I think I must be approaching my 10th anniversary, but I could be out by a couple of years either way.
Very little of the threatened snow in southern England - so no excuse for leaving early for my 4 hour drive home.

Threatened snow? Haven't seen/read/heard a forecast for two days. Must update myself.

An inch of snow here this morning. It settled on the grass and even on the side roads for a time.

Just wind, rain and 2.5C here in Rotterdam. And final day in the office before January - hurrah!

I cane to NZ for my daughter's wedding equipped for sun and sand, however I need an umbrella and gumboots.

Pleasant and sunny down here in Florida. And I've been here about 14 years I think.

Er, when I say "here" I don't mean Florida. I mean here.

(CdM) Could you move around a bit, preferably completely at random and as fast as possible. Then we will know your location to a greater degree of accuracy than currently specified.

[Rosie] I don't think that works for molecules of CdM. On the other hand, the speed of a flerdle is highly dependent on slope, being relatively speedy now along a flat, perfectly horizontal surface and very much slower on any inclination or declination, whereas say a rock or a basketball shows very different behaviour.

Oh, and *waves from sunny Brisbane*

(flerdle) Are you saying that cadmium-containg alloys are beyond the laws of physics? Outrageous! Don't tell Uri Geller, whatever you do. May your mobility on inclined planes rapidly approach the norm.

Uri Geller sat three seats in front of me and my mother on a flight from Venice to the UK. I watched the rivets and joins of the wings and fuselage very carefully during the entire flight. (Stranegly enough, Jude Law sat in front of us on the flight out. He's much smaller than you think.)

I flew with the late lamented Phil Linott on the little 40-seater from Dublin to Leeds once. He was very tall - pushing 2m, I reckon.

(pen) Stranegly sounds like a small village in Scotland. Hard luck. :-)
(INJ) Two miles? Yeah, that's big, too big, obviously.

[Rosie] I've just moved rapidly to Tennessee, if that helps. Drove up through an impressive storm, as well. Hearing the tornado sirens wailing as we were driving was a little unnerving.

It is pouring rain this evening here (in Brisbane still) but, unusually, there is no lightning/thunder at all.

(CdM) I thought you were somewhere round there. I'm envious of your vigorous local convective activity. All we get here is mist, drizzle and general gloom. It's mild (10°) much to the disgust of the snowfreaks, but they're either weird or bonkers.

[Rosie] Have you seen the W Yorkshire lenticular cloud photos doing the rounds today?

(Phil) I certainly have - brilliant. We don't get 'em round here because the hills aren't high enough. You should see the ones they get in New Zealand and in the USA in the lee of The Rockies. More envy. :-(

[Rosie] Sadly I have seen many of them though it is midsummer here. Oh, well, now it is Christmas.

(Softers) At least you can see the sides and ends.

What ends? We saw no ends on our Christmas eve and day. Very wet, windy, and uncomfortable.

I saw the clouds on Christmas day, their old familiar shades of gray, the raindrops fell and I could tell the weather was so dreary, hey.

[KS, G] Where was that?

I saw something approaching lenticular cloudage a couple of days after Christmas, over the Lincolnshire wolds - a splendid sight, but I don't think it would have lenticulated fully. Now, back in, the Netherlands, it's drizzling heavily, grey, it's already getting dark, and sounds like a war zone out there as the village boys have been setting off their Belgian firecrackers all day, and the farm boys have been filling old milk churns with carbide bomblets and shooting the lids off across the fields. One way of seeing out the old year, I suppose. The windy miller and I are planning a quiet night in with a couple of slow-cooked lamb shanks and a bottle of wine.

Cloudage?? Oh, pen, pleeeze! Even the most anorakky weather nut doesn't talk like that. Did it give rainage, which went down the drainage? Or was it snowage, so your car needed towage? <rapper>

Good to hear that Dutch boys are allowed out, unsupervised, to be a little naughty.

It was a totally clear night here after a hot and almost completely cloud-free day - something of a rarity here. I did not bother going in to town for the fireworks, but watched a very decent display from the back yard. They seemed to be coming from the general direction of a local school and went on for a very long time. A licence is needed to even obtain fireworks here, let alone let them off, though some people manage it anyway.

Apparently the Arts Centre spire caught fire. Whoops.

Happy New Year to the collective mc5ers.

[Rosie] I'm not playing with words as a weather nut, I'm playing with words as a word nut. So there. *raspberry* *winkage*

HNY all.

[pen] Happy new year, but as a fellow word nut, I wonder why you don't abhor the current lazy vogue for "-age" creations, spewing spurious neologisms all over the place. *winkage continued*

(pen) Ah, "Raspberry". That was the whole family's nickname for my piano teacher when I was a child. Little could she have imagined that I would be blowing the said fruit down a 9-ft tube 30 years later. Real name Doris Austin (Miss). Always going on about my fingerage and phrasage. A bit fierce but good. Not one to indulge in winkage, as you can imagine.

.. not even a spot of badinage?

(Carthage?) I remember talking a load of -age badinage with a wordy friend some time around 1998, but don't recall seeing much of it since then. We also had a go at adding '-ster' on the end of evey word. That was fun too. But I don't like Dutch enough to have fun with the national habit of making a diminutive out of everything to informalise it; bier > biertje, jongen >jongetje, bord > bordtje. (Beer, lad and plate, respectivly.)
BTW Chalks, what are you doing up so early? (Or so late?)

[pen] is Schoenlappertje a diminutive term for a cobbler? All I know is that it's a blummin' good non-sweet, blackcurrant beer.

....Wantage of Burnage. Boo-boom!

[Phil] Yus, it is. I took the 'tje' off it and ran it through Googletranslate, then the Brain of Google told me it was cobblers.

[pen] Smashing. If you see a bottle, I'd thoroughly recommend buying and drinking it.

Following suggestions at MC in Outerspace, would a Saturday in March be suitable for an MCPilg in London? Do see the discussion in the Pilgrim Game on Orange-age

I live in Lake Charles, LA, USA.

