General Chat

Morning all

Lovely sunny day today which is good as I'll be busy in the garden again. I was so busy yesterday I didn't get the chance to come online.

So it's Paul's 3rd property Anne, it sounds like he's pleased with it, does he not like gardening or just not have the time to do it? The balcony sounds ideal if he hasn't got the time to tend to a full garden. They can be made really nice with a few pot plants dotted around. Sandra is counting the weeks now for her sister's visit, she said it was 4 weeks and was surprised when I said it was only 3. She had counted yesterday as week one rather than going to next Monday, so I explained that you have to go through a week to count it as one. She doesn't mind her mistake as she said she will see her sister a week earlier than she thought. I don't think the garden will be anywhere near finished but so long as it's safe I'll be happy. I'm going to try and sort out joining the two patio area's today as that bit is dangerous. Sandra was a great help yesterday she bagged up so much of the rubbish for us, she's such a good daughter. I gave her some money for her help even though she said I didn't need to, she said she was saving for a present for my birthday so I said to spend it on herself. Apparently there is a CD she's had her eye on so if it's still in the shops she's going to treat herself to that.

I agree Mel, turf is easier and a lot quicker, we just need to level the ground a bit and take out some bricks which are sticking up, I think once the turf is down and the patio area is finished it should look much better and of course be safer. I watched Victoria and recorded Poldark too.

Hope you had a better nights sleep last night Frank, it's no joke when you can't sleep is it? Shame you didn't make it to the pub in the end, I'm sure it won't be to long before you get there, don't forget the treats for all the dogs :-D ;-)

Well, I'd better make a move OH is clearing the area for me to lay the patio then he's going to cut out some tree stumps on the other side of the garden so I can carry on laying the flag stones there ready for the shed. I laid 20 flags yesterday so I'm a bit achy today.

Morning all,

Dry here today but still dull and dreary. I don't know where this warm weather went they forecast for this week or has'nt it arrived down here yet?

Donkey day and I have to go into the town too to the bank as I owe oh monies towards the solar stuff we had done and two things he got me on the web. One was my draining tray for the plates etc and he also ordered me the vynal (sp) table cloth with chickens on it for the ercol table we use in the kitchen. We use the Maldon sea salt and if it gets under the mats it scratches the table.

You're getting there Gill. Hope you get along well today and you will soon have it spick and span for Michelle's visit. Is her boyfriend coming with her?

Morning all, evening Kim,

Not much to report at this end, apart from an Electricity failure last night from 6.45 pm to 10.30 pm. I got fed up just sitting there, so went to bed and had my radio on. Ros came to bed at 12.30 am after waiting to see all her soaps on CATCH UP. As we are both registered disabled we had a call from the Electricity company this morning to check that we were alright and things are back to normal. I have the horrible job of adjusting the clocks and cooker timer.

In and out like a yoyo again last night. Not having a bedroom clock, I didn't know what the time was. I came out at 2.45 am and read for over an hour. Took more pain killers, and dozed through the rest of the night Thank GAWD I didn't disturb Ros during the night. She was up and busy before I got up at 9.30 am.

Not the nicest of days here, very dull and overcast. I expect we will get more rain later today.

I have booked a table at our favourite Chinese for 6,30 pm 17th Sept. It will be a celebration of Ros's Birthday 19th, (71) Harvey's 50th 26th August, and Lewis's 18th on the 26th Sept. I will arrange for flowers to be sent at lunchtime to the restaurant , for Ros,and get Lewis to bring a nice cake or two from where he works on a Saturday. So hope we all have a nice evening. I have also invited John and Carolyn.

So, you are almost there Gill, I am sure your daughter is coming to see you and not your garden !!! Have you thought of that artificial lawn. ?? It will never need cutting, and looks very good. Cost will depend on the size of the area. !!

Our B & Q are closing down a very large area of the main store in Northampton. All the garden plants trees etc have gone, and they have rows and rows of bins with reduced items. Ros and Carolyn have gone to have a nose round.

:-P :-P :-P Won't know what to expect until she gets home.

Shower and shave time, it might make me feel more human !!!

Afternoon all,

Bit coudy here but so muggy ,we did our shopping first thing came back and sat out with our coffee when the sun broke through it was really hot .

Watch your back Gill all those flags your moving must be so heavy you don't want to be laid up for when Michelle comes .
Sandra is good filling up the rubbish bags for you , i hope the cd she wants is still in the shops when she goes .

