Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 4 June 2023

OG - I too hope your chair was fixed yesterday.

My poppy flowered today. The colour is growing on me.

How gorgeous, Rusty. Its beautiful.

Great explantation of the Eisteddfod! Better than my hurried garbling!

Been busy today and now packing to go home again.

RUSTY: Thank you so very much for your fascinating description of the Eisteddfod. I would so very, very much like to see it in person, even though I don't speak Welsh. When I asked you what the word meant, I had no idea it was such a culturally important and profound event! I appreciate your thorough explanation! LINDY, yours, too! I'm going to read the Wikipedia entry tonight. Glad you found your car!

It's interesting that the event has a "pavilion." My local state park (forest) had a permanent pavilion for decades. Historically, it was the site of many cultural events for the rural community, especially the annual "Chautauqua" (an Iroquois, Native American word). Thousands of rural folks from a region would travel to a Chautauqua to hear speeches (by national political figures, preachers, and prominent people in the arts and sciences) and engage in varied activities. These traveling events brought information, culture, news, religion, the arts, and entertainment to remote US small towns and villages in the19th and early 20th centuries and were taken very seriously. Sort of like the Eisteddfod.

ANNETTE: Please send some of that rain. A few days ago, the smoke and ash from the vast Canadian wildfires settled into the MIdwest. My area has been dark and hazy and folks, including me, are having trouble breathing. The smell is ghastly. I have good lungs because I've never smoked. Usually poor air quality doesn't affect me, but this is bad. I've been coughing, my lungs are full, and I have maddening tinnitus. I actually thought I had Covid and tested myself before I read the bitter complaints from folks in my area. We've been under various air quality alerts and advisories. The smoke has settled into the northeast now and is breaking records. I don't envy you living in fire country.

P.S. We don't need anymore guns, just rain!

A quick catch-up from me this evening!

My chair was satisfactorily repaired Monday lunchtime – under guarantee. Monday afternoon was brilliant – great weather continues so I spent several hours in the garden in the company of a lovely super-friendly male Blackbird who was gathering worms etc where OH was working – he has tidied and dug over the patch where the feeders are and spread clean bark. Mrs B still thinks she knows best how it should be dug – whenever we aren’t out there she spreads bark onto the deck!

Tuesday had to be a bit of a domestic catch-up day. We collected the second replacement BP machine. Tested the one they gave us and it wouldn’t work. They found another and provided some new batteries as they thought they might be needed. When it failed at home we got them out and discovered they were the wrong size. We have provided our own batteries now! They really are a stupid bunch!

Today we went for lunch and some foodie shopping at Loch Arthur. A lovely country drive out to the other side of Dumfries but hay fever came with the scenery – roadside cow parsley and hawthorn blossom as well as wild flower hedgerows. We also shopped at Morrisons on the way home. (J was at work Monday and Wednesday this week).

LINDA – glad you two and Bonnie are having a good time! Have a safe journey home!

PAT – a good suggestion re church material – will email you to discuss when I have thought about it – still have your email from when you asked me for info about disability scooters or some such!

ANNETTE – so is the next visit for Independence Day, or does it just happen to be around that time?

RUSTY – I love that Poppy – so “showy”! Would you call that bright magenta?

DIANE – sorry about the air quality. We have early warnings for wildfires and drought he is SW Scotland – but it might rain next week!

Wednesday morn at 3 am a huge thunderstorm struck our city. Both OH & I were awake already (we rarely sleep through the night). The lightning flashes were almost continuous as were the rumblings with many loud cracks as well, some overhead. At the same time it was raining, pouring. Rain was beating against the bay window, I expected the panes to break. Then we discovered rain was being blown under the front door which is under a verandah! I fetched a towel to save the carpet but that was sodden in no time. Twice the power flickered off but returned before I could reach for my torch. Yesterday it was very windy most of the day but last night the wind returned and blew strongly, still blowing this morning. That 3 am thunderstorm lasted about an hour and would be the worst I have ever experienced. No damage except for the wet carpet. As I drove to the shops Wed morn, I could see where the drains and gutters had failed to cope with the rain – tide marks of leaf, etc debris along the roads. The Airport (near us) had 20 mm in half an hour.

DIANE – I hope that smoke & ash clears soon. It will not be healthy with particles of burnt plastic and other chemicals in it. A friend was ill for months after SA’s 2015 Pinery bushfire – she was stupid to drive around after to see the damage.

PAT & OG – What a great idea to share items for your newsletters.

RUSTY & LINDY – I always thought an Eisteddfod was “just” a sort of music event. I learn so much on this thread.

Evening all:   Eisteddfods are a big deal.  The men who worked the coal mines used to organize some wonderful choirs.   I remember Men of Harlach (but wasn't that the same melody as All Through the Night??)  

Diane:  Ghastly air there.  I was talking to someone in Manhattan today and he said the sky was yellow and that people were wearing masks; we saw the evidence on the evening news.  When the Thomas fire blew up in Montecito a few years back, we were all wearing  N95 masks because of the smoke, but these Canadian fires are truly apocalyptic!!   Weather guy in NY says it should start clearing there on Saturday....   Meanwhile, stay indoors!

OG.  Oh good, chair fixed.  I can believe the battery fiasco.  We have crows that (every year this time) decide it's time to spread the bark groundcover from our garden all over the sidewalk.  So rude.

AQ:  Good Lord.  That must've been some storm with rain coming in the door under the verandah!.  Is that unusual for the season?  

Off to sort out leftovers from family visit for OH, then it's yoga on Zoom. 

Stay safe everyone!

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