Saturday discussion post: tell me some good news (121/365)

[white_hart]

I'm feeling a bit glum today (I often do at this time of year, as there's never quite enough warmth and sunshine to have driven the SAD away completely, and I'm shattered, had an annoying afternoon where I ended up not much further forward with my sewing than I'd started out after catching the powermesh lining of my latest Banskia Bralette with the iron and having to unpick everything and cut a new lining piece, and am feeling sad and cross about not being able to have the long weekend I'd been looking forward to), so tell me something happy?

I did at least have a lovely peaceful solo swim earlier, which helped to wash away some of the stresses of the week. The current is much less strong than it was a month ago and I made it further upstream than I have before. I was tempted to carry on to the railway bridge but thought it was probably better to err on the side of caution.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

We had a garden visitor today! We've done extremely little socializing in person in the last year and it was really nice to see an old friend, that I hadn't seen in a long time. We had tea and cake and a good conversation that'll help me with some big stuff I've got going on at the moment.

[antisoppist]

I have planted 16 plug plants - 3 each of 5 different things plus one of the one I planted the other two of already - and although I didn't choose them because they are a random selection of what Suttons had left and were therefore cheap, they are all perennials that attract pollinators so I am hoping they will cheer up my garden and do good for The Nature (as they say in Scandinavia).

[mountainkiss]

I am taking you literally that you really do want to hear happy things, because I don’t want to rub it in, but I have had a beautiful day. Swimming in the lido with Dr P, followed by a glorious afternoon with a college friend and her delightful family, with a wisteria- spotting walk to the river and a beautiful cemetery. Can’t remember when I have had a more normal feeling day.

[shewhostaples]

I have many seeds sprouting, including a second generation fancy bean that I'm particularly pleased to have coaxed into carrying on.

[nineveh_uk]

Argh it is so annoying to catch (and melt?) things like that.

I'm feeling cheerful because I seem to have got off lightly on vaccine side-effects and side- side- some art.

[perennialanna]

Not only did I spot a small flock of goldfinches in some waste grass this morning, I also managed to get both children to spot them too. L in particular finds seeing what other people are pointing at very tricky.

[white_hart]

That sounds lovely!

[white_hart]

Hurrah for flowers and pollinators!

[white_hart]

That sounds delightful. I'm glad you had such a nice day.

[white_hart]

Oh, wonderful!

[white_hart]

I'm glad you have managed to avoid the side-effects! (And so much for all the people who I've heard saying "if you have side-effects that means you've had it", which I thought was dubious anyway.)

[white_hart]

Goldfinches are lovely! Ours haven't been around much recently, I assume because there is more food elsewhere though our garden has also seen an increase in feline activity.

[alithea]

I potted up my herbs and strawberry plants yesterday and spent a very pleasant evening laughing at appallingly bad films with some friends over Zoom. And this morning I actually slept til about 8 rather than being wide awake at 6 when Kev's work alarm would have gone off if he was working this weekend.

And not my good news, but I am very excited for 2 of my writer friends who have been offered representation by a really good literary agent who has worked with Martha Wells no less!

[mrs_redboots]

It's raining, which is really good news because we so desperately need it!

[joyeuce]

I went out for lunch with my NCT group friends yesterday. We hadn't met as a group for about a year though I have managed to see three of the other four individually. It was so lovely to see them all and I laughed more than I have in a very long time.

[white_hart]

That all sounds excellent. Congratulations to your writer friends!

[white_hart]

We do indeed!

[white_hart]

Oh, that sounds wonderful!

[nineveh_uk]

Alas, spent today feeling utterly zonked, which I suspect is not unrelated! Oh well. But indeed people are wrong - data published this week is that nearly 50% of people who've had Covid don't have systemic side-effects with AZ.

[jinty]

I got my second vaccine on Friday and afterwards went walking in a park I hadn't been in prevoiusly - Gillians Park in Blackbird Leys. It turns out to have metal statues / emblems of blackbirds at each entrance, and one of them was unusual I thought - it was a chick being fed by its mother, via regurgitation I suppose because it was a case of beak-in-other-beak. Well it amused me :-)

And there is a Roman Road near there, and it leads to a wood (Sandford Brake) with an electricity substation in the middle of it in a rather Chernobyl-twenty-years-later-and-overgrown kinda way.

[white_hart]

That sounds wonderful! I love discovering new places like that, and Oxford is so good at suddenly having little patches of woods and green space. I can see the wood and the electricity substation on Google Earth, and I can follow the line of the Roman road from Roman Way off Horspath Driftway right the way down (though the Mini plant cuts across it). Amazing!

[jinty]

Hah, good call on looking at Google Earth, just done that myself and found out where next to pick up the route (Watlington Road heading south towards Blackbird Leys).

I put some photos up on Instagram on Friday last, easy to miss people’s feeds I know but it included some nice trees & blossom pix plus the blackbird chick being fed.

[white_hart]

Oh yes! I do like the blackbirds.