General Chat

Morning All,

Happy Anniversary Vera and Mr. Vera enjoy your day whatever you do.

Its bad enough losi g an hour let alone a day Gwyn, I wonder what happened there?

It bright and sunny and 11 degrees and no wind so as soon as I got up the phone rang. Guess who? BIL to say he and his wife would be over in 40 mins. I was'nt even dressed thinking I had the day to myself and slop about and have a nice long shower etc. Now I have to go and get ready. They said they would do it another day but BIL has brought a drone and he wants to test it in the garden and yesterday it was too windy. So I am off now to get dressedd and do my hair.

Hope the others had a good night I got up once and then went back for a lie in as nobody was coming and woke at 1015am.

See you later.

Happy Anniversary Vera and your OH.
I hope you enjoy your special day.

Ann, you've been busy sorting your clocks. How lucky that the battery went before you needed to alter the clock :-)

Daughter came down this morning and said that she could cope with losing one hour in the night, but when she looked at her phone to complete a daily puzzle that she does with her siblings, it told her that it was Monday 31st March :-S
What happened to Sunday?

Supposedly 12 degrees and mostly sunny here, but I hope the chilling wind from yesterday evening has eased or it will feel much cooler.

I hope you all have a good day, however you spend it.

good morning all. It is bright and sunny here Alexa is saying it is 8 degrees and there looks to still be a breeze so maybe a bit of gardening or maybe a lazy day. I had a realy good sleep last night. Deliberately stayed up later so the 'hour' didn't mess me up. All clocks done except the kitchen one on the wall. Went to do it and realise the battery had stopped so will do that today. At least it didn't go the day after I changed it!

Hope you are all in the same time zone (i.e.put your clocks forward!! :-D :-D :-D

I am sure you are.

Good morning

It seems to be a bright, sunny day but very windy. I haven’t put my nose outside yet to see what it feels like but weather app is saying it’s 10 degrees but feels like 4. I have no idea what I’ll be doing today. It’s our wedding anniversary but we’re not doing anything special, our plans for lunch out having gone awry.

Enjoy the day everyone.

So most of us have been in the garden today pottering about. BIL came and mowed and I went up the shop for my paper and bits and bought him a hot pasty which he ate whilst mowing the front field. I swept part of the front of the bungalow and potted up some plants and weeded my big pots of those tall things with blue flowers on long stalks. Can't think of the name at the mo!!! O Agapanthus???? One had docks and grannies bonnets growing in it so they came out of their pots which was a struggle and were put back in with a fresh bit of compost.

Having trouble with Ebay as they seem to have lost the button where you can get an invoice sent and I need to send one for three items bought by one lady.

Hope you all sleep well tonight, see you in the morning. :-D

We lost the sun around 1230 and it is really feeling quite cold out there. There were a few spots of rain just now as well. I did a load of washing then, when the first drier load finished I walked down with books and clothes for Irene and posted a card. Had coffee when I came back then I did an hour and a half in the garden. I dug over the planter where the potatoes are to go ready for planting in a week or so, I then planted up the four plants I bought last tuesday and cleared weeds after a lot of the tubs standing down the end of the garden with no plants in. I think one might have a plant of some sort in there so will leave it and see if it sprout. I have got three lettuce I planted in a trough and three that I planted in the new planter. Both lots have plastic covers over them like mini greenhouses.

Vera at least you got some done.

Gwyn, crumble for me too please.

I hope that you have finished with medical things for a while now. As Vera said it will be hot in summer if you have to continue to wear the stockings. I remember having those that you buy for flying when we were doing long haul, it was a real fight to get them on, especially cominh home when we were all hot in the high temperature. Good luck with them.

I had had enough by then and it was late for my lunch, it had also got colder so I came in and had lunch. Also today I did the lounge floor and did some admin on emails.
I find despite discussing and telling everyone at the meeting what the next 3 subjects are for photography, it is necessary to also follow up with an email repeating what was said. That also helps the ones who didn't make it to the meeting..

I have had a mothers' daqy card from Lynda and she has told me there will be money in my account tomorrow to buy myself something.

It’s not quite as warm as yesterday and there is a nip in the breeze but it is a beautiful, bright, sunny day. I have pottered in the garden for a while. I am trying to do just a little bit each day that it is dry as I find my back can cope best like that. Today I cut last winter’s dead growth off a couple more plants in the garden and tidied some perennials in pots and troughs. My early daffs are now all fading so I’m deadheading them like mad and I will soon be looking out on a bed of dying leaves. I’ve got several large pots planted up with later varieties and they are just beginning to show some bloom. I’m also pleased with my tomato seeds which are now sprouting in their seed trays.

