General Chat

How lucky was that that the pc was on the spot Ann. I only ever once bumped very gentley into the car in front in my dads new Rover. There was no damage to either car as they had rubbers on the bumper I think and I only really just nudged it. Should have seen mums face though. "did you hit that?" she said and I just said yes!!!!!!! only just.

Well having said I ws going to give the bathroom a good clean this morning as of now I hav'nt even touched it. First I rang Morrisons to see if they would put a little hoover by for me and they told me the offer finished on Sunday and they could only keep it put by till then. I said i would be along to get it. So off I went to Bideford to buy this Russel Hobbs hoover at a knock down price of £47. I only want one I can shove over the carpets in the kitchen each day and its such a nuisance getting Henry out with all his long pipes and how heavy he is and I don't think he really gives the carpets a good sweep.

I got home just at lunch time having popped into Stuarts on the way back as the front indicator bulb had gone again and one of the back lights was'nt working on the drivers side. He drives the car into his garage and attempts the front indicator first. as he touches the bulb its starts to work ok!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! says it must have been a loose conection........ tries the back lights......all working ok. I just could'nt believe it as it made me out to be a fibber. So I asked him how much I owed him and he said thats all right so I gave him as hug and a kiss on the cheek and wished him a happy new year. Came home and did lunch. After that oh undid the box and got the hoover out. We plugged it in and I had a go and we find it blows loads of air out the front of it and it makes quite a noise but at least it works. I did the kitchen and diner and out into the hall and then plugged it in out there and did the hall. Oh asked me if it was ripping the carpets up as there was quite a lot of grey fluff in the cylinder. I told him thats what I used to get in the Dyson. Really though I think it could be his new fleece clothes from Cotton Traders as the bathroom gets this grey fluff all over it and the tumble drier when I put them in there. At this rate they will be bald soon!!!! It is nothing like the fleece jumper and trousers we had from them last year as its much fluffier and dos'nt pill together if you know what I mean.

Anyway I am just having a COT after my lunch and am now ging to attempt the bathroom.

Nice easy diner tonight as he has a frozen curry dinner and I have a frozen roast dinner so both happy with those which gives me more time.

Morning All,

It started sunny here but it's been quite rainy since. We'll be the same tanned colour as Frank when he gets back at this rate, only ours will be rust! OH has gone to a council meeting the other side of the city and I've been to do a few errands in the village. The fav carvery isn't on today so I won't be meeting OH there after all. We might pop to the newish place instead as we still haven't used a £5 voucher they gave us.

Gill, we eventually managed to see the house boiler was set on on auto yesterday which means it is on for about an hour first thing and last thing at night and saw that the newest looking thermostat is set just above freezing. We think (and hope!!) that that means it should come on at those times if the temperature gets near freezing which should be ok. If we get the promised frost later this week, we are going across to check if the radiators have been on and are still warm. We've never needed to leave heat on at night in any place we've lived at, but their house doesn't have cavity walls and doesn't keep the heat so well. I think we may have to lengthen the spells the boiler is on if temperatures here get really low. I bet Sandra was thrilled to be bringing you gifts yesterday. I could just eat a chocolate now! lol. That's good there are still viewings coming.......fingers crossed this might be the one that buys. :-) It's a good idea doing the curtain headings next as it is straightforward and will get you more used to your machine. I used to love buying remnants years ago to make simple tops. You could make one for about a pound then. At one time I worked with a friend who made most of her own clothes. She would go out at lunchtime to buy material and be wearing it at work as a skirt the next day!!

Jane I did that shuffling along in traffic in the city once at the time I was splitting from my first OH and was dealing with my brother's illness, I just shunted into the car in front, but luckily no damage to his car, just a small dent to my bumper. The chap leapt out and said just the same as David.......'what did you do that for?' Well, I just rounded on him and said, 'what a stupid question, do you think I go around doing things like this on purpose every day'. I said, 'If you had things going on in your life like I have at the moment you wouldn't be asking silly questions like that.' He looked a bit shocked at that and even more so when a Policeman we hadn't noticed crossed the dual carriageway from the other side and asked me if I was alright and if I needed any help. He asked was I sure when I said 'no, we'd sorted it out;'. Obviously he thought the man was being unpleasant about it and was ready to give him a warning or something!

Have you all been blown away?

Morning Everyone, Hi to Kim.

Hi Mel
Very wet here too, miserable and gray.

