General Chat

I'm glad your toe is improving, Florence. That sounds so painful.

I know of a couple of people locally who had MRIs done earlier this year, and they had to wait at least 6 weeks. As you say, such a long wait, worrying about what the result will be.

Good to hear that the elbow op is done, and that you're making progress with your Assisted Living plans, Sylvia.
There's very little assisted living (sheltered housing) in this area, and long waiting lists .

Joan - how are you? We haven't heard from you for a while - hope you're OK.

We had one and a half warm sunny days , and for once some summer clothes saw the light of day - but yesterday and today we've been back to cool, showery, windy, grey weather, plus jumpers and heating.

Of course, it always does rain for the school holidays!

In spite of the lack of sunshine, my strawberries are doing well. Enough are ripening to give me a small plateful every day.

Afternoon all

Well the throbbing pain in my toe has greatly subsided so hopefully those tabs have hit the infection and its clearing up.

I have emailed my GP as not heard a beak since the Dr in Edinburgh sent a letter with recommendations. They have replied and said my email has been fwd to the Dr and they will be in touch soon! Why is it thought, that we as patients are constantly chasing up things.

My MRI was back on the 27 May and still no results. I did tel over 10 days ago and all I got told was 6 weeks is the minimum before you get the results, good or bad! No wonder we all get stressed out with worry1

It is very cloudy and windy but dry here un ;like Aberdeenshire and surrounds that have torrential rain I believe. We were on the edge of that weather front and so i think have escaped it...for a change.

I'm going to make mackerel pate today as we haven't had that for ages and serve with triangles of toast and side salad for tea. Doesn't sound much but 4 large triangles is quite filling for me.

I sorted out the cupboard with all the jars and tins today and we seem to have rather a lot, so i took quite a few jars of sauces and tins of fruit, tuna etc and have stored them in a box. The dates are until next year so will be fine. This will be our winter box for when the weather may be bad and/or we cant get a delivery online.

I now have shelves that are not overfull so not so heavy..

Well hope your plumber does a good job Linda and doesn't take too long.

Hope everyone else is keeping well and ok

Florence in the hebrides

good morning all. I hope the antibiotics have started to work Florence and that you feel better.

that sounds a nice big ensuite Linda, At least he seems keen to start work on time. Pleased the weather is better for the Yorkshire show. It is cloudy sun here but very blustery.

Good morning everyone. I hope you are feeling better today Florence.
The rain has stopped thank goodness , it is just cloudy today, better weather for those attending the Great Yorkshire show.

The plumber arrived early,he has just about finished plumbing in the new sink and toilet into the new unit which goes right across the end of the room. He will be turning the water off after that because he is going to fit in a towel radiator instead of the small radiator which was there . The new radiator is much wider than the original one, so he has all the pipe work to alter.

Oh goodness Florence, your toe sounds bad, I hope that the antibiotics clear it up quickly. At least you have managed to sort out your crafting things.

The plumbers have made good progress today.There will only be one of them tomorrow, so he wants to start at 7.30 am to get a lot done. That means I will have to get up even earlier than today :-(

My hearing appointment isn’t until Thursday, I forgot to put the day in the post

Afternoon everyone.

Sorry to say that for a change we have a beautiful, warm sunny day with a small breeze! makes a change after all the horrid weather we've had recently.

Linda, its so sad for these shows when the weather turns nasty as all the stalls are relying on selling their goods etc and people wont turn out in horrid weather. I remember going to shows like The South of England Show at Ardingly which when it was hot & sunny loads of people came but when the rain came was awful. Hope you get to your hearing test ok!

Sylvia, so glad to read hubbys op was done and all ok. I do think like others, moving into assisted living will be a weight of your shoulders and how marvellous to have a company to help you pack and get organised etc. Up here, you would have to get your own family to move you and the small place we have in town isnt that big. i think the rooms are one big room for daily living, a bedroom and shower and that's it. So one would have to virtually get rid of nearly all ones possessions.
But i hope it all works out well for you and hubby.

JustGinnie, so glad your pound shop rose bush has done so well, what a bargain!
Sometimes it isn't always the most expensive plants that do so well!

