General Chat

Evening all,

It's been really windy and sunny here today , the washing didn't take long to dry but it was holding it on the line that was the problem .

Jane can't help you with the tree i'm afraid but i see you have had a couple of suggestions it certainly has some long needles on it .
Hope you got your blood test done ok and don't have to wait to long for the result ,it's handy them doing it at the council offices too.

Well done Gill i see you got all sorted with help from OH's friend so you should be ok now .

Frank i can see Ros having to make some masks now it will make a change from all the bags she's been doing but a bit more fiddly .

I made some masks a few weeks ago for the little ones just in case they needed them ,i also made my self one and it looks like i might need it now ,i'd better make a few spare ones i think .

Oh goodness Ann no don't let OH go climbing about near the green house thats an accident waiting to happen best to empty the water butt and be safe .
Sorry to hear about your friends husband now she has the difficult time of trying to sort a funeral out and having to be on her own to do it .

AnnG my oven needs doing can you send OH round :-D i might have a go at mine tomorrow while the weather is a bit cooler and we can't get on out side .

I was at the kitchen sink at lunch time and was watching a black bird getting bits from one of my little wall baskets, when i let Max out a while ago he came in with one of my Petunias in his mouth ,the blessed bird had made quite a hole in the basket and tossed out the plant with a load of the compost ,the basket is now in the green house to try and put them off having another go at it ......but no it didn't stop them they have moved on to another basket now .

I see I won't get a haircut till at least July now.........better start making those scrunchies! lol

Well done Gill! I didn't see your post before. It will give you more confidence to do it next time now. :-)

I can see Ros getting more requests for masks as well now Frank with the new rules. Her sewing machine will be smoking. It's good she is getting help with the cutting out now as that takes time too. Yes you keep resting that ankle!

I forgot I still need to do the glass oven door and wire racks AnnG. The rest just turns to white ash to wipe off with the high temperature of the clean setting. I was remembering just now how we had to open the oven door a crack to see what was happening before we had glass oven doors. You had no idea if your cake had risen or not till then.

Mel I wish my lettuce had grown like yours! The trouble is when the garden centres open everything will be snapped up in a flash. Have you noticed online how much stuff is out of stock everywhere now? I expect they can't restock either at the moment. I might send for some on line as there's still time to plant.

Good afternoon all still sunny and very blowy here.

Jane hope all went well with the blood test, do you have to wait long for results?

Gill well done for fixing the router and seems as if you had no trouble with it too.

Annx. Yes the Milton was a lucky find. I can't remember when or why I bought it, probably to clean the sink at some stage. the sides of our oven are self clean it was the racks and glass door that were in a bit of a state. He lamost got it all off, ended up putting the racks on the barbecue to burn off then in the dishwashe. We had a spray to do the glass door with and that has come up very well.

Mel you have been busy planting then. Hoping we don't get a frost tonight as the baskets might suffer if we do.

Vera hope your tooth is ok, although you seemed to think it was the gum, have you tried rinsing with corsodyl if you have any, in case there is an infection there.

Still that stiff breeze here too and it very cold with it.

Its good you like date and walnut cake then Ann if they sent them as a sub. I like dates so it would'nt have bothered me. I too have a couple of beans come up so they acan go in my big tub when they are a bit bigger. My lettuce are doing well and I took the cover off yesterday but had to put it back on as they were getting blown around too much. Some of the little leaves are big enough to pick now as they are cut and come again ones.

I managed to get myself a bag of compost up the shop on Saturday so I think this afternoon I will have a play with it in the shed and pot my one tom plant.

Gill its good you have managed to do the router ready for the change over on the 15th. Well done! :-D

So Frank all in all you had quite a long sleep last night. Don't let Ros wear herself out on the machine. I know she likes to keep busy but she needs to take some time for herself.

That must be better for you to go to the council offices rather than the hospital Jane. Hope it goes ok. When have you got your next scan?? Sending love and wishes and a ((hug)). <3

Hope Vera's mouth is better today. MIne is sore on the bottom left and the bit under my tongue and I don't know why.

Afternoon All,

It's perishing cold here too with a stiff breeze and we had that fine rain earlier. We planted the tomato plants and the cucumber plants in their big pots in the greenhouse this morning and put some cane supports up.. Pity you aren't nearer Mel, as I could have left you some of our self set small gardener's delight plants on your driveway! lol. :-) I have about 8 runner plants that are doing nicely but I expect Ros's are already halfway up the poles! OH wanted me to hold the steps while he climbed over a water butt to get behind the greenhouse as the neighbour has let ivy grow all over the top of our fence and it is forcing it's way between the wooden slats. We then decided it wasn't worth the risk of him falling, possibly into the side of the greenhouse, so will empty that water butt with watering everything and move it out of the way when it is empty.