Got Sofia this afternoon after school , usual playtime & dinner then take her home about 8pm , she says it's her favorite night of the week, gets to spend some time with us & has a break from Matteo too, & Victoria has a break from the usual Sibling arguments,

Still waiting for my new wedding ring, I keep checking on the web site to see how far along they are from dispatch. but it's says it's still in progress,

Better do so ironing today, but I think it's coffee time first.

Morning all,

Very wet and windy here this mroning so the jet stream must have moved around again but we have a little sun too.

Not doing much today so will just see how the day goes. I want to give the bathroom a good clean and the bedroom if I get time inbetween everything else.

The bed needs stripping too.

Morning All

Now Now David .I have never run into the back of anyone. Well I lie.Just once but it was just a teeny dent in a bumper :-)

Of to Milton Keynes in 30 minutes so I better get a move on.

In the 80's I was going home in my Viva. The weather it was dark, the rain it was hissing down star rods. The traffic it was crawling, nose to tail, stop start.
I turned around a roundabout to go from Sandyford Road to Jesmond Road.
Half way around the roundabout the traffic stopped. I stopped. BANG
Someone had driven into the back of me. So I puts the hazard warning lights on, gets out of the Viva, The car that had driven into me was a 2CV. The driver was a woman. I says what did you do that for?? She replied I didn't see you. If she'd been any closer she would have been in the back seat. Wasn't you Jane was it?

So you're getting another car then Jane, I hope this one is better for you. It's sounds like it's got a good size boot, I like hatchback cars so you can put the back seats down and make more space to transport things if the need arises.

I noticed David Bowie passed away on our anniversary. His ex-wife Angie is one of the celebrities on Big Brother that Sandra is watching. They told her today about David's death which will be aired tomorrow. She's decided to stay on the show, but I think once it sinks in she may change her mind.

The cost for care homes is terrible isn't it, such a lot of money and some of the homes aren't very good from what's been said on the news occasionally. You are lucky though with the one for your FIL Ann, it sounds really nice, so I should think worth every penny. Sounds like you had fun at his house.....not. What a palaver trying to sort out the water situation. It's best to sort it though, as the weather is going to be quite cold this week. Can you put the boiler on now, like you wanted, to stop any pipes freezing?

I've just nearly jumped out of my skin, we have really bad hailstones which have just hit the window behind me, it's only been happening for a few seconds and the ground is really white already. Glad we're not out in it. Bet Sky goes off again. It's really windy too and pouring with rain, what terrible weather.

We were thinking of staying put LIz, but then I noticed an email off the agent today asking if we can do a viewing sometime this week. That'll teach us to turn our phones off, mind you we didn't miss them, it was brilliant having a day with no outside contact at all and not hearing about all the bad stuff that happens in the world on the news.

Sandra had a nice time spending a couple of days with her gran. She came in late afternoon on Sunday with gifts for OH and I for our anniversary, bless her. I think her gran paid for some of the things though, which was nice of her. She bought me a box of chocolates and her dad three large mars bars, he loves them, and the most lovely planted up pot, with miniature plants in it, which is now on our kitchen windowsill. She said there wasn't much in the village on a Sunday for her dad, but he likes plants just as much as me so loved it and of course his mars bars. She got us a lovely card with a wonderful verse on.

Mum bought me a magazine with some dress patterns in today, I can't wait to get started on them after I've finished the curtains. They'll be no stopping me now :-D :-D There's also lots of other patterns in it including a sewing machine cover, which will come in handy as the one that came with my machine is a bit flimsy and not a very nice colour, so I'll be making a new one soon. I've taken all the old tape off the curtains for my mum's friend and will be sewing the new tape on tomorrow, ready for mum to give them back to her on Thursday when she sees her again.

Thanks Mel, for trying to contact him for me. I'll let you know if he emails.

Off to bed now, I've been busy today, so I'm really tired
See you all tomorrow
Night Night

We are off to Milton Keynes tomorrow first thing.Hopefully no tummy upset like last week to stop us going.

Oh I remember those renaults.I had to drive one when I worked for a vet.I never did manage to get the hang of the flipping gear stick.I always managed to get into 3rd gear instead of first and first instead of third .It was a nightmare .
Not long after Chris and I got together he bought a 2CV.Same gear stick and hand brake !!!!
But I did manage to get the hang of it.I actually got to love the 2CV and was quite sad to see it go when we had to get a larger car when we had the children.

Will say night night now.Just watching Silent Witness in between trying to get Thomas in....He is nowhere to be seen at the moment :-S

My friend's mum had a Renault R8 when we were teenagers and that had what we called a golf stick gear change that pulled from the dashboard the same David. That had big squishy seats, soft suspension and a handbrake that was under the dashboard as well.

