General Chat

I'm sure you'll find that licence before too long Mel. That was nice of Em to offer you some spag bol and it was a bit of company for an hour or so as well.

3 of us went to another friend's house for tea and cake this afternoon. My friend M drove and we picked up the 3rd lady who is just coming up 90 and is physicaslly very fit and active but has some dementia which can make it quite difficult. Until her OH died last year we didn't realise how much he was covering up for her and protecting her. Her sons do their best for her but she is fiercely independent and doesn't want to accept help. M rang her at lunchtime to remind her we were picking her up at 2 pm. You cannot really park where she lives in a tiny cul-de-sac so M stayed with the car in case she had to move and I went to the house to collect her. What a performance we had. First she locked us both in the house and we couldn't get out. Then I managed to unlock the door but couldn't get the key out of the lock and just managed to stop her going outside and slamming the door or we wouldn't have been able to get back in. Eventually I got her out through the back door and made sure she took the key out of the back of the lock and brought it with her so that we could get back in. When we got back later she wasn't happy that I insisted on seeing her in but it's just as well I did as by then she had forgotten all about the locks and keys. I saw her safely in through the back door again. Now it will be another phone call to her sons. So that everyone doesn't keep ringing everyone else and getting in a muddle one of our "gang" acts as liaison with one of her three sons. It seems such a shame as she is a lovely lady and quite a gentle soul really. Thankfully at the moment she still remembers who we are.so is happy to come out with us which gives her a bit of company and a bit of stimulation.

Well, this afternoon we've certainly made up for the lack of rain over the past few weeks. From around 2 pm to about 7 pm it just fell down. Every so often it eased up or stopped for for a while and then we had another cloudburst. Of course the drains couldn't take it so the end of our road is flooded but we're not complaining. It's good to see some rain at last. It looks as though it will still be quite a warm night so I expect I'll still need the fan on.

I can feel my bed and my book calling to me now so I'll say night, night.

Evening All,

We had more rain in the night and the birds have been pecking my half dead alpines out looking for food.

OH was fine but feeling washed out this morning so had a lie in while I set off to take the tops back to the retail park. The traffic was awful and it rained hard from halfway there making it worse to drive. Some of the islands and junctions are quite tricky at the best of times but you couldn't even see the lane markings which didn't help on the islands with multiple lanes. The roads were awash and there were flood signs up, but people were travelling far far too close to each other and speeding despite the risk of aquaplaning. Clearly none of them were concerned about conserving fuel or the cost of living crisis! I had a potter round after I got my refund then had a latte in the cafe before coming back. I would have stayed longer but I was getting hot and sticky and realised they had switched the air conditioning off because it was cooler! The rain had stopped and the traffic eased by then so it was a better journey back.

Some more progress today then Mel and it's good there won't be much tree clipping mulch for you to move. Em is lovely isn't she giving you some of the sphagetti bol and no doubt will be grateful for the runners. Mine have given up the ghost and we never even had one boiling. Lovely of Ed to give you a hug too. You have some nice neighbours.

Mandy those caterpillars must be very scary to any predators. Do you think they were from your fuschias? You'd think you would see them on the plants being that big and they must munch a lot of them being that size, but when we had one, there was no sign of what it had been eating.

I'd better get off to bed, an early appointment for a blood test tomorrow.

just picked my runners so I am going to give them to Em.

Went to Em's and had a nice hug from Ed and then he went out somewhere and Em offered me some spag bol which I accepted so I have had my meal for tonight. It was very tasty too. George showed me their photo from their little holiday at Centre Parks. They took loads. I must have been there an hour and 15 mins. It was nice to have a chat with Em and the boys.

As long as you are looking after yourself and eating Mel. Have you gone through old jacket and trouser pockets for the licence. Do you have a drawer full of paperwork etc where you put things for future use? Mine is in the kitchen but I think T’s licence was in his office.

Got his NI number off his pension papers so thats ok. I don't even know if he had one of the new liciences or still had the old green paper one. He never used a wallet so its not in that!! Money went in his back pocket and cash in the fronts. You see I shall find it when I don't need it.

I have found a carrier bag full of out of date pills and ventilaters so I had a look in my pill draw and I had a lot of out of date stuff too right at the back so thsats gone with it.