We both slept badly last night. I think I was worried about my friend whose husband has passed away. I was amazed to hear from the friend that let me know that at the age of about 77 she had got a double bed downstairs on her own for him as he couldn't use the stairs and had cleared the dining room furniture into the garage on her own to make room for it. I find it hard enough to turn a mattress over on my own! Then just as I dropped off I heard someone walking down our drive quickly. It was only 5.15am so I got up and went to the front door to check my car was still outside and saw one of our newspapers had been delivered!!

Good luck with swapping the router Gill......it will be fine I'm sure. :-)

The Milton was a lucky find AnnG. I know I was pleased when I found some at the back of the kitchen sink cupboard. I keep meaning to get some boxes or use cardboard boxes for the stuff under there so I could just pull boxes out to see what I have instead of scrabbling and knocking things over under there. :-S I can't complain about my oven as it cleans itself apart from the racks, but I let my steamer boil dry the other day and that was a horrid black mess to clean off! My plan B was to boil some of the older rhubarb sticks in it.

I hope your blood test results are good Jane and it must be much easier with the new arrangement and not having to go to the hospital. Is the tree in your email one of yours?

Vera I often forget to cook something or include something in a salad. Luckily greens don't take long as you say.

I've had a lazy day and so has OH. I think all the bending and wiping yesterday has left us both achey. I just did a ploughman's for lunch with 2 of the egg custard substitute muffins for afters. Another substitute was dates for my prunes and as we don't like them as they are I shall look out a date an walnut loaf recipe as I like that and don't want to waste anything if I can help it and I always have walnuts.

I did it, well, OH's friend talked me through the process, good job to as something came on the screen I wasn't expecting. So hopefully on the 15th May (switch over day) everything will run smoothly and I won't lose my connection.

I'm going to do a few jobs now, so will catch up with all the posts later.

Frank, Friday was bank holiday, It is not bank holiday today.

Ros realy should have a rest, she won't be protecting the NHS if she is rushed into hospital through doing too much.

How is your foot now?

Good afternoon all,

It's enough to blow your head off, out there. I have put the bins out, and the food caddy. I hope the bins don't get blown over. I must admit our bins are quiet full, but some people put them out with very little in them.

Iffy sort of night again, was in bed by 10.30 pm, still awake when Madam came in 12.30 am Dropped off soon after, only got out once, and slept till 7.00 am. I thought BLOW THIS, I am not getting up get. Must have dropped off again, the next thing I knew it was 10.30.

Ros has finished the last of the material, for the bags, and said she was going to take a break from making more. THEN SUDDENLY Estelle turns up with 4 more Duvet covers. Val rang to say she has some bags all cut out, ready for sewing. She went round to collect them, and dropped of two of the duvets, for her to cut up. SO ONWARDS AND UPWARDS.

I'm not sure BORIS said the right thing, about going back to work today. (a) It's BANK HOLIDAY (b) the business's are not ready for employees to return. (c) Public transport was over-run this morning. DIG YOIR WAY OUT OF THIS ONE BORIS !!!!

My foot/leg is still painful,but I am resting it. My neck is also playing up, so I have put my vibrating neck support on, to try to ease that a bit. Getting old ain't much FUN. lol

T.V is on, but no one is listening to it. So the can go off, and I will read my book. Eos has started sewing up the bags, that she just collected from val.

STAY SAFE EVERYONE. xxxx

Just to let you all know I'm going to attempt to swap my routers over today, so if you don't hear back from me I messed it up and will have to wait until lockdown has ended to get someone here to sort it out for me. Hopefully things will go okay and I'll be back later, but if not you know I'm not ignoring everyone lol. I think I know what I'm doing now, well, hopefully anyway. The switch over is in a few days so if I don't do it now I'll lose my connection anyway. Wish me luck ;-) ;-)

Good luck with your blood test Jane. I'll catch up with all the posts later if I can.

Morning all
Thanks for your suggestions as to what our tree is.I have 3 to check out now :-D. The problem is there are so many similar ones .Might get there in the end :-D :-D

Frank how is your foot this morning? I hope you are being good and resting it.It could take a while for it to heal .

It is cold here too this morning with a stiff breeze. Washing is blowing nicely on the line.AnnG I could do with your OH here to do a few jobs :-D.Especially the oven . Like you it it is the job that always gets put off .

I am off to have my blood test shortly so will have a quick bite of lunch before i go.It is not at the Hospital but at the Council Offices.They have a service there now for Chemo patients between 1 and 2 o'clock which is great.

Just got a Waitrose slot for click and collect on Thursday :-D Morrisons on the15th and Tesco on he 23rd. It seems a bit OTT I know but they will be smaller orders.Waitrose just have some things I love that I can't get anywhere else.I even mananged to order strong flour and Yeast !!!

