Small talk is getting smaller ...

I found this story online and was just ... well, sad is the only word I can think of.  It seems that people feel that "small talk" and making conversation with strangers is not worth bothering about.  Why talk about the weather when you can trash some celebrity on Facebook or Twitter.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2333298/Britons-obsessed-social-media-havent-spoken-stranger-months.html

More years ago than I care to remember, I took a secretarial course and we were told about the importance of small-talk when you have someone in front of you waiting to see the boss, or you have to take someone to another office.  Yes, talking about the weather is pretty boring, but it's just the start of the conversation ... "It looks like we're going to have some windy weather this weekend ..."  "Yes, but I love it as it means that I'm sure to have an amazing day hang-gliding/kite flying/sailing ..." and from there you have a subject to talk about.  Heck, it's one sentence that gets the conversation going. I've learned a lot of interesting things and even better, I once spent a few hours doing a beginners hang-gliding course for free, because I showed a lot of interest when I was making idle conversation with a stranger.  It ended up that it was too windy for them to let me loose up there, but I had several people holding on to everything and I got the general feel of it, even if I was only a few feet off the ground ... and it was good!

When we're out at a restaurant, Mr B and are always amazed at the number of couples or friends who are all sitting at the same table ignoring each other and jabbing away at their phones.  When out to brunch, I've seen whole families at the table, complete with Grandma, and each one is on the phone or reading a newspaper and poor Granny is looking like she would have preferred to be at home with her bowl of granola and three cats.  Yes, I know this makes me sound incredibly old - hey, I DO have a smartphone - but I find it very sad that people are disconnecting from the world around them and plugging into the less-than-mediocre badly-typed drivel that is a large part of the Twittersphere.  There ARE some very funny, entertaining, informative posts out there but they surely are few and far between.

I've seen it with some people I've met - either they just stand there staring into space in a "small-talk needed" situation, or just grunt or give one word answers and you just give up.

Okay, so I'm having a bad day today and am not my usual fairly upbeat self but it always make me wonder what people Tweet and post to Facebook about if they don't actually connect with anyone new.  Well, I guess if you read the article, it says that they don't talk to strangers or anyone else they meet in their daily routine.

They're missing so much and it's just sad.

Glorious Foxglove ...

... yes, that's "foxglove" in the singular. My gardening thumb is definitely not a dark, rich green, but it's sort of a pale, watery sort of green color.  Plants don't actually die in my presence but they generally don't thrive very well.  I read up on the different sorts of potting compost, fertilizers, sun or shade, etc. but somehow it just doesn't come together like it should.  I've planted tomatoes in pots and spent the summer moving them around the deck so that they get the maximum amount of Pacific North West sun each year, yet they still manage to look underfed, and provide me with about eight wonderful tasting tomatoes, but that's about it.  And that's exactly 8, not eight pounds.  Meanwhile, I see other people with 6 foot tomato plants running rampant and producing pounds of spectacular fuits.  So to the saga of the foxglove...

I love these plants.  They remind me of an English garden full of lupins, foxgloves and hollyhocks and a few years ago I bought one foxglove plant and put it in a pot with the requisite soil, fertilizer, etc.  Each year it's grown, flowered and then seeded itself in the pot so the next year I get another plant.  Last year, one of the seeds must have dropped by the path and this year we have this incredible, glorious, all-it-should-be foxglove.  I can't understand why, because there's a lot of concrete left in the grass by the path as it's fairly new.  Now look at this ....

Of course, this is the one I planted in the pot and looked after, weeded, fed, and moved around in the sun.  Yes, it's great to have the flowers but look at it.  The two stalks look so puny next to their wild cousin on the path.  What did I do wrong?  I think next year my whole gardening strategy will be one of ignoring everything.  Heck, it works for me!!  Think of the time, effort and money I'll save.