It was getting tough in 2006 and the workhouse still threatens us in 2011

GreyQueen

VJsmum wrote: »

Interesting you say that GQ, as i have felt for some time that the seasons have moved forward a bit.

A huge tree in the "garden" at work has just about lost all it's leaves already. Whether that was the dry weather contributing, i don't know. However there has, of recent years, been a late flourish of warm, sunny weather through September / October time.

Having said that, I have spent 6 weeks this year out of the country (lucky me!! ) and have only experienced 4 days of rain in that time. Unfortunately for me those weeks have coincided with the best of the weather here - so i haven't had the best of both worlds (poor me:( )

Isn't there a theory that says that the weather goes in 7 year cycles? If that is true, I think we are in about year 4 or 5 . SOmething to do with La Nina?

Certainly the last few winters have been harsh. I hate the cold and the dark and it really does depress me (and, yes, i mean depress). Last year, though, i wasn't too bad and i am trying to think of what was different to make my mood so much better. Unfortunately I haven't come up with an answer yet.

Anyway, i am off up the lanes later to see if anyone has left me any blackberries - the small bush opposite the house doesn't even have enough for a pie!

Hi there, I was wondering if you have ever tried those daylight-effect lamps to help with winter depression? I hear good things about them from friends and colleagues who do spiral into depression each winter which is only alleviated by the coming of more daylight.

I'm blessed not to be a sufferer so cannot feedback personal experience of the lamps but perhaps someone else up here has used them?

I do go into "dormouse mode" about the same time as the clocks go back and my normal lark metabolism turns into a slug-a-bed for a few months. I happens every year without fail and I just roll with it now; what else are duvets for?;)

ifonlyitwaseasier

i don't advocate spiking food and drink but if someone is persisantly stealing from you and has been told/asked not to, then sometimes you have to take other measures to ensure they stop.


anyhoooooooooooo back to OS ness

have got far too much planned but am suffering from a lack of space combined with a complete sense of MEH! doesn't help wish i had the resources and storage available to me to have potted up veggies and fruit etc. tho saying that we have a bumper crop from the apple tree, am going to stew most of them up, cookers not eaters, and freeze in batches suitable for pies and crumbles

can feel the change in the weather today, have fluffy slippers on and a big cardi, i suppose i could shut the windows but then the rooms don't have that "just cleared" smell about them.

ceridwen

*Chattie* wrote: »

as you are very close to retirement age I'm sure you must have heard of scrumping in your youth or did one not allow such things to happen in your "safe" area of middle England?

Actually - no I hadnt even heard of scrumping until well into adulthood:D

...and I'm darn sure I would have had a LOT of explaining to do to my parents if I had turned up at home with something I had obtained illicitly and been in trouble with them for it.

My mother had eyes in the back of her head and theres no way she wouldnt have known if I'd done anything like that and I would have been sorry.

Anyway - thats beside the point - as the thief was most likely an adult - and why would it make any difference anyway? We arent talking poison as such - just cascara (ie a rather strong laxative).

If I'd ever nicked some milk off someones doorstep I wouldnt have expected (or got) any sympathy from either of my parents for the resultant bout of diarrhoea. Far more likely would have been a comment about "serves you right".

ChocClare

I don't think anyone is denying that stealing is wrong.

Intentionally poisoning someone else is also wrong in my book - whoever they are and whatever they've done. Why would you descend to their level?

However, as squeaky pointed out yesterday, treatment of criminals has nothing to do with either OS or this thread, so can we all just agree to disagree and move on? It's getting very tedious.

So, on the OS front, as I can't get into my garden for rainyness, I'm condemned to make curtains. Oh well, it's preparing for winter which is obviously coming sooner rather than later

redlady_1

"I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord....":whistle:

It's that time of the month again.

I have a pidgeon problem....they are all very fat by decimating my brassicas. No amount of netting appears to be helping! Any ideas would be gratefully received as I am getting ready to sow some winter cabbages. Also, the kohl rabi has grown but there are no bulbs on the end of the rather large leaves. I am sensing an error on my part here.

We have blackberries grown here at work so I have already had one small lunchbox full and hopefully will get some more today. The OH cut some rhubarb last night and then promptly left it on the grass!

HariboJunkie

ChocClare wrote: »

So, on the OS front, as I can't get into my garden for rainyness, I'm condemned to make curtains. Oh well, it's preparing for winter which is obviously coming sooner rather than later

I want to go mushrooming but no one will come with me in the rain and I have a tendancy to get lost in the woods. :rotfl:

Really want to dry my mushrooms this year and use as many as Christmas presents as possible. My family all love them so I do them dried in jars and bottled in oil. For personal use I just freeze them.

Need to make a proper Christmas list as I'm just randomly preserving and knitting at the moment with no real clue who is getting what.

RAS

GreyQueen wrote: »

Hi there, I was wondering if you have ever tried those daylight-effect lamps to help with winter depression? I hear good things about them from friends and colleagues who do spiral into depression each winter which is only alleviated by the coming of more daylight.

I bought a daylight lamp intending to grow early plants but the winter before last was so long ....

A friend's husband tends to be depressed and it was getting worse as the winter progressed.

She borrowed my lamp, stuck it in the lamp next to his chair and said nothing. His mobility is restricted so he spends most of his day there.

Two weeks later she insisted on buying the lamp as he had improved so much. He is still using it and has avoided black dog days since.

HariboJunkie

redlady_1 wrote: »

I have a pidgeon problem....they are all very fat by decimating my brassicas. No amount of netting appears to be helping! Any ideas would be gratefully received

Pigeon Pie.

Sorry I have no constructive advice. We have no pigeons here so there's another reason to move up. :beer:

ceridwen

Redlady

just checked. "Waxing gibbous 94% of Full Moon" right now.

Errr..yep..Full Moon soon.

Heads down - and back to Old Style hopefully...

RAS

Red_Doe wrote: »

I'm at the very north tip of Scotland, near Cape Wrath. The weather has just become, over the past decade, 'unreliable', the best word I can think of to fit.
Seasons seem shorter and jumbled and to be honest, where I am, there's not much difference now between summer and early winter. A mere handful of bright, sunny, warm days doesn't make a summer!
Most of the time we have prolonged wet, windy and colder than average summers, which badly affects growing. Winters are longer and more severe...last couple of winters temperatures regularly went below twenty degrees, thought I'd left the days of iced up windows indoors behind, but nope!
Winds are also depressingly more regular and damaging, we always get gales up here but they are often even more severe and more of them.
Apart from the obvious effect on veg growing...I was lucky to get anything from my garden this year...it has a pretty depressing effect on people's moods and folks seem that bit more down solely due to the weather...if you can't, at this time of year, look forward to a few sunny days or mildness, then might as well skip the next few months and drop straight into winter, get it over with quickly!
I don't put it down to Global Warming, but do believe it's Climate Change at work. I've always lived in the north and have seen it in action over decades. The weather is simply, no longer reliable.

I know that records on Skye show that August has got cooler and wetter since WWII.

Here, the summers have been very variable; we had heat waves some years and wet summers other years.

I am 400 miles south of you and the last three summers have been crap. A few bright sunny days amongst grey skies and intermittent rain. The sunniest weather has often been in the spring; we came close to drought this year. But that sun is associated with fierce bitter winds from the north and northeast, straight from Scandinavia and the Arctic.

One year the local Met office insisted sunlight levels were normal, but when protest were made admitted that the sun was shining from dawn (2am) for 4-6 hours and the days increasingly overcast after that.