So no electric for you last night then Frank ,you don't half miss it when it goes off .
You'll have lots of celebrating to do when you all go out on the 17th with all the birthdays .

We have a stinky plug hole in the kitchen sink , so this afternoon i have to try and get the pipe off under the sink ,with Colins help we should be able to do it between us .
Just got to remember not to turn the tap on while the pipe is off :-S

Picked a nice lot of runners this morning so we will have them tonight with other veg and a nice pie from Tesco's.

Afternoon All,

Phew it's hot and muggy here too! :-S We went for a pub lunch to a different place today and OH had a rissotto with kale and chicken and I had a roast vegetable crispy filo pie with peas and pots. Then we did a bit of supermarket shopping. I found some reduced price, sturdy folding cube boxes with slots for handles in a strong dark grey fabric. OH was chuffed and got 2 as they will be ideal for some of his work folders he stores on top of the bookshelves in the study. He's up and down like a yoyo trying to find the ones he wants at times and now he can lift a cube down to go through and they will look tidier. I might get another for under the desk in there as I seems to have a lot of bits and bobs under there!!!

I have just put one of OH's jackets to wash that says it is washable. I just hope any creases drop out with the steam iron!! If not I'll try hanging it on the bathroom shower rail after we've showered and see if the damp air does the trick. I haven't washed t before.

Frank, I bet Ros will be bringing home more bargains today from B&Q! That will be a great celebration meal on the 17th. Flowers for Ros too, she's a lucky lady!! :-)

Gill that is hard work you have been doing with the flags. I hope you have been 'walking' them along the ground from one corner to the next and not lifting them more than you need. As the others say, you don't want to be laid up with your back. Your Sandra is such a good daughter with all the help she gives you. I bet she is excited now about getting the cd.

The close is a hive of activity here today and gets busier all the time. There are vehicles to do with the building work parked all up the close half on the pavements so it's a case of weaving between them all now. Electrician, window fitters, roofers and the building firm. They are just finishing tiling the roof on the house today. Apparently, the person who bought a house on the development built in the field behind is not happy. It seems he was told it would be a bungalow, like there was on one of the other plans the builder put in. The new house backs right up to his back fence and will overlook him. A bit further along the old bit of the close someone is having a driveway and front garden block paved, so, what with the grinders cutting the blocks for that and the grinders cutting roof tiles for the house and beeping lorries backing down the close to deliver, it is bedlam and not the quiet close it was!!

Only 2 more antibiotics left to take! I shall be glad as I have felt so tired lately and those plus the antihistamine plus some of my usual medication can all cause tiredness, so hopefully I'll feel a bit better after today. There are so many jobs I need to get on with!!!

Back home and unpacked and had a COT and cream cake! :-D

Its been dull here but so muggy it was a pleasure to get into Morrisons in the cool but the minuet I came out the heat hit me again.

G will be pleased with those fold up boxes Ann. Would htey do for any of your beading stuff? Mine seems to be spread about all over th eplace and I don't have time for it in the summer.

Frank is'nt it awful when you have no leccy. You keep thinking I will do this or that and then you can't because nearly all things nowadays are electric. We have a little camping gas stove and a gas light for emergencys and many solar lights which I use every night anyway. As there are no close neighbours or street lights here if you get up to go to the loo in the night, which we both do, you can't see a thing without the trusty solar lights.

The meal sounds like it is going to be a great evening with so many birthdays to all celebrate together. It should be a great time for all.

MANDY you don't have to take the pipe off to clean it out. Get yourself some soda crystals and put a good amount in the washing up bowl with a good squirt of bleach and a kettle of boiling water. Put that down the drain and leave it there a while then put another kettle of boiling water down and it will smell as sweet as the day it was new. If you want to do other drains a half a pack of soda to a bucket of very hot water and bleach give it a good mix and put that down the drains. Clears a mountain of dirt and grease and grime. I have to do the shower plug hole as it gets rid of all oh's hair from head and body. We even did a bathfull of it with a whole pack of soda when the drain got blocked from the bathroom to the next manhole. We waited a while and then it all came through.

Brief note to AG, JP and others. Sorry my Facebook abilities are slower than on GR.
It's either me or I've a virus on that site. Apologies again.

Those boxes sound as if they will be handy for storing bits and pieces Ann.
Hope the jacket has washed ok , much cheaper doing it yourself than taking it to the cleaners .

