Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 7 January 2024

DIANE - Thank you for starting us. . . but I don't want another 2023. I guess you are suffering sort-of holiday jet lag LOL.

For those interested in a few Aussie islands. Kangaroo Island is a star in our state.

LOL Thank you. ANNETTE and AQ. I have now fixed the date (the year) on the thread. I almost never drink alcohol, but my friends gave me some of those very small bottles of Bailey's Irish Cream and some fancy rum creams for New Year's, and I enjoyed one tonight. And now you see why I don't drink. LOL LOL LOL

Thank you for starting us off again Diane. I had to smile about the Irish Cream! Carry on enjoying them.
Good about the hawk. A nice start to the year.

Thanks Diane, lovely to see the Hawk.

What a wonderful sight Diane. Yes, a very good sign. I get the occasional Sparrow Hawk hunting in my garden because I feed the songbirds and my heart is always in my mouth as it were . Don't mind a pigeon being a hawk's meal , we have so many , but songbirds are not doing particularly well over here currently. I blame the toxic chemtrails not so called climate change. I am so relieved to have observed for at least 2 and a bit years now that 'medicine trails' (the white ones) are healing our skies now.

Thank you Diane. Great that you and your friend saw the hawk.
The early frost has gone and it is a lovely sunny day here now.

Thank you for the new start, Diane: I do hope that your hawk sighting is a good one for you, for this coming year. I've been drinking Bailey's over the season, but as I often have alcohol (although not every day) it takes two of them to have much of an effect!!

Pat, well done on sorting out your insurance. They were greedy, wern't they? Paying about double seems par for the course, sadly. We tried all sorts of ways to reduce ours.

Clare - I always enjoy your photographs, but this time you have excelled yourself. Those are surely good enough to be entered in a photographic competition! Wonderful. (I've never seen a Waxwing so I'm very jealous. There were some last year in a supermarket car park in a nearby town, but by the time I was working out when to try & get over there, they flew off!)

We had early frost which took a while to go even though the sun came out. We watched as our now cheeky squirrel climbed down the branch of the apple tree and hung upside down in an attempt to get at the peanut feeder. It's one of those which has a metal lid which is held in by the metal loop for hanging, so he/she can't open it and can only get tiny bits of nut, same as the small birds it's for. I feel sorry for the hungry squirrel but I can't afford more nuts!! I already daren't tell my OH what I spend on bird food. .

I cried with frustration and anger at the Post Office drama. I already knew a lot of the details, as I'd read about it a couple of years ago and was very cross indeed, then. But to see the human stories played out and how it had ruined lives was beyond unbearable. I can only suspect that our very slow on the uptake government are actually doing something about it, because its an election year.

Lindybird said:

I can only suspect that our very slow on the uptake government are actually doing something about it, because its an election year.

I've been reading about this scandal for years now, which implies the government must have been aware of it.  They could have acted a long time ago, if they'd cared to ........ but, as you say, this is an election year and they are now trying to wipe our collective memory.