General Chat

Good afternoon all, chasing my tail today trying to get straight. Daughter and SiL went back today, leaving here at 0730 so I was up at 0630 to see them off, had my shower and hair wash after they left. I still have a lot of my Christmas presents to put away, Christmas cards to sort out, keep, for charity or to be binned, Last month's bank accounts to check and C Card bills as well. I have sorted a bit of admin. I started with a long list and am working through it. Daughter and I had a list yesterday of jobs needing doing and we finished that one. (I like lists!!). I have also done two loads of washing and drying.

Being up early I am hungry for lunch early so that is the next job.

Morning All,

A good sleep but a chilly, sunny morning although it's warmed up to 5 degrees now. The PC says rain is on the way and we usually get Mel's weather a few hours later. I think she sends it up here! lol.

Vera when FIL was alive and in his 90s we used to say how most of his friends, school pals and people older than himself would all have passed away. Then it starts happening to ourselves. That is odd you getting an email about a test being sent? I wonder if it will arrive and someone who is expecting one won't get it!

We were up early and took our boot full of bags to the charity shop before it opened. There are signs up now to say leaving bags outside is flytipping. Two ladies from the shop were outside sorting recycling from a big blue bin and after asking what we had brought, they said they are not taking clothing!! (Age Concern and they have another shop in the village that sells clothes!). She told us to leave them outside though and that the Air Ambulance shop a short distance away would pick them up. I can see more flytipping happening and people just putting stuff in their rubbish bin at this rate if charities can't take it. I think we'll try the supermarket recycling bins next time, but they could be crammed full if others are doing the same.

We went to the 'out in the sticks' garden centre afterwards and surprise, surprise OH found a book in the Works there. His reasoning was that it only cost 90p with the points he had saved. I was going to buy some seeds, but it really struck me how limited the choice is compared with online, as the shops just stock the popular varieties. We noticed shelves and tables of Christmas decs were crammed and many had 'Not For Sale' notices on, so many in fact that I said to OH that if they advertise they would have to put 'come to the Not For Sale, sale!' It looked like not much was sold before Christmas, as much more would be empty of things usually.

The days just disappear under routine tasks don't they Mel. What with getting meals and doing food orders, a bit of HW, washing, tidying etc and most of the day is gone.

OH is doing work stuff and I'm off to sort another drawer! Then I shall don my hairdresser hat and cut his hair! :-)

Morning all on this dreary and wet morning. When is it going to stop raining for more than a day?

I have to check the shopping list today and make sure I have everything on there I need. Do a little ironing and feed the chickens and then my time is my own after doing lunch and then a cuppa in the afternoon and then getting dinner at night. Do you think I am going to get any time to myself??????

Very odd - I have received an email thanking me for ordering a lateral flow test pack and saying that delivery should be within 3 days. That would be fine except that I haven’t ordered another pack. We received the last one we ordered on Friday but that was in OH’s name anyway, not mine. It will be interesting to see if anything turns up in the next 2 or 3 days.

Vera it does seem that every time I hear from friends in my age group they tell of deaths among those we know. So sad really but I supposebit is inevitable.
I am just having my last lesson from daughter as she refreshes my memory on how to use my air fryer.minhave not touched it fir way over a year and now we are cooking roast potatoes in it.. to go with the roast chicken.

I see both our Anns have been busy today. You put me to shame as I have done very little apart from cook our dinner and do one or two very little jobs. I have some bags of stuff to go to the charity shop as well but mine has already been sitting in the spare bedroom for a good month or more. We just haven't been into town to take it.

There are disadvantages to a big kitchen Annx. You can waste a lot of time just walking round it and there is a lot of floor to wash. Off one end we have a small uti as well and there are patio doors by the bit with the dining table that lead into a small conservatory where I have a sofa and a television, so that's our "snug". Unfortunately the conservatory wasn't built with the house but was added later, so the underfloor heating doesn't extend out there and it can be cold in winter. We do use it a lot from spring to late autumn and often have a lunchtime snack out there while watching the 1 o'clock news.

