General Chat

It sounds as though your computer man is a handy chap to know AnnG. It’s good he’s got it all running smoothly for you. I am reasonably computer literate but must admit that I would struggle to cope with all the technical stuff and would be lost without OH. The couple of times we have used “experts” have not been happy experiences. The first time was when OH bought a new computer at Currys/PC World and being short of time paid them to set it all up. I think they gave it to the teaboy to do! It took weeks for OH to put it all right. The second firm we used was a 2 man local business. They did manage to clear the problem that we had but in the process completely deleted my Family Historian software and all the family history information gathered over many years of work. I felt sick and was close to tears for a while but when I calmed down I realized I had kept the original download code given to me which proved I had bought the program so I could download and reinstall it. All the information was backed up to USBs so I could restore it all, but what a faff it was.

Ann, Roys is a general store mostly based in Norfolk but with a couple of branches in Suffolk. It’s main premises are in Wroxham where they seem to own most of the village, having 5 separate stores for different things. It’s hard to describe it – it’s a sort of combination department store, supermarket, general store etc. Our local store has a comparatively small food section but plenty of household goods, garden stuff, clothes etc. I’ve bought stuff in their clothes section that has been cheap but decent quality but they are now selling much more expensive lines. I don’t know if that’s a good decision or not. As a friend said to me recently “If I were spending £80 or £90 on a blouse I wouldn’t go to Roys for it”.

I wonder if Mel’s leccy is still off.

It’s a beautiful day here. We had coffee in town with our friends. We like a French owned place where the coffee is good and they come round with refills. It gets packed on Thursday and Saturday as they are market days and people come into town from nearby villages to do their shopping but it wasn’t very busy today and we had empty tables either side of us. When we got back OH disappeared into the garden and came in saying “I’ve cut down that thing with the stems” which worried me for a moment till I realized he meant the dogwood and we do cut it down every spring so that we get coloured stems in the winter. I do have to keep an eye on Mr Scissorhands or everything in sight gets a crewcut. I did think I would try and do a little bit myself so I started cutting back some penstemon that are in troughs in a sheltered area. I had to stop after one trough (there are 4) as it was really pulling on the back. Still, that’s one trough less to do. We also have a load in a semi-circular bed round a birdbath but they are not so sheltered so I would leave those a bit longer anyway.

Window cleaners have just arrived and said they will give all the window frames and sills a good wash round to get rid of the Sahara sand. OH had wiped round downstairs but I told him not to get up a ladder to do the upstairs so I am pleased the window cleaners have arrived today.

OH has cleaned the kitchen, uti and hall floors for me and has gone out for a walk but he will be back soon so I had better get the kettle on and make him a CoT. I see you have all been posting while I have been typing and talking to the window cleaners but I’ll post this now without responding any further or I shall never get it finished.

It is 16 degrees here, once the fog lifted it has been absolutely beautiful but there are a few clouds now. I think it is going to be nice tomorrow as well.

Afternoon all,

Yes been out in the sunshine Anng its lovely out there 12 degrees when I last looked ,I've dug some chicken pellets into the troughs and little gardens ,I then got the box of rose feed out and fed the roses but I used all I had in the rose feed so need a box of that put on my list .

Ann Roys is a nice shop ,household bits ,garden ,food , clothing ,shoes ,wool ,toys ,bedding ,curtains all sorts .
We first came across Roys in Wroxham, they had most of the shops in Wroxham even a chemist ,supermarket one side of the toad and all the other shops the other side of the road ,it was nice when they came into the outskirts of the town ,we go there for quite a few things .
QD is another nice shop in town very much the same as Roys nice for muching and buying all the bits you never knew you wanted :-D
I'll let you know how I get on with the Shark ,it will seem strange to go back to a plug in hoover after the cordless , I do think these cordless don't seem to have the suction of the plug ins but we'll see.

Got some more seeds planted up this morning so the conservatory is a bit loaded up with trays now ,another week or so and hopefully we can get the greenhouse up again ,last year when I got my trays in there we had that very strong wind which took the greenhouse over and messed all the seed trays up so we need to really tie it to the fence and Coiln anchored to the slabs too.

Time for a cuppa now

Well at least you got a small walk in. I am a bit achey from the long walk yesterday so what I did in the greenhouse was enough to tire me out. I hope tomorrow it will be dry and hopefully without the fog so I can get more done out there. I have more seeds to plant and I need to fill the baskets and let the soil warm before I put the plants in. This is one of the times I miss t the most as he always filled baskets, tubs etc. As my friend says, I was spoilt, and I do know that. Still he never really cooked me a meal so he was spoilt by not having to cook.

That was a good job done then AnnG and nice that he took precautions too. We had a similar thing happen when we had our new TV. When checking our broadband the engineer found the 'hub' that a SKY engineer had said we needed when we had new SKY boxes. He took one look at it and started pulling out all the cables which was a bit alarming at the time. 'You don't need that' he said, 'it's fighting with the rest of the system and slowing it down'. He was right.

