General Chat

Morning all
Was woken up to a very heavy noisy shower so i looked out the window to see.....hailstones covering the lawn!!

Very sleepless night as my sinuses are awful just now and getting through a box of Kleenex or more everyday so pretty bad.

Hope everyone else looking in has some sun and please send it back up here pronto lol.

Day for indoors today as rest of week busy with various things but plenty to do as always.

Florence in the hebrides

Good morning all This time last year Linda we were in Northumberland, I loved it, a beautiful area. We also visited Al wick. We did n’t have a child with us but I don’t remember a children’s area. So either it is new since then or we just didn’t see it. Sounds fun.
Weather here (North West Cumbria) is a bit ‘iffy’ yesterday was dry but very windy and not very warm, we didn’t go far. It is different when you stay with family, easier to just stay in. Friday we go to Skipton for a week. I don’t think the forecast is v good then either. Frustrating after all the lovely weather.

Good to see you Sylvia. We have had our summer duvet on the bed at home for a few weeks now. Here in the holiday rental, they have normal duvets and I was far too hot last night even though the room was fairly cool because we had the window open. SIL was complaining about their bedroom being too hot during the evening, so I solved the problem by opening their window. Of course they closed it when they went to bed , so this morning he was grumbling about how hot it had been during the night. You can lead a horse to water ………

Finally got on GR again!

It's sunny and partly cloudy, with a gusty wind today. Top temperature will be around 17C or so. The air conditioning is on in the building, so the Lounge and Dining Room can be pretty chilly in certain areas.

We have our own individual air conditioners in our suites that e can turn on as we want. I've been doing that in the evening so that the bedroom can cool down to a decent night time temperature, or else I end up throwing off the duvet, pulling up the duvet, and repeat! Of course, I could put this duvet away and get out my summertime quilt that my daughter made :-D

It has been quite a nice day here, sunny, but windy. We have only had a few minutes of rain. That is going to change though, the forecast for the back end of the week looks bad.
Today we went to Alnwick Gardens, they have a new children’s play park called Lilidorie. You have to pay extra for it, but it has been very well planned. The centre piece is a huge castle cum climbing structure and it is fully accessible. You can push a wheel chair almost to the top, avoiding all the rope bridges etc. Esme loved it, she could cope with the rope bridges with mum behind her, but they avoided the cargo nets and the tunnel slides. It really is refreshing to find somewhere which has put so much thought into accessibility. We liked the gardens as well, although OH and I have been there several times.

Afternoon all looking in.

What a miserable last 2 days Wet, windy and much cooler so no walkies to the beach or anywhere else for that matter.

Linda, hope you eventually met up with your daughter etc and wasn't too starving when you eventually ate!! Enjoy the break away and hope your weather is better than ours.

I have just been in the tunnel to water and oh my everything is growing so fast. The baby cauliflower plants which im selling next week have almost gown out of their pots!! i picked my first pea pod today and inside were 6 very fat peas which were delicious.

Having fish cakes, battered fish, chips and peas for tonights tea, quick & easy.

I also made several pots of jam which has finally set along with a batch of oven flour scones. All of which went down nicely with a cuppa.

Joan i have a vision of you whizzing around with the hoover "doing the shake and vac :-D :-D :-D :-D

Take care all

Florence in the Hebrides

There is nothing wrong with a wavy hedge Joan, just think of it as modern art :-D

We have arrived at our holiday barn conversion near Seahouses. It is very swish. I have brought lots of basic food and we stopped off in Alnwick on the way to go to Morrisons and buy the fridge/ freezer things.
Annoyingly we can’t unpack our clothes until my daughter gets here and we decide on the bedrooms. She said they would be here about the same time as us, but of course they aren’t. They are going to be “ just” two hours later than they said they would. It would be down to Son in Law, he does nothing to help with the packing and wouldn’t even begin thinking of packing his things until it was already time to go. I am starving, but if course we can’t eat until they get here :-|

Hi. Not a nice day today, no sun at all, looks like it might as it's so dull, looks like we had some rain either through the night or early this morning as the drive was damp looking when I got up.
I didn't hear it or see it & it can't have been much as there are no puddles.