It's a good job the audiology people could fix your hearing aid quickly for you Gwyn. My hearing is reasonably good but I sometimes have trouble understanding what is being said, especially if English isn’t the doctor’s first language. I can just imagine how difficult it must be if your hearing isn’t good. I hope your legs are not too painful now. Will you have to wear the compression stockings all the time? They could make you a bit hot in the warmer weather. Please can I come for a meal when you have rhubarb crumble, one of my favourites.

I hope Gill is OK; we haven’t heard from her for a few days now.

I hope you all have weather as good as ours and are outside enjoying the sunshine. Don’t forget to change the clocks tonight.

A beautiful morning here with the sun shining brightly.
It seems to have been a very busy time lately and I can see that many of you have been very busy in your gardens.
I haven't done much at all in ours apart from an odd potter, but I was pleased to see yesterday that the rhubarb seems to be doing really well and is thriving in the pots after a very wet winter. Daughter will be looking forward to that first crumble. ;-)
There seem to have been several medical related checks recently, - nothing major, but hopefully we are back into 'normal' mode now. Antibiotics for infection in lower leg at last seemed to help aided by Betnovate cream, but I've now been told that if it happens again then I have to have a 2 week course at the outset, so we'll see what the GP surgery says about that should it happen. The treatment for the swollen legs was keep active, but rest with legs elevated as much as posiible :-S :-S so it's been a bit of a juggling act trying to function normally and hence why extra seasonal jobs have gone by the wayside and I now have to catch up.
In the midst of all the to-ing and fro-ing, my hearing aid decided to pack up working and I would especially need it for a clinic appointment that I had been waiting 9 months for,after a referral :-0
All was well, daughter phoned the audiology department at the hospital and they arranged an appointment to fix it the following day, which they did :-D the day before that important clinic appointment.The NHS is great when it works well.
Next trip will be for a fitting of my prescribed compression stockings, when they come. I will probably need to get up half an hour earlier on 'school' days to wrestle with them !

I hope you all have a pleasant weekend and enjoy the sunshine. Summertime starts tomorrow, so I wonder if the weather will reflect that?

Morning all,

I have been on to Ebay again this morning as I can't find where to send an invoice. They are having troublewith invoices so my buyer will have to pay the postage on the three items she has bought and then I have to send her a refund for two of the postges. What a faff..............................

Its 9 degrees here and quite sunny and looks as though it may be a nice day but there will be a high pollen count.

Just the shop to do this morning and don't know if BIL is coming as he said he may not this week but you can never tell with him.

Slept well and hope you all did.

Good morning all, another bright one but cooler at 5 degrees. I don't know if we had a frost, they did say we might. No sign when I got up though. Nothing planned for today, better get the 4 plants in I bought though so that is a pot of two to prepare.

Gosh what a thing to put on a dreary card Vera!

As to yesterdays washing up Stu did it all before I left and dried it off so I came home with one big ceramic pot I put all the veg in one basin I had had the chicken in and a enamel tray I did the creamy leeks in and the pot I took with the broccoli in which I forgot to dish up. I'm having that tonight with my stew and dumplings meal for one.

I have done a lot of ironing today, cleaned the sink and washed up yesterdays baking tions I cooked the chicken and veg in so just the two to wash. Spied that the rabbit trap ws closed so walked up the garden to that after corning the girls and there was no rabbit in it but a female pheasent. Poor girl she had broken most of he lovely tail feathers but I managed to let her out and she ran off as fast as she could to the big arch to escape me.

Annx I was wondering if I should cut my bottle brush back a bit as it hanging over the lawn and BIL moans about having to duck under thing when he's on the mower. Mum planted it so I don't really want to lose it. At the moment my Magnolia is in full bloom and looks wonderful.

Better get dinner now.

I hope the bathroom fitter due today turns up on time Annx as the other one doesn’t sound very reliable. One of my aunts always had sterilized milk as well and I didn’t like it either. Oh, I’ve just remembered OH’s mother used to have a bottle delivered 2 or 3 times a week just for making custard.

My goodness Mel, wasn’t it a bit of a performance taking the meal to Stu last night? As AnnG said, what did you do with the washing up? You certainly fed them well and it sounds as though they enjoyed it. You’re probably wise to only garden on alternate days and let your hips and back recover on the in-between days.

The forecast seems to be for it to get warmer and be dry next week so you’ll probably be able to finish painting your fence then Mandy, but don’t get tempted to carry on painting for too long or you will make your back painful again.

I wonder if it is hay fever you are getting AnnG. I love the smell of daffodils but different people are affected by different plants and smells. Our son used to get dreadful hayfever when oilseed rape was in bloom. We lived in a very rural area then and were often surrounded with rape fields. Poor lad. I was told that hay fever is connected to migraine and son was diagnosed with migraine at the age of 5.

