General Chat

Good Morning/Good Evening.

Hope all my Aussie friends are bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning, and that my pommie friends had a good day.
I expect SueMaid is up to her neck in cup cakes,jelly, blancmange, custard, ginger bread men and dolly mixtures.
I have a mental vision of Allan walking the darkened streets in his pyjamas and wellies, and Paddington's yellow hat!
Berona will have been up all night gliding around the living room practising the pase-doble, fox trot, quick step, tango, and cha cha.

I did some work in the garden, planted some bulbs etc.
Will spend the next few days on my knees - not praying for salvation, it's too late. I have to lay new carpet along the hall, up the stairs, along the landing, up more stairs, and along another landing. I may never be seen again............

Regards
Tec.

Good morning/evening:))

I'm up bright and early as I'll be going down to my daughter's to help set up the party. This is the first children's party she's given as in the past the children's birthdays have been celebrated by family. She's quite nervous:) I'm looking forward to seeing the children's faces because their father has got them a farmyard for a couple of hours with lambs etc. for them to feed and cuddle. Poor animals:)) It's quite expensive to hire but this is what their father does - spends a few hours a week with them and spends lots of dosh on them. I could go on for hours about that but I won't:)) A friend's father enjoys face painting and has offered to paint any little face that's there so that should be fun. I do wonder what happened to "pin the tail on the donkey" and "musical chairs" but I guess things change.

Tec that sounds like an enormous job. Still I think my OH would swap you because he has to gear himself up to do the window-sills and skirting boards and he's dreading it.

Posh, do you remember your life in Cyprus or were you too young?

Hope you all enjoy your day/evening.

Sue xx

Hi Sue,
I expect you will all have some really good laughs at the party. Little ones are so funny to watch. The farm thing sounds good, I bet they'll love that. Face painting is something else my daughter does. She trained as a graphic designer originally, so is quite good at anything arty.
They have City Farms here, in London and other big cities. Lots of farm animals that city kids perhaps would not get close to normally.
So both your OH and I will be on our knees then - he has my sympathy - it's hard work down there. Oh well best get it done.
Have a great time everyone at the party - I hope the birthday boy enjoys himself. Please tell him "Happy Birthday" from Wales.
I promise Allan and I will not turn up as clowns - much as we'd like to.

Tec.

Good evening/morning everyone.

I'm on later than usual as we had a power cut last night and none of our clocks upstairs have a battery back-up! Figures flashing, and I got up at what I thought was my normal time, stumbled downstairs to find it was 6.00am.

I went out to go for a walk, gu\ot as far as the Roadhouse when the wind and rain picked up, thought to myself "s*d this for a game of soldiers", bought the paper and returned home just now.

Tec you have obviously seen photos of me when I'm dressed up for walking!

SueMaid, I hope that your daughter's party goes well...and if the children don't behave threaten them with Tec and I: that should either restore order or render them helpless with laughter!

Hello, Tec and Allan:))

Oh d**n those English cricketers and the horses they rode in on - looks like the Ashes won't be coming back with our cricket team:(( Well unless a miracle happens.

Thanks for your birthday wishes to my grandson and I'm sure to enjoy the party.

Sue xx

G'Day Allan,
You should get a labrador, not only would he keep the cats in order, but would get you up. Mine comes thundering into the bedroom at 7am every morning on the dot - sits by me, and biffs me 'till I get up - he won't take no for an answer.
I do understand that 7am is the middle of the afternoon for you!
I haven't seen photo's of you on a moonlight walk, but one of your neighbours e-mailed the details.

Regards
Tec.

The Ashes are not quite in the bag yet Sue, but it looks promising,

We do need something to lift our national pride at the moment

Tec.

Hi SueMaid, Tec

I don't need a labrador,Tec, because if ti is chilly the 'old' cat sleeps on our bed and gets up when I do. He waits for me at the bottom of the drive until I get back from my walk and then follows me closer than any dog: its usually because he's hungry and wants me to feed him! I keep him half starved, just for the affection lol

(That last is not true so pleas no posts saying what a vile example oh humanity I am!!)

