I knitted fingerless gloves for my mum just for that reason, so she can still use her phone and do other things without needing to remove the gloves. She has arthritis so keeping her hands warm helps.

And I bet they charge quite a bit for the aluminum frame too? I have not bought a bike for myself ever, so I am out of the loop. lol

I find fingerless gloves are ideal for using the computer as well :) I did try wearing them while hand sewing, but I managed to sew my project to the glove I was wearing 😊

nods aluminium frame bikes are a lot more expensive than regular ones. I think I got my bike while I was at senior school, so I was probably 15 or thereabouts? ;)

I do notice my hands sometimes getting cold when I am using my computer during the winter, so maybe I should make a pair for myself as well. I do have wool. :D I had to chuckle at your sewing your project on to the glove you were wearing. lol

Could go for an electric scooter, but people get into accidents with those. Or an e-bike. Those are nifty for getting up those hills.

I'm so sorry, between the migraines and the crazy chaos that is the holiday season I've been rather busy and have utterly failed to get back online to chat--oopies. I'll try to do better. Promise. On the plus side, cello is going super well. I got slurs down! I've not been able to do slurs on the violin at all. Slurs, for those who don't know are playing more than one note on the same bow stroke. It basically makes the note slur into the next note so it changes the sound a bit. The best example is the song Amazing Grace on the Bagpipes. When you here the part when the bagpipes play the Ing part of Amazing the three notes are slurred together giving the notes texture. It's a gorgeous sound and I love it. And it's actually the song that I've been learning to do the same on the cello so it's quite special. Oh, and I decorated my cello bow with a wee wreath hanging down and the cello has a bow on the scroll for Christmas :D. I hope all is going well for you ladies

hope you had a nice trip :)

how's the new car working out?

and the advantage of making a pair of fingerless gloves for yourself is that you can make them as long / short as you like ;) I've sewn a pair that are longer in the arm, as my wrists get cold sometimes even if I'm wearing fingerless gloves.

nods although electric scooters are illegal to use anywhere other than private land here (you can legally hire an electric scooter and use it on the road, but if you own an electric scooter then you can't use it on the roads). An e-bike would be great for the hills, but like you, I'd struggle to find somewhere to store it, let alone charge it! :P (my garage leaks, and there's no electricity supply for charging it anyway)

I love the way you've decorated your cello & bow for Christmas!

The car's going well - Dad put the sealant on the brake light for me, so once I've made sure it's all dry behind the light, I can check the tyre sealant (there's no spare tyre, so there's a tyre sealant kit instead - need to make sure it's not out of date) and get everything put back in the boot again :D

They're forecasting colder weather next week (some forecasts are saying snow, but I don't believe them :P), so it's almost guaranteed that the balcony repair people will come on the day it's meant to snow, then say it's too cold to get the work done 😇

[edit] Edit 24th November We had snow earlier in the week (just in the air, it melted as it landed), then yesterday & today was really strong winds & almost continuous heavy rain. The brook in the village has flooded (normally it's diverted underground in one section, but it's missed that entirely and just flooded the paths & road where we'd looked at a flat originally), and also flooded the small footbridge & road a little further downstream. A little further downstream from there, it goes round the back of the block of flats, so in a way I want to check it out later and see how high it actually is.... and in a way, I don't really want to look!! Fortunately my flat is on the front of the blocks so it should be far enough away (and high enough up) to not be affected.

Still no sign of the balcony repair (and the streetlights aren't done yet either) :K

That is true. I just need to get back into the habit of crocheting and knitting again. I have been mostly doing diamond painting. Finished a tiger painting too now and started on a Hufflepuff one.

So strange that you can hire an electric scooter but not own one yourself and use it on the roads? A leaky garage with no electricity would not not be good at all. But if you can use your car when you need to haul heavy stuff you should be fine. :)

I am sorry you have been suffering from more migraines. :hugs: I am impressed how well you have taken to playing the cello. Slurs does sound pretty advanced to me. I got to listen to a Scot playing the bagpipe when I visited there. Decorating your bow is a cute idea. Love it. :) My trip to Dublin was pretty awesome, except for getting sick and being bound to the hotel for one day and having to power through the next one. lol Such a great city though with loads of history. Even biking history.

the Hufflepuff one sounds like it should be great :D Do you find that Pusur wants to "help" with the diamond painting, or does he just leave that alone?

I think the 'official' reason is that the hire scooters can be regulated so they have a speed limit restriction (and you're meant to have a driver's licence to be able to hire one), whereas if you buy one (especially if it's imported from overseas) they don't have the speed limited and could be going a lot faster than is probably wise.... especially given how many potholes there are in the roads here!

nods the boot of my car isn't massive, but it's marginally bigger than in my last car (and I managed to transport two bags of compost from the garden centre in that one), so apart from moving anything like a piece of furniture, it's big enough to shift the majority of things I'd want to move ;)

The hufflepuff one seemed great until I noticed there seem to be some mistakes with the printed numbers/colours. It is suppose to say knowledge- but instead it is just a jumbled mess. I will see if I can fix it later.

