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Hello, Chris!
Is this the "fern collector" lady?
We had a lovely Christmas, thank you!
We went to our younger daughter's for Christmas lunch (our son -in -law cooked)
And on New Year's Day had all the family here (including the six grandchildren ) as it is also my husband's birthday.
A good time was had by all!

malone

thanks - I have looked up Crick, never heard of him. Why is IT wine?

Hi elle
Yes, she was the original cause of my wife's fern interest - she stayed with us for a meeting with 2 dogs and couldn't cope, so Alison went to wrangle one of the dogs. She liked the people she met, and starting going to meetings - often dragging me along too!

Hi, Rusty!
Yes, I shall talk to M & S in due course, as I feel they should be made aware of what is potentially happening to more than just me.
I am not holding my breath......but feel I should make the gesture?
I didn't know "ariosa" and "ecarte", either ...... nor of course "hawfinch " and halfinch"!
I am surprised that you knew "halfinch" ?
I have never come across it!
And I live nearer to Cockney land than you do!
I didn't find anything amiss with "tern " sounding like "turn"?
To me they are both said alike.
I hope your winds don't reach such a pace that the Bridge has to be closed.



Hello, Jigjag!
As I see it "critic" = " judge" (def)
with IT for Wine and Cric(k) = molecular biologist (briefly)
Francis Crick being the said molecular biologist , neuroscientist, and biophysicist.

@jigjag re IT
noun - informal dated

Italian vermouth.
"he poured a gin and it"

Hello, Elle!
I entirely agree with your first sentence!
It is M&S who should sort it out for you.
I have "ariosO", Elle, "thus" is "so".
I did not know "hawfinch", but Anne Bradford did!
Now, I have known "half inch"/steal for a long time.
Rhyming slang is often used in Glasgow, and I have pals in Glasgow, which may be where I heard it.
Anne Bradford has "half-inch" for "steal", too.
"Tern" and "turn" sound very different in my neck of the woods, I assure you!
I knew the name "Crick". Was that one of the folk involved in DNA?
And Frankland?
I have a wee bell ringing!
No double deck buses on the bridge, just now.
The bridge is a lot more often closed because of some poor soul in distress, unfortunately.

Jigjag, Elle agreed with my earlier parsing of Critic - and she added more information about Crick. I haven't heard of many scientists, but Crick and Watson are two. I've seen It/IT in crosswords so often that I tend to switch off. It (!) stands for Italian Vermouth - wine, I assume ( I don't drink and know very little there too.)

@jigjag see my post also

Update, Elle!
I was wrong again!
Franklin it is, not Frankland.

It's a point that's brought up time and time again that really irritates me - why did Watson, Crick and Wilkins get Nobel Prizes for discovering the structure of DNA when Franklin did most of the work? Was it because she was a woman?


No! It was because she had died prematurely, and Nobel Prizes are never awarded psothumously.