General Chat

too hot and tired to answer all the posts tonight. However I will tell you that my friend over the road about 73 and a Beavers leader and a very busy ladt, when she got in from her voluntary work at the cats' rescue centre, she came over and re-mounted the camera up on the wall over the door. (I held the step ladder. She is not a slim person but was up the ladder balancing while she screwed in new rawl plugs and screws and fixed it. Just as well she is handy as there don't seem to be many handy men in this road now. I am pretty sure that Jake's Dad could have fixed it but not sure they would have time this time of year for such a small job. I also know daughter could have fixed it if she was here.

I decided to give the Ladies Club a miss as my head is aching and my eyes are very sore but I went down early when there were just the committee putting out chairs and took a big bag of items for the nearly new stall they are running at the village fete this weekend. They also do a plant stall, a book stall and run the refreshment room. I then made my apologies and came home again.

I ploughed through the ironing before breakfast whil e the heat was still bearable. Then we drove into town for OH’s midday appointment at the opticians. It’s only 5 or 6 minutes walk from the car park but it did seem a drag today. Anyway OH is now sorted with new reading glasses and that’s all his eye appointments finished. When we got back to the car OH realised he had left his hat at the opticians and straightaway went to walk back. He was amazed when I pointed out that he would be going back there tomorrow for his ear wax removal so he could phone them and tell them he would collect his hat then. Is it just my man that doesn’t stop to think things through?

I also did a number of smaller jobs this afternoon and then cooked a full meat, potatoes and 2 veg dinner. I must be mad!

Annx, I’m glad OH’s referral has been escalated and things seem to be moving at last. It’s about time that he started to get the treatment he needs. It sounds as though it’s a good job it’s your last day on the cream if it is affecting your lips. I wonder what sort of neighbours you’ll get when that bungalow in your close is sold.

I hope the lower dose of that tablet will suit you better Mandy. I feel for you as restless leg syndrome is horrid and I think you may have it worse than me. I expect you have done the same as me sometimes which is to grit your teeth, tense your legs and be determined to stay still and it makes no difference at all. You just can’t control it. The muscles jerk and your legs jump. I have to get up and walk about but that’s harder for you with your painful knees. A tip a doctor gave me 20 odd years ago was to avoid caffeine as much as possible. I couldn’t drink decaf tea so I stopped having tea after lunchtime and cut out nearly all other caffeine and it did help a bit. I do now have tea whenever I fancy a cup but I am still very cautious with any other caffeine.

Oh dear AnnG, good job the camera didn’t fall when someone was near it or they might have got a nasty bump on the head. I hope you can get it easily fixed. Is that the sort of job your handyman Jake could do?

I bet you’ve been gardening most of the day again Mel. I don’t know where your energy comes from but I wish I had half as much. That was lovely to see the baby hedgehog. We used to see them around our old house but in nearly 12 years of living here we’ve only seen one.

I’m glad you liked granddaughter’s horse. She has always loved horses and took to riding at quite a young age. She keeps trying to persuade our son to buy an “equine facility” that she will manage for him. I think his response has been to tell her to dream on.

Time is marching on and I still have a couple of things to do tonight before I get a drink and get myself ready for bed. I don’t think it’s going to cool down a lot during the night so I’m not optimistic about getting a lot of sleep. Then tomorrow is supposed to be a much cooler day and we should see some rain. Roll on tomorrow.

EDIT. Sorry Mel, I missed your last post. Your fish keep you busy. It’s surprising how attached you get to them and you do feel upset when things don’t go right for them.

Did I tell you that the clapping I could hear coming from my pond was not a bird having a bath but the fish mating? EWell yesterday I had to rescue a big gold one and today I could hear it again so went down to feed them and a god one was stuck in the weed again. Got that one out and clipped the mesh back on the fence and there was anpther splashing. Off came the net again and this time it was a black one so I let that one go I have had to fish them out with my hand. Just before clipping the net back on I thought I could see a white tail so I fished around again and it was one of my lovely babies from years ago, Spotty Muldoon. I am so upset as that was the tiny whitey one I first saw in the pond at an inch long.

Love the horse Vera she should be a good ride as she has a short back and I like her socks. She's beautiful and a lovely colour with great markings on her face.

Vera I got your email and love the horse! What a lovely rich bay colour she is, the colour of conkers! It takes me back and your granddaughter is going to have lots of fun with her. Thank you for sending the pics. I wonder if others will be wondering whether to go to the Ladies Club Meeting tonight as it's so hot.

I think it's supposed to get a bit cooler from now on till later in July Mandy, then get hot again. I hadn't thought about the workmen in and out with doors left open! I think they are stripping everything out the first day, then the floor levelling will be done the next day as the floor tiles are coming up and that will take two days to set hard, so I doubt they will be back for a couple of days then. Then the flooring man will lay the floor before they start fitting anything back. They said about 6 days, but I think it may be a bit longer.