Well I went for my walk, but halfway round my knees started to hurt, so I did just the one lap, which was still better than nothing and I was glad to get back to the car by the time I reached it. I kept hearing the hammer of a Woodpecker when I was walking along the side where some big trees are, but sound carries quite a way and I couldn't spot it.

I've opened my new paints and they look like chocolate when it gets that grey haze on it, so drab and no hint of a sheen. I rubbed one with my finger and that did have a sheen on my finger, just like with some eyeshadows.

One of the Ukraine charity requests I got gave an option to give what you could afford, but the 2 suggested donations were £80 or £160, Some older people would feel obliged to give sums they can't really afford when they see suggestions like that.

Those poor P & O workers losing their jobs in that way! Mind you, the 2000 odd that remain can't feel safe. Who is going to want to risk their deposits by booking holidays with them in case they go bust?

Every body is obviously out in the sun. I changed the bed and washed the bedding and then did a coloured wash. And before lunch I cleaned out the greenhouse. It is very ramshackle now could do with demolishing and re-building. but being that it is a half greenhouse attached to the shed so it would have to be both. Still I cleaned the glass but there are a lot of climbing plants (clematis, rose, euonymus and ivy around it so I also had to clear the windows. I moved the not looking very healthy fuchsias out of the greenhouse into the plastic tomato house so that I now have room for the baskets when I do them, the basket plants are growing and could really do with being put into position in the baskets.

Still a bit foggy here but slowly lifting

He has gone, he is very efficient and wore a mask and used antibac and I had two windows open. . Lives on Highgrove, the next estate.

Hour and a half £60 and well worth it I think. got rid of a couple of things I didn't need and cleaned up the computer by running various programmes, always telling me what he was doing.  But also he has had a go at the Wifi, he said he could see someone else was on the same frequency which was what was slowing it down and also somebody had downloaded 5g which was running in conjunction with the 2g one and also messing things up.  He also took out a plug in boostert booster and basically said it was rubbish and could be causing problems.

speed now 110.

So well pleased so far and also he tested the Wifi all over the house and it was good.

Morning All,

Thick fog here first thing, but the sun has burned it off now and it is quite pleasant.

Yes Gwyn it is the boxes of tests. I first ordered them on the govt site ages ago when our chemist had run out. I didn't say I'd been refused tests Island, I just couldn't get any free ones online. There is a lot of news about the problem now.
I just tried again and still the same message saying no slots are available.

https://inews.co.uk/news/lateral-flow-tests-people-days-struggling-order-free-covid-testing-kits-1-april-cutoff-1520872?ITO=msn

What kind of place is 'Roys' as I've never heard of them? Do they sell a bit of everything?

Mel your tomatoes are coming up well now and the tiny seedlings do look as if they have arms waving. :-) I think I will plant some seeds this afternoon.

We went to the farm shop this morning and the sanitiser for the trolleys has gone so I used the hand sanitiser to wipe the handle with a tissue. I might do a walk this afternoon, but after bending in the garden yesterday my knees were twingy this morning. OH has a meeting at lunchtime which means lunch will have to be late and I have a zoom with friends just before lunchtime.

Mandy I have seen the Shark ones on TV and thought they looked good. We have a Dyson one and it does run out of charge quite quickly, so I would be interested to know how your Shark compares. I am liking my Flash Speedmop better than the steam mop now as it gets the dirt up better along the edges of the floors than my steam mop and there are no cables. That will be good if you can keep those butterflies off your cabbagey plants.

Good morning AnnG, Mel and all

Bright sunshine and 6 degrees here today. I had a poor night again but at least getting up to sunshine makes me feel a bit better.

I don’t have any plans for the day apart from meeting our friends M & V for coffee this morning. We might be doing the same as you yesterday Mandy and going into Roys for some compost. Have you noticed Roys seems to be stocking a lot more expensive branded goods, particularly in the clothes section? Once it used to be a good but cheap shop but it seems to be shedding that image a bit now. I was surprised to see a good selection of Radley handbags there recently.

I hope your leccy isn’t off for as long as they say Mel and your PC gets a clean bill of health AnnG. Now I’d better stir myself and get moving or I’ll be hearing my Dad’s voice in my head saying “What’s the matter? Got a bone in your leg?” as he always did when I was a bit slow or didn’t want to do something.

Morning Anng and all,

Its about the same here 4 degrees and very misty moisty but the suns trying to come out so it should burn the mist off.

Just having my coffee and then get on while we still have the leccy. As you can imagine I shan'nt be on here much and am hoping it may be on and off and on and off at times and not all day.

See you all later and I hope you all slept well.

Good morning, up early as I have the friendly PC man coming to give my computer a health check this morning around 9am so I thought I might as well get up and get dressed and get the bedding in the washing machine before he comes.
It is 4 degrees here but is quite foggy so I am glad I don't have to drive out to work. Hopefully it will be nice later and I can get out in the garden. Lawn badly needs cutting now.

