General Chat

Hi Tec. I do know what you mean - our trees can get a little messy at times. I get a little carried away at times so I decided that when someone marries into the family I would just add their parents but not siblings and their marriages. It was getting complicated and I would look at a name in my tree and not even know who it was.

When we added a verandah to the front of our house we had to totally re-do our garden. We left it for awhile until we decided what we wanted and traipsed around a few garden centres before deciding on native shrubs - particularly those that attract birds and butterflies. We are now very pleased with our garden and have had comments from people who have watched it grow. It's very low maintenance. I only water it 2 or 3 times a week and not at all if it rains. Only two of the shrubs need a light pruning. We've been rewarded by visits from nectar feeding birds and some very pretty butterflies.

Sue xx

Good evening/morning to all

No white stick needed fortunately: only a very slight change in eyesight so I decided no to have any new glasses.

Janet, I do that with our house when I get back from my walks: open everything up to let the house cool down and then close everything up once the sun has a bit of strength.

Carole, I saw on the news last night about Victoria's temps....no way!! But Perth is forecast to have temps of 40c over the weekend!

Berona, I am pleased that your cramps would appear to be just that.

Linda what a nice comment to make about Berona

Sue, yesterday you mentioned Ronan Keating: I saw in yesterday's local 'freebie' paper that he was due to appear at Sandalford's Margaret River Winery for 'A Day on the Green' this month but the show has been cancelled.

Allan

Tec, my apologies!

I thought that I had responded to everyone and there you were in your frozen knickers!

I am not sure how I would cope with the cold these days.....probably the same as I cope with the heat ............. HELLLLLLLP!

Allan

Hello Allan. Well that's interesting about Ronan Keating. The Day on the Green over here has been sold out for ages. Wonder why they've cancelled the WA show.

Sue xx

Good evening Brits, good morning Australasians. (Just being a bit different!).
Warming up for another hot day here. Some places had 30 degrees at midnight last night! I haven't known that before. Yes, we do get high temperatures at this time of the year, but not quite so high or for quite as long as they have been this year. I am ready to switch the aircon on already before 9am, but had better see about some water for the plants first!

Good Morning Allan,

Well done for not needing new specs - very expensive these days.

I do have more on than frozen knickers - my dog is revving up to go into the garden, as there is currently a blizzard, with horizontal wind, I have to dress up like Eskimo Nell - I may never be seen until the thaw in the Spring..........send huskies with thermal underwear

Tec

On the subject of domestic disasters (well at least it is now) OH went to heat some cake and custard in the microwave last night

Loud bang with simultaneous blue flash and all the power went out.

Fortunately we have an RCD fitted so it was just a case of ficking a switch to restore power, but we now need a new microwave.

What I saved by not having new specs will now be used for that purpose!!!

Allan

Good morning everyone.

Happy as can be that you have received good news from your doctor Berona.

Glad you are not in need of a guide dog Allan and hope you had a pleasant afternoon yesterday.

Linda & Sue - I was 21 when I had my eldest and then had to do a lot of considering and thinking before I ventured into pregnancy for a second time and I was 26 when I had her. (I do not do pregnant well at all)

So what sort of shapes and architectural designs are you planning on Tec? We have people here who stick large coloured butterflys on their houses. Wagon wheels and wheelbarrows etc on their front lawns.
The chinese go in for dragons and lions etc gracing their entranceways and then there are the religious that have Virgin Mary and in some cases a permanent nativity scene on their lawn.

I have a couple of peripheral branches on my trees - in one case two sisters married two brothers and I was only going to put the two brothers in but I had such a response from people - descended or related in some way to them - I delved further into that family, put on more and more information and it has helped a lot of people, and the correspondence is still on going. So thought no harm done leave them there but won't include them when I give my family/relatives all their history.

Perse

Good morning Persey,

All this talk about pregnancy....I sailed through our two with never a problem!!

Which is more than I can say for my OH


Allan

Tec - thanks very much for the cwtch. I feel I've made a spelling error there!
Be careful pruning your family tree. I imagine you riding through your family estates on your great white steed, brandishing a sword and crying "Off with their heads!"

