Weekly Chat, Sunday January 9, 2010

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  • Nice to see you back Kellogs. I was also hoping that Liverpool would win but  a dodgy penalty and Gerrard getting himself sent off put paid to that.

    Not a great Beckham fan I am afraid. He is def past his sell by date as far as football is concerned. Just been watching the world championship darts final between Martin 'Wolfie' Adams and Dean Winstanley. £100,000 for the winner, Not bad for a pub game. I have recorded the Dancing on Ice thingy for later.

    Pic of Phoebe doing really well:

     

  • Football was a disappointment after the questionable penalty and then a red card for Gerrard, But then Man. Utd. couldn't score another goal for over an hour's play against ten men.  OH is happy as Spurs won. Anyhow, we went out for a meal this evening to a local hotel, where there is a roaring log fire and lovely food.

    Annette, I was rather worried when I first started reading that you had moved your OH into the spare bedroom. Glad to read on and find it was only for a new office.

    Thanks Alan for Phoebe's picture.

    Margo, Still thinking of you.

  • Evening, All:    Dry but very cold here - we went for a walk this morning & it felt as if the wind was going right through me.

    Football was also on the TV here this afternoon as OH is a Man. United Fan - sadly, I can't have been very gripped as I fell asleep towards the end of the 1st half of the game & woke up long after it was all over!

    Thanks to Kellogs for pics of the penguins.  Sorry to hear you are suffering storms, there.

    SheilaFE - Hope things work out re the care of your Aged Auntie - these things are such a worry. Good for her, though, in trying to remain at home for as long as possible.

    Thanks to Diane by the way, for the link to the Tigers playing in the snow, I did enjoy it!

    dibnlib:  Good to hear that you are slowly getting better on your feet - I think you are brave going out and "getting on with it".  You can at least think that you're over the worst of it now and can only improve.

    OG:   Amazed to hear that you have had yet more snow, there.  At least ours only lasted a couple of hours before it melted!  Lovely pics of the Yellowhammers!

    (I mentioned the Free Trade Hall in reply to OG's enquiry previously, by the way)

    Gary:  You are a bit of a devil, putting all these pics of the puppies on!!!!  You can't make me have one, you know!!

    Welcome, by the way, to nickbarn who has joined us today - I noticed because our numbers have now gone up to 389.  If you are reading these pages, nickbarn, hope you enjoy yourself in the Osprey Group and we are all looking forward to a new season in only a few weeks!!  (I see on your Page that you are worried about your spelling etc - as you can see, we are not too concerned here with such niceties [I'm geting older now, & forget how to spell my own name half the time....]  and we also ignore a lot of the rules of grammer, too!!! when we can !!)

    I'm off to pour out a glass of sherry & to watch the new Adrian Chiles programme before bedtime.  See you all tomorrow.

  • Hello everyone, Happy Monday to you.

    I received one of my overseas C-mas cards 10 days after it was posted in the Midlands on 11 Dec. Usually it takes up to 2 weeks or more for mail to arrive from the UK, so this was a surprise, particularly the time of year and the weather Up There. I have suspected in previous years that the delay is at our Aussie end.

    Terrible news from Arizona. I can’t understand people who need to carry guns.

    Warm and humid again. I have added to humidity by hanging out weekly wash. Last year I bought 3 punnets of mixed (note that word ‘mixed’) seedlings. Now they are flowing and I have 5 red & 1 pink celosia, 5 mauve & 1 pink verbena. The portulacas are more ‘mixed’ - 5 are various shades of yellow & lemon with the odd one orange. Mixed indeed, huh!!! This is one of the celosia with a pale portulaca lurking in foreground..

  • Annette wrote -Lynette: See Diane responded to your pix of the wild turkeys. We have them in the hills behind Santa Barbara. Think Brenda H may have a point re copyrighted pix.  Maybe a handsome Mountie will show up to extradite you to Canada?  :-)

    Annette - maybe he might.  I have always published with the copyright showing so whether that helps I don't know and always on this blog, nowhere else.  No doubt someone will come up with the right answer?

    Kellogs - thanks for posting pics of Lily and den, look in from time to time but she has always been asleep.  It was a fantastic mini series, maybe we'll get more at some point, who knows?

    Although I don't drive we are experiencing petrol prices of about £1.27p a litre if not more and set to go up even further.  We try to go out and fit everything in on one trip if at all possible, otherwise its stay at home and potter about etc.

  • Good evening, all.  Can’t remember much about the morning, except that a partial thaw set in and it was very sunny.  This afternoon, I did some ironing and took a long phone call from Son (well, he called and I called back so I “paid”, except that we are on free calls).  He seems to have had a busy social life this past week – good that he is ready to socialise – which included playing badminton with five others this afternoon.

    Alan – I hadn’t seen Yellowhammers since I was growing up in the Thames Valley many years ago, and then we saw quite a few in arable areas of East Lothian on hols two years ago.  We thought we didn’t have them here because we have mixed farming, but there were a lot at RSPB Mersehead, and then suddenly this winter they have appeared in our garden.

    Dibnlib – so pleased to read that you are getting your confidence back and beginning to do some walking without the crutches.  I hope you will soon feel less tired, but at the moment I guess you are still rebuilding your leg muscles – which will of course be helped by the swimming.

    Kelly – sorry that winter has decided to look in on Nova Scotia after all!  Take care when you go out and about.  Can you (or anyone else) please give a link to the Antarctic penguin site?  The one I followed last year never seemed to show me much.

