General Chat

Hello all it's wet windy and cold here so not going out as done an Asda shop as needed to stock up the store cupboard.

Just pottering today around the house and then later may go on to do a bit of family tree research. Don't do as much now but still like having a nosey to see what I can find.

Hello All

Time I randomly popped in again Linda lol

Lots of lovely comments from you all after Florence's revelation a week or so ago, thank you very much - and as Florence said, we are very happy together <3

White chocolate and raspberry cheesecake Florence, you just made me even happier!

Duncan

Agingrocker in the Hebrides!

Afternoon all

Daughter arrived safely around 11 this morning and we picked her up of course. As she was up before 5am, shes now sleeping lol

Its getting windy again and worse to coming over the weekend and into Monday. Lucky I got my Tesco delivery and freezer full.

I have just made a white chocolate and raspberry chesecake for tea and have to say...its tastes scrummy :-D :-D

Linda, hope you enjoy your break and the hot tub. Hope you dont have far to walk to it in your costumes in this brrr weather!

Hope everyone else looking in is keeping warm today

Florence in the hebrides

Brr, it is so cold outside and really windy. I went to help at The Memory Cafe yesterday and was just about blown over the car park. There was a new man there, who I thought I recognised, but I couldn’t place him, it turns out that he had just moved to the town and had come along to Slimming World last week, which is why I recognised him. At the Memory cafe we always make sure to talk to new people and to include them in the group. I think that he must of thought that I was interested in him because at the end he asked me if I was married while pointedly looking at my left hand. I said that I was, he then asked where my husband was now. Ughh really sleezy I told him OH was at home and walked away from him. I will avoid him in future

I have been looking for a holiday rental in the Lake District for the May half term week. My son is coming as well as my daughter, SIL and the two girls. We could have gone for a whole week, but Eve will be in the middle of her GCSE’s so we decided on four nights instead. As we are going for a shorter time, we have treated them to a swim spa type of hot tub. We found it through Airbnb but when I was booking it last night, the app was being very awkward. It needed to verify who I was by taking a photo of my driving licence, then a photo of me to compare it to. It seemed to crash half way through. When I tried to start again, it said the dates weren’t available, but that was because it already had my PayPal payment. In the end I sorted it out and the booking was pending, waiting for the host to approve us. This morning, I had to give lots more information about our group, ages etc and why we were wanting to book. I guess they just don’t want hen or stag parties . In the end I was approved, so all is well, except that when we got the address we googled it and discovered that the house is actually on sale on Right Move for £1.55 million. It isn’t under offer though, so even if it does sell soon, the legal things take ages, so it hopefully won’t affect the rentals

ArgyllGran, Im sure they will enjoy the day out in general but hope gr daughter does find something else.

I have ordered 6 tops of similar style but all different colours for my trip south. I so hope when they arrive soon they fit and suit me as its such a pain sending them back!

I'm glad you got it sorted out eventually, Florence!
Technology is a very mixed blessing.
It's so much easier just to talk to an actual human being!

Very windy here last night, too, but back to a normal level of breeziness today.
Cloudy, damp, and quite chilly.

Thursday and Friday last week were beautifully warm and sunny - and I'm kicking myself that I didn't give the grass the first cut of the year when I had the chance.
It's been too wet to do it since then, and the grass is already a couple of inches long and growing.

Daughter and gr-daughter are in Glasgow for the day.
Daughter was there a couple of weeks ago, and bought a pair of jeans for gr-daughter, who wasn't with her on that occasion.
Gr-daughter likes them so much that they thought they'd go and buy another pair - but now they're out of stock, unfortunately.
I hope they find something else suitable, and don't feel they've had a wasted trip.

Morning one & all

It was a wild wild night and the wind went up to 62mph which to be fair was wild but by our standards not that bad!

It is still very very windy and daughter has now decided to fly home on Thursday as ferries are being cancelled etc.

So yesterday I tried to book her a ticket and oh my!! Couldnt find her login number for the airline and then had so much trouble trying to book a ticket in her name but me pay for it.