Not going outside, not even to finish off the hedge, it's still straggly on one side but it will just have to wiat for a more promising day.

I have had my dinner, I cooked some new potatoes ( Jersey Royals) then I sliced them & gently / lighty fried them, plus an egg & some Black pudding, lovely.

I need to have a wizz round the living room with the vaccum before settling down in front of the telly, if I can find something to watch, if not I will probably have a wee nap instead, LOL.

Joan.

Morning all
Joan you made me chuckle about your "wavy hedge"
:-D

I'm sure you have done a good job and no one would notice. So the wind cleared away the blossom, that must be a bonus.

Its windy and cooler here today so no outdoors jobs to be done.

Was at the supermarket yesterday and bought 10 punnets of strawberries all reduced to just over £1 and I'm going to be making jam today .

Linda, when reading to kids, you do have to be so careful what you respond to them. Also kids very often tell you lots of info re their home situation but you do have to just listen and not comment.

i remember one child telling us their mum and a friend drank 4 bottles of wine on a Friday night. The class teacher said dont make any comment or raise your eyebrows just listen and digest. Unless of course the child was given some to drink in which case, that info would be shared with the head teacher and they would deal with it.

So much red tape, so much PC, the world has gone mad and hardly surprising people dont want to be teachers anymore. Its a minefield out there!

Right have a good day everyone looking in. off to be busy making jam.

Florence in the hebrides

Hello everyone. Gosh what a change re our weather today, it's bright & even sunny but such a cold wind, so very different from what we have been enjoying lately, still no rain though most of our established plants are doing well without it.

I was out this morning to do the weekly shop, not busy so we were through the checkout quickly, I have enough Morrison stamps now so my daughter was looking at & choosing which of the free pyrex bowls/dishes that she can get next time she's in the store.
It's no good me choosing one as I won't use it, I've already given many such items away to family.

I haven't managed into the garden today as it's too cold, I hope I get out soon though as the hedge needs finishing off, good job I don't have neighbours as they would have a good laugh at the wavy top.
One good thing about the wind today is that it has blown away the heaps of Blossom from the garden, LOL.

Joan.

It could be the stress of the compacted roots Florence,or a virus, but they definitely need feeding regularly.

I have been reading in school again this afternoon, you have to be so careful about what you say when chatting about the books. I think that I found out that one little boy seems to be shuffling around Foster’s homes, I will have to ask the teacher about him.

We are moving our things around to fit our son in. He is moving up here, but right at the last minute, he has pulled out of buying the house he was going for. The owners mother had it and she inherited it after the mother died. Her son is supposed to be a builder and has spent the last two years modernising it complete with a big extension. When my son had the survey done, there the surveyor made a comment that there was a dispute with the neighbour over damage to the party wall caused when putting a steel beam in. The sellers haven’t mentioned this at all, but after much digging it seems that the neighbour is demanding 50k to put the damage right. The sellers are saying that they don’t have the money to pay him until my son completes. I don’t think so! There would be nothing to stop them from walking away and leaving my son with the liability, so he is pulling out. It is annoying because he has lost money on the searches and survey etc. He is going ahead with the sale of his own house and is moving in with us until he can find somewhere else to buy.

Well tbh, i don't normally give them any feed. i didn't last year and had plenty of toms.

Florence have you given your tomatoes a feed because they need it as soon as the first flowers have set. :-)

Morning all looking in today.

A change in the weather as cooler and cloudy here but still bright.

I have lots of small chores to do today indoors and out so hopefully a productive day.

my tomato plant laves have suddenly gone yellow and the top leaves were curling???
They have been watered regularly so no idea what's wrong. but last night I decided to repot into bigger pots as the roots were crowding the pots they were in so maybe needed more room? We shall see how they go but it would be a shame if they died as loads of yellow flowers and 2 baby tomatoes growing.

Joan you have been very busy but a shame you have hay fever. hope it passes soon. I have filled my freezer with lollies and if you fill a glass with cold water and then put a lolly in the glass, it will give you an iced cold drink in next to no time.

