Thread 16 - TalkLair: "Well, I'm not exactly quaking in my stylish-yet-affordable boots, but there's definitely something unnatural going on here."

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 15).

Another year over, a new one just begun...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls festooned with tinsel, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors, the tree is twinkling with fairy lights (and possibly being clambered on by cats). 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 Christmas roast beast over there in the corner of the cave…

Tear-jerking as it is, that's the style, Fags!

All my love to you, beautiful FagsMagsandBags

(Fags).

Can you get one of those talking machines so you sound like Stephen Hawking?

I'm looking for a voice inhancer and found something recommended by Parkinson's people so I'm going to email them. There's also a steroid that helps with the voice so I'll suggest that to oncology. The voice inhancer isn't expensive so I'll be able to afford it and give it a go. If it doesn't work I tried!

And if it works I'll whisper like Hawking (I reckon I can manage that) and freak the fuck out of people for shits and giggles.

(((Fags)))

We'll make sure the old place gets the post link if needed. And I'm glad you have a good next home for Francis.

Our local city has just had a wallet-drop experiment. Ten wallets 'lost'; ten wallets returned.

I've been away and completely lost track of things, but I had the urge to check in today and I'm so glad I did because I've now caught up with the last few pages.

This is unbelievably shit news @FagsMagsandBags, and all so unfair. It shouldn't be allowed to work the way it does.

I'm glad you've got some good drugs. Please don't hesitate to get in touch if you need anything or I can help in any way, I'm only down the road from you. Are you capybara-ing at Drus? Also, have you been to Knepp? I was over there recently with a friend. One of the storks has just laid eggs, you can watch them on the StorkCam

Really bloody dusty in here this morning for some reason...

Fags, you are a truly amazing woman and this just feels so bloody unfair. Great that you have a suitable next home for Francis and a plan to freak people out though.

I’d hug you in a virtual way if you liked hugs @FagsMagsandBags. I have no idea whether there is anything left of us after we die, though I like to imagine there is. Somebody (possibly the Dalai Lama) wrote about the concept that consciousness is like an ocean, and we are the waves that emerge from it for a while then sink back into it, as waves do.

For the first time this year it's warmer outside than indoors.

I've just been to the shop without a coat! First time this year. And got the bike out yesterday.

I went out in shorts sleeves and a denim jacket yesterday evening. Almost everyone on the tube seemed to be in jumpers and winter coats so I was worried I’d got it wrong but it was still warm when I was coming home.

Today is even better though and feels a step up from anything that passed for summer last year!

It's lovely.

I've just been outside planting yellow/purple pansies where the sun shines through them and they're just beautiful.

That's quite beautiful, @Britinme I like it.

Lovely Francis could be gone on Saturday. I haven't lived alone without a cat or dog possibly ever. I've been without a cat or dog but then sharing or lodging with someone else. Crikey. But, upstairs have Gus and Tod, the ragdolls and they've told me that I can have cuddles with them. They now know too. It becomes a little exhausting and more so with this stupid whisper, telling people because it's just another heart that you're breaking or injuring and it's hard but there's one person who will be told quite soon by another friend and then it all goes live (ha!) on Facebook, everyone knows and Snoop and I and the others can get back to some boring admin and then some of the fun stuff. I had a visit from my local hospice people today and the woman who came was delightful. It helped that she was Irish. Irish people make me comfortable because I guess they're my earliest voices, my earliest people. I feel safe and she was, as you'd say over there, a total dote and she got me.

I've ordered the voice thing which might even turn up tomorrow and I'm quite excited about it. It was a lot less cheap than I expected but that's what money is for. And a book from one of my favourite authors turned up today - I'd preordered it on Amazon months ago. She can write some long books but this isn't one of those which I'm hugely grateful for because I'm pretty sure I'll have time to finish it. It's Emma Donoghue and her new novel, The Paris Express. I bloody love her work!

@VictorianBigot huzzah! I'm glad you're around and about and okay! The capybaras are at Epsom, it's very much for children but the sloths, who I'm going to try to use the cancer and not just cancer but terminally ill with the bad cancer card for, are at Drusillas. And I will contact you and you can contact me. You were missed and it's good to see you back in the fold. I'm so glad that you all turned up here. It's been so lovely feeling part of the old, old place but without the stuff of it all but also finding new people here and being a part of a place and a place within a place, or even places within a place.

I'm off out to Snoop's later with a couple of other friends and Snoop's chef boyf is making us his lasagne which is so lush. And we'll play games. And I might get a haircut. And it's been such a beautiful day here and I hope the first day of spring has had at least some sunshine for everyone here today. It does make all the difference.

That sounds like a fab evening ahead @FagsMagsandBags. I’m off out later with a couple of friends but no lasagne unfortunately. I wasn’t sure whether to say it earlier so I didn’t, but one of the reasons I’ve been absent is that my friend very sadly died in February and I’ve been finding things difficult. I caught myself thinking I’d be seeing him later because it feels so strange to be meeting the other two without him. He was such a GBOL.

On the weather front, it’s been very mild here today, but I’m a winter girl so I’m a bit gutted it looks like the lovely cold crisp days are over. We had one evening of snow here, the traffic ground to an halt briefly and that was that.

In other news, I inherited a cassette my dad recorded in 1963, of my grandmother and all four of my great grandparents (whose voices I’d never heard) which had been sent to my great uncle in Canada. I listened to it for the first time just before Christmas, which is when most of the tape was recorded, and there’s a really nice part where everyone is singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing which made me cry. There was a small segment towards the end with my 20 year old dad talking about his engineering apprenticeship which also made me cry. I had no idea the tape existed. I’m very glad to have it.

TL;DR lots of crying.

What a wonderful thing to have, VB.

It's been gorgeously bright an sunny here, which has apparently led all the local farmers to decide its a grand day for slurry spraying.

Kasper says hello too

Hello, Kasper. I hope you're doing your purring and snuggling jobs to help your human.

We had slurry spraying last week and it was pretty ripe. I recognised the smell as being chicken shit which, generally smells rank and was no different this time.

My sympathies. I think this was mainly cow (just a hint of pig), so not as violent on the nose as poultry.

That’s a particularly fine picture of lovely Kasper!

That tape sounds great @VictorianBigot. We have some reel to reel tapes here from the early sixties but nothing to play them on any more.

And sorry to hear about your friend.

I'm so sorry about your friend, @VictorianBigot but that cassette is such a gift and it makes me happy you have it. Life needs lovely moments of joy like that.