The Hermann Rorschach Institute at the University of Milton North

[DumSpiroSpero]

Our New Patron!

Maud I think it would be very disturbing if I hadn't watched the this and previous series where you really get into the characters. I am not normally one for horror of any kind but I really think this is well written.

Hey Twigs the apples fall in their millions and we don't cook so they just lie there rotting as soon as they hit the ground. Invariably I get hit on the head by at least one everytime I do a collection. I have also twisted my ankle by accidently stepping on them.

Phoenix - Me too. I always think of the grizzled actor who ::whispers:: has certainly Got It. I wonder whether that's why they always call him Professor Brian Cox, for the sake of disambiguation?

I've missed all of South Riding. Was it good? I read the book aeons ago when I was working my way through the Virago catalogue.

Awww, "Things Can Only Get Better" always makes me think of DrTwiglets. We had started dating a few months before that Labour victory - I loved the song and remember driving up to see him with that song on loop on the car radio...

Phoenix, hello!!! I forgot about South Riding - must catch up with it.

Small, apple crumble! We have loads of blackberries in the autumn (not ours, but they grow over from our neighbour) and I'm always buying apples to make b'berry & apple crumble - swap you some blackberries for some apples and we can both have yummy desserts all autumn :)

I must admit I'm with Small on the apple tree front. We had a huge Bramley tree in our garden when we moved in, but over a few years it started leaning more and more until eventually it had to come out. That aside, every September/October, mowing the lawn became a total pita cos it was constantly dropping apples so it required about half an hour of collecting 'windfalls' first, which were usually too damaged to use for anything. At the same time, the decent apples were too high to reach without a ladder!

Can you tell I'm not a gardening person...?

Just saw a trailer for Waking The Dead - was that Sarah Caulfield I saw?

Evening Phoenix! Brian Cox certainly looks very different from the physics profs I used to know.

Maud, I am not particulary enamoured of lankness for lankness's sake, it just speaks of angst and hardship, and general need of TLC. As for the snow, maybe it's photoshopped in, or just raindrops falling on his head, or whatever.

Look, I just have a thing about the man, you'll just have to excuse me

What with the new movies and all I am sure we will find plenty to talk about for a good few months yet.

I gave up on Waking The Dead years ago, so can't comment on that one. So, Twiggy. Tell us how you met Dr Twiglets, given that long car journeys in 1997 were (apparently) involved.

::Settles down for a nice romantic story::

You're not a gardener, Spiro?

::reaches for smelling salts::

Maud - gardening is the one creative activity that totally eludes me. I love the idea of it, but the reality bores me senseless. I'm quite happy to just be sat in it, with a glass of Pimms and a good book tbh.

That said - we may be replacing our dilapidated conservatory with a lovely new patio this summer so if you can recommend something that smells nice and can be grown up a trellis to cover any tatty patches of exterior wall that would be much appreciated (and if you fancy a visit to the South Coast to plant them up...)

It's quite a good story, actually - though he is emabrrassed about it and tells a different version :)
We met through the TV programme Friends. We both loved it and were on an internet fansite and I always thought his posts were funny and he sounded clever. After a few months of online chatting, somebody said "hey, lots of us are within travelling distance of London, why don't we all meet up?" We mwet in a pub in London (this is where DrTwiglets' version starts :o) and I decided that he was quite fanciable in RL, not just online :) We then all got invited onto a TV show where the male stars of the show were being interviewed - I had a big crush on Matthrew Perry at the time! I was quite visible on the show and it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life - despite working in the media, I do NOT do appearing on it!) and we just got to know each other from there.

Come on then - who's next?!

Such heresy! Artists make the best gardeners (all to do with colour and shape and perspective, doncha know). Anyway, how big a trellis? I'd always go for fragrant jasmine, but jasmine can get very large. ::Looks despondently at own jasmine which is twice the height of its obelisk and badly needs a haircut:: You could get MissSpiro to grow some sweet peas to add colour and fragrance.

For psychiatric, read gardening

Spiro, LOL, I am beginning to think we were separated at birth - you have completely summed up my attitude to gardening!

I have completely outed myself in that last post but what the heck?!

I worked with The Bloke before I changed careers. I bounced - his word, not mine, and I was much younger then so this refers to my supposedly perky demeanour rather than massive bulk - into his office. We were friends for a long time in a When Harry Met Sally... kind of way.

Next?

Oh, Twiggy, did you hear Sir Terry of Wogan on Just A Minute? Hoot-a-rama.

This thread is certainly all things to all women, we now have our own mini Gardener's Question time section. Who is going to do the cookery questions? Spiro, this must be you.

Ok, then, so who's going to be Dr Ruth?

::blanches at the thought::

Massive can do the travel tips.

O... M... F... G. It's on bloody YouTube!!!

I amn thinking it's fine to post this as I am completly unrecogniseable in it :o I'm the

Jasmine sounds lovely. Isn't mock orange (or something) a climber too?

Am thinking of something like this although maybe a homemade version so I can have a taller bit of trellis as that doesn't look very high.

I can quite happily sit looking at seed/plant catalogues and planning what I'd like the garden to look like - I'm just not that interested in being the one that physically makes it happen.

Maud, no, didn't hear Tezza!

I should've said it was about 8.40 into that clip...

Ha ha Twigs - I found you !

There are some spooky similarities between us aren't there? Just goes to show what a small world it is.

As for me meeting DH - it sounds terrible, but I met a guy who I didn't so much date as regularly bump into and snog at nightclubs - met another guy through him who I dated for a few months and through him met H, who I started dated about 6 months after splitting up with no 2 (and having had a couple of dates with my future younger BIL in the meantime).

As I said, small world...

Oh, Twiggy, that's so cute.

Dares not admit that, even now, she can't tell Matthew Perry and and Matt le Blanc apart

Spiro, Mock orange (philadelphus) is a large shrub but you could probably train it up a trellis. That planter doesn't look the business to me - any decent climber will reach the top of it in about 10 minutes. Time to get out the Black and Decker and diy.

Right. Off to bed with another good book. C U L8ter.

::gasps at own modernity::

That's what I though Maud. I'm after something about 6' tall so will buy a decent planter and trellis and make it myself. I may not be a gardener but I'm pretty handy in the DIY & power tools department !

Night night Maud and thanks for the lanky-haired Guy pic. Hope you enjoy your book.