I've just been doing a bit of admin type work and have written a cheque to renew my "adoption" of a Suffolk Punch Horse. I thought the Trust might have sent a reminder but they haven't and it is over a year since I last gave them any money. My horse called Colony Edith has "written" to me twice during the year with all her news. What a clever horse she is ;-)

I'm now about to email an old school friend to let her know that another of our group has sadly died. This sort of thing is happening more and more now as we are all getting older but it still comes as a shock.

That's not a very cheerful way to end a post is it? Let's all be positive and echo good old Captain Tom when he said "Tomorrow will be a good day".

No not solved the mystery. The clock plug was/is still switched on and I can't think why I would have switched it off, I certainly have never touched the switch before. maybe I knocked the switch in my sleep.

We went to the garden centre for coffee this morning, then to the doctors to post my BP results through the box, then to tesco to buy food for tonight so have a chicken to roast. then after lunch Lyn set up my new kindle so we share all books and then she climbed the step ladder and took down the fixings for the door curtain that came down while we were away. I have decide to not have a curtain, there is no draft through that door and the hall looks bigger without.
she also put up two pictures I had for Christmas from son, photos of the familt through the years.

Meanwhile I have done one wash and unpacked a few bits. And done a couple of admin jobs. Now I have to see how to operate the BP machine

Annx you have been busy Our charity shop will only take two bags at once at the moment.

Vera hope your muscles relax and you manage a better night tonight.

Well that's 2 of the 4 drawers gone through and I doubt I will need any new knickers for a few years! Lots of old and odd socks chucked out and ones with tops that are too tight. They are now nicely organised. I'll do the other 2 drawers tomorrow. We now have 9 bags for the charity shop. :-)

I forgot to say yesterday that ERNIE has sent me £75.........it's the most he has ever sent me at once.

Looking forward to watching Call The Midwife and David Attenborough tonight.

In the dream I was in Roding Lane South in Redbridge and I hav'nt lived there since 1973 when we moved to Suffolk. I was heading down to the old pumping station and the two horses were by that one on the road and the other by the side where there was a bit of grass and horsey things hanging on the fence. It is funny the things you dream and I can't think of anything I watched on the tv last night that would have stirred memories.

Its starting to get dark now and I need to go round and corn the chickens so they go to bed with something in their tums.

Afternoon All,

I slept well last night and didn't wake up till after 9.00am. OH was already up and after bringing me a COT I heard him in the other front bedroom. He had started sorting his shirts and other clothes out and there were already 3 big bagsful in the porch ready for the charity shop tomorrow. I had my shower then started on my other narrow wardrobe clothes, some for the bin and a bagful for the charity shop. This afternoon I will start on the drawers at the bottom of both wardrobes. It was useful having lunch delivered which gave me more time.

Excellent news Gill! :-D That's great news some of the plastering is done and you have found someone to do the work and give you quotes for more jobs. It's a good idea to get the drains and guttering sorted before some jobs as there's nothing worse than having to spoil what has already been done. You have to do things in the right order don't you! Yes use a hotwater bottle to get warm, 2 if needs be. I sometimes throw my dressing gown over the bed if it's a really cold night. Socks are a good idea too. We have a combi boiler and the pressure on ours drops when the heating is on. We have had to top ours up more often lately but we found we weren't topping ours up enough. It sounds like your workman thinks there may be water escaping through a pipe leak under the floor somewhere. It might be to do with the boiler though so I hope he comes tomorrow and can fix it for you. Once you can start getting your paintbrushes out in some rooms it will seem wonderful and you can get those boxes unpacked then. In the meantime it's lovely to be hearing from you. <3 :-D

Vera, you did do a lot so rest up a bit again now. All this bending, lifting and sorting has given me some twinges too and the aches don't vanish as quickly as when we were young! I would like a kitchen like yours with room for table and chairs and maybe a little snug area with settee and tv? Ours is quite small with a uti off and the dining area is in the L shaped lounge.

