General Chat

Morning All and Evening Kim,

Another lovely morning here in deepest Devon. Wall to wall sunshine ad blue sky at the moment.

Frank thanks for the emails.

Does Ann come home today??

Night All.

You will be pleased with your kitchen when Colin has finished Mandy.

Roast lamb mini joint tonight and it's smelling good. Roast pots swede and broccoli

Evening everyone,

Dull old day here today ,no sun and the rain is now coming down quite hard on the front window :-S

Glad you enjoyed your time away Jane, looking forward to seeing the photo's,your poor feet and legs ,hard going walking on cobbles all the time !!

Fiona, that's a lovely photo of your mum , you are so like her :-) i think its round the mouth and chin that you look the same :-)

Done some shopping today and hubby has been working on the kitchen most of the day ,the skirting has gone on so it's beginning to take shape .

Forgot to post that again.Oh also bought a water hawthorn for my pond.

I put all the toms in and the two cues.

Good to see Jane and Janice are back home safe and sound.

Fiona I took one look at the new pic and just knew who it was going to be. You definately are like your mother and what a pretty hat.

Came back fro m the nursary this afternoon with 14 tom plants two cues 2 peppers 2 kinds of chilli peppers (one called Hot Banana and they are yellow) parsley and butternut squash plants 6 of them. Now where am I going to grow 6 butternut??? I think I can accomadate two at least so I shall have to give the others away. I know Di will like one as I often give her butternut if I have them left over at Christmas time. They store so well. Also got a bronze fennel and two lupins for the border and treated oh to two LARGE leaved hostas and he treated me to a beautiful blue grass.

Thanks for the pics William and nice to know you had a good day out.

I enjoy my outing today as we hav'nt been for ages. It is so nice to see the new leaves on the beech trees. I love this time of year when the trees are clothed in their spring foliage. It must be the best time of the year for me. Just wish the weather was a little better but we have had sun this morning while we were out and then after lunch we had a thunder storm with some rain while I was up the tunnel. Glad I did'nt choose to do the border after all.

Just nipping in again quickly.Not a minute's peace here with my Sister lol
I still haven't read posts(SORRY) just the ones today.
Fiona don't you look like your Mum :-D.A lovely photo of her in her wedding hat :-D

Frank we have Lock Jaw ,knackered legs and feet too.I don't think we walked on any normal roads /pavements .It was cobbles all the way and it's hard on the feet,especially when wet as some are quite slippery.
The Hotel was really nice .A converted Convent.I have plenty of photos .I took a hundred in all !!! so will choose just a few to send to you all.What would have been the inner courtyard of the old convent is now the Lounge area,Bar and restaurant,with a raised kind of suspended floor with beautiful white and green seating and tables.I think that was for special occasions.
My suitcase was fairly light when I went ,but I could hardly lift it yesterday to come home :-S.Some nice man helped heave it onto the train !.

Maureen I would love to back to Ghent .Antwerp also somewhere I fancy .(must have a word with Chris :-D)
Must go for now.

That's a lovely photo of your mum Fiona.

Glad you're back in one piece Jane and that you had a good time, so next little outing will be to Belgium then :-D

Went to Wilkin**ns today and did get some bulbs Mandy, some dahlias origanally £3.25 down to 75p and some Liatris, all I need now is some decent weather to get them in. If it doesn't rain tomorrow I'm off to the boot sale to get some more plants, I did some Cleome from seed but they didn't come up at all, they were from last year's flowers. I know how you feel Frank when you look at the neat and well tended garden, it is satisfying.

Haven't opened my e.mails yet so am looking forward to the photos you sent William.

Hi William
you are forgiven if you think that's me in my Easter bonnet, :-) :-) It's actually my mum on my wedding day.I have been told by many people that I do look like her, I have her colour eyes(green) but she was a red head and had a fiery temper to match, during my teenage years she had Alopecia and lost her red hair, it grew back in white and was very soft, after the shock was over she used to enjoy wearing all the pastel colours that she said she didn't suit when she had red hair.

Just come back from the park with daughter no 1 and Matteo had a lovely walk, all the mums and buggies were out and all the people with dogs were out.
and one lucky couple went past in a wedding car what a lovely sunny day to get married. :-D :-D

Yippee, our trusty plumber has been and we are back in action once again with fully working taps and an abundant supply of water. Makes you realise how we take it for granted. I can't imagine how these poor people in Africa manage when there is one stand pipe for a whole village.