I have been back to the 1500's on my OH's tree - direct line and siblings, and I have gone back to the 1700's with my own (Dad's) side and they have never crossed paths. Yet, Hot Matches put me in touch with a person here in Australia with both surnames in his tree. Turns out that OH's gr/gr/uncle emigrated and married my gr/gr/gr/uncle's grand-daughter - or something like that. Even this person with the tree, couldn't tell me how he was related because they were names of people who had married into his family. I am not interested in going that far into my tree, so I have my pruning sheers out too!

I am concerned about my microwave Allan - it is a National (which is now Panasonic) and I have had it since 1986. When we got it we had to go to cooking classes to learn about them. "The" microwave shop held four weekly evening classes. The worst thing that happened to me was when I was melting chocolate just before Christmas when my head was somewhere else and I set the time for minutes instead of seconds and burnt it and here was smoke pouring out and himself sitting practically alongside at the kitchen table reading the paper oblivious to it all.

Pxx

Allan - I wish I had been thinking as you did when I went for my eye test. There doesn't seem to be any difference in the strength of the lens in my new specs and although I've been back to the optometrist, I still have problems with the fit of the frames. I find myself pushing them back up my nose all the time and if I look up quickly, I'm looking over the top of them! I paid out over $700 for two pairs and all I feel that I got, was a more up to date style of frame - and there was nothing wrong with the old one!
When they said there was not much change, I should have refused to buy new ones!

Persey, there's a lot of it about.

A few days ago OH was cooking almond biscuits (in the main oven)

The first batch came out fine.

second batch, OH decided to give a blast of heat to crisp them up, so she turned the oven to max. She then went to do a 'two second' job and got engrossed in doing several other things.

Twenty minutes later a lot of swearing (I never knew OH knew words like that) from the kitchen and I was just in time to see her dumping these shrivelled black and smoking things into the compost bin.

I said that it would never have happened if we still had the smoke detector in the kitchen!

I advised her to change her name to Alfred

I think that she will start talking to me again soon

Allan

Hi Everyone,
Sorry that I haven't been around but I've been doing tree work. Tonight I've been deleting several people. I got it wrong!
Luckily there's no snow in Exeter. Just a lot of rain.
Pat x

Berona, the Optician himself said that there was only a very slight change but when I went to do the paperwork in the shop, the assistants were all over me trying to sell me frames. They were miffed when I said no

When I got home and compared the script from my previous test to this one, only one figure had changed and not by any great amount!

Allan

Good evening Pat

It's amazing how these two second jobs can take ages and wouldn't you know it is generally after watched pot never boils - go away for 2 bleedin' seconds and it has boiled over.
Years ago when the kids were little I put dried apricots on to cook and the kids wanted me for something - when I got back the apricots were stuck to the enamel pot and would not come off - so I never did like that pot - so I put some water in it and left it to soak - down in the garage. Forgot about it - friend of mine found it - the apricots had lifted so she empited it, took it home with my blessing and used it to house some plants in the garden. It looked very nice and was a much better use for it. Tec. it would've looked a treat in your garden, the outside was green and pictures of veges on it.

Persey.

Hi Allan,
After a certain age don't your eyes stay the same?

Nobody came looking for me - did you?
Out there in the great white wilderness - fighting my way through the blizzard - snow up to my nether regions - freezing cold - blinded by snow
I did see one footprint and a blob in the snow, thought it was Long John Silver for a minute, but it wasn't.

Perse - I hate to see houses adorned with those butterflies - I have a NZ palm in my front garden, about ten feet high, with a huge chunk of driftwood that I dragged off the beach, I think it's a huge root off a big tree, and I've surrounded it with large white quartz pebbles off the beach - looks quite effective.
Think I'll plant up the back garden with a couple of hardy palms, and maybe some ornamental acers, keep it simple.

Berona, your spelling of cwtch was correct. I have a few living relatives that I'd like to prune - but that's another story.

Tec

I don't always get new frames - so am probably the bane of the opitican's assistant's life as I just send them away to replace the lens.
My Optometrist is a fairly thrifty individual himself - my OH used to work for an Opitcal company and I helped them with logging all their new lens onto their computers and my Optometrist was then the resident one for the company. He trained in the UK and on one of his certificates it states that he is a Member of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers.


Pxx