General Chat

Hi all,
Yes, I have dared to join the site too. I have had a not so nice time on a site a couple of years ago but since then have joined two sites and quite enjoy them I might add. There sound some very familiar names here too.
I hardly tell you my age, or you may think I'm too old, but really I'm not. I worked until I was 63 and since then have suffered 3 cancer operations as well as diabetic etc.etc. I now have Apneu, which is the reason for my dizziness and lack of concentration etc. but I'm very positive. My two grandchildren don't think of me as an old grannie.
I have a scootmobile and love to get round the shops here when I can. I went out today but the wind is still icy cold. I bought myself some knitted leg warmers today as they are expecting snow again this weekend. Is it never going to end? We've now had snow on and off since last December.
Oh, I live in Holland and have lived here since 1968 so consider myself more or less Dutch now.
I don't know whether I'll ever get to England again now as Johan,( my oh) is almost 85 and doesn't want to go to England again.
Will say goodnight for now, sleep well, Sylvia xxx

Hi everyone


and a special welcome to syljo .... from another Sylvia!


Marjery ..... I know exactly what you mean!

We lived in the US (Texas) for a year 1967/68, we were Registered Aliens .


...... so now you know what I really am!!!


It was the year that Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were both murdered.

Not a good introduction to an innocent from the UK who had never even seen a gun!

I almost never feel safe in the US, I am always watching what is going on round about me. There are some places I really like ...... San Diego, San Antonio, we've had a lot of fun in Arizona, Oregon adn Washington State .......... but I still don't feel comfortable most of the time that I am out and about even in those places.



There are also places that I don't feel comfortable in in Canada, of course.

But to me, Canada is a much calmer, quieter place


I think we do tend to let our guards down when we are on holiday .............. and we shouldn't!




We rode The Indian Pacific from Perth to Adelaide, and then The Ghan from Adelaide all the way to Darwin in 2006 ....... but of course, it was a touristy train by that time!!

We took the train from Johanesburg to Capetown in 1975 ...... and that was fun



sylvia

Sylvia, (Holland) welcome to the thread, lovely to see you on here, I never think of you as old because you are so young at heart and always off doing things or baking, making cards etc. Come back and see us again.

Sylvia Canada, Now S Africas is a place I will never get my OH to go to.

When talking about places I felt uncomfortable in the states. I forgot this one, we were driving around Las Vegas looking for our hotel which was not on The Strip, all of a sudden OH says (4 of us in the car). 'lock all the doors now'. We did. He had spotted some very dubious looking characters. Having said that he always reckons the safest place you can be in US is walking down the strip in Las Vegas, he reckons it is Mafia controlled and nobody dares cause a problem on their patch.

And.... there are many places I don't feel safe in UK!!!!

Hullo Anne, Sylvia, Theresa, and welcome to Syljo,
We live in a changing world Theresa and yours seems to be changing a little bit quicker. I have days like that, have just been to Perth 200kms round trip for a special reason and then left all the paperwork home.

Syljo I haven't heard the word leg warmers since the early 80's when it was a bit trendy to wear close fitting tights with leg warmers on and a big thick jersey. I still have a couple of pairs somewhere in case the weather turns cold.
Speaking of cold it is 26.3C at 4p.m. here in W.A. and this morning early ,it was, dare I say it, distinctly nippy when we left home.

While we were in San Fransisco we walked around Union Square and went into one of those big expensive department stores and then walked out of another door and were in an awful looking sleazy street with all sorts of shady looking people. I nearly died of fright so we walked along a bit with everyone staring at us until we came to another shop doorway and went in just to get off that street.
People in the Hotel we stayed at had told us about the latest murder of tourists in Union Square and to be careful. After that we used to ride around on the trams and do short bus trips. Every time we opened our mouths we had an interested crowd listening to us speak. Apparently we have a fuuny accent.
The homeless people lining the streets with all their posessions, cats and dogs, kids and bird cages was what shocked me the most. I used to keep a lot of change in my pocket and give it to them. Thought we'd gone to a third world country instead of the land of the free and home of the brave.

Perth is not a very safe place at night either. The number of people who get belted over the head for doing nothing but going about minding their own business is horrendous. Many of them are left permanently incompacitated if they don't die in hospital first.

