General Chat

Afternoon All,

Jane it sounds like you have a humdinger of a cold. I hope you soon start to feel a bit better and snuggling back down in the covers sounds like what you need just now. At least getting a cold now is better than getting it over Christmas. <3

Gill I hope your OH is more comfortable now and feeling much better. It's good they are keeping your mum in if she may need different treatment for her heart. Hopefully she won't be in for long. We had a Zanussi before the machine I have now and it was very good and luckily we never had any door trouble. Sometimes I think in making things so childproof they become 'everybody proof''. I thought the other day when the sales girl was extolling all the virtues of how many programmes different washers had how I only actually need and use 2 or 3!!!!

I hope Frank had a better night with his knee and that the new mattress was more comfy. I don't know where Ros finds her energy to be getting all the decorations put up. Still I expect it will look different since you have redecorated and be nice to enjoy till you go away. We never put the tree up last year as we were too exhausted and dispirited with all that was going on, so it will be nice this year to have everywhere looking festive. I would have made a start this weekend, but as we usually stack all the boxes for the decorations in the conservatory, we are waiting till the washer comes next Wednesday first as we need to move some things from the uti into the conservatory out of the way of the men who will be fitting it. :-)

OH has gone to 2 matches today and I am popping to a Christmas tree festival at one of the local churches. I will see if I can get a few pics with my camera. On Monday I am going to the BIG one I missed last year at Melton Mowbray (1,254 trees last year!). OH is coming with me and we are going early as I'm sure the little car park nearby will get full otherwise.

Mel, if you have them, I would stick an old sheet over your kitchen table and another on the floor to do your wreaths . You can just gather them up with all the mess in them and pop them in the shed till the next day then. Please let us have a pic of the advent ring if you can as we'd like to see it. :-)

Better skedaddle now.

Thats good Mel...Doesn't it drive you nuts when you can't find something.

Frank that must have been the best nights sleep you have had in yonks .I bet you feel much better for it today. LOL I had to laugh at the 'new' ornaments..I bet Ros has only just bought them or at least had them squirrelled away :-D :-D :-D..I think us ladies are good at that :-D

Gill,I hadn't realised that OH would have to be off work for so long. I suppose it is an open wound to let any muck drain .Then the stitches will go in once all is infection free.
It must be very uncomfortable for him sleeping. Bless him worrying about not having bought any pressies for you yet. The best present will be for him to be fine again .I'm sure he will get you something as soon as he is fit enough :-D

I went to little Sainsbury's just now just for a few bits.Felt as rough as rats really ,but that it is now. This afternoon will be spent doing nothing,just dozing in front of a load of rubbish on tv :-)

My poor BIL now has another problem besides the heart thing. He went for his check up after the catarract ops, and something has shown up that didn't before.
Myopic Neo Vascularisation He has to see a specialist now for that :-S..I need to look it up and see just exactly what it is.

Just going to light the fire and settle down now :-D

Pleased to hear you had a good nights sleep Frank, if you do take extra painkillers at night make sure you don't take to many during the day or you'll overdose with them which could do you more harm than good <3 We'd all be upset if that happened.

It sounds like you get lots of birds Mel, it must be lovely to watch them. Did you find what you were looking for earlier? So you've just done the moss up to now, hope you don't get to cold doing them, if you can't do them indoors maybe having regular breaks and going inside where it's warm will help you hands.

Sandra has set us up to watch loads of Christmas films this afternoon, she said she wants to get in the mood ready for the X-Factor tonight as they are doing Christmas songs.

I've done the Christmas cards for everyone on Genes, just need to do the family ones now which I'll do another day. I've also done your birthday card Frank, will post them all on Monday.

Going to get something to eat now then watch the films with Sandra and OH

I didn't see the next page when I was typing my post out. I see you've found them then Mel ;-)

That's a lot of trees Ann, it should be a lovely day out

Sorry to hear about your BIL Jane, hope things improve soon. Yes that's exactly what I said to OH, I'm not bothered about presents so long as he and mum are okay, that'll be the best presents <3 Hope you start feeling better soon and like Ann said it's better to have the cold now rather than over Christmas although it's better not to have the cold at all as I'm sure you'd agree. <3

What is myopia?

Myopia is the medical term for short- or near-sightedness.

If your vision is normal, your eyeball will be almost perfectly round. Light rays enter your eye and come to a sharp focusing point on your retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of your eye, and this enables you to see clearly.

If you have myopia, your eyeball is slightly too long, and so the light rays enter your eye but focus in front of your retina, which makes distant objects appear blurred or out of focus, while close objects appear clear. Myopia can usually be corrected by wearing glasses or contact lenses.