Morning all,

I think the weather is much the same here as it is with you AnnG. very cold wind same as last night and patches of blue sky between the big clouds.

May do some potting in the shed. I did manage to get a tomato plant up the shop in the week. It is a Gardeners Delight and looks a lovely strong plant. I have to get that in a big pot and a lemon yellow sort of double Million Bells. Then there's the sweet peas to sort out. Then again there's always house work to do somewhere in the house cos it gets left if I go inthe garden.

Really cold here this morning sunny but a very strong very cold wind so OH was going to work in the garage but as he opened the door it blew down again, being wary these days it missed him. Anyway he decided it is too cold to work out there. So I have found him a couple of jobs, first was to tidy the shoe cleaning stuff which he did and cleaned a couple of pairs of shoes. while he was doing that I was sorting washing to the drier, then sorting out my cleaning box under the stairs and the bottle (wine when we have it) box as well. and right at the back of the cupboard I found a almost full bottle of Milton. that will come in handy! I then found OH another job which he is doing (will take a while). Clean the oven!!! Horrible job, because neither of us like doing it it had got really bad.

going to make coffee in a minute and maybe get down to doing some craft stuff, maybe cards, maybe painting. will see. Might dust downstairs first though.

Was going to do some baking but a clean oven is more important. :-D

I agree Annx that slogan is definitely not as effective as the stay home one.

I am sorry to hear about your friend's husband and it is so difficult at this time with funerals too making everything even more upsetting.

I'm not sure 'Keep Alert' is as helpful as 'Keep Social Distance' would be. AnnG maybe there has already been information for employers as OH says it has certainly happened with preparing schools and you would think they would be keeping in touch with their employees. I thought it short notice for people to be back at work tomorrow though. I had to smile at the turnaround from plugging 'use public transport instead of cars' a short while ago to use the car now. It looks like we may get a voucher to get our bikes in the garage serviceable again though! Tomorrow we will hear more, but people will flock to the parks as you say. OH said we could drive out on Wednesday and find a church where I can take some photos.

Sad news from a friend tonight, as the husband of the lady whose house we usually go to in our group, passed away during the night. He wasn't well for some time. I don't know how you get to make all the arrangements at a time like this or what will happen about the funeral. Social distancing must make you feel so isolated, just when you need people around.

Evening all,

What a difference in the weather there was no sitting out in nice sunshine today it's been windy and wet and a lot cooler too .

Jane i'm sorry to read you've got some concerning symptoms i hope this scan soon comes through and they don't keep you waiting about .
It's nice that Hannah and Gareth can visit and you can have a bit of family time together ,who won the game of croquet ?

Mel enjoy your sponge i keep saying i'm going to bake a cake but haven't got round to it with being in the garden .

AnnG lovely photo's of your garden with lots of pretty plants beginning to flower ,i see i have some buds forming on my Petunias in the baskets and the Begonias i had last year and brought in for a bit of warmth are now beginning to show some shoots so i'm pleased that i can soon put them in my boxes on the wall.

Ann what a shame OH's car got scratched by the delivery man ,do you think a little T cut might polish it out i expect he was trying to get near the bungalow to save a bit of time they must be rushed off their feet with all the deliveries.
I've been out and covered some bits in the green house as they say it will be cold tonight ,don't want to lose what i have in there ,the little tumbling toms i have planted in the hanging baskets in there have some flowers on but i won't hang them out until it's a bit warmer at night .

Frank hope you have a better night tonight with your foot ,there's so many little bones in your foot you might have done some thing to one of them .
You don't seem to have much luck with your Chinese takeaway meals ,i'd give up on trying different places and wait until you know your usual one is back up and running .

Well he sun was shining a moment ago now the sky is as black as old harry and it looks more like rain again .

Evening everyone

We haven’t had any rain yet but it’s blowing a real hoolie out there and is getting really cold.
I can see the photos fine AnnG, assuming they are the ones dated 8th May. Perhaps that was when the photos were taken. Your garden is looking quite colourful and I love some of the photos of individual flowers. Thanks for mentioning that website checking service; OH had spoken about it a couple of days ago and I saw something about it in the paper yesterday so I had a look at it. They make it sound as though it is constant monitoring and it is free, which isn’t quite the case. It is free but only for the most basic checking of 2 pages of a site, once a day. I can check more often than that myself. For more pages and more frequent checking there is a subscription to be paid. For checking every 5 minutes, for instance, it is $58 a month which I think is about £47. I don’t think I am that desperate. We’re trying to stay in but we can go out to get food or medicine so if I need a supermarket shop I’ll pick a quiet time of day and get the stuff myself.