Theresa Tarcoola was once a railway workers settlement just two rows of houses with a big wide road between them. We had to wait there a couple of hours for the Indian Pacific freight train to come along. We waited in the Pub as there was nothing else there and met two elderly Railway Inspectors. One of them was the man who every year dressed up as Santa Claus and used to travel with the train delivering presents to all the children in all the little settlements and outlying farm properties along the Nullabor.

Margery, leg warmers have been on sale here this winter amongst the fashion conscious. Thicker tights and over the knee socks too. Google for them.

Hi there,
Ann, yes can't help getting old can we? Johan and I will be married 54 years on 17th March - he will be 85 on 22nd March. We keep each other fit I think, always looking what we can do with the limited means of what we can do. I cannot walk without my stick and zimmer frame. I have to laugh about it when I think I used to race my bike behind buses when I lived in London. I was completely mad!
It was a lovely sunny day today, alt hough an icy wind. I am glad I had my leg warmers. They only had two other pairs left, one white and one black, but the black ones had a long thread dangling so I didn't trust them.
I went to the market and I bought lots of cheese. They have a lovely mustard cheese so I got him to cut me half pound in slices and another favourite of mine is the olive, garlic and tomatoe, so he cut me half pound of that too. I also had a piece of very old cheese and kilo in slices of some with less fat .

I bought some herrings for lunch and some mixed, marinated fish and vegetables. I told him I wanted half pound but not too much rabbit food with it. So whenever I see him he mentions the rabbit food. I get greeted with "not too much rabbit food". You see I don't like paying top price for fish and getting half cheap vegetables with it.
If the weather is reasonable Johan and I going to Zeist on Sunday as our youngest daughter and her husband have a secondhand stall in a sports hall there. Lots of people give them, boxes of secondhand goods for them to sell (they don't want any money for them but don't know what to do with this stuff). Susan told me that she had a large box of beautiful wooden toys given to her last week to sell.
Talking of dangerous places to walk in. I felt unsafe in Elvis Presley's hometown. We travelled around in a motorhome for six weeks through various states.
Better bring this to an end or you will get fed up with me. Have a nice weekend.
Syljo xxx

Hi all


just whooshing by, so you know I'm still alive!!



sylvia
xxx

Ditto Sylvia

Hi all, spendingthe weekend with daughter and family for grandsons 18th. quite nippy here this morning although sunny.

Sylvia, all that food you bought sounds interesting.

hi Ann, I just answered you message in Dec09, cant find it now have looked at every page. hope all are well, will get back later hubby has bought home pizza for dinner. regards
Coz from Western Australia.

There are places nearly everywhere in the world where you don't feel safe. My cousin lives in New York and he feels safe where another person might not. Tania on the boards here does not like South Auckland but I go around happily in some parts of it but not others.
But of all the places I have been - I have felt right at home and very safe was Tasmania. I know they have criminals - but I think their crime statistics are way below most places.

Rail travel - my dad worked for the railways so rail travel was the norm in my growing up. Now they have done away with rail around a lot of the South Island and now people cycle the rail trails - it is a great touristy thing to do. One trip they have kept is from Dunedin up the Taieri Gorge and back which is delightful. Now they are talking of closing the Wairarapa lines in the North Island. I find it very sad, feel as though I have lost some of my past.

Persey xx

I'm back for a quick visit.

I too have still got some leg warmers.. A mixed purple pair made with fluffy wool and an off white pair in an Arran pattern. I just hate throwing things away and thought that they may come in useful one day.

Syljo, Sorry to hear about yor Apneu/Apnea it must make things difficult and possibly scary at times. Did you have to wait a long time to get a diagnosis? What treatment have you had (or are you having)?

My bro went for a long walk along some local canals on Saturday and was amazed to see a woman in a scootmobil, trundling along quite happily.
It can be lovely on the canal tow paths, much quieter than the nearby roads and sometimes a haven for wildlife.

Marjery, i have had a quick look at Tarcoola on the net. According to the site I visited, it was named after a racehorse. There was also a lot of gold mining/prospecting there at one time. From that site I diverted onto a site about the Pichi Richi Railway, what a marvellous name!

Sunny here today (at the moment). But probably colder than it looks. Still it is good to see the sun and blue skies after a long bout of cold weather.

