General Chat

Evening All,

A sharp frost here this morning and I noticed a favourite red pot I have had for years is broken now, so that will have to be dumped. Thanks for the pics of your snowdrops and crocus Mel. You have quite a carpet of them here and there. Do they get mowed once they have flowered or do you leave them for a while? How nice to spot a brown egg today from one of the old girls! Hope you enjoy your meal tonight with Stu. It's good you have some company.

Sorry you had a bad night AnnG. That feeling weird mat have been a bit of underlying anxiety due to the pc and windows change. I'm glad you felt ok later. I had the opportunity and think I did a purge of my files before I changed to W11, but you will soon get there.

Well done getting the doll finished Mandy and I see you have been changing to crochet now and doing a 'floppy' rabbit.

I hope your BP readings will be good Gwyn now things are calmer at home! OH has to have daily ones done at the moment too and his are are always higher at the surgery.

Vera, he always sends me more than one card too, same with Christmas and my Birthday! I've never had a love letter from him, although he did used to write to me when he stayed away at hotels on courses with his job. Yes, your daughter doesn't want to take too much on just yet. Is she retired now?

We are back at the surgery tomorrow for OH's blood tests the physio wants. We were at the pharmacy today to collect tablets he was running out of and I asked if they would check if a sore spot on my foot is a corn or verrucca as it is behind a little toe and I can't contort myself to see it properly. They confirmed it is a Verrucca and I have some stuff to treat it with. The only place I can have picked it up is at the surgery when I had to undress a few months ago and was barefoot on their floor. :-S

I have done a bit on the PC but tried to not overdo it. The long job is going to be checking all the word files and deleting the ones that are corrupted. I am just very tired now but otherwise feel ok.
Yes I thought that about BP when I had to do it. They are very trusting. I suppose it would be us who suffered if we gave made up readings if something was wrong.
I don’t think my Hellebores are as good as usual. Some of the flowers are muddy fall the rain we had.

Vera, The same thought occured to me. I could just write down the figures which I think they'd want to see, but that would be foolish of course, because high blood pressure can be very serious, so I will be truthful.
This is a follow up to my annual review, when my 'in the surgery' blood pressure was just a little high. They want readings for a few days to see that everything is generally OK.I will take them into the surgery next week and they will contact me if they want to discuss the results.
The same thing happened last year, so in fact the nurse doing the checks said I was to take recent readings with me, the next time I have a review ;-)

It sounds as though you have a job on your hands sorting out your docs AnnG. Wait until you have had a good night’s sleep and feel a bit better before you tackle it. Give yourself a rest today.

Mel, the snowdrops are lovely and the crocus look so cheerful. I was pleased a couple of weeks ago to see our two little patches of snowdrops are in bloom. We bought them at Anglesey Abbey last February so this is their first year of blooming here. We have 3 patches of winter aconites in bloom and, being bright yellow, they always look sunny. My few hellebores are in bloom as well but don’t look quite as good as usual. Enjoy your dinner with Stu tonight. It’s good your “old lady” has laid you a nice brown egg.

Gwyn, I hope your blood pressure is at an acceptable level now your family birthdays etc are over. Do you have to take the bp readings to your surgery? Every so often my surgery send me an online form by email, I do a few readings and email it back. They then contact me if they are not happy with my bp levels. It does make me laugh a bit because I could fill in anything on the form and they wouldn’t know if they are genuine readings or not.

Mandy, you should set up a little hand made toy shop. I am sure you would make plenty of sales but you would need to be on hand all the time in case your light-fingered lady popped in. I usually cook my meat quite thoroughly but if I am out I don’t mind roast beef or lamb being just a little bit pink as long as it isn’t bloody. I couldn’t cope with that.

I hope your OH is improving daily Annx. I had to laugh at him worrying about Valentine’s cards as this is where our 2 men do differ. Mine wouldn’t know what a Valentine’s card is if it jumped up and bit him on the nose. I’ve only ever had 1 from him. That was when we were engaged and I am still convinced that his mother sent it. Strangely enough, he always buys me a beautiful Christmas card.

