The Book Vipers discussion

Shhhh... All the book vipers are sleeping... apart from this one!

I'm still up...

....and me!

You nightowls! Can't do that any more :D

It was the Gillingham Carnival yesterday. Last one we go to in the season. And the best imo.

Tried to be clever last night and update my internet router's firmware to see if I could get its usb port to work with a disk drive... result, a dead router. :-(

Good thing I still have a very old router in the cupboard and could get it working to get internet running, though some of my kit just will not connect to the wifi on that for some reason. I think I'll be looking for a new router today, but a different make.

I have always used Netgear. The last was one 8 years old when it stopped working properly.

Oh dear Paul-with-a-book (you 2 Pauls will have to help us out here somehow!)

Now you will have to brave the fug of cool again!! :D

Unfortunately this one was actually a Netgear Paul!

Probably will get one in argos or maplin Jean... Thankfully I don't have to go to the 'cool' shop for one of those. And good thing I've got some money put away for all this stuff!

Both good shops - Maplins has Real People you can talk to in as well!

Jean wrote: "Oh dear Paul-with-a-book (you 2 Pauls will have to help us out here somehow!) "

Is that better Jean?

Definitely approve of that name! Thank you. :D

We aim to please. :-D

Had luck in Maplin, a TP-Link wireless router (sprouting antennae like the post office tower!) is now on my shelf and apparently working... It has two USB ports so I 'may' be able to set up a network disk and a printer on it - the USB disk works though as I just tried a flash disk. Won't be going anywhere near firmware updates on this though!!!

Did they say "Hi de Hi" when you went into the shop??

T4bsF wrote: "Did they say "Hi de Hi" when you went into the shop??"

Fortunately not!

T4bsF wrote: "Did they say "Hi de Hi" when you went into the shop??"

Ha ha ha. There's always someone around willing to lower the tone of the thread!!!

You can definitely trust me on that one - but it had to be said....... didn't it???

Now all our non UK members are scratching their heads and wondering what on earth we're laughing about!

Ahhhhhh! Apologies to all of our "over the pond" friends! Hi de Hi was the catchphrase used in a UK sitcom about a Holiday Camp that was named Maplins... Maplins is also the name of an electrical supplies/repair shop.

Ah, thanks for explaining :-) I remember when another GR friend from the UK showed me how to post pictures, and then said "and Bob's your Uncle." I was totally befuddled until I checked Wikipedia to find it meant everything is fine.

And imagine my delight and chuckling to find out that you have a "wine in a beer bottle" called "Bob's Your Uncle"!! Anyone ever seen this?

Whoo hoo! Reached 150 books now!

Julia wrote: "Ah, thanks for explaining :-) I remember when another GR friend from the UK showed me how to post pictures, and then said "and Bob's your Uncle." I was totally befuddled until I checked Wikipedia t..."

.....important question - what does it taste like?

Paul wrote: "Whoo hoo! Reached 150 books now!"

Well done!

Well done, Paul. Heard you the first time though :D :D

I think Paul had too much Bob's Your Uncle Wine whilst celebrating his achievement. ;)

My chit chat is that tomorrow I do something I have never done before. Hang wallpaper! (Assisting my experienced and very dab hand Father in Law who is very generously giving us some of his time to complete the task.)

That was the app. Have now removed...

Hey has anyone noticed that the big figure in the top right of your newsfeed, telling you the number of books you've rated, has disappeared? Wonder why! I used to like that feature, nerd that I am...

Ooo I hadn't noticed, but yes it is gone! Hmm...

Never even noticed that!

Ah! I noticed something had changed but hadn't worked out what it was!

Hadn't spotted that one. I don't like change. Wonder what else is going to be altered.

Well that was a good day out yesterday. We took the children to the Abbotsbury Enchanted Floodlit Gardens http://www.abbotsbury-tourism.co.uk/g... . We go every year, and they love it. It's a pity we won't be able to get to the Halloween event this year - last year's was brilliant. And the rain held off for us.

We are hopefully going to Weymouth today

Wonder why they took that away. If they are changing things I hope they improve the app.

I've managed to go past my 2013 book number. Hurrah me!

Also havjnv falljng behing jn the monthly reads I'm almost caught up (now in September), best not ask me about the classic monthly reads though...

Well done Anna! You're doing considerably better than me ;)

Any one able to explain double entry bookkeeping in very simple terms, crayon pictures preferable haha!

I have been pretty absent from the group lately, so just wanted to catch up a little.

My 20-year-old daughter, who lives and works in Manhattan, got home about a month ago to have a quadruple surgery on both feet. It took place on October 10th and she is doing quite well, although she was very ill in the hospital from the pain meds.

