Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

twopenny said:

Question for Bluey please - someone I know has adopted an Australian sheep dog. I know, I did tell her it would be work!! but she knew better.

So it's about 6mts in and she has a problem. Friendly enough but when visitors come it sits and stares and if they try to move or go it tries to nip their ankles or legs. Behaving like a sheep dog  

Any ideas please?

Friend is going over who's used to dogs to see and what happens.

I might be stating the bleedin' obvious 2p, but the only thing an Australian sheep dog wants is to be rounding up Australian sheep (or it's approximation of them) ie your friends. Or small children, passing cars, the pile of shoes in the hall, whatever catches it's eye. You can change a lot of dog's behaviours but colliedogs are so instinctual you can only tinker round the edges, with varying degrees of success   Tbh it'd be happiest on a farm, then your friend can go get a dog that suits what she wants. What did visiting friend reckon..? 

Arb I'd still plant those potatoes. Think how mad you'd be if you binned them and they started growing in there! Has the smell gone now?

You've gotta wonder about the state of yourself when you're not unhappy to be sort of compared to a bus shelter Did make me laugh did that.

Love all the photos, and I especially like your second house too lunatic. I don't know if that wee bit of grass smells like onions Farway, I'll have a surrepticious sniff when I next go past it (and if you're having me on about the onion thing I'm gonna be cross!) 

Here is this week's absolutely free but absolutely not legal advice story. If you've just caused found yourself in the middle of a bad traffic accident, you should ring the police or an ambulance or the insurance company, or your mum maybe. The first thought in your head should NOT be to ring round solicitors and scream "you've got to defend me I'm innocent!!" down the phone. Really it shouldn’t. But the most surprising one this week was the call from the lady who needed advice. She'd been with her fellah for years and he'd died. She'd proposed a few times but he always said no. Back at the house after the funeral, the friend she'd known for years, that used to go on holiday with them and always spent Christmas and Easter etc with them, was going through his stuff and filling her boots, and when the lady who called us asked her what she was doing she replied "it's ok, I'm his wife. Didn't you know?"   I tell ya, the world is full of goddam crazies. Is that second house for sale...? 

No gardening done, it's bluddy freezing here. It'll be v windy here this aft, good dry air, and sunny with it. They say. The Feels Like will be -5 though :brrr: 

Edit - I've just remembered 2p. I used to follow a guy on facefook called The Paw Man, and his setup was a bit like this place. You called write with your problem and he'd give you advice. Serendipitously he was a dog trainer in the Australian military. I don't know if it's still going for I've long deleted fb, but that'd be where I'd go for advice/a read if I was your friend  

Edit 2 - he's still going.  https://www.thepawman.com.au/  He's on the usual sershul meeejia ones as well. 

Dustyevsky

pink_poppy said:

Glad you're back to just normal aches and pains, Dusty, but sorry to hear Mrs Dusty isn't great   I'm nowhere near pensionable age either, but feel like an old crock sometimes. I'm sure if you decide to head to pastures new your place will sell easily with all the work you and Mrs Dusty have put into it. I was seeing the hospital podiatrist for about two years for my achilles problem and was no further forward. I'm not really sure what I expected, but it was more than just a piece of paper with some exercises on it. I hope Mrs Dusty has more luck.
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That's a lovely pic of the countryside, twopenny, looks very peaceful.

We won't be upping-sticks for a year or two, regardless. Finding something 'sensible' for my old age can come with some perks, I'm sure, like being closer to the sea, and enjoying a milder weather regime. The exercise sheets are OK if they're properly tailored to the condition and monitored for effectiveness, but that's not how things go now. Once released, with tasks to perform, the patient may fall off the current list, and it's assumed all is well. If a problem remains it's for the patient to make further contact, and often, to then wait for advancement up the list again.

I agree, 2p's primrose path along the edge of a wood looks most inviting. We have plenty of primroses flowering in the garden now, but none in the hedgerows or by the stream. I don't know why this is, as they all came from the same stock.

Yesterday, I tried to do a plane and moon shot like yours, despite it being the middle of the day and the moon very faint. Would the plane go across the face of the moon? Err....no!

Even if it had, it was so far off, the effect would have been zero.

Lunatic's area looks like it's somewhere with ex-glacial valleys, like those in Mid/West Wales, but the buildings don't look quite right, especially the one with neat pointing and very dark stonework. It might be Snowdonia, or thereabouts?

OT: Windy and cold, but not freezing this morning. Wet, and maybe some slushy white stuff forecast for later, so I must get going......

twopenny said:

We had a woodland cut down, had been our playground for many years so it was a bit of a shock when they did it.

But then with Spring up came lots of Foxgloves and other wild flowers.

It usually happens. How long do you think the seeds sat there, dormant?

Farway

Another one with cold & wet morning, just a dreary day ahead with maybe more rain later.

I'll follow YBE, no gardening today. Could be another mug of posh chocolate and snuggling down this afternoon.

But at least I did get out there yesterday and chopped back the dead fern fronds and found the rooted blackberry cutting, which is looking very scrawny , certainly not fit enough to survive with my DS and his brown thumbs.

My soil is very damp & compacted after the winter deluges and then baking during the January heat wave [sarc]. But I did spot my clematis is waking up, green shoots appearing, last year it was slug bait, so must be a tough one.

I like the tree / moon / plane pic Dusty. Have you seen the one with the ISS passing in front of full moon?