You know, like Ron on Kim Possible would say "snackage." I guess you could say on Friday I got my "concertage" on? Or is that my "nerdage" for the band Lost And Found?

[KS] Yes, you'd probably have to make a full weekend of it. Still, I'm sure accommodation could be arranged.

KS] Yes, feel free to combine it with a longer visit to our fair shores.

Hang on Guys, I've just had this great idea! LAPilg?

(INJ) LA is an awful long way for Ms Shuko.

Ah, Yes. Still, it's not a bad idea.

[INJ] I think what you wanted to propose was NOPilg. I might sign up for that one!

Or maybe La Pilg (or should I say le pélérinage)

INJ's idea for a Pilg in Louisiana sounds great for Ms Shuko - a bit far for the rest of us though...

you're filling out a form online that requires your date of birth and when you click the drop-down box to bring up your year of birth you have to scroll down to find it.....

Kim, you're catching up. When I click on those things I get a depth reading. 6' is becoming uncomfortably close. :)

I was filling in one that offered me the opportunity to say I was born in 1900!

I still love web forms that insist on postcodes for (republic of) Irish addresses. I know of a few parcels that have arrived at Irish houses addressed to, e.g. Mr M O'Donnell, 10 Ardan Bothar an Glas, Drogheda, Co Louth, Sorry Mr Postman, Amazon wouldn't let me order this unless I had a postcode.

[Phil] Even worse are forms that insist on only allowing US Zip Codes. Or only allowing US states, even though you have selected a country other than the US.

(nfras) I've never found that, and I've bought quite a bit of stuff from the USA (music, books). In fact the last order they sent twice. Anybody want a copy of the conductor score for The Chicken, arr. Kriss Berg?

Phil] I'm surprised that the phrase fitted in the postcode box!

[nfras] which reminds me that many Irish people I know have put 90210 in the postcode section :-)
[Merlyn] Even stupider are the web form designers that don't limit the number of characters.

Yes, if I am ever going to be in the UK, I'd let you know. Though, I don't know if I'll ever be. New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Metairie - all places in LA that are "close enough" for me. Shreveport and Monroe are a little far, but doable. Texas - Houston, Beaumont, Orange. Far, but doable - Seguin, New Braunfels, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth. . .

I've sometimes seen the addresses things that can be irritating toanybody. Yep, even sometimes to us in the US. I tell things that I don't live in the Ukraine. Silly forms. However, it's not usually those for me. It's those CAPTCHAs. I've had one in Greek, one we think was in something like Urdo or Arabic . . . some others with weird symbols.

Did you know there's a country with a name that states a fact about weather? ********************** Ukraine ************************* Get it? UK Rain E (rainy)

The field that irks me when compulsory is that of "County", for counties in the sense implied by the form ceased to exist in Scotland in the 70s, and Edinburgh is one of those places (like Manchester) where the city and county are much the same thing. Or, to put it another way, they lie within Unitary Authority Areas of the same name. So in the box I'm often reduced to writing "Scotland", when they let me get away with that, or "Midlothian" when they force a choice. Perhaps in the future I should paste in what I've written here...

I'm sure I've told the story before of how my credit card company managed to have my address as being in "Manchester, Lancashire, Lancashire". When I moved to Edinburgh, it changes to "Edinburgh, Midlothian, Lancashire"...

Pilgrimage in London proposed for 24th March. See discussion here: http://www.dunx.org/cgi-bin/forum?forum=game00074&displayStyle=york&tail=40#bottom
Please keep all discussion on the Orange site to avoid cross posting confusion

You can all talk about other things here, you know! How was your week?

Hard - preparing documents for government officials :(
Next week, I start my new job though :)

[Phil] excellent!
My week started in England with shopping and the best fish and chips for lunch in Cleethorpes on Monday, sailed across the North Sea at night (failed to see the Northern Lights despite peering out from the deck at nearly midnight), busy time at work (wrote loads, organised a reception for the sustainability team at the business school). Now: finishing off more loads of writing, and trying to plan ahead.

Started a blog. It's under my Second Life identity, though, so no-one need try looking for it.

Very very tough, for reasons that I'm not going to get into. But, on the bright side, not quite as tough as the week before.

[Raak] Is that a slog?

[Phil] Ha ha, yes, a SLog, hopefully not a slog! Just a few snaps of places in SL so far.

Back after a fortnight in Ethiopia, where Mrs INJ and I had wanted to go for years. A fascinating place – the oldest continuously Christian country in the world and the only African country never to be colonised (the Italians never subdued it in the 1930s). It has a fascinating culture with a history mixed with legend. This is the country of the Queen of Sheba, who was seduced by Solomon and whose son Menelik is said to have brought the Ark of the Covenant back from Israel. It is the country of the Axumite civilisation whose trade reached as far away as West Africa, Zanzibar, Sri Lanka and the Caucasus (as well as possibly supplying some of the ‘Nubian’ pharaohs) and who raised huge pillars over their tombs (the great stele in Axum is believed to be the tallest monolith ever made – although it probably fell and broke almost immediately after it had been erected). It is a country with a tradition of building churches and monasteries in the most inaccessible places; culminating in the rock-cut churches of Lalibela, created by cutting down into the solid rock from above – if they had been in Europe they would have been as well-known as Notre Dame.
It is intensely Christian for the most part; you have to have a reasonable knowledge of Christian tradition to get the most from the cultural aspects of the country. We went for Timkat – the major festival, which is at Epiphany in the Coptic/Julian calendar and celebrates both the adoration of the Magi and Christ’s baptism with mass-participation parades, street celebrations and young adult baptism. And yet it is tolerant of other faiths – there is a significant muslim minority (10%+) and a few Rastafarians and others and no obvious conflict.
It also has magnificent and varied scenery with mountains, lakes, rivers with spectacular waterfalls (the Tissisat falls on the Blue Nile share the meaning of their name with the local name for the Victoria Falls – Mosi oa Tunya, or ‘the smoke that thunders’) and vast empty depressions where rivers disappear into salt pans. The birdlife is still abundant and varied, although much of the larger wildlife is under threat from a large population with a tradition of hunting.
The downsides? Tourist infrastructure isn’t great – hotels have irregular water and electricity, roads are mostly poor (and occasionally atrocious), there is poverty, though no famine at the moment after a very good harvest – much earlier famine was caused by difficulties in distributing food rather than an absolute lack of it. The food is OK, especially if you like injira, the staple bread substitute, which bears a certain resemblance to cold wet flannel IMO.
Oh, and as a bonus, we went to a resort owned by Haile Gabreselassie and he was there, so we got to have a chat and a photo-opportunity.
If you aren’t too insistent on comfort, then go if you get the chance.