Rail travel, my dad had a record of recordings of steam trains! An occassional voice to tell you what you were listening too and where and when it was recorded.
Before my marriage, I went out with two railway men (not at the same time). Something must have attractred me to them, they had both started working on the railways when there were still steam trains in general use, both were firemen.

Ann, hope you enjoy yourself at your daughters and that your grandson had a great 18th birthday.

Hi all. back from Hampshire, had a lovely time and a very pleasant meal at a Fusion restaurant last night, sort of Thai food mainly and very good.

Lovely and sunny both in Hants and here but also very cold.

Hi all,
What a lovely day it has been, bright sunshine, but still that icy cold wind, but in the car behind the glass it was lovely and warm.
We went to a jumble sale in a Sports Hall where our youngest daughter and her husband had a stall. They do this for a hobby. They were doing very well today and had their money back already by 10.30 this morning for the table they hired. They are always happy when they have managed to earn the money they have spent on the table.
Johan couldn't resist going to the canteen there and buying a croquette and chips and a hot chocolate for me.
I had already made our dinner yesterday ready for today in case I would be late home. I also made a dark brown loaf of bread and a large pan of tomatoe/vegetable soup so won't have to cook much for a couple of days.
Yesterday evening I finished my neighbour's trousers for him. He needed a few cms taken off the legs. His wife made such a mess of them that I said give them to me and I'll do them. No wonder I never have time!
Í was up at 5.45 am this morning - and this is Sunday!
Have a nice evening.
Greetings syl xxx

Hi everyone

Sorry that I haven't been on here for a while.I just popped in briefly.

Kathleen-
I'm glad to hear that the paracetamol and codeine are helping to kill the pain of your sciatica.

Perse-
NZ is like Australia,they're both multi-cultural nations.I hope that your foot is feeling better,and that your moonboot is off very soon.

Hi Marjery-I'm in Melbourne,(but don't hold that against me,lol!) so I'm a few hours ahead of you,but posting around the same time.It sounds lovely living on your country property with all your animals.I hope that you're coping OK with the constant heat and lack of rain.

I would love to visit NZ!

Snap! I only watch the Tour de France too for the scenery,it's beautiful! I love the castles that you see sometimes,and the quaint little villages.

Sylvia(in Canada)
Echuca and Bendigo are interesting places.I hope that you have a lovely time on the trains.Just sit back and relax! Heaven!

Gosh,you're well travelled! You've seen more of OZ than I have,and I was born here!

You and your OH were very brave tackling the Nullarbor,,& QLD. & NSW in a VW with a toddler,I guess you do things like that when you're young! I hope that you both enjoy your next holiday in Melb. in 2011.

Tess,you did have a bad day,haven't you been to town for a while? I hope that you had some hair left for your hair app't. the next day,and that you fared a little better with everything,lol.

Brenda
My ancestors lived in Echuca,and one lot were married in Kyneton.
I hope that you and your OH had a wonderful holiday at Capri Waters on the Murray River-is that a resort? I don't know it.

Jill
I hope that those storms are long gone now,and that they didn't cause too much damage.

Sorry,Jill and Brenda that I've taken so long to get back on here.

Hi Glossy Ann,hope you are happy and well.

Now for my news. Melbourne had freak weather conditions on Saturday.At about 3pm the rain started,and became stronger,and very loud and hard.
It turned into hail,so loud that you had to yell to speak over it.I was working at Oakleigh shopping centre,and was due to finish at 3,but when it started to rain,I delayed my departure.I'm so glad I did,because cars were being pelted with very large hail stones which were strong enough to smash their windscreens, and did.By 3.20 there were floods of water going through the shopping centre,and a river of water was coming through all the lights,and everyone had to make a hasty exit if they were underneath.
One poor lady was trying to pick her way through the water with thongs on,and I said jokingly to her that she needed gumboots! She said that her OH had just rung her to say that the hail had smashed her skylight at her home,so she wasn't very happy.I then wondered how my place was getting on,as we have a skylight too,in our lounge room.So I rang our house to see if the family etc. were ok,and heard that the laserlite
corrugated plastic roof over our entertaining area had 8 holes smashed through it by the force of the golf- ball sized (and bigger) hail stones.My OH said that they sounded like someone had taken a sledgehammer to the roof,and our back yard was 6 inches under water.At Ferntree Gully,a nearby suburb,the hailstones were the size of tennis balls.All the cars were pulled over on the roads,it must have been very frightening,and there was traffic chaos,especially in the CBD with cars abandoned everywhere under water,many roads closed etc.

