Post edited 7:39 am – 1st December 10 by doreen

December

WE  have 31 days to do it, to enjoy it, to complain about it, to be happy, to be sad.

We have excuses when we eat too  much, or sleep too much.

The nicest thing is that next month we can begin again.

It is so different living in the Northern hemisphere, we can shovel snow.

We can wrap ourselves in warm woolly blankets,  Aren't we lucky.

My latitude is 47.3500

My longitude is 7.91————Breakfast time.

PS and we can edit our post when we make a spelling mistake!!!

You aren't telling lies you are only fibbing and that is a big difference,

especially when it makes some one happy.

Important news– Bill Clinton has just landed at Zürich airport.

There is some big do, a football thingie and all the important ?   people are there trying to promote their country.

It is bitter cold and snowing. Many airports  have closed down.

Ann Marie, too many details, my imagination will be in overdrive. I am trying to picture you in thermal socks with little pink lace ribbons on the side. I am far too much of a gentleman to mention the thermal vest.

If you really want some warm socks, I seem to recall young Doreen put a picture on the Internet of a pair she had knitted, they even had toes. How I admire someone who is good at craft, there is far more to Doreen than meets the eye.

Ann Marie, kindly don't do that to me, I have a pair of welly warmers , I had to read that three times before I finally got it right.

Ann Marie, without wishing to lower the tone of the forum, I should explain. About ten or so years ago there was a knitted tube designed to keep a certain part of the male anatomy warm. Embarrassment prevents me from using the exact description used at the time, suffice to say it was only one letter deferent to your welly warmer. 

http://hearthwench.tripod.com/…..illie.html

There was another site complete with a picture gallery, but a knitting pattern could prove useful in your cold snap, and Doreen is a whizz with needles.

My goodness, my gracious I take a few days off suffering, and really suffering with a

Common-cold and you spend your time discussing Wellie Warmers and Johnnie- willies.

When the cat is away.

This common-cold  thingie… a virus infection, with  no cure and I wonder who infected me

and who- how many, I have infected.

I hope you're feeling a little better Doreen. That's the problem with the common cold. By the time you know you have it you have already spread it around. If I know someone has a cold I tell them I'll see them when they're better. That way I get very few colds.

It sounds like you have a lot of snow. I wish we did. We didn't even have enough to build a snowman and then it was gone. Maybe you can post me some of your snow Doreen.

We are well into December and in eleven days it will be the longest day.

I have wasted too many days this month with my common cold but

that is thank goodness a thing of the past.

The forum is being too well behaved at the moment with nothing about what is happening in our busy world.

I saw on Television that there was flooding in Australia, they didn't say which part.

I am interested in what is happening in Cancun and the climate summit.

Also Marine Biology. What we are doing wirth th sea.

Now of course Julian Assange the Australian Wiki-leaks man who I admire.

 Yes I spend my time reading and thinking about our world today.

Yes our weather is somewhat reversed, Annmarie. We are entering a drought. The north particularly affected. Prophecy is that our dairy export production will be down, and as we produce a third of the worlds exports in milk products , it's likely that dairy products will rise in price.

Goats milk is certainly produced here, Doreen. We had a farm near my last home that ran a milking herd of 200 goats, I once had to call in and buy some for an American guest who was lactose intolerant.

I would like to guess at the land area that is devoted the dairying, it would be the size of a small country. A small farm would run between two and three hundred cows, one farm in the South Island runs 15000. That number would be split into several herds and the milking sheds would be operating for 16 hours a day.

A lot of our exports are in the form of milk powder, cheese and of course butter. the industry is simply huge.

I have seen programmes about milking sheep so yes it does happen here, but this would be viewed as a boutique, exotic or cottage industry.