We all have our own unique ref numbers so when booking for another family member its not quite so easy. hence it took me ages and first attempt the bank declined my payment! How jolly dare they I said.

So after another faffing about, finally it all went through but..... it didnt really as payment was pending, daughter didnt get email confirming her flight etc.

Bank sent me a text asking if it was me making the payment????

Of course the dept now closes at 6 so couldnt sort it out until now.

The helpful lady in the fraud dept told me the bank thought the transaction was fraudulent as I had tried several times to pay by card. She has now verified it was genuine and it should go through.

Such a palaver! You may ask why couldn't daughter have booked it herself? Well she didn't have her log in details, the app wouldn't work on her phone yesterday and probably funds were low too blah, blah blah. That's kids for you!

So today is at home day and plenty chores to do as we were in town yesterday so not much got done indoors.

Hope everyone looking in has a good day.

Florence in the hebrides

It has been reasonably sunny here, but chilly. No rain thank goodness as OH is busy putting some extra fencing up in the garden

Only way to describe today is....WET, WILD and WINDY.

Roll on summer lol

Ann, I know exactly what you mean re being able to get in the car & go anywhere.
I have never driven so it was down to hubby to take me to the places I wanted to visit.even if he didn't want to go looking at plants or browsing the various shops he would be happy to take me.

Only thing about going out & about if it was just for a short while he never liked going into cafes for a cuppa, preferring to go home for his refreshments !

I have only ever been driven by hubby in all the years we were together & it is now taking time for me to get used to our daughter driving me to the shops or to appointments & I know she doesn't really like having me in the car, I am not the best of passengers, LOL.
Jack was a good driver & was so accomodating when I wanted him to perhaps slow down & drive a bit less than the limit, LOL.

Bit of a change in our weather today, it has been a bit on the dull side & a little breezy this morning, however the sun has now put in an appearance so it looks better now.

Not going outside today, I have covered a lot of jobs these past few daya so I think I will have a day off today.

Joan.

Good morning everyone. It is cloudy here, but the sun is trying to break through. It is only going to be 9 degrees, so on the chilly side.

On Friday when we got to the garden centre, the car park was full and the overflow carpark was in use. That wasn’t a good sign and sure enough without a booking we would have had to wait over an hour for a table in the restaurant . It is a posh place, our car looks totally out of place amongst the incredibly expensive ones in the car park :-(. They have a food hall which again is very upmarket and expensive, but has some lovely things to tempt you. They do have some tables in the food hall where they serve food, so we had to settle for that. We had a look at the shrubs, they usually have a selection of unusual ones which the bog standard garden centres don’t stock but we couldn’t find anything which was of a suitable size. So on the way back, we called into The Range which has an outside garden section and bought a couple of more usual shrubs from there.
Yesterday I finally managed to get my seeds planted in the greenhouse, so at least those are on the way.They are to transplant into the garden once they have grown. I still have one more type to plant and thought that I had some seeds left over from last year, but when I checked, I hadn’t got any, so I will have to buy some this week. Once they are underway, I need to plant some herbs, but it is early yet. I also need to put seeds into the veg patch, but it is too early for those, we still have time for cold weather.

Morning all looking in

I decided to get up early as the wind was howling and quite noisy. They promised gales for the next 3 days and tomorrow will be worse.


Hopefully by Wednesday it calms down as I get my Tesco delivery.

We managed down to the beach for a walk yesterday for 1/2 hour but boy was it "fresh". My ears hurt when we returned but it was good to get out with poochie.

My daffodils are in full bloom and many other plants like the Hebes which has flowers on and the roses are coming to life as well..

It is uplifting to see a garden full of life and colour Ann and when I couldnt drive anymore, I hated relying on others to take me out to the likes of the garden centre.


I so enjoy walking round looking at all the plants and always end up buying something new, never fails.

Well a roast dinner to cook & prepare and a room that needs to be clear by the end of today so some serious decluttering to be done!

Happy Sunday everyone

Florence in the hebrides

good morning all. Joan I am sure that the sight of those daffodils around you is very uplifting. I was just thinking we gardeners are eternal optimosts always looking forward, hoping for good gardening weather and putting the problems of last year out of our minds.

