Weekly Chat, Sunday December 13, 2009

Just looking a cnn.com and see 5 Eurostars stalled in Chunnel and awful snow in France.

Hi Annette:  Its been a bit of a disaster for the several hundred poor souls who were stuck on the trains...

not offered any food or allowed off the train, even tho some of the carriages were hot, and some were cold...

You would think that they would be able to use engines which could stand the conditions, seeing as so much money was spent on the project when it was all built.

Guess there must be quite a few of us aged about sixty, then, with our paper chain memories!  I also remember stapling them when our daughters were young. 

Alan – I hope Thunderdog Hamish enjoyed the walk in the snow – the spaniel cross we once had used to go everywhere nose to the ground (can’t mention some of the things he tried to pick up!) so in snow he looked like a miniature snow-plough!  Congratulations to Dundee – hope they have the stamina for the full season! 

DjoanS – lovely Christmas card – thank you. 

Gary – I like your mother’s Poppy, lovely bendy ears – lots of snow in Kent, then!  My mother always said we couldn’t afford the foldaway bell and ball decorations – so we only had paper chains/streamers and holly from our own tree – and our Christmas tree was usually a branch cut off the Douglas Fir which was down the end of the garden! … … Sorry – this is developing into a familiar Monty Python sketch! 

Annette – trip away is a four-night House Party in the country house part of a Christian Centre near Aberfoyle, on the edge of the Trossachs.  We have talked about doing something like it for years, and are now actually going for it. 

Translators – if I use one, I type the result back in and check the reverse translation – it sometimes helps avoid mistakes!

Well, I need to carry on with various last minute messages etc … no, I nearly forgot – this isn’t exactly newsworthy, but we had just 1 cm of snow this afternoon!

Hi everyone.

Temperatures are around -2C here, although sometimes it feels colder in our house.  Most people say: "If you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen."  In our house I'm tempted to say: "If you can't stand the cold stay out of the kitchen." ;-)

Gary:  Glad your looking forward to some one liners.  I'll try and find the tee towel but it might be a bit of a quest.  It was one of those items that was never used much because folk would spend more time reading he jokes than drying dishes.  That's a brilliant picture of Poppy "enjoying" the snow.

AQ:  I had a look for bilbies on google images.  They're such lovely wee creatures and I really hope that they can be saved.

Annette:  Believe it or not we were still making paper-chains in the 1980.  I loved that aspect of Christmas as a child, which seemed to make Christmas more magical and brighten up an otherwise dreich (dreary) North Lanarkshire, or Strathkelvin as it was back then.

OG: Totally agree with you about the decorations these days.  Some of them make streetlights look like fading match flames.  We tend to put the Xmas tree up just a couple of days before the 25th.  Love the Monty Python reference 

DJoanS: I'm sure the birds are appreciating your efforts and bravery.  In recent times I've found my self going out to clean the bird table trays and bird baths, wearing two pairs of socks, three t-shirts, and two fleeces.  I reckon the bird like my efforts but reckon I've gone soft.  Thanks for posting a nice Christmas card. :-)

Auntie:  That's an absolutely beautiful picture you've painted.  I can almost visulise the Finish scenary.  Glad you like the jokes.

Alan:  Dundee are doing great just now I think they'd be an asset to the SPL.  I noticed that Queen of the South's game was cancelled today so that puts a bit of pressure on them.  Should be a good title race in the Scottish first division.  I'll be happy if Celtic can get a good win at Hearts tommorrow.

Lindybird:  It's a shame that people haven't been offered any food on the stalled trains.  You'd honestly think that they would be prepared for those sort of conditions, especially with the money spent on the project.

Tiger: Thanks for posting the image links.  The pictures of those onderful birds are a pleasure to look at.

Stay warm and safe everyone.


Paul.

Gary: Are you okay? I just saw a weather report from the U.S. east coast. Very, very bad there. 2 feet of snow will fall in some places. Subways are now shutting down. Take care, Gary, and anyone else on that side of the country.

Two feet of snow. That makes our weather sound very insignificant. As Diane says, do take care.

Gary

Poppy is so cute, up to her knees in snow!

Hm, all the hot air generated in Copenhagen hasn't warmed the Northern Hemisphere. Take care, all you iced-in and snowed-under peoples.

Moved this post to the new thread.