[INJ] Really interesting, thanks for sharing.

[Tuj]Indeed.

Solid steady snow in Derby now. Started with light and gentle about 3pm - now big wetter flakes - could be interesting if it keeps up overnight.

Had a choir concert last night - everyone got there fine, but I think nearly half the choir couldn't get home.

[Knobbers] Yikes.
[INJ] it's 'only' -4C here today. (I know Néa will better this statistic). Yesterday was the most startlingly clear, bright, cold chilly day I have seen since I was in Vermont in January 1988. I put some photos on my Facebook page, if you can see that. We had a couple of inches of powdery snow on Friday afternoon, but early yesterday morning it was -12C (according to the ladies in the bakery, who were in at 5am), rising to -10C by the time the windy miller and I headed out to his mill, and brilliantly sunny - one of those winter days when you get a big and welcome dose of sunlight. Random banks of fog drifting around the area added a thick and sparkling rime to the the lines of pollard willows and alders lining the dikes on our route there. The water container inside the mill was frozen - it was -8C in there. It was a truly spectacular weather day.

Apologies for writing like Jilly Cooper. I'm having the equivalent of a guilty McDonald's hamburger and reading her latest paperback at the moment.

[pen] yeah :-)

Just about to go and have a teleconference with our Ukrainian development team. They were reporting -30 last week, but then Kiev does have a bit of a heat island effect.

I do hope Raak is not on of those SLers who has to have an SL wife give SL birth! I saw a video of that and the baby came straigh out of the stomach . . . something very disturbing about that!

Was that really Raak? Perhaps he's having an out-of-body experience.

[!Raak] 'Ere, oo are you?

[pen] The whole point of SL is to have out-of-body experiences, I think. I suspect that SLRaak has somehow got free and is posting here along with RLRaak. But, in this virtual space (where we can't see the giveaway goatee) how will we be able to tell them apart?

SL Raak isn't called Raak, of course. I think of her as an imaginary version of myself.

[Raak] So do I.

Hidden text

Just typing that gave me the creeps

She has a male shape and skin as well, but rarely wears them.

Going out to bang a few drums shortly, then various errands and home. Snow and ice is still lying here and there but the roads are all clear.

The roads are clear here too. It's bluddy cold though. I saw a small car (one of the 'moped cars' with a teeny engine that requires no proper driving licence) driving across the ice on the dog-leg shaped dead-end remnant of river called the Binnenmaas by the mill this morning. And a quad-bike doing power-slides and throwing up powdered snow on the ice too.

[Pen] This is a serious question as frozen rivers are a rarity where I live. How do the drivers of such vehicles (or even skaters and skiers for that matter) know that the ice is sufficient to carry their distributed weight? It sound rather fraught to me.

[Duj] The stretch of water I refer to *was* a river but became a lake in the 13th century when the intrepid Dutch diverted the flow of the Maas at this point into another channel to improve its navigability. It could be considered a small lake now, although it also acts as a reservoir for water pumped out of the polder on its way to the river proper. So, all these 'frozen rivers' are actually frozen lakes and canals, where water can stand still for long periods, allowing it to freeze. As to the thickness of the ice, the Dutch are very organised about this kind of thing. Every stretch of water, it seems, has an 'icemaster' who will measure the thickness and deem it fit for skating. The Dutch rarely do things independently; they love to do everything together, so there aren't a lot of daredevils going it alone in defying the icemaster. And they are aware of where the water is deep or not deep - falling through the ice into shallow water is acceptable, it seems. As for me, I discovered the other night that years and years of being warned not to go onto dangerous British ice have left me with a terror of walking on even the safest Dutch ice. That's another activity that the windy miller will have to do without me. :o/
In other news, I have been measured up for sunglasses at the opticians, and have bought a pair of summer shoes on Ebay - ones that I was dithering about in a high street shop last summer, but have found at one-third of the price on Ebay. Now, if the temperature would just lift above freezing for the first time in a fortnight...

It just started snowing again. Arse.

[Penelope] Thanks. From memory of my short time in England falling through the ice did my shoes and confidence little good. Perhaps I was a sook? I'm off now to my local bottle shop (off licence) to purchase my week's vittles. I might wobble a bit but I'm confident that I will not sink. ;)

Blimey, it's hot.

Nearly a week has passed again. Apparently it's going to be scorchio on Thursday in the UK.

[Phil] Indeed. If it carries on like this, I'll be getting the box of summer clothes out of the attic.

It has warmed up to double figures on the rock, hopefully no more hard frosts - which will encourage the bloody grass to grow.

Then you'll be moaning about mowing the stuff! :)

It's more than three years since I was responsible for a lawn. I'm not sure if I miss it or not. The house we currently live in is a bit weird and unfriendly as far as outside space is concerned. The gravelled space in the back yard is designed to be looked at rather than walked on or used; I think the person who designed it wouldn't make the same design again.

I'm sure I don't miss it. We finally took out our front lawn last year and did fun things involving boulders and native plants what have various qualities such as being interesting looking year round. I also dug out swathes of the back yard and planted a soil-improving winter crop and will be attempting some vegetable gardening this year. The purist in me wants to do it without spending as much on soil amendments as the veg would have cost in the market. The neighbor's massive fir tree dropping needles all over doesn't do wonders for the pH, so I will probably have to do something.