That's a mystery with your fire alarm AnnG. Had he been to set it since he fitted it then? Do you think you may have just switched both plugs off when you went away?

What a strange dream Mel. It's amazing what our minds do when we are asleep. It's good that you slept a bit better on the new mattress though. Maybe the pillows aren't quite right now the bed is more firm and doesn't let you sink into it as much. You will have to experiment.

Better see to my 'drawers' now before I lose the will.

Good afternoon

Have you solved the mystery of your fire alarm AnnG? Strange things do happen in houses sometimes and you never find out why even though you know there must be a rational explanation.

It’s good you had a better night Mel but what an odd dream. Can you relate it to anything you read or saw on TV that might have been at the back of your mind? I often wake up knowing I’ve been dreaming but It’s only occasionally that I can remember what I’ve been dreaming about.

Good to see you posting Gill and to hear that you are making some progress at last but what a pain with the boiler pressure. I can’t believe you are having to keep adjusting it. It sounds as though it wasn’t set up right to start with and whoever fitted it needs to get back to you pronto and put it right. We had a new boiler last June and haven’t touched it since the gas fitter set it up. Is yours a combi-boiler? Ours isn’t so maybe they operate differently. Follow AnnG’s advice about keeping warm at night - you won’t sleep if you are cold and you need your rest. If you don’t have a spare blanket or extra duvet to put over the bed, use an old coat or wear a couple of jumpers yourself, and definitely wear socks. Better to go to bed fully dressed and take layers off than to lie there shivering.

I didn't’ have a good night last night. At 2.30 am I gave up trying to sleep and got my book out. I think I might have overdone it a bit yesterday and I’m paying the price today. It might not have been good for me physically but I still feel happy that I did manage to get quite a bit done as I was beginning to feel ready for the scrap heap, lol.

Well, I’d better go and put the oven on to heat up ready to put our meat in. I’ve got a ready prepared chicken dish today and I’ve got all the veg ready. OH has even laid the table even though we won’t eat till around 2 pm. I miss having a separate dining room as we had in our old house but our kitchen-diner here is L shaped and quite big so I have a kitchen table and four chairs in one part of the L and the dining table and 6 chairs in the other part. All the week we eat at the kitchen table but Sundays we eat at the dining table. It’s daft really but it just seems to make Sunday a bit more special :-)

Morning A,
ll,

Bit brighter here today but still cold at least its not raining and th esuns is trying to shine a bit.

I did sleep well last night and the bed does seem more comfortable now. I think perhaps it was a night too soon before the mattress had fully recovered from being in that small box.

Had a funny dream about a ride coming up Roding lane and me getting out in front of it before it slowed me down but noticed it had the hunt with it and all the dogs were behind the horse. Then there were two horses without bridles on, one at the side of the road and one in the middle of the road.

Good morning all, slept well most of the night. But i went to bed pondering on a mystery so was surprised that I didn't lie awake. My vibrating fire alarm has a strobe light that is active all the time. The plug has to stay switched on and it is plugged in by my bed, in a socket I never use next to the electric alarm clock. When I went to bed I noticed the strobe light was not working and when I checked the plug it was in the off position. the clock was on. I know I didn't switch that plug off (why would I when I have put a note on it saying not to be turned off? I have got to look for the book;let on it now as I am not sure I can just switch it back on. I think he had to set something up.

Gill you seem to be going ahead in leaps and bounds now so do hope that continues. I know nothing about pressure in gas boilers, mine is one of the old style so maybe it is the new style that have to have the pressure set?? But you are right, not to touch it if it is wrong but not a good time for it to happen. Can you find an extra blanket to put on the bed to help you warm up. wear socks so your feet are warm and, yes take a hot water bottle to bed.

