Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers. I hope you all have a great day.
Do check back to last week's chat for OG's gorgeous wildflower garden pics And Lynette's pics of Dunedin & Hampton eaglets.
Linda - I love your pics of Tatton Park, especially autumn.
Alan -24 handbags!!!! Must be related to our Dau#2 who collects shoes & handbags. Me, I have one all-purpose go-everywhere shoulder bag. Plus the gold one OH gave me decades ago and saw the light of day at the weddings.
Brenda, Linda, Lynette, Joan, OG - On my first trip o/s I had a list of what to take. It helps remind me not to forget vital things like eye drops, film (nowadays it is memory cards & battery charger!). When I returned I noted what I didn’t use and now I check the amended list, pruning every trip. Why drag excess around? Invariably my room in B&Bs was on 2nd or3 rd floor. Besides I may buy things, such as jumpers - that’s my weakness. Stupid really because I knit them and the wardrobe is bursting. So, OG, I shall choose one of them. And camera almost lives in said all-purpose bag!
Joan - I heard a story of a local teacher who had 7 children in her class named "Amy" but all spelled differently.
Alan wonderful pics of the little humbugs! Let's hope we have 3 little humbugs of 'our own' soon!
OG great shot of the willow warbler too.
OG : Great pics from Threave castle and of the warbler too. We have a plastic cover for Hamish s foot but it keeps coming off. We will see what the vet has to say tomorrow when the dressing is changed.
There is a new blog from Charlotte in case anyone has missed it.
Morning all
OG: What a lovely card. Thank you! Just Googled BIg Rig Steve (still couldn't get him with old link); was successful with this one. http://www.bigrigtravels.net/broadcastpage.html. More lovely pix - I know what you mean about people being too impatient to watch. While we were ecstatic over the cow/calf pairs we saw at Coil Oil Point last week, several people strolled up, looked about, and left again. One fella stood staring out at the ocean (he was plugged into an Ipod or something) and when I tried to point out the whales to him, he looked straight past them!
AQ: "Dear Kids" is a riot! I remember not being able to have a bath without a certain person banging on the door with some calamity! One interruption involved my very young daughter demanding to know if it was true that "I was inside your tummy?" That woke me up!! :-))
Brenda: Concert was great - two Brahms pieces : the Academic Overture to start us off and the Symphony #1 in C Minor to close. In between was - excuse me modern classical music fans - the most god-awful noise that had me - and everyone in our group - sitting and thinking Other Thoughts than the racket onstage. It was a piece by Henri Dutilleux - "L'arbre des songes" (Tree of Dreams) but more like the Tree of Nightmares to my obviously untutored ears. About 30 minutes of something less musical than an orchestra constantly tuning up for different pieces. Egads! Still, as my friend pointed out, it's good to hear different pieces, though I'm not so sure, although must admit the solo violinst - Leonadis Kavakos, did a brilliant job with what must've been a very hard piece to play (let alone listen to). Dudamel conducts with his whole body - not extravagant, stagey gestures - but generous and delicate at the same time. Very modest guy, hid behind first violin at every applause, prefering to put the spotlight on the musicians.
Lynette: How generous of your OH; I'm sure folks appreciate his commentary.
Trish2: Take care of that bug - the one I had hung about for ages and left me feeling very listless. So sad about BiL's daughter, but very good of your OH and you to take on such a sad task. Very hard to watch a horse put down.... Mia's recent medical excursion sounds - um - charming! :-) Dont' work too hard; you need to be in top form for that trip. I always get into trouble grabbing one more mouthful of whatever after I'm dressed and ready to face the world - in between grabbing keys and bag I invariably end up with something sploshed right on the front of my clean shirt.
Margobird: Thanks for greetings - and sounds like you're missing being Mom, what with spending the night on couch with Billie, so Happy Mother's Day to you too. Sad about the little bird; I was contemplating stickers but apparently they don't always do the job, at least for baby birds. :-( Had to smile though about you chatting to your budgie feathers. Very sweet image!
Sheila: Interesting about those eages and good that the authorities are taking it seriously. I like medical forensics programs too, but prefer documentaries to the "prime-time" thrillers where everything is solved in 60 minutes!
