In the words of Bjork, "It's all so quiet..."

Nice to see you back, PK - sorry to hear you haven't been well.  I've widened all the doorways for the site and removed the steps to the Crumpet Café to make it a little more accessible.

J

Good one Duff!  I'll try to make things a bit less quiet in the weeks to come.  Meanwhile I am practising 50 ways to collide with te loo door,

still about! I pop in when I'm on the laptop.
Hubby and I are now retired. He lost his mum in June (no sympathy required ... long story)
When we were on holiday we put hubby's tiredness and fatigue down to it being rather hot but on return his leg swelled up and was initially diagnosed with DVT.  However the DVT department referred him back to haematology as his  lymph glands were swollen. Short version is that he's got CLL and will need chemo for the next 6 months. Outlook is very good though. 
So yeah, retirement is going well...

I ask because I was just told earlier today that as many as 20% of the British population sailed off to the New World.
This strikes me as impossibly high.
I am curious now to find out just what percentage of us Brits settled in the States.
Does anyone have any more reliable figures than my friend?

When I was lucky enough to be living in Norway about 30 years ago, the company doctor, on hearing that I suffered from Hay Fever, ran a test where he drew a gi-normous Naughts and Crosses grid on my forearm - of 48 squares.

He then pricked my skin in different squares with different pollens or pollen extract and said "Come back in about a week's time".

I came back in a week's time and showed him how practically every bliddy square (from privet hedges, golden rod and rose bushes to pine trees, ash trees, beech trees and aspen trees and back again) had come up in an angry red lump.

I said "What's it all mean, Doc?"

He looked at me seriously and said solemnly "You are allergic to ze world".

I said "What's the cure?"

He said "Come to my office every day for 40 injections - then after 6 months we can cut the injections down to every 3 days for another 6 months.   Then to once a week for another 6 months."

I gasped "No can do" and promptly emigrated further to a small island off Hong Kong where I had absolutely NO symptoms of Hay Fever in over 3 years.   Miracle!

So Tecspec my cure for Hay Fever is to Live On An Island - because there are no plants out to sea and therefore no pollen out to sea to waft up my nostrils.

Works a treat!

You know, Duff, I think you are absolutely right - and I am absolutely wrong.  I must have been reading fake news!  I do wish Donald Trump would stick to posting his garbage on Twitter and stop posting fake news items on the wider net about geriatric swans that make me look like a grade A chump! !

I remember at the time I read it that I thought that 102 year old swans seemed a bit ripe.  But the website was  pretty reliable and not one normally given to sensationalist fake articles.  Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the website now. 

But enough of this.  I shall henceforth stick to gazing at my local swans serenely paddling up and down the River Ouse and think that their life span is a more realistic 20 to 30 years.

I must say though that, after a bit of quick double checking, I did find out that that swans are Denmark's national bird.  And what's more, one old fogey of a Danish swan (obviously with a particularly clean lifestyle) did live to clock up the ripe old age of 40!

Nowhere near 102 years old, I do admit. I shall email El Presidente Trump forthwith. 

Anyone got the White House's email address?