[Dan] Stevie probably has a chainsaw you can borrow.

This comment will only interest those of us who live in the land of drought and flooding plains.
Warragamba dam, built to act as a reservoir for Sydney's drinking water rather than a flood mitigation device, is almost at a level that will trigger the spillways to do their job. To the best of my knowledge the last time this happened was in about 1998. Given that I don't live down stream of the dam I really shouldn't start singing 'Oh, happy days', but I will. :)

[Dujon] You could sell some to the SE of England.

[INJ] It'd make a change. The spillways have in fact been actuated and the additional water added to the Nepean/Hawkesbury river system has submerged bridges and brought about the expected flooding - minor at this stage.

[Dujon] Hoping you haven't been washed off your mountain up there. Looks dreadful.

[flerdle] No, m'dear, although the world did seem to move yesterday when I was nowhere near the kitchen table! I think though that it was but the garbage truck doing its rounds. ;)

Shorts and T-shirt today and mowing the lawn for the first time.

Over any given year where I live there must be thousands of birds fly over, take up temporary digs whilst migrating or live within a territory they have staked out in which my humble plot of land exists. Why do dead birds not litter my land and the local parks? Cockatoos are blessed with long lives whilst the smaller birds such as finches and wrens are supposed to be relatively short lived (they were when I used to breed them.) Over the last ten years I have seen two (2) deceased avians. One was a parrot in the local park and the other a juvenile butcher bird which I witnessed being attacked by other local birds.
Why is it so? Are there places scattered around the world where birds go to die? Is there an ornithologist in the house?

A couple of thoughts from an ameteur birder (but not an ornithologist, still less a twitcher). The ones flying over are pretty healthy, as are the ones you see staking out territories. Ill and infirm birds will tend to hide where predators can't see them, such as in thick undergrowth. Also dead birds don't tend to last long. Generally predator birds and rodents dispose of them quickly. They also decompose very quickly, bones and all, as the bones are mostly pretty fragile. Having said that, I reckon to find 3 or 4 dead birds a year in my ordinary suburban garden, and that doesn't count the drifts of feathers left when our local sparrowhawk has caught another little bird too intent on one of our feeders to keep a proper look out.

Salient points, INJ, I have no doubt. Ants too can do a very efficient demolition job on a carcass, but I doubt (in fact would reject) the idea that bird feathers are nutriment for scavengers. The reason for that attitude is that individual feathers, presumably resulting from natural 'moulting', are common and most certainly not a part of a drift of feathers produced by either direct attack or the efforts of scavengers. Who hasn't come across a particularly attractive feather from time to time and wondered what type of bird lost it?

[Dujon] Indeed, I'm sure that in your neck of the woods ants will be particularly efficient at cleaning up. I agree feathers are a bit different, but they must be destroyed fairly quickly if only because otherwise we'd be up to our necks in them. Also they are pretty much pure keratin which, despite its toughness, is none the less protein and so crying out to be recycled. I'm now into speculation, but I would suspect insects & bugs are likely to be the cleaning crew and will reprocess the feathers into chitin etc.
Surely there's someone in the morniverse who can add a bit more scientific rigour at this point.

Big fleas have little fleas,
Upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas,
and so, ad infinitum.
The_Siphonaptera

[pen] My old dad used to recite that one to me..

[Softers] Mine too. Is it a dad thing?

When dads recite cute poems
To their children oh so clever
They then recite them to their own
And on and on for ever.

[p,S & P] Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your most edifying contributions. ;)

[Duj] Graag gedaan. I love the collective brain of this place.

So do I, though it's often somewhat of the variety known as scatter.

Poems I learned when I was little were "Eletelephony," "Ooey Gooey," and "A Peanut Sat on a Rail Road Track." The one my Daddy really liked to recite was "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts."

I enjoy all this doggerel
As much as tasty custard
I like to read the silly words
That [Pen] and [Dujon] mustered.

If all the world were apple pie
And all the sea were ink
And all the trees were bread and cheese
What would we have to drink?

I find it all so flattering
That you so like that poem
But this could take a battering
If scoured with fine-toothed comb.

how about a new game (to replace the terminally ill holiday anagrams) in which we can record the wonderful aphorisms passed on by our parents (whether in verse or prose). It might make a useful repository of knowledge. Or it might not.
One favourite from my dad is "If we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs."

[Phil] +1 for that.

Just come back from a long weekend in Reims, tasting champagne, partly paid for by Mrs INJ's sister as a joint significant birthday present (late for her, early for me). Just got to arrange the party now!

[INJ] Think of the headaches and the expense...!!
Just got back from a weekend with my mum in England. I did the 'SH' of POSH with a forced upgrade on the ferry to England - I had to take an outside 5-berth cabin with double bed, bigger bathroom and satellite TV as a solo occupant instead of an inside cabin with 2 bunkbeds, no TV and cubicle bathroom. As I'd had a v. busy day at work with no time for lunch, I celebrated with steak, chips and a huge glass of red wine in the brasserie on board, and woke up just as we were sailing into the Humber past Spurn Point lighthouse. *sigh*

It's lovely to see that we still have stoics contributing to the site. 8-)

I just tried to end the Holiday Anagrams game, but the usual didn't work.

[Raak] I've put it out of its misery, which - thanks to the miracles of modern technology - I did from the comfort of the toilet, appropriatly enough.

[Phil] Go for it, while there's a slot.

Cleaning cupboards, laundrifying (it's a good drying day) and cursing the internet radio as it keeps cutting out during the best bits.

I've just discovered (via AVMA) that there is a good chance that cfm is female. That led me to wonder to myself: why/how do I create mental images of MCers, based purely on their posts on this site (and others)? And why do I oh-so-frequently turn out to be wrong?

[Phil] Absoliutely - Uncle Korky had me fooled for a long time with the name and the false whiskers, and there aren't that many Philippas around either.
Also, if you follow CdM's 'helpful reference' on AVMA you'll see that the question of cfm's gender may not be resolved.