Alan: I was thinking of a shower of babies from above, like rain. "Showers" of the baby/engagement/wedding type were invented here; they're typically attended by lots of ladies billing and cooing, depending on the event! I'm not wild about them. Thanks for osprey, etc, updates. Good luck with Hamish at the vets tomorrow.
Better get moving here - thanks all for posts. Take care!
Good afternoon all sorry not to have written for a while, I do read and look at all the super piccies but I must admit I am probably the laziest blogger on this site.
Well today was planned but OH and my own jobs needed to be outside but it started heavy rain around 7 am planning meeting and it was all change. Much needed rain for not just the garden but for the newly planted barley and also the making of silage.
So went for Sunday papers via Glenfiddich Distillery to their really nice coffee shop, couldn't my favorite shortbread on display so was going to give cake a miss. On ordering coffee enquired about shortbread to be told chef had just taken a fresh batch out of the oven. It was mouthwatering so much so I bought a couple of pieces to bring home.Rain easeds off about 2pm so I went for a walk by the Spey whilst OH watched the motor racing.
Just brought in my washing from the tumble dryer in the garage...heard that distinctive squeak only to turn round and see 2 osprey flying along the line of the river.
Reference the poisoning of B of P up here in Scotland which does seem to be on the increase things are set to change as soon in future it will be the landowner charged and not the gamekeeper. Don't hold your breath about it stopping anything though. It is not just the game birds they are trying to preserve but another great source of income....windfarms. A very lucrative form of income and if they can prove that a golden eagle say has not nested in an area for (I think) it is 3 years the Scottish Executive will probably give the go ahead at a nod. So the disruption of the life of our lovely birds will continue. This is close to my heart as we are trying to stop one being put up in a superb piece of countryside locally...luckily the againsts have some big guns on our side being in the form of 2 very wealthy independant whisky producing families and of course Roy Dennis.
So for those of who think this government will do a lot to protect the wildlife think again as the windfarm shilling will always come first.
Thanks Alan I hadn't noticed.
Birdie's DU Summaries 2018 https://www.imagicat.com/
Sorry about my soap box moment but just a little P.S. to it. Roy Dennis has all the data of his tagged birds who regularly fly the area (even over my cottage) but because of harassment would never be able to settle long enough. It was always a breeding area in the old days and we were shown photos of older nest sites and in those days were not seen as too much a threat to the grouse etc.
wendyb someone put a link to a petition about making sure the Government did not scrap various red tape issues which apparently safeguard the environment. But somehow that read to ensure green energy from renewable sources. Which I take to mean wind energy. And then I hear that SNP want energy to be 100% renewable energy (but don't want nuclear). I take that to mean more and more wind farms, particularly in Scotland. What happened in the coldest winter in decades - no wind. No wind, no electricity. Ironically, wind farms were turned off recently at the request of the grid as it couldn't cope with the amount of energy being generated. http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Wind-farms-paid-900000-to.6760970.jp Until some way is found to store this form of energy, wind will never be cost effective. Wind farms ruin the landscape, and destroy the wildlife.
Having been through the whole process of an application for a wind farm (two District Councils as the site straddled the two), and then the whole appeal process by way of a Public Inquiry in front of Government appointed Inspectors, and took over three years, you have my total sympathy. Fortunately the Inspectors dismissed the appeal and granted costs to the District Councils and to NATS, but not to we residents who campaigned tirelessly using our own money. Apparently we need not have got involved...!! Sorry, rant over.
Alicat something for you! Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE http://news.scotsman.com/news/Neighbour39s-dog-suckles-newborns-rejected.6764165.jp
SheilaFe:You have hit the nail on the head and to sum up windfarms "chocolate and tea pot " come to mind. Luckily big gun Q.C.'s have been brought in by the 2 wealthy families I mentioned so it is nice to have money on the against side. The Scottish Executive make sure that the wind turbines are so large that local councils don't get a say. Our next fear is the new talk on turbines in the Moray Firth which will disrupt our much loved Dolphin pods. I am sure they will make a believable case that no harm will come to them....but I am sure we little people know better.