It was Wednesday, I think, we had very hot thundery weather, torrential storms all around us but only a few hot drops of rain chez windy miller. Thursday - I think the neighbour's weather station recorded more than an inch of rain. It was spectacular.

[Bis] Bonjour. (Not 'ow-do' - hoedoe - as the Brabantsers confusingly say instead of 'bye'.)

(pen) Ah, those weather charts were right, then, though I'm not sure exactly where you are in The Netherlands.

I looked at central Europe on, I think, my Friday. There was a spectacular string of storms in an elbow, almost a right-angle, from north of Hamburg curving down to southwest of Saltzburg then a bit of a gap to western France (SE from Paris) where a smaller but significant area was also producing much electrical activity.
Given that the lightning markers are coloured from white to yellow to orange to three shades of red depending on six 20-minute periods it was a most colourful sight.

[Rosie] South of the Netherlands; the big islands of Zeeland just to the west of us, and to the North, via the big Haringvliet bridge, Rotterdam. We would be able to see the lights of the bridge if it wasn't for our neighbours' house.

Saltzburg sb Stuttgart.

I see your point, but it would be difficult to answer the interviewer's questions while playing a trombone or french horn. Perhaps you could join in one of the brass parts by playing it on those Irish Armpit-Actuated Bagpipes. Now I think on it, the vigorous Clouseau parrot-inflation arm movements would augment any interview process, thunderstorm or no thunderstorm.

So what's everyone been up to? I've had three weeks off - spent 8 days in the UK. Ate fish and chips by the seaside watching the rain and visited the Mary Rose at Portsmouth's Historic Naval Dockyard - the best museum I have ever visited.

[pen] I just got back from a road trip across the north of Pennsylvania (and a small bit of Western New York). Quite lovely, and I'll be uploading some pictures soon-ish.

Chewing my own leg off so I can escape work and go to Florida for a week.

[Stevie] Splendid. I have worked so bloomin' hard this year on supporting my department with all of its projects (*ahem*) that I have been unable to use up my vacation days at the correct rate. So I've had a bit of a session in the working hours part of the SAP platform, which fell over only twice as I tried to use it. As a result I'm having at least a week off per month between now and the end of the year.(Smug, I know, but this is a benefit of being a Dutch university employee).

Warmest day of the month here, 24.5°, which frankly is crap for a highest-in-August and the second worst ever, i.e. post-1983.

(Stevie) Whoa! Have you seen this?

[Rosie] It's that time of year. Time to fire up the genny and clean it's pipes out. Hopefully it either blows itself out or goes someplace else before I have to drive through it in a week and a bit.

I can't help feeling that building a wall in Texas would help stop these foreign storms.

(Bismarck) Some wall.

So how was everyone's week? And what's planned for the weekend? If I apply myself, I could be making jam for the fourth Sunday in a row - it requires a foraging expedition by cycle from the windy miller's mill tomorrow (but first, the bicycle must be retrieved from another windmill where the apprentice left it a couple of weeks ago). Pffft.

My week was good, thanks pen. I'll be making crabapple jelly this weekend

My week sucked balls but tomorrow I plan to vent my spleen by putting three intrepid investigators into the middle of a den of vile cultists doing things so unspeakable to anyone falling into their clutches that the very minds of all will be torn asunder by the mere contemplation of the foul ... but I've said too much. Delta Green day. My favorite day of the month. Crippling SAN loss all round if it all plays out properly.

Blackberry-picking expedition very successful. I bled only twice. Jamming tomoorow then. And I got a tax rebate. A good weekend so far.

Sun blacked out; Texas flooded; Los Angeles on fire; N Korea about to launch nuclear missiles. You'd think God was upset with America about something.....

The Russians have planted a flag in this forum. What will you do about it?

You've probably spotted by now that I tend only to drop by whenever I fiddle with the server config. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that I'm now running mariadb instead of mysql.

How's tings?

Fine, although it would be nice to create around another 20 hours in the day. Although if that was 20 more hours of being shouted at by the world's loudest six-year old, I might well revise that opinion.

Can we not usefully employ the six year old to shout over Nigel Farage or Trump or something?

Hexamegaphone.

[Phil] Paraphrasing something I just saw on Facebook: If Irma destroys Mar-a-Lago while leaving the rest of Florida unscathed, I will hand in my atheist card.

OS upgraded... is this 'thing' still on?

Another test

(rab) So you speak Czech?

For the first time in I don't know how many years, BT have sent me a "phone book". How quaint!

Yeah, we just got one too. Had no idea where to put it.

I put mine in the bin.

After three years in this house, I FINALLY found a window cleaner to do the ones I can't reach. You cannot imagine how happy this makes me.

*puzzled* Can't you just tie squeegees and sponges to the windmill blades?

[Stevie] We don't live in a windmill. They're too full of machinery - and drafty gaps to ventilate the dust out - for anyone to live in. However, I have often considered how convenient it would be to attached the wet laundry to the sails and have them dried and straightened at the same time. Less ironing to do is always a good thing.