I had a dreadful night again. I turned the light out at about 11.30 and just lay awake till 2 am when I got up and got a mug of hot milk. That didn’t help at all so I lay there awake till 4.30 when I got up and took a pill, eventually falling asleep sometime around 5 am. The trouble is I was still awake at my normal time and up by 8 am so I feel a bit like death warmed up today. This morning was sunny though not as warm as yesterday but this afternoon the wind has got up and it keeps coming over very black though it hasn’t rained yet.

On Wednesday I went to the pharmacy to collect my script to find 1 item there but not the rest. As we only get 28 days at a time and I collect every 4 weeks on a Tuesday or Wednesday, everything should have been ready for me. The assistant went to check and said that the 1 item comes on a different prescription (why?) and the doctors hadn’t sent the other prescription through to the pharmacy. So I had to ring the surgery pharmacist who gave me a complicated explanation about their end date being different to the end date of the pharmacist I use, blah, blah, blah. It made no sense to me at all but I pointed out that, in spite of all she was saying, I (the patient) was left without necessary medication. I told her I would completely run out of one of my pills on Friday morning. She said she would get the doctor to sign everything off and get the script to the pharmacy on Thursday. I went in again this morning and she had done as she promised but I was still one batch of pills missing as the pharmacist is having trouble getting hold of them and has no idea when they will be available. I was given a sort of IOU but I can’t swallow that! Of course, the pill that is missing is the one I have run out of, and is probably the most important one for me to be taking at the moment. The really annoying thing is that for years there was a wonderful system in place that was easy to use and never seemed to go wrong. Then some administrator decided to “improve it for the patient’s convenience” and it has been a pain in the proverbial ever since. He or she needs to write out 100 times “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Rant over.

While we were out we popped into a couple of shops and in one I was looking for a birthday card for our grandson and saw what I thought was a very strange card. Would you send this to anyone? The card was completely blank. The front was coloured grey and in black print, in the style of handwriting, it said “Glad to see you are still existing”. That was it.

Cup of tea time now I think and then I may try to get an hour’s rest before cooking our meal.

Afternoon All,

Lovely sunshine here now although there is still a chill in the air. We both went outside and filled a medium humper each with cutting back overgrown shrubs. The tall bottlebrush died over the winter, but was producing less, smaller flowers so OH has been cutting that right back and we might be able to get the root out easily eventually.. I might get another, different and less vigorous variety of it as it does look splendid when in flower and is evergreen so no winter leaf drop to clean up. I cut more back the other side of the garden and the rock edging can be seen again now. I have some Disco Marigold seeds to plant tomorrow. :-)

I hope the 2nd fitter comes today as well Mandy! If not we might have to let the shop's own fitters do it even if it means waiting till autumn. It's good to wait a bit longer to carry on with the fence painting till your back is ok.

I shan't bother getting a quote from the first fitter now AnnG unless he has a really good excuse for not contacting me. Your tickly cough might be hayfever. I have had a tickly throat and runny eye a few evenings and thought it was pollen. What is the subject for the photography group this time. I know I thought you had some interesting subjects coming up.

That was quite a big meal Mel and I would have enjoyed it! Wish I was like James though and could eat what I like without my weight changing. :-S

A memory came to mind this morning lying in bed. My grandmother (maternal) born in 1877 who wouldn't have the electric put in. She always had sterilised milk in the taller, different shaped milk bottles and wouldn't drink any other. I hated the taste of it, but I suppose she'd lived through a lot of TB outbreaks and it was safer to drink than pasteurised milk.

That is quite a performance mel to do a meal for Stu, having to transport everything to his place. Did you take all the dirty pots home or wash them up there?

the north west wind has come up again, it is till sunny but with cloud and 11 degrees but that wind is cold.

Morning all,

It was bright and sunny when I woke at 6.50am so I lay a while and must have fallen asleep again. Now it partly sunny with blue sky inbetween big white clouds, Its 11 degrees. It rained here quite a lot last night. so the grounds wet this morning.

Meal went well last night I fed Stu and his son James. I took it round to them in a big enamil pot the tray I cooked the leeks in and I put the chicken in a pyrex bowl with one of those stretchy lids on top. Stu made one of his sauces and I mixed the chicken in that and there was plenty for everyone and I could have fed James friend who was there fitting new tyres to his car but he did wnt any. I had one disaster though. When I got the potatoes out of the fridge I had turned the fridge up the other day by mistake putting the spring greens in there and froze the milk in the door. Did'nt think about the tatoes and when I went to peel them they were black inside and a couple in the bottom of the bag were going soft so they all hade to go in the bin so I roasted new pots and they worked out ok and Stu commented on them about three times. I did pots, carrots, parsnips, and creamy leeks and a bit of broccoli. No room in the pan for the chicken so I cooked that in another one. James ws the first one finished and he had the biggest dinner. Stu said he can eat whatever he likes and dos'nt put on an ounce. Anyway I got home about a quarter to eleven full to the brim.