Mel i had tried bleach and soda but it was still a bit wiffy !! all done now and its better ,the only thing was i couldn't tighten the screw up bit tight enough so son came and did it for us ,Colin couldn't get down to do it .

Still muggy here and very cloudy .

Jane is Chris feeling better today ? BIL has had the sickness bug now for over a week ,he had the doctor go out to him yesterday he was so bad and no way could he have got to the doctors , there was nothing he could give him for it just had to keep taking the imodium that he had been taking ,the doctor said there is a lot of sickness about at the moment .

Late Afternoon All :-)
Phewy.....the humidity today has been awful.We went out for lunch with Fitz and talked the hind leg off seeral donkeys . No cooking for me tonight :-D.When we got home I hoovered all of the upstairs and the sweat was dripping off my face :-S.At least that is all done now.Chris has done the lawn and is now having a little bonfire to get rid of all our cardboard.
Anne ,no Fitz's wife never joins us.She does work full time but even if she didn't it would still just be us 3. They just tend to live seperate lives really.It has been like it for years now .Not from Fitz's choosing.We probably see his OH at Christmas time and I will bump into her in Tesco every now and then when we will have a good chat.It is a very strange life they have.

Ann,I haven't even started sorting out clothes etc yet !!!!!!. That's not like me is it!
That is tomorrows job.I think because we are not going abroad makes me a bit more relaxed and of course we have the car to chuck everything in :-D.

Frank do you know what the problem was with your leccy yesterday?That was quite a long time for it to be off.

Oh Oh got to go Janice is on the phone

Any news on the Janice front Jane? I hope they find whats wrong and its nothing too serious.

I saw my cousin Ann in Bideford today and asked her how her sister is now she has her partners kidney. She told me it is just about a year since their ops and Jan said she has'nt felt this well for years. It is almost like fate that they met all those years ago when she was living in Devon and he came from the north, Newcastle I think. They never married and have never had any children. What chance could it possible be that he was a perfect match to give her one of his kidneys?

My neighbours girl is on the telly again tonight with the North Devon Orchestra, I am just waitin g to see if I can see her again. Beccy used to play the organ in our little church for services and weddings till she moved away and married.

I did think about the boxes for some of my beads Mel! lol :-D They are too high to fit on my shelves though. I could squirrel away some of the beading things like the wigjig and wire whacker in one under the desk though. That's amazing the kidney was a match as you say and must have been a relief for them.

Mandy the grandchildren look lovely in their school uniforms. I wouldn't mind some of those patent shoes like Chelsea is wearing myself! lol Jake looks so smart doesn't he and the little ones look so grown up in their gingham dresses. I hope your BIL soon feels better. I bet he feels exhausted and wishes the next few days would pass quickly. It's good you got the drain sorted.......not what you want particularly with it being so hot.

Jane I tend to think like that and before I know it I need to get packed pronto as time flies by! lol. Which car will you take? I imagine yours is the roomier one.

OH told me something that amazed me today. I knew he was quite good at darts and in fact he has a trophy in here for being Player of the Year in the civil service. Well today he told me that years ago he was in a close run final with a Bob Anderson once and who just beat him 2 -1 in a very close match. It turns out that Bob Anderson was the world's No 1 player for 3 years in the eighties. I've known OH for 30 years and he's never mentioned that to me before.

Its funny how these things pop up out of our oh's sometimes. Oh will do that to me and out will come a whole story of a rescue or fire that something had triggered a memory of or a person. The only thing is I don't remember them!!!!!!

Signing out now so saying night night.

Morning all,

Brighter today but the suns not really shining but at least its dry. I have some washing to go out as usual and some HW to do also as usual.

My oh seems not to be able to lift the lid of the washing basket and put his shirts in!!! I think he must do it in the night when he gets hot. Never mind more exercise for me bending down to pick it up. Perhaps thats what he thinks!!

How's our Frank this morning? Hope you had some sleep last night.
I am going to post this as first the typing did'nt come up after the third word and I had to put the cursor back on the post and now the page is going down on its own, strange...

