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Will we be tangoed?

(62 Posts)
GabriellaG54 Sat 02-Mar-19 22:24:34

I'm not particularly looking forward to having my hair a rusty orange colour. if the Met office is correct in it's forecast of a huge sand/dust cloud coming our way next week.
It's taken a chunk of money to get it looking (IMO) decent and I'd be rather cross if I ended up being tangoed.
Earlier today I was having this conversation with a lady in the 'collection's queue at M&S.
Her husband was strangely silent.
Why is it that men in queues, with or without their partners, don't indulge in chit-chat with others in the queue?
My AC say that only old people ??talk to strangers. ???

GabriellaG54 Sat 02-Mar-19 22:25:51

collection's collections ☺

Urmstongran Sat 02-Mar-19 22:51:33

Re: chatting in queues GG54 I think it’s because us oldies have either more time to stand and stare (or talk) or more life experience which have made us quietly confident and empathetic.
And less embarrassed!

BlueBelle Sat 02-Mar-19 22:52:59

My teenage grandkids think I m mad they say ‘whose that Nan’ when I start chatting and I say ‘I don’t know’ and they look like I ve just been let out the funny farm as their eyes widen and eyebrows go up and eyes roll heavenwards

BradfordLass72 Sat 02-Mar-19 23:29:51

How odd! Here in New Zealand we too were told a huge dust storm was coming our way - it hasn't so far.

gmelon Sun 03-Mar-19 00:02:38

Should we stay indoors?
To avoid orange hair.
If your husband is a baldy then send him out for essentials.

RosieLeah Sun 03-Mar-19 06:42:04

It's odd that you should say that, because I frequently get lone men chatting to me while I'm waiting for something. I'm not a friendly person so don't welcome it, but I seem to attract chatty old men.

Gagagran Sun 03-Mar-19 07:12:40

I chat to anyone and smile at everyone. I once read an article about loneliness that urged everyone to do the same as that could be the only human interaction some people ever had. grin

sodapop Sun 03-Mar-19 08:25:38

That is a sad thought Gagagran but true, I think some people make shopping trips for small items just so they can talk to someone.

PECS Sun 03-Mar-19 08:50:13

No harm in a bit of friendly chat when out and about! How dull if we are all in our own bubble & avoiding human contact/ communication!

PECS Sun 03-Mar-19 08:52:25

oh..meant to ask was it the Daily Express who suggested orange dust..I find their weather warnings the most alarmist! The occasionally pop up on a newsfeed threatening some disaster or another!

mcem Sun 03-Mar-19 09:27:50

GG since you are always anxious to correct spelling and grammar mistakes made by posters, I'm sure you'd want me to point out that your post should read "correct in its forecast" and not "it's forecast".

BlueSapphire Sun 03-Mar-19 09:36:24

Elderly man started chatting to me at the bus stop yesterday, but I've seen him there before several times, and it's quite usual for him. He tells me he goes to Sainsbury's cafe every day for his lunch; I expect it's company for him.
My late DM would strike up a conversation with anyone and within 10 minutes they would know her life history.
I too do not wish to be tangoed, as I paid a lot of money this week to get my hair coloured and cut!

EllanVannin Sun 03-Mar-19 09:48:24

I do remember years ago the Sirocco ( red dust ) which blew our way as it was noticeable on white vehicles. I thought this only happened in summer months when the winds came from the Mediterranean ?

Jalima1108 Sun 03-Mar-19 09:50:08

I was discussing with the hairdresser just last week whether or not to have lowlights - this could save me a fortune if true!!
Incidentally, my car has been covered in a thin layer of dust courtesy of the warm winds which came up from Africa last week - however it was a rather unbecoming greyish sandy colour.

Yes, I talk to people in queues etc. DH wanders away or says 'I'll wait in the car'. I think he just doesn't like queuing.

toscalily Sun 03-Mar-19 09:52:09

Last week I was in a Ikea and had stopped to look at a swivel chair, a middle aged lady & I assume her daughter (early twenties) stopped, mother sat down in chair talking about the chair, I made a remark and they completely blanked me out, not even a smile to acknowledge that I had spoken. Was I too old, too intrusive or not worth talking too? In contrast a few minutes later I gently stopped a toddler going at full tilt, father grabbed him, swung him up in his arms and with a big smile thanked me. I said I had a grandson just the same and we exchanged a few words about how active that are and into everything at that age. Two very different encounters, needless to say the second one made me feel a lot better.

