Thread 7 - TalkLair: “In fact it’s an oblate spheroid”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 6).
The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with spring flowers. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

@angelico53 - AIBU to bristle at the words "old dodderer" being applied to someone only two years older than me and five years younger than my DH? Ageist much?

Could the water-starer be a lifeguard?

I was a bit uncertain about sharing the thread because I feared we'd just get stuck on the controversial subject matter, which wasn't the thing I found interesting at all and has been done to death (we ourselves went to the city centre to celebrate my birthday weekend by watching GOTG3, eating dim sum followed by gelato, and buying cream cakes from the Polish bakery).

It was the way multiple witnesses to the same set of facts basically invented their own reality - not everybody of course, some posters did acknowledge that they were interpreting what they saw, but there were quite a few posters who were simply absolutely adamant that they had genuinely witnessed XYZ.

@Kucinghitam I feared we'd just get stuck on the controversial subject matter, which wasn't the thing I found interesting at all and has been done to death .... It was the way multiple witnesses to the same set of facts basically invented their own reality - not everybody of course, some posters did acknowledge that they were interpreting what they saw, but there were quite a few posters who were simply absolutely adamant that they had genuinely witnessed XYZ.

That was absolutely the interesting thing: people's tendency to see events through the distorting mirror of their own world view. I'm pretty sure most of us do it now and again without being aware of it, but oh my goodness, aren't we good at spotting it when other people do it!

That's the easy bit, though, isn't it? I think a lot of us have had our world-view shaken in recent years.

Any big public thing with the Royal family, of which there have been a few in recent years, brings out the "But he did/she did/no the other one did/no they didn't" stuff. @Dotellhimpike was right about parasocial behaviour. People are invested in what they think they know about individual family members; therefore, they see what they want to see because they think they know them.

I've been guilty of it but to a slightly lesser extent in that I've rolled my eyes over things that Meghan or Harry are supposed to have done when walking alongside a.n.other royal mostly because I find the whole "but the royal family who are a total hierarchy of fucking privilege can't possibly be racist" so fucking tedious. And then I get annoyed because I've made myself care about something I really should have fewer fucks to give.

Blah, blah, blah, it is really interesting that we can all be looking at exactly the same thing and see very different things and be convinced we're right despite being intelligent enough to know that we all have prejudices that will play into our preceptions. When we want to be right we convince ourselves that we are.

Well, guilty as charged, Brit. I withdraw the qualifier, with apologies.

Heading into my sixties next year, I am starting to get used to being called "grandad" by work colleagues taking the piss. What can you do? it's all part of life's cycle.

I take comfort in knowing I am going to be one of those grumpy irascible old sods, and not the Clive Dunn type.

Same here, pike. I now pick a lot of grey, rather than brown, hairs off the laundry on the washing line. It feels a bit weird to be heading into 'We are now the old people' territory, but there you go.

Thanks @angelico53 - dh and I are definitely old but I hope not at all doddery.

Spent the last few hours trying to tidy the house but now it's in a far bigger mess than it was when I started.

How's that work?

Ah, that 'organising into piles' thing!

I got free flowers in Waitrose yesterday. I am now thinking that showing up just before closing time on a Sunday is a really good idea. (A £10 bunch for no money!)

In other news, I don't know what it is about me or Francis but we are pussy magnets. Ha! I think I had already moved by the time you all came here or just about to move. In my old flat next door's cat decided that my home was in fact his home and spent nearly as much time at mine as he did at his. It was very amicable and he was a handsome ginger boy so I didn't really mind and neither did Francis. On Saturday I was lounging on my bed, saw something out of the corner of my eye and "Oh hello, girl cat from downstairs, how nice to see you breaking into my home!" She ran off. Later that day I hear rustling about in the kitchen. I see Francis sitting by the door, I wander down and there is girl cat from downstairs in my kitchen. So, I now have a spare cat who's decided she can hang out at mine whenever she fancies. And of course she can because she's a cat and nobody tells cats what to do.

That’s nice, Mouse.

I’m not sure my cats have ever met another cat, I only know of one neighbouring cat, a timid little thing with a skinny face, always looks shocked/startled, and I daresay my dogs keep it orf moi land. Their sister lives about half a mile away up in the village but I don’t think they ever venture that way and probably wouldn’t remember her after 9 years apart. They never had a mother to teach them how to be a cat, but they are the catliest cats regardless, they know it all already.

My cats don't go out but if they are sitting on a windowsill and a strange cat ventures into view they go all "Let me at 'em! I'll show 'em!"

Pike

Heading into my sixties next year, I am starting to get used to being called "grandad" by work colleagues taking the piss.

I think I mentioned falling in rough weather last year and two females colleagues and a young Filipino all fussing round me. I realised that at 52, they see me as an old gipper.

Anyway, yesterday, we had a chaffinch on the bridge, but she's left. We have three young male swallows (according to the experts) roosting in the workshop. They've been flying about and settling on chains and cables right next to us, when we were deploying equipment.

Visitor cats are a nice bonus, as along as the resident cat doesn't mind.

We have a magnetic cat flap and most of the neighbourhood cats don't seem to wear collars. So our only occasional intruder is Monty, the posh seal-point Siamese from up the road. He's very handsome and talkative. He and Phoebe seem to get on, or at least she doesn't seem bothered when he comes in and eats her food (I mind more). They kind of lounge around playing cat chess in the kitchen. I've never observed them exchanging so much as a cross word with each other.

Well, me too, @Britinme . I'm certainly not a dodderer in my own eyes, at any rate. Not sure what my younger colleagues would say, though!

@Ginmonkeyagain - if you are still here, I wonder if you'd pm me?

(I've seen a couple of your posts elsewhere relating to risk management and might have a useful suggested approach).

Since I loved to here in February, every neighbour and every passerby I've got to know/say hello to, has been a result of them asking after my younger cat Archie, who has made friends with everyone he meets, including going in to their houses to say hello.

He is such a little tart.

One of our swallows has died.

Aww, little swallow.

We had a webcam nest box (still have it but the camera has been dead a couple of years), and although it was lovely to watch them on telly, I was always worrying about one or both parents being killed and the babies dying in front of my eyes, it was always such a relief when they safely fledged. It’s better not knowing what a jungle it is out there - out of sight, out of mind.

One blue tit slept in the (emptied out) nesting box all winter long! Dunno if it was a parent or a baby who’d been born in there, or just a random opportunistic clever little bird.

Most years the horse chestnut has few or even no flowers, but this year’s a corker, with the apple blossom out at the same time. Think it’s the squirrels, who often bite off the sticky buds early in spring, dunno why, they don’t seem to actually eat the buds, just hurl them to the ground, the bastard vandals. The owner of the woods “controls” the squirrels and one beneficiary is the chestnut tree.