General Chat

Hope your meal is a success Frank and goes off to plan.

We have sunshine here too but this morning just before lunch it poured with rain for a little while and now the suns out again.

Having a good tidy up around the kitchen today.

Afternoon all,

Thought I would pop in as I am in a quiet period.

Ended up taking all the meat out of the lobsters and checking there was no bits of shell. I have made four dishes in Scallop shells, covered them in mushroom slices that I cooked lightly and covered the whole lot in breadcrumbs. They will go under the grill when they sit down to the table. They won't want long.

I have changed all the water in the potato's and Parsnips. Just need to salt and par boil them. Then they are ready for the oven.

I put the meat on at 11.30. It needs at least three hours, I can let it rest, then give it half hour in the oven later.

I had a phone call from Roger and Sue to say they would like to pop over about 1.00/1.30 pm today to see us before Christmas.

Nice sunny morning here, and I have been out in my shirt sleeves to go to Tony and Val's with their presents. We heard from Valerie (Sid's Wife) that Tony told her they are nor bothering with Christmas. Their dinner will be HAM, EGGS, and CHIPS. Talk about putting yourself about. !!! I can't believe it :-D :-D :-D

The door bell is ringing, so Bye for now.

I wish you every success with it Gill :)

Afternoon all

Lovely and sunny here today and quite warm with it :-D I've just had a walk around the garden and noticed that the blue bells are starting to come up, hope we don't get a bad frost, not sure what that would do to them. They were my nan's so I'd be very upset if I lost them. She let me have some from her garden years ago before she passed away and I put them in large pots. If I don't lose them then I can take them with me when, or if, we sell this place.

I noticed that advertisement David about selling property at market value in 28 days. I was sorting through some papers I had the other day and I'd cut the ad out of the newspaper and forgot about it. I'm going to give them a ring after Christmas to see what it's all about. Luckily our three months are up with our Estate Agent on 29th December so I don't need to worry about that, as I'll probably have to get rid of the Agent so I can sell this place privately. It can't do any harm to look into it ;-) ;-)

OH managed to get some of the lights to work, by taking away the function box and re-wiring the lights straight into a plug, but for some reason about half of them are still not working, better than all of them I suppose, but at least we have some ultra bright lights to put back on the tree now. I have hundreds of other lights, but they aren't as bright and don't light the tree up the way we like it, so this way the tree is lit up with the ultra bright lights and the not so bright lights will just fill in any gaps where some of the bulbs aren't working.
At the moment there is nothing on the tree as I had to take all the baubles and ornaments off. I find it's easier to put the ultra lights on if I do it in sections. We have an artificial tree, so I just leave the bottom part on it's own, put some of the lights on that, then put the middle section on, wrap some more lights around that and then finally the top section. It's easier than trying to put almost 200 lights on the whole tree in one go.

I haven't read all the posts yet and I'm just about to dish up lunch, so I'll take a look at them later when I get some time to myself ;-)

Yes I wish that for you too Frank.

Its cleared a bit here and we do have some sunshine and now out the ront there are traces of blue sky among the white cloud.

More wrapping for me too. I gave my friend Di her pressies the other day when she came and forgot to give her the dogs stocking so shall have to get her to call in again.

Morning David ,Morning Mel,Morning everyone,

Lovely bright sun shine here ,it's nice to see blue sky .

Odd jobs to do and then more present wrapping this afternoon .

Hope everyone enjoys your meal Frank and all the old ill feeling is all forgotton.

Coffee time now BBL

Morning all and eveningKim,

Bit brighter out the back this morning but dull out the front. I suppose thats what you get from facing north.

Did more pressies up last night but still have a few to do. Then I must clear the kitchen up so oh can bring the tree in.

Morning all.
My current avatar is my late Father Samuel about 40 years ago.

I thought Jay looked a bit like Patrick Swazy (sp) in his dress tonight. He certainly can move his body.

We had a melt in the mouth fillet for din ner tonight. It was just perfect. I only have to show oh's to the pan as he likes his blue.

I was pleased at the Strictly Result, no names given for those that have recorded it

Have a well deserved sleep Frank

Just popping in to say goodnight. I feel totally shattered. So off to bed.

Thomas has made up or being a Mouse Down Ann :-S.Chris and I were sitting eating dinner and I heard 'that' miaow saying HELLO I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU.
Somehow I had left the back door slightly ajar and Thomas had got in with Mouse in mouth and proceeded to munch it up in the middle of the kitchen floor :-S :-S.
Thankfully the lounge door was closed .I had to do a bit of mopping up of blood and the inner bit :-S :-S..Not good really at the end of my meal.

Results coming up now for Strictly.

Remember Delax (sp) white emulsion, (not paint), Mother kept a bottle for those under her roof who couldn't shift it.

Worms unlike dickies are not catching. Some people blame pork :-S

David!! :-D :-D I had to look up the car.....I see it still had the lion badge and I'd forgotten how cars had a separate thin ring in the steering wheel to sound the horn with.