It is amazing how often first impressions can be wrong. I wonder if some in the Morniverse deliberately conceal their true gender/sex whichever applies?

[INJ] Indeed, hence my "good chance" comment. I don't actually make assumptions, as far as I'm aware, but I do have a "mind's eye" that seems to kick in subconsciously. Call it a woman's intuition if you will.

Things seem to be 'working' after an upgrade, but I got enough error messages I'm a bit uncertain. At least I remembered to not have the magic quotes thing turn itself back on.

Things indeed weren't 'working', but now they are. Apologies for any inconvenience etc.

[rab] Grateful thanks that the site is here at all - it's somewhere for me to come when I'm trying to avoid converting a 'stream of consciousness' from the Dean into something approaching an introduction for the latest issue of the alumni mag. Inspiration needed - and I'm sure I'll find it by writing limericks and doggerel.

Well, that was an interesting couple of days. I may have found a house to move to, 5 miles from work, and a school for the kids to go to, which lies 80% of the way to work. It also happens to have had the 2nd best A-level results in the country for a state school last year. Lots of forms to fill in now :-(

[Phil] Jolly good. Here in NL, house prices are dropping (9% this year, apparently, but they are grossly over-priced) and the windy miller is getting busier and busier. Also, I get a permanent work contract this summer (after 3 years of one-year contracts) which makes it easier for us to get a mortgage. I may have a new house with a BATH and a DISHWASHER by the end of the year!

[pen] If only I could get a mortgage :( It's rental for us for a while yet.

In gratitude for all the tens of thousands of pounds worth of business I've put their way over the years, Marriott Hotels gave me a couple of tickets to the London Sevens Rugby at Twickenham on Sunday. I'd just like to say that the 15 minutes in which Fiji demolished the All-Blacks was the most exciting bit of rugby I've ever watched.

Is anyone here particularly knowledgeable about Venice? MsCdM, MsCdM junior and I are going to a conference in Florence at the end of next month, and we are then planning also to visit Venice. The only places I have been in Italy are Rome and Turin, so I am interested in any recommendations -- if anyone has specific hotels they could recommend, that would be particularly useful. We're happy to pay for location and comfort (up to a point; we are certainly not looking for recommendations to 5 star hotels).

I stopped at the Hotel Al Sole on the Fondamenta Minotta which is walking distance from the station. It was some years ago but it was good and relatively cheap (nothing is cheap in Venice). There was a family run restaurant a couple of doors away which was one of the best around we discovered having eaten elsewhere.

We stayed in a cheap place in San Polo, so no help with accommodation here :-) . We had little idea and didn't mind the adventure so turned up and booked a place at the visitor booth at the station. But I've generally found when planning trips that online accommodation sites are fine to give an idea of what's around, and perhaps get a good deal. Anywhere in Santa Croce, San Polo or San Marco will put you in the thick of things and be easily accessible from the station, especially if you travel light like I do. The train from Florence is very quick and regular, so no problem getting there and back, we stayed for two nights coming from our Florence base and that did not feel too short a time, but it would have been good to stay a little longer since we accidentally turned up during the Biennale! The city is very tiny and easy to get around on foot or by vaporetto.

[pen] We just moved (see MCiOS for details) and I am pleased to report it has a good bath - but I'm sure it's easier to get your bath fix by going to the UK than visiting us :-) .

[Flerdle] Thanks for the offer. My nearest alternative is only 20 miles away, so I'm afraid your offer of hot water comes some way down the list at present. Who's to say wherther or not things will change?
[CdM] When my mum and I 'did' Venice, we stayed in Treviso - a pleasant enough town a couple of stops up the railway line, and travelled in to Venice by train (it's a spectacular approach across the water - and stepping out of the 1940s railway station into 16th century venice took our breath away). This gave us the advantage of not having to pay Venice prices for hotels, nor for dinner (if we chose not to). I'd echo Flerdle's advice - read the 'traveller reviews' on TripAdvisor or Expedia.

So much has changed since last friday, not least of which is the weather in the UK, accompanied by about 3 inches of grass growth in my back garden. Also, it looks likely that I shall be taking on the rental of a house "down south" (roughly here) in about 2 weeks. Subject to rustling up a load of money ...

[Phil] It's bloody lovely round there. I worked near Ramsbury for a while, and at Hopgrass Farm on the A4 just outside Hungerford for a bit too. (Used to be owned by Johnny Morris, apparently, and I didn't know at the time, but my dad was friends with his son at Art School in the late 50s-early 60s and stayed with the Morrises at Lambourn. JM also used to own The Pelican, the pub at Froxfield on the A4 (my favourite road ever). The windy miller & I stayed there a couple of years ago. They didn't seem too bothered by the rain coming through the roof.) Anyway - good luck with the move. I hope you like it down there as much as I did.

(Phil, pen) If you go shopping in Hungerford go in the morning because it's murder in the afternoon.

That's awful, Rosie. Literally. I was working in the Savernake Forest that day.

It is amazing how the word "Hungerford" is etched into our minds. We found it hard to consider any houses that were up for rent there, simply because it would remind us of that every single day. turns out that the house we're going for is technically in Little Hungerford, but that was subsumed into Hermitage as house-building filled in the gaps between villages.

How horrible.
I had not heard of that, probably because ten days earlier was Hoddle Street, which is just a short drive from here. He wiles away his time in prison working out ways to continue his career as a vexatious litigant, thereby popping up in the vews often enough to keep the wound from fully healing. Parole in 2014? Somehow I think not.

Vhat would be news, vbviously.

(Chalky) You strike me as an unlikely lumberjack. The admittedly awful joke was very current at the time, as these things are.

I cycled 100 miles yesterday. Wall-clock time 8h32, time in motion (what my bike computer records) 6h58m54. Free beer at the end, then collapsed in a heap.

(Raak) V good. How many times round the cathedral was that?

MmmmmMMMmmMMmmmMmmmmm.....free beer :-) Well done, sir!

[Rosie] Just once, via the north Norfolk coast. It's surprising how many hills there are in England's flat bits.

