Thread 19 - TalkLair: "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 18)

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

In the TalkLair, the fairy lights are festooned on the mantlepiece, the tree is twinkling with baubles, the mince pies are in the oven, the MN legendary chicken is ready to feed the hordes. 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…

Cat and dogs, no problem at all. Interestingly, I can even identify chimps relatively easily despite them having less variation than humans.

Possibly more people in public life should learn from Ant and Dec and always appear together in alphabetical order. Otherwise, big name badges all round.

Just drove past a Tesla with a bumper sticker “I BOUGHT THIS BEFORE ELON WENT CRAZY”

No joke if you bought one, and some prick daubs "Swasticar" all over it. Can understand owners feeling a bit defensive.

Looks like the heatwave is over, at least here in ThatYorkshire. It's forecast to rain for the rest of the week and is getting rather cool as well. Always seems to be the way, May (and often April) are freakishly hot and dry, then June-July-August are cool and wet.

We didn't get the few hot days you usually get in April this year. But one benefit of living in the North is that it never gets 'too' hot in summer. London can be pretty oppressive in midsummer. Drizzle here now too.

But one benefit of living in the North is that it never gets 'too' hot in summer. London can be pretty oppressive in midsummer.

Very true, although in even the mildest northern heatwave, the busses hereabouts would give the Tube a run for its money!

For no particular reason this has reminded me of a very cold winter in about 1987, and a Sunday stroll around leafy Barnes. I stopped at the pond and saw a small boy - aged about 2 - pestering the geese and swans. And then, when was right at the edge, one of them marched up behind him and very deliberately pushed him in.

His parents took it brilliantly, and treated it as a teaching opportunity: Do Not Bother Animals and Birds!

That made me laugh, Gonners. Bet he didn't do that again.

It was an excellent example of middle-to-upper-middle-class parenting, from both the bird and the humans.

It's been drizzzly here today, but it's gone Biblical tonight. It's hammering down at the moment. I wanted to fill a crack between the front door frame and wall today and decided against it, because of weather.

Im hoping it'll die off tomorrow.

It has just, in the past 10 minutes, started to chuck it down here. It's forecast to last all day ... though I console myself with the thought that the weather forecast is rarely correct here.

Here in west London, it's rained off and on through the night, and then it started up again about half an hour ago. I can practically hear the garden being happy.

We had 17mm overnight which is a massive relief. We may get more this afternoon.

And of course it means I get to use one of my favourite words - PETRICHOR.

It's a king amongst words, there's no doubt of that.

Meanwhile we’re still cooler than usual over here, though sunny this morning. I’ve lost track of what temperatures in C mean, but it’s generally been in the high 40s to mid 60s F for the last month, except for one glorious day when it hit 80. July is normally hot though, so we’re contemplating putting the air-conditioners in the window.

I only got to grips with celsius after a friend taught me this rhyme:

Five, ten, twenty-one:
Winter, spring and summer sun.

My brother seemed baffled by the word petrichor when I used it in response to him coming in saying there was that smell of summer rain on hard ground yesterday evening. It rained noisily in the night and again this morning. I guess the garden is happy.

I think I do all weather in Celsius now but for a long time I thought in Celsius in winter and Fahrenheit in summer (and was probably just a bit baffled in spring and autumn).

And now there is thunder and lightning and the rain is beating against the front of the house. I guess it’s officially summer.

Yep, absolutely hosing it down here!

We've also got thunder and it's moving closer. Wind's picking up too.

I got to where I was working this morning and found the village under a thick dark blanket of cloud and the moment I stepped into the garden, the heavens opened and the road at the front turned into a river. Then I realised I'd forgotten to put my waterproofs back in the car and they're in the hallway at home instead. At that point I gave up and will go again on Thursday.

Here it comes, big ol' fat rain!

Sun out here, and the air smells amazing - clean and fresh and grassy. Even in London!

Five C on a winter day here would be considered balmy and unusually warm. -5C would be a fairly normal Maine winter.