Evening all,

It's been a beautiful day here lovely blue sky but orange Sahara dust every where the windows are thick with it and I had to wipe all the window sills outside.

Ann the last lot of tests I got from boots she just gave them to me but said I would need some sort of code for the next lot .

Mel hope your leccy not off to long tomorrow ,when we had that strong wind the other week we got our little gas stove out luckily we didn't have to use it but they are handy to have as a stand by .

Today I got some of my seeds planted we called at roys and i got some seed compost
We also got a net tunnel to go over the troughs Colin made as the netting we got last year let the butterflies in .
We ordered a new hoover today this one is not a rechargeable one ,son and dil have a Shark and it seems a good one so we thought we'd have the same ,we seem to be forever charging this old one so it was time for a change .

I just went online and ordered a lateral flow test kit and had no problems at all. In fact I have never had a problem. I wonder if I have just been lucky. I started ordering online after I traipsed round every chemist in town and one or two other places like the library and nowhere had any.

Can't get LFTs online in what wat way Ann? I tried a couple of days ago and got the 'no slots available' note but not actually refused.

Vera,
What a nuisance. I distinctly remember you questioning whether you were eligible.

Is that the boxes of lateral flow tests Ann?

I picked some up in the small pharmacy in town this morning.
No questions asked and not pre-ordered.

It's where we collect medications for repeat prescriptions and we have collected them there in the past.

It seems from a news strip I read that I'm not the only one who can't get the free tests on line. :-S

The two Anns have been busy with walks and gardening. You’ll both sleep well tonight with all the fresh air and exercise. Yet again all I have managed is to walk around town a bit and tidy up some indoor plants. OH has cut the two hydrangeas back now.

My trip to town was a waste of time. When one of the doctors’ receptionists rang to ask if I’d like an appointment for a shingles jab and offering me 17th March I said I thought I wouldn’t be eligible as I would be 80 by then. Her reply was “You are on my eligible list so it must be OK”. You can guess what happened can’t you? I got to the surgery, saw the nurse who was very apologetic but said she wasn’t allowed to give me the jab as I was over 80. Poor girl was very embarrassed and said she had double checked with the doctor and checked my records to see if she could offer me a jab for anything else so my journey wasn’t wasted but I am up-to-date with everything.

That Sahara sand is everywhere. OH wiped down the outside window ledges but the windows are filthy and the garden furniture is all covered in it as was the car. We keep the car garaged so it can only have got in that state when it was parked while I was at the hairdressers. My dearly beloved also had to go into town this afternoon for another appointment at the opticians so he also put the car through the car wash while he was out.

It was interesting to read about your wedding and early married life AnnG, and also to hear about Mel’s. I could really relate to it as I was also a 1960s bride and mother (married in 63 and children born 65 and 66). I’ve just wasted some time looking for the bill for catering for my wedding. We found it when going through my Dad’s stuff after he died in 2004 and I know I kept it but I’ve been through every likely file and can’t find it. I’ve a vague recollection that it was 3/11d a head for the wedding breakfast of soup, ham salad and trifle (did we all have that?) and 1/6d a head for an evening buffet.

I hope you don’t have too much of a problem tomorrow when your leccy is off Mel. As I’ve got an electric oven and gas hob I can usually rustle up something to eat and drink. If one is off the other is usually working. You’ve got me wondering where our old camping gas stove is. I think it was last used after the 1987 storm when our leccy was off for 5 or 6 days and there was no gas in the village we lived in then.

Sun seems to have disappeared now so I had better bring some plants back into the conservatory, close down the greenhouse and cover the agapanthus again as it is still getting very cold at night.

I hope you all enjoy your evening and sleep well tonight.

Well you should sleep tonight Ann. I hope to get out in the garden tomorrow after the PC man has finished and Saturday looks as though it should be OK too. Yes it did feel longer than a mile. Nice looking at the gardens with all the spring flowers, even one lot of bluebells out. And on a small ornamental tree in one garden there were loys of yellow and blue bows tied.

Your walk sounds more like a mile and a half AnnG so you did well going there and then coming back as well. It's good Cynth is visiting her brother. A change of scene can help.

Well I was right! As soon as OH spotted me outside with a humper, he came out and got himself one too and we we spent about 20 minutes weeding and starting to cut back an Acer that has outgrown the space.

I did the veg for tomorrow's lunch then and dusted the lounge.

That was a good walk, 25 minutes and, I might be old but I am quite a fast walker. I would think it is over a mile but don't have my Vivofit any more to check. Good to see my friend and have a good natter. Our OHs used to play golf together until hers died 10 years ago. We then used to take her out for coffee every 2-3 weeks until Covid.

Cynth is getting on OK Ann, she is in Morecombe at the moment with her brother. He brings her back tomorrow. I am looking after her house.

Let's hope the electric is not off all that time then Mel but lucky you have the camping stove (which you knew would come in handy one day. I have a barbecue but not sure if I would know how to light it etc (gas).