General Chat

Went to Holsworthy today as I needed chicken food and some compost. I needed to take my three library books back too but they are not open on a Friday so I had to leave them in a safe box never done that before.

Bought chicken food and a little oyster joint of ham, some drawstring bin bags and some bird seed. Two sacks of compost but they did'nt have the one I like so I got Westland mult purpose peat free and 4 4' canes. Then I went into town to look at tops for the wedding in August. I don't know what Iam going to wear as I don't do dresses and I have put on a lot of weight lately so now I must try and be good and not buy cream cakes or have butter on my toast etc. I am sitting here with a black coffee after eating a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich and two crumpets. I shall have the quiche again tonight and that will be it.

I bought two nice smooth skinned pears in the greengrocers. I don't like the rough skinned pears they make me shudder. Always been the same with rough things, like stockinged feet on a carpet when you turn. I think it was ever since seeing tripe in the butchers shop window as a child.

Bought a pretty apple green top in The Factory Shop and then went and got some diesel. Now all I have to do is get the chicken food and compost out of the boot and into two sheds.

Your school journey was similar to mine AnnG as I caught a bus into the city, then walked to the bus station and caught another bus home to the outskirts of the city. Then my parents moved to a village about 8 miles from the city and the bus would take a while as it called at other villages on the way too. My parent's house was in a group of 6 houses midway between two villages and surrounded by fields between the villages. The only streetlight between the villages was just one that was outside our group of houses, so it was very dark walking home in the winter from the bus stop in the centre of the village.

The dentist fixed OH's tooth but wants him to ask the hospital about the extraction of two loose ones next time he is there in case they think he should be referred to them to extract them rather than him, due to the medication he's on for his osteoporosis and the fact they are getting small flare ups of infection.

His scan results are back and they told him to book a telephone appointment which he's done now. I got a letter today telling me the bowel test, which I had returned to them yesterday is now 'on it's way' to me. :-)

Next task is the food order.

Afternoon everyone

I slept OK last night and the migraine is almost gone now but it’s left me completely drained. I feel exhausted yet I’ve hardly done anything today. We went into town this morning and OH took some stuff to a charity shop and went to the gentlemen’s shop to pick up some trousers that were being altered to fit him while I went to Waitrose. His trousers appear to have gone missing but that’s another story. I wanted to stock up with some fish from Waitrose. Their fish is good but expensive. However on Fridays it’s 20% off if you have a Waitrose card. I paid £47 for my purchases but full price would have been £59 so it’s a discount worth having.

When we got back I cooked our main meal as we are out tonight so it’s easier to eat at lunchtime today. We’re going to our little local theatre to see Second Best Bed which is a one woman show. She is supposed to be Anne Hathaway talking on the night of Shakespeare’s funeral. I’ve got a very vague feeling I’ve seen it before but OH can’t remember it so perhaps I’ve muddled it up with something else.

Annx and AnnG, it’s a pity about your French marigolds as mine are doing well. I can’t grow them in the ground as slugs and snails demolish them as soon as they are planted so I’ve got them in a half barrel with copper tape round it. I’m trying to think what compost I would have used. I think it would have been a mixture of old stuff used before, some new compost which would have been a cheap one from Roy’s and a few handfuls of gravel to help with the drainage.

You are getting on well with those poppies Mandy. You must send us some pictures when they are on display.

I’d better go and find something to wear tonight. We certainly don’t need to dress up and I’ll probably only wear trousers and a shirt but I do at least like to look tidy when I go out and the “home” clothes I’m wearing at the moment are decidedly scruffy.

True we always grew French marigolds and put them in the borders with lobelias and other small plants and always had a lovely show. Maybe I should fill the pots with garden soil. I did notice when I planted them out, and they were flowering and looking good, their root systems were not developed very well, just tiny thready roots yet the plants had grown too big not to plant them out. And mine came from two different garden centres. So frustrating.

Yes we used to finish school at 4pm and the school buses would leave from outside the school at 4.15. Other than very local children all pupils would be on the buses as it was a High School that took pupils from a wide area. My bus journey was a bout 45 minutes and then I had to get another bus home from town. Hard to imagine 11 year olds doing that now.

That's interesting AnnG as the french marigolds I put in pots aren't thriving. Some that I haven't got round to planting and are still in the nursery tray look far healthier and are flowering well despite being very cramped now. I was wondering if the move away from peat was part of the problem, although years ago I planted my own French Marigold seed in ordinary soil and they were fine. It is strange and even the front wall pots are not doing as well as they usually do. The petunias in a big pot are flowering, but seem to be standing still. I know it isn't slugs or snails and I haven't seen any weevils in any of the compost.