We had water damage in the shop,the ceiling got wet and the water ran down the walls and onto the stock.I ended up staying back for 2 hours trying to salvage the stock,and mopping up the flooded floor with towels.We had to shut the shop,too.

Thank God that this sort of thing is an isolated occurrence! Melb. got one month's worth of rain in 20 minutes!

If you want to see footage of it,click on heraldsun.com.au. Hopefully it will work.I haven't tried it yet.

Hi Margot a nice long catch up post from you, good to see you on here again.

Wow thatw as some storm, was it only the Melbourne area that got hit by it or did it travel elsewhere? I sounds as if it was very frightening. There must be something in this global warming business otherwise what other reason can there be for all the freak weather all countries are getting. I was recently sent video pictures of flooding in Northern Tenerife, it was horrendous, then there was Madeira, and mud slides apparently in Andalucia, flooding in France, flooding here, there seems no end to it. Maybe Noah had the right idea!!

Hi Ann,

I'll try to look in on here a little bit more often,so I don't have so much to catch up on next time!

You're right,Ann,the weather does seem to be getting more extreme!

What we had was freakish weather,though,which might occur once every 40 years or so.

Take care,

Margot.

Hullo All,
Margot that was a good storm you had. Luckily you weren't driving somewhere and got caught on the road. We had a big hailstorm like that years ago when we lived in Perth and hailstones the size of twenty cent pieces perfectly shaped fell along the coastal strip only. It sounded just like a machine gun firing and our patio roof looked like a colander when it had passed and the lawn was covered with hailstones.
I used to have "drawing on the right side of your brain "lessons with a lady from Echuca, I'm blowed if I can remember her name. That trip up the Murray River is something I have always wanted to do also a trip to the Flinders Ranges.
Persephone I am sorry to hear that the railways are closing down in N.Z. I have been to Hastings on the Rail Car years ago. It had a name but I don't remember it, and I have been on the Auckland Express and the Limited dozens of time when I was young.
My father used to like to go to the Horse races at Featherston or Masterton when we were kids so we always went too going over the Rimutakas. I remember there was an engine down the bottom of the hill lying on its side but can't remember how it got there. For anyone interested it was a very steep climb over the Rimutaka mountains with a gauge of one in two feet and it used to have to have four engines to push it up there and four brake vans. It was so slow people used to get out and pick blackberries along the side of the track.
My last train trip in N.Z. was the Tranz something from Christchurch to Graymouth over the Southern Alps. It was beautiful.
Speaking of freakish weather what about the earthquakes and where are they going to strike next? With all the disasters going on around the world I often wonder where all the money comes from when they start talking about millions and billions. I suppose they are just printing more and if there is so much about why do we have to pay so much tax.
Having a cool spell at the moment, temps only in the thirties so far. No rain in sight.

Hi everyone


Ooooh Marjery, we did that train trip from Christchurch to Graymouth in 1993 when I was down there. It was great


Margot ........ we saw shots of that hailstorm on our tv news on Saturday ................ and I recognise most of the names that you mentioned from our stay there in 1975/6. I must copy that and send it to my OH for him to read!


The Environment Department announced on Saturday that Canada had officially had the warmest and driest January and February for many years, if not ever. Soooooooooooooooooooooo ........ on Sunday, the temperature dropped down to ca 6 or 7C (instead of 12C or above), it poured with rain, and felt really chilly. Plus the word "sxxx" was on the forecasters lips for today or tomorrow.

Hmmmmmmmm ........ are we to have a late winter?

Oh yes, they officially blamed El Nino for the winter, plus the fact that the arctic jet stream was going much farther south than it usually does. Hence all the snow and bad weather in the US, as far south as Florida.

It was also announced the same day that 75% of the Florida tomato crop has been killed during their very cold weather ....... and hence tomatoes are going to be much more expensive for the next 6 weeks or so (or until the next crop from down there is ready to market)


The sun is trying to shine today, through some big black clouds, but it is only about 7C


take care everyone



sylvia