General Chat

Mel has managed to send me the pic so I can open it......thanks Mel! :-D What a sweet little puppy, but what long claws to be born with!!

Morning All

Up early to take the car in to the garage,Just enjoying a nice cuppa in bed before hopping in the shower.

FRank,have a safe journey to Devon .(don't forget Gloucester Services ).I am assuming you will have your laptop with you so you can keep in touch while you are away for so long :-D.
If not, Happy Birthday for the 22nd and a Very Merry Christmas <3 <3

Morning all,

Not a nice day today as its dark and damp looking out there.

Glad the picture worked Ann, I'll try with anyone else who could'nt open it if you wish just let me know.

Off to Bideford shopping this morning but going to Aunty Joy's first to take her present over and then I shall take her up the High St to the hairdressers for 12pm so shan't be around mush today.

Tomorropw is the shortest day so any after that should get that tiny bit lighter in the evenings and won't that be nice?

Still feeding and seeing the hogs so I shall carry on till there's food left in the bowls.

Yes FRANK Happy Birthday for tomorrow if we don't hear from you today and a very Merry Christmas too. XXX under the mistletoe XXX.

Good morning all

Sasha has sent me an update. Mum had 5 babies, 4 boys and a girl and she will be sending a photo later, hopefully we can have the girl but if not one of the boys would be just as lovely. I did wonder if she would keep the girl herself.

Jane I hope your car isn't anything serious and you will get it back quickly. Thank you for forwarding on the photo.

I had to smile at the antics of the cats. One of Mum's cats once pinched a kipper out of the frying pan when it was still cooking.

Frank & Ros have a safe journey and a Happy Christmas, also Happy Birthday to you Frank

Liz I hope your family have made things up for Christmas when they realise how upsetting it is for you both, I'm sure they will.

Gill good luck with your new cooker your kitchen should have some appetising
aromas coming out of it.

Did the Joy run and took her to the hairdressers. She told me she had to be there at 12pm and when I got there she made tea and we had a good natter and then I asked her what time her appointment was and it was 1pm. Still its only once a year bless. The cat was pleased to see me. ar and her name is Lilly and she is short haired white with a ginger face and patches and a short tail. You know how you stroke a cat and then go up its tail with your hand well you come to an abrupt end before you think you're going to.

I had typed a lot then and when I ooked I had'n't got the first bit up to the n in run!! What is up with this site lately??? This keeps happening to me or it stops and I am typing away and when I look up there;s nothing there.

Iv'e just realized I typed to Anne first and none of that is there either.

I said:-

I hope you do get the little girl Anne as you had asked for one before she had the puppies. Surely that counts for something. Looking forward to seeing a pic of the 5 pups now and mum as well.

Hope everything went off ok with the delivery of the new cooker Gill. Bet you can't wait to have a go on it now or have you already made Glynn his cake?

I am just on the phone now to the garage (on hold)...... ok so it is as I thought.The new pump that was put in is at fault.Water has been draining back into the car hence the swimming pool. At least they know the problem and can hopefully get that sorted asap and all the carpeting dried out.
I have had to use Chris's car this afternoon to go and give my pint of blood. It was so busy there today .I had to go and put more money in the ticket machine for the car even before I actually gave blood.

So just one little lady in the litter Anne !..Ooh I wonder if you will be lucky ,or might they keep to breed. I was thinking if you had a boy you could call it Reuben :-D :-D

Frank and Ros should have arrived in Torquay by now.I hope the journey wasn't too arduous ,especially for Ros as she is the one doing all the driving,and it is along old journey .

Chris has iced the Xmas cake today and made yet more Cantucci. He and James have been dipping into the tin ,and i think James is going to be taking some in to work on Friday for everyone to have with their coffees.

So has the cooker arrived then Gill? Whats cooking :-D :-D

Mel have you seen the Xmas lights now in Bideford or were you home before they went on?

It is pretty nippy here now ,but no fire tonight.Just the central heating . The logs arrive sometime tomorrow so we will be ok then for another few months. I can't believe how quickly we have got through this last lot.

