Good morning everyone   

Currently a light shower here. Set to be showery all day 

Very strange after all that sunshine. The garden is in need of it though 

Have a great day but as always, stay safe  

Thanks everyone, I did sleep marginally better last night 

Moonie, I hope you get even better sleep tonight

@El Loro posted:

Moonie, I hope you get even better sleep tonight

Thank you El 

I see that my £25 refund on the car insurance has come through
That's due to the insurance company making refunds due to far fewer cars on the roads particularly for the first part of the lockdown.

Good morning everyone 

Sunny spells with light breeze today. It rained overnight which was good for the garden.

Moonie, I’m glad you got a bit more sleep last night 

Squiggle, Ros and I were talking in the Springwatch thread last night about the power of nature to lift the spirits and the return of my blackbirds certainly lifted mine 
El, my window cleaner appeared this morning.👍🏻
Have a good day and stay safe, Buddies.

Yogi, I'm glad the return of your blackbirds has lifted your spirits
My windows really needed cleaning so it's just as well the window cleaner came yesterday. Doubt if they are working today as it's rainy.

Apparently there's a photo used by Android phone users as wallpaper which is crashing their handsets.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52891650

Yogi, Nature is a wonderful thing 

@El Loro posted:

Apparently there's a photo used by Android phone users as wallpaper which is crashing their handsets.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52891650

Sometimes it’s good to have an iPhone El 

A link to BBC's Pic of the Season - Spring:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programm...Vy41WD6PvVj0zQ2ZfqF/
Their shortlist of 10 photos sent in by their Weather Watchers.
Anyone who has a BBC account can vote for their favourite.

(also posted on the Seasonwatch... topic)

@El Loro posted:

A link to BBC's Pic of the Season - Spring:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programm...Vy41WD6PvVj0zQ2ZfqF/
Their shortlist of 10 photos sent in by their Weather Watchers.
Anyone who has a BBC account can vote for their favourite.

(also posted on the Seasonwatch... topic)

They are all quite beautiful El. I would be hard pressed to find one to vote for tbh 

@Moonie posted:

They are all quite beautiful El. I would be hard pressed to find one to vote for tbh 

You could vote for the 6th one at Cumbria

I'm going for the 1st one

@El Loro posted:

A link to BBC's Pic of the Season - Spring:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programm...Vy41WD6PvVj0zQ2ZfqF/
Their shortlist of 10 photos sent in by their Weather Watchers.
Anyone who has a BBC account can vote for their favourite.

(also posted on the Seasonwatch... topic)

I love all of them but voted for the misty sunrise

@Moonie posted:

Yogi, Nature is a wonderful thing 

It really is 

Goodnight and sweet dreams, Moonie and Ros 

Hug for the night owls 

@El Loro posted:

You could vote for the 6th one at Cumbria

I'm going for the 1st one

voted for the third one -a cute rabbitloved the cumbrian one and the frosty morning as well

night yogi moonsie velvet summer if you are around

Night night, sleep well, sweet dreams Yogi, Rosss and visitors  

Good morning everyone it's a much cooler morning which makes a pleasant change. I hope everyone slept well, I certainly did as I prefer to be a little cooler at night. 

Enjoy your day everyone

Good mornng everyone

Cooler here than recently. Fairly cloudy. May get showers later.

I voted for the first photo, the one with the cherry trees in blossom, as there are quite a number of cherry trees along the road going past the church. Can be quite colourful when they are in blossim but not the quantiy shown in the photo.

I hope everyone has a good day

Good morning everyone.

Cool, cloudy with light showers forecast.

The blossom pic was beautiful, El. It was so hard to chose a favourite. 
Have a good day and stay safe, all 

Be  on the lookout for the giant Asian hornet that eats bees
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/...nvironment-52896891/

Good morning everyone   

Its cool, cloudy and set to rain all day again 

Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound 

 at the Asian hornet 

 Enjoy your day everyone. As always, stay safe  

I’ve just been outside to feed the birds. It is cold, I mean, really cold 

Moonie, It's very cloudy here now so I wouldn't be surprised if it rains here though not much forecast.
Temperature is lower than it has been but not at a point where I fell cold.

