Groups  

Hi all

 

Well here I am safely back in Spain with sunshine and a very warm temperature. Yesterday was a very pleasant 22C.  I am sat here waiting for my darling wife who is making herself beautiful. At least it is for me!!!  We are off to a New Year's bash in an Indian restuarant, supposed to be  a bit of a Bollywood night. Should be a good night, suppose it will mean another New Year's day in bed!! I am going to try really hard tonight to be sensible and I am determined not to have that last drink that always makes you feel ill.

 

Trust you all had a great Christmas, those of you at least that  were not issuing instructions from the bathroom or bailing out oil. Remember the Torrey Canyon Bill? Perhaps the RAF could have blown your oil tank up? I had Christmas lunch with Sue's mum in the home for the bewildered. I am wondering if I seen the future, hope not. There was one couple on the next table and if she asked him once if it was Christmas day she asked him 50 times. Very sad but did my duty and I am sure Sue's mum appreciated our visit.

 

I wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year and remember, BE CAREFUL!!!!

 

Good luck and cheers

 

Steve

Well done Steve for doing your duty, just remember you may end up like it one day, the only saving grace is that you wont know it, have a great party ,say no to every second drink and you will get through to 2010, happy new year to everyone.

PS

We have got my mum (84) staying with us for a few days, she woke up this morning and asked where the kiddies were, they -are thirty six and thirty eight with their own families, I just gave her the tea and toast and left it at that.

Hi all.

So this is 2010, I wonder what it has in store for us, not too many disasters I hope.....so far so good!

I notice that Ken has been on from sunny Aus, at least I am assuming that it's sunny. OK for him and Steve but we have to put up with daytime temperatures that can just about crawl above freezing in spite of the sunshine, yes we have SUN! Altough as I type this I have local radio on, and they have just proudly announced that it's snowing in Swindon.

Trust that everyone received their dream gifts during the Yule festivities, but personally I am not sorry that its over. Now we can get on with the really interesting things, all the big boys toys, usually associated with railways, canals, tractors and the like.....Oooops, almost forgot all the electrical miracles from computermabobs to large alternators, radio, amplifiers and the like, all good fun!

It's just a question of finding the time!

Sorry Ken, but I think most of our rugby playing days are over, and being as most of us are respectibly married, anything else is out of the question......thus the big boys toys!

Good luck to all.

Sticky. 

Hi All,

Yes the rugby is many moons ago. But as they say the old I get the better I played back then.  I can relate to all your stories. Yes it is warm over here at the moment, but we are receiving a variety of weather across the country with very heavy rain in some areas (8 inches or 200mil overnight) to bush fires and of course the normal warm and sunny weather.

Where I live in the national capital it has been pretty good lately, ranging between 13C overnight and low 30's in the day. Of course in these parts 600m above sea level we do get cool days in winter with frost and temps as low as -7C.  Canberra is located  in the Great Dividing Range about 60 miles from the sea and 100 miles by good road to the snowfields (a lot less if you have a good 4WD and are prepared to go cross country.

Biggest problem Aust wide is the lack of water.  We have been on water restrictions in Canberra for about 3 years and we are always looking and praying for rain.  Yes everyone is happy when it is raining.  It is very dry around this region with none tropical weather.  We can go months without rain and often do.  Lately however we have had better rains than past years but still not nearly enough and our dams are well below 50 percent full.

On your other topic old age and dementia I can relate to that.  My mother suffered from dementia before her death two years ago and I have some great stories.  She was in church with my nephew and passed wind, she turned around and said aloud who farted, only too be told by her grandson that you did grandma.  On the other side of the coin my father-inl-law turned 88 the other day and he is still driving around in Adelaide. Might leave his indicators on a bit long and drive a bit slow and have to go for his licence renewal each year but he is still going strong.  He did a round trip of 800k last Easter and is planning another massive drive Easter 2010, driving from Adelaide to Melbourne on the boat to Tasmania and around Tassie and then home would be in excess of 2000k. 

Anyway now back to your tractors, trains, buses, combis, and campers, I stick to shanks pony, a Japanese and Korean car. Cheers Ken

Hi Ken and all.

I will admit that your warm weather does seem rather appealing at the moment, still b......y cold here!

Tis a funny old world innit. Theres you with a water shortage (not to be taken lightly) and there's us with too much!

Prior to this present cold spell it seemed to do nothing but rain from the end of October, pretty well. There has been terrible floods in the Lake District, around the Cockermouth area in particular with several bridges washed out, a long way from us of course, but it's been pretty wet country wide.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one that realises that there are certain physical restrictions when you get to our age, on the plus side however we certainly become more cynical, I say plus because a certain maturity entitles one to voice oppinions about it all without landing in too much trouble, in fact you can say pretty well what you like as nobody is listening anyway. For example....

When my Mother was well into her seventies she lived at Weymouth and in the summer time she used to entertain herself by sitting on the sea front and chatting to the holidaymakers, or accosting holidaymakers, it depends upon your perspective. One Saturday morning she was engaged in this passtime when a very young and well turned out police constable walked past. She beckoned him over and in not too quiet tones adressed him thus 'Hullo me son, you look very smart 'smornin, who got you ready?' All he did was smile, coming from anyone of another age group they would have been given a hard time if not arrested. See it works!

Gotta go now guys.

Enjoy 2010.

Sticky.