The doctor rang this afternoon and had a chat so they have been informed.

I am going to have another hot dog for dinner tonight and a pear and a necterine.

Is that his drivers licence Mel. don't panic over it, they are so behind they won't chase you over it. As long as you have found the NI number. So much hassle and hunting out things isn't it?

I ghave had the men from the leccy down this morning. They cut my trees back every three years by the power lines and they are going to leave all the shredded cutting under my big evergreen tree up the top so I shall have to bring it all down in the trailer for the border. We've had it before and it works well on the border as a mulch. Something I shall have to do myself.

Still looking for his licience. Found his nat ins number.

Mandy hope the smoke has completely died down.

Vera thank you for the photos, how beautiful.

I checked what was an empty bucket left outside my door and there was two inches of water in it. the ground is still very wet.
I have just potted on one plant I have bought recently and have another to do but came in for a rest after carrying soil,grit and ceramic pot around.

Cynth is away for two nights but I don't need to water this morning.

Morning all,

Very windy this morning with lots of clouds and the odd glimpse of the sun , yesterday we had lots of thunder one down pour which lasted all if two minutes and that was it not enough to do any good.
We just looked over the way and I could see lots of smoke so it looks like there's fields alight ,just looked again and it's calmed down thank goodness ,the fields are all tinder dry .
Well what do you think Colin found near the back door another hawk moth caterpillar, this one a bit smaller so I chucked it over the fence into the churchyard which is what I did with the other one, don't want them stripping my Fushias.

Mel, it sounds like you have lots of kind people around you ready to help which is lovely .
Better get the kettle on and I'll just have another check on the smoke .

Good morning everyone

You've done better than us rainwise AnnG. I was pleased we got some rain yesterday but they were just gentle showers. The heavy, thundery rain predicted for overnight and this morning hasn't materialised. The latest is that we can expect a few light showers from 3 pm. At the moment it's about 22 degrees and overcast with just an occasional gleam of sun but the air feels "heavy".

I've just been doing a Sainsbury order for delivery on Monday and have been shocked by how many items seem to be out of stock at the moment. I'll do a final order at the weekend and hope that some stuff is back in stock by then.

I can't seem to get myself moving this morning but I had better get on and do a few jobs as I am at a friend's for a cup of tea this afternoon.

Good morning Mel and everyone. Slept quite well as it was a lot cooler. It is 18 degrees here. We had heavy rain all evening which was very welcome but it is dry this morning, although the sky is very overcast. Nothing planned for today. Just about to put a wash on.

Hope G feels better today Ann and the migraine has gone. <3

Morning all,

Dullish here this morning but there is a little blue sky and its 17 degrees and pc says rains coming.

Was up at 7.05 but threw myself back on the bed for a while. Morning are starting to feel chillier here as I have had to put a cardy on.

Yes we must be very wicked indeed Vera! lol :-) We would have been worried as you say and it would have been a flying visit if we'd carried on and we were particularly worried about our laptops disappearing and all the stuff on them! It's good your travellers left. Maybe the council placed the concrete blocks as a temporary measure to stop them coming back, possibly with more vans another time. It's happened around here that they come back with re-enforcements.

The gardens sound like they have had more water than ours AnnG and sound interesting and different. I was looking at our garden today and noticed that the house leeks in the soil on the flower beds are shrunken and dry looking, whereas the ones I planted surrounded by slate chippings and ones that planted themselves in the gravel look healthy. Neither have been watered for a few weeks now, so it seems the gravel and the chippings are acting as a mulch and stopping water evaporating. The front garden hasn't been watered at all through the drought and has slate chippings on the beds and I noticed the Lemon fizz cotton lavender is holding it's own quite well (Santolina rosmarinifolia ‘Lemon Fizz’). It has pretty fine bright yellow foliage in spring and yellow button flowers and is a Mediterranean plant, so copes with drought. It might grow a bit too big for a pot, but I might try one in a pot. You can cut them back hard too.

