General Chat

Morning All oin this dull and dreay day.

The big wipe down is seven stops away so I am up and dressed all ready for the big wipe down.

Hip very painful this morning so I think its going to take me a long while to get it away today.

Slept like a log and only up once for the loo.

Hope you all slept better last night and feel refreshed and ready to go this morning.

Oh yes we're enjoying All Creatures too.

No I didn't make a birthday cake Ann but I have said I will make a coffee sponge tomorrow .
There was loads of cakes over on Saturday because the weather was so bad they didn't have that many people turn out ,I did see that all the choc chip buns and the smartie/jelly sweet buns I made were all on a tray sold waiting for someone to collect them, son said there was one person who gave them thirty pound for two big cakes .
They were going to try and sell some more after school today.
We won chocolates in the raffle and dil won a box of biscuits ,Lewis won a bar of chocolate and some art things in the tombola ,Lacey won a tin of beans lol :-D she was not impressed ,Katie didn't win anything.

Raining here now and it looks like tomorrow's going to be rainy too.

Hope those who have had bad nights have a better sleep tonight .

Oh I posted late with my earlier post Mandy and you popped in before me! Yes, your heart does sink doesn't it.......like mine did today when it poured with rain just after the washing was pegged out! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Colin. :-D Did you make him a cake? I don't suppose any were left from those you baked for the school. ;-) Did they go down well? That's good you got some petrol. Thanks for mentioning Our Yorkshire Farm and the new Darling buds of May. We love All Creatures Mel and I always watch Silent Witness and Vera.

Vera we are diesel too, but didn't bother topping up today as we wanted to get to the farm shop for opening time. They have said the Midlands don't have much problem now (I hope!) so we thought it should be even better in a day or two.

Yes we do miss Jane and October is bound to bring her to the front of our minds as does her birthday. It's still so saddening what happened to her.

I looked at the website for the country pub where the pies will have come from and it's changed dramatically! It might have changed hands, or covid forced them to change what they do, but apart from sunday lunch they have mostly Thai, Cajun and Indian food and things with Chilli or pizzas now. It doesn't look like somewhere we will be going in the future. :-S I hope the pies are ok! lol.

You are going to have a nice colourful display with your bulbs next year AnnG. I have trouble with the Squirrels digging up Tulips so don't grow them now. I could do with some Alliums though.

Frustrating isn't it Island. Our surgery have got my prescription items wrong in the past, even recently they corrected it and then still got it wrong, and it is our lives as you say. OH says heaven help us when we are older still. :-S

I don't know what this new Darling Buds is going to be like but they have had the old serise on another channel and we watched a couple.

I must admit to liking the new All Creatures though.

Yes looking forward to Our Yorkshire Farm too.

Going to watch Silient Witness in a mo.

He's there on the wall now.

Thanks for Colins birthday wishes .

Yes its this month that our Jane passed ,its the 23rd I know because it was on what would have been my mum's birthday .

Ann thats handy getting the pies and you know who's made them too so they dhould be nice .
Oh that wouldn't have been good getting squashed tomato hug.
Hope you can both get a better night's sleep tonight.

Anng your garden is going to look pretty when all those tulips flower the red and white will look lovely .

That's a while for your OH to wait for his appointment Vera ,if he's improving a little each day he might as you say be better by then.

Mel any ideas yet for the new girls names .
I meant to say about the new lot of Yorkshire farm too looking forward to them and I see there's a new lot of Darling buds of May but with Bradley Walsh playing pop instead of David Jason .

Good job you noticed that Island will you still be able to have your bloods done tomorrow.

Hope Frank's OK and I expect Gill is busy

Sorry Mel, missed you there as I was having a rant.
I hope Malcolm has found suitable lodgings

Evening all

Happy birthday Mr Mandy.

Mel, I'm sorry you are in such pain with you hip, I hope you get some respite soon.
Looking forward to seeing glamour pics of the new girls.

Lots of gardening going on I see and some success with petrol.

I stayed indoors today, feeling lazy.