I seem to remember having worms once too Jane after I'd started school. I used to be dosed with california syrup of figs to keep me regular!! lol .I can remember sneaking and trying our dog's winalot biscuits when mum wasn't looking too. They looked so good in 4 different colours, green, beige, black and red. :-)

You are right Mandy, the standard has been so high this year, they have all improved so much, they all deserve to win really! I do hope Neil is doing well......best wishes to him! You did well on your scratch cards last year but how annoying not being able to find those bits you need. I remember us losing a screw that holds the Christmas tree in the base one year and having to wedge it. When we put the tree away, there it was in the box. It must have been trapped in the cardboard flaps.

Thomas must be a mouse down today Jane if he was looking for 'second helpings'. lol :-) My nice red tablecloth has a stain on it so I should run that through the washer as well. OH put a tray with his plate of food on it during the week after last Christmas, so he would keep any mess or spills on the tray. Guess what, he'd put the tray on mess on the kitchen worktop first!! :-S

I see Jimmy Hill and Greville Janner have died.

Here's a joke based on fact. I was standing in a long queue a the checkout at Te/sco

Had a lot of cat food in the trolley. I picked up one of the satchets and was reading the content. Essentially rabbit flavoured horse meat. However I turned to the woman behind me in the queue and said. You know you can make a tasty stew out of this stuff. She looked me in disbelief and said do you eat that? Well, I replied, I used to until I put my back out licking my bum........... :-0 ;-) :-D :-D :-D

Jay is the one for me too Ann :-D

I was told if I ate paper I would get worms ! :-S Why would I eat paper???
I think I had worms once (itchy bottom) but I am sure it wasn't from eating paper.
Virol was my worst nightmare .A big tablespoon of it each time.I can smell it now and it makes me cringe.The other thing I used be given on a BIG spoon was Mil-Par when I was constipated.That was another big Yuk Yuk stuff.

LOL Mel I can picture you under the table eating the dog's worm tabs...I do remember my Sister eating the cats Kit-e-cat from the dish :-S :-S and Mum nearly having a Dicky Fit.

Stricktly THE FINALS starting now :-D

I'm very pleased for you Annx. That make of car has come a long

way since Lt Columba's 1959 convertible Only teasing Ann :-D :-D

Evening all,

It's been a nice day here still mild and we even had the sun for a short while late this afternoon , i hung some bath sheets on the line and they were blowing well but it has been a very slow dry and they were still quite damp when i got them in .

No news from sister about my nephew ,i did ring a while ago but there was no one there so i hope there's nothing wrong ,i'll try again later.

You've been a busy bee today Frank , another feast for them all to look forward too and i'am sure they will with a good spread like that .

Oh dear Gill all the problems with your lights hope you've now got them all sorted and the tree is all lit up again ,it's terrible when you get the giggles like that ,even silly little things make to start to giggle ,if i do that hubby gets a bit cross :-D

I bought my pate the other day as it had a good date on it ,it's quite funny really in the super market as everyone seems to looking the dates on things and then putting it back !!
I think i'll get my cream and other bits and pieces on Monday ,they should have a decent date on them by then .

I got my table cloth and table runner out this morning and thought the same Jane that i must freshen them up with a wash ,i also bought the scratch cards too ,i think we got £28 and our money back on them last year so not to bad.

We have been hunting most of the day for some bits that go with the child gate that we have here ,we have never used the gate but thought we would use it as Lewis is a devil for going to the cooker and we wanted to put it in the lounge doorway which will stop him going into the hall,kitchen and downstairs loo ,i remember hubby trying it when we first got it ,it has these suction bits that fit on the gate to hold it in place but we carn't find them anywhere ,i've pull drawers out hunting but no luck ,i bet hubby has taken them down to the shed but he says no !!
So annoying as i wanted to wrap some presents and i've ended up hunting for these blooming things for most of the day !!

I'am looking forward to the dancing too Ann, i don't mind who wins as i think the last few there all good dancers .

Jane, OH said this morning that 'we'll' get the house all cleaned up over the next few days.........I hope he meant 'WE'. lol

I was hoping we'd have more news about the house sale before Christmas, but we've heard nothing for over a fortnight. Still no news is good news in a way and the deeds are still being transferred at the moment.

Anne that must be quite unusual not to have any grandchildren from 3 children. Mum had 3 children but of us only my sister had children. Yes I must add pate to my growing list too!

I managed to suss out filling my car with fuel today. At least the filler is the driver's side on this car which helps and there's no need to use a key to unlock the filler cap either as the cover over it locks when you lock the car. It's more sophisticated than I'm used to and even if you don't shut a door properly to lock it, the alarm still activates around the perimeter of the car. OH noticed the other day that it has 2 clocks!! An ordinary one and a digital one. It needs a wash now. :-S

I'm looking forward to the Strictly Final tonight!! :-) I want Jay to win, but have a suspicion it will be Georgia as she gets better and better and her Charleston she's doing is fabulous!!