Morning Anng, morning all,

Anng can we have a little of your sun please its very dull here and I could feel drizzle on my face when I went out to the bin ,it might get out a bit brighter later .

Ann I hope you have better luck with your bathroom fitter who should come today .

Mel how did your tray bake go down with Stuart, hope you both enjoyed it .

Hope you had a good night's sleep Vera after your bad head .

Hope Gwyn is ok, and Gill too ,we haven't heard from them lately .

Back feels a little easier today but I'm going to take it easy today and were leaving the other bit of fence till next week as it's looking to be nice and dry next week.

Right going to have my cuppa and then sort out some washing .

Good morning all. The sun is shining, no sign of rain yet although it was forecast to rain overnight. Maybe we had a shower, I can't tell yet. Alexa is telling me it is 9 degrees.

I am another one who dislikes hats. I really don't think they suit me and never even wear them to weddings. If it is sunny I wear a cap or I have got a wide brimmed sun hat for the garden,

Ann I don't think it would be a good idea to take on that fellow who seems to please himself if he visits when he saiys he will. Better if the other one is reliable to stick with him.

Hope all slept well, I didn't last night, couldn't settle for some reason.
And yesterday evening I seemed to develop a tickly cough, I am wondering if it is hay fever as I could smell some daffodils I have in the lounge (a bunch I had with the groceries last week, the £1 marie Curie ones.

It is photography this afternoon so I am hoping this cough doesn't develop into something worde.

I love a traybake, you can do different assortments of veg and chicken is nice in one. I do mine in the convection oven in the microwave in a round tin. That's a nuisance the new way of dealing with your parcels isn't working now Mel. I hope you can sort it out as it was much easier for you.

I hate hats too Vera as they flatten my hair! I'm using a cowboy style one at present with a wide brim and it has a chin cord I can tighten so it doesn't blow off. A scarf is a good idea too as I think with bending over what we are doing in the garden means our necks are exposed a lot too.

I'm not happy as one of the bathroom fitters who forgot to call me back before, then remembered and rang me and arranged to call today after lunch or early evening seems to have forgotten again. I've even moved my car closer to the garage to make room for him on the drive and had to stay inside this afternoon to listen for him. I think he's blown it now as I don't want someone this unreliable or the work could take twice as long to get done. I hope the one due to call tomorrow will be better. :-S

It's another beautiful day but tomorrow is likely to be cooler and wetter so we'd better make the most of it.

It's a great pity that the inflammation your OH has wasn't diagnosed a lot earlier Annx. Then he wouldn't have had to go through so much over the years. Let's hope the treatment will help and he will start to feel a bit more comfortable.

I hope your wi-fi booster will help AnnG. Touch wood, our wi-fi is pretty good here.

Enjoy your meal with Stu tonight Mel. It sounds tasty. I like a tray bake and don't do them often enough.

I'm not surprised you ached after fence painting Mandy, particularly if you were working down low. I hope you can rest up a bit now.

Yes, you are all right. I should wear a hat in sunny weather and I do have 2 or 3 hats for the garden but I absolutely detest wearing a hat. I find them a pain when gardening as they catch on twigs or blow away if there is any sort of breeze. I never even wear a hat in the depths of winter. What I should do is have a scarf round my neck and wear sunglasses as it is really the heat on the back of my neck and the bright light in my eyes that cause the problems. I had a very stressful day yesterday and I think the real cause of my bad head was stress. It's still there a bit but I am sort of functioning now.

I've had a fairly easy day today. We went for coffee this morning - just 5 of us today - and I've cleaned the other birdbath and done a bit of gentle tidying up in the garden. Now I'm going to have a cuppa and sit down with my book until it's time to cook dinner.

Mandy yes I am doing a tray bake tonight but Stu will be later as he haas to go to Barnstaple to see a car his daughter wants to buy and its a good price. A BMW. I am going to do carrots, parsnips, celery, roast pots, creamy leeks, onion and chicken and I have picked some wild garlic out the garden to put on the chicken and veg too. May even make yorkshire puds as I have so many eggs and I have tenderstream broccoli too. That should fill him up and there should be enough chicken and veg for me for tomorrow too.

Went up the post van this morning and just as well I did as its not there on Friday or Monday. I must ring the PO and see why I can't use the collection service where they bring a label. When I try to do it I get to the end and it won't let me put my 6 digit number in for the payment to go through.

Hope Vera's headache is better today and she can get the jobs done she wants to do. Horrid when you have a bad head. I too think she should wear a hat in the garden when its sunny.

Anng were the plants you bought inside a greenhouse? cos they should be harden off if they were'nt.

Thjink I will go and wash my hair now after I have corned the girls then I do't have to go out there anymore. No gardening today one day on one day off is my motto lately with my hips and knees.