The home in Windsor was expensive Anne, but being a more expensive and affluent area would be some of the reason. I think the costs in seaside places are a lot higher too. I asked if some paid more than others in this home and was told that some pay almost £5000 a year more so it could have been worse, as would the cost at a Nursing Home. I just feel it is all wrong that you go through life paying your NI and Tax towards the 'free' NHS, then when you are old and vulnerable and need help with your care, you have to pay for it unless you have very little money. At the same time A&E all over the country is costing a fortune and mainly due to self inflicted excesses by young people who get treated free of any charge and many of whom have paid little or nothing in NI and Tax. I said this to the home manager and he very much agreed as he used to live in Blackpool and said the impact and aftermath of the stag and hen dos every weekend was horrendous!!


Anne I dread things happening with plumbing too! Some of my dreams have been to do with plumbing problems if I am a bit anxious!! lol

Glad you enjoyed your day with just the two of you Gill.

I'm off to bed now to watch some recordings. :-)

I think we knew that Jane!!! Spell check doesn't work if you type a word that is correct but has a different meaning!!! Most of the time it's pretty good though.
Tomorrow we have the farrier at 8.45, then 8 large bales of hay being delivered during the morning at some time!! So we shall have to be up in reasonable time.
Have you decided to stay put Gill? With the plans for your garden, I just wondered!

Put my spelling right..blooming spell checker not doing the job :-S..Yes Deposit it what I was trying to say LOL

Gill that must have been nice just to have had the day to yourselves yesterday.You don't often get the chance to do that do you.

Mel I have a feeling my Aunty Betty might have worked up Mill St as a Seamstress.

It is very sad to hear of David Bowies death.I can't say I was the biggest fan but loved some of his old stuff.They did very well to keep his illness quiet,and to think he just realeased an new album on Friday.

Jane how lovely a new car, a good start to this year I hope you enjoy driving it.

Gill, a good idea to buy a joint birthday present that you all can enjoy and will last a long time It sounds as though you had a lovely day yesterday with just the two of you, did Sandra enjoy her day with her grandma?

Paul is 50 in May and Richard 50 next June, I had all three sons in under four years
Mark is the eldest at 52, he will be 53 in October.

Ann, I read your post about the charge for the care home the one Peter was in cost £41,600 a year but sadly he was only in there for 6 weeks so we didn't have to pay that. Being Windsor everything is more expensive but that was the nearest one available at the time. I hope the plumbing doesn't cause you any more problems
I hate anything to do with water. Paul being a qualified electrician means anything electrical is no bother.

It's been raining on and off again today but I managed to get Amy out for her walk

Gill got in before your post Jane.

I have been out to Bideford. Went up Mill St to change oh's slipper I bought him for Christmas as he could'nt get his foot into them but they did'nt have a size bigger so they are ordering me a pair. Then went shopping came home and put it all away and had a COT and am now sitting here talking to you lot.

O Jane a new car! again.... I hope you have more luck with this one than you did with the last.

On Spotlight tonight whilst they were talking about David Bowie they had Alan Dodds or Dobbs who was the vicar here for a while a few years ago but for reasons they did'nt keep him. He was a great bloke and good with the children too and brought his guitar into church for certain services. He told us he knew David.

Gill I hav'nt had time to contact that person about your tree yet but will do so tomorrow. Good you've had a little go on the new machine.

Liz I think there was only one letter wrong in Jane's post as she meant to type "deposit on" but just put an i in where it was'nt wanted.

Smoked haddock for me tonight and oh has huge king prawns.

I hope you enjoy your new car when the deal is completed Jane. I had a Renault 4
for a short while30 years ago. It was white, square in shape, had a door at the back,
had not a column gear change but the gear lever came from under the dash board.
Very soft suspension, my pride and joy for a while. Swopped it for a Vauxhall Viva.
The hero in last night's film played the hero in Unstoppable. A film about a runaway train. My MIL spent her last year in a nursing home following the death of FIL. If I'm not mistaken she was billed about £900 / month.
I hope everyone's as well as can be.

Ooh Ann that sounded a nightmare trip to the house.Fingers crossed all the pipework will be ok in this really cold weather.
That is good FIL still knows who you are.I am surprised you were allowed to visit if there is a Norvirus outbreak there.. Yes it sounds a shocking amount for FIL to stay at the care home.But in the scheme of things I reckon that might be an average amount these days.

