Weekly Chat, Sunday, January 24 2010

Hi everyone. Happy Sunday!  As usual, check out the last few entries of the previous week's chat to find out who left a plant at the supermarket checkout counter and ate a bag of chocolate donuts for lunch.

Brought Oro for home visit today; was lovely and sunny and daughter sat in the garden feeding him treats. He had a little snooze and then while my daughter took a nap Oro and I went to the beach and walked along the grassy area behind the sand for about a mile or so. (No trash cans to crash into!)  Marvellous afternoon with brisk breeze and big surf, but now they're forecasting more rain for Monday through Wednesday! 

  • Good morning Sunday World.  Spent Sat evening re-arranging furniture in dining room!  Have had Son’s fridge in corner for ages and now that he will hopefully reclaim it, we want to see what it would look like in the alcove between d-room and kitchen because we want to buy a wider fridge to go there.  Step 1 move fridge in front of window.  Step 2 move storage from alcove to where fridge was. Step 3 postpone moving fridge till morning.  Step 4 decide storage would look better where bookcase is.  Step 5 decide bookcase might fit in guest room if desk was disposed of.  Step 6 measure that corner. Step 7 decide to sleep on it!

     

    Lily’s cub seems to cry an awful lot – early tantrums I think!  There seems to be only one, so it should be very pleased to have all Mum’s attention!

     

    Lindybird – pleased you got reunited with your plant – what is it?

    Diane – loved reading about your family house – grand-daughter of pioneers – and from Scotland, too!

    Heron – sorry the cold has not completely gone – but pleased you are regaining taste.  I always eat far too much when I have a cold – I think it’s an effort to try find something I can taste!

    Margobird – hadn’t put you down as a horror-film watcher at all – thought of you as a really gentle soul.  Can’t see the point of them myself – but then, I find it difficult to watch any box-office movie without falling asleep after about 15 minutes!  Prefer that to never sleeping ever again after suspense movie!

    Annette – thanks for doing the usual for us!  So glad Oro’s home visit went well – especially the walk without trash-cans!  Enjoy the better weather while it lasts!

    Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!

  • Ah a new thread. I am never sure whether Sunday is the first day of the week or the last. For many years I saw it as the first. It was only in recent times I discovered that others thought otherwise.

  • Afternoon all from TI,

    Tiger :  I have always thought Sunday was the first day of the week. Did not know that others thought it was not?.

    This morning Lady P had an appointment at the hospital for an ultrasound. Yes on a sunday at 09:10. Apparently they have a backlog of appointments to catch up on. Then we had a brief shopping mission to Tescos.

    Weather started off misty, murky and miserable  but the sun has just come out so it looks a lot brighter now.

    Just off to take Hamish for a walk.

    Temp 5.3c , Sunrise 07:53 , Sunset 16:31. 

  • Sunday definitely first day of the week; Monday first day of work week, which I don't have anymore. Hurray! Quiet on here today - if it's sunny there, people must be outside. I went to the library yesterday morning and couldn't find a parking place; apparently everyone was waiting for the rain to let up before doing errands. Parking lots, intersections, etc., flood pretty quickly here since we don't get a lot of rain and when it comes down in buckets the drains back up relatively quickly.  We have several creeks that run through our neighborhood and it's so nice to hear the water coursing through them. After our big fire (two years ago in our neighborhood), the county put massive amounts of manpower into clearing the creeks and building debris racks in the foothills to avoid backups and serious flooding.

    OG: OH and I moved things around in spare bedroom many times before daughter came to house after her op; then we ended up moving it all again when it didn't work for her.  A refrigerator is a large thing to have laying about. We still have all my granddaughter's stuff in our garage while she and intended save for deposit, etc., on their own place - a seemingly endless effort that keeps getting sidetracked by other financial calamities.  She has a very nice new toaster oven that I'm tempted to borrow since ours is ancient, (but won't).

    Alan: Hope all is well with Lady P and that Hamish enjoys his walk. I do like walking Oro - good exercise all round and he's such a happy dog.

    Morning TIger and anyone else who shows up this afternoon.

  • Slow start to the chatting day!! 

    Sunday always was the first day of the week, but the tax week starts on Monday and I think there was some decree in the 1970s that Monday is first day - calendars and diary pages always used to start with Sunday, now they vary.

    Alan - I hope Lady P will have good results from her ultrasound.  Still dreich, dreary and drizzly here.

    Bookcase moved and like it in the guest room.  Now fridge having its doors changed round to open the other way in new position.  Then will move storage to where bookcase was - hope we like it when its done!

     

     

    Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!

  • Alan   I thoroughly agree with you Alan. Apparently some people regard Monday as the first day of the week.

    Annette     You do a great job in starting these threads every Sunday. Makes for good housekeeping.

  • Blackwater eagles now have 2 eggs in their nest:

    http://www.friendsofblackwater.org/camhtm2.html

    Also been listening to the baby noises coming from lilys cub.

    Boar fest on camera 1 in Estonia:

    Bea

  • Good Morning/Day Everybody!