OH got on well at the doctors and his referral is being escalated today. The doctor agreed he needs to have his treatment started urgently after all this time and as his quality of life is being badly affected. Fingers crossed he will get an appointment sooner now. The surgery was absolutely boiling and other people in the waiting room were saying they were melting. They really ought to have had fans in there. We picked the rest of my meds up afterwards and were glad to get home again. Today seems more muggy with no breeze I was sweltering after doing a stirfry for lunch. ERNIE has given me £150 this month which was nice. :-)

I noticed my lips seemed to be tingling this morning, like when the local anaesthetic starts wearing off at the dentist and I think this cream the doctor gave me is causing it as the leaflet said it cause reactions like lips swellingchecked the cream the doctor recently gave me. It seems it can cause bad reactions and allergies including lips swelling etc so I think that's what must have caused the tingling. Luckily this is the last day I need to use it.

A sale board has gone up in the close at what was Jean's bungalow when we moved here. The man who moved in had recently had a stroke and his wife had one just after last christmas. It's a shame as they had a lot of work done to get it as they want.

I have sent some pics of granddaughter’s horse so Annx might need to look in her spam file.

It’s been the hottest day so far and we seem to have been busy today as well. BBC weather is telling me it’s currently 31 degrees but feels like 36. Too hot for me. I’ve read the posts but no time to respond at the moment. I’m supposed to be at a Ladies Club meeting this evening but am not sure whether I will go. Might bbl.

It seems that there is no end to the sort of things that can go wrong, break etc when you are on your own.

There is/was a camera mounted over the front door. I had not really taken much notice of how or where it was fixed. Today it fell down. It fell gradually, first one screw came out of the wall and it was hanging there on one screw when Cynth came to the door. We both stood and looked at it. Hmm?? So I decided that it would probably be best to leave it until another friend came home late afternoon as she knew more about DIY. Went in shut the door then decided to have another look. opened the door and the other screw came ou, so now it is hanging by the wire that feeds into the house and somehow ends up at the TV. So now it is tied to the back gate to stop it swinging and hitting anyone on the head.

Hope it wasn't to hot for your walk to the meeting Anng ,how many turned up.

Oh Ann it is you just can't seem to keep still you have to move your legs but with these tablets it seem to have made it a lot worse ,I thought I would never get to sleep.
Let's hope its a bit cooler next week with the workman going in and out and letting the heat in .

Very cloudy and I don't think it's quite as hot today .

We had a hedgehog in the front garden a few weeks ago I watched him on the security camera .
Son has been and brought my tablets, they are still Gabapentin but a lower dose the old ones we're 300mg these are 100 mg ,still have to work up to three a day ,so perhaps the higher dose was aggravating my nerves instead of calming them down .

Oh I missed some of you as we are all early birds today! I didn't sleep as well last night either, but Mandy the restless legs sounds really horrid and having to get up with them. You can't be getting much rest with them.

How lovely to see the baby hedgehog Mel, especially as you haven't seen any in the garden for some time. It stayed hot really late last night here too so it must have been nice to be cooler outside at 1.30 am!

Morning AnnG and All,

it's 21 degrees here already and I was up at 6.00am to find OH had already been up and had watered, so that was a nice surprise. I can only carry watering cans half full and OH is better not using them at all just now. I pulled a few handfuls of weeds instead and before I went outside I saw a little squirrel go across to the water feature pot for a drink before going on his way. It is still being used for bathing by at least one Magpie as I saw one preening wet feathers yesterday and some of the waterlily leaves had been pulled over the edge of the pot.

It had half crossed my mind whether it was because he was transferring from private AnnG, but the hospital were keen to give him an appointment when he rang, but can't do unless his GP escalates his referral to them. Oh, OH has a mid morning appointment. The ring back service seems to be working well and saves hanging on. He was 17th in the queue when he rang at 8.00am when the phones open.

I hope it isn't hot for your walk to your meeting this morning and the 'all ladies group' sounds like good idea!

I'd better do a few jobs before it gets hot and start with clearing the glass parrots off the drawers in the hallway before the men come next week!

Morning girls,

Its a nice 17 degrees here at the mo but how hot it is going to be we will see later on. I slept right through last night rising at 7.15am for the first time. It says mostly cloudy so I hope they are right. I am all hot and sticky and am going in the shower.

Shopping arrives today and they have put my favorite shampoo back on sale I just hope it smells the same as it did years ago and not one of these horrid plasticy smells we get in some things nowadays.I do havve a bottle of it from years ago and save it for special occasions. They say it was the most popular scent, its the Herbal Esscences Camomile one and its on offer in Asda I have ordered two bottles. A while ago they brought out a rose scented one so I bought the shampoo and conditioner and think it was £6 each. WEll it smelt nothing like roses at all and left a lingering taste in my mouth so I gave it to Em.