Well we just had a torrential downpour at last! A river was running down the road and the noise on the conservatory roof was really loud. It does seem to have found a leak in the gutter by the front door, unless they couldn't take the amount of rain. They are aluminium ones welded together so I would be surprised.......something to look at if it happens in normal rainfall though. I always think 'MORE EXPENSE' as Frank would say.

Mel how nice of the young delivery man to say he will pop in and see you. It was so kind of him. The pork and stuffing bap sounds really tasty, I would have enjoyed that too. :-)

OH hasn't had a good day all round now! The antibiotics for his tooth have given him tummy trouble, so he gave up on going to a match tonight and now he's gone to bed with a migraine.

Oh dear Ann, you really did have a disturbed night again. Fingers crossed that it will be more peaceful tonight. Now you have the lorries and the skip. You know what they say – no peace for the wicked; you must have been very naughty, lol. That was annoying to have to turn back from your trip to check your conservatory door was locked but if you hadn’t you would have been worried the whole time you were out.

People are generally kind, aren’t they Mel? It’s good that chap said he would help you with the grass cutting as you have so much to do, and nice of the driver to say he’ll drop by. Your pork and stuffing roll sounded tasty as well.

It sounds as though your gardens visit went well AnnG, and all of them very different. It sounds as though there might have been a lot of watering going on, particularly if there were still green lawns. The painted mural’s a good idea. It will brighten everything up even when there isn’t much in bloom in the garden. We had a shock with our garden this morning. Yesterday everything was OK, this morning we went out and both our hydrangeas had dropped virtually all their leaves overnight. If it had been the heat the leaves would surely have turned brown and dry before dropping but this was as though there had been a massive shock to both plants. I hope they recover. We also have 2 physocarpus shrubs. They are the same variety and get roughly the same amounts of sun, shade and water but one is flourishing and the other looking very sorry for itself.

It's a bit cooler today, about 22 degrees at the moment and we have had some more rain this morning. They were just gentle showers but a bit more prolonged than yesterday and any rain is better than none.

Yesterday the treasurer of one of the local clubs we belong to came round for me to help her sort out something she had to do online for the bank. She hasn’t got a PC. She has got a tablet but isn’t computer literate at all. The bank had sent a letter to her as treasurer saying that she had got to fill out this form online and if it wasn’t done by a certain date the account would be frozen. She took it into the bank to say she wasn’t able to do it and they were no help at all so she was panicking a bit. We managed to get into this form by registering with a user name supplied by the bank and setting up a 10 character password and some other random information to prove who we were. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw it. The bank had us down as “Club or Organization” but this form was designed for a medium to large business and you couldn’t move on without answering every question and there was no way of saying Not Applicable. I won’t bore you with all the details but it took us 2 hours and I wouldn’t submit it till the treasurer had confirmed she was happy with what I had done. Submitted it, site said it had been accepted and then came up with more stuff it wanted that I couldn’t make head nor tail of. At that point we rang a help line and the chap I spoke to was able to bring the form we had just submitted up on his computer. He said it was fine, no further action was needed and we would have unrestricted access to the club account. What a relief!

All this meant I didn’t get any lunch till 3.30. We had a club meeting that evening and needed to eat at 6 pm but I wasn’t ready for food then and by the time we got back at 9.40 pm I was too tired to cook. Walking down the road to our meeting we saw a lot of large concrete blocks had been put on the field behind the locking anti-vehicle posts, presumably by the council. We can’t work out what is planned. They can’t be left as they are because vehicle access to the field is occasionally needed and they are a real eyesore at the moment. Well, I suppose we will find out in due course.

Time now for an afternoon cuppa I think. I suspect that while I have been upstairs at the computer OH has been looking at the back of his eyelids.

'Oh what a night it was, it really was such a night' Ann, how annoying that things happened with just enough gap in between to allow you to almost get back to sleep. And it was not your day was it, first going on your own then OH deciding to come then has he hasn't he locked the door. you will have to check before you leave the house to prevent that happening again.