It seems you also have the traffic backlogs at school finishing times too, so it must be general. OH's meetings are often at the end of the school day so he has the problem travelling to his meetings as the parents are all picking their children up. Half hour journeys take an hour now because of it. When we've been out for lunch, we've seen laybys full of school buses waiting to set off. School days seem shorter at least at senior schools these days. We see the children walking past our close by 3.15pm whereas we didn't finish till 4.00pm and would catch a 4.15pm bus.

Ann yes thanks, leg is not too bad today, a bit stiff but I have managed a walk down to Irene's to take some more books back for her. That is the May holiday reading material now returned.
I am beginning to despair of having anything nice growing in the pots as, stuff planted this year is not all thriving. the bedding begonias seem to be coping ok but I have lost practically all of a dozen French Marigolds I planted. and they were planted in ne basket and container compost. I think we are suffering from the no peat law. I will have to speak to my gardening friends as see if they have found a solution.

we have five schools spread around this village. Two senior schools and three combined Junior/infants. And at 'home' time which is a bit staggered so it covers from about 2.45 (because parents get there early to park) to way past 4 o'clock the surrounding roads are clogged up causing tailback for miles. The problem is that when children attended school in their catchment area many of them could walk to school but now they come from all over and there are the school buses to add to the problem.

Morning All,

It’s 21 degrees here now and I woke up early despite having been awake till 4.00am. OH was already up and had done some of his work and put washing out. He’s gone to the dentist now as he broke a tooth the other day biting something hard. It’s meant his tongue was very sore with rubbing against it so I fetched him some Bonjela. I did suggest he talk a bit less. Lol.

Crikey Mandy, you don’t hang about once you get started on a project! You must be pretty quick at crochet to have already done that many poppies! I bet they look lovely. You mentioned the school traffic and when we popped to do a few errands earlier, we passed the little park where I did my short walks and where the old ice house is. It was before 9.00am and the car park was already nearly full. Then a bit further on we noticed a lot of women were walking on the pavement and OH said he bet they had all parked on the little carpark then walked their children to the school on the corner. OH often has problems getting past the school on his way to some meetings as the parents park all along a slip road opposite the school, including blocking people’s driveways. The school is right on a road junction too and he says it is chaos there when the school finishes for the day as there are only about 3 parking spaces in a little layby and the road is too narrow to be able to park at the roadside.

I bet your BIL was pleased to have some of your homemade sausage rolls and a quiche to take home Mel.

Yes it does give you a boost when things work out well and you find something nice to buy and take home AnnG. I was pleased how my knees coped and the trip out didn’t make them worse again today, so I’ll be ok to pop out in the garden and pull another small patch of weeds up. I hope your leg is ok after your walk yesterday and continues to get better.

I think I will have to start again with fresh plants in the pots I’ve planted as they aren’t thriving at all. I removed a lot of the old compost and mixed in fresh as I usually do, but I think there must have been some of that awful compost that nothing grew in last year left in them. So out with the lot I think and start afresh. No wonder nothing grew last year, not even the beans.

I hope Vera managed a good sleep last night

Better get on with some HW and another load of washing next.

Good morning all on this LONGEST DAY. Its all down hil after today and the days will get shorter.

That was a long post I lost yesterday and I had copied some of it in the thought that I may lose the lot and then when it went I forgot.

After mowing all the lawns yesterday BIL took out four sponge filters out of the big box filter where the water goes before going back into the big pond and we washed them but he put four new ones in. The whole thing wants a good cleanout but I think that will be for another day.

Vera yes I did make two quiche yesterday and sausage rolls and cooked the spare sausages. I asked him if he wanted quiche for lunch or take it home so SIL would'nt have to cook tonight but he said he would have quiche. Gave it to him and he had just cut into it when I said I had sausage rolls and did he want those instead. He said yes so I wrapped the quiche for him to take home for dinner.

He also took off the old solar light battery boxes as both sets of light had gone and I need to find the new set to put out there.

I am posting this.

Morning all,

Lovely blue sky here and we should get to 24 degrees today then cooler tomorrow which is how I like it day after day of heat is very draining ,next week as Ann said it should get really hot .

Oh dear Mel have you lost a post again :-( yesterday I was typing away and the whole page just closed down ,I think I catch my finger on the little cross at the top left hand corner of the tablet it's so annoying .

Poppies are coming along 19 so far .

Off to Tesco in a while we usually wait until all the school traffic has eased .

Good morning all 15 degrees already. Sun is shining and the sky is pale blue. Another lazy day today although maybe I should do a bit of the dreaded H/W.

good job you C&P that lot Ann, it would have been a pain if you lost it. As Vera said mel. better try copying and pasting if it is going to keep on happening.

Annx that sounds like a very productive morning that you obviously enjoyed. It does make you feel good when things work out well doesn't it?

