phone the other evening.

Verrry slow day; didn't really 'wake up' until 6 p.m.  Did manage to make it to the library to pick up a book.  Planning another pretty slow day tomorrow.

Take care everyone.

ANNETTE: No worries. I didn't mind starting the thread. I'm sitting here listening to the storm and hail warnings and trying to figure my unnecessarily complicated federal and state taxes. Sigh...

DIANE Thanks for starting the week

Good morning to everyone. Think we will be walking at the canal again, this time starting at Clachnaharry. Once again this is somewhere we haven't been since mid March.

Thank you, DIANE! Good luck with your tax forms..
AQ - Hugs from me, also. Enjoy your time with the little ones - have I remembered correctly?
ROSY - No, I haven't been on a bus since lockdown and very rarely before that. At some point I may have to give in, though!
ANNETTE - When you wrote about going to the beach, for some reason the poem 'Sea Fever' came to mind. It was one of the things that we had to learn at school. Quite what the connection is between blue skies and a Californian beach and grey skies and wind is, I'm not sure. Maybe the mention of whales in the poem?
Enjoy your time with the family. I believe that Pheonix is badly affected by the virus? But Prescott Valley would seem to be a bit away from there.
LINDY - So good that you could see the young ones! Loved the photos. Enjoy Wales x
OG - I would imagine that M and S ready meals would be fine instead of WFF. I eat them at least once a week.
Sorry that J is feeling under the weather. Does he help in the garden?
PAT - hope you are well and enjoying the golf, once more.

Youngest family is coming here again today. I protested but to no avail. SIL will be going offshore in a few days time and he wants to do a few garden jobs for me. They will be here for roast chicken dinner.
I think that the current situation is affecting many folk in a negative way. I'm worrying about EVERYTHING, not just the normal ups and downs of life.
Oh, and if I didn't know before, I know now that Mr Trump wore a face mask yesterday!. It was the first sentence of every news bulletin every half hour on the World Service News last night!

Good morning, all. Can't believe it's Sunday again - it only seems two or three days since the last one!

Heather - I too heard many times overnight and again this morning about Trump and his mask. Surely something else far more important is happening in the world? I did have to smile, sometime in the middle of the night, when the newsreader referred to Trump covering his face ... if only!!

Feeling a bit sorry for myself today. Had a lovely Zoom chat with my niece, her man and my almost four year old great-nephew. It's his birthday next weekend and I can't be there! They are going to my sister's and there will be communal Zoom session - better than nothing, but nothing like being together. My sister is still shielding, as she is extremely vulnerable, so I can't go down there. Too far to get there and back in one day, most BandBs aren't open, so here I am in Sussex and there they are in Somerset and it's like the Grand Canyon between us. It seems as though everyone else is getting back to 'normal' and I'm somehow being left behind. I know in my head that isn't true, and lots of people are far worse off than I am ... but as I said, just feeling sorry for myself. I'm sure I'll snap out of it soon, and enjoy the Zoom family get-together on Saturday. Sorry to have dumped that on you, but I don't really have anywhere else I can share those sort of feelings. Thank you - I'll be fine :)

I am going to a Cream Tea this afternoon - that will definitely cheer me up! One of the local churches takes cream teas round to people living alone, and one of my neighbours has invited me to join them. A lovely idea, and a lot of work for those doing it, but I'm sure it will be a lovely occasion. At the moment the sun is shining - hope it continues!

Have a good Sunday, everyone.

PAT - I can understand how you must be feeling. If your sister is shielding can the family go into her house? I've lost touch with all these extended family and bubble stuff in England, it's hard enough to get to grips with it all up here, where rules are slightly different. As you say, accommodation is very limited at present. I think that those of us living alone have had a pretty rough time. There is no substitute for human contact, a hug... I so wish that whatever the ' new normal' turns out to be, it is better than what, in the wee small hours, I imagine and fear....
You aren't alone - your friends here are, well, here :-)