Seasonistas general thread: yakking, joshing, news and pictures

Putting the lights up outside is by far the worst job in my opinion! That's the one to get out of the way for sure. Especially before the snow comes in... you might have it already up there (I'm further South, we're expecting it tomorrow :) )
Strangely, it seems to be the people further South who have the snow. Up here in York - nothing. We did chuckle when we heard that the Lincoln Christmas Market had been cancelled because of the weather - a bit too Christmassy perhaps?
Anyway, the tree is up, but we have had another lights crisis. We have so many sets from years gone by, indoor and outdoor. One set did nothing at all. The ones we used last year half worked and half didn't, due to a broken wire - possibly fixable, but not when the tree is waiting to be decorated. Another set went on but were too few and too faint. So another was added, but the blue LEDs were too bright!!! So....off to our local light seller I went, and we now have yet another set, and everyone is happy. Phew...
 
Our outdoor ones we string along the balcony had a few dead bulbs this year. Thankfully they were all in a line and all at the start so we've sort of hidden them round the corner of the balcony and bad all the good bulbs strung along the front.

Our tree already features in the backdrop of my videos at the moment. It's a bit of a hodgepodge of decorations, a mix of decorations we bought cheap from the Range for our first Christmas as a family, and the decoration each we all pick from the garden centre on our annual trip to their Christmas display.

Might post some proper pictures later on once it gets dark.

No snow on the south coast (surprise surprise) just lots of very cold rain.
 
Strangely, it seems to be the people further South who have the snow. Up here in York - nothing.

Yes, we had actually had snow here in south Texas! On Thursday night. It was the first time my kids had seen real snow. They were outside having a snowball fight at 10:30 at night, LOL. It stuck for a whole half day, melted off by noon Friday.
 
Snow has arrived here in the North (of England). I was up in Newcastle today and the snow started just as we finished and was quite steady by the time I reached the nearest Metro station. It remained steady when I got to the main railway station and by the time I got home there was a good coating. Not too deep but enough to cause chaos on the roads in the morning. I'm glad I decided to go to Newcastle by train and not to drive as was my original plan.
 
South coast update:

We got stuff falling this morning which could perhaps be described as sleet if you were feeling generous.
 
Here in NJ on SAT, started snowing about 10:30am light flurries all day it seemed.

Stopped at ~9pm, with ~7" total accumulation.

Lots of melting/thaw on SUN, and even more melting MON, mostly sluice now.

Rains expected tomorrow (TUES) will likely wash away the rest, but night low temps of 16 F /-9 C TUES and after will likely cause ice all over...

Going outside, it FEELS really FREAKIN' cold with the 15mph wind that's always blowing...

Time to crank up the heat and put on another sweater :)
 
No, Booli! There is absolutely no alternative where we are - up in the hills in deepest France - than to have satellite Internet; and because of the number of users, there is a limited allotment of hours per month. Our service is currently being updated, and within the next two or three years we should have superfast Internet. This is a major undertaking, though. Because of the terrain, the cables will be overhead, rather than buried underground, and will make use of existing poles and, in order to achieve that, there is going to be a lot of tree felling involved. As it is, I have got into the habit of waking early so that I can have an hour of "free" Internet until 6.00 a.m. in order that I can listen to the week's contributions on the Seasons; the service is "unlimited" between midnight and six o'clock in the morning. Oh, well ... eventually we might move into the 21st Century!

WOW. I had no idea.

Even though it's restricted, hopefully it is faster than dialup!

If you run afoul of your plan's allotment, you could use your smartphone to connect to the internet and if it has a HOTSPOT feature and you have a data plan, you could turn that on and share the internet from your phone to your computer via WiFi (if your computer has WiFi)...

I would feel so isolated and claustrophobic without internet access.

Also, near me, lots of restaurants and fast-food joints have free and open WiFi so you can use their internet, but I would not do so without a VPN because if you use someone else's internet, they could be snooping on you and stealing your passwords in-situ as you login to your email, etc...

I hope it works out for you Val. We need you here on UU and YT :)

One of the hardest lessons in life seems that going from abundance of something, and then being forced to learn and accept living with much less of that something.

I am not explicitly referring to money, but feast-vs-famine or free-vs-constricted is not fun. :(
 
WOW. I had no idea.

Even though it's restricted, hopefully it is faster than dialup!

If you run afoul of your plan's allotment, you could use your smartphone to connect to the internet and if it has a HOTSPOT feature and you have a data plan, you could turn that on and share the internet from your phone to your computer via WiFi (if your computer has WiFi)...

I would feel so isolated and claustrophobic without internet access.

Also, near me, lots of restaurants and fast-food joints have free and open WiFi so you can use their internet, but I would not do so without a VPN because if you use someone else's internet, they could be snooping on you and stealing your passwords in-situ as you login to your email, etc...

I hope it works out for you Val. We need you here on UU and YT :)

One of the hardest lessons in life seems that going from abundance of something, and then being forced to learn and accept living with much less of that something.

I am not explicitly referring to money, but feast-vs-famine or free-vs-constricted is not fun. :(

Er ... SMART PHONE????? (Actually, I HAVE got a very cheap one which loses its charge after about five hours - I think that's why it was cheap - but, where we are, there isn't any signal anyway.) And, yes, we DO have Internet access in our local library and MacDonalds, etc., but they are both a way away and it's snowing again at the moment. When we first owned a house over here (in about 1990) there was none of this communication; we couldn't even get English TV. I certainly couldn't live over here full time, as we do now, without satellite TV and our appalling satellite Internet service ... I would truly go completely BONKERS!!! I DO appreciate your concern!
 
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