While we’re on shopping Mel I registered with Asda just as a back up in case I was desperate but I didn’t want to pay for a regular slot because I don’t normally shop regularly. Also Asda is not my favourite supermarket by any means and we don’t have one here anyway, though we have most of the others. Still, it’s good you are getting on OK with your deliveries from them – one less thing to worry about. Hope your sponge cakes turned out OK. It’s making me feel quite peckish thinking about them.

Gill, it’s not unusual these days not to hear back from companies that you’ve sent job applications to. Tell your OH to just keep applying for anything and everything. There will be a job out there for him somewhere. Even a temporary job would keep the wolf from the door while he carries on looking around so he should try to stay open to anything that comes along. It must be so disheartening for him when he was just getting nicely settled in that job. Don’t worry about his reference from the boss. She can’t put something bad about him unless she can prove that what she has said is true. I hope your headache has cleared up now.

Oh dear, Frank, another fall – what are we going to do with you? I hope there’s no serious damage but I expect you’re bruised and achy and a bit shaken up, so try and take it easy for a while. I hope you enjoyed your dinner today more than your Chinese meal yesterday. I expect it was lovely being home-cooked. We had roast beef as well. The beef was ‘resting’ ready for carving, potatoes and parsnips roasted, carrots cooked, Yorkshires ready and I was just about to make the gravy when I suddenly thought “Where’s the green veg?” It was still in a colander on the draining board. Stupid me. I’d forgotten to cook it! It didn’t take long though and OH said how tasty the meal was.

Jane, I am sorry to hear that you have more concerns and I hope you get the scan and results quickly so that any extra treatment can be got underway. Sending you a big (((((hug))))). Stay positive, my friend.

I hope Mandy recovered from her upset tum. We haven’t heard from her for 2 or 3 days.

My face-ache is much the same. It hasn’t got any worse nor any better and I am managing with just a couple of painkillers at night. It’s very odd as I can prod the tooth, use my various interdental brushes, scrub away with a toothbrush and there is no extra jolt of pain from any of that but the whole area round there is so sore. I will try to put up with it for a bit longer or I might try phoning the dentist to see if anyone is there to talk to me over the phone and give me advice. I’ll see how it goes over the next day or two.

We had a nice interlude with the family Zoom quiz so that took my mind off my sore mouth. I had trouble getting in and thought I was doing something wrong, as it was the first time I had used Zoom but it turned out that there must have been a glitch as granddaughter was the only one who managed to get in straightaway. Bless her, she rang me on the mobile and talked me through how she got in but, even so, daughter had to set up a different password for everyone. Once we were in it was good fun.

We usually have our main meal on Sundays at around 2 pm but today we had it at 1 o’clock and we are getting a bit peckish now. OH is just making us a sandwich and a cuppa so I shall go and have that and see if there’s anything I fancy on TV. I hope you all have a good night.

Oh good I am glad you can see the photos Jane and Ann. Glad you like the garden.
Yes my wiping was an hour and a half. Only three subs though and all ok and only one thing not available, bicarb.

Well that was a lot of nothing. We really thought he was going to allow garden centres to open. So now we have a garden centre just over the border in Wales open and the poor people owners of garden centres just over the Bordet into Gloucester, England not allowed to open.
And telling people to go back to work tomorrow, no advance warning, don’t go on public transport take the car. How can factories be up and running so quickly? And parks are now going to be crowded as people have been told they can go and sit in the sun.

Your garden is looking so good AnnG, both in flowers and foliage! Mine looks bare in comparison but you do put the work in.

I have put bottle cloches on the tomato plants tonight as the pane of glass is missing in the greenhouse. I've covered most of the hole but the wind is really blowing.

All wiped and put away, nearly an hour and a half to do it! Lots of substitutes this time, cream cakes instead of egg custards (so goodbye diet!), beef strips instead of lamb mince (I hate beef, but it's better than nothing), no wholemeal bread, so I will make do with the 50/50. Lots of other things substituted and we got some things they said were out of stock, and I had ordered replacement versions myself so now we have oodles of stock cubes! Not sure I have properly got the hang of these orders yet! The delivery man was cheerful and 15 minutes early and reversed the big van up the drive close to OH's car. He caught it slightly when he drove off as he was so close but it was only a small scrape. OH said it was less than the ones he had made himself but I will park my car further down the drive next time so it's impossible to reverse up. He is the only driver to do it yet as the others stay on the road.

Off to listen to Boris next! We listened to a lecture at one of the universities by Chris Whitty on the Coronavirus last night. OH had recorded it on the Parliament channel and it was so informative about all these serious coronaviruses and the problems we face.

I can see them Ann :-D Just beautiful and such an interesting garden. :-D

Where are you looking Mel. My photo blog is where they are. Can anyone else see them?

Can't see them AnnG. Have they todays date on them?