Stormy Weather

[Mahlerei]

Spare a thought for all those inundated along the Mississippi as the sluice gates are opened. Marthe, I assumr people are compensated by the state when this happens?

[marthe]

Mahlerei: if the Federal Govt. has declared a state of emergency for a a particular disaster area, people should be eligible for assistance from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). I believe the Mississippi flooding was declared an emergency earlier this month. The FEMA sites should give you some info though you might have to wade through some government gobbledygook. www.fema.gov/assistance/index.shtm.

Last year, after heavy winter rainstorms, severely flooded areas of Rhode Island were declared disaster/emergency areas by the Fed. The basement of my parent's house was flooded and required several thousand dollars worth of clean-up and repair. FEMA would not give a dime because my parent's home is no longer their primary residence and is lived in by tenants. The expense of mitigating the flood damage was all out of our pockets because of this. I'm not sure that it was covered by home owner's insurance either. The house is not in a flood zone, in fact sits on top of a hill, but the weather was extreme enough to flood the basement. There are certainly loopholes in the compensation scheme.

[salymap]

Good morning marthe, sorry aboutyour parent's house, there always seem to be these 'loopholes' in these schemes and in ordinary insurance.

The present floods in the US make our weather worries seem paltry. Still dry in Kent but very cold and windy yesterday. Today high temps are predicted for London and suburbs. We plod onwards to Wimbledon and the Proms, trying to keep warm/cool asthe case may be. Best wishes

[amateur51]

Good morning marthe, sorry aboutyour parent's house, there always seem to be these 'loopholes' in these schemes and in ordinary insurance.

The present floods in the US make our weather worries seem paltry. Still dry in Kent but very cold and windy yesterday. Today high temps are predicted for London and suburbs. We plod onwards to Wimbledon and the Proms, trying to keep warm/cool asthe case may be. Best wishes

You plod, I shuffle saly

Just managed to clear out an accumulation of cardboard boxes before the bin men arrive - hooray! - so I'm feeling ultra-virtuous and the benefit of its being cool this morning is that the effort has not re-arranged my maquillage

I now have a clear run at the floor with my new sooper-dooper £22 Bissell vacuum cleaner from Argos - goodness knows how much noise it will make but I'm sure my neighbours will mention it, should it become excessive

Onwards and upwards!!

[Chris Newman]

My memory of Bissells is those carpet sweepers with two coiled brushes that dragged the carpet clean by brute force. My Auntie Marion had a
dinky-doo tiny one for cleaning crumbs off the table cloth (I am sure it was a child's toy, but she always denied it).

Brrr! It is still nippy today. The sun pops out between scudding dark clouds.

[salymap]

Chris, I still have my mum's little hand Bissell and it does work although one has to forcibly remove the bits from the two coiled brushes or next time it's used it drops them in a new place. Rather like an untrained puppy.

Very nippy here too.

[amateur51]

Chris, I still have my mum's little hand Bissell and it does work although one has to forcibly remove the bits from the two coiled brushes or next time it's used it drops them in a new place. Rather like an untrained puppy.

Very nippy here too.

Chris & saly - you made me laugh out loud with your chatter about Auntie Marion's dinky-doo (which turned out to be a dinky-won't ) and saly's untrained puppy idea

What did we do before the joys of technology?

Well strange that you show mention it but there's an excellent exhibition at Wellcome Collection on the subject of Dirt

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/dirt.aspx

[antongould]

[QUOTE=salymap;55243]

Still dry in Kent but very cold and windy yesterday.

Surely by now even the camels have left Sidcup - have found from sources, hopefully, much more reliable than daughters that the coalfields have had a fair bit of rain in the last week!

[salymap]

I'm not often able to visit the bottom of my garden, lawn is old meadow grass, [it was farm land before the 1930s] and full of holes and bumps.Yesterday a visitor walked down with me and I have two 6foot high buddlias,
I'm told. They looked like tall weeds to me but certainly had one or two purple flowers, very small though.
Was a passing incontinent bird responsible for this addition to my overgrown garden? marthe needed

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... the Buddlejas should be attractive to butterflies, moths and bees Salymap ....[wicki spelling ] so enjoy over the summer ... self seeding and invasive but worth it for the butterflies ...

[salymap]

... the Buddlejas should be attractive to butterflies, moths and bees Salymap ....[wicki spelling ] so enjoy over the summer ... self seeding and invasive but worth it for the butterflies ...

Thanks Calam, they have one thin stem about six feet high, as I said. Ithink they are already half dead because of the awful drought, I was amazed that they were so tall. Maybe I'll try to carry a bucket of water down to them. Maybe!

[Chris Newman]

Am51,

I wonder if the Wellcome exhibition was timed to coincide with the recent Dan Snow BBC4 series on filthy cities or the lovely series about Walls having Ears with Lucy Worsley. I like the Wellcome Collection. It has originality and a, dare I say?, wellcome eccentricity.

bws
Chris

[Chris Newman]

Hi salymap,

I am glad your buddleia is doing well. Once the flowers have dried cut it back near the ground and next year it should have three or four stems to attract the butterflies, bees and hoverflies. Leave the stem and you will have a garden full of new bushes in no time as they self seed like Billy-O. Who was Billy-O? William of Orange, perhaps?

BWS
Chris

[marthe]

I'm not often able to visit the bottom of my garden, lawn is old meadow grass, [it was farm land before the 1930s] and full of holes and bumps.Yesterday a visitor walked down with me and I have two 6foot high buddlias,
I'm told. They looked like tall weeds to me but certainly had one or two purple flowers, very small though.
Was a passing incontinent bird responsible for this addition to my overgrown garden? marthe needed

saly: buddleia are lovely when in bloom and certainly do attract butterflies, hummingbirds etc. Your six-footers may have come from a passing bird or neighbouring buddleia. They do seed themselves and are considered to be a nuisance plant by some. I think they are on the "invasive plant" list in some states over here along with Purple Loosetrife and Amphelopsis (Porcelain Vine). I've got one Buddleia with very pretty purple flowers that come out mid to late summer through the early autumn...in time for the migration of the Monarch Butterfly! I cut mine down quite hard in the late winter and it grows like Jack's beanstalk during the late spring and into the summer! If you don't want them to be weedy, maybe you could get someone to cut them back for you. Would that I could transport myself to Kent. I would come, Felcos in hand, and do the deed!

Weather is gloomy and drizzly again. We've a whole week of this ahead of us. I think that when the sun finally comes out, it will turn quite warm and humid!

[salymap]

Thanks for the [virtual] offer of help marthe My garden is not so very vast but large bushes 15 feet or so from the back of the house hide what is going on further down. Yesterday I found a rhodo in full flower that I can't see from the house. Just a common mauve but very happy lost in a lot of other shrubs. The buddleia can't go far, they are in the midddle of small blue geramium flowers, Jap anemone, pink and white, a Rudbeckia [sp] and various spurges, thugs all.

Still no rain for what must be weeks, I look at the ladies mantle leaves as they show any rain if only a drop.

Nulla,niente, nussuno, nought. saly