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…

... not much opportunity these days for a single maniacal scalpel-wielding genius in his turret laboratory of a remote rain-drenched castle, surrounded by wolf-infested dark forests.

They've taken all the fun out of academia, haven't they? Mind you, it's been on the way for a long time. Congratulations on your escape.

Ooh, good shift, rasa!

I wish you well in your new position!

Congrats, Rasa!

Well done!

Thank you all, negotiations underway as to when I shall start my new position. I don't want to leave my team in the lurch and my line manager has been fabulous to work for (really I'm only leaving because he's not been able to secure grant funding to keep paying me - hard times in the science world). The new team would like me to start ASAP but I have all these responsibilities that I need to hand over...

Congratulations - though I hope you don't end up doing two jobs in parallel during the turnover.

I know we all have to learn how to do group work, but remember the undergraduate stage as being a time I didn't just learn academic stuff but also learned more about my own skills and strategies that I was able to apply once I started working and had to co-ordinate with others.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5447561-where-is-the-strangest-place-a-delivery-person-has-left-your-delivery?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

This is shaping up to be an interesting thread.

We haven't had too much bother with deliveries, though there was one driver who was supposed to deliver every day for two weeks and didn't. I'd watch the dot on the live map, see the van go past our place and then a message would arrive saying 'Sorry to miss you!'. Eventually the package was sent out with a different courier.

Is everybody else having cold weather? It thawed a bit yesterday and there was sheet ice at the bottom of the street. That was on the home leg from walking the dog, whose legs all splayed out as she bashed her chin on the tarmac.

Two nice women driving past stopped and asked, "Is he all right?" (She survived the misgendering entirely unscathed).

I saw two cars with approx 1foot diameter cleared of snow on the windscreens. One woman pulled away with a child in the front passenger seat, she hadn't even attempted to clear the solid ice.

I hope Superman is her dad...

It's supposed to be the coldest night so far, tonight, before milder weather. Not much left in the way of logs, I'm having a delivery on Monday. I came down at 7 am and found my daughter on the Turkish rug, next to the log burner.

Congrats on new job @RasaSayangEh

I was never crazy about group work except for occasional quick projects (we used to do a few one day group projects on the Foundation Art & Design which could be really good fun) but I have assessed bigger group projects occasionally and it’s generally been pretty clear who’s done what and where the marks should go and what feedback to give each participant.

It's been below freezing overnight here recently, some snow yesterday morning and a fair amount of ice still on the pavements this morning. But we haven't needed the log burner yet - the temperature has been holding up OK indoors (used to be arctic when we first moved in, but much improved after we installed double glazing and then this summer replaced the warped draughty rotten back door with a nice modern insulated composite).

Re: deliveries, we've only had a couple of the classic "chucked over the 6-ft side gate" and "giant box 'hidden' on our front doorstep in plain view of the road by placing the doormat on top."

I think it's not quite that frozen here, but there is a skim of ice on puddles and a brisk wind, and I squeaked in horror when a friend from the next village who I was talking to on the phone said how cold it had been this morning when he went swimming in the lake. But how lovely the sunrise was.

It's been cool, damp and windy here (north coast of Kent) but basically more "miserable" than actually bad. Every time the sun came out, we ventured forth only to be rained on as soon as we were away from shelter!

In a fit of pique I decided to move to Morocco - as you do - and my cursory investigation of Essaouira (never been, but the climate is great!) yielded the following response to an utterly insane one-star review of a private hospital. (It was apparently originally written in French and Google-translated, which explains some of the oddities.) Highlighting and "..." editing is mine. Exclamation marks are the clinic's.

"Madam, we know you very well, the entire team on duty that day remembers you very well after the scandal you caused, your friend who is precisely the patient ... who seriously cut his hand was very satisfied with the service, the problem was with you who insisted on accompanying him to the operating room under the pretext that you were afraid that the doctor would steal his kidneys!!!! "

There is quite a lot more, and I came away with the impression that this woman was actually insane!

@Gonners That's brilliant!

Arf.

Congratulations Rasa but what a shame you can’t stay in your existing team.

It’s been cold here,and there was even ice on the pavement in North London this morning. I popped into the West End on my way home, and the combination of the cold and the Christmas lights made me feel very festive. Except It’s Still November. I did get some Christmas shopping done though, in Liberty, which normally sells mostly lovely but expensive things, but also a few that are lovely but well-priced, and make excellent Christmas presents for our family Secret Santa. You do have to get there early enough though, hence my visit in November.

That’s brilliant @Gonners.

it feels very weird that it seems colder on your side of the Atlantic than here, and colder further south in parts of the USA than here in Maine. We’re hovering in the 30s F at the moment and mainly just above freezing. Off to New Jersey for Thanksgiving tomorrow though, taking DS1 to see DS2 and staying for Thanksgiving festivities before dropping him back at the airport in Boston on Friday on our way home.

It always gets cold around this time in November. It's my brother's birthday and my mum remembers it snowing when he was born. Then it gets warmer.

My dad died early this morning. He was 90 and had not been well for years so it was beyond his time. It feels like the end of an era, he was such a huge presence in our lives.

I'm so sorry Vegemite.

So sorry @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast that is very sad news. Condolences to you and your family

I'm so sorry, vegemite.

Even when expected it leaves a big hole.

Parents do leave a massive hole. So sorry to hear, Veg. 🌺

Oh, that's sad news, vegemite, I'm so sorry. It's still a shock when something you've expected logically for years happens, and it doesn't diminish the grief.

Thanks all. It does feel very weird to know he's gone and we'll never speak again. He was central to the family and will leave a huge gap, but being such a central figure meant he was always surrounded by love and that's a great comfort just now.