I ordered 4 upright containers that you can store spaghetti in but i'm using them for rice, lentils and some pasta. It will tidy the top shelf up and get rid of all the packets we have. My new 5 drawer narrow chest eventually was delivered today although they never tel to tell me what day they were coming!!

Anyway. I have spent the last hour or so, filling up the drawers with all my crafting accessories and now can see the tops of my other bedroom furniture lol and all looks neat & tidy and less cluttered once again. I did pay them to assemble it for me but just now im not feeling too good and havent the patience to do it myself.

The toe next to my big toe has some horrid infection and i now have antibiotics for it but the pain is terrible and hurts walking. I had a fungal infection to begin with and then the nail came off and that bled for hours! But this morning it was swollen badly and very dark in colour so i took a needle to the side and pierced it! Oh my the blood flowed out like a river but then it stopped and the swelling has gone down so all i did was alleviate the swelling. i have now put savlon and a good dressing over the whole toe and shall leave that on.

Hopefully the tabs will kick in soon and clear it up.

Well time for a coffee and a cracker and then to sort out the top shelves in the kitchen.

Sending you all some sun :-D :-D

Florence in the hebrides

What a change from yesterday. The rain is absolutely sheeting down today. It would be of course because today is the first day of the Great Yorkshire Show. It is on for four days with al,tickets so,d, 35,000 people every day. Poor souls will be soaking wet. The traffic in the whole area is gridlocked for four days so going any where is difficult. I have a hearing appointment right in the centre of Harrogate, so I am going to go really early in the bus.

I am glad that your OH came through the op well Sylvia. I was going to say that it was odd that he hadn’t known he had broken his arm previously, but I remember that when my mother had a heart attack, the scan showed that it was actually her second one. She had had a previous heart attack in the past ten years. She had no idea, the only thing that she could think of was that he had feinted one day when she was going down the stairs, so wondered if that was it.
The company to help you move sounds like a really good idea. It is tempting to hold onto too much stuff just because you have always had it. Moving to an assisted living apartment is such a good idea, your next big adventure.

It has been really sunny here today. I took Eve out for the day. We walked from the centre of Harrogate up through Valley Gardens and the woods to Harlow Carr Gardens. There is a Bettys cafe there, but there was a forty minute wait, so we went into the shop instead and bought sandwiches and cakes for a picnic. We didn’t go into the Harlow Carr Gardens as it is expensive and it is not long since we went. After the picnic we walked all the way back, so my feet were aching by the time we got home.

The plumber came today to start the en-suite. It is going to take most of the week, but he has made a good start.

I don't think we have anything firms like that here Sylvia but I may be wrong . It will be a massive help for you as you say. You will be able to do other things without the worry of sorting your house out. I think you are making a wise decision .

When my sister died suddenly I engaged a Probate firm and a firm to deal with the estate agents etc to sell her home. Yes I had to pay for the service (out of her estate) but the value to me was definitely worth it. No one else in the family wanted to take on the work entailed so I decided to do it my way.
I do hope your OH recovers from the op well and quickly.

It is a warm day with sun and cloud quite pleasant really but we may get rain later. Won't mind that as it will water the plants.

Take care all

At least the elbow op is done Sylvia so that is good news. And you are moving foward with sorting out moving to assisted living. that firm that organises it all for you sounds a marvellous idea. I have not heard of anything like that here. So, do you know where the assisted living apartment will be? Even with help it is all very much an upheaval I am sure.

We're in a heat wave!!

Began last Thursday, and today (Sunday) was over 30C outside, and muggy feeling! It will last at least until mid-week. Daughter and I are managing to sleep pretty well by having a fan in each of our rooms, plus two others directing cooler air down the hall.

OH is still in hospital, air conditioned!!

They operated on his elbow yesterday (Saturday), and were faced with the fact that he'd apparently fractured the bone close to this new one about 18 months to 3 years ago :-0 That fracture had healed but the muscles had tightened, so they had to stretch the ligaments. He's in a cast!!

I remember him tripping over a bit of the pavement that was slightly raised outside our bank on the main road some time ago, can't remember exactly how long ago, and that he did complain that he had bruised that arm, but no complaints about great pain.

Anyway, the surgeon(s) had quite the job!

