Thread 18 - TalkLair: "That's no moon. It's a space station!"

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 17)

We've had our heatwave - is this it for the summer? All is lush and green in our LairGarden, flowers are blooming, berries are ripening...

In the TalkLair, all the windows are open, the Pimms is chilled, the MN massive salad is ready to serve. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, 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…

Well, I've just ordered a key safe from EvilAmazonPrime and (if I don't forget my own head) I'll stick a set of keys in there and ask the kitchen company's office to pass on the message to the fitter.

Yes, good call; we've had one for a few years and it's used regularly, by my wife and daughter. Apparently, it's easier than getting their keys out of their bags.

Don't forget the combination number, that's my issue with key safes!

May I just do a small dance of glee, please? Background: we got an insane water bill (double the usual) and it looks as though there's a leak, almost certainly on our property. Luckily we're insured for repairs, but the bill (which is currently on hold) will still have to be paid. Oh well, shit happens.

Then about an hour ago I got an email from BT:

We're sorry, we haven't been charging you for your broadband. We've fixed this now, so your broadband charges will start in 30 days. As this was our mistake, we'll only ask you to pay back one month of broadband from before then.

No, I genuinely hadn't noticed. No need to be sorry, BT. As you haven't charged us since March, the freebie will more than cover the water bill!

Nice one, Gonners! That's a bit more bloody well like it.

Result! @Gonners :-)

Sounds like witchcraft to me!

Woman just came and paid for the ball-shattered broken window. Very apologetic. I even offered her 35 quid back, as a good-will gesture, but she wouldn't take it. So that's pleasing. More bothered about the risk of neighbourly ill-will than the actual money.

Sounds like that went well, moto. Good relations with the neighbours are a big deal and it's good that you've got that.

I nearly posted this last night, but it was stupid late, so at this slightly more civilised hour... I just love this record. maybe even more than their first one. It's a record I'm going to love forever, like Hejira.

I don't think the vid adds much, but still...

That's not going to work, is it? I don't think it's MN.

Anyway, it was Sisters of the night watch by I'm With Her. It's on YouTube and elsewhere.

I liked that a lot, though I have to say Hejira is one of my less favoured Joni Mitchell albums.

Good to hear about the window @moto748e

As it was tolerably warm and clear skies last night, we stayed up late (by my standards, I'm usually in bed by 9:30) to sit outside and look out for the Perseids. There were several during the couple of hours we were outside, and I managed to miss every single one! I was always either fiddling with my seat cushion, or scratching my leg, or simply looking in the wrong direction. DDs found it hilarious.

However, we did get an excellent sighting of the ISS being super-bright and (to much excitement as DDs didn't know what it was and were somewhat alarmed) a Starlink formation trailing across the sky.

The plumber came today - mid- 30s, smiling, friendly, tanned, wearing shorts (great legs!) - unusually tall, handsome and charming. He came in, said "Okay, first of all where's your toilet?", looked into the bowl and said the valve had gone in the cistern so there was effectively a 24-hour trickle of water. Would that account for the insane bill? It certainly would!

It took him less than 10 minutes to replace it, after which we had a look at the water meter and sure enough the spinny silver bit was no longer spinning. (The thing with loo drips is that it trickles silently, so if you're a woman and just open the lid, sit down, and then close the lid and flush, you don't notice it.)

On the way out he hopped on the bathroom scales and said "Argh! 15 stone!" at which I laughed and asked how tall he was: 6'4". I told him that was not excessive and he looked fine to me. I considered kidnapping him and holding him hostage as a sex-slave, but at my age, height and weight that wasn't going to work. Isn't life tragic?

Enjoy the view, Gonners!

Just back from our long-weekend-that-wasn't-really-a-weekend.

An amusing highlight was a large sheet draped over a flyover on the M1, upon which was the shaky handpainted message:

KEIR STARMER IS A W⚓︎

Ha! A fellow Labour voter, presumably? I sometimes wonder if I would feel more contemptuous of him if I were a Tory, but I don't think that would be possible.

On a bizarre note, MrG has just gone off to bed and when he said "Goodnight ... see you in the morning" I replied (without thinking) in a 1960s Ulster Catholic accent "Yes, if the Good Lord spares me." He was (quite reasonably) bewildered until I realised I was channelling my mother's cleaner, who said this every time she left!

Ha! Definite sign of aging. I have found myself intoning 'Please God' every time anything in the future is mentioned.

Speaking of aging.

Yesterday evening my dad escaped from the apartment again while my mum was out. It took her and the apartment security guards 7 hours to find him (around midnight), despite having the AirTag in the sole of his shoe. The guards had to check every floor of the 3 apartment blocks - very helpful chaps, I must say. Eventually dad was found wandering around the grounds, somehow everybody had missed seeing him in the dark? The gardens and outdoor areas are lit, but not all over, so perhaps he'd found a dark corner or something.

That must be so worrying @RasaSayangEh . (Insomniac night here, hence posting around 4am my time).

It's impossible for my mum to go out for errands and shopping while shepherding my dad around as he's so wobbly and random. So she says she has to leave him at home. I don't really know what the solution is, except for locking him in. He hasn't escaped from the apartment for the past couple of months as he seemed to have lost the ability to manipulate keys in locks - and then had a dramatic improvement in key-handling yesterday 🤦🏻‍♀️

Does she have a friend or relative nearby that she could leave in charge while she has to go out?

A nursing home my father went into for a couple of weeks respite used a tag linked to a sort of reverse intruder alarm that went off if he tried to cross the threshold. Maybe the apartment security people could advise?

@Britinme My aunt (mum's sis) lives in the same city (but it's a sprawling city so it is not a short drive) and has stepped in a couple of times for dad-sitting, but obviously can't do it frequently.

@DeanElderberry We have CCTV set up on the front hall which sends an alert, but I think the problem is that mum would still have to gallop home from wherever she is.