[Raak] The merest mention of N Norfolk always makes me think of Hunstanton and twitch inwardly - the most confusing and disturbing place I've ever been to.

[Raak] Well done! So you'll be out here for Around the Bay, then?

[Phil] Knowing "Sunny Hunny" well, I can see why you think it disturbing, but why confusing? [Raak] Well done! I am exhausted just thinking about it.

I've just discovered they had photo points set up, taking pictures of everyone. [flerdle] There's a small matter of a 10,000 mile ride to get there.

[Boolbar] I tend to know more or less which direction I am facing, which my family discovered recently when I stopped in mid-conversation, looked around the room and said "Sorry, I just couldn't work out which way was south for a moment". Hunstanton threw me, as I wasn't concentrating, but knew I was in Norfolk for two days. Therefore I got a bit startle by seeing the sun setting over the sea as I looked out from the shore. It took me a while to get my head round it, but it continued to freak me out for the rest of the day. And still does, to be honest.

[Phil] Oh I see. Hunstanton drives you around the bend. :)

[Raak] If you start soon, you'd easily get here in time for next year's :-)

Just received an email from the hosting people. My interpretation of their breathless gobbledygook is that you may discern slightly slower page loading than normal. Can't say I've noticed.

I saw a Google Car today, with the giant golfball of cameras pointing in all directions mounted on top. It drove right into the private parking area behind my house, and out again. So I might at some point see myself on Google Street View. I wonder how slickly automated their process is. Is the Car continuously uploading everything, which is then processed into Street View images in seconds?

Just had a look on Google Maps, and their current picture of the scene is from 2008. So, four years to revisit a tiny private entrance in a suburb of a small town. There must be some interesting estimate to be made from that of how many miles of road there are in the world, or how many Google Cars there are.

For the record, I really like Hunstanton - site of many a good family holiday!

[UK] that really did it, didn't it? More than a week with nowt to say. For the record, I really like Mablethorpe. Sunny here in Rotterdam today, but cool. Or cold.

[pen] I know! What happened there?! Never been to Mablethorpe myself. If we're tipping the nod to UK holiday resorts, I'm going to endorse Barmouth, and see how long this kills the conversation for!

Rather partial to a long weekend in Lyme Regis myself.

Just come back from a long weekend in Pembrokeshire. I'd put a few votes in for St David's/Whitesands.

Europie (pronounced YORRuhpee) beach on the Isle of Lewis gets a big vote from me - in fact, pretty much any beach on the Outer Hebrides.

(Uncle K) Got sunburnt there as a small boy on holiday in 1947, so I was told but can't actually remember.

[Phil] I spent a week on Lewis/Harris one June. Glorious white sand beaches with not a soul in sight for miles and a temperature of about 10.

Yesterday, Sunday, my wife and I involved ourselves in a clean up of our garage and workshop. This sudden activity was a result of the local council announcing a 'collection' day, which involves the collection of all and any junk which won't fit into the normal bin - at no charge. It also brings out the scavengers among our population (the first five or six articles we took up to the road were gone within five minutes.)
That's the background. One of the later jobs was to move a dilapidated old cupboard/drawer combination from the workshop. My wife did the initial moving of the thing - it was surprisingly heavy for its size - from its position against the brick wall against which it stood. Me, being the lazy sod that I am, was 'having a rest' and a restorative dose of wine. She popped up into my quiet place and informed me that behind the cupboard was living a gecko. Naturally I did the reverse pop and ambled down the stairs to have a dekko. She was right but at the same time wrong. There were three leaf-tailed geckos clinging grimly to the brickwork. Supposedly these wee attractive reptiles are common in this neck of the woods but because of their superb camouflage are rarely noticed. The interesting part of this rather long post is that they were of three different colours. One was grey, one was a mid to dark green and the last a very dark chocolate colour. The latter could have been a very dark green; I'm sure that I'm a bit colour blind in the green/brown range when it comes to the darker shades, particularly in poor light.
I have done a bit of a search on the 'Net but cannot find anything that might indicate that geckos are like chameleons - in the sense of adapting their colouring to the background. Is there a herpetologist in the house?

Here's the thing. Mlle nights and I were watching television a few nights ago, when she turned to me and said "You know, it's the oddest thing. When I was in Paris last week, there were a load of British people on the métro."

"Of course there were, dear, there's British people everywhere."

"Yes, but it was at Château d'Eau, they all seemed quite over excited, and there's nothing remotely interesting there. Do you think it had anything to do with that silly game you play with the Tube?"

And so, I'm back. How is everyone?

[nights] Good to see you! I am led to wonder: has anyone really gone on a Château d'Eau Pilg? And what do everyone else's significant others think/know of MCing?

I'll admit to getting off the rame at Château d'Eau and then getting on the next one, just in order to say I'd been there.
Mrs INJ just seems to go along with MCing with a 'well, it means he doesn't go out drinking or womanising'* resignation. However, when driving in France we do mark the water towers on a 0-4 stars scale.
*This is almost always true

Another silent week in MC5-land. What-ho, chaps!

Well, the weather is iffy but at least Murray is grinding on at Wimbledon. Is that worth mentioning?

(Softers) I suppose so but I prefer to watch the ladies. All that grumble and grunt.

You can get grunt from engines. And I am willing to grumble for a very small fee, without the bother of travelling to Wimbledon. BTW, My mum has gone to watch the tennis today. C'mon Tim! (oblig.)

Where does all the ruddy dust come from? is a depressing and never-ending task to keep shifting it from places where I don't want it to places where I don't care about it.

We had a full sunny day here today. It's almost a shock to the system.

(pen) Where indeed? The answer, I fear is mostly our own bodies. And the Sahara.
(flerdle) Didn't know you were over here. :-)

*announces cake break*
Gelukkige Verjaardag Penelopij!

Today is also Teddy Bears' Picnic Day. So two reasons to celebrate!

