Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 6 March 2022

Glad you've managed an outing, OG. Will now have to Google the museum, as it sounds interesting. Good that your trip included cake!

Heather, sorry your g.daughter has come down with it. As you say, it could prove a problem for your proposed visitors. Fingers crossed! Sue has a teenage granddaughter who has been quite ill with covid, in spite of being a healthy girl, and double jabbed. She was struggling to breathe yesterday so her parents rang 111 for advice, They were told to go to A&E, which they did - there, they gave her lots of tests but they said go home and go to bed with plenty of fluid etc. It must be scary.

It's sunny here now, and a lot warmer - I was so cold this morning that I put on a big sweater I usually only wear when going outdoors, and some woolly socks!

I've moped about a bit and not done much. I put out a bird feeder which was difficult to clean, but yesterday I persevered with it and then dried it out. Now its in the apple tree, full of mealworms. :-)

Heather: I'm very sorry that your granddaughter contracted COVID-19. I hope she won't experience severe illness. 

So sorry to hear of g-daus catching covid. I hope it is mild for them.

Our newspaper has reported that the bartailed godwit, nicknamed Go-Go, is about to leave our SA Thompsons Beach for his annual journey to the Arctic. Banded 2012 & photo-ed since, he visits Arnhem Land (NT), Nanpu & Yalu Jiang (China), Yakutsk, Tiksi, Wrangel Island (Russia) & possibly Alaska. A 2019 report is here.

If all else fails, stop using all else.

If you can read this, you’re not as stupid as I thought.

I have good brakes. Do you have good insurance?

(bumper stickers)

AQ:  I like the first bumper sticker.  That godwit gets around.

Heather: Hope the Covid complication doesn't derail the Danish visit - all that faffing around with wallpaper for nothing!

Had an interesting lunch encounter yesterday.   Was heading to the patio with my yogurt and fruit and noticed a huge white pile of feathers under the orange tree.  Arggh.  Pesky hawk must've caught a mourning dove, but what's that in the middle of it all?  Oh my, the perpetrator him/herself, gorging on the carcass though momentarily frozen as I blundered over to investigate.  I backed off and the hawk continued with its lunch.  A short while later, I went out again. No sign of the hawk so I approached the pile of feathers to see what, if anything, was leftover, but the hawk had apparently dragged the remains under a shrub and as I got nearer, it shot out from its hiding place and zoomed past me, catch in hand - or talon.  Such as mess of feathers blowing around - and if you've ever tried raking up heathers, it's impossible.

Good Morning. A little warmer here today, but now we have cold blustery winds. At least the sun is trying to come out.

Quite a drama, Annette! Murder on the premises! Yes, the feathers are hard to pin down when you have the remains to deal with. You need the wind that we have, to disperse them.

I hope your daughter is recovering from her fall.

Heather, you will be anxious about your g.daughter and I hope that as she's young, she will soon feel better.

LINDA - the Devil's Porridge is run as a comminity charity and not far from Gretna on the main route into Scotland - well worth a loo/coffee stop. Currently visits have to be booked due to Covid precautions. It has a website. I have informed OH that we are buying a new feeding station and hanging feeders this spring - looking out for the ones which dismantle for easy cleaning.

AQ - full of admiration for migrant birds such as bar-tailed godwit and arctic tern who travel virtually pole to pole twice each year! I hope schools are back to full attendance now and your daughter's life more peaceful!

ANNETTE - quite an experience, sharing your lunchbreak with the hawk - I think I would have been put off the yoghourt!

J has been having discussions with a school needing someone to control a violent five year old girl! I think this one is not for him!

OH is cleaning the wetroom this morning. Later today, J has an appointment at the infirmary. and we are at last having the kitchen and dining room measured for the new carpet _ final part of last year's kitchen replacement!

OG - I did Google the Museum, and it sounds interesting. Hope you can get the carpets ordered.

We've had an increasingly windy day, but my OH mowed the lawn for the1st time this year, and I pulled out a few weeds which are already growing between the cracks in the paths. There are some small bits of dead branch from next doors tree around, which is slowly giving up on life. The neighbours in The Big House are now having an even bigger house built in a very desirable part of town - they will be moved by Christmas we reckon. Then they may let this house out. I don't really look forward to having a succession of neighbours who don't really settle but if it's how it has to be, there's not much we can do.