Evening All,

I got up the same two times as you Mel. Fancy turning the heating on by mistake. I bet you are glad you hadn’t then gone to spend an hour or two in the garden afterwards. It’s easily done though. Did the quiches turn out ok?

I wonder if the tyre valve hadn’t seated properly the time it was pumped up before you visited your friends Vera and had gradually lost pressure. Any jolts from road humps or potholes in the meantime might have hastened it going flat. Then when your OH pumped it up again the valve might have seated itself properly again and stopped leaking air. I have a feeling that when I was first given one of those cakes I tried to peel the rice paper off too!

OH is glad he just gets the visual disturbances now. He used to get the headaches with sickness too many years ago. I used to get them mid month that were hormonal, so they went as I got older. The headaches that are sometimes waking him at night now do usually respond to paracetamol enough to get off to sleep again, but he takes ibuprofen next if they persist. He finds bending brings them on worse too and those were the sort I used to get. He wondered if the migraines were changing again, but the doc after questioning him this time has some other ideas. I hope yours is soon better again as they are really debilitating and leave you shattered. He’s fine again today, which is good, as he had been asked to do an online talk slot to about 500 people today. It was to be a long meeting with various speakers and as my knees are feeling a bit better each day, and I couldn’t boil a kettle, do washing or hoover because of making a noise, I decided to do the same as AnnG and give my knees a bit of a test by going out and about. I called and posted my bowel test first, but the usual box has changed their collection time, so I had to go to another. I called at the shop next, then a small garden centre. It was quiet there considering it was mid morning, so I had a small brekkie and latte and read my magazine. A lot of plants were ‘leggy’ so I didn’t buy any and went another 17 miles to the Factory Shop. I found a nice, loose weave cotton top so got that and found a few other things I want to get. I forgot to bring a discount card we have though, so will bring OH to get those and anything he wants.

The pot will be good with a Hosta Mandy, but with hindsight I wish I’d lined my pots of them with polythene to help get them out now they need dividing. Aldi have some good buys don’t they.

Re the bumble bees we are the same as you AnnG. I saw a lot and quite early in the spring too, but I haven’t seen any for a while now. At least the miner bees seem to have disappeared from the island bed this year. They were a nuisance last year every time I poked my trowel around one seemed to fly out.

I noticed the temperature is shooting up next week too. I am going to meet up with an old friend I haven’t seen since before the pandemic, so I hope it isn’t too hot!

(cut and pasted Vera and AnnG!! ;-) )

Oh dear Mel, I can see the steam coming out of your ears from here. You must be feeling really frustrated. Why not give the copy and paste method a try. It might save you from losing so many posts.

king tins

FART FART FART

We all have those senior moments Mel, but you certainly wouldn't want heating on today. Did you get your quiche cooked?

It is a lovely day here and is now 21 degrees. It is supposed to get hotter next week but I hope it doesn't get too hot, particularly at night. I did get in the garden first thing before it got too warm and did a bit of weeding and deadheading but constantly bending was making my head swim so I didn't stay out there long. I am getting better but I still have the pain over one eye and down one side of my face and head.

I haven't done any h/w today though there's plenty that needs doing. However I have replied to emails that have come over the last couple of days. I also seem to have been on the phone half the morning. I now have a telephone consultation with a clinical pharmacist at our GP surgery for the annual review of my meds. That's for Tuesday, I have a hair appointment booked for Wednesday and our next Covid jab and flu jab booked for 9th November. I had just put the phone down from these calls when son and dil rang from their car. They are on the way to the Isle of Rum where they are camping and foraging for their food etc. I think it is some sort of short course. They must be mad! They've recently done a weekend course in blacksmithing and made knives.

Well, our tyre is still a mystery. I don't think we'll ever find out what happened for it to lose air but it certainly isn't a puncture. It's been pumped up since last Friday night now and has been driven and it's still fully inflated. AnnG's suggestion of some idiot letting the tyre down seems the only logical answer but we don't think that could have happened. We don't get much of that type of vandalism round here and our friends live in a quiet cul-de-sac off a quiet road. But the main thing is that our friends have a very short drive and the car was parked right by the front door and window of the living room. It was the front nearside tyre that was flat and that would have been right by the front window. Anyone fiddling with the valve would have been in full view of the men who were in that room. I know men aren't always very observant but I think even they would have seen someone bobbing about the car right in front of their eyes.

My eyes have had enough now so I think I'll close the computer down for a while. I hope you have all got good weather too and are enjoying the day.

I decided this morning to stop trying to not do anything involving walking as I was beginning to feel I was treating myself like an invalid. so I took my folding stick and caught the bus in to town. took the folding one as I thought I might try going around without it. It was quite busy in town, a lot of teenagers around, as usual for this time of year with some exams finished and some having study time off etc (How it helps being in Primark I am not sure!!). I didn't feel confident enough with so many youngsters zooming around to stop using the stick. Any way my leg behaved well and my balance seemed fine too. Coming home before I got on the bus, I folded my stick and put it away in my bag (sticks are a real nuisance on the bus and in cars). I then walked from the bus stop round to home without the stick and I was fine.
Leg is a bit sore/tired but really not too bad so hopefully it is on the mend.