[All] Cheers. I've got a massive craving for cake this week... huge wodges of it (and seconds), mostly chocolate, but the occasional coffee and walnut. I made scones last night (on my birthday) as it was all I had time for (and there was new jam), but I think the baking of a full-blown coffee and walnut cake is called for this weekend. Not sure if I have any cake tins anymore - I remember one lot went rusty and had to be binned, and I can't remember if I bought any more.

[pen] Happy Yesterday!

Een beetje laat.

The cake is a lie.

It's reality here, Phil. This wet weekend has been officially declared the penelope cake festival extension. I've found my cake tins (thankfully not yet rusty) and will be turning the mixer all the way up to 11.

*originally typed 'cake tines' and wondered if there was a Freudian reason behind my thoughts of the large amount of cake that you'd need a tractor to shift.*

I've just been spooked to see someone using my real name to play a move in the limericks game - and had to check the time stamp to make sure it wasn't me. (It wasn't, unless I was sleep-surfing last night)

[Pen] When I saw the name on the front screen I assumed it was you in a (very) late night unguarded moment.

(pen) You would never use such clunking scansion. Would you? Not all God's children got rhythm.

Can I have another go at the sodding O'Limp-dicks, or at least the media coverage thereof? Well, I'm going to any way. The first five pages of the Grauniad, supposedly a thinking person's paper, were devoted to the activities of a load over-muscled herberts and herbertines doing stupid boring things. The entirety of BBC1 output is devoted to this nonsense and the drains have overflowed into BBC2 to the extent that University Challenge, an antidote to this brain-numbing bollocks, seems to have been suspended, to be replaced by the displaced EastEnders, an everyday story of thickos buggering up their lives, and which seems to amuse the dimwits. Will we win any medals, gold, silver, bronze, cast iron, medium manganese steel, cupro-nickel, duralumin, bakelite, neoprene, mahogany? Please Do Not Ask This Question As A Hailstorm Of Profanity Often Gives Offence.

[Rosie] I'm one of the people that's delighted to have something worth watching on TV for a change. I'm also starting to enjoy sports I've not really watched before (basketball, volleyball etc) and am rather proud of the improvements the British contestants (I refuse to use the ghastly "Team GB" tag) have made, men's gymnastics being a prime example. I find most sport lacks any thrill these days, but I always really enjoy the Olympics.

I'd compete for a bakelite medal. In ambling, perhaps.

(Phil) But for the media overkill I, like most people I know, would be simply indifferent to the whole thing and just ignore it. But the entire front and subsequent eight pages of the Grauniad, of all papers, plus the Olympic supplement, are devoted to these activities. They are about to receive an abusive email and I imagine it won't be the only one, not by a long chalk. They won't print it, but they'll know what I think.

[Rosie] Ah, I avoid all that kind of annoyance by never buying a newspaper. The radio, the internet, and my lovely internet friends keep me pretty well informed. The last of those providing the most balanced view, especially when averaged out (my Facebook friends range from Radical Stalinist to White Van Man).

I apologise for my over-generalisation. I do buy local newspapers when I'm on holiday, especially in France.

(Phil) I don't get a newspaper for news but more for views and opinions and to get ideas from. News, I find, is best from Radio 4. I might just about persuade myself to switch on the telly if there are things like floods or other mayhem.

Anyone else feel that the Film Club game may have run its course?

[UK] Fine with me to kill it.

And me, for what it's worth, being no good at it.

I've been enjoying the Olympics hugely (helped by the fact that I'm between assignments and so have more time). So I would like to record that I feel privileged to have watched arguably the greatest race in the history of athletics. The mens 800m had not only a world record, but also every athlete in the race recorded the fastest ever time for someone finishing in that position in a race. Quite astonishing. Move over Mr Bolt.

In addition, every athlete recorded either a world record, a national record or a personal best.

As much as I love Film Club, it has tailed off, and I think we've used virtually every available category over the past few years.

Could we perhaps replace it with a variant...? How about a round of Benefit Gigs, where we select an appropriate topic, and have to suggest the bands / artistes on the line-up?

Well, this has obviously been another of my infamous conversation-killers! Alternatively, I don't recall seeing a game anywhere where players could showcase whole limericks - any interest in that?

(UK) Not a bad idea. Any subject. Discreet filth allowed. Off you go!

[Rosie] Thanks! At least one supported for Limerick Showcase - anyone care to kill Film Club? (Any last objections, speak now!)

I say kill the film club. But then I don't think I have voting rights any more, as I do tend to forget to pop by.

This time due to moving house - the last flat leaked, from the roof and the bathroom wall. I am fairly handy, as blokes go, but that was beyond my capabilities.

In other news, how's the weather? Strasbourg is melting. Literally melting. Every summer this happens, we get a huge heatwave and everyone panics. IBut I can't hear them from inside this fridge.

(nights) Strasbourg therefore consists of what we chemists call a "low-melting solid". May I be a little less than gobsmacked by your 32°C with low-moderate humidity given that it's been nearly 30°C here in the grounds of Plas Huws?

[Rosie] Oh very well. It just seems hotter because of people's reaction to news of the heatwave. I got text messages saying "Best of luck!" Luck with what? I don't understand.

Another sweaty one here today with some rather feeble apologetic thunder. I see Strasbourg is even hotter and more humid than yesterday. Er, bonne chance.

Lived up to expectations, certainly. But fortunately my client had the air con on. The good news is, it's finally raining! Hooray!

It was 34.5C on Saturday afternoon here in Zuid Holland; only 32C on Sunday afternoon, and a positively chilly 27C yesterday. No significant rain yet, dammit. We swam in the river on Sunday morning - it was the nicest open-water swim I've ever had.

The first tentative whiffs of spring here today, and a very pleasant change it has been. After 7-10 years of drought, this has been a return to the olden-days of very wet winters. Do not like those. But today was lovely, at least the bits that I ventured outside in.

