Thornburywitch

Remember to jump over the bonfire with your partner holding hands. Preferably before too many mulled wines have been consumed. Alternatively, drive your cattle and other livestock between two bonfires to protect them from disease etc.

Bearing in mind that a bonfire is newly kindled, that is, you can't just borrow some fire from your neighbours to start it, you have to make it from scratch.

The one down at Monash? Oooh jelly! It's quite fascinating. Basically a big tunnel circle underground, with machines that can squirt atoms/molecules etc. at very high speeds at items in each target zone. Like a very big roundabout with high speed atom cannons instead of roads leading off it. This helps people find out what the items in the target zone are made of and their internal structure. Super useful for mining, engineering, medical stuff and a host of other stuff.

The kit is fine. The problem here is actually turning the kit into food. Hot liquids, stove elements etc. suck a big one when vision/balance/grip strength is impaired. Remembering my mother when she started her final decline - all the elbows of her cardies were burned through where she'd brushed them too close to the stove element ... it amazed us all that she didn't get seriously burned but that was the point where she had to go into residential care to keep her away from the stove.

Local council might have assistance available - especially if it's only for meals. If money's no object, then hiring someone to come in and cook every couple of days might be a useful way to deal with this.

Well done! Celebration this weekend????

Friday 13th its bad luck to walk under a ladder, bad luck to see a black cat - so I think walking under a black cat would sorta kinda cancel out ...

Those shells could be mussel spat. Keep an eye on them to see if they grow to harvestable size ..

Is that the Niu Gini one that's recently been re-discovered? I know they've got long beaked echidnas, but I think there's been some developments on the short-beaked side quite recently.

He he, the actual word echidna is NOT an indigenous word - it comes from greek mythology and is the name of a goddess of chaos. quote below from theoi.com

"EKHIDNA (Echidna) was a monstrous she-dragon (drakaina) with the head and breast of a woman and the tail of a coiling serpent. She probably represented the corruptions of the earth--rot, slime, fetid waters, illness and disease.

Ekhidna was sometimes equated with Python "the Rotting One", a dragon born of the fetid slime left behind by the great Deluge. Others name her the Tartarean lamprey, and place in her to the dark, swampy pit of Tartaros beneath the earth. Hesiod, makes her a daughter of monstrous sea-gods, and presumably associates her with rotting sea-scum and fetid salt-marshes.

Ekhidna was the consort of Typhoeus--a monstrous, multi-headed storm-giant who challenged Zeus to the throne of heaven. Together they spawned a host of terrible monsters to plague the earth including the Khimaira (Chimera), Kerberos (Cerberus), the Hydra, Sphinx and the Drakon Hesperios (Hesperian Dragon).

Four other closely related she-dragons were the Argive Ekhidna and Poine (Poena), the Tartarean Kampe (Campe), and the Phokian Sybaris."

Have you tried Lonesome Dove - books and/or miniseries?

Coffee please chef, with a side order of motivation and some energy.

Dammit, that sucks the big one. Bowel cancer got both my maternal grandparents too. Many many hugs.

Do we get to smash a piano with sledgehammers?