Evening all,

I feel worn out ,we went to Norwich to take the girls and Lewis to see Santa and do some christmas shopping ,they were all good as gold and i think we will all sleep well tonight after all that walking , i hope i do as the last few nights i have been waking about four o clock and taking ages to drop off again .

Oh Anne it's very exciting waiting to see if you can have the little girl ,i'm keeping my fingers crossed for you , the photo of the little puppy is so cute and i too thought what long claws he or she was born with .

Oh Jane you just seem to cure one leak and then along comes another ,i'm glad they have found out the problem with your car ,some one didn't check their work to get all that water in the car :-0

I hope Ros and Frank are now settled in Torquay and the traffic wasn't to bad for the journey down , i hope the springs held out on the car too with all the luggage ,parcels and of course the concrete dog !! :-D

Well Gill hows the new cooker ? have you made the shepherds pie , that's what we had tonight ,went down a treat after a days shopping .

Mandy ,it was eoithe bad workmanship or a faulty pump.. Not good enough me thinks :-S
So a very hectic day for you with the children today. You are probably right and they will sleep well.I just hope you do too :-D..I hate waking in the early hours and not being able to get back off again..It happens most nights with me.But I tend to have a little read on the kindle until I feel my eyes drooping again and then quickly turn it off.
At the moment though all I have going through my head is what we will eat on Christmas Day LOL I am still looking for a recipe. I still can't get my head around the fact that our Xmas dinner won't be until the 27th !It is going be so strange.

Wasn't that little pup gorgeous :-D. With his little neckerchief.Yes he (I think it was a boy ;-) ) did have long nails.Maybe he was having a bit of a stretch :-D
Dinner is late for us as James has only just left work. I'm doing Pork Chops in the oven so don't want to put them in too soon otherwise they will be tough .I have a tin of cut up Charlotte Potatoes,Peppers,Leeks and Mushrooms to go with the chops.I think we are probably looking at 7.30 to eat.
Thomas is still scoffing plenty of mice :-|..I just wish he wouldn't carry them in his mouth all the way from where he gets them to the patio where he eats them.Why can't he eat them as soon as he catches them !!!!!

Evening All,

I hope Frank and Ros had a good journey. The traffic around here has been horrendous today so I hope they didn't run into much.

Well my sleep trouble is at the other end of the night at the moment and I just can't get off to sleep. I was awake till gone 5.00am this morning!! Somehow I managed to pull a muscle in my back turning over as well.

It's good that the children were so good visiting Father Christmas Mandy........I would have thought Lewis might have had a fit of tears as he is so young! At least there is no sitting on Santa's knee now which is good and I think it was that that I didn't want to do as a child......taking the present was fine!! lol.

It's good they have solved the problem (of their making!) with your car Jane. It sounds like the drying of it will take longer than the repair. OH had a warning light flash up about low pressure in a tyre and then another about a different tyre a few days later. Then today he had yet another light about emission fluid needing topping up so he has to go and get that done at the garage in the morning. I told him today it would soon be like driving among Blackpool Illuminations with all these different lights coming on in his car! He came with me to get the jewellery mirror today. They had reduced the black framed ones to almost half price, but sadly not the white framed ones. It is all light wood in the bedroom so a black one would have looked wrong which is a pity!

I can't believe those hogs are still coming for their grub Mel! They have it good at your place don't they.

I hope you get the little girl Anne, but as you say, a boy would still be nice if you don't.

I saw something a short while ago that truly amazed me and brought a lump to the throat. The main road is just down the road from our close and there is a big island there with traffic lights around it where the main road and 2 other roads meet. There are 7 lanes of traffic on the main road coming to the island and it is where the railings to protect pedestrians are always being demolished by cars in accidents that are always happening there. I was sitting in semi darkness about 4 cars back on the main road waiting to turn right and for the traffic lights to change. Cars were whizzing and roaring around the island at speed when out of the gloom a figure with a dog walked towards me on the central reservation. There is a narrow path where pedestrians walk to the end of the railings each side and then cross the other side of the road further past me. I was just thinking what a good dog the golden lab was, as it was a very frightening place for a dog, when I noticed the harness and realised it was a guide dog. As she got closer it was clear the young asian woman had sight problems so it wasn't a dog in training. Well this wonderful calm dog just plodded to the end of the railings ignoring all the noise, the draught and flashing headlights of the speeding cars coming round the island, and lead the woman to the crossing place and stopped and waited. He crouched a bit with his head poked forward and you could see he was concentrating and listening, no doubt listening for the beeps from the traffic lights that meant they could cross safely. I had to drive on then but thought what difficult situations they have to deal with with all the traffic there is these days and what wonderful, trusting loyal, dedicated helpers so many of them are. :-) We should be truly thankful to the person who first thought they could be trained to do guide work.