Welcome home, Jane. So glad you enjoyed your trip to Belgium. I must admit I enjoyed it when I went there especially the trip to the area of the Ardennes. Met some lovely Belgium people there too.

Fiona, Easter is over now, you didn't have to go to all that trouble to try on your bonnet :-D

Hi Frank
I was married back in Feb 1979. so that's about 34 years ago, daughter no 1 will be 33 this year.

Daughter wanted to buy something she could wear again, in Italy some people don't dress up like we do, they wear smart summer clothes , I even saw young folk wearing jeans at daughters wedding back in 2008, only close family wore really dressy clothes. She decided to buy a pair of blue linen trousers, white lace cami top to go under a blue and white summer blouse, she already had bought a pair of lilac sandals, won't need a hand bag, will be carrying Matteo's changing bag,
Sofia & Matteo are to get new outfits which will be bought over in Italy as they go over for their holidays on the 15th June, the christening is on the 25th June, daughter has been told that Matteo will be given a white smock by the priest so she will be buying some new trousers and a top for him, Sofia is being treated by her other gran (Nonna Adele) for a new dress.

Mandy unfortunatly I won't be going to the Christening , I couldn't cope with the heat and all the preparations because of my head, I am sad about this but they have promised to take lots of Photo's,
We are having a special dinner , once they are back from holiday.

All clean and smoothed faced, just like a baby's bum. lol lol.

Very dismal here, clouds everywhere, I expect it to be wet later, but hey who cares, all my gardening is done, and I can relax for the rest of the day.

I see trouble is back, I bet the pair of them have "LOCK JAW" with all the chatting they have done lol

I'm glad you had a nice time even though the weather wasn't that kind to you.

II won't be going for a haircut after all, Ros wants to do her hair and ironing out of the way for the weekend..

Conrad had to have a operation yesterday. In at Mid day and home by 7.00 pm. He has a lot of trouble with his tummy, and is on a strict diet, with pain killers. Hopefully things with improve, but he was very sore last night when we spoke.

Fiona, Your Mum looks very nice in that photo, How long ago was that taken ?? to think she is only 15 years older than me. My Mum would be over 117 by now. It starts to make you feel old. NO COMMENTS !!

Morning Everyone, Evening Kim


We have a sunny day, just a little wind,

I have changed my photo today as it is my mums birthday and she would have been 89 today, love you mum & miss you lots :-Dxxxxxxx , the photo was taken at my wedding.

Be back later as we are off to the garden center.

See ya.

Was up the tunnel all afternon yesterday thats why I was'nt on here.

Morning all/Evening Kim,

I tried to get on here about 6.00 pm last night. But my arms, legs and back ached so much. I stayed in the armchair ;-) ;-)

We had a day in the garden, as it was so nice. I should have done a WILL. lol lol
Anyway, I trimmed round both lawns, and cut them, they were a bit damp and the grass was sticking round the bottom of the mower, and leaving cuttings at the side of the runs, So left it an hour, with the sun poring down on it, and cut it again.
I put seed pots into the bags, tied up the netting round the pea canes. I then helped Ros with the planting of the planters. We have the hanging baskets still to do.

OMG do I ache this morning, my left arm (my good one) is trying to tell me to stop using it. as it's throbbing like mad.

Day off today, me thinks !!! But when I look out at what we have done it gives a sense of satisfaction, and feel it was worth all the effort.

Off to get my bacon sarnie and my third cup of tea, then shower and shave, and maybe go to get a haircut. I also have had a reminder that my eyes need testing, so could be MORE EXPENCE

Morning/Evening All

YES IT"S ME .I'm home :-D :-D..We got back last night and more or less just dropped into bed.Janice is staying here until tomorrow so I won't be around much today.
Had a great time in Lille even though the weather was pretty horrible.The one day that was sunny was on Wednesday which worked out perfectly as we decided to take a train to Ghent in Belgium.What a lovely place that was .(wish we had stayed there now).Our feet are still aching from walking on all the cobbles :-S :-S

I'll tell more next time ,must go now as I thought Janice might like to go to Beckwort* Emporium.
I haven't looked at any posts yet so don't know what I've missed yet.
I'll try and get back later.