I spoke to my daughter yesterday and she is doing well though she said she has days when she gets up and can’t seem to do anything. I know some of you ladies who have lost your partners will understand that. However, she has had a walk with a small village walking group she has joined and enjoyed that. She also went along to a meeting where they were asking for volunteers to help in a small local garden. She was happy to spend a couple of hours a week doing some weeding, planting etc. However, once they found out the sort of person she is and the job she did they asked her to become a trustee and set them up with a 5 or 10 year development plan and an educational programme for local primary schools. I’ve told her not to take on anything at the moment that is going to put pressure on her. All she has agreed so far is that she will go along to the AGM at the end of the month and see what it’s all about.

It was very frosty and foggy first thing but did brighten up later and we had some sun. We went to our Thursday coffee meet – 7 of us today. It’s starting to cool down again now and is getting quite gloomy so I must go and put some letters in the post box before it gets really dark.

Looking through the documents saved it is not as good as it first appeared. Many of the docs are corrupted so they will need to be checked and deleted if they are no good. Looking at them though it is not a big problem as much of the saved stuff is out of date anyway so I need to do new docs. Going to take a while though.

I'm like you Gwyn my meat has to be well cooked ,a lot of places have pink beef and I just can't tackle that .

Lovely to see your garden Mel with its carpet of snowdrops ,I always think its a shame the little heads of the Snowdrop hang down and you can't see how pretty they are .

Well so much for having a dust, hoover and making a cake, got a bit side tracked with the knitted doll ,but she's all finished now and I'm now crocheting a floppy rabbit ,only the body /head ,feet and hands are stuffed the legs and arms left to make it floppy, all done with oddments so nice and colourful.

Thanks for the photos Mel.
Lovely! So many snowdrops and lovely crocus. I love the inside of the snowdrops, so pretty

Its gone this time. Enjoy. The pics with the snowdrops on my hand are my double ones and there not so many of those in the orchard.

It was a very large doe and I think it may have been carrying a lot of kits. Its now over the back field waiting to be collected by a passing bird.

Just tried to send some pics but I keep getting a message up saying we are experiencing problem. I had all your email addresses up and all the pictures on it it came up again and I lost the lot so I have to try again.

I also have my hellebores all out in flower.

I still have a picture in my mind of Vera on the byke!!

Just been hoovering and then went round to do the girls and feed the wildies and something has killed a bird by the feeder and I thinkit may have been one of my Robin as there are ginger feather and dark grey one with white tips. At first I thought woodpecker with the white but on closer inspection there are brown wing feathers and ginger (like Vera's byke) ones too.

Gwyn my Snowdrops have been out since the end of December. I also have some yellow crocus out there too.

As its a nice day with plenty of sunshine I'll go and get a pic for you all.

We have been having a lot of very noisey planes around here this morning and they hurt my ears. Just as I was going round to the girls it started again. Not sure if there are manuvers around here as we do get them sometimes but they are so annoying.

I'm going to shout this!! I HAD MY FIRST BROWN EGG OF THE SEASON TODAY. I was so surprised to see just the one egg in the nest box and so one of the very old girls has started to lay again.

I have been seeing rabbits in the garden again last week. First one and then I saw two together so I put the fence back up the top garden and set the trap and I have just realised it shut so I have caught something and I hope it not a pheasent as I have a job to let those out.

Good morning all.

No frost for us, but it is rather chilly, although there's lots of blue sky and the sun is shining brightly.
No school today, as they are off on a trip to Canterbury. I sometimes go with them on trips, but they are quite a large class now and there has to be room to transport 2 wheelchairs plus all the support staff to have the correct adult to children ratio.
Coaches became so expensive and now the school, like many others, have their own mini buses to use.
One more week of school next week, then it's half term!

AnnG, Sorry to hear that you felt so unwell. As suggested a calm quiet day might help towards a better night tonight. I hope so <3

Mandy, I hope you enjoyed your weekday roast, the other day. We went to a carvery last weekend and there was a choice of gammon, beef or turkey. I have a child size meal, but all that means is that there is less meat ( but probably still more than I'd have at home) We are served the meat, but help ourselves to the lovely variety of veg. they have cooked. I prefer beef to be rather more cooked than they often serve, so I chose turkey, - 2 lovely thick slices, well cooked, but moist, - lovely. We were marking a family birthday, so it was nice to get together with all 3 children. Afterwards we went for coffee and birthday cake at son's house, so more time to chat together <3

Vera,
So lovely to read about how much you enjoyed your grandaughter's visit with her boyfriend. It's always good when the young folk want to introduce their friends to the family and it seems he got the seal of approval too ;-)

Annx, It's good to read that you are starting to do some of the simple things that you enjoy, like going out and about. I hope that OH improves each day, so that you are able to venture out even more.