Have just sent you a pic of the car.Yes it was rather swift LOL.But this was the only Model available anywhere!.So I rang Chris and he said to go ahead with the test drive.I think he was very surprised to se us pull into the drive :-D.Also I think the slaeschap was surprised that Chris said when asked if he would like to have a drive he said no it was fine he would leave it to me.I think the size of it put him off !!!!.it is the body work that seems huge.The inside is just a comfortable size.The boot is humungous and will be very useful should it be needed for moving anything of some size .eg if we need to help Hannah move again :-S....This has been possible to do because of our successful PPI claim :-D :-D

I have a Rotisserie Style Chicken cooking at the moment and I can just begin to smell it.It is one from M&S that is cooked in it's bag.
I think it is Hannahs last night in Bangkok .She has sent some fantastic pics.I bet she wishes now that she had booked a couple more days there.It does look amazing.

No Gill today?

I did Anne!!! I think Jane meant deposit not deposition?!!! It was the shock of waking up to a dry day, sent our spelling up the creek!!!
My goodness Anne that is as you say, eye watering!! My MIL was in a residential home in Devon about 10 years ago and that was bad enough, I think about £20.000 a year. She was there for four years, so it was quite a tidy sum at the end of her stay.
Just chatted to son on the phone. He and his partner have got a builder in to take down half the wall between the kitchen and dining room, making it lighter and warmer and the person in the kitchen less isolated. They seem very chuffed !
Cold chicken and salad tonight. Nice and easy!!

Thanks everyone for the anniversary wishes. OH and I went off grid so to speak yesterday. I kept away from my pooter, we didn't put the TV on and we switched our phones off. It was so nice to have some peace and quiet and spend some quality time together. We chatted for hours about this and that and have decided to do a make over on our back garden. We're hoping the weather is going to be nice at the weekend when OH is off again so we can remove all the plants in the far left hand side of the garden. We are thinking of having a summer house put down there as a 50th birthday present for the both of us. We're both 50 this year. Then today I finally used my sewing machine, just a practice, then off to mum's to pick up the curtains her friend wants altering. We've just got back and we're having something to eat. Oh and I got some pots off mum to put the plants into until we are ready to replant them somewhere else.

I haven't read the post yet, will do that later <3

Gawd Jane that was quick with the car!! You obviously liked it. :-) What colour is it? I just googled it and it looks nice and very roomy too. They were good to let you take it home weren't they.

Afternoon All,

I was shocked to hear the news about David Bowie. His illness was obviously kept quiet. It's such a shame, one of my work pals was a big fan of his.

That's good news Liz....I take it you meant 'complimented!!' .Now you can relax till the next appointment. :-)

We have had a fun morning......NOT! First a visit to the care home to discuss what the charges will be now that FIL will need to pay in full for his care once the house is sold. It will go up quite a bit to nearly £34,000 a year.........eye watering isn't it and some pay even more!! Then we went to see him and he still recognises us and was chatting away although one of the carers told me he can't manage much walking at all now. She also told me they have an outbreak of norovirus so I hope we haven't picked that up while we were there.

Then we called at the house as OH said the upstairs cold taps weren't working or the toilet flush and we wondered if the boiler was getting enough water (it's also upstairs!) and we wanted to set it to come on a bit with the cold weather coming. Well, what a crazy house it is with what FIL and MIL have done! We knew they had had an electrical off/on switch fitted for turning the water off as the stopcock was hard to turn. Well, we found and switched that on and off but no joy. We went upstairs and the pipework everywhere is a nightmare as, true to form none of the old pipework has been removed, so there are stopcocks in cupboards, the old immersion tank is still there. All these things are in the back of deep cupboards, including the programmer, which we could hardly manage to see at the side even with a torch. Goodness knows why they had it put in a silly place like that as the cupboard was crammed full and had stuff stacked in front of it before we cleared stuff out. There are various thermostats everywhere still left in place from old systems as well. :-S Eventually we discovered a manual stopcock in the kitchen let water to the upstairs cold taps but didn't turn water off and on to the kitchen cold tap or washing machine downstairs. I think what happened was that when the man cleared the house, he had turned the manual stopcock to cut the water off to the washing machine (which it wouldn't have done), then found the separate stopcock for it in the cupboard and switched it off there, but didn't turn the other one back on. Gawd knows how you switch the water off to the kitchen cold tap........I hope we don't have need to find out!! :-S

I've been sent the official written transcript of the filmed interview for the hospital study and told it will be released tomorrow. I didn't expect it to have my name on! The email also said I may still be needed to speak to the press if there is sufficient interest! Good job I have a hair appointment tomorrow!! lol. .........0h 0h it's next week not tomorrow.