Thread 15 - TalkLair: “I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But... You Have My Sympathies.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 14).

Autumn seems to have gone straight into winter. It's cold, wet and windy. In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

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

How infuriating, kuc, I'd so love to go to Iceland! I bet it wasn't a cheap trip either.

I think they enjoyed it, really. But they're totally exhausted. Apparently there was rather a lot of staying up way past bedtime. And obviously a lot of strenuous hiking in rather invigorating conditions. I think they're running on fumes right now

I'll see what they have to say after they've had a good night's sleep...

@duc748 I think it's been 2 years... Feels like forever though.

The first thread was started on 28 Nov 2022: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4686910-lifeboat-muster-point-for-talkexiles?

It does seem a LOT longer, doesn't it!

Gosh, I had a quick read of the first page of that - feels so weird and you can kind of tell how shell-shocked we all were!

A lot of people climbed on that lifeboat, who have since disappeared. Hope they're all OK. I imagine they have either gone back to the old place after it resolved the ownership issue, or they have namechanged and dispersed into the wider MN ecosystem.

(I have several different aliases for different topics on here, I actually really like this facility).

I can't believe it's only two years; I would have sworn it was at least three!

I just found my first post on MN, it was on a thread which I think morphed into the FWR General thread and it dates from 29/11/2022. I'm amazed.

The date I have in mind was November 25th two years ago. It was great coming here and starting up again but without all the bullying. The time has flown by.

Grotty day here today. Me and Mr Veg took our neighbour out for an afternoon trawl around Chipping Norton and then to Burford for tea and cakes. We went into a nice old fashioned butcher shop with sawdust on the floor where they do things properly. They were de-boning a huge pile of chickens and Pack o' Wild Dogs Mr Veg snapped up 8kg of carcasses for £5, so stock making sessions are in order. To be honest, it feels a bit overwhelming to have 8kg of chicken carcasses.

Many years ago, when I was making the regular journey on my bike to see my parents in Peterborough, I used to go through Lechlade and Burford. Banbury Cross! Routes so different now, although I don't need to make that journey these days.

DeanElderberry · 23/10/2024 12:16

Sinner, if you accidentally find a lost nuclear submarine DON'T PICK IT UP!

Don't worry, I won't! We did find a WW I German submarine on the pipe route to Barryroe, years ago. It was the first one sunk by the American Navy. It was bad, cloudy weather when they sank it and the sub was less than 1/4 a mile from the reported position.

They'd been navigating for more than a week without sun, or stars, so we'd been given a 3 mile radius. It was an amazing piece of navigation on their part.

I'm going through that thread to see if I posted on it or found you sometime after the fact. I went to like some of the pet photos and saw that if I did It would be IReallyLikeCrows who would be liking them. I'd forgotten that had been my name before this one came along and I can't remember for the life of me why it did. I might need to go for a change soon.

Funnily enough yesterday on the MAFSUK thread I was thinking that there was a poster who had a name that reminded me of GU Talk/JTT. I'm 95% sure that the name was Murasaki who is of course at the beginning of the first life boat thread. I'm going to ask her if the name was indeed Murasaki and not just something very similar.

It is murasaki!

DDs had a good 12+ hours sleep and were in a much more communicative mood today. Turns out, Iceland was amazing and had stunning scenery and was super-interesting. And they had a great time with their friends and they even enjoyed all the hiking. And the history of the place is fascinating (lava destroying things seems to feature regularly). And the geology was the best thing of all (see lava, above). Even the waterfalls are spectacular. Phew.

Also, they've complained that most of their female schoolmates are weird. Because, for example, of spending vast amounts of time every morning putting on loads of makeup and false eyelashes, and fretting about the stylishness of the day's outfit. "We're literally hiking up a glacier in driving hail wearing full-on weatherproof gear! Who's going to even see your face?!"

"We're literally hiking up a glacier in driving hail wearing full-on weatherproof gear! Who's going to even see your face?!"

Arff! I regularly tell my daughter that she's a) not allowed to wear make up for school and GET A BLOODY MOVE ON, YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT BY NOW; and b) that she doesn't need a face full of make up.

"I haven't got a face full, it's just foundation, mascara and lip salve with a tint! You should see the charva girls with orange faces, loads of eyeshadow, lip gloss and 15 mm eyelashes!"

... ... ...

It's so infair, whya pickin' on meeee?

Anyway, that's an impressive foss running over the basalt cliff, which is actually formerly lava and currently igneous rock.

😄

Looks amazing! I don't suppose they were persuaded to try rotted shark, were they?

I'm only just catching up

@SinnerBoy wow! Thank you for those photos. Incredible. I especially liked the whale skeleton, though I also found it very sad. I wonder how long it had lived and what it had seen. Majestic creatures. And the amphorae! So many stories lurking on the seabed and so much unexplored. Oh and I would love to see one of those sn*kes.

@Kucinghitam That second photo is fantastic.

It's a shame a lot of those posters didn't stick around on the thread. And I miss Mavis but I know in her case she got banned.

It's a shame a lot of those posters didn't stick around on the thread

I do wonder if some of those people have changed usernames and are still around somewhere on MN. But even with thread regulars here, in many cases I've forgotten, or never knew, what their names were at the Old Place.

They are good waterfalls.

MiniPSB had a good trip to Iceland, too. It seems every school goes there. It sounds like they had a fabulous time, and they seem to have their feet on the ground, as regards makeup. The time so many young women today spend on their appearance is dispiriting.

I very much like the cut of the Kuc Juniors' collective jib.

And Iceland is indeed amazing. My last trip there was a choir one but with extra time added, so we went to Geysir and various waterfalls, and had a brilliant day at the Blue Lagoon.

And just for once, I got to use the 4WD offroading skills I had myself expensively taught for my second trip to N Cyprus - the first time we were sad not to be able to get up to Buffavento Castle in a normal hire car, so I spent an excellent day near East Grinstead offroading, only to find out the following year that they'd built a bloody road to it in the meantime...

Never has East Grinstead seemed so exciting! 😀

Well, it was also the birthplace of plastic surgery with the Guinea Pig Club... Archibald McIndoe had a guinea pig as part of his crest when he was knighted- he has a memorial chair in St Clement Danes in London with a carved and gilded one. It's adorable.

PoppySeedBagelRedux · Yesterday 21:59

MiniPSB had a good trip to Iceland, too.

We were looking into a holiday there, a couple of years ago, but couldn't manage it, with work timings.

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast No exotic foodstuffs were consumed. The most exciting meal was a visit to a geothermally-heated tomato greenhouse, where they were served a "crazy good" tomato soup. Elsetimes they had burgers, pizza and the like. I did say it was a shame they didn't get to try hákarl but I can't imagine it would have been a successful experiment with a load of teenagers.

@PoppySeedBagelRedux Maybe our DCs encountered each other! DDs said there were multiple school groups at various venues; at least one other school group on the same flight, both directions.