General Chat

We had another drama yesterday as, unusually, neither of us had noted our diaries with the date the boiler service was booked for this month. I texted Riley and he said it was today at 10.00am! So I was up at 7.00am this morning and cleared things like fruit and bottles from the worktop space in front of the boiler, took the cover we had made to hide the pipes off and moved the cool boxes into the conservatory ready for him and unlocked the side gate. I got another text then to say the service was booked for the 10th and not today and if we preferred he could come on the 14th as he is having a log burner fitted on the 10th and it would be better for him as well then. So now he's coming on the 14th and I've put everything back in the utility again. Phew!

The Raven sounds like the pet Jackdaw I had Mel. Once I freed him, but still gave him food till he could fend for himself, he spotted me inside and then used to knock on my bedroom window at an ungodly hour. I kept schtum and never told mum, but then he started doing it on their bedroom window which didn't go down well at all well! They are such intelligent birds being the Crow family. You'll have to watch he doesn't come inside as they take anything shiny or sparkly.

OH has finished his online chat and wants to come to the shop with me so he can pick up a book he has ordered for me to put away for Christmas for him. BBL

I guess you are using a tablet Mel maybe? If so sometimes if you touch the part around the screen it will do odd things.

Morning lovely ladies,

No I had'nt copied it Anng. It was all about what I did in the garden yesterday morning. I spent a lot of time in the shed repotting patio plants and tidying up in there etc. Of course today I can't remember all I wrote so its now gone forever.

Glad you slept well I did too up at 5.04am for the loo and thought I was'nt going to drop off again but I did and woke at 9.05am.

The blimmin Raven was knocking on the door again when I got up I'm not sure if he can see himself in the glass as he does this down behind myMorning lovely ladies,

No I had'nt copied it Anng. It was all about what I did in the garden yesterday morning. I spent a lot of time in the shed repotting patio plants and tidying up in there etc. ond where there is a mirror

I think I have gremlins in the pc look what its done now.

As he does this down behind my pond where there's a mirror that oh used to use when I cut his hair in the garden. He did'nt put it back there once and it blew down and broke and its stayed there ever since. Its was a full length mirror.

Posting this before it goes again.

Good morning all. 13 degrees, so warmer but still very drizzly. Slept well again with a couple of loo visits and straight back to sleep. seems the clock going back has improved my sleeping.

Vera I wondered if that about the length of time rooting was new to you as it was me. That is a long time isn't it. Often little snippets on that group.

Mel, had you not copied it if it was a long post. What a shame to lose it.

r

IK did a huge post and have lost the lot..................................................

It was heavy rain this morning again but the sun came out later and it’s been bright this afternoon though not very warm. I was up early this morning and got on with preparing all the veg for a big beef stew as a change from our usual Sunday roast. I did plenty so there’s half left that just needs reheating for dinner tomorrow. A shower and hairwash and a long phone chat with daughter and that was the morning gone.

This afternoon I had a friend round for a cuppa. She has a lot of health problems herself but her husband is very poorly and she is quite stressed. Her husband always goes to bed in the afternoons till about 5 pm so I suggested she came round for a little break while he was napping. It’s only 5 minutes by car so she can get home quickly if needed. She did seem to relax a bit and chatted away.

You’ve been busy sorting your Christmas cards AnnG. I need to get OH to get my big Christmas box down from on top of a cupboard in the garage and check what cards I have in there and then get some more bought. Thanks for the penstemon information. I did take some cuttings just recently. I didn’t realise they took so long to root and I have mine in water but I think I might put them into compost now. I think I’ve always done them in compost before. My penstemons weren’t very good this year. They looked healthy but didn’t grow as tall as usual nor flower as well. Fingers crossed they will be better next summer.

Forecast is suggesting it might be a cold night so stay warm and sleep well everyone.

Evening All,

We both slept well last night, despite another night of fireworks being let off, and didn't get up till around 10.00am. OH said the drive home from the match yesterday was all in the dark and mostly pouring rain, but he said it was OK. It's been sunny here most of today, so he did his walk and called at the paper shop for Sunday papers which we don't usually bother with, but he's bought the books and is following the Andrew Mountbatten Windsor saga as it unfolds.