I've given up trying to sleep with being so cold so I've made myself a hot water bottle as it's freezing cold here and I can't put the heating on with the pressure in the boiler going down all the time. I'm worried of falling asleep once I warm up without turning the heating off. At the moment the pressure needs putting up around every 15 minutes so I thought it better to make the hot water bottle instead as I don't want the pressure to go down to zero while the heating's on. Hopefully I'll start to warm up with the hot water bottle and be able to sleep. I did feel sleepy before so hopefully I'll feel sleepy again soon. At least I've managed to watch a few programmes off the planner and I found some information for my family tree, so not a wasted night.

Yes Mel we're on a roll now and hopefully the fella's will be in touch soon with the quote for the hall ceiling and the self level in the living room, plus the two quotes for the rendering and re-pointing. We were lucky to get them as they had just been let down on a job so had some free time, which is why they came to us so quickly. We're just hoping they can do the rest of the jobs as quickly then we can start sorting out each of the rooms. I feel when we can finally unpack it'll be like Christmas, I just hope the dust hasn't got into all the boxes, I taped them up well so hopefully the dust won't have got inside.

The hot water bottle is working and I'm starting to warm up now so I'll pack everything away and try to go to sleep again. I hope you have a better nights sleep tonight Mel and you don't wake up with a headache, maybe taking one of the pillows away will help.

I'm pleased the plasterers turned up and done some of the work for you. It makes a change from people saying they will phone or come over and then not turn up. You are making progress now so keep the ball rolling.

We've all missed you when you don't post.

I did sleep better last night but not having much sleep at all the night before I was due a good one and I swear it was'nt so hard last night. I just have to get my pillows right now as I have been having a bit of a headache when I wake up. I may have to get rid of one altogether.

Sleep well you lot night night.

Hi all, hope you are all keeping well. We've had a week and a half and poor OH was working nights at the same time. To cut a long story short we now have most of the plastering done with just the hall ceiling to be done next week, along with a bit of self level in front of the chimney breast in the living room. I'm a bit bored now lol ;-) ;-) I still have a bit of filler to do but have to wait until the chimney breast is dry so I can move the furniture over to get to the coving on the opposite wall, where I need to fill, so I'm catching up with all my programmes.

It's OH's last night before his weeks holiday, he's never in work lol :-D :-D He got a call from work the other day about his holidays and after them taking all his holidays off him last year he was ready to complain thinking they were going to do it again. Luckily they didn't, they just wanted OH to confirm the dates so they could get agency staff in. We're hoping the weather is going to be dry as he wants to take the last of the rubbish to the tip from the front garden and it's been wet windy and cold lately.

I need to ring the people who put our boiler in on Monday. We've had problems with the pressure ever since it went in and although someone came here the other day it needs more investigating. Wouldn't you know it, it didn't lose any pressure when the fella came and topped it up, but it was on zero pressure when he arrived so he said all the pipework under our floors will need to be checked and that someone would be here yesterday, but no one turned up and now the pressure keeps going down within an hour of us putting the heating on. I rang them yesterday to ask what time they would be arriving as it was 3pm and they said they'd get back to me, but they didn't, so I hope they do something about it on Monday as it's getting really cold.

At least we managed to find some reliable workmen and not only are they doing the plastering they said they could also do our loft boards and the pointing of the bricks outside, although they said it would be easier to render it, so they're doing us two quotes, one for each job. Which ever job we go for will have to wait a while as we want the gutters and drains done first. At the moment we have a downpipe going straight onto concrete as there's no grid there, so if the walls were fixed and it rained the rain water would splash onto the property and ruin the job. We would prefer to have the brickwork done when it's drier and warmer anyway, so we have time to have the gutters and drains done if we can find someone to do it for us.

We were told by a plumber not to have the bathroom walls plastered as the tiles would stick better to the bare plasterboard, so that saved us some money with just having the bathroom ceiling done, so once the plaster dries we'll be ready to have the bathroom suite put in. It does feel strange finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel after almost a year of not being able to get workmen here, but I'm not complaining now the ball is finally starting to roll.