In some people with myopia, the eyeball is very elongated, which leads to stretching and thinning of the white of the eye (the sclera), the retina, and the blood vessels between the retina and the sclera (the choroid). This is called pathological myopia and is a degenerative condition, which means that it becomes worse over time. Approximately 1 in 50 people with myopia will develop pathological myopia.1
What is myopic choroidal neovascularisation?

Pathological myopia can lead to a condition known as myopic choroidal neovascularisation (myopic CNV). This is the formation of new, abnormal blood vessels in the choroid, which can leak fluid and cause swelling (edema) within the eye.

If you have myopic CNV you may experience blurred vision (metamorphopsia), distorted vision and/or blind or grey spots in the centre of your vision (scotoma).

Myopic CNV is a serious condition that, if left untreated, can lead to a loss of vision. In fact, most people with myopic CNV will become legally blind within approximately 10 years if they do not receive treatment. Approximately 1 in 10 people with pathological myopia will have myopic CNV.2

Severe myopia is particularly common in Asia. For example, in Japan, pathologic myopia is the second most common cause of blindness.
What causes myopic choroidal neovascularisation?

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a naturally occurring protein that is involved in the formation of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) to support the growth of tissues and organs in the body. VEGF plays a key role in the development of myopic CNV.
How is myopic choroidal neovascularisation treated?

If you have myopic CNV you may be treated with a high-energy laser (photocoagulation) or with the combination of a drug, called a photosensitizer, and a special type of light (photodynamic therapy). Both of these treatments are designed to destroy the abnormal blood vessels in the eye that are leaking fluid.

Recently, a new class of medicines that directly targets VEGF has become available (anti-VEGF therapies). These work by blocking the action of VEGF and suppressing the growth of new blood vessels in the choroid.

We have developed an anti-VEGF therapy that improves the vision of patients with myopic CNV. The substance works by blocking the growth of new blood vessels and decreasing the ability of fluid to pass through blood vessels. The substance is also approved and effective in people with other eye diseases.

I think its what mum had.

I do do the wreaths indoors but the mossing in the shed. The mossing makes so much mess with all the bits that fall out of it. I get it up the road under the beech trees and it has all the beech masts in it which have to come out as you can't get the wires through will those in the way.

Over a thousand xmas trees !!! were they all decorated Ann? That will be some sight on Monday. Chris has just been up in the loft and brought down all the decs.He has somehow managed to pull his shoulder :-S I remember some lovely pics from you of a display of Xmas trees in a church.Is this the same church you are going to now?

I have just had a right do trying to get the BIG filter back in the bottom of the tumble dryer.I had to wash it through as it was clogged up.Chris managed to get it in eventually by kneeling on the garage floor and just waggling it back in.I don't know why it was such a problem as I have never had trouble before.At least now it is back in place I can get all of James's bedding dry.It has been out on the line all day but was nowhere near dry.

It will be nice this year to have your tree and decs after all the happenings last year.

I can't settle to watch TV ,but also haven't got the oomph to wrap more presents.They are all piled up waiting to be done.Maybe tomorrow :-)
Thomas has just come in after eating yet another mouse on the patio. He heads straight for the settee now :-S :-S..But I just keep lifting him off and putting him back on his own bed. I put the blanket on the settee at night now as i know that is where he is going to end up for the night lol..I wonder if it feels warmer there as the radiator is behind there.

Humdinger is just the right description for my cold :-D..A real stinker. Chris will no doubt get it now :-S
Plenty of time to get rid of the bugs before Xmas :-D :-D(hopefully ;-) )
Waiting for a parcel to arrive.It is the Jigsaw Puzzle mat.I have tracked it and it is out for delivery.

All my Xmas cards are now stamped and ready to go. It is so nice not to have to lick all the stamps these days :-D :-D

Heavens, Mel did you copy that out from a medical site?!! I used to go to a client with myopia, she was such a lovely lady, but sadly couldn't stay in her own home and had to go into residential care.
We're watching Modus on BBC4 too Jane. It is VERY good! We managed to watch it last Saturday in the hotel so we don't need to find it on catch up! Nothing else worth watching tonight apart from that, so we shall find something on Geographic or History channel.
OH has pruned the roses this afternoon and that's the final gardening job done and dusted. He's now going to get Merlin in then we shall have a cuppa and settle down with our books till after supper, then it'll be Telly time, and another day floats by!

Seems like it is just you and me then watching Modus Liz..I must remember tonight(if I can stay awake) If not thank heavens for catchup :-D..I did think it was good.The killer was almost robot like with a deadpan look.Has he been .It seems he just gets a message on a new phone that tells him who to kill next !!!!. I am glad you have reminded me it is on tonight :-D..Chris wouldn't watch that. We have such different tastes .I love anything to do with Crime,Murders etc (fiction or real life).Medical programmes too, again fiction or real life. Chris spends an awful lot of time in his study in the evenings lol(watching other things that I am not intersted in)

It is worrying about Larry's eye ,but he is seeing a specialist on Wednesday. Sooner the better by the sounds of it.