Morning all, up earlyish, sending my prescription on line and waiting for the plumber to phone!

I've come to the conclusion that GR doesn't like mornings!! I had to log in via Google once again and do 'stepping stones' to get here after getting the dreaded ERROR message yet again.

Yes, Mandy, I agree with you - a shop occupied, no matter by who or what is much better than an empty shop. I can't say anything bad about charity shops as we both use them and support them. After all, I'd rather send unwanted items to a charity shop than bin them any day, but I don't like door to door collections. We get an average of 2 collection bags delivered through our letter boxes per week. Then when you see plain vans going round collecting them you wonder if someone else is cashing in on it?

Hope you all have a nice day.

Goodness it is so quiet on here :-S

Mel was last seen going to the library van !! :-D :-D

Evening everyone,

It's been a nice dry and sunny day here , hubby has been home today and has started on the kitchen, the skirting has been taken off also the architrave as we're having new fitted ,all the paper is now off the walls ready for hubby to scim them with new plaster .
I've been out in the garden cutting dead bits off the Honeysuckle and potting up some Cleome plants that i grew from seed.

The family should have come for tea tonight ,but son rang to say that he had to pick Jake up from school early as he wasn't feeling well so they wouldn't be coming .

Thanks for the photo's William , what a lovely sunrise you had this morning , Lichfield looks a nice place to visit ,plenty of seats in the market square to have a rest and i see the Cathedral has some lovely spires too, i bet it was nice having the picnic by the pool .
We have plenty of empty shops in the town and there is a bit of a hue ha going on because there is a Pound Stretcher shop opening tomorrow ,lots people saying we have enough cheapy shops and charity shops already in the town and do we really need more !! but a lot of people use them ,and it's better to have shops filled than standing empty !!

Good job you heard the tap running !! you might have been flooded by the time you got back !!

Frank, those crystals look so pretty with the sun shining through them , i have a little crystal egg in a stand and a crystal dog on the window sill in the conservatory and when the sun catches them they send rainbows onto the walls .

I hope your daughter managed to find a dress for the christening Fiona, will you be going to Italy with them for the christening ?

Maureen , what about a shawl wrap if you carnt find a jacket , they can look nice , although if it doesn't warm up a bit you will want a jacket !!

Well Mel, I didn't post because we have spent a lovely day in Lichfield. I've sent out some photos I took while we were there so I hope you will enjoy the trip too.
It's about an hour to drive to Lichfield from here, through nice back lanes and pretty scenery. We took sandwiches and drinks so we could have a picnic lunch beside the Cathedral pool as you will see. The old TG Hughes store that closed down has re-opened as Debenham's just 10am this morning. We just went in and found the café and they do a lovely pot of tea. I hate to see empty shops and there are so many around these days, no matter where you go. The photo in the narrow alley, that's Carmel walking ahead of me, it's difficult to walk two abreast in that narrow space.

We were both up early as a nice day seemed in the offing (see also 'sky' email). Washing out on the line, looking forward to our trip out when suddenly - problem!!! I was in the bathroom getting ready and I could hear this noise and I just thought next door must have a power shower fitted. It wasn't till I ran some water to clean my teeth that I noticed the noise abated, then started again. I went to our downstairs toilet and the hot tap in the basin there was running like billy-o. The washer must have gone. I turned off the mains and rang and left a message for our plumber. So, why not go out, save worrying about water!!! It's just a good job it didn't happen while we were out.

Yesterday we were very active, me doing the donkey work, Carmel being a hand-seamstress. She had some lovely curtains we intended for our front room (lounge, sitting room, Sunday parlour, call it what you will) but they were too long. We have a big bay and Carmel measured them and turned up four inches of hem on both of them by hand. Her remark was, no wonder I never made any money as a seamstress in my youth. She was at it for hours, more patience than me. All I had to do was chivvy up and down the steps, iron the curtains, put up and take down curtains. Result, they look absolutely great.

Frank, like myself, you no doubt grew up with Cockney rhyming slang. I thought of a phrase I often use and thinking about it, I can't really make it out. If my feet are aching I say "My dogs are barking". Okay, dogs is from 'dogs meat' = feet, but where does the barking come from?
Let's see if you use the saying or have an answer???