Mind you it will probably be washed away in more downpours next week, if the gales don't do the job first. *glum*

[flerdle] Perhaps at your place it's been a normal wet winter. My own castle has found a normal dry winter, although June and July were reasonably damp (75 & 15 mm respectively). So far August has produced not a drip nor a drop of precipitation - our last rain was on 24 July (1.8mm.) Even with the winds we have had the late wattles are flowering nicely making wonderful yellow splotches along the street scape. Spring is just around the corner . . . hurrah!

So what was the last good meal you had at a restaurant?

A couple of weeks ago, on a very hot Friday evening when the back of the house (and therefore the kitchen) was too hot to be able to do any cooking, the windy miller and I went out to our favourite local restaurant, the Drie Linden. I had a bloody lovely chunk of grilled cod fillet in a mustard sauce. We sat outside on the back terrace, looking north over the fields of our island, Hoeksche Waard. There were half a dozen hares jumping around in the adjacent field, a kids' end-of-summer camp bonfire in the middle distance, and the flaming stacks and chimneys of the Shell Pernis Refinery at Europoort in the far distance. We're going there again tonight, because it's our first wedding anniversary today :oD

Last night I had the trout. It was even better than the cod, although I wish the chef had seasoned and buttered the inside of the fish - the part I was going to eat - rather than the skin, which is the part that I didn't eat.
A reasonable creme brulee afterwards - but unremarkable. And a good cup of coffee. The windy miller and I are going to look at a house for sale three doors away from this restaurant. If we buy it, we won't be able to afford to go and eat there any more.

Happy anniversary then, penelope!

[pen] Seconding what nights said, in memory of the passing of the old dating updates posted to the Morniverse =)

I've only just beginning to realise what I have missed out on during my singleton's life. We're going to a 45th anniversary party of some friends on Sunday - if the windy miller and I get to that anniverary, we'll be in our mid-90s.

[pen] You are forgetting that there is always the spectre of divorce. That can make a big dent in your finances, wreck your social circle, raid your pension and alienate some or all of your children and it may not be your fault. It is always nice to see couples that have made it, though.

I don't believe in ghosts. Besides, our social circles are in two different countries, our finances are divisible, our pensions are separate, we don't have kids. And we don't intend to.

[pen] you have it covered, then. Nevertheless, separate finance and pensions are not immune from vindictive ex-wives (or husbands for that matter) when it gets to court.

Bit chillier here today. Supposed to get warmer for the weekend, so that's OK

I saw that England had got noticeably cooler over the past couple of days. Temperatures are still holding up on this side of the Narrow Sea. 13C this morning, blustery, showers expected. Must.... buy... thermals....

Daughter has first practice with new church choir tonight. Royal Berkshire County Show tomorrow :-)

I will scorekeep at a roller derby bout. The rest of the time I will be ill. *koff, gasp*

I am so sick of the rain here. Just go away.

I will sleep, do laundry, and cook a free-range French chicken that is taking up too much space in the freezer.

I will head down the allotment and see if I can dig over and compost another vegetable bed or two ready for the winter planting. And, weather permitting, cut the grass.

I might try planting some late purple sprouting broccoli. I've been told I may get a small crop in March if I do it now - and they won't be prone to the caterpillars that ate the whole bloody lot that I planted in June.

I am very glad it was a drier weekend than I thought it would be. I managed to plant out some of the seedlings, now that it is warmer and the sun is actually getting to the vege patch (small back yard, high fences). The challenge will be keeping the slugs and snails at bay, I think, and stopping the blackbirds from ploughing up the entire bed.

You're lucky. Last May, we scarified the lawn, hollow-tined it, fertilised it and overseeded it. Then we went for a three week holiday, expecting to find the grass knee deep when we got back. It didn't rain. We returned to find bare earth and a bevy of portly pigeons.

Is anyone else in England feeling like they're heading back towards drought? I think it's only rained twice in the last 3 weeks, since I fed my lawn. I'll probably get the sprinkler out tomorrow, it's getting so bad.

(Phil) Only 4.7 mm rain this month (average 66). Good - don't have to cut the grass so often. I do nothing to encourage the growth of anything in my garden whatsoever. The only things I apply are shears, secateurs and ripsaws, having a hedge and a number of bushes. The idea of watering the grass is to me as absurd as leaving stuff out for the dear foxes. 2003 was a good summer, hot and dry and everything went straw-like with great cracks in the "lawn". Boo to gardening! My garden is actually quite tidy, believe it or not.

No danger of drought after the wettest summer for ages. There was a "hosepipe" ban here until the middle of April. What is a hosepipe? Some people got ever so upset but what do they expect if they leave water out to dry on the grass.

[Rosie] I'm not so keen on the rest of the gardening malarkey, but I do like my stripy lawn, cut with a 50 year old mower.

Went out and did stuff with friends today after mom's memorial service...she had died on the 15th...

[Giertrud] I'm very sorry to hear about your mom. Keep doing the stuff with friends. And keep coming here.

ty penelope

(Giertrude) As pen says, keep and value your friends but on the other hand don't pretend nothing has changed. You may find yourself more at home with one or two new people. My mother was widowed for 27 years and had to find a few new activities and friends which she did successfully. We can all do it and I wish you all strength.

Sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. It is surprising how much we do either for, or because of, or by reference to our mothers and the loss of that key reference point throws our lives off balance for a while. You will recover that equilibrium over time. Until then, focus on what is necessary for you and for those you love, take comfort from the familiar (Glow-worms!) and try not to dwell on the loss.

10 days with no conversation! Time to break the ice.

Is it that cold where you are, Phil?

We haven't had a general poetry game for a while. At the moment there's just Wretchedly Difficult Poetry and Slightly Less Wretchedly Difficult Poetry, both at Orange, taking about a year per poem. Shall I compare us to a plate of eels?

[Software] It was, until this evening when we got our central heating fixed - oh frabjous day!

[Raak] Better that than a surfeit of lampreys.

[Raak] Aren't Glo-worms and Limericks enough for you?

[Kim] Ok, but apart from the glow-worms and limericks...and haiku...

We could come up with a poetry form that combines all three ... the glimmeraiku ...