With this santa all the toys in the grotto weren't wrapped up and the children were allowed to pick what they wanted , Lacey and Katie had a sticker gift set ,Chelsea picked a book with stencils and stickers and Lewis wanted a snowman that was proped up in the christmas tree in the grotto , so santa said that was fine he could have it so Lewis took it from thd tree and replaced it with a gingerbread man toy.

It was so funny coming home on the bus ,we had to stop at traffic lights and Lacey wanted to know why so i said the lights are red ,they turned so off we went again then we came to more red lights and stopped again this went on a few times when all of a sudden Lacey said quite loudly with a big sigh "we'll never get home at this rate " it sounded quite funny from a five year old and people on the bus smiled .

Another thing happened which we all laughed about was DIL nearly went into the mens loos and we all followed her ,we were all chatting and if it wasn't for Chelsea saying mum we're going into the mens i think we would have gone right in :-0

Ann i think those guide dogs are wonderful how they keep so calm with all the traffic noise and all the distractions that they face .

I bet the children prefer choosing their own toy, something they like. I can just imagine everyone having a chuckle when Lacey said that! lol. :-) Fancy you all nearly following DIL into the gents! It's easy done though when you are chatting. I've nearly followed OH into the gents before. Isn't it a shock and cold sweat when you realise though. lol

Well the wreath is still on the door and holding firm so that's good.

You might need to keep an eye on it later in the week as i think it should turn very windy !!
It's good that you've found a good suction hook that works well.
We have a suction cup loo roll holder in the upstairs toilet and it sticks well for about a couple of months then all of a sudden we hear a lump and we know its the loo roll holder dropped on the laminate floor , it really makes you jump in the early hours when it drops off i can tell you .

Evening all

What a lovely story of the guide dog Ann and so true, they are wonderful the way they can help people the way they do.

So it was the pump then Jane and a faulty one at that, hopefully it'll all be sorted soon for you.

Only one little girl then Anne, I hope you do get her as I know you wanted a girl. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. Jane's suggestion of Reuben is a good name if you do end up with a boy. Looking forward to seeing any photo's you may take.

Hope Frank and Ros had a good journey down to Devon and the weather was okay. Happy Birthday for the 22nd Frank.

All your stories of today Mandy, they did make me laugh.

The cooker arrived around 10am and was installed before 11am so we decided to go and see OH's mum as the last time we saw her she had a house full so OH didn't get a chance to have a proper chat with his mum. She was pleased to see us. Our SIL (OH's brother's wife) had an operation today for breast cancer and OH didn't want his mum being on her own worrying. When we got there she was busy with her housework and said she was trying to keep her mind of things. We haven't heard anything yet so hope all went well. OH will ring his mum after Masterchef to see if she's heard anything.

I made the shepherds pie which took a little longer than usual, I think it will take a bit of time to get used to the new cooker, the pie was nice and tasty though and tomorrow Sandra and I will be making the cake. I bought some chocolate buttons today as I promised Sandra we would put some on the top of the cake to decorate it. I had to put the grill on for half an hour while the men were here to take away the smell and smoke. Apparently they put something on the inside of the grill which has to be burnt off before you can use it for cooking. Good job the man told me as I would of been concerned with the smoke and smell otherwise. The cooker was ever so slightly bigger than my last one so they had a problem getting it into the space, they got there in the end though. It looks really nice, I wanted a white one and the only one they had on show was black so it was the first time I'd seen one in white.

Sandra and I are watching Masterchef at the moment, it's over in a couple of days and we can't wait to see who wins.