Greyduster Sun 03-Mar-19 10:08:52

It is more unusual in this part of the country not to pass the time of day with strangers than to shy away from talking to them. It can catch you out, though. While out walking recently, we met a man and exchanged the usual niceties and passed the time of day and he turned out to be an expert on everything from the territorial habits of buzzards to minutiae of local history, and we barely got a word in edgewise! I learned a lot though!

callgirl1 Sun 03-Mar-19 21:26:57

My dearly beloved great aunt would talk to anyone and everyone about just about anything. I`m a bit more reticent, but will respond if anyone speaks to me. Daughter 3 is very like my great aunt in that she`ll start up a conversation with anyone. When we were in London the other week, daughter 2 remarked jokingly about how her sister would talk to anyone, because she isn`t like that, but Dawn laughed and said she likes talking to people.

Cherrytree59 Sun 03-Mar-19 21:33:43

Not checked the car,
but at moment the wind is howling down the chimney, and battering the windows.

Buffybee Sun 03-Mar-19 21:52:18

I talk to everybody and anybody.
Just yesterday morning, I had to ring Virgin as my broadband kept cutting in and out. After the usual rigmarole of passwords, I can't remember and tapping one for this and two for that, the computer tested the system and decided that I needed to speak to a human being.
I was on the phone for ages, the young man had me unplugging, plugging back in and tested and retested but I was more interested in where he was speaking from: India madam, me: "where in India"? New Delhi, the Capitol. I had a lovely conversation about the weather over there and then told him about our recent heat wave. etc. etc. We both became quite giggly!
I put the phone down and Dd rings and says I'd been engaged for ages, I told her I'd been chatting to a lovely young man in New Delhi.
I felt her roll her eyes over the phone as she asked how I always end up in conversation with random people.
I told her I was becoming a mad old bat.
She told me, "I don't think so, you've always been like that" .
Don't quite know how to take that! ?

MiniMoon Sun 03-Mar-19 22:50:54

I don't know about a dust storm, but, at the moment in Northumberland, it's snowing!

Witzend Mon 04-Mar-19 08:45:05

Blueshappire, you made me think of my lovely chatty Mil. Even when an 8 hour flight away from home, she could start chatting to someone from a completely different culture and find out that their sister's best friend's son was living in the next road in SW London. ? As I once witnessed when she was staying with us in the Middle East.
FiL was the complete opposite!!

PECS Mon 04-Mar-19 09:04:09

witzend I am quite chatty & happy to chat to most people..especiallt if trapped on a journey. I have a friend, mid 70s, who is always discovering connections to people and places when he engages at length, as he frequently does, with strangers!

EllanVannin Mon 04-Mar-19 09:40:05

You just have to find a " chatting partner " on a long-haul flight, not annoyingly mind you as nobody likes a pest if they don't feel like chatting.
Only on one trip did I come across a surly blighter ( business class ) and I knew as soon as I said good morning and got no reply that I was in for a longer haul than I'd anticipated. He just glugged his whisky and never stopped typing ! He was English as I made a downward glance at his " work ".

However what a pleasant surprise on my return when my " companion " who'd boarded at Sydney was a female lawyer on her way to London attending a case and between us we finished the Express crossword. It cut the journey clean in half.

I'll talk to anyone, but not annoyingly as I test the water first.

Jalima1108 Mon 04-Mar-19 10:18:46

I've had a look online and, as far as I can tell, the dust storm was the one brought up from Africa last week by the warm winds.

It was sandy coloured rather than red so it looks as if I'll have to go for the expensive lowlights after all.

Even when an 8 hour flight away from home, she could start chatting to someone from a completely different culture and find out that their sister's best friend's son was living in the next road in SW London.
Oh yes - it's amazing the coincidences you find even in remote places - someone has an auntie or cousin or uncle who just happens to live a short distance from us in the UK (whom they've never met!).