The blossom does make a mess I guess but thats nature for you!

Hope everyone else is well and fine today

Florence in the hebrides

Good afternoon, after yesterdays dull & cooler day today it is VERY warm, even with the wind it is rather hot.
I have been outside & done some more clipping & straightening of the hedge, still the other side to do yet but i'm rather warm with what I have done so far.

I did try to sweep up the Blossom as well but there is sooo much of it, I have never before seen such a lot, some of it is from the Apple tree, just wish the wind would blow it away instead of it just scattering it all over the place.

Not doing much more in the garden just now, I am sneezing at the moment & got a runny nose, Hayfever, so best to stay inside for a while.
Ice Lolly time, LOL.

Joan.

That is the trouble with cherry trees Joan, they don’t last very well. A couple of houses back, we had a cherry tree right near the front door. When it was in blossom, we couldn’t use the door because even a slight breeze would fill the hallway with blossom. Even worse, it was a tree lined road with Lime trees and anyone who was rash enough to park under a tree ended up with horrible sticky resin on the car which was really difficult to wash off. We had tall Beech hedges all round the last house, so OH was pleased when we moved here and he didn’t have to cut them. There was a large Laurel hedge on one side of the back garden, but it was on the neighbours land and annoyingly he has cut it down. Luckily he never comes out into his garden, so it doesn’t worry us. If a family moved in, we would have to build something to give us more privacy, but he is younger than us, so hopefully will stay put

Hi. It started off a bit dull today but by dinner time it had brightened up a lot & then the sun came out, though it is a bit windy I ventured outside.

First of all it was just to see what it was like & maybe doing some work, it was quite pleasant so I decided to have a go at trimming the shortest of the 2 hedges, the really long one I cut riight down last year to about 2 feet from the ground so I am leaving it this year to grow back a bit more, maybe to about 4 feet high.
I might have to level up various bits of it as my cutting back wasn't exactly striaght !! LOL.

So I made a start on the shorter one though there is still some length to it, I got along one side of it & some of it along the top done, once I have done the rest I will need to go along it again to straighten it up properly, at the moment it's a bit wavy !!

I'm too tired to clip any more of it today so hoping we get a fine day tomorrow as I don't want to leave it wavy & half finished for too long.
The wind had blown lots of Blossom off the Cherry trees this week, the garden & the paths are well covered, it looks like confetti & there has been a wedding in the garden.

Joan.

Linda when I worked in education, i did 1-1 and those children always wanted to stay with me the whole time. I think it was because they had my undivided attention.

i enjoyed all my learning support work over the 15 years i was working and still miss it as it was a very rewarding job.

Sunny but very breezy day so much so, im not planting the last few plants and getting blown away! They can wait until tom if it dies down.

Everything is so bone dry. The raised bed down the bottom of the garden still has giant tulips in full bloom which look amazing but the earth is all cracking due to the lack of rain even though we water with the hose nightly!

Re logging in, i have never logged out in nearly 20 years lol

Sylvia, good to see you posting. Glad you had some time with your daughter too but its hard when family are so far away.

Went out for a spin this afternoon and stopped for coffee and cake on the way home. Nice wee jaunt to break up the day.

Off to sort out the eve meal now.

Hope everyone is ok today.

Florence in the hebrides

I never log out and I don’t have a problem, but then I am not awake so early
I keep all my log ins in a password manager, so it is on all my devices.

It is still cloudy today, but a bit warmer than it has been. I have just finished pricking out some more seedlings in the greenhouse. My next door neighbour is going to water them when we are away next week. The garden will be fine as it is going to rain, of course it is, it is half term and we are going away :-|

I did my school reading this afternoon, I am doing Monday and Wednesday afternoons instead of trying to rush through all of them on a Monday. They are mostly doing well, the funniest is a Ukrainian boy. He is doing very well, but the way he pronounces some vowels is very strange. He likes reading to me and doesn’t want to go back to the classroom. I am not flattering myself, I think he just hates writing :-)

I am sure it is cryptically written in a notebook somewhere. I don't think with facebook it will help security much. Instinct tells me the site is not that secure anyway.