Ashes? Ashes? Ahh cricket! I once heard a convoluted explanation of cricket as given by an Englishman to an American. It was all about one team being in ant other team trying to get them out so that they could go in.

It was nearly as convoluted as my baby skunk joke....which of course I would not dream of telling even though it is innocuous, but does contain the groan factor

Allan

Allan............

A blonde heard that milk baths would make her beautiful,
She left a note for her milkman to leave 15 gallons of milk.
When the milkman read the note, he felt there must be some mistake,
He thought she probably meant 1.5 gallons so he knocked on the door to clarify the point.

The blonde came to the door and the milkman said " Did you mean 1.5 gallons?"
The blonde said " I want 15 gallons, I'm going to fill my bathtub with milk, and take a milk bath,"

The milkman asked " Do you want it pasteurised?"

The blonde said "No, just up to my boobs, I can splash it in my eyes."

Tec.

You'll be in strife again, Tec. Blonde's of the world unite....Tec and I would like to go ballooning and can't afford the helium!


Allan

Yes - I rather fancy a trip in a balloon.

Well I have to go to bed now........been a tiring day

Hope you enjoy your Sunday - don't burn the Sunday roast

Take car........Goodnight
Tec

Goodnight, Tec

Virgin have an offer on balloon rides at the moment...google Virgin+balloon rides

Good evening/morning:))

You fellas wait until all seems quiet then you come on here and play up. Linda will be very very cross with you two if you keep telling blonde jokes:))

Well we're home from the birthday party - exhausted but happy. What a fun day we had. The farmyard arrived early so the children could have a play with the animals before the guests arrived. There were lambs, goats, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs. Also a pig and a small pony. The children could brush them and feed them. The children sat down on little chairs, held the smaller animals then fed them with grass and vegies. They were all so well behaved around the animals. Then they ate all the wrong things which you have to at a birthday party. There were 2 babies to cuddle too so we old ladies were happy and the young mums got a break. Then the father of one of the guests got out his stuff and face painted any child who wanted to. It was a wonderful way to calm them down after all the excitement and all the children went home happy. I'm very impressed by the good behaviour and manners of the young ones.

Hope you all have a wonderful day/evening:))

Sue xx

I'm sure you had a lovely time at the party Sue. Did you manage to save us some cake?

My youngest grandson will be 3 later this year and I think his Mum intends to give him a party every year. Only problem is - his birthday is three days before mine! My children gave me a wonderful surprise birthday for my 70th - back in my hometown, Newcastle, with cousins I hadn't seen for years, etc. but on other birthdays, it has only been a family barbecue - and very nice - just the way I like it.

However, since the last two birthdays have been 'dual' ones with loads of kids - jumping castle, etc., I have a feeling that it will be the same this year!

Good evening Aussies, good morning Brits,
I got 5 birth/death/marriage transcripts to fill in some of the gaps and uncertainties. I do feel rather smug about one of them. My great uncle married during the war. The public tree on Ancestry says his spouse was born around 1922, making her 16 years younger than him. While possible, I thought she was a person who married in 1928. We don’t have access to Census records in this country and electoral rolls are really tricky. From the marriage record she was about 4 years younger and divorced. My head is rather swollen. This comes on top of "winning" a debate about another rellie. There is a headstone in Windsor. I believe the couple died in New Zealand and this is only a memorial. Others disagree. I have found both deaths in NZ records, and a contact is sending me a copy of the death certs, also the probate.
I have been on other boards too. I contributed to the thread about the Lockerbie bomber, but more about Ronnie Biggs, also recently released to die.
There has been some personal abuse on that thread, but nothing like what I saw on another. Louisa asked whether we should celebrate Christmas. It quickly degenerated into an attack on believers by non believers and vice versa, and got quite ugly. I decided that I would leave them to it. Hope this thread stays above all of that.
It has been another nice day in Sydney. I went to see a steam train which ran through the inner western suburbs. I am not a railway nut but it was rather nice to see a newly restored pair of locomotives, even if I have never seen a steam push-me-pull-you before. One led on the down journey, the other on the up.

Have a really good Sunday (on the other side of the world, and good evening Susan, Allan and anyone else who might still be up.

Hi, Berona - yes I did have a wonderful day and no I didn't save any cake....sorry:) The grandchildren have always had family parties but this is the first time my daughter's thrown a party like this. Our grandson is now of the age where he's made friends and he was very excited to have them at his party. When everyone sang happy birthday he just beamed. One of the things I loved was that when the little boys came in the door they would hug each other. Then they would say "happy birthday" to Drew and he would say "you're welcome".

Colin I think you have every right to feel smug - it sounds like you have done some great detective work and it's all fallen into place. The Lockerbie thread is very emotive and I don't feel I can make any contribution. Berona made some good comments and having had a further read I've noticed that you too have added some well thought out posts. You're both very brave:))

I hope very much that this thread will stay nice and I think it will because we are respectful of each other, we laugh together and we can have serious discussions without anyone taking or giving offence. We've become friends:)) I'd also like to say that I've also joined in on some unpleasant threads and said how I feel about some of the comments on those threads. You do find yourself being drawn in at times but are then left feeling you are no better than the agitators.

Sue xx

Hello, thank you Sue for your encouraging words. I know that I am rather opinionated, but it helps that on this board I am fairly anonymous. Colin is my real name, but I try to be careful about my surname which is not all that common, and my exact geographical location.
There are about a dozen of us in the Sydney phone book but I actually only know one other. The others may be distant relatives or from an unrelated family.

Good night to you,
Colin.

I know what you mean, Sue. I looked at that thread on Christmas and thought about contributing for a while, even wrote a piece, but when it didn't go through, I was glad and decided against it.

It has been reasonably quiet over the last couple of weeks, but perhaps people are away on holidays. Sometimes, particularly Friday and Saturday nights, things can get very contentious. I hope this thread doesn't go that way. Probably won't because most of us think first before writing and realise that the written word doesn't always come across as the spoken word does.

It's my bedtime now. After being up all night practicing the dancing for when Tec and I dance on our cruise, I'm tired. That Paso-doble worries me - I hope Tec is strong if he intends to throw me around the way they do on Dancing with the Stars!!!

Goodnight all and you Poms have a lovely afternoon and evening!

Hi Everyone - whatever time it is for you,

SueMaid,.......The party sounds to have been a great success - what can be better than a houseful of happy laughing children. I am astonished at all the animals that came to the party - I thought you meant the children were visiting a "Children Corner" type farm. Does your daughter have a huge garden?. I am intrigued!..........

Berona.......Glad to hear you've been practising the dance steps - don't worry about the paso-doble too much.
Mrs Tec just passed a hurtful remark - she said to tell you, that if you're dancing with me for long, you will need to put steel toecaps in your dancing shoes. Whatever does she mean by that?..........

Colin.........Congratulations on your detective work. It is so satisfying when you manage to solve a mystery like that. I have several that I cannot sort out. Well done you.
We have a steam locomotive that passes through the village throughout July and August. It takes about seven carriages, and does the trip right round the coast of our part of Cardigan Bay. A wonderful nostalgic sight and sound. ...........
Regarding the unpleasantness on other threads. I do occassionally read them - and while I do of course have views on most subjects, and strong views on some, I really cannot be bothered to join the fracas.
I can't understand why some people can't debate any subject without resorting to personal abuse and insults. Surely, it is all about respect for anothers point of view, without getting bitter, or abusive.
I feel that there is enough nastiness, and hatred in the world. Such nastiness is totally inappropriate on this site. I sometimes feel sorry for the nice people on other threads that seem to get attacked for no good reason other than their opinions.
This thread is, in my opinion, the best thread on the site, and that is down to the kind of people that contribute to it. I only ever post on one other thread - they are nice people too, with a common interest.

There endeth the lesson for today lol.

Tec.