He's now in the 3rd room in 2 days, having been moved up to the orthopaedic recovery ward yesterday evening after post-op recovery, but then moved across that ward to close by the nurses station this afternoon when we told them he had been known to get out of bed in the night and walk! It is not a secure ward!! Luckily the Hospitalist doctors and team are still involved, so we wait and see what happens next.

We still have no idea how long he will be in the hospital, but tomorrow morning I'm going to fill out the paper work for the apartment in Assisted Living, and pay my deposit. Then we take it from there!

Daughter has persuaded me that it will help to hire a local company that helps people downsize and move ............ she and her team will literally take over every single aspect of the downsizing and moving (even going through our clothes!), whether it is within this city or across the country! Costly, but honestly I think it is going to be worth it for me, because that leaves me free to concentrate on OH and our future without having to think about hiring moving companies, what to do with stuff that is excess, etc etc.

Afternoon all.

A fairly pleasant and reasonably warm day today. I have been outside twice looking at everything growing. my Livingstone daisies which i grew from seed have suddenly bloomed and beautiful colours too. I also noticed my holly plant, i bought last xmas has really grown a lot recently.

My neighbour came round for the afternoon as her hubby was working, so we had a lovely blether over coffee and nibbles. She didn't go until 4 so by then was time to sort out my eve meal.

I shall need to go and water the pots soon as I noticed some pots were quite dry even after all the rain we had..The wind has gone down so that's good too.

Linda, my brother owns his own carpet business and always says for reasonable quality anything over £22 per square metre is ok, over £25 is very good quality.

Mine were £24.99 so should last a few years!

We decided to go and look at the carpet shop which we use in town. We were going to walk, but it started raining, so we took the car most of the way. There is some free disc parking a five minute stroll from the centre which we use. They are coming on Thursday to measure up for the vinyl for the bathroom and en-suite plus the carpet for the stairs, landing and four bedrooms. We chose three possible berbers , so we have borrowed the books for those ranges. I thought they would want them back quickly, but he said he will collect them on Thursday, let’s hope no one else wants those ranges in the next few days. As they have done the wood flooring already, they know we aren’t time wasters. I am a firm believer that with carpets you get what you pay for, so choosing good quality in the first place means you aren’t going to have to replace them in six or seven years.
We also visited our favourite coffee shop, it was lemon and blueberry cake for me today. The owner always asks for my honest opinion on her new cakes. Today, I thought that the cake was beautifully moist, but that the frosting was a bit too sweet. She had tried some and agreed with me. I am not critical in a nasty way, she really does want an honest opinion. She always has five different home made cakes as well as scones, apple pie etc. Her Raspberry and white chocolate cake is still top of the list and probably will never be knocked off top spot.

Thanks for suggesting that, Agingrocker.

I've had a look , and they have one rug which might do.
I'll also do a bit more online shopping around in case the perfect rug jumps out at me somewhere else.

Argyllgran - and anybody else interested.

We have bought rugs rwice from an online company www.rugsdirect.co.uk They are very good quality, reasonably priced, and excellent service. Worth a look.

The whole Morse, Lewis and Endeavour series were excellent. I had the Morse box set and read then three times over the years. I only sent them to the charity shop before we came here.

I can’t believe that we actually won the penalty shoot out. We never do!

Die to lack of anything of interest on tv, I am actually watching England play :-D :-D :-D OMG, never thought I would be reduced to it lol extra time!

AG, oh so glad you got a free return :-D

Linda, Morse is probably my all time favourite :-D

Speaking of good quality dramas - I have LOVED "Ripley" on Netflix.
Black & white, and very beautifully and cleverly filmed.
Also very funny in places in spite of the sombre theme and occasional violence.

It is hard trying to find rugs and doormats without actually seeing them. I wanted a washable doormat for the utility room. It needed to be much larger than a normal size. It was hard to find the size I wanted. I got one in the end which looks OK, but it is more like a bathmat than a doormat , even though it was sold as a doormat. :-( It will have to do until I come across something better in a shop

I have watched some Wimbledon this afternoon and now of course we are watching the football. I don’t mind , as you say Florence each to their own. For instance, I hate soaps and would never watch them in a million years . We tend to watch documentaries, especially history programmes. I don’t mind good quality dramas on the lines of Morse etc.