These scooters cause enough accidents without people making them even faster, so I guess that makes sense. I see a lot of kids riding them two at the time, going really fast with traffic around them. Scary. o-o

Always good to have that option, as I imagine you are going to want to continue to garden once spring is here?

well that's not much help if it ends up with being a complete jumbled mess :( Were you able to sort it out so the text was right?

It's bad enough when you see two kids on a pushbike, let alone on those scooters!

nods definitely need to get gardening again, once the weather is better! Over the winter we ideally need to work on a couple of bits of the allotment, before everything starts growing again in the spring ;)

(I'm not ignoring the sMail, aiming to reply to that in a couple of days ;))

'Storm Bert' came through over the weekend. Three trees were blown down (thankfully not in our road!), but then the brooks started flooding....

(Bear in mind that the brook is a small stream) ^ There's a small footbridge going over where the brook normally is (it shouldn't go past those railings - behind the railings is a road). It's normally quite a low level of water down a deep channel. Instead of that, it'd reached the bridge height and was flowing up the road

^ this section of the brook is normally quite a long way down (it used to be a water mill back in the olde days) so it's unusual to see the level quite so high - it was still away from the main grass level though, so there wasn't a risk of it flooding the buildings

^ just round the corner, getting closer to where it joins the river, the brook was considerably higher (I think possibly the other brook joins it at this point?).... they were lucky that it didn't breach the building (the metal steps lead down to a path that goes round into the garden).... the half-submerged sign is a warning that says "shallow water" as the garden slopes down to the brook at that point.

Normally the brook is about 20cm deep (just under 8") by that small bridge in the first pic, but it peaked there at 170cm (67").... which is taller than me! o.O

(see pics ^^)

I was able to fix the text somewhat, but it is still not easy to read since the colour of the text and background are not different enough. O_o That is what you get from ordering diamond paintings from temu I guess. :P No worries on the small btw, there is still enough time to get presents sorted out. :D

A friend of mine from the UK talked about storm Bert. That is a lot of water! I hope it did not do too much damage to the properties. Floods can be very destructive.

that's one disadvantage of Temu I think - I've heard of some items on there being low quality copies of things sold elsewhere o.O but at least you were able to fix the text so it made a bit more sense!

It looks like the properties weren't affected inside at least, which is fortunate!

I still don't know why the water level was so high around that last building compared to the others a little further upstream.... After that last building, the brook flows through a tunnel under the road and a field, before joining the main river, so maybe the tunnel was temporarily blocked or something?

:nods: the prices are very cheap and sometimes you get lucky and get some thing with decent quality too. It is a bit of a gamble. :P There are some things I just can't find in stores here, so ordering online is the only option.

Sounds like the tunnel might have been blocked? Or maybe there was just too much water for it to handle? It is fortunate that the properties were not destroyed at the inside.

At least it's not overly pricey, so if you do get a bit of a duff item then it's not too much of a loss ;)

I'm hoping to take a wander round there again this week to see what the water level looks like now - certainly the main brook is back to normal, so hopefully it won't be too high round by the retirement place :)

It is always fun to see what actually shows up with these sites. :) I have gotten some decent diamond paintings from there too that has been okay quality.

Sounds like that will be a nice stroll. Unless the weather is too bad of course. We have been getting a bit of rain and wind per usual. ;)

that's definitely good then if you've managed to get some decent ones as well :D

I won't be going for a walk over this weekend - we've got yet another storm coming in overnight (more rain, plus weather warnings for wind). The local Christmas Market has actually decided to close for tomorrow, which is really unusual (especially as they'd normally be really packed on a Saturday).

It is a shame the local christmas market had to be cancelled. We had one right where I live too. The weather was not great since it was raning, but at least they did not have to close it down.

fortunately they were able to open again the next day, but they lost a lot of potential trade from that Saturday (people were in town despite the weather). It's quite normal here for the Christmas Market to be on when it's raining ;) but snow (in the air, not settling on the ground much) would be a lot more atmospheric ;)

It is good that they were able to open the next day, even though the weather was still not great. I would love a white Christmas, but that does not always happen. I just checked the weather forecast. We are expected to get some rain everyday until 24th at least. o_o I told a friend last night that babies that are born in my area should get gifted an umbrella and a raincoat at birth.

our weather forecasts for Christmas Day has gone wildly from 3C and snow, to 10C and rain o.O I have a feeling it'd be more likely to be 10C with rain :P

hehe sounds like your weather isn't much different to ours! ;)

[edit] I saw that some pings have been broken since the 'forum squish' (Keith's been reworking the forum categories) so sorry if you got two pings, but I thought two would be better than none!

just so you can find the thread again if you haven't kept any old ping notifications

10c and rain is exactly the weather we have been getting. :P At least it is not too cold, so I hope it won't be too terribly expensive to heat my flat. I always worry about the el bill!