@El Loro posted:

Moonie, It's very cloudy here now so I wouldn't be surprised if it rains here though not much forecast.
Temperature is lower than it has been but not at a point where I fell cold.

El, after my last post it turned sunny but now it’s going dark again 

Just had a client ringing me about the grants. I had to let him down (not that he was that hopeful), Back when the grants were announced I had looked at all my clients and been in touch with them if I thought they were eligible. He's semi-retired and his self-employment income has been less than his pension income which is why he can't get a grant. I said I would have been in touches ages ago if I though he could and it would have been a bit sadistic of me to get in touch with me (without them asking me) just to tell them they wouldn't get a grant.

He also said that someone had told him this morning that they had been able to get a £10,000 grant. I said that's because they would have a business property subject to business rates and he doesn't have such a property.

Paperhouse was a 1988 British film about a 11 year old girl who is bored and lonely but finds solace in an ill and dying boy whom she can visit in a dream world  that she drew in her exercise book.
It's not a horror film as such, it's too dark to be considered a fantasy film, it's not really a film for children as parts of it are disturbing. I would give it a 15A certificate if such a certificate existed.

One can watch the film for free if you have Amazon Prime. About 45 minutes in there's a scene with the girl trying to find a drawing that she threw away. Lasts over 3 minutes and in shortly after 48 minutes the scene ends with something which lifts the film out of just being another film to being something great. Film as a whole 6/10. That scene 10+/10.

Although there is a clip of the scene on Youtube, the graphics are too degraded for me to post the clip.

Evening all 

We had showers in the morning followed by sunshine in the afternoon and now it’s raining.

Aww, the poor bees have been having a bad time without the Asian Hornets eating them 

Goodnight and sweet dreams, Ros and Moonie

Hug for any night owls 

Night night, sleep well, sweet dreams Yogi, Rosss and visitors  

night yogi moonsie velvet summer if you pop in

Good morning everyone it's a little cloudy this morning. We only had a sprinkling of rain yesterday but it certainly does feel cold in contrast to the high temperatures we've been experiencing. 

Enjoy your day everyone

Good morning everyone 

Weather is cool, dry and bright atm, with strong winds and sunny intervals forecast.
My blackbird has been back at the kitchen window ledge this morning, waiting for his raisins.

Have a good day and stay safe, all.

Good morning everyone

Sunnier here than yesterday though still cooler. Showers possible later.

Yogi, I assume you've now supplied your blackbird with his raisins

I hope everyone has a good day

Good morning everyone  

Its cold, wet and windy here 

squiggle, summer will return again, soon 

Yogi, good to see your blackbird is back for his daily raisin ration 

El, lets hope the weather is kind to you 

Have a great day everyone but stay safe  

Thanks Moonie I hope your bad weather improves

For those of you interested, BBC article today on the Royal Opera House's first post-lockdown performance later this month.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ent...inment-arts-52920423

Also mentions the radio and television programmes later this year marking the 250th anniverary of the birth of Beethoven.

Also mentions various operas to be made available on iplayer from opera houses which have had to close down. Among them will be Barber of Seville (Rossini) from Glyndebourne, Turn of the Screw (Benjamin Britten) and The Marriage of Figaro (Mozart) from Garsington, and a performance of Opera North's La Traviata (Verdi) filmed from backstage.

Pierre Beamarchais was a French playwright who wrote 3 plays referred to the Figaro trilogy,
The first was The Barber of Seville which Rossini amongst others made into his opera.
The second was The Marriage of Figaro which Mozart made into his opera.
and the third was The Guilty Mother. That has been made into an opera by Darius Milhaud in 1966 but is rarely heard of. I found this little snippet of it: