General Chat

the spring bulbs are growing


not only the pot of hyacinths that a friend gave me for my birthday



but the ones outside in the garden

Goodness, Sylvia, fancy it being warmer in parts of Canada than in Florida.
I wonder how many Canadians have gone to Florida for a winter holiday, i.e. to get away from the cold?

I will be looking forward to seeing The Winter Olympics on the tv.
I hope that you get some snow in the Skiing areas before then.
I had forgotten about the Winter Olympics till you mentioned it,.

Here in UK we can watch Dancing on Ice. Another Celeb reality Competition programe. I always feel nervous for the contestants, who of course are anxious about falling over.
I only tried skating once myself, and didn't feel able to let go of the side and/or another person.

It will be good to see some real skaters giving of their best.


Recently, with all the snow around, we have seen people skiing to work on the tv (I haven't seen anyone skiing along my road though).
Def worth taking a photo for the scrap book if someone skis by you,

Oh Ann, what a lovely thread. I have only just noticed it. Some names are familiar and are people I have chatted to before, others not ~~~~~~ to everyone :))
My name is Claire, I am 34 and am married with two children. I am a full time carer to my son who has severe autism.
I started doing my family tree about 18 months ago but tend to use GR just socially now as the ancestors I am interested in are Irish. I did manage to travel over to Dublin last year and made some real headway on my tree, I am hoping to return sometime this year.
Look forward to chating soon
Claire xx

Good morning folks - sorry I will not attempt to remember all the names but welcome all the newcomers.

I spent 5 hours trying to get to sleep but gave up eventually, got up and made some hot chocolate, looked out of the window - Oh no!! more snow!!! Just when we thought it was beginning to go away. Has stopped at the moment but the sky looks full of more to come there is about 1" covering the icy slush.

Sylvia, I have just realised that I did not answer you about the lady who lived at Hundred Mile House. I had the name Lynn in my mind so I think you might be right and it was Evelyn, would love to know if indeed it is as I have often wondered how she was. Seemed to just disappear after a while. Pleased to read that you enjoyed your celebrations.

It is taking me ages to type this as it is rather cold, my heating has just come on so it should warm up soon.

I think I agree with Mark Twain who said "Life would be infinitely more agreeable if only we could we born at 80 and grow back to 18" - I am misquoting slightly as I can't remember his exact words. I know that my memory was a lot better when I was younger!!

A recent discovery in my FH research really has made me chuckle - my Dad's eldest sister would be mortified. Finally found her marriage, quite by accident, because it was more than 30 years later than I expected. She was in her 60's. A very "proper" lady with three children who were all grown up by then. I wonder if my Nana knew?

I must go and make another drink, my brain is not working properly. No point in going back to bed - too late now I have things to do in a couple of hours.

Hope you are all keeping warm.

Kathleen

Hi Clairjo and all the rest. Did you know that the 1911 Irish Census is free to search on-line?
I only found out myself from another member of GR very recently.

You can view the original document, which has the signature of the head of household.
I managed to find, not only my grandparents and their eldest children, but also my great-grandmother, who was head of household, living with her married daughter, son-in-law and their son.

I hope that you and your son are getting all the help and support that is available,
Speak to you adain soon,

Tess

Kathleen, it is snowing here too (West Midlands in England). Looked out at around 7am and saw that we had a sprinkling of snow. It has snowed again since, so everything is covered again.

I don't think that it is as cold as it was a few days ago though. But I haven't been outside to check!

Will stay in today and try to finish-
1) The jigsaw puzzle I've been doing.
2) The book I am (still) reading from Glossy Ann's Reading Group.

A little more snow here overnight but it has already melted on our patio. We wont be going out though, I seem to find plenty to keep me occupied (including not getting up until 0930 to the disgust of the birds waiting to be fed!) And still don't have enough hours in the day.

more rain today ............ instead of the showers that "they" said we would be having!

temperature over 10C


Hopefully, cooler temperatures will return early next week, then they can start making snow up on the mountain.


Had a few hours at the local mall ..................... my treat to myself is to have a cleaning lady come once every 2 weeks. I make her coffee, then go out for 3 or 4 hours. Have lunch and a mooch round the shops.

Today I found an 18" rolling suitcase which I have been looking for for months ............. most of the ones that I have seen before have been 19 or 20" but I wanted that smaller one. It was on sale ........................ and I saved $150 on the full price!!

We've found that the smallest possible case is what we need when we ride the train across Canada, as we are now doing quite regularly either going to or returning from visiting our daughter. We now have 2 18" rollers, one for each of us.

It is a 6 day trip ......... which means 1 night in a sleeper from Halifax to Montreal, a day train from Montreal to Toronto, then 4 nights from Toronto to Vancovuer. The sleeper cabins are pretty small, but one does need supplies for 6 days ...... even if it is only clean underwear and a couple of clean tops!!

