General Chat

Don't worry, Names, they are nicking bits from the other one, still only half finished. The first one is going up and down the Clyde at the moment, doing sea trials!!

Did you lose power Florence.?

You might need a lie down if you haven’t heard the news. The new Calmac ferry, which hadn’t gone anywhere has worn out parts :-S :-S

Afternoon all

Oh dear Andysmum, what an early start for you!! Goodness me and nowhere to park. Bet you were glad to get back home asap?

When i moved here in 1993, ithe village where i first stayed was something else!! They were filming a new drama series and took over the whole lower part of the village. You couldnt get to your house, far less park etc. They just thought they owned the place for about 6 weeks. Once I parked my car in its usual only to be told, can you move it please as we dont want it in shot. Well i moved it 3 times and in the end i said, no Im not moving it anymore,

We were told not to be looking out the windows when filming. Was such a palava!

But many months later, we were watching said drama and there in one episode was the boot of my car lol.....famous at last i said!

So i dont blame you for nor wanting anywhere near to the filming, its chaos!

Well the storm wasnt as bad as they forecast here and we never lost power. It was worse on Friday and we have had it much much worse in years gone by.

So today, the house got a good seeing to, washed the bathroom & kitchen floors, washing & drying, vacuumed throughout and now sitting. Oh made a chicken & veg hotpot type of dish which is slow cooking in my oven for later.

Daughter went off to town hence i was able to get the house all tidied etc with no interruptions!
I made a 1000 piece jigsaw over the weekend on the kitchen table. It was of a Whimsical village where all the houses are tall and slim. Lovely colourful pic and I finished it last night. So that's all back in the box and table now clear.

I di now have a large basket of ironing to be getting on with but that can wait until tomorrow now as my leg is aching a bit.

Hope everyone else survived the storm with no damage to their properties etc.

I do have to parcel up a birthday present which needs to go tomorrow so shall do that in awhile.

The rain is never ending here and looks like fog lol and is still brezzy too.

Right better check the oven now as dont want burnt offerings lol

Florence in the hebrides

What a morning! Having survived yesterday at 8am today OH rang for a Dr's appointment. I was half dressed, he was still in bed. Then he said he had an appointment at 8.45!! :-0 and would I drive him, please. So, frantic dressing, finding outdoor clothes and out of the house by 8.30.

The village, usually half empty at that time in the morning, was absolutely packed with cars, large vans and people. Nowhere to park. The surgery carpark was full, mostly with non-patients, so I dropped OH off and found a place along the road. By the time I'd walked back to the GP's OH was being seen and we got home at 9.15, for a late breakfast!!

I have now found out that they are filming some 1970's movie in the village and have chartered Waverley for the day. We are apparently standing in for Stromness, which is on the north coast and not so sheltered. I have had enough excitement for one day and am keeping well away!! :-)

I hope everyone else is safe after yesterday's storm.

It seems that we're all having bad weather!

We're into Day 3 of an "atmospheric river", that is a strong band of wet weather streaming across the Pacific and looking just like a river from space. We used to call it the Pineapple Express :-D It is supposed to end today (fingers crossed)

We've had over 100 mm rain over Friday and Saturday, and also had high winds with it as well yesterday. Saturday was the wettest of the 2 days, and that was voting day for our provincial election! We had a mobile Voting Unit visit here on the first day of advance voting, how lucky could we have been?!!

I woke up early yesterday morning to see several thin streams of water pouring over the edge of the overhang outside my bedroom window, by the time I went back about 5 minutes later, they had all merged into a single stream about 8" or 9" wide :-0

Luckily it was all falling straight down on the patio below, but I did later mention it to our lady-who-knows-all-and-who-to-tell ................ she sent a memo to maintenance to check it out on Monday!

It did stop when the rain eased off.

Glad I didn't have to go out

Take care and stay safe everyone <3 <3 <3

We have been lucky so far. It has been the same as yesterday, drizzly in the mor then a nice afternoon.
The wind is getting up a bit. One of the bins has blown over twice, so O H has laid it down. He has been making a new bin store, but it still needs a rail across the back to stop them from blowing over. We have three wheely bins at the moment, but the council are going to give everyone a fourth one. We have plenty of room for them, but goodness knows how some people are going to cope

A nice day here so far.
Sunny and not cold. Windy, but nothing particularly out of the ordinary.
I've hung some washing out!

However, about 10pm is supposed to be the worst of it here, so there's time yet!

Like Florence, I've filled a flask just in case.

ADDED - 16:30:

But now it's blowing a gale, with rain and stronger gusts.
As forecast!

