General Chat

Its just not good enough with these back and forth appointments with hubby Ann. What is everybody doing?

Well the sunshine has gone and its all cloudy now and its blimmin cold out there. I have done the wipe down had the delivery from Mole Valley and oh started lunch so all I had to do was dish it up and make my toast which I like with soup.

I managed to hide a couple of pressies from oh on both deliveries which was good.

Now I am just having a little sit before maybe doing a lkittle bit of crafting.

Salad tonight as oh has some nice king prawns and I can have a couple of boiled eggs with mine as I bought some today and guess what? yes I had an egg in the nestbox this morning, hip hip hooray first one for a week. Not from the new ones though and its a nice big one.

Afternoon All,

It's chilly and back to dull here. The heating has been on a few times today already. I put out some old bread and some old nuts for the birds and a Blackbird was watching me from the bottom fence.

OH rang to make the appointment AnnG, otherwise he would have got an appointment card. He got seen today but is no further ahead. He felt the dentist was sidestepping the issue of the hospital referrals when he asked, saying there was no date on the reply from them, but OH saw the date on the letter was January 2020. That was after he had seen and been referred by the dentist and seen by the hospital the first time, so it is now about 2 years since he was told the tooth needed extracting, yet the dentist won't do it despite the hospital saying there is no reason why he can't. The dentist said he has 2 loose teeth and a cracked one needing attention, but all he suggested was for OH to phone the hospital to see if he could get seen sooner. The earliest date the was given to be seen by the hospital a few months ago was next May!! I think the dentist should be chasing it up being as he disputes what the hospital want him to do. It's really not good enough keeping someone waiting over 2 years while they pass him back and forth. If OH gets nowhere when he rings the hospital I think I will contact PALS and see what they can do. OH has to see the hygienist tomorrow for a clean, so that will make the third day at the dentists. Before his appointment we will make the early morning trip to the factory shop for more of those joggers as we were both too tired to get up early enough this morning.

Your Narcissus are well ahead Gwyn. It is a flower I love and the scent of them as well. I must try some in a pot next year. They look too messy in our small garden after flowering, but a pot of them could be moved out of sight after flowering. That was quite a trip of 300 miles and I think I would have been weary on the way back too.

Your wellies from Aldi were a bargain Mandy! I suspect I might have an old pair in the gararge under all of MIL's things and our own stuff, but they would be over 30 years old and squashed so not any good, especially if the mice had made a home in them! :-0

I'd better finish my homework now as it has to be sent today. At least I got the bed changed and the mattress spun around while OH was out. Tomorrow I can dust in there once the dust has settled again.

Bright sunshine and 7 degrees here, though that’s about as warm as it’s going to get.

I hope the dentist has sorted your OH out Ann and not sent him on elsewhere.

Enjoy your lunch AnnG. We are off at 12 noon as neighbour wants time to look around the garden centre and be back in time for a 3 pm appointment with the nurse.

I’d better go and get some shoes and a coat on and lock up. Might BBL

Not bright here Mel, still grey and 3 degrees. I am being picked up at 12.30 to go out to lunch.

Gwyn love Portchester Castle, brings back memories of our courting days as we often used to catch the bus there for a walk round. I doubt I could find my way round Southampton these days as so many roads have changed and new one added. Our Grandson lives in that area and we were ok visiting him when we had worked out the route, until they had a detour in for roadworks, we got lost that day.

Morning Gwyn Anng and all,

Very very frosty this morning and I have fern patterns on the car windows. Mole Valley have just delivered so much for ringing me before the delivery but theyu seem to do that each time now.

Brilliant sunshine now but only 4 degrees but the main thing is we have a lovely bright day.

Shopping delivery later on so I shall be doing the big wipe down.

Hope hubby gets his dentistry done this morning Ann thinking of him.....lets hope they get it right today and he has some treatment instead of being pushed from pillar to post.

Yes AnnG , your general area.
We were visiting graves at the churchyard in Portchester Castle grounds and at the cemetery and crematorium too then drove home via Southampton :-S, which of course is west and we needed to go east to get home.

No, not at all 'on the way', but daughter wanted a small table from IKEA and it was the easiest one to reach, as it only meant a short detour for us, rather than a long trip to Lakeside or Croydon from here.
Not sure where we went to get there, as we ended up on a toll road over the River Itchen. Younger daughter, who was driving does not have SatNav, so her sister was assisting ? using her phone, but we got there OK.



We do seem to have generally very reasonable climate, so many plants like that.
We are in the S.E corner, south of most of the higher ground, so are somewhat sheltered and have very few frosts or lingering fog.
Although not exactly near, the sea is not too far away, so that probably tempers the weather too.
Bitter winds whip through The Channel at times, but generally we get off lightly, if the UK has bad weather.

Ann,
I hope your OH's dental visit goes without a hitch today.

I've just had a phone call from our GP's nurse to book an appointment for my yearly medication review etc., so that's good.

