Marty

Greetings, young Albert!

Going super, thanks!

Hi, Page! (In a Zoom meeting at the moment)

There's been no sucking in my day (yet).

Hey, Albert! Hope you're having a good day. Just in case you haven't heard, Bucket has a long weekend coming up.

Sleep well, Mr B.

Daylight saving ends in Ireland at 2:00am on Sunday, 25th October this year. The EU are talking about doing away with daylight saving. That could cause confusion in Ireland after Brexit as, if the UK don't follow suit, there could be two different time zones during the summer on what is quite a small island. https://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/europe-dst-end-2019.html

A Google search suggests some parts of Australia may be celebrating the Queen's birthday this weekend... Not sure why, though, as it isn't her birthday. [Queen Elizabeth II actually had her 94th birthday on April 24th 2020, although she also has an Official Birthday on the second Saturday in June each year. Something to do with the unpredictable British weather, I understand. https://www.insider.com/why-does-the-queen-have-2-birthdays-2016-4] But Bucket likes to say he lives in our future, so maybe he's celebrating her 95th...

Greetings, young Albert!

Hey, Page! I've had quite a productive day so far, thanks for asking. My builder finally got back to me yesterday. There's a number of jobs he's to do, but he's spent the past two days repairing the wooden floor in my living room. That should be finished tomorrow, which means I'll be able to start actually living in the living room! I picked up a prescription from the pharmacy this morning. It was raining when I finally got back home, so one of the jobs I've done since was to make some more jam from the wild blackberries I picked a couple of days ago. How's things with you and yours this evening?

*Sits back to watch others treat him as a piece of meat and fight over him...*

I do like the autumnal weather (and colours), but it's definitely not my favourite time of the year. But that's because it portends winter. I much prefer the spring.

G'day, bro. A bit cooler than the past week or so here today. Cloudy also, with occasional slight showers. The Met Office is suggesting the next week will have changeable weather, some rain, and cooler than recently, with even the possibility of slight frosts overnight...

Happy Tuesday, everyone! And, for the day that's in it....

Greetings, young Albert!

It could be that he had a good night. (Just saying....)

It is, actually. Hope your day is also good, bro!

Greetings, young Albert!

They all showed up for me.

One of the main things about this site is the ability for readers to leave comments on individual chapters, and reviews for completed stories. This is the only payment authors on here receive for their hard work. The vast majority of stories (with the exception of the Premium content) are free to read. Read them on the site, and leave comments for the authors. As @Myr says, you can access the stories on your smartphone.

Thought I'd share this with you before I head to bed... Albert actually took us to the 45,000 replies mark. (I think this post will be reply 45,005) [EDIT: I suppose the next number of note will be the ascending 45,678-th reply....]

Bedtime for me. Goodnight, all!

This almost sounds similar to what happened with my granddad around 50 years back. He was in his mid eighties at the time and his eyesight was failing due to cataracts on his lenses. At the time they would normally just remove the lenses, to allow the light to pass to the retina again, and then provide different spectacles for close (reading) and distant vision. With my grandfather, they fitted plastic lenses inside the eyeballs which allowed him to focus on distant objects, and then he used reading glasses for reading books (one of the things he loved, but had been unable to do for years due to the cataracts). About ten years later my mam needed cataract operations, and she was a bit upset when the surgeon told her she couldn't have plastic lenses inserted because she was only in her early sixties. Apparently the plastic that was being used to make the lenses at the time would slowly deteriorate, and only had a life expectancy of around ten years. The only reason they had been used for her father (my granddad) was due to his advanced age. Maybe they've improved the plastic technology in the meantime..? My mam and granddad lived in England. The operations were done free under the NHS. There was a waiting list of several years, however, and had they been able to afford to go private, they could have got them done much more quickly. I haven't a clue what it might have cost, though.

It does. And I almost feel guilty about spending ten minutes or so several times a day picking them off the leaves of the brassica plants (cabbages, kale and swedes) and dropping them as far away as possible from them. That means they'll possibly starve to death, as they will probably have no host plant to feed on. I could just kill them but (a) I just don't like killing things, and (b) there's a possibility they may provide food for birds, hedgehogs, or other predators when left in the grass. What I certainly have no intention of doing is spraying insecticides of any sort on the brassicas to kill the caterpillars. The most important reason for not doing that is that the chemicals would kill all insect species, many of which are beneficial (even the butterflies and/or moths the caterpillars themselves will eventually turn into are pollinators). Also, I don't want to be eating crops from my garden that have been sprayed with chemicals. And I certainly don't trust any claims the manufacturers may make about them being natural, short lasting, or non-toxic.

Hey, Gary!