Weekly Chat, Sunday November 29,2009

i swam 46 lengths (40 is i/2 mile) then went for coffee (OK i admit it i also had 1/2 of lemon cheesecake) the view from the garden centre restaurant is wonderful with snow on the surrounding mountains.

I like the sound of shopping at Nordstrom with relaxing piano music being played. Does it persuade you to spend more I wonder?

OG when we go to Edinburgh we have to eat at "The Witchery by the Castle" great food and wine and not bad prices especially when you consider where it is.

Back to Mum, Dave found a bank statement of hers some time ago and was horrified by the ammount she was giving to charity on a monthly basis. My brother took over power of attourney a year ago and cut the direct debits drastically. It turns out that Mum. thought she was signing forms to give one off payments and not monthly donations. I doubt if she can  get any money back and I know that charities need to get money, but I wonder how clear they make it about how often donations are to be made. Mum will have lost thousands by her mistake

Dibnlib, well done on that swimming. If I had tried that you would have had to pick me off the bottom of the pool. I think you deserved that cheesecake and more. Sorry about your mum, that is very sad. Glad you/your brother have some control on that now. On the piano playing in the shop, I sat with the guy for a bit and pestered him with requests while reading so I didn't spend a penny:)

Lindybird, love all the house names. Good luck with the cards. What a job, I'm still moaning about them!! LOL Trying to think of a suitable name for you eg "Tree Gal ......" but failing so far. Don't feel guilty about the sweets. I used to love most of them, especially american hard gums....

Annette, love the visual of your sister trying to tempt the horses out of the dry with the carrots:) My lot will come out in most weathers for food but you have to make it worth their while.

Speaking of piano playing, check out this piano player at Cockington Village cream tea rooms when we were on holiday in Devon:

Alan, what a great shot. Was he any good?

AQ - I get most of my CDs from Amazon now, as the jazz and classical sections are pitifully small in the record shops.

Alan - I hope you supported Carlisle in their 3-1 defeat of Norwich in the FA Cup.

Today I went on a mission to reconnoitre the flooding situation in Borrowdale. We took our bicycles to Keswick and set off to cycle round Derwentwater, road/bridge closures permitting.

At home the day was bright and dry with blue sky to the north, but we were going south, where it was cloudy and drizzly (Keswick is 20 miles from us).  Got the bikes out of the car and set off into rain but no wind. The first obstacle was a mile on our way in Keswick, the road bridge was shut and the bikes wouldn’t fit through the gate into the park so they were lifted over. The foot bridge was ok, although some of these have been shut.

We got all the way down Borrowdale (south) to Grange and that bridge was safe, so over we went to the west side of the Derwent. There is a photo on BBC Cumbria showing water halfway up the signpost at this junction and I had been told of stones dragged out into the road but this is all cleared away now.

Heading north again and uphill we could see water running down the road and bits of tarmac sticking up where the water had got under it, once it gets a toe in, the road surface just peels away. This side of the lake is not a main road so it had more debris lying around.

We passed a sign saying road closed (but it was lying in the road and anyway walkers and cyclists can go where cars can’t), at least on a bike it’s not so bad to come back 5 miles if you have to, not so on foot. So we passed through the other end no problem. We had expected devastation but it hadn’t looked too bad so far.

We had heard of a bridge down at Little Braithwaite (NY239229) between Keswick and Braithwaite so went to see for ourselves, NOT about to stand on an unsafe bridge, of course. We cycled through mud and could see more evidence of water across the fields than we had so far on the trip, then came to a barrier. The road ahead was completely gone and someone had worked really hard to build a bank to hold Newlands Beck in its bed. We retraced our route 100 yards and took another turning. In Portinscale the suspension bridge was shut (it’s just a small footbridge, across the river at about 10 feet up) so we had to cycle along the A66 for a mile, which was no fun as it’s quite busy and the wind and rain had got up.