We took advantage of her "pre-operation" weeks to spend weekends in Toulouse and Paris, then her operation was the next week/weekend (she was in the hospital 6 days), then we were awfully busy getting our house fitted out as a good recovery place...

Needless to say reading has taken a back seat; also work is keeping me very busy. I have just read two books this month -- I thought I might have more reading time when she was in the hospital, but I used a lot of it to correct papers!

Anyway, enough chit-chat, I hope to get back to following the group more now!

Best wishes to your daughter, Betty, for a speedy recovery.

Elizabeth wrote: "Best wishes to your daughter, Betty, for a speedy recovery."

Thank you, that is very nice!

That sound really painful, I hope that the surgery has worked ans thae she recovers soon Betty.

We have just launched a winter and Christmas challenge, if you have time you are more than welcome to join. If not, don't worry.

Did everyone manage to get a good night's sleep with that storm raging round? I'm wondering whether our town rivers have flooded, again. Strong winds have started to calm down now but it was pretty rough around 3am.

It's not been too bad round here (Norfolk), although it is very windy!

Betty - all the best to your daughter. It sounds as though you've all had a bit of a tough time, so hope things now improve.

Elizabeth - I am gobsmacked! We go to see the floodlit garden every year when we can (no kids, just us big kids) and stay in a caravan just up the road from Abbotsbury. On the day you were there we were travelling down - but as I remember there was a lot of wind and rain overnight, so you must have just missed it! A couple of days later we virtually had the enchanted garden to ourselves! Managed 3 evening visits - I'm a bit of an addict - plus a daytime one and several visits to the swannery, to see the cygnets we saw in June all grown up and trying out their wings. Again, we were solitary visitors and saw fascinating behaviour by the swans as they didn't even seem to notice we were there.

Must admit we were relieved to have chosen the earlier week out of the two as it can be a bit scary in a caravan during a gale. Here in Essex we seem to have missed the brunt of the storms overnight. Our big buddleia is mostly down, but that's all. Must go into Epping forest now and see if any trees are down.

It was very quiet the night we were there. We arrived mid afternoon and went round the gardens in daylight, then took the children for something to eat in the restaurant, and went round again (twice) after dark. We hardly saw anyone at all - just a few couples wandering around. Half term ought to be busier, but only if the weather picks up.

I loved the atmosphere of the Halloween evenings there last year - there were laser lights, and face-painting, music and all sorts of events to add to the fun.

I know what you mean about gales whipping up along that coast. We stayed in my parents-in-law's caravan at Gorselands, West Bexington, before we had children and a storm blew up one evening which was so violent that the caravan was rocking hard on its chains and we were thrown off our seats several times that evening. Pretty scary. We came close to packing up and going home!

Elizabeth - We had wondered if they would close the gardens because of the weather, and so few people, but the paths didn't seem too treacherous so we were lucky.

Spookier and spookier - we too stay at Gorselands, though always in one of their six rented caravans. Most are owner occupied, as with your parents-in-law.

There are several trees down in Epping Forest, but it could be worse. But it just shows that very little "management" of the forest is needed!! Wish they'd leave their circular saws at home. Even these fallen trees don't really need "clearing" as they provide a safe haven for all sort of little creatures, insects and so on.

Agreed, Jean--forests and trees know where they belong, but humans just seem to want to "organize" everything!

Right now the leaves are forming an amazing carpet under the trees here in MI--but soon the whine of leaf blowers will resonate through the neighborhood.

My mother loved Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and I've been looking through the copy I gave her. Here's part of his short essay on autumn leaves, where he and his neat friend disagree :-):

"Leaves have been falling down for thousands and thousands of years, I tell him. And the earth did pretty well before rakes and people, I tell him. Old Mother Nature put the leaves where she wanted them and they made more earth....But in the end, in the end, in the final end of it all--I win. For he and I--and even you--will become what the leaves and snow become, and go where the leaves and snow go--whether we rake or shovel or not."

A line to all Goodreads friends in the UK. Please stay safe tonight. Have fun with your kids if you're having fireworks, but watch those pets too. :)

My two poor cats are already having kittens under the bed . . . .figuratively speaking!

:( I do feel sorry for the pets - how can they possibly understand? (By the way, Linda, my husband says can we have one?)

Our Bronwyn (cavachon) is on the pouffe by the glass doors watching the "pretty colours" - totally unfazed!!

What is a cavachon please? I know about cabochons...

Sorry Jean it was just a figure of speech! I think I would faint if they did have kittens as one of them is a boy. Lol.