Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 6 February 2022

PAT - looks as if LINDA has spectacular snowdrops of her own. Ours got buried by the "Gardeners"! Hope Hever was a successful visit - wrapped up warm, I hope!

LINDA - I can't have Hyacynths indoors - they make me sneeze badly.

Still clear and sunny. Engineer just came and serviced (and safety checked) my disability scooter.

Lindybird:  Thanks for the gorgeous pix of the snowdrops - a lovely way to start my day.  :-)

OG:  Good to see  you posting more often - we miss you when you don't.

PatO:  I envy you your day out at Hever with the snowdrops.  Are you going with your friend?

Plumbing hiccups again here.  I called the company that came out twice already to snake the lines, but they want to charge us for the next visit and my feeling is that the (very nice) young man who was here before just wasn't thorough enough.  We're going to call someone else. Blech.    Also have to feed the roses today; they're already sprouting new growth....

OG -- That little patch is about a 20th of our total snowdrops - they're everywhere, as someone has once planted them and then my mother subsequently added to them. Now they're also spreading, without any help from me.

Pat, I hope you've enjoyed your trip.

Hever was lovely. I went with a friend and met two other church friends in the car park. We went our separate ways but kept meeting up, which was nice. Snowdrops not quite what I would call spectacular, but lovely to look at. And a few early daffodils. Lovely walk around the lake, commenting on all the work they have done over the winter while they were closed - new paths, tree and undergrowth clearing etc. Clear blue sky, wonderful to see the bare trees silhouetted against it. Water birds starting to pair up - the great crested grebe are looking splendid in their breeding plumage, After a couple of hours walking and taking photographs, the clouds came across and it got very cold - time to come home to my lovely chicken casserole bubbling away in the slow cooker. Then - surprise, surprise - I fell asleep! A good day, in preparation for what promises to be a rather long and difficult meeting later. I'm a bit out of the habit of evening meetings away from home - not really looking forward to turning out in the dark and cold.

Sounds like a wonderful outing, Pat. Wish I could have seen those grebes! Such beautiful birds.

I've had a mixed day - we went out for a coffee at a garden centre, and my OH picked up some seed potatoes to plant for this next season. Before we left home, and afterwards, I did battle online with several things which needed attention, including obtaining several quotes for us to renew our travel insurance.

Now, we've always carefully shopped around for insurances. This time, we were a bit miffed to find that because of covid, our usual travel cover had increased a lot. So I set to and got more quotes -- what I found was a warning to all. The difference between the highest and the lowest quote was:

A THOUSAND POUNDS!!!!!

My OH rang up to argue with the highest one, and the girl pointed out that we were older now, and also we needed "cruise cover" this time. Plus covid cover, of course. But apart from the higher one going up to millions in case it was needed, the smaller one was perfectly adequate. I read once that you have to beware being over insured- it's highly unlikely that you'd ever need vast amounts (millions!) spending to bring you home, for instance. We still haven't plumped for which one but I can tell you it'll be one of the lower quotes!

PAT – It sounds a wonderful day.

LINDA – Love your snowdrops.

My spring-flowering bulbs were confused by the warm wet weather a few weeks ago and they are sprouting green leaves already! They will be sorry if we get our usual summer dry heatwave. Still 6 weeks possible. My leafy greens (chard & spinach) have gone to seed, so today they were translated to my compost pile. My tomato bush has reacted to the odd weather with a second wave of fruit, small but tasty.

The last time I cooked, hardly anyone got sick.

Real cooks don’t need recipes.

Your opinion wasn’t in the recipe.

(apron messages)

Our little iris in the garden are still blooming and have been a joy. You can see that one at the front of the left hand pot, is a rogue!!

Good Morning. Its been very cold here in the night. 

Annette, sympathies on having to sort out the plumbers. I hope it gets done.

AQ - Enjoy your tomatoes!!

LINDY - Sympathies regarding travel insurance. We always bought yearly insurance as we used to go away a few times. We changed companies in 2005 as unfortunately had to claim in 2004 due to OH becoming ill and hospitalised while in Tenerife. The next year, they wouldn't cover us ! We were recommended by stepson to try another company that had no upper age limit ( it wasn't SAGA). After that, we stayed with them until OH died in 2016 aged 86. Of course, COVID and everything else affects the premium these days. I remember, though, phoning the insurance company from Tenerife to advise them of OH s hospitalization. The rep!y ? ' You do know that is a private hospital '. We had no choice, there wasn't really anywhere else to go ! So yes, you are wise to read the small print on the policy...