All three gardens were different, one is very pretty with lots and lots of tagetes, Zinnias, flowers I didn't recognise, Cosmos all flowering beautifully alstroemeria in a tub and really healthy and several Acers which have survived and look really healthy. I think she must have a micro climate or the road has. The lawn was green and flowers all looked healthy, just almost like a normal summer. Likewise the second garden which is mainly lawn and trees with a huge apple tree, conifers, a beech and other trees and a very large passion flower, all very green. Here she also has the wall of the side of her garage in the garden and she has had a huge mural painted on it of wild flowers, a country scene, beautiful. The third and final garden is a strange shape on different levels and no grass at all and raised beds round the edge of a gravel garden. Lots growing here, all looking healthy including Cosmos and one I was taken by, Senecio Angel Wings which I must look out for as it looks like it will be drought tolerant.
With our donations we raised £16.40 each for three charities.

O dear what a night you had with all the lights works being done.

I had young Dan for a driver today hes the one I was saying is a nice lad. He was saying I had'nt ordered much this week so he said he would pop in and see me when he passes as he comes to others round here. Was'nt that nice of him.

Our relief posty came today and wanted to know if a ltter was for me and I said yes. It was only Cotton Traders trying to get some money out of me.

Hope Anng enjoys herself on the garden group visit to the garden and reports back to us what was still looking good after this very hot spell and if she got any tips for if it turn hot again.

Young Bex from next door called round and brought me a pork and stuffing bap which I have had for lunch and it was delish. I am not one for eating stuffing usually but I must admit it all went down very well. Not sure if I shall want anything tonight now. It was one of those cut burger rolls which I fing quite nice as they are light and airey not stodgy like a roll.

AfternoonAll,

No chance here Vera. I had another poor night's sleep! It was much cooler and I felt ok, went off to sleep and woke at 3.00am for the toilet. I was just starting to nod off again when the window kept being lit up with a moving light from outside. It was just like a torch being shone so I crept over to the window as it stopped and I could see nothing so got back in bed. A few minutes later a car lights shone on the window as it went by and as it was an odd time to hear one I had a look and it pulled up at the side of the house at the end through the gates and an asian chap and woman got out. I thought it must be one of the sons out late again and got back in bed. Half an hour later I heard beeping of something reversing, so had another look and it was an ambulance going to the asian house. After about three quarters of an hour it drove off with the car following so I think the elderly father must be ill again. I couldn't get back to sleep then after all the curtain twitching so was up at 7.00am getting showered ready to return the things to the retail park. I'd decided to go on my own as I haven't driven out of the county since the pandemic, have hardly been out on my own since then and I would be able to have a good browse, but OH decided he wanted to go after all last night and I relented so we took his car and he drove as I haven't driven his new car yet. He said to drive it, but with all the gadgetry I want to try it out nearer home first. Off we set in good time to be early and had driven 20 miles when OH wasn't sure if he'd locked the conservatory door!! As you can get into the bungalow from there we had to turn back and abandon the trip. Of course when we got home we found he had locked the door after all. :-S So I am going on my own tomorrow now.........I bet the storms will be here by then!

It's 21 here and all we've had is a few spots a couple of times. I'm going to put the washer on and see if that makes it rain. ;-)

Yes it will be interesting to see how other gardens are looking on your trip around them AnnG, also which plants have stayed looking good.

Not only are lorries coming down our single lane end of the close to deliver materials for the house extension, now Mrs O has had a skip delivered and slabs are being thrown into it, so we have the noise from both the building work and concrete mixer soon over the road. After years of the 3 properties being built and all the alterations around us, OH said 'whatever made us think the end of a close of bungalows would be peaceful'.

Morning all,

Woke to a very misty moisty morning and theres rain in the air. Everywhere looks greener even the lawns. Its all been washed by yesterdays rain. Its 18 degrees here at the moment and only supposed to be 22 today so thats good.

Em's coming round today and the shopping should arrive this morning.

Need to get in the shower and get dressed and would like to wash my hair today.

Hope you enjoy the gardens today and it will be interesting to see how they have been faring in this hot dry weather.

Good morning. I slept quite well last night, it was not so hot. Only thing with sleeping well is I didn't wake until 5am for the loo which meant I then had had enough sleep so just lay there until 0620 when I decided to get up. (not showered or dressed yet though).

This morning our gardening group plus members of the garden visits group are going to three gardens in one road in our village to look at the gardens. Luckily we are all aware of how the lack of rain has affected our gardens but it will be interesting to see how they have managed.