Mel, you do seem to have quite hard frosts. I bet your wild birds are glad that they have such a good 'hotel' to visit for feeding in this cold weather.
Are your snowdrops out yet? A friend and I like to visit a country park fairly near here during February to see the magnificent display of snowdrops there, but are unsure of getting the timing right.

A day of this and that for me today. I might go into town to pick up my prescription tablets. I don't run out until the end of next week, but it is dry and bright even though it is cold today and who knows what the weather might do next week?
I have to go in next week anyway at some point to take in some blood pressure readings, which I'm taking at home for a few days. The nurse rang the other day saying they didn't have up to date readings. Home life is hopefully a bit calmer now after a flurry of birthdays and grandson visiting, so hopefully the readings are likely to be satisfactory.
So far so good ;-)

Morning all,

Very frosty here it was foggy when we got up but that's cleared a bit now and the suns shining .

Anng have a rest today you've had a lot going on the last few days with one thing and another.

Not a lot happening here today just the usual jobs like a dust and hoover through and maybe make a cake .

Morning all,

Very very frosty here this morning 2 degrees and pc says expect light rain tomorrow.

I hav'nt read all of yesterdays posts yet so I better catch up now.

Good morning all. -2 degrees here now and a really hard frost. I was intending going on a walk through the village today but I guess they didn't leave me with sufficient blood as I feel really exhausted today. I barely slept at all and felt really unwell through the ight. No actual physical symptoms, just felt weird. So I have cancelled the walk and am just going to take it easy and remember I am not 48 any more. Can't keep going without a rest period. Friend I was going with is ok with not going. I gues the fact that it is a thick fog out there and a hard frost helps the decision.
Hope everyone has a better sleep than me.

Evening all,

It's been nice and sunny and I nipped to town to get our tablets from boots but oh the glare from the sun shouldn't complain as it was so nice to see the sun and there was a lively sunset tonight .

Ann it sounds as if the physio might have found the problem with OH let's hope these blood tests can show something .

These ipads are strange in the words they can type and you don't notice ,but i now have a vision of Vera with a ginger bicycle .
Your granddaughter would have no trouble sorting out the bus and trains if she uses public transport in Manchester , young ones just take things in their stride and if just comes as normal to them .

When I went into town this morning I bought well Colin bought me a new handbag ,he asked me what I would like for my birthday and I said a new bag so he said have a look when you go up , there's a nice little shop that had some nice ones in a size I like ,I don't like a big bag .

Oh the weather woman has just said might be snow at the weekend .

A ginger bicycle! Where do these replacement words come from?

Well done Ann on managing to get a replacement keyboard. Last week I had somebody from U3A to help with a new. Editing procedure for our web site. He brought his lap top for me to use to practice the procedure. The best thing was that his lap top had a full sized key board plugged in.somewhere in this house there should be a separate keyboard for IPads but it was a three quarter sized one. That was hard to get used to.

Vera my last tower took CDs and DVDs but the new one doesn’t. I have many photos saved on CDs. Daughter has just bought on line a device that transfers CDs to the PC in her case a desk top. I intend buying one.

Ann I am actually looking forward to the challenge of sorting it all out. I am sure it will be frustrating at times too.

Re automatic cars. My Granddaughter didn’t want an automatic car when she bought one after passing her test. She was 20/21, can’t quite remember. She enjoys using the gears. And she is an excellent driver. I have travelled with her driving around Milton Keynes.

Good afternoon ladies

After a slightly frosty start we’ve had some lovely sunshine though there’s been a real nip in the air. I’ve had one of those days when my get-up-and-go seems to have got-up-and-gone. I just can’t settle to anything much. It sounds as though you’ve had a difficult morning too Mel with parcel problems and frozen milk. I hope things have improved this afternoon.

I don’t think my brother ever went to Lanzarote AnnG or even Spain but I know he hired cars in Australia, New Zealand and several European countries, including Italy, without any problems. I hope your blood test went okay. You mentioning your slim tower pc made me think I must ask OH what happens if I want to use a DVD as we don’t have towers. Our PCs are basically a screen and a keyboard. Luckily we have had them a while and neither of us seem to have needed to use a tower at all.