But, oh it is such a relaxing way to travel .......... and the food is fantastic!!

We are just booking our next trip ............... the baby is due March 30, we plan to fly over there on April 8 or 9, then take the train home leaving on April 19.



sylvia
xxxx

Hello all, I have been around for years but don't post much when I can get on the site :)
Its warmed up over here in France but with it we now have drizzly rain and with three big dogs, muddy floors. We are usually heading off about this time of year to ski in Canada but this year will be giving it a miss due to the exchange rate making it far more expensive than the last few years.
We were going to Lapland this month but things are on hold due to a poorly dog plus our lambs are due from next month as the ram got fed up and jumped the fence to be with his ewes :)) so us planning for Spring lambs went by the board :))
Will try and join in more this year

xx Jill

Sylvia you train trips sound great, And the small case will be very useful. I have a small roller that I use as cabin baggage when we go to tenerife. As we travel via Madrid I didn't want a larger one to manoeuvre across Madrid airport.

Hi Jill, Lovely to see you on here. Hope you will be able to get a holiday later. Chuckling at your impatient ram!!!

How wonderful going to Lapland - sounds all fairy tale.. get to see the Northern Lights.
We finally received the program with Joanna Lumley - was shown here a couple of weeks ago.
Did you ever see the movie "Lovers of the Arctic Circle?" It would rank as one of my favourite movies.
When I was a youngster my uncle had a lamb that would jump fences - he called her Yvette - named after Yvette Williams - she won a gold medal for the long jump in 1952 at Helsinki. She was our first woman gold medalist.

Perse

well don't know how everebody is going on with the snow but I am happy to say that all our snow miraculously disappeared during Sunday night. It actually rained most of the night and by Monday morning it had disappeared
Isn't it funny how we all get so excited when it first starts snowing but give us a week and we are all happy to see the back of it.

Hello everyone,lovely to see some fresh faces on here.

Glossy Ann,I really haven't had any experience of snow.Sometimes anything seems better than this horrible heat.I appreciate what you're saying though,"Be careful what you wish for" lol.

Congratulations on your up and coming Golden wedding anniversary.I hope that you have a lovely time in Jersey in August,and that the weather is kind to you.

It's been quite nice today,much cooler.It's much easier to go to sleep when it's like this.

It's now after midnight here,so I'd better get some shut-eye.I didn't get to bed until about 2.30 am this morning because I was working on my tree and didn't realise the time.I will look in tomorrow.

Good night. Best wishes,Margot.

Ann, It was a standing joke around here that Minty (ram) was spending all the next day sleeping and having a smoke under the trees after his activities :))
The Northern Lights plus Ice Hotel were the main draw to skiing in Lapland, still there is always another year :)

x Jill

Lucky old minty. (We used to have a small poodle called Minty).

We watch Countryfile on TV and part of it is Adam's farm, he keeps rare breeds, mainly sheep. The other day he bought a new ram, when he released him from the trailer he went belting off in the direction of the large flock of sheep - all his Christmases come at once!!!!!

Quite a lot of out snow has melted today. However, we now have fog, it is damp and miserable out.

My sis-is-law, husband and thirteen year old son went to Lapland in the winter on 2008-09.

They loved it, were assigned their own elf to show them around for part of the time. Outdoot clothing was supplied by the holiday company. They could go on a ride pulled by huskies or reindeer. Si-in-law said it was well worth the money, even her teenage son loved it.

Sylvia, are any of your trains steam trains? Some members of my family are steam buffs. Any chance of travelling on a steam train and they are up at the crack of dawn.

Theresa, we have fog here in Glos too, nasty looking stuff.

oh TheresaAkaBridgetTheFidget what a fabulous experience a ride with reindeers or huskies sounds just wonderful. Can you imagine little ones who still believe in santa, it must be so magical to them and to have your own elf......well thats just the icing on the cake lol

Jill your story with Minty the Ram reminds me of a joke I heard many many years ago.

Two men talking,

Bert to Fred.. "Do you smoke after intercourse?"


Fred to Bert. "I don't know... I've never looked!"


First time I was told this joke was a winter afternoon many many years ago>
One of my friends laughted so much, that she fell over, on the icey pavement.

Then she couldn't get up again because it was so slippery!

Ann, just saying a quick hello to you all on here. Hope you are all well.It looks as though the snow is going, lets hope it stays away.

My daughter and son-in-law had a budgie called Minty, he was white with a bit of blue, he was lovely.

As I guessed, Jennie will have to go on the other medication after the reaction she had last week with the one she's on. She has an appointment at the hospital in two weeks time, I'm not looking forward to her going, but Jennie seems to be taking it in her stride, as she always does.

Speak to you all soon. Love, Sallie.x