Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 15 October 2023

Annette - You hit a spot with me by your last sentence. How is it that politicians are so proud of the fact that inflation hasn't risen in the last month????? It only means prices haven't gone up by huge amounts - apart from food and petrol, of course, which have. It doesn't mean prices will come down! So people who have been struggling will continue to struggle. Grrrrrr

Pouring with rain here, with a day of thunder storms forecast for tomorrow. Hey ho ... I have my Covid jab in the morning and am doing a Desert Island Discs in the afternoon. I've had great fun trying to cut down my choice to eight! And all sorts of frustrating admin-y things I can't complete because it needs input from other people who I can't get hold of. I think it's time to go to bed with a good book, and hope tomorrow is better ...

Annette -- We're off to The Azores and Madeira. I don't expect everyone to remember where we're going, when it's been weeks since I mentioned it. :-) I hope your OH managed OK without you and is now recovered from his bad spell.

The Story of The Tiny Travellers....

A few days ago, I was enjoying my first mug of tea of the day, in bed, when my OH reappeared and said "Did you spill something in the kitchen last night?" He had found a lot of brown something unknown, on the kitchen worktop. It was a puzzle, as I had no idea what he meant.

When I came down for breakfast there it was -- a whole lot of tiny brown dots on the worktop. It was mostly near the big tin we use to put our vegetable kitchen waste in. "Did you spill it last night?" asked my OH. I was stumped.

Then I looked closely. The tiny brown things were moving!! There were dozens of them. I took off my glasses and peered. Some of the brown dots, about the size of a quarter of a grain of rice, were little things hatching out as grubs, and wriggling around. I lifted the lid on the tin of kitchen waste, and found more. They were coming from a huge & enormous mushroom which my OH had brought home from his dog walk, then decided not to cook and eat.

We cleared up, dumping the contents into our green waste bin outside and wiping everything down. Later in the day, I was still finding one or two tiny travellers wriggling, underneath saucepans on the worktop!!.

LINDY Your cruise sounds wonderful. I don't think we will be doing another Viking river cruise as prices have nearly doubled. They say their prices now include a free drinks package which used to be extra. We think the drinks price is now hidden in the brochure price.
We enjoyed our meeting with Mike and Alison yesterday. They have lived in France (near Bordeaux for 8 years) and were over here for Alison's sons wedding in Glasgow. We may well take up their invitation to go and stay with them sometime. We had a lovely journey home via Bruar where OH bought himself a Barbour sweater.

For those of you who may not know "House of Bruar" is just north of Pitlochry and is Scotlands Harrods though even better to my mind as it is in the middle of lovely countryside and the impressive Falls of Bruar". There isn't much you can't buy there, some of it quite exclusive but some within my price range. It is worth googling.

OG You must be so very proud of your G'dau. Think I am right that the school is Roedean. So nice that she bothers to send you a handwritten letter.

dibnlib - I have visited the House of Bruar. Nice to wander around and look, but prices way above my purse! It's in a beautiful setting indeed - I really enjoyed standing by the Falls and looking and listening. Wonderful!

I'm glad I did my cruising when I did. I don't think I could afford it now. The free drinks package wouldn't do a lot for me - on my world cruise of four months I think I had three glasses of wine, and they were almost all at the group meetings! I did buy myself a glass on my birthday ...

Lindy - Aarrgghh! Not a pleasant thing to wake up to. Those sort of things seem to appear very quickly - obviously have a very short life-cycle. But you certainly don't want them in your kitchen. I'm sure they will thrive in the garden or the waste bin, though.

I've just got home from having my Covid jab - hoping it doesn't have any after-effects, as I am shortly due to present Desert Island Discs! Busy day ... and for the moment it's stopped raining, although the forecast is not good. I do hope our friends in Scotland are safe, and that the red warning for this evening will not be as bad as the Met Office is saying. Just looking at a report from Perth, which I know well - the Tay looks very high, and the flood barriers are closed. Very worrying. The advice to stay at home sounds sensible.

A mostly wet day – but nothing worse – ie well south and west of really bad weather. So we are working through a “Must Do” list indoors. J is writing another job application.

PAT – sadly some people (apparently including reporters and politicians) just can’t grasp what inflation actually means – I suppose we can’t expect everyone to understand the Maths!

LINDA – sorry your OH was daft enough to leave the inhabited mushroom indoors – should have put it straight outside – or better still not to have “harvested” it! I hope you have seen the last of the tiny travellers!

DIBNLIB – glad you went yesterday and not today – and that you had a good time – as well as a bonus visit to Bruar! Yes, ‘tis Roedean where Z works and lives – right on the coast.

dibnlib: The House of Bruar looks like a destination in itself.

PatO: Are you talking about THE Desert Island Discs or is this a 'local' spinoff?

OG: I think we should expect everyone - especially politicians - to understand the math. Of course, what I think doesn't really count for much.

Getting haircut this morning and then repair guy is replacing a double-glazed window with a broken seal, under warranty, which is good. Off to hose down.

Been busy again, and in between early and late showers, we've had almost springlike sunshine.

Annette: I regularly get brochures from The House of Bruar. I drool over the beautiful sweaters and smart coats, then put it in the bin. The quality does look superb, though.

I liked your article about the Rewilding Project - there are several on the go now and it's wonderful to know that someone, somewhere is actually doing something.

We had a Drinks Free offer on our cruise to Norway, as we had booked 18 months in advance. Then came covid! All cancelled. Then we were told we could rebook for similar, using the money we'd already paid towards it. But this time the drinks offer was withdrawn. Grr. We paid quite a lot for a Drinks Package but then because we were both ill for some of the voyage, didn't get anything like our moneys worth from that. Grr again! It's complicated, and different on different cruise lines.

Annette - I'm not famous enough to be on THE Desert Island Discs - I've just stolen the format! It went well - except everyone wanted to hear all the eight pieces of music right through! If that had happened, we would still be there. The whole of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony ... the whole of Rachmaninov Russian Vespers ... the whole of Brahms' Requiem ... the whole of La Boheme ... !

Pat - that Desert Island Discs sounds to have gone well. Some great choices of music.
I hope Dibnlib and Heather are OK. The storm sounds to be really bad.
I have been birdwatching today in the sunshine along the river Clwyd near Rhyl. We saw 39 species of birds in 3 hours. Coming up to high tide the birds find sandbanks to roost on in the middle of the river so it’s a great place to see ducks, waders and gulls very close. There are also lovely hedgerows for a great selection of little birds. A kestrel was perched on an electricity pylon! A nice 3 mile walk too followed by an excellent lunch.