Saturday, April 16, 2011

Raining Today

The tropical entrance to the Hooded Merganser

On the Deck

Wine glasses
It is raining all this morning, earlier we went out for breakfast at our favourite restaurant "The Hooded Merganser" and took a few photos after our strawberry crepes and scrambled eggs. We were hoping for a sunny walk but we shall be content to watch Manchester City beat Manchester United instead....
Words fascinate me. There are a multitude of words circulating about the word "lorry".
Lorry is possibly derived from "to lurry" meaning to lug or pull. A second meaning of lorry is a truck or wagon running on rails, maybe in a colliery? All this came up because there was a big collision on a bridge between two "tractor-trailers" in BC recently, resulting in the closure of the Trans-Canada highway for days, first to clear the wreckage, then more days to repair the bridge. ( Our Trans-Canada highway is a great invention enabling one to drive the whole of Canada from East to West, but it works a bit like the old English A1 plus little bits of M1 here and there, so having mostly only one lane in each direction means it easily gets blocked with accidents, snow- mud-, or rock-slides.)
In UK ,tractor-trailers are called "articulated lorries or trucks". I always thought of a tractor as being a piece of farm equipment. Strange how the English Language changes! So, lorry, wagon, truck, tractor, semi, HGV, flatbed, van, take your pick, they all may pull trailers full of nice things for us all to buy or eat, or in Alan's case, to drink!

8 comments:

H said...

Tractors are definitely farm equipment! I regularly get stuck behind them driving to or from work. (They are great fun to drive though!)

Your City/United prediction is still looking good. 4 1/2 minutes of stoppage time remaining and they are winning 1:0

H said...

3 minutes (and I forgot to mention the 10 men element!!)

H said...

And they've done it! Incredible!!

Of couse, I should really be supporting United, having lived in Old Trafford for 14 years and even having taught Ryan Giggs much-younger, half-sister, but...

Desiree said...

Goodness...has this become a sport's broadcasting forum now ;)

Obviously you are all ardent football/soccer fans! I had grewat fun enjoying the games during he World Cup as it was hosted here, but had not really watched any games prior to that (or since, if I'm going to be honest here!)

Wish we could have some rain, here. Our beautiful mountain, The Helderberg, has been burning in earnest today fanned by gale force winds. Ten homes have been gutted and several farmlands destroyed, but thankfully, by tonight, no loss of life (human, that is...I'm sure hundreds of animals will have died in the fire).

Love your photograph of the wineglasses!

Desiree said...

My goodness, I let a lot of typos slip through tonight! Shows I'm ready for bed ;)

Unknown said...

Welcome!
U you have a real spring, you can see it on the beautiful pictures while we gray and cold,
forcysje azaleas and not yet in bloom.
I live in the small town of Ustka the Baltic Sea, in the spring are strong winds and storms of this nature because of waking up in May. But what, not long holiday apartment cleaned curtains on the windows clean on the table, white tablecloth wykrochmalony, just shopping, baking, cooking, painting eggs and preparation of reeds holidays. On the first day the world come to us children: daughter Monika, son of Bernard idziewięcioletni grandson Nicholas (we have only one son). The second day will be children and I will rest.
In Poland we celebrate a traditional Easter this requires a lot of work and money.
A little note on this I do not know how to be translated for the mistakes I'm sorry!
I wish you a happy and cheerful Christmas. Irena

Michael and Hanne said...

Happy Easter Ira, and have a great Earth Day, planting trees on Good Friday? I wish I knew Polish to help!!

Unknown said...

Our tradition: on Good Friday, do not eat.
There is no custom of planting trees on Good Friday.
I send kisses. Irena