Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 11 June 2023

No real rain here yet - and we were officially at over 30c yesterday. At bedtime we were all tired but didn't want to get into bed so we slept with minimal covering. J has been into town for his job-coach interview this morning. Hope to see some sign of gardening this afternoon, but very little of anything happening. Will go to Dobbies and Cranstons tomorrow - at least we shall spend time in the car with aircon!.

I've been in the car today, and it was certainly preferable to being outside! (my mobile just changed that "outside" to "putrid" LOL!! )

I went to my opticians in a nearby town, to order some prescription sunglasses, as I've been wearing some which are three years old and they give me a headache, as my prescription has changed twice since then. I firmly refused all the extra "add ons" which would have more than doubled the price and have now to collect them next week. Another exciting outing!

OG -- I noticed that the prediction for Dumfries was at least 30 degrees yesterday, and was thinking of you. Here, it was supposed to be 28/29 degrees and it certainly felt like it! We had another fitful night as my OH had closed all of our several bedroom windows when it tried to rain, but not opened them again - you could have cut the air into slices by the time we went up to bed! Argh!

I hated yesterday, anyway -- everything seemed conspired against us. The Washing Machine Man turned up to sort out our machine which wouldn't empty properly, He spent ages cleaning out the exit hose which goes into our Belfast sink in the garage. Then he ran the machine- joy! All, seemingly sorted. But when I put a load in after he'd left, we found that it was making a dreadful noise when spinning. Ho hum. He will have to come back.

I sat at our desktop to try & order some dogfood in bulk - - Bonnie has dried food with some tinned meat added. Normally, this would take me about 5 minutes. But it refused my payment and I kept on going around in circles. I had to alter which card I used, after which the Site I was on got confused. Argh!! Not very User Friendly. Altogether it took about three quarters of an hour, after which I'd almost lost the will to live. Argh again!! Hopefully it's ordered now but I hope I won't get 5 deliveries or something.

Morning all; I tend to listen to the World Service when I'm working in the garden. Have a nice little Bluetooth speaker than connects to my phone. Tuned in the other day only to hear a story on gun violence in America and I immediately switched to a local NPR station.

Lindybird: That's a lovely cheerful rose. "Putrid"?? Oh my. UK summers are not what they used to be. We order dog food online and for some reason we are now getting deliveries every week rather than every three weeks. I'll be able to set up a booth in the front garden soon. (We get deliveries for daughter here because deliveries there tend to sit and then get muddled before delivery.)

Rusty: I think we can get Springwatch and similar on some channels but the cable service insists on us paying for a whole bunch of other channels we don't want. Oh for the simple days when only 13 were available and all you needed were rabbit ears or a roof antenna.

Heather: Having nothing to chat about sounds wonderful at this point! There's way too much going on here. Meanwhile, I have Ms. Pearl for a few days; went for a lovely walk in the park yesterday where I managed to find an old gopher hole in the worst way - by stepping in it and twisting my ankle and going flying! Thankfully, it's a minor sprain but.....

The Orange Menace is due in court this morning. Do wish he'd just go away permanently (fingers crossed that's what will happen, but it's all so tiresome).

Heather - you made me smile  as "A Kick up the a***" is what my family will tell you is my favourite comment to some of things I hear, from young people especially.

In fact when I applied to be a GPs receptonist my Daughter said - you do know Mum that when people call in and you ask whats wrong with them - you can't say " you know what you need - a good kick up the A***"

Also our posts are just about keeping in touch and feeling part of a community - not entertainment for others - although I do love all the animal stories from around the world.

Weather here in Suffolk is glorious and still no rain unfortunately.

Have a good week all x

Ouch, ANNETTE ... I hope that it heals soon.

Harelady: Haha. I know several people who need a reality check (aka kick up the .....).

Heather: Went for walk with Pearl this morning with no apparent ill effects, but didn't push it.

Oh dear, Annette - that could have been nasty. Glad you feel (nearly) OK today.

Just seen the Orange Menace leaving Court-- it's quite fascinating how he always finds a way to twist things to make him sound like a victim of corruption!

Been in the garden feeding my sweet peas etc, and drinking in the wonderful smell of the mock orange in the evening. My OH has been hedge cutting, as he waited for everything to cool down. Then he got the hosepipe out for the plants, which are looking sorry for themselves now. The peonies all came out pretty much all at once and now a lot of them are finished already. The poppies are beautiful but are only lasting about 2 days each as they can't stand the sun relentlessly beating down on them.

These are different from the red poppies seen previously. My OH announced "They're not going to bloom this year" a couple of weeks ago, but then I spied some buds, hooray!