Mandy I hope they can give you something to relieve this jumping in your legs it can't be nice having to get up all the time and walk the house. Think you said your son will pick up the new script for you today. Fingers crossed this one will be ok for you.

Went out for a cool downlast night about 1.30am before going to bed and spied a baby Hedgehog on the back lawn on the grass so I had tostay and watch it for a while. It was so cute and lovely to see one after a few years of not actually seeing one in the garden. I came in and got a few cat biscuits I always keep and threw some to him orm the patio but he had gone onto the wall by the time I came back and was nosing around under the Ladys Mantle on the road bit hopeing to find some worms I expect. I did get a pic so will send it later.

Morning Anng, morning all,

Windows and doors all open here to cool the house down it was a very hot night I was still awake at half past one with my knee jumping it was terrible I put a couple of cold flannels on my knees but it didn't really help so I hope the new tablets do .

Cloudy here with a little breeze just having a cuppa .

Good morning all. very cloudy and 19 degrees at the moment. It was a very hot sticky night again. I managed about five hours, most of the time didn't even have a sheet on me..

I have a meeting this morning to go to. Only a walk down the road, not too far but hoping it is not too hot. It is about a new group forming, no particular subject for the group except it is an all ladies group. We found when they started the members on their own group, the two or three males took over so somebody has suggested we try an all female group. We shall see how it works.

I hope your OH can soon get the appointment he needs Ann. I wonder if there is an element of keeping him 'in line' because he is transferring back from private? It certainly seems to have taken a long time.

I think my dermatology appointment will come through reasonably quickly but I have no idea if that will be just another one to look at what needs doing or to do the actual ops. I also have no idea really whereabouts the department is as they have moved out of the very convenient place they were in the hospital.

That sounded like a lovely way to spend the afternoon Mel! I used to enjoy Pimms with the umbrella and cucumber slice.

What happened with OH was that he started going to the doctors over a year ago with his bad back, neck, ribs and those headaches that were one side of his head and kept waking him up at night. He saw different GPs but they just kept repeating blood tests every 2 months or so and talked about pain management and issued painkillers. Some of his blood test results weren't normal. After his cardiac arrest in January this year, ( which may have been caused by the condition he has) he had to sleep in a chair in hospital as his back was so bad and he knew he couldn't manage the exercise he needed to do for his rehab. He went to the doctor and pushed for something more to be done and she referred him to the physio who wouldn't touch him as she said his body was full of inflammation. He was to and froing at the eye clinic with his eye inflammation too and they said the cause of his eye inflammation should have been investigated in the 80s and arranged an x-ray. He went back to the doctor with what the physio said and the doctor agreed to refer him to a rheumatologist. The wait was 18 weeks, so he went private and had an MRI and was diagnosed within 3 weeks and told what treatment he needed, but that it had to be done by the NHS as it couldn't be done privately, so was referred back to the NHS in March to have the treatment started and has been waiting ever since to see an NHS rheumotologist. The first time he chased it up he was told there was a 7 month waiting list. He saw his GP again about 6 weeks ago and she thought he would hear in the next fortnight and that she would escalate it if he didn't. When he went back after a fortnight she said to wait another fortnight and so it goes on, so he rang the Hospital again today who told him to tell his GP that they have said to escalate it, so he is going to try and get an appointment in the morning. The daft thing is, he's had scans and an MRI, been diagnosed, they know what the treatment is, but are making him wait in line. Everything you read about the condition says early treatment is important to stop or hold back it's progression which can cause his spine to fuse and other things. If the doctor doesn't escalate it this time I will suggest we contact PALS and explain the position to see if they can help hurry things along.

I look forward to seeing the horse Vera! You did well doing those loads of washing and fetching them all in. It wouldn't have been sensible for your OH to do the mile and a half walk in the heat we have now and I'm surprised he tackled the gate and was outside so long, but I expect you were watching him. I was only thinking about Dr Michael Mosley this morning and that fatal walk he did in the heat on the Greek Island in June a year ago.

I'm glad you will have some different tablets to try when your son picks them up tomorrow Mandy and fingers crossed they will suit you better.

I'm late to bed and am on watering duty in the morning so better go now, I hope we all manage some sleep.

The PC is still showing 27 degrees so we won't be opening the windows yet .

Oh no Vera a mile and a half is a lot for your OH to do in the heat its bad enough just walking down the garden.
Fancy him being out all that time today in the heat but I bet you kept an eye on him and supplied some nice cold drinks .

