Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 23 August 2020

Belated Happy Anniversary, Lynette. Glad you had a good meal. We really appreciate anything we can do outside the house now, don't we?

Still rather wild winds here, but I think we've had worse sometime in the autumn. Supposed to calm down in the night so here's hoping.

Annette - towels are funny things: one minute they're OK and then suddenly they seem to go threadbare overnight. We use old ones for doggy drying, of course :-) Glad the fires are possibly over now. Terrible when they take hold.

Lindybird:  Our current towels are VERY old and disappearing, starting at the edges.  :-)   In the past, I've given ou rold ones to my daughter for the horses.....

HEATHER – The virus is still bad in Victoria but improving – a few weeks ago daily new cases reached 700, this week mid-100s. Sadly death numbers continue high. Most deaths are those in aged care but some aged as young as 30s. No reports whether they had underlying health problems – privacy cited.

Our state has had a week of hard border restrictions with VIC. Many Victorians who live just over the border, work, shop, attend school, medical services in SA. Otherwise they would need to drive 100 km or more. Some farms straddle the border. This has caused many problems. One family moved into a caravan and another mother with 4 kids are living with g-parents so kids can continue at SA school. An SA teacher living in VIC has set up a temp school in her town. With no new cases in western part of VIC for 2 weeks, SA restrictions will be eased Friday, but the VICs will only be able to travel in a 40 km border region.

Got a new phone today, my old one failed the swimming test.

I’ll call it a smartphone when I yell “Where’s my phone?”and it yells back “Down here in the couch cushions!”

If you keep annoying me, I’ll give your phone number to all the kids and tell them it’s Santa’s hotline.

AQ; LOVE the second one.. Covid death reports here pretty much include "underlying conditions."

LINDY- if you can't oversleep on holiday, when can you do it ?
OG I hope you get your hairbrush soon! I enjoy the daily shower and hairwash, don't feel right until it's done!
Heading that way soon, then to town.

LINDA - seems you were quite lucky in your part of N Wales - and I see the A5 is closed - can't remember where, but I think one end was Betws y Coed (excuse spelling). Hope it dries up more for you from now on.

AQ - pleased to see Victoria situation is improving - hope nobody does anything really daft on the state border with SA. Good quotes again!

Sweary words here this morning. Although I offered to delay Mag publication awaiting update from the postponed elders' "meeting", I did not expect the church administrator to send me two unrelated late contributions this morning - was going to have a day off!

Update - LINDA - Glaslyn was badly affected by flooding.

Hey, folks. 

Hurricane Laura is now a Category 4 with a massive storm surge per Weather.com. It will make landfall somewhere on the coast of Texas/Louisiana between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning in the U.K. and 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. tonight in California.

Forecasters are evaluating whether to change the current track of the storm; they fear it will shift and hit Houston full on. The storm surge is already coming in. ABC News is live streaming a beach in Galveston, Texas. Go to THIS LINK and click on "A View of the Beach in Galveston" in the "Additional Streams" (under the main the window) if you want to watch the surge as it moves in. It's awe-inspiring, but I feel mighty sorry for those folks. I think the link is viewable in the U.K. 

Heather: I know your son-in-law worked in that area, so I thought you might want to take a look.