While I was trying to prepare lunch OH told me he'd managed to lose all his saved passwords while trying to get rid of annoying adverts! He said he'd been getting annoying requests to sign into google when trying to access some sites too and I told him it had also happened to me, so I think that must be to do with an update. We eventually discovered he'd had a trial on the adblocker he uses and the free period had run out, hence the sdverts appearing again, so we sorted that by removing it and downloading another free one. I needed to dish up our salmon with Hollandaise sauce, mash, carrots, broc , cauli, beans and leeks then so will look at the lost passwords tomorrow in case they can be retrieved. After lunch I had a routine email notification about our monthly phone and broadband payment to be collected. I know I took something off our package to do with phone calls a month ago, but the new payment looked too low, so I logged on to our account. What a shock as it was requesting me to renew our broadband package that runs out TOMORROW!! If that had happened I think we would have both thought we'd caused it today and needed to lie down in a darkened room! Anyway it was quickly sorted with their discounted next deal so all is well again on that front and I vaguely remember getting an offer some time ago, but had forgotten that we had changed to Fibre35 which changed the date it ran from and to.

I did manage to clean the ensuite but never went in the garden. It's supposed to be dry here in the morning so I will see if I can top up the garden bin then ready for Tuesday's collection. I've also got the slow cooker going with a low fat lamb mince, onions, mushrooms, carrots, stock and a tomato bolognese sauce that needed using up. I'll add some butter beans to it later as OH loves them.

Today would have been my father's 105th birthday. It seems amazing that a few reach that age and see much more of the changes in the world than others.

Mandy are you watching the Knitting programme? OH has just recorded it for me. Did you make any more of the puddings today? The bedroom carpet here could badly do with a clean, but it's hardly worth doing as the cupboards will be done in there soon and then new flooring needed anyway once I decide what's best to have. I'm thinking carpet tiles might be easy to move the bed on.

Your poor leg AnnG. Have you tried raising it on a stool? Mind you it wouldn't hurt laying in bed if raising it helped. I hope you soon get an appointment and also that the antib's start to have more impact. Doing your cards is a good distraction too.

I did sleep well last night without knowing the alarm would go off.

I have not and do not feel unwell at all. I feel irritated that the lesion should have been seen to sooner. But I am in a long queue feeling like that. Mainly I am frustrated at having to be so inactive when I would like to get outside when the weather allows and my leg stops me. It is mainly only a bit painful now. I have not got a dressing on which means one cold foot as I can't wear a sock on that foot. I just know that eventually I will get fed up, put a dressing on and just get on with things. But although the sun is shining the ground is very wet underfoot and at only 10 degrees it is very cold, so I will do some indoor jobs today.
I did make five cards yesterday, these were all re-makes from last years cards. The trouble with that is to try not to send to the person who fist sent them to me. You will all be examining your cards now and trying to remember. Amongst those 5 Mandy's was the only re-make and two were my sister's cards from the past two years.

Morning all,

Anyone got some spare sunshine you can give us here as it such a dreary rainy morning ,i was going to get the carpet washer out today and do the lounge carpet but ax it's so dreary I'm going to leave it for another day , I should have done it a few weeks ago but never got round to it .
Just having my cup of tea then will see how the day goes .

Morning girls,

My sunshine is still out at the mo. I got up for the loo when it was dark and did'nt drop off to sleep again and then the Raven started his knocking on the front door so I got up. I was going to have a nice long lie in this morning but got up.

Pc is telling me rainy days ahead and its 9 degrees.

As Gwyn said a good day to make your cards Anng and I hope today you feel a bit better.

Good idea to make some cards AnnG, as that should rest your leg.
I hope it is less painful today and that you are less tired, because you didn't have to have such an early start to take tablets.
I know someone in Bishops Cleeve. Haven't seen them for years, but we were near neighbours in Cyprus many moons ago.

Hope everyone sees some sunshine today. Ours has gone behind the many clouds, after a sunny start to the morning.

Good morning all. damp here and 7 degrees, I think it is going to be another wet day so indoor jobs again. Must get on with making Christmas cards. yesterday I made some tie on labels from last years cards. Should have enough to keep me going now.

I am, om facebook, on a group called Bishops cleeve gardeners. Although fairly local to me, BC gardeners is open to anyone who wants to join. One gardener who is very knowledgeable and lot who have good advice to give and I find the posts worth reading. However, as usual I digress. I have copied a bit about Penstemons Vera as I know you have some. sorry if you already know this, but I thought it might help.