Ipad is reading 30 degrees now ,got all the front curtains closed as the suns now round the front .
Poor Max has been laying in the kitchen near the fridge most of the day ,he has a fan on in there and we leave it on all night for him

Well surgery rang at half five there's another prescription in boots for me so son will collect that in the morning ,if these don't work they review it again ,son couldn't have got it then as he's in work.

So your nice and relaxed after the Pimms then Mel :-D

Bad move I went up the top field with good intentions of cutting the top dead out of the plum tree but I also took a large jug of pimm's up with me and called in on Janine and Simon and we sat out in their garden drinking it. It was really pleasent up there with a nice cool soft breeze so by the time we had put the world to rights nothing got done as I am so relaxed now I did'nt want to do anything and the palarti (sp) group came to the village hall so I have come down and now need to find something for tea. May have a boiled egg as I had a large salad at lunchtime I don't need much.

Hope its not too hot for you girls to sleep tonight.

What a nuisance about your apointments Vera something always puts a spanner in the works.

Annx do you mean to say that the doc has not done anything about making an appointment for oh for a year???????????? Thats dreadful.

Me too ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~waving to Gwyn and EOS stay cool girls.

Afternoon all,

I’m like the others Mel, I don’t know how you can garden in this heat. Please make sure you take some water outside with you. All I have managed to do outside today is water a few pots and that was at 7.30 this morning. Your OH is good to be watering at 5.00 this morning Annx. That’s a tad too early for me.

My OH went off for his walk before 7.30 today and I thought he was being sensible going early. I should have known better. He went early so he could then do some work on a side gate and the gate posts. He was out there in all that heat from 9 till 4. He did cover up a bit with long sleeves and a hat but I still thought he was mad.

I did 4 loads of washing and practically melted just hanging it out. Each load was only out a short while before it was dry and I had to get it all in again so I melted a second time. I’m not sure what I have done apart from washing but I seem to have been busy all day.

BBC weather is telling me it’s 29 degrees but feels like 34 and tomorrow will be even more hot. I had a hair appointment tomorrow morning and OH has an appointment to collect his new glasses. Of course the times don’t fit in together so I was going to take the car and OH was going to walk to town later but I’ve said no to that. I don’t think it’s a good idea for him to walk a mile and a half in each direction in the middle of the day with the temperature likely to be over 30 degrees, so I have changed my appointment. The only time I could be fitted in this week is Wednesday morning and, would you believe, he has an ear appointment at noon on Wednesday. The 2 appointments are a bit closer together in time so I think I can get a bus to town and then hang around after my hair is done till OH arrives with the car for his appointment. This will work if I have read the online bus timetable correctly but I really needed a degree in solving puzzles. It’s a work of art of colours, numbers, icons and strange abbreviations. All I want is something that says this number bus goes from a to b and calls at my stop at such and such a time.

Although it was hot and sticky last night I slept quite well but I’m not so optimistic about tonight. The temperature isn’t forecast to drop below 18 degrees.

AnnG, I am glad the doctor you saw seemed to be “with it” and I hope your dermatology appointment comes through quickly.

Oh Mandy, what a shame those tablets don’t suit you. It’s horrible when the meds that are meant to help you make you feel worse. I hope the doctor can sort you out a good alternative to help your knees and restless legs.

Annx, it seems wrong that your poor OH should have to be constantly chasing up appointments and treatments. I hadn’t realised, or maybe had forgotten, that he was still waiting to see the rheumatologist. I hope his surgery do escalate his referral and he can get some treatment started.

Granddaughter sent me some photos of her horse. I’ll just pick out a couple and send them round as I know Annx and Mel might like to see them. I also took a few of our hostas which are well chewed and a couple of other garden ones so I’ll send those too.

I’d better go and decide what to do with lots of cold chicken. Chicken salad is the obvious thing but we’ve had a lot of salad lately and it can sometimes mean an upset tum for me.

I am on my iPad and it has gone mad. It keeps changing perfectly good words into odd things. Quickly was turned into “quick Lydford”, alternative became “older Native” and even I hope that became “I happens”. I’m beginning to think it’s been reprogrammed by AI :-S

A quick ~~~~~~~~~~ wave to EOS and to Gwyn. Try and stay cool everyone.

Sensible to wait until this evening before going out Mel. Have you got anywhere out of the way. that you can leave a patch of nettles for the butterflies to lay their eggs on

Yes got to wait now and hope any appointment avoids things I have booked.

Cynth took me down so there was air con in her car then she came into the waiting room, it was the small one upstairs and the windows were open with a breeze blowing throgh from the shaded side of the surgery. In the doctor's room he had a large fan going. so it was cool there.

That is shocking Ann if he went a year ago ,so now he has to see the gp and he's no further forward in the queue for some treatment.

Anng let's hope you soon get your appointment through quickly and don't have to wait to long sounds as if he was really efficient with the examination.

Phew we're now at 29 degrees it's going to be a hot night in bed .