Thomas is on the range so will let him out again .....It is so dark here now.Feels more like 6pm rather than 4

Jane it must be a bit lonely for you watching TV on your own! I suppose we're lucky that by and large we are enjoy the same things so very rarely clash. We do use the TV headphones on the odd occasion though mainly OH for motor racing and cricket!! I tend to watch on kindle catchup the very few things that OH doesn't like again with headphones, so it works quite well. Mind you too much TV does my head in! that's why we don't have it on very much in the day. Luckily OH feels the same!
Jacket spuds, tuna and salad for us tonight, quick and easy!!

Just fed all the hogs and shut the girls in and now I am done for going outside anymore.

Liz yes I looked it up as the name rang a bell. Mum lost the sight in her right eye as the spot of grey got bigger and bigger and in the end she could only see a little round the edge but said it was like a just a bit of light. She had to have injections in her eyeball (left eye) as that was going the same way.

Just had a mince pie and am now drinking my COT.

I had two more Christmas cards today so I now have three cards on the desk infront of me nd they all have white glitter red and green on them, just my COT.

Went out in the shed and cut up two lots of fluffy stuff and its sitting here in the kitchen in a trug waiting to be wired up. The thing is now I have found what I lost, (I think they must have flown away and then came back) I want to do that now and get it finished off. May just do that now as I am wanting to see what it looks like when its done.

Evening all,

Been a cloudy day here but it has stayed dry so i have put the christmas lights up out side ,we we're going to have some lights round the front canopy but in the end we decided not to as that would have meant Colin going up a ladder and i don't want him climbing a ladder and coming a croper .

Oh dear Jane you need to get rid of that cold before christmas ,there seems to be lots of people with colds at the moment .
Your poor BIL it seems to be one thing after another ,i hope thry have caught it soon enough so some thing can be done for him.
I keep meaning to ask how the new puppy is doing ?

Wow Ann thats a lot of christmas trees they must look a picture all lit up.
We have Katies christmas play this week in the church and i bet they won't have a christmas tree in the church ,poor little children getting in the christmas spirit doing their play and the church carn't even put a tree up for them , every years the same it never looks christmasy.

How's the decorating going then Frank ? i bet you dare not sit still for to long in case Ros trims you up as well :-D
Glad you had a better night the extra pain killers must have helped.

Gill i hope OH is feeling more comfortable and in less pain now ,i suppose he wouldn't be allowed to work any way in the care home with an open wound , it sounds as if it's going to be a while before he can go back to work so he'll be home for his christmas dinner this year which will be nice.

Good evening All

Just done a Frank and lost a long post, it's my own fault, Shadow had bought a tiny vole in yesterday and it escaped into the sitting room we couldn't catch it and it suddenly ran out from under the settee so I jumped up quickly hoping to catch it with no luck, went back to the laptop and lost the post, it's now back under the settee [the vole not the laptop]

David was on Face Book this morning, he has arrived safely at his destination, he lost one of his connections and also had to jettison some of his luggage as his case was over the acceptable limit but he still had to pay an excess charge.

Sorry to hear your cold is still keeping you awake Jane, so many people this year seem to have worse cols than usual. Hope you feel better soon.

Frank it's good to hear you had a good night's sleep thanks to the extra pain killers.

Ann those Christmas Trees must be a site worth seeing and to get everyone feeling in the Christmas spirit. We usually put our decorations up a week before Christmas they are kept in the garage now there's no car in there and easier to access.

Gill it will be nice to have your O.H home at Christmas, he will be missed at work.
I do hope our Mum will be back to good health by then, will she spend Christmas with you?

We seemed to have missed Modus which is a shame because it sounds like our sort of programme, saw the last episode of The Missing it was really good all the way through. I did watch the Coroner the last time it was on but I have been watching Judge Rinder which is on at the same time.

Richard has gone to Ice Hockey so I am watching Strictly which isn't one of his choices

It sounds like the moss is a messy job Mel, how many are you doing, did you say 5 or was that something else? At least you'll be able to finish them off in the warmth of your bungalow.

So all your gardening is finished now for the winter Liz. I'm looking forward to the spring so I can add a bit of colour to our back garden as it got to late to do it this year and of course to take the big apple tree out so we don't have to worry about rotten fruit everywhere again, we normally give the apples away apart from a few for ourselves which we wouldn't miss, so that will be quite a big job to tackle when the weather improves, then we'll do the pretty bits. :-)

Sorry to hear you lost your post Anne, lets hope the vole finds his way out soon. I did laugh when you said the vole was under the settee not your laptop LOL
I'm not sure what mum's doing this year for Christmas Anne, I think she might be seeing my sister, so we'll see her another day over Christmas. Yes it will be nice to have OH here for Christmas day, we don't always know if he'll have the day off, hopefully he'll feel much better by then.
Pleased to hear David had a safe journey, what a shame about his luggage and connection problems though.