Nothing much seems to happen for months, then suddenly it seems to be all Go lately.

Good morning all, very grey here and 1 degree Brrr!!

Gwyn I think you must live in a sheltered part of the country as every year your bulbs where you live seem to be first to show their leaves.
which part of Hampshire did you visit? My part? Goodness knows when I will next get down there.

That was chaotic for your OH at the dentist Ann, I hope today's visit is better. I always these days request they write the date and time of appointments on a card for me as I have had something similar happen to me before. If you have it in writing you have proof.

Sorry to read about your Bantam Mel. She had a good life with you.

Thank you for all the photos you've sent. What a lovely peaceful setting. No wonder you have lots of wildlife visitors.
I love the autumn colours and the picture of Robbie on the wire.. What a poser...

A busy weekend included a trip to coastal Hampshire..... a round trip of over 300 miles.
My younger daughter drove her sister and I and I must admit to missing part of the homeward journey, when I had a little doze.!
It is so much colder here now and I must get out my more substantial slippers. The skimpy ones I am presently wearing are very comfortable, but have no thickness and I can feel the cold flooring in the kitchen, so winter weight called for.

I went for a short walk yesterday to put the church garden bin out for collection and noticed 2 gardens with narcissus leaves about 10 inches tall. Ours in pots by the front door are about 4 or 5 inches tall so far.They are last years planting, so we will wait to see how they do.

Yes she did have a good life as oh thinks she was more than 11 years old as thats how long mum has been gone and I had them before that. I just have the one little one left now who is younger than Tiny Miney but not by much and she has laid 6 eggs this year all of which I used to glaze pastry with just the right size.

What a nuisance about G's appointment at the dentists and now another visit tomorrow and I hope theyget it right for him this time around.

Hope you all have a good sleep tonight and I am signing out now to watch a bit of telly.

Night night.

The vibrating alarm is a very good idea AnnG. It will give you more peace of mind. I didn't even know such things exist.

Ha ha Vera, you had me on the edge of my seat there for a moment! :-D I have one of those kinds of friends where you have to bite your lip. She is not at all tactful and wonders why some at the various clubs she belongs to seem to get upset with her. Worse she seems to expect you to agree with her when she tells you, yet you suspect it isn't just the others that are the problem. It's hard to know how to respond sometimes. :-S

OH's trip to the dentist was a disaster! You have to ring them from your car when you get there and they ring you back to let you know when to come in. Well they never rang him back did they, so he went to the door in the end and knocked. Someone there took his temperature and told him to sit dow and wait till he was called. Well other people came in after him and were called through, so after waiting 20 minutes he went to the desk. They checked and told him his appointment had been at 8.30am not 9.20am!!! He told them it wasn't as he had written it down in his diary when he rang to book it. The upshot is he has to go tomorrow morning now. :-(

That's a shame about your Bantam Mel, but like the others say, she had a good life with you.

:-D :-D Vera I have had to be very careful what I put regarding the alarm, eady to get it wrong.

Enjoy your lunch tomorrow, it is difficult isn’t it? I am out with my friends tomorrow to a Beefeater for lunch. Their tables are usually well spaced.

Sad that you've lost your bantam Mel but, as Ann said, you gave her a good home and she reached a good age.

I hope you get your vibrator quickly AnnG. Oops, I'll reword that, don't want to be reported. I meant your vibrating fire alarm. I've heard they are very good and it would give you peace of mind.

Island I can relate to the sprouts boiled to death, as was the cabbage, greens of any sort, cauliflower and runner beans in our house when I was growing up. I think cauliflower was about as exotic as it got in our household. I remember being constantly sent up the road to buy a pound of "tops" and we had a lot of tinned peas. We didn't get anything much that my mother didn't like so we never had mushrooms. Mum would only have margarine but she did give us butter. I often wonder what she would think of the variety of foods that we have and the fact that we steam a lot of our veg. I've got an electric steamer and also one that sits on my saucepans. It has ridges round the bottom so that it will sit on the small, medium or large pans.

I hope your OH got on OK at the dentist today Ann. Your neighbour sounds a bit of a pain with his door banging and lights so early in the morning. No danger of that with our neighbours as their curtains are never open before 10 am and if we hear their car before 11 am we know one of them has an appointment somewhere.

Like most of you we started with a heavy frost this morning but it cleared fairly quickly in the sun. It has been sunny for a good part of the day and I think it was slightly warmer than yesterday. It's cooling down fast now and I think it's going to be a cold night. OH has just put some fleece over my 6 pots of agapanthus.

The cardigans I ordered just a few days ago arrived and are fine. I already have some from the same company in the same style but mostly in "sensible" colours like grey, brown and dark green. This time I have bought a light blue and a pale pink and they look OK.

Tomorrow we are going with our neighbours to our little local garden centre for lunch. The wife has been asking me for about a year to go for lunch with them and I've kept putting it off. Eventually I felt I had to say yes but it was difficult to find somewhere we could both agree on. I didn't want anywhere too crowded, she didn't want to go far out of town. I am not really looking forward to it and will have to be on my best behaviour. I don't always see eye to eye with her so I shall have to bite my tongue. She told me that her OH will drive this time and my OH can drive next time. I hope she doesn't think it is going to become a regular thing.