    Have sun breaking through rain clouds here just now. It's been so gloomy here all week and blustery-damp too.

    Anyone else in the U.S;  the Nature program about Bald Eagles is on tonight. Yaaay!

    Diane: Thanks so much for the agate video! I'm very fond of them actually and the film showed so many beautiful variations of all their swirls and hues. You mentioned Lafayette and I have been there to attend Feast of the Hunter's Moon, which I absolutely loved. Only went once but would love to go back again. For those unfamiliar, the Feast of the Hunters' Moon is a re-creation of the annual fall gathering of the French and Native Americans which took place Fort Ouiatenon, a fur-trading outpost in the mid - 1700s. It is held annually in early autumn on the banks of the Wabash River, four miles southwest of West Lafayette, Indiana.

    Annette:  We had an invasion of carpenter ants in our condo this past summer and it was really annoying. We sprinkled 20 Mule Team Borax (remember that stuff?) at their entry points around the windows and base boards ,although we have no pets, as the borax suffocates them and supposedly if the soldiers find enough dead scouts, the whole colony allegedly moves away. We ended up having to call in an exterminator as a last resort and it killed all the bugs along with the ants but after 2 months of using borax and traps with no resolution, I decided it had to be done as carpenter ants are very destructive.

    Paul: I am happy to hear you're feeling a bit better these days. My John has been sick since Xmas Day with what now has turned in to bronchitis. It's very depressing for him since he doesn't feel well and the weather here has been cold, very damp and cloudy which doesn't help either.

    My favorite Stephen King book is "The Stand" though I've never seen the movie and don't plan to. His books don't seem translate well to the screen except, I think, for Carrie, the Shining and the Shawshank Redemption. (Haven't seen the Green Mile which I understand was excellent too.) I'm not a fan of splatter fest films, I tend more towards the implied gore type of movie making.     =O)

    I'm a big fan of the Alfred Hitchcock TV programs and the ones I think that creeped me out the worst were "An Unlocked Window" about the nurses caring for an ill man in a creepy mansion during a horrible storm and "the Jar", which is a Ray Bradbury story. Eeessshhh! I'm shuddering just thinking of them!

     

  • Caerann: thanks for the reminder about the Bald Eagles program.   I think we'll bring in the big guns to deal with our ants once the rain has stopped. Our neighbor works in pest control and thinks the mulch/cardboard combo we put over our grass last fall, while doing a great job on killing the grass, has provided nice breeding conditions for the ants. Also, we have a holly tree at the front of the house that has big-time scale, which I think ants like. We also have to put Tanglefoot around our orange trees because if they get bugs, the ants will harvest the bugs' sticky byproduct and essentially protect the bugs. Very ingenious creatures, but please, not on the oranges or the countertops!  Hate using poison but....   My daughter used to have fire ants in the desert and she said they'd put dry oatmeal by the nests and that the ants would take it back to the nest, eat it, and then sort of explode as the oatmeal expanded.  No idea if that's true or not, but she's had a lot of experience with snakes, bugs, bears, etc.

    Don't remember An Unlocked WIndow or The Jar, but have read a really creepy book of short stories by, of all people, Daphne Du Maurier called The Blue Lense.   Don't read Stephen King but did find The Shining a tad scarey. My sister says The Other is good - think they made a movie with Nicole Kidman, but haven't seen it.  Thought the early Twin Peaks program was good, but then it sort of went over the top.

    Bronchitis is hard to shake - hope John gets over it soon; sometimes that cough just hangs on and on....

    Daughter in shower and we're planning a car outing today - certainly a lovely day for it.

  • Annette - sorry I apparently ignored your post before my last one – I think you posted while I was compiling mine!  We actually use Son’s fridge – it’s bigger than ours (we paid for it for him three and a half years ago!).  We use three at the moment – our tiny built-under fridge, our larger “larder fridge” in the garage with our chest freezer, and his fridge-freezer.  We want to buy what we call “an American-style Fridge” (hope that’s not un-PC) for the alcove, give his back and turn the small one into an extra cupboard in the kitchen – one day some time!!  What is a ”toaster oven”?  Is it a combined grill (UK) or broiler (US) and oven?  Hope you enjoyed the car outing today and that the weather kept good for it.

     

    Alan - largest group of Boar I have ever seen in Estonia – thanks.

     

    Diane - the agate video for Caerann led me to some other good footage on that site, specially Autumn Leaves, so thanks for the link.  Sorry about poor John’s bronchitis – hope he will soon be on the mend – a month is a long time to feel so unwell.

     

    Where was everyone today??!!  Maybe they are all on the late shift like Paul Heron!!  Furniture moving was successful, but have identified two further steps to tackle tomorrow.  Guest room is improved, dining room looks excellent (even moved a picture and discussed hanging another one when we get it framed - had it four years!) but one shelving unit needs raising by incorporating a section from the very tall one in the study!  So another busy day tomorrow, which means supper and bed very soon!  Goodnight/evening/morning all!

     

    PS this has changed into various fonts and sizes while copying from Word, so don't know what you will see!

    Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!