Good idea not to let Colin climb the ladder Mandy, the last thing you want is for him to fall.

OH told me before that the nurse said they won't be stitching the wound as it will heal on it's own so that's something but unfortunately he can't have a bath or shower until it's healed properly and the dressing has been taken off, so I think he'll probably have a nice soak in a warm bath as soon as he can as at the moment he can only use the shower head to try and wash himself without getting the dressing wet which isn't brilliant. Because he has to go to the drop in centre at the hospital to have his dressing done each day he had to wait almost 6 hours today, he wasn't best pleased but was told to go in the afternoon in future as he'll probably be seen quicker, luckily he didn't have to pay for the parking because he was a patient and they kept him waiting so long. He said he wasn't priority as there were children coming in who had to be seen before him. I think he'll be glad when he can go to the doctors surgery as he has appointment times for that which start a week on Monday. I do feel sorry for him as it's a lot of messing around when he's still in pain.

Gill they won't stitch it because you heal from the inside out and it has to drain to get all the muck out. It will be nice to have him home for Christmas though. You'll all enjoy that. Are you seeing Michelle any time over the holiday?

Anyone watch Britian at Low Tide on channel 4? I have found them interesting and tonight was the lasr one and they mentiuoned St Osyth where we had a caravan when I was young.

I did'nt watch Modus as it was sub titles and I find if I read the lines I don't see the program. It really gets on my nerves subtitles.

Mandy a lot of church's won't allow a Christmas Tree in the church. Our church won't and when I lived in Suffolk they would only have one outside the church and Father Christmas had to sit outside for the children to visit too. He sat in the porch next to the tree. The children here have a party in the Village Hall which is up our driveway and Father Christmas visits there. Someone left some money to buy presents for the Buckland Filleigh village children but that was years ago now and it only works out about 50p a child now and you can't get much for that.

Modus was very good tonight! We watch quite a lot of foreign progs, they're often much better than home grown thrillers. We don't find the subtitles a problem at all, you soon get used to them!
Yes we watched Britain at low tide too Mel. Those sort of progs are really interesting and always popular in this house!! There was a lovely programme about China before that, so not a bad evening after all!
We're now in bed watching Wild Alaska on National Geographic. I think we shall be snuggling down any minute!!

Morning all

Cold and frosty here today, I've been awake since 5.30 so got up and had a COT I'm now going to empty my corner wardrobe as I noticed the shelf at the bottom has fell down on one corner, plus it's needs sorting out anyway as I've far to much stuff in there.

No Mel, we won't see Michelle over Christmas she can't have time off work in November or December as it's the shop's busiest time of the year. She's supposed to be moving in May which is when she normally visits us so I doubt we'll see her then either. Not sure when she'll visit next.

I don't watch subtitled programmes either as, like you Mel, I find it hard to actually watch the programme and it feel like I'm reading a book instead, especially if I have to read it out loud for Sandra to understand.

Hope all the sick people are feeling a little better today. OH has woken up with a sore throat so I hope he's not coming down with something on top of everything else

Well, I'd better go and empty my wardrobe, I think it's going to take a while to do as it's quite full. See you all later

Morning all,

Suns out here but that blasted winds still blowing its head off and thats cold so I am glad I hav'nt filled the chicken drinkers as they would be frozen solid.

Sorry to hear your hubby has a sore throat G8ill. I am sure we catch some of these things from the doctors surgery when we go for our treatment of scripts.

Anyway no playing today I have to get on with wreaths.

Well, I've worked out the problem with the shelf, the plastic bits they give you to rest the shelf on have bent and didn't hold the shelf up anymore, the new problem is I can't get any screws inside the wardrobe for the new metal brackets I've attached to the shelf to sit on as the wardrobe is quite small being a corner one. So I'm going to have to find different screws and hope that works, I'm having to get inside the wardrobe so there isn't much room for me to push hard enough for the screws to grip, I'm very hot so crouching in a wardrobe isn't fun. OH said he'd take a look but obviously I said no I'd never forgive myself if he hurt himself just for the sake of a shelf........so it's back to the drawing board to work out how I can gain enough access to press on the screwdriver hard enough for the screws to go in :-S I'm hoping to find sharper screws if that's possible :-) I'm sitting in front of a fan at the moment to cool off before I have another go at it.....how hard can one shelf be? :-D