Menopause and migraines

[patsylabrador 178]

These two babies regularly come quite close to get the seed. 

[Daphne 71]

Great photos!  It must have been hard to get so close

[patsylabrador 178]

I have a great little camera. It's small enough to fit in a pocket but has a x30 optical zoom. I take it everywhere I go just in case, even just to sit in the garden. 

[Beantree 43]

Yes they are great photos and of two species we don't have here. I've never seen a grey squirrel in France but dozens of red ones and we have one that wanders down the lane to take our walnuts; plenty enough to share. We don't have mice now after two years of concerted pest control as the house and out-buildings were infested, but we do have short-tailed long haired field voles which our terrier is controlling. Problem is they get into the veg plot and eat everything, as do the slugs and did the 40+ snails which have now been re-homed.

[soapdragon 283]

As you'll know, from another thread, I've been desperately searching for a Syrian hamster baby and was very surprised to come across an ad for harvest mice! As domestic pets?

[mullethunter 237]

Crikey you’d need small mesh.

[Cat tails 336]

Think they are kept in glass terrariums rather than cages.

[Valkyrie 289]

Cute little baby birdies and mammals.  Harvest mice are so dinky!  I've seen them at the New Forest centre - name of which escapes me, but the deer come up and sniffle fingers - my son was smitten with it all.  

[Lewis 138]

Winnie and Céline outside the Parliament building in Budapest

[soapdragon 283]

Having been searching for a baby Syrian hamster after Hugo's sad departure for the great wheel in the sky I have been trawling various site and am truly appalled by the number of ads for adult hamsters whose owners 'can no longer give them the time that they need'......this phrase comes up again and again in the ads. For goodness sake, how much time does a hamster need? 15 mins each week (x 2 in the summer!) to clean them out then 10 mins or so x 3/4 per day to play with or interact with them as a real minimum isn't that hard to find, timewise, is it? Makes me furious that people take on a commitment then are clearly not prepared to follow it through even though these small furries are only around for 2/3 years. Hamsters are not toys!

Rant over; sorry! 

[Grandmashazzie 57]

Totally agree, it’s the same for dogs on these sites, have a new job, expecting a baby, can’t commit to the same he needs, really sad.

[Patricia W 133]

At least they are trying to rehome.  Looking after animals should be a compulsory element in the school curriculum and/ places that sell animals should be required to vet potential buyers more thoroughly and provide a compulsory beginners course.   ( I think Im getting more dictatorial the older I get! ) 

[Alis girls 39]

Well - sat in traffic this morning at 7.15am. Listening to radio 2 and willing lights to change and a motorcyclist pulled up on passenger side complete with visor down and stared into car. I always lock myself in day and night. All my bravado evaporated as I stared thinking " what do I do if he breaks window, or damages car" 

He leaned over and flicked my passenger side mirror back out - I had folded it in the night before when parking on road to prevent damage. 

I mouthed "thank you" and sighed with relief.  I am a wuss and guilty of thinking the worse.  Oh dear 

[soapdragon 283]

I do find blokes in full black leathers with their helmets on an visors down very intimidating - I'd have been the same!

[Cat tails 336]

 Hahahaha! I get this sooooo often on my PINK bike. If I see a car with broken tail light or brake light, I do try to tell them at stop lights. But most of the time people are very reluctant to open their windows, for me to tell them what is wrong.

[Alis girls 39]

He looked like a power ranger . I wouldn't want to work in a bank if they didn't take their helmets off. I like to think I'm a *****y broad but sadly I am a big time wuss.

[patsylabrador 178]

I have a new hero... Jofra Archer. I'm not a great fan of cricket or tennis but those two matches today were awesome. Watching them simultaneously was really fun. 

[soapdragon 283]

What happened to Antiques Roadshow? Doh!

[patsylabrador 178]

I was visiting somewhere today and there was a mum who I guessed from her language was Eastern European but I've no idea which one. She was talking to her little boy in her natural language and he was talking back in English. It was amazing to listen to. My daughter in law sends lots of videos of my grandson and I can hear them talking to him in English and Japanese sort of intermingled. I'm fascinated about how his little brain processes that. 

[Lewis 138]

I have lots of Norwegian friends who teach me phrases and random vocab so sometimes they'll be having a conversation I can understand what they're saying by only knowing a few words and reply in English. 

Slovak was much harder to learn but again after 5 years there we knew quite a lot of vocab so could understand bits - it's much easier to listen to people speaking to children or foreign students speaking as it's much slower and each word is pronounced separately but I couldn't form sentences to reply  

Edited July 15 by Lewis

[patsylabrador 178]

Persephone trying to be a good girl and not come on the patio but so badly wanting to come on the patio. 

[patsylabrador 178]

I was woken at 4am by some bird imitating a car alarm. It was actually quite funny to hear. I've heard that birds will do that. I've heard phones ringing in the trees but that's the first car alarm 🚙 ⏰ I also think it's quite clever that they do phones ringing during the day and the car alarm was early morning when you often hear them anyway when people are  heading off to work. 

[Cat tails 336]

Starlings are quite good at mimicry. I had a starling in my garden a few years ago who imitated the chickens, but also black birds, coots, swifts, jackdaws, a few more other birds and frogs. He had a whole song with all these sounds.

On another imitation note... Merel tried to do a cockerel for about 20 min this morning... 

[Luvachicken 222]

We have a lovely thrush that does all sorts of sounds from car alarms to various sirens and even a house alarm. He does them all over and over again. 

There was even a robin that could do the Intel processor tune.

Hubby of course could never hear any of it - just a bird singing 

Edited July 19 by Luvachicken

[Valkyrie 289]

A few years ago we were in Wimborne Minster (well must be well before 10 years ago because we were with my folks!) and a blackbird was adding a little police siren sound to his warble!