    Sheila – so sorry to read about the lack of co-ordination for your Aunt’s care plan – so fortunate that she has kind people around her.  Pleased that you will be there for her on Monday – this must be all very confusing for her, as it would be for anyone after spending so many weeks in hospital.  With snow near Kinross, I wonder how George is - he isn’t very far from there, but is nearer the coast, which could be better.

    Annette – I decided to research name of Yellowhammers – fascinating.  British ones are named from Hama in Old English, which meant skin, covering or feathers, so “yellowfeathers” - Yelambre was an old spelling.  There is also a North American Bird called Yellowhammer and it is the state bird of Alabama!  It is really the Common Flicker, aka Yellowhammer Woodpecker – being yellow and hammering like other wood packers, this makes sense!  However, Google “Alabama state emblems” for a historic connection too!  Your reallocation of rooms sounds good – advantages for both of you. 

    Lindy – thanks for reply re Free Trade Hall – another hotel very near the Midland (which I think changed its name) but I suppose there is always a market for more and more hotels for business use – whatever happened to video conferencing etc to cut down on business travel?!!

    AQ – your Celosia photo reminded me of our two daughters.  When they were quite young, they wanted a plant of their own to look after, and they each had one of those in a pot – one was Pink so that daughter called it Pinky, and the other had to be Perky!  Anyone younger than about thirty might need an explanation that they were two singing pig puppets on TV!!

    Lynette – our car is diesel and that currently costs between 131.9 and 135.9 pence per litre here.

    This is a photo of a not-very-happy birdie.  It seems to be suffering from what I understand is a congenital problem in Starlings, where the beak turns Curlew-style and is slightly crossed.  This one has some trouble eating, and isn’t very good at preening, so its feathers are pretty tatty when you see it closer – and when it sat outside the window I could see through its feathers and it seemed to have very little body structure – just a little rib-cage on legs.  In this picture, it is quite fluffed up, so doesn’t look so sad, but I think it's claws look a bit too long too, so maybe it's that keratin problem that some birds have.

     

     

    Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!

  • Hallo all: Finished doing as much prep for dinner as possible - one of those dishes where you spend hours chopping and slicing, etc., etc.  Hate starting all that at 5 in the afternoon - ready for a glass of wine and a little relax by then. Don't mind cooking; just like to get the busy stuff out of the way early. Watched The Bourne Identity while chopping and slicing.  Lots of whiz bang action with ridiculous car chases through tiny Paris backstreets - in tiny cars I should add, but it passed the time. Then salvaged some Valencia oranges that came off the tree in the wind last week and now have some yummy fresh OJ in the fridge.  Poor OH currently surrounded by sheets of instructions and bits of this and that while in process of assembling my desk. Shoulda taken the name of the guy at the loading dock where we bought it who said he assembled things on his own time.....  

    Sheila:  Love "colliwabbles!" I remember that.  Had to laugh also at "total lack of joined up writing"  :-))  But poor Aged Auntie - and you. So good of you to keep all your eyes and ear on the job, and good that church folk are helping out.   My sister near Sleaford was out planting her bulbs (very late, she said) today, but thrilled to be actually out in the garden at last.

    Alan: See Phoebe is still very much in the pink - or is it purple?  They must have a problem with their cam...  

    Brenda:  As I type and OH bangs away at my desk, dirge-like music emanating from his new "office" but hate to complain at this point.  :-)

    Lindybird: Thanks for reminding us about Diane's tiger cubs - just found the link, all the way back on Page 10 of last week!  How we do filll these pages!

    Nickbarn: Welcome!

    AQ: Don't get me started on gun "rights."   Celosia looks almost artificial. 

    OG: Good to hear than son is doing okay - any bright spot on the job horizon yet?  Oh brilliant about yellowhammers!  I love to hear about origins of words (incidentally, Bill Bryson includes some of that in his At Home book.  Poor starling....

    Take care all.  Off to hose myself down and do a load of laundry.

  • OG:  Here's the Penguin site:  http://www.martingrund.de/pinguine/  There are 2 cam options (well 4 acutally) ... under Webcams click on 1a for the bigger picture and 2a to show the mums and chicks.  Unfortunately the refresh rate is a long 15 mins.  On the homepage, Sitemap gives you additional information.

    Poor little Starling :(

     

  • Good grief: Just watching Nature - about the protection/perception of lions after "Born Free."  Had no idea at all that Joy Adamson had been murdered by one of her employees; also that George, her husband was murdered under different circumstances years later. 

    Downton Abbey starts here tonight.  My sister wasn't totally thrilled with the production  We'll see. Have a nice Monday all!

  • Morning Everyone, and Happy Monday!

    I laid in bed for a while watching the BBC News programme - they had as a guest, the wonderful actress Miriam Margolies, who I adore.... then I realised that time was getting on, and OH had gone out, so I roused myself and found..... NO WATER!  in the taps or anywhere else, for that matter.  There must be a burst somewhere near here & they have cut us off.  Will have to wait a while & see if I can have a shower, then just get on with things.  We do have a supply of bottled water for such events, so can still make a cup of tea, thank goodness.

    Meanwhile, here is the Monday Smile - found some more pics of Men Making Do with Things....

    -when the sun is too bright!

     

     

     

    --I think I like this one best!!!!!

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