One thing I miss, being on my own and not having a car, is the ability to just decide to visit a garden centre. It does make it difficult to plan when you are reliant on offers to be taken to a garden centre. We used to call in our local garden centre most weekend for coffee and a look around for udeas.

Good morning everyone, it's gorgeous here so long as one stays in the sun, but still a nippy in the shade, I'm sure it will get warmer as the day goes on, it's nice & calm which helps.

I don't have too much to do outside atm, watering the new plants is the biggest job just now, however it takes several trips back & forth to the water Bowie to water them all, & I can't put too much water into the can as it gets too heavy for me, oh well the excercise will be good for me, I think so long as I take it slowly, LOL.

Everything I bought last year are looking good, I can see new growth on the Climbing Roses that I planted last year, looking forward to seeing them spread & ptoducing flowers, various older shrubs are well budded.

The Daffies are lovely, we have 100's all around the property, to think when we first planted them (many years ago) we planted just single bulbs where as now I reckon we have as many (if not more) than there are on the Bar Walls in York City, lol.

I hope it's nice where you are & all is well with everyone.

Joan.

Hi all, hope you are all doing ok.

Glad to read you had a lovely time on your holiday Florence .

Joan so good that you had an oil delivery although at an increased price. I know what you mean regards government help if you are over by a few pence you can't claim anything.

Have started getting the garden ready for summer planting. Tidying up the planters and all the tubs. We lost quite a few plants due to all the rain but hopefully we won't get so much this year.

Linda hope you find the shrubs you want at the garden centre and you enjoy your lunch there.

Almost time to put the clocks forward.

The warm weather does make a difference Florence, it is nice to be turning to planning the garden for the summer.
I got sidetracked yesterday, but still managed to get out in the greenhouse. I filled lots of small pots with compost ready to plant seeds in I will put the seeds in today.
We are going to go out for lunch to a garden centre so we can buy a couple of shrubs. One of the shrubs which I put in the front garden border last year hasn’t grown, it is really stunted, so I need to replace that. The stunted one can go in the back garden in the hope it recovers. It is odd as all the other shrubs in that border are growing well,so why this one has not grown, I don’t know

Morning all

Joan so glad you got the oil. Hopefully with warmer weather, your delivery will last a bit longer as you use less.

Yesterday was a beautiful warm sunny day and we went to town in the morning then once home spent the afternoon outside.

I transplanted some peony plants into 2 large tubs. Emptied and cleaned some old pots outside so now I have some spare for bedding plants later on.

Hoping today to put up 2 trellis each side of the front door in readiness for some climbing roses once local garden centre has some in. I have 2 tall pots for the roses and hopefully should look eye catching once they grow.

Daughters friend had a disaster in his car as he left his lurcher dog in the back seat whilst he went somewhere and upon return he discovered the dog had chewed the end of the handbrake lever!!!

He didnt know whether to laugh or cry but....hes having problems trying to get it sorted before they return here next weekend. Always something eh.

Hope everyone looking in today is well and the weather still fine.

Florence in the hebrides

Very pleased to hear it has arrived.

It has been a glorious day right down south but the nights are cold.

We were trying to remember how much we paid for oil but all we could was that it would either be extremely cheap or very expensive. We used to have a huge metal tank but the estate owners have replaced them with this green oil tanks, now on the front gardens and not under cover behind a locked door that we had.

Hi names, I got my delivery, will just have to eke it out even more now, earlier to bed & get up later should save some !! lol.

I'm not hopeful re getting any Government help, didn't they say the "poorest" & MOST "vulnerable" are the ones they are going to help !!
I'm 79 & regarded by mt GP as "vulnerable" but I don't get any benefits, I'm always just under the threshold for ANY help.

Joan.

Fingers crossed that the tanker makes it.

I wouldn’t be holding my breath about the government help. Not all oil users will get into and will the ‘faff’ in trying to find out if you are on the list be worth it for a mere £35?