At least I have a bit of time on my hands to catch up with a few programmes off the planner as that is quite full with not being able to watch much TV lately and it'll be nice to relax for a bit before I need to start decorating.

So that's where we're up to at the moment and we are both very happy. Hopefully 2022 will be a good year and our place will be finished soon. I'm having a think about the gardens now the front is cleared and the back is almost cleared, so we should have a nice garden by the summer too. :-D :-D

It sounds as though you had a horrid journey home AnnG and very tiring for your daughter but you are safely back and that’s the main thing.

I am aching like mad at the moment and I am very tired but I am feeling much happier as I have managed to do much more today. I’ve cleaned the bathroom, 2 en-suite shower rooms and the downstairs toilet, (accompanied by lots of oohs, aahs and ouches at every twinge in my back), got all the towels washed and prepared and cooked dinner. OH hoovered and dusted right through for me.

After a couple of you mentioned blood tests for my tiredness and Ann mentioned possible thyroid problems I checked my medical records. My last blood test was a while ago now but I think just about everything known to man was checked. My white blood cell count was fractionally low but everything else was in the normal range except Vitamin D which was horrendously low and I was put on a massive dose for two weeks and then went on to a maintenance dose which I still take daily.

About Windows 11, I have noticed very little difference in use to Windows 10. Everything seems to work pretty much as it did before. There seem to be a couple more icons on the desktop and I have no idea what they are for. The first time I used it I couldn’t work out how to shut down as my power button icon on the left of my screen had disappeared but it was simple once OH showed me how. He seems to like Windows11. As I understand it Windows 10 will be supported until 2025 but some of the earlier versions won’t be receiving security updates. However I’m no techie so you might want to do a bit of googling yourself or ask someone who knows more than me.

I hope you get comfortable on your mattress tonight Mel and get a good sleep. In fact, I hope everyone sleeps well, myself included.

They go home Monday so two nights. One or two things I need a bit of help with tomorrow. Need to get a new curtain pole if I decide to keep a curtain there. I have a new kindle so need help setting it up as our kindles are linked so we can share books. I also want my BP machine looked at as I want to be shown how to use it.

I have opened all the exra Christmas cards which was lovely. One was very special signed by all the whole group of people T played golf with. Wasn’t that thoughtful.

Evening All,

It's 9 degrees here now but it's been back to dull and dreary plus heavy blustery rain earlier. OH decided to watch footie on tv after finding several matches were cancelled, one only 16 mins before the start so he's glad he didn't venture out.

What a shame it was such a horrid journey AnnG. I have been in fog on that motorway travelling to a course at Blackpool and it was horrendous and I was glad I had a passenger that time. Your eyes are wide open trying to see so it was a good idea to break the journey and eat. Hopefully It will be a better return journey for them if they go back tomorrow.

It'sgood you slept a bit better Vera, I had one of those nights where you wake up thinking it is early morning only to find it is midnight and then struggle to nod off again. I hope you have taken it easy today. Yes, how are you finding Windows 11?

That's good to get the new fan and the woodburner sorted and looking cosy Mandy. I hope you and Mel got your ironing all done. :-)

I have ordered 2 wireless mice, one for OH's new laptop and a spare for us and also ordered lunch for tomorrow. I have also gone through the the clothes on the hanging rail and bags of stuff underneath it for one of the narrow wardrobes and found lots I had forgotten I had. Still no red fleece! Another bag filled for the charity shop though. Next will be the other small wardrobe and then the 2 drawers at the bottom of both. When I started I was a bit achey after yesterday , but I hope to keep going now while it's winter and have a clearout all through the bungalow if I can. It must be infectious as OH said he is going to start sorting his shirts out! I just hate throwing things out if I think there's more wear in them, but I even have a few clothes in the loft I have kept from the 60s!! One is a nice black midi coat I might see if I can sell.

Sounds like it was a horrid journey you had. Poor Lyn I do feel for her driving in those conditions. Are they staying for a couple of nights or not?