I'd better go and zip down the front of my little greenhouse. I thought OH might do it when he put the agapanthus to bed but he's a man so he can't have two things in his mind at the same time ;-)

Aawe that is sad Mel, was that the one you were talking about bathing her eye. She had obviously had enough. Still what a loving home she had with you. Lucky chick.

Island the chickens stop laying when the days get shorter. They will start again when they have enough daylight. The cold weather dos'nt affect them and if I had had my two new ones earlier in the year they would have probably have laid through the winter but I am going to have to wait for my littlees till the days get longer. I have BOUGHT EGGS this week as I only have one left of my own and thats going in my Christmas cake.

Sad news my old bantam died today....................................RIP Chicky Lickie. <3 <3

I steam in one of those small fold up steamers that you put into a saucepan. I prefer veg steamed but I don't like crunchy sprouts or cauli. Or rather it doesn't like me. Some of my cauli was under-cooked last night and I had really bad pains in my stomach in bed took me until gone two to get to sleep.OK today though.

Just had Samantha from Gloucester Deaf Association (GDA) call to see me (appointment made by phone last week.) This was to assess me for a vibrator pad that goes under the pillow and is activated remotely by Wifi from a fire alarm that will be fitted by the Fire Service. So just have to wait until the Fire people contact me. My deaf friend who works in the hospital hearing clinic contacted GDA for me some weeks back to get them to assess me. They are the people who run the clinics now that used to be in the hospital. Unfortunately they are either monthly at the Cattle Market or more frequently at Barnwood road so, unlike the hospital not accessible by bus. Samantha had a really good see through mask on that fitted close to her face so protected her as well as me and I could see her mouth when she spoke so no problem with communication.

Lovely day here, bright sunshine and pale blue sky but a very cold wind, at least the temp as gone up to 7 degrees an hour or so ago it was still 3. I have just walked down with a couple of books and to post a card for a friend.

We had our first sprouts of the season last week - market, not home grown - they were delicious so must have had frost already.

Mel, I've been meaning to ask, are your chicks still laying? Not knowing anything about them, do they slow down in the cold weather?

I doin't cut a cross in sprouts either and tend to try and sort them all the same sizeish as we like them a bit crunchy. I have a steamer but don't use it much now there is only the two of us and we don't grow our own veg anymore but I do use the microwave for peas and baked beans and doing sceambled egs and more.

Washings on the line in the sun at the mo and there's a gentle breeze.

Right ring MV next and bathe my bantams eye as its stuck up this morning. She has always had this weepy eye and when she has a dust bath it gets clogged up as she has feathers growing upwards by her eyes like little puffs. She is also ancient and is about 12 years old or even more.

I've steamed all veg since I got a pressure cooker in 1969. Then I got a steamer over 20 years ago and use that mostly now. Still parboil potatoes for roasts though. That's a good point about the cross in big sprouts if you are cooking large and small together Mandy. I'm going to try my parsnips without peeling now! :-) Less to do and they sound nicer. :-). I don't tend to peel potatoes unless roasting now either. Well they say the goodness is just under the skin and the skin adds some roughage to our diet. Mum always cooked the leaf stalks from caulies and broccoli stalks and I do the same. I do the snap thing with asparagus though as they can be a bit tough near the bottom of the stalks.

I had to mop the bedroom window this morning Mel. Now I don't get so hot I don't have the window open overnight all winter, so more mopping needed in the morning.

I steam sprouts and don't still make a cross, although many years ago I did Until I read it doesn't make any difference.
3 degrees here but lovely and sunny still a bit of frost around but going slowly.

Morning all,

There was frost on the shed roof last night when we let Max out before bed but this morning it was wet so I think we must have had a shower some time in the night ,it's only 4 degrees at the moment but it's nice and sunny .
I have just just cut Colins toe nails and now have my feet in soak ready to do mine .

Ann hope OH gets on ok at the dentist with his check up our dentist are still not doing check ups only emergencies the last time I rang ,I thought I'd better check with them in case we had been missed and I didn't want them to take us off their list if we haven't been like some dentists are doing .
I got myself a short pair of wellies the other week in Aldi nice and furry inside and I think they were only 7 pound might even have been 6 I can't remember exactly but I thought they will do in case we have some snow ,my last wellies the rubber bit went all sticky but they were years old .
The long wellies I have a job to get as I have chunky calfs .

Right I think my feet are all crinkled now from the soak so I'd better get them done .



I cut a cross in sprouts if they are big as I think if there's little ones they would be a bit mushy before the big ones are cooked .
Another thing I do now is leave the skin on parsnips when I roast them this makes them nice and soft inside and the skin goes crispy .

Nice photo's of the garden Mel lovely autumn colours .