Afternoon all
Well it is very windy but was actually worse on Friday here. But....I just read the amber warning is from 1pm and noticeably it is getting windier as i type so maybe it hasnt hit full force yet.

Def no ferries Andysmum and if you paid me there's no way id be going across the much today!!

Hope everyone is safe and warm. I have filed the flasks for the "just in case."

Florence in the hebrides

I hope you are all safe and so far unaffected by the gales. Here it is windy, although not as bad as predicted with sunny intervals. The leaves are coming off the trees in vast quantities and then blowing all over the place - lots of them into next door or the road.

Most of the local CalMac ferries have been cancelled but I can see Western Ferries crossing the Clyde as usual. They are the only other ferry company in the west of Scotland and are much more reliable than CalMac. They would like to extend their operations to other routes, but Cal Mac have a monopoly.

The other surprise this morning was when I saw Waverley sailing past. This is her last weekend before stopping for the winter, but I wouldn't think there were many passengers on board. OH says she is probably pretty stable but his idea of stable isn't everyone's. :-)

It was supposed to be a nice day here today, but the overnight rain was slow to clear, so it was drizzly this morning. That was a nuisance as I was taking Esme to Lightwater Valley. Luckily it cleared up after lunch and by mid afternoon, it was really warm and sunny.
Tomorrow is gusty winds and rain showers, but nowhere near as bad as it was supposed to be. I hope everyone keeps safe in the areas where it is going to be bad.

Hello all
yes all prepared here with all rechargeable batteries fully charged and I also have about 100 candles, several torches and 5 LED candles too.

Plenty of cold foods like bread, cheese , salad and tinned salmon, fruit etc so we wont go hungry if we lose power.

I experienced one storm at new year once and it reached 104mph but our stone walled house that i was living in then never lost a slate or anything, it was built solid.

The gale yesterday was pretty bad but only about 50-60 mph and tom forecast says 80!!

Anyway hope all in its path are kept safe and if we lose power we shall be back on here asap.

If you look at this web site, you can see who's power is off and how long for etc, very useful and less hassle than ringing them up.'

sse.powertrack map

Florence in the hebrides

Keep safe everyone, wherever you are. <3

I see they have cancelled the Great South Run in Portsmouth due to the approaching Storm Ashley causing safety concerns. :-0

We've a milder, calmer day than I was expecting, but what will tonight bring?

That was lucky. Nothing worse than a surprise power cut.

In our old house, which was prone to multiple local power cuts,we always kept candles on our mantle piece. So then it was only the matches we had to stumble around for.

Even now we keep some candles in holders at the top of our living room unit and at least now we can use the gas ring to light them

Yes - in fact I got them out yesterday, just in case, because the wind was so strong.

And as it turned out, they were needed. We had a power cut for two hours yesterday evening!

Hope you Scots will be ok tomorrow (Sunday) and that you are well stocked with candles and batteries and that you have already got them out ready.

Hello all,
sorry to hear that the weather is bad again for some of you. Not to bad here atm raining yet again but not windy thankfully.

Been pottering about doing housework and trying to sort cupboards out in the kitchen. Have to keep stopping as my back is painful today but I need to keep moving or I will stiffen up completely.

Have started getting a few Christmas presents and the usual small treats for when the family are here. Still need to get some cards but don't send many now by post as sadly many of our friends and family that lived away have died in the last few years. :-( .

Hoping that you are all ok health wise and those not posting are ok,

Wet and very windy here too , though not as bad as with you, Florence.
There won't be many leaves left on the trees after this - clouds of them are whirling across the garden.

I'm sitting here in the warm, watching excellent Gaelic choirs competing on BBC Alba.

Morning all.
Crikey its blowing a right old hooley here!! Im def not opening the front door lest I fly off somewhere lol. So this gale is a taster for the windier one we are expecting on Sunday.

Gently pottering about after all the work I did yesterday. A bit of dusting in my bedroom as its always dusty :-S I have no idea why? But the room its self is quite small and I have a lot of furniture so maybe that's why. Anyway that will keep me out of mischief until lunch.

I ordered myself a 1000 piece jigsaw. Its of a Whimsical village all in very bright colours so may start that this afternoon.

Hope everyone else is staying safe. I think there is quite a bit of flooding too around Kirby was hearing that on the radio news.

Florence in the hebrides

We saw it down here, very bright.

We missed our chance to see the comet last week as it was cloudy all week, maybe next time ;-) ;-)

It wasn’t cloudy here, so we saw it as well