Dull here too but fairly warm. OH, in his Navy days, many moons ago used to do the same thing Mel! I got so fed up with collecting up his washing and emptying pockets, turning sleeves the right way in etc, that I finally just left it on the floor or wherever and it didn't get washed!! A few days of this and no clean white uniform shirt, soon concentrated his mind, and now all these years later he's still as good as gold, as he knows I'd do it again!! I once threw out a pair of his shoes too as he simply wouldn't put them away, so I chucked them in the bin!! I just won't be treated like a servant by him or our two when they lived at home!!!
We've pulled the beans and the rest of the beetroot. Our neighbour wants some beetroot and courgette, so that gets rid of some of them the rest can go down to the shop. Sweetpeas are now on the compost heap, and we're beginning to tidy up the garden for the winter.
Cas has lost her ball, and the field is being ploughed today so we better go and search for it!

Morning all, evening Kim,

I came on here almost two hours ago. Just as I sat down SKYPE went off. It was an old school friend who lives in Australia. We were childhood friends, and her husband was great friends with my brother. We keep in touch with cards at Christmas. So you can imagine the surprise I had when her face appeared on screen. We chatter away for ages about all the things we did and the people we knew, and of course all the people we knew who h should have been at a mettingave since passed away. We have promised to stay in touch on SKYPE. She will be 78 next month where as I a few months later. She has been married 60 years come 29th December, and married at St.Pauls in Woodford Bridge.

Still not getting the rest I need. I don't know what I would do without my pain killers. I should have been at a meeting with the surgeon yesterday at 12.30 pm, but we hadn't made a note of it. His secretary is making another one for a couple of weeks time.
Yes, being without electricity all evening long wasn't good. You keep expecting the T.V. to come on at any time. The cause was an overhead cable had been damaged.

Mandy, the children look as though "BUTTER WOULDN'T MELT" They do look nice and you should be as proud as PUNCH !!!

Ros is at the Dentist this morning. I must say she never minds having to go. :-( :-( :-(

I must go now. My knee is ceasing up, sitting in one place for so long.

Frank if she was married in St Paul's did she know Frank Martin's fish shop in Woodford Bridge. If she does it would be something else to talk about and tell her you are in touch with their niece.

Turned out beautifull here so I washed out the food bin for the chickens lid an all and did another lot of washing so now both lots are dry, helped oh by cutting down an old clematis and rose (climbing) off the side wall as he is knocking down a bit of the wall to put a gate in from the back field so he can get the mower through. We have a nice old white gate he can put there.

Got lunch then helped him with his sisters postcode as we could not get it to accept and found he was putting a 2 instead of a Z. He has sent flowers to three of his sisters as they don't want flowers at the service.

Liz as to oh picking things up, he can't bend down because of his hips and knees and his tummy!!!! He is cripled with arthur and won't admit it.

Afternoon All
Another VERY humid day here.I have just about done my packing and only have my toilet bag to do in the morning.
I will be leaving shortly to take Thomas to the cattery.He is desperate to go out .I had to carry him in about an hour ago as he was asleep in the Olive Tree pot and if he had woken and gone off he woudn't have come back until later tonight.
I am pretty sure he knows something is up :-S

I think we will most likely set off about 10.30 -11 tomorrow so I will pop in before we go.

Ann we are taking Chris's car as Hannah is only insured to drive mine .His is big enough really although with all we have the back seats will have to go down.

Right I better get the cat carrier in ! BBL

Done another lot of washing and cleaned the chickens out and now I am having a COT and then I am going to wash my hair and have a shower as the wind was blowing and I got all the louse powder all over me.

Well ,Thomas is in his cell now for the next 10 nights. He is next to another Black cat called Mr Jiggs :-D..Love that name :-) I have just emptied his litter tray and it is soaking now in disinfectant and all his dishes are soaking in the sink.
Hannah wouldn't have coped if Thomas had appeared with a Rabbit so it is best that he is in the cattery. The traffic was horrendous (rush hour) and then there was one lane closed on the dual carriageway :-S..I can relax a bit now before I think about dinner.
Oh Janice is on the phone.Hopefully with results from her Urine Tests. Also Larry's Mum is back in hospital !!!!.Chris is just having a chat with her.
The air seems a lot less muggy now as the sky has cleared of cloud and we finally have blue sky :-D
I am being called now.

What a pity your OH won't get some treatment for his arthritis Mel. There are so many excellent new drugs available which could make his life much easier.
Lovely evening here so we're sitting outside planning a few days away in October. Portland is the favourite as we moved there in 1965 for about 21 months when OH was posted to the helicopter station!! Our son says he can remember living there?!!! He was only 5 months when we left Cornwall, and 2 and a bit when we moved from Portland! They were happy days, and it's nice to retrace our steps.