This granddaughter and boyfriend have to come by public transport as they can’t really afford to run a car. Granddaughter doesn’t drive but I think boyfriend has a licence. They live in Manchester in an area that has plenty of public transport and is within walking distance of their work, so they can manage easily without a car. We think the family generally have become aware of the fact that we are getting older and no longer expect us to pick them up and drop them off all over the place. But they did well to negotiate the online timetable for our strange bus service. I struggle to make sense of it and I live here!

I think it’s time for an afternoon cuppa. I fancy a nice ginger biccy with it. The iPad strikes again - it’s just changed biccy to bicycle. I definitely do not fancy a nice ginger bicycle.

Yes I agree they should tell you these things at the start Mel and those little bottles do look half empty as you say. Good idea to get ahead with the meal for tomorrow so it's quick to get ready. I have never tried those sausages and don't often have sausage so I don't know what they are like. I caught up with Silent Witness last night and saw what you meant about wanting to see what would happen next as I was just the same! What a nuisance the parcel address wasn't quite right, but that was a bit naughty them signing for it, although they may have thought someone in the house had ordered something and not said. I hope it can be retrieved so you don't have to make another.

Well Dell have got back to me and quoted me for a refurbished keyboard for my laptop, so I have purchased it, or think I have although a confirmation email hasn't come through yet. It will take about a fortnight to come, but at least it's the best solution and I will get the local company to fit it. The keyboard itself was only £32 and then there will be the cost of fitting it. I still think I will get a plug in keyboard as well to keep as a backup.

I noticed a car from up the close being towed away on a breakdown truck this morning. At least they have two cars though, so should still be able to get around.

I'm annoyed with myself that I didn't make a note of the pathway to report spam to talktalk, as it took a while to work out and I thought I would remember. At least ERNIE has been generous this month and managed to send me an amount just into four figures, the biggest I have ever had.

Its good to know that using the eye drops again did'nt do harm but probably good but they should tell you these things when you get the first lot. I bet there's loads of people that press too hard on the little bottles and lose most of it and have to ask for more. If I remember rightly the bottle looked half empty when I got mums anyway.

Turned cold and cloudy here and its 8 degrees but feels much colder than that.

Stu is coming tomorrow night for dinner so I was glad with all the upset of the parcel. Its put me all behind today and Iv'e not got anything done so I better start now and do the pots ready for tomorrow and cook some carrots and broc so it is all ready to heat up. I was going to make a sausage toad but think it will now be sausge and mash with veg. I am trying the pork and maple syrup sausages from Asda, hope they are ok!!

Afternoon All,

Quite chilly here but it's expected to get colder tomorrow think.

Mel he was told off as Maxidex is a strong drug and should be used strictly according to the instructions. The fact that he'd finished the course as instructed, but his eye was flaring up again and he couldn't get anyone to answer the phone at Eye Casualty to advise him what to do was why he decided to start the drops just for the few days before his next appointment with them, rather than let his eye get worse still. He didn't bother to explain all this, but they really need to make sure they answer their phones. She told him to start the drops again anyway, so no harm was done.

AnnG I actually prefer a desk top PC too, and like that there is less to reach over to use the keyboard. I got used to using a laptop when we were issued them to take on visits in our jobs. Our laptops have fairly big screens and we can take them on holiday with us which is handy. I have limited desk space too and can move the laptop right off the desk if I need to use the space it takes up which is also handy when I lay my paints out. I'm glad you are getting used to W11. It's finding the different places where things are as you say and even called different names! You will get there after a little while though. No OH isn't on any antibiotics.

Vera how good and independent your granddaughter and her boyfriend were, sorting out their journeys themselves so they didn't inconvenience you at all. It's great you like her boyfriend and that you all seem to have enjoyed the visit.

I think the point they were making on the programme about automatics was just the fact that times have changed and there are less of us around that know how to drive a manual car and that young people often don't know how to, as they've only ever driven automatics. Last time OH had a courtesy car it was an automatic, so it looks like garages having them as courtesy cars caters for everyone. They do say they can cost more to buy and repair and need repair more often though and that they aren't quite as economical, but that's another matter!

OH was fretting about getting Valentine cards (hopefully for me , although I told him not to worry about it!) so I took him to the retail park down the road. I managed to get an end parking space and we popped into Boots first and got a replacement hot water bottle for an old one we have. Then a few doors away we went to W H Smith (soon to be closing) then to Sainsbury's and called in the cafe (soon to be closing) and had scrambled egg on wholegrain toast and a decaf skinny latte.

Eyedrop time again! It soon comes round.