Good morning all. What a difference a day makes? 42° yesterday, 23° today and overcast. The first month of the year almost over.
Happy New Year to all our Chinese or Buddhist friends!
Set off early for my walk this morning and called in to the supermarket on my way home to get milk, bananas and the essentials of life (Coles Rocky Road).
Then I remembered it is my daughter in law’s birthday early in February so dug out a card from the pile that charities have sent me, threw in a $50 note, wrote a message, addressed the envelope and posted it. Obligations satisfied and, hopefully, a happy DiL.
With this cooler weather I will set up this arvo to regrease the camper wheel bearings, a job started, much postponed but getting ever nearer. Thank gawd.
Spent and enjoyable evening last night chatting to my brother in the UK for a few hours, he is getting fibre to his house in the next month, it has taken a very long time to arrive so he was quite pleased about it (I have had it over a decade). He blames BT (our ex employer) as being, expensive, autocratic and backward looking, a real drag on modernisation, I have to agree with him.
The Sun is brightening the skies, its 8c today , feels like spring , my Tete daffs are up but not opening yet . Plenty of Daffs in the shops if I want to buy any .
Good morning from the low ceilings of Florida! There must have been fog early this morning, because the cloud ceilings are almost low enough to touch. It’s eerie and beautiful, though it made for slippery conditions on the running asphalt this morning.
This is mundane Monday in the form of Wednesday; after executing “Dog Factory” w the temperatures warming, I’m off to take my daughter to a faraway (and unnecessary) doctor’s appointment to secure another six months of prescriptions for her immunosuppressants, before heading to the bank to wire earnest money for the building lot. Our offer was accepted after a second round of negotiations, so it appears we are committed to Operation Old People …but… what have we done??? I know the answer to that question, but it still hade me wide awake with the wheels spinning at 3 a.m .
Agreeing to help coach my daughter through an American History exam, I’ve been brushing up on events like the War of Castilian Succession and the Treaty of Tordesillas that would forever pivot the world. History is too good for teenagers and college students; I remember dutifully memorizing events, leaders, and dates, but I never appreciated how the players (good and evil) would so profoundly change the world with their egos and power grabs. Now it reads better than any movies that have come out in the last decade. When I am not driving today, I’ll have my nose in textbooks. Good stuff.
Off to check in the other conversations around here and then I’m off.
Good afternoon everyone, after a taste of Spring for the last two days, it’s been pouring down with rain since this morning, at least it’s not windy, that’s even worse than the rain.
Yesterday we had extremely strong, noisy, South-western “winds of change” , in fact, we’re in for a very cold weather front shortly, coming from the Northern hemisphere.
We now should start hoping that the last three days of January will be very cold. An old proverb says that if they are, then Spring will arrive punctually and be warm, but if those days are not so cold, then Spring will arrive late and Winter will continue to be extremely cold.
The 29th,30th,31st January are known as “The Mother Blackbird days” , there is a legend as to why they are called so, but there are also different versions of this legend throughout the country. I found this version in English, thought it might be an interesting read.
Good afternoon everyone, I think I’m on Surfermom’s time…
Rest day today (or supposed to be) but the sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky, so it was on with the cycling shorts and a swift 15 miles around the deserted country roads of South Yorkshire, but not before a solo visit to Tesco for the weekly shop, Mrs Fox had other plans.
Talking about Fiber Bruce (I checked the spelling and it appears that Google spell it thus…against my better nature though) It’s been pandemonium around the village just lately, a company called ‘S9’ have vans and blokes up overcrowded poles stringing out fibre cables everywhere. The old system of copper wire and boxes are still on the poles (not changed over yet) and I reckon a good storm will bring down the lot. It seems the fibre cables are overhead, whereas the copper cables come to the poles from underground. It’s such a mess!
God only knows when the switch over will come.
Get it done while you are young Surfermom, the days of changing my abode have gone, a pine box will be my next permanent move from here… … someone likened moving home as one of the major stressful events of a persons life…The others are redundancy and divorce…I haven’t tried divorce yet…Mrs Fox won’t let me, and I was made redundant twice in my working life…Stress! what stress? It was the best thing that ever happened to me…
While not young, getting it done relative to my future age is the motivator.
When my (genius) dad died, he had at the top of his To Do list to build his coffin. I convinced him of doing so after he stated that he was insistent on just being dumped into a hole in the ground (illegal in most cemeteries here - rules, rules). Your post and this story of his have me thinking that I might try to build my own - with a little help. Hmmm… .
To be honest I have never even heard of these but then most British people have never heard of the English Armada (1589) either. It was a major disaster wiped from the history books.
British phones have always come from a pole to the house but electricity was always underground (as I recall) here it is the other way round in older established suburbs - in newer suburbs it is all underground, they even put in extra ducts so the road doesn’t ever have to be dug up again.
I know the answer to that question, but it still hade me wide awake with the wheels spinning at 3 a.m 
.
, in fact, we’re in for a very cold weather front shortly, coming from the Northern hemisphere.
… someone likened moving home as one of the major stressful events of a persons life…The others are redundancy and divorce…I haven’t tried divorce yet…Mrs Fox won’t let me, and I was made redundant twice in my working life…Stress! what stress? It was the best thing that ever happened to me…
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