Now is a good time to take penstemon cuttings. You could leave it later - just don't get caught out by the first real frost. As they take 8 to 12 weeks to root, taking them now means it will be approaching spring when they have to be potted up. Potting up then means you're less likely to have problems with either mildew or aphids. I just finished doing an audit of the entire collection both in the nursery and in the ground to work out which ones I needed. This morning I took probably my last cuttings this year.

Good we don't want to lose you. :-D

Thank goodness for that. :-D

Just renewed so you are stuck with me for another year :-D

Well I did do one load of washing I couldn't gp out in the garden in the dry spells as I was keeping my lesion uncovered, don't know if it helps or not all it did for me was give me cold feet as I could only wear liner socks, then they have elastic round the tops and they made my feet swell. So a dressing is back on. It was fine, inflamation seemed to go down despite the swelling and there was no pain. Then I had the Tesco order and the walking to and fro seemed to start it off again so it hurts now, hopefully that will ease when I stop walking around. Two swaps on my order both of which I accepted. one was 2 Heinz soups not available (I ony put it on yesterday. One was a big soup chicken with potatoes, they replaced it with Tesco chunky soup chicken with veg. I can't remember what the other big doup was but they replaced it with......... chicken with veg. I wonder if they employ people with brains or is it those who don't have the ability to think for themselves. Why 2 the same? I couldn't be bothere to refuse it. The other subb made me laugh I ordered the large prawns that were on offer. they sent a large pack of smoked salmon. I said to the delivery man, that will make a good curry. he laughed and shook his head. Still as smoked salmon is so expensive normally I accepted it.

I wish you joy trying to sort out that catalogue Annx. 350 pages! It's not a catalogue, it's a tome.

It's still dry and reasonably bright but there is such a cold wind out there. I've got 3 different weather apps on the PC, the iPad and my phone and for once they all agree that it's 13 degrees but disagree on how cold it actually feels. But it definitely feels a lot colder than 13.

After blobbing about for a while this morning I decided that I must do something useful so I stuck on an old, warm anorak and went into the garden. I'm still sorting the 19 troughs down the side of the house but I'm nearly there now. I think there is only 1 to go. 2 with geraniums in have come in to the conservatory, 3 have small,evergreen shrubs and have been tidied and topped up with some fresh compost, 1 has nemesia which is still blooming away. When the flowers eventually die off I'll cut them down and hope they will come back next year; they often do. The remaining troughs had annuals in. With these I pull up the dead or dying plants, make sure the troughs are weed free and top up the compost levels. Then I cover them with black plastic held down with stones which helps keep weeds down but more importantly stops the local cat population using them as litter trays. While I was out there I also cleared and washed out another of the big tomato pots. We had 6 and I've dealt with 4 of them now.

While I was doing all this OH cleared up a load of the leaves that have come down from surrounding trees and all seem to land in our garden. I have thought of leaving the ones on the beds to just rot down but the trouble is they provide a cosy spot for slugs and snails to spend the winter. So we put them into big plastic sacks and leave them for a couple of years and eventually you get some lovely leaf mould to go on the garden. The sacks are hidden down the side of the garage so aren't visible or in the way and can just sit there till they are ready for use.

When I came in it was 12.30. Our main meal was all prepared and just needed cooking so I decided we would have it at lunchtime which means I can spend some time this afternoon doing what I want. I am thinking that I might have a look at my family tree. I haven't done anything on it for yonks but a couple of times a year I check out a couple of brick walls in case anything new has been put online. Yes, I've convinced myself that is what I will do.

Good luck Annx looking through the catalogue.

The sun just went in and it came over so black and then it started with hailstones and a strong wind.

Afternoon All,

We had rain earlier but it's dry and sunny now and quite warm like Mel said. I was thinking as I drove back from the shop how it would be cold and foggy this time of the year in the past.

That's great the pud was fine Mandy so that you can do the others in the slow cooker. That will be a job done ready for Christmas.

Vera I think my motivation has joined yours and I've talked myself into thinking the garden is too wet to do anything outside today! Lots of inside jobs are nudging me in the ribs, the microwave and hob need cleaning but I think a COT and emailing Fitz are more appealing.

Yes the bathroom catalogue is a nightmare Mel. They issue a fresh one twice a year and the prices go up each time, so I really need to sort what I want quickly. What annoys me is that eg the contents page gives 'sanitary ware' and the pages from and to, but then you find other toilets are shown on other different pages as well! I end up with slips of paper trying to mark the different pages. Still I ought to face looking again now OH is out for the day so there won't be interruptions! Wish me luck.