Mandy, we have a suction soap dish on the tiles in the bathroom and the first time that fell off in the night it woke us up and we were thinking burglars till we saw it in the bath!! This suction thing is much bigger, like the top of a mug in diameter and is squishy all over whereas the soap dish has a hard circle of plastic over the centre of the sucker. It seems to suck on much tighter.......I hope we can get it off!! :-0 :-0

I bet you will soon get to grips with your new cooker Gill. It's the timings I find tricky with a new cooker as some seem to cook faster or slower than the recipe suggests. I still miss my old Belling I had when I first married as that was always spot on with the timings. The cooker I have now seems to blow most of the heat out above the door!!

Morning All,

Another dull, but dry morning here. OH has gone to the garage and I am staying in in case the turntable arrives.

The builders are still working with lots of beeping as lorries reverse down past us delivering stuff. This all sets off the dog next door barking for ages! I just hope we have a break from it over Christmas.

I think I shall go and make the bread sauce for Christmas day next and pop it in the freezer. I always put a chopped onion in ours to make it more tasty. :-) I can't decide what veg to do for Christmas day as we've had so many sprouts when we've eaten out lately. I think maybe leeks might be on the menu.

Morning Ann morning all

It's absolutely pouring down with rain here and really windy. Storm Barbara is supposed to hit the north of the county in two days, hope it doesn't cause to much damage just before Christmas.

Let's hope the builders have all of Christmas off for you Ann so you can have a peaceful time. Good idea to make a start on your bread sauce and freeze it, that'll safe you some time on the big day. Sandra loves sprouts so we'll be having those with our Christmas dinner.

How's your car today Jane, is it all fixed now?

Have you heard if you can have the girl puppy yet Anne? I hope you can.

Going to bake the cake later, Sandra is watching some of her programmes so I'm watching the last two programmes on Tutankhamun I recorded a while back as she's not interested in it.

Nothing else planned for today, the weather is to bad to go out anywhere. I will finish my food shopping for Christmas tomorrow, hope the weather is dryer then.

Afternoon all,

Here we are,all safe and sound. The sat nav needs updating, when we get to Newton Abbott they have put in a new road, the sat. Nav. Didn't, know where to take us. We had to pull over into a side road and ring Conrad to come and find us, we followed him home.

The journey downwas very slowin places getting down to 15 mph,Poor Ros was completely shattered after five and a half hour drive.

Our little apartment lol is so cozy. Beautifully decorated,two armchairs, wall drobe, dressing table, table lights all around. Then the kitchenete has sink fridge,microwave, kettle, cups, glass,s, tea pot. Then we have the shower and toilet off the kitchen.

We were so tired last night that we were in bed by 11.00 pm ans slept until TEN this morning.

Today is going to be relax day, we will go and see Jo's new house either later today or tomorrow.

haven't really read the postss, but plesed the puppy's have arrived,

Afternoon all,

Here we are,all safe and sound. The sat nav needs updating, when we get to Newton Abbott they have put in a new road, the sat. Nav. Didn't, know where to take us. We had to pull over into a side road and ring Conrad to come and find us, we followed him home.

The journey downwas very slowin places getting down to 15 mph,Poor Ros was completely shattered after five and a half hour drive.

Our little apartment lol is so cozy. Beautifully decorated,two armchairs, wall drobe, dressing table, table lights all around. Then the kitchenete has sink fridge,microwave, kettle, cups, glass,s, tea pot. Then we have the shower and toilet off the kitchen.

We were so tired last night that we were in bed by 11.00 pm ans slept until TEN this morning.

Today is going to be relax day, we will go and see Jo's new house either later today or tomorrow.

haven't really read the postss, but plesed the puppy's have arrived,

Pleased to hear you arrived okay Frank. It was a long drive for Ros though. The apartment sounds lovely. Nice to hear you had a good nights sleep, I bet you feel better for it?

Sandra's just dug out her friends email address and had me send her all the photo's of her room, hopefully they all went through okay.

Just watching the end of Tutankhamun, then it'll be lunch and a cake to bake with Sandra. The weather has brightened up now with some sunshine and the wind had finally died down.