Gosh its hot Em's been for eggs and BIL is mowing so I have had a natter with both.

I was trying to get a couple of quiches done but I hav'nt started yet!!! I turned on the hot water this morning and thought its going on for a long while and I had turned the heating on instead and I don't need that on today as it is so warm and I found out just in time and the rads were'nt that hot. Thats my senion moment for the day I hope.

Now lets see if I can manage not to burn the quiche.

Morning girls,

Another bright sunny morning but it was'nt at 6am when i got up for the loo. Went back to bed and slept till 9.33am.

Wonder what time BIL will arrive to mow? I better get dressed and ready and tidy the table.

I too googled the poppies and thought they looked so lovely. All that work the ladies have put in it must have taken ages and all for the lost souls of our lovely country. Bless. <3

I too hope Vera and G feel much better today after their migraines. I went through a time of them but hav'nt had one for years now, touch wood. Aunt Joy suffers with them though.

Good morning all. Looks like it is going to be a hopefully nice day. It is 12 degrees now at 0730. I slept well last night I got up once early in the night, then leg woke me early this morning. I think it had stayed in one position for too long.

I hope your migraine is now clear Vera and Ann's OH's is too.
Glad that you have bumble bees Mel. Early on this year when they first emerged there were quite a few but I did keep seeing dead ones laying around so I wondered if there was a disease getting them.

I googled the poppies as well, how lovely Gwynne, so many of them.

Ive got lots of bumble bees. The bees love the bunny rabbits all self seeded on the patio.

Got red stripes in the sky at the moment so I hope we get a nice day again tomorrow as BIL is coming to mow as he has wifes grandson coming for the weekend with his girlfriend. Think I have that right. It may be wifes son and girlfriend.

Phew, it’s like an oven in the study here. The room is under the eaves and my desk is under a sloping roof section so any air coming in through the open window misses me altogether. It’s apparently 14 degrees but it feels a lot warmer and I think it is going to be another hot night.

I googled the poppies on the railings in Fokestone Gwyn. They make a lovely display. Since 2018, the centenary of the WW1 armistice, we have had a cargo net of poppies cascading down from the tower of a local redundant church. I think it’s put up by the fire brigade around the end of October. I don’t think it was put up during lockdown but I think it was there last year. I believe it contains something like 23,000 knitted and crocheted poppies. If it goes up this year I’ll try to remember to get a photo of it.

You’ve done well passing on so much of the contents of your shed Mandy. I expect local people will be popping by your house for days to come to see what bargains they can find and I bet it won’t take you long to fill all the extra space in your shed.

I did have a giggle at your OH picking the gel off the dishwasher tabs Annx. He might prefer the ones I buy which are in the old fashioned paper that you take off. I get them because FarmFoods sell 2 very large boxes for about £20. They are made by Finish and clean the dishes very well but work out quite a lot cheaper. Another reason your story made me laugh as that it brought back a memory of my father. Dad was taken ill while visiting me one time and ended up in hospital for 8 months so I often took him in little treats. One day I took him a pack of 6 coconut macaroons. The next day when I visited he told me not to bring him those cakes again as he couldn’t get the paper off them and so had to throw them away. He had been trying with his badly deformed fingers to peel the edible rice paper off the bottom! I do feel for your OH with his migraines and hope they can get to the bottom of them. Does he find paracetamol work? They don’t even take the edge off my pain so I have a strong co-codamol prescribed, though I am very careful not to take more than absolutely necessary.

I have been out of action a bit myself yesterday and today because of a migraine which started Monday night with my eyes going blurry and out of focus with colours merging into each other. After about 30 minutes the eyes cleared and the pain started. At least I don’t get the terrible sickness these days. Yesterday I just kept laying down for a while, then getting up and just sitting in a chair, then going back to bed. Today I had to go to the pharmacy but still wasn’t safe to drive so OH took me. Apart from that and getting some food ready I have done nothing all day again so I am all behind now.

Mel, it's a good job you noticed that tick and the nurse could get it out for you. Horrid things. You’ve been busy with your h/w today on top of all the garden work you do. I wish I had your energy.

You did well with walking to the dentist and back today AnnG. I can’t believe your gt-granddaughter is 8 already. Where have those years gone? 19th June is obviously a good day to be born. My eldest granddaughter and one of my step-grandsons both have their birthdays today.

I think my eyes and my head have had enough of looking at a screen so I think it’s time to wish you all goodnight and sweet dreams.