Not one to just snap on the off chance.

https://petapixel.com/2023/01/06/photographer-captures-stunning-shot-of-iss-crossing-moons-crater/

Must admit a twinge of envy with the crocus, congrats PP, and the primroses 2P. Seems very blank around here, but I do have birds twig collecting, so it's all about to happen, isn't it?

While hunting the blackberry, I found a potted & forgotten oriental poppy, which I now remember buying YS from Morries “Norwegian” section. It has fresh shoots, so now I need to find a spot for that, it's the sort with large poppy flowers & hairy leaves, looks nice for about a fortnight, then a mess for the other 50 weeks.

pink_poppy

Waves to YBE, aka the dog whisperer    

I love that pic of the tree/moon/aeroplane, Dusty. The leaves of the tree look blue to me, but that's probably just my eyes haha. This is the first pic I took the other night and you can see why I thought the aeroplane was going to go in front of the moon, even just the top bit of it, but oh no, it must have changed trajectory just to foil me... I'll have to look at Farway's ISS pic, it was a nice surprise to see it going overhead this morning.


Not the best pic, which is why I didn't post it before   the planet on the bottom right is unidentified (because I can't remember what it was) and the moon was crescent shaped, although it looks like a Christmas star in this pic.

Farway, I can't take credit for the crocus as they were planted by the previous owners. All I did was weed and de-moss that area a couple of weeks ago. What colour is your oriental poppy?? I think I've seen blue ones before.

Time to hang the washing outside, although it may well freeze, and then a very careful walk to the post office.

Orangemachines

Qucik update for everyone, its still really cold! 

Dustyevsky

Farway said:

I like the tree / moon / plane pic Dusty. Have you seen the one with the ISS passing in front of full moon?

Not one to just snap on the off chance.

https://petapixel.com/2023/01/06/photographer-captures-stunning-shot-of-iss-crossing-moons-crater/

I think I'd need a long ladder to get a shot like that!   

pp, my tree looks blue because I twerk tweaked the shot in an attempt to make the moon clearer. The sky was maybe closer to  the colour in this shot, taken a minute earlier, when a bus happened along.....

You can see how we use buses to do the pruning on our young oaks.   Unlike your first photo, pp, it's clear that plane was never on a trajectory to put itself between the moon and me.

Orangemachines said:

Qucik update for everyone, its still really cold! 

Welcome Orange It certainly is wet, windy and cold out there tonight, but I'd hesitate before calling our 2c really cold. The weather persons in Exeter told me to expect snow about now, so I came home early, but now that's been downgraded to sleet, and then just thick cloud. Seems to be the pattern for the next 5 days too, but at least no 'snow bombs' and 'polar plunge' nonsense. It is February after all.

twopenny

Bluey, thank you for that. It sounds like the perfect place to look I'll email it.

I did say when she had a choice of 3 but she's one that always knows best. I played with an Aussie sheepdog up in the mountains. It was outside the lodge waiting and I was missing myt dog. Darn thing never stopped chasing sticks, never looked at me only the stick and retreived it. Lovely dog though.

Friend/s visited and yes she did make darts especially when some was between him and his mistress but eventually lay down. Thankfully I'm not one of the choosen ones

Sounds like your job is going to be full of interest. Always something   As long as it's not more interesting than us!

Poppy, if you're trying on new boots that's a chance to see if it helps. It's pretty instant.

And yes, toe gripping shoes (ballet pumps esp) my podiatrist surgeon said kept him in work. Sense of humour that man and he had me going on a few things.

That's some photo Poppy.

Sorry if I misled folk, no primroses yet. I think I put that in the post and it was an old photo just to cheer us up.

Bitterly cold east wind and mid grey, so no gardening. The towel blew off the line twice

And todays mishap is a post on the big 7ft fence has rotted so my time in the garden was proping it up both sides with lumps of concrete, bricks, big sodden filled plant pot. Both fence folks have retired. May have found someone who is a lifeguard at the pool (indoor of course).

But wind is supposed to drop in the early hours.

Hand healing, heating working fine at mo.

So when we were chatting about wreaths and pompoms and I was going to make one of dried pink hydranga heads I cut a ouple and stuck in a vase as I was going to get more. And this is what happened   Look in the vase.

Just what I don't need, more white Hydrangas but I can't bear not to grow them!

Dustyevsky

Wow, 2p! I've just spent a year getting some weedy-looking hydrangea cuttings to grow in one of my cold frames. They've rooted, but must be all of 5cm tall! Looks as if you've found a better way.   I can't do them again. A friend sold her house, and moved away, so that was part of my attempt to rescue some of her prized plants. Most of them didn't 'take.'

I forgot to mention how I enjoyed Bluey's love triangle story. While not that similar, it reminded me of something very long ago involving a naive farmer's son. But here's the odd thing; when I opened my emails afterwards, the first thing I spotted was a Rightmove ad, featuring 3 new builds.....on the farm I'd been thinking about!   What are the odds of that?

LessImpecunious

twopenny said:

And todays mishap is a post on the big 7ft fence has rotted so my time in the garden was proping it up both sides with lumps of concrete, bricks, big sodden filled plant pot. Both fence folks have retired. May have found someone who is a lifeguard at the pool (indoor of course).

Must be a pretty hardy lifeguard if he's prepared to take on the role of new fencepost for you

twopenny

Less, turns out he used to be a landscape gardener - and he looks young and tough enough to tackle it.

Coming to look at the job and give me a price.

Also he's keen on singing in musicals in an amature way.........so I might get a song too

Dusty, that vase was on a shelf over a radiator in semi darkness of the hall and winter.

So when it hits the real world it may turn up its roots and go the same way my Clematis cuttings did.