Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 13 December 2020

LINDY - So sorry about your cancelled cruise but it's for the best. Stepson calls ships floating petri dishes ....at the moment, anyway.
OG - Were you in the wheelchair? My friend had a special waterproof cover for her Mum's chair.
I'm trying to get motivated and make the house look a bit Christmassy. No promises, though!

Just wrote four paragraphs, then realised I wasn't signed in. Lost the lot, again! I agree with Annette that afterwards its doubly hard to remember everything you wrote, before!!

Heather, We wouldn't have wanted to go on the cruise with things the way they are at the moment. But we were hoping it was far enough away for the situation to have changed. Now, today, we can see that in lots of areas things are getting worse, and there may even be a 3rd wave after Christmas. Boo.

Been talking to neighbours and of course everyone is fed up, but resigned. :'((

OG Busy time for you.

Morning all:  Two dead bodies in the garden this morning.   One an unfortunate finch that must've flown into a window; the other was (originally) a rat that apparently was waylaid by something larger on its way from A to B.  We have a few oranges still at the top of the tree that I could never reach and I've noticed bits of them on the ground the last week, so I assume the rat was filling up on Vitamin C.  Haven't tidied them up yet.  :-(   EDIT:  Only one body out there now - the bird must've been stunned.  :-)

Going to sort of lazy today.  Have four books to pick up curbside at the library and may start cutting back some plants that are semi-dormant at this point; otherwise they'll wake up in Spring and will get woody and ugly before I can catch up with them.

Meanwhile, here's the long-ago-promised photo of daughter's puppy Pearl during one of her rare quiet moments:

And here's a photo of one of the trees on our street in full fall colors (taken a couple of weeks ago! - all gone now after the winds).

And finally, went for a walk in Mesa Park on Thursday and caught this very clear late-afternoon shot of the Channel Islands, 30 miles away.

Still don't understand why two top images aren't sharp - I've checked settings, etc. on iPhone and set the focus.  Sigh.

Annette - I didn't expect those long legs on puppy - she must be very good tat getting in the way!

Been scattering decs around rooms this afternoon - J gave up halfway through and went for a lie down! I made pavlova bases this morning - ended up with me and the kitchen bespattered with meringue - but they look good enought to eat! Long chat with friend from church this afternoon - age 86 - was telling me his wife will be 90 in February. They have a son at home and neither he nor Jim are in good health I feel so sorry for these older folk.

OG: Pavlova!!! My sister made that when I was back in the UK with granddaughter - um 15 or so years ago! - so impressive. Just had long FaceTime chat with UK niece who was laid off Friday (private university) with not-bad severance pay and the chance for contract work after Xmas, depending. It's been a royal hassle and she's glad to be out of it but still needs/wants to work. Also she was bemoaning yet another Boris Special as in sudden lockdown all over the south of the UK....

Dead body update: Rat's remains have now disappeared - and I know they didn't suddenly fly off!

Nature has a way of clearing up the debris, Annette. I'm sure something has benefitted.

Boris has just moved us up to the brand new Tier 4, so can't even go to my local parade of shops as they are over the border in Tier 2! Not that I need to go to any shops, but I have a hall-full of bags to deliver to Foodbank, so I will have to break the rules to drive just over a mile down the road one day next week. I think I probably have a good enough reason if I'm stopped by the police.