Cat Chat Feline Forum

By the way, I married my first husband in 1974, when I was 19 and had lived here for 16 months. If he had to write official letters he got me to check them, as he didn't know the difference between 'to', 'too' and 'two'. Also he struggled with 'there', they're' and ''their'. Really basic stuff. And you know what his profession was? He was deputy headmaster of a primary school.
The marriage lasted 5 months (not related to his lack of language skills).

PS We did adopt a cat though, who used to walk along the edge of the old-fashioned bath while you were in it. And he used to sit in the empty bath and eat spiders crunchily. Oops I've done this before.

My friend is a retired headmaster. Sharp as a tack when it comes to science (his field) but he gets so carried away with a subject, i.e. making a complaint about a faulty product or bad service, he gets so incandescent about it he ends up writing gibberish! Then I get a call, 'er, I was wondering if my Secretary was available for an hour and a cup of tea?' I might even get an Irish lesson thrown in.

Irish - do you mean Gaelic? Now there's a language I just can't get a handle on. I've heard Scottish Gaelic spoken in the highlands and have been to Welsh-speaking Wales a couple of times, but I just can't see any way into it, it seems so alien.

I know what you mean. I can follow 'Scandi' dramas more easily -at least we have some language in common. I think the only universally known Irish is craic and Guinness! Thinking about it - do you need any more?

No, I reckon anyone will get by with that

Oooooh - I'd forgotten about this thread, I liked it!

To belatedly answer your question, Mrs Kane, we were in Saigon because of my father's job - nothing exciting, he was that 'merchant banker' of legend! We were airlifted out during the tet offensive, then went back, and finally left in about 1973 as things started to look more dicey. After that my parents went to India and I went to a horrible 'posh' boarding school .... which I hated ....... seems to be a theme. They did teach me some latin, though, which I have found useful, and that, along with my head start in French, has meant I tend to pick up languages quite easily. I'm rusty in everything from lack of use, but I speak French and Spanish, and some Russian. Useless at maths, I can barely count, let alone multiply!

I'm an only child, spent half my childhood with my nose in a book and am much the same now I'm (supposedly) adult. I don't set much store by it, but I'm a cancerian, and a Chinese dragon.

There definitely seem to be a few themes emerging here!

Hi Folks re my previous post I'm a Rooster in the Chinese calendar & Hang my Vietnamese friend tells me Roosters will have a fruitful year. Hope so! And in 2015 went to a school reunion & still bonded with the day girls albeit a couple of my ex-boarders have had torrid times -- Karma perhaps. Vivian

Got a call a couple of days ago from a friend from college days. She lives in the States now but she is coming over to London in August. She has been taking with the other two in our gang of four (in Stafford and St Ives) and they have decided to 'drop in on me' sometime in September.

The last time we all met up was in 2012 in London. We hadn't all been together for 30 years, but within seconds it was just like that 30 years had never happened. I can't wait for September!!! This part of the world won't know what hit it.