Back in the car, we went home via Cockermouth. This is the road bridge the people from Workington are having to use. The Derwent has gouged out the north bank so that the bed is now doubled in width and the “tidemark” is maybe 1-200 yards across the field.

There has been an amazing amount of clearing up done, the uniformed services have been fantastic. My neighbour is a policeman and he has been doing 16 hour shifts. It’s heart-breaking to think of what people have lost, there is furniture and all sorts bumping up against bridges and barriers all the way to Workington. The archive people in Carlisle are offering to help recover photographs that may have got damp.

Sorry this is so long, hope you’re not bored. Without gloating in someone’s misfortune, it’s good to see for yourself what has been happening.

Alan: I love that photo of the piano; pretty, relaxing, sunny - and cream tea too! Yum. I could live on clotted cream.

dibnlib: Oh that's awful about your Mum and the charity donations - she may not have understood what was involved no matter how clearly it might have been explained.  Not sure what I'd do there, but if my Mom would eventually need that money, I'd see about approaching the charity.    Piano playing at Nordstroms doesn't make me spend more; it is pleasant though.  Speaking of which, OH has just announced he can't find that 11 year-old gift certificate that we are supposed to go spend this afternoon!!!  Aaaack!    He's in the shower, so I'm off to sort through his desk.

Annette, you only found it a couple of days ago, where could it have gone!! LOL

TerryM, not bored at all and thanks for the report. It is good to have information like that as the news sites can't cover all of it. As you say, amazing so much has been done so quickly. I feel so sorry for all those affected. You visual of furniture bumping against bridges really brings it home.

Best wishes to all taking part in Christmas concerts and shows – love amateur productions – fond memories of village pantomime in Essex and Yorkshire!  Pleased all the Thanksgiving celebrations went well – wonder how Caerann got on – guess she’s about due back by now.

Annette – great that you can help out with grandson’s car, but they do have expensive tastes – as with the mentions of starting out with second hand goods – this generation seems to expect to start out where the parents have already got to after years of hard wok and saving!  Re the money for mains electricity for LG – yes I did do a straight division, but I was not intending to put pressure on anyone – of course there will be some who can’t contribute due to distance, financial or other constraints – I was talking averages because I know that they will be balanced out by some much larger donations by those that can make them!  So sorry that your poor daughter’s horse is still sick and needing expensive vet treatment – an expensive “lawn ornament”, but I bet he’s also a member of the family too!

Alan – cutting grass? Our grass is still mud-bound!!!  Garden centre this afternoon – picked up my free tree – a Rowan.  Also bought some potted azaleas – not allowed a poinsettia this Christmas as I let last year’s die – and nobody had told my amaryllis it is supposed to grow!  It just sits there doing absolutely nothing (but at least not rotting away – yet!).  The 26 days – help!,  now 25 – reminds me, I need to confess to our son – we have an annual competition not to be first to hear White Christmas  - but I heard it sung by a white fluffy dog in a Santa hat in a garden centre the first week in November!!

Dibnlib – sorry about the family problems – so much sadness.  Distance is such a problem as parents age, whatever their health, but in your situation it must be far worse.  Really awful about your mother giving away her money like that without knowing it was continuing to go.

O H has decided his peregrine sighting was more probably a goshawk!  He spent ages this morning on websites checking up on flight behaviours and habitats!

Dibnlib we actually ate in Café Rouge because we know it from other branches, and I knew it has some veggie choices for grandson #2.  This was only my fourth visit to Edinburgh, and always to different parts each time, but I was the one who was able to answer the taxi driver’s questions and find the right place!

Alan - love the piano in the bandstand.  Remember many postcards of Cockington Forge when my grandparents used to holiday down that way every summer, visiting Grannie’s relatives – many, many years ago!

TerryM – soooo energetic – how could you cycle all that way?  Feel exhausted thinking about it!!!

Well, I think that’s me caught up again.  Electrician returning tomorrow morning to have another go at repairing floor wiring, then tiler returns to re-tile that bit in the afternoon.