Vera, the NHS has gone to pot! Communication has never been their best feature but it seems to be at an all time lo.
I have bloods tomorrow and as I was sorting out my envelope I noticed another mistake! I'd had to chase up these envelopes "oh, other patients have said they haven't received them" !!!! When they arrived I did a quick check and saw that two said 'sero positive' and two say 'sero negative' !!! I didn't complain as I know which is correct and I only need one before I have my phone call when I would mention the mistake. Today as I was making sure I have the correct one I noticed that all four have the wrong medication written on them!
Sorry to moan all the time but I am fuming about this. Do they even employ properly qualified staff? This is my/our health that is being mismanaged.
So so fed up.

Enjoy your evenings all.

Funny you should say about Jane as I was thinking of her yesterday and in the past week and it must be coming up for a year now as you say. I really missed her Chirstmas card last year as they were always lovley and I have some of the past years cards from her I have kept so I may put those up this year too.

I keep forgetting to say Island was right as Malcolm did look like the angel of the north. I hav'nt seen him at all today but I did leave the door open a bit last night so perhaps he's gone.

Happy Birthday Mr Mandy hope you had a wonderful day and lots of nice pressies. <3

Happy Birthday to your OH Mandy. I hope he has had a lovely day.

It sounds as though your new girls are beginning to settle down Mel. I'm sure they'll start coming out of the house soon.

I like the sound of your red and white tulips AnnG. I haven't bought any bulbs for quite a while. The ones in the garden just stay there but I've got daffs, mini tulips and little iris that go in pots each year so I lift them and store them through the summer and then replant around Oct/Nov time. I can't plant them yet till I clear summer plants from the pots the bulbs will go in.

Sorry you and OH had a bad night as well Ann. Your farm shop sounds good and topping up your tank on the way home was a bonus. We haven't tried filling ours yet but I know diesel is in short supply round here and, of course, our car is a diesel.

I got a bit done in the garden before lunch. We have four or five big clumps of deep purple asters and they are looking lovely at the moment but some of the other plants look a bit sorry for themselves so I tidied some up a bit. I also took the last few green tomatoes off the plants and disposed of the plants in the brown bin. After lunch I cleaned the bird bath and topped up the feeders. As soon as I put the sunflower hearts out a goldfinch appeared. We don't get big flocks of them. I usually see two at a time, occasionally three but they are such pretty birds. OH called me out to ask what butterfly was on the asters and it was a painted lady. That's the only one I've seen this year.

OH has now got his physio appointment - 29th October. As he said he could be better by then as he is improving very slowly. I won't bore you with the whole story but it was another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing and OH being given all the wrong information, including the fact that he had to have a telephone consultation. He was ready to argue that the doctor had referred him for a full appointment but the chap he spoke to today said that he was definitely down for a face-to-face and even told him the name of the physio he would be seeing. It's just a shame there is a bit of a wait.

It has been a beautiful day but has been bucketing down again for the last hour.

I've been thinking today that it is coming up to a year since our Jane passed. I still miss her stories of Thomas and his half eaten rabbits which made me smile because that was exactly what my Molly used to do. I expect we all miss her in our different ways.

It's time I went and did something about dinner. I hope we all have a good sleep tonight.

We had a flock of Goldfinches the other day but they were over the back field. I heard them first whilst putting washing on the line. Tried to get a picture but they were too quick.

Youbeen busy bees tis morning all I have done is one lot of washing and fed the chickens etc. I waited for Daisy to lay her egg this mornming as she was in the nest box when I went round to feed and the three were outside and the poorly one inthe house with the two new girls. Then the old girl came in the house and started chasing the new girls on the perches and wherever they went she chased them so I let her out inthe garden and if she dos'nt come back tonight when I corn them its hard luck.

The new girls hav'nt come out of the house yet!! Perhaps I should feed them outside and not inside. I did notice they had been in the nest boxes as the droppings were different to my hens and on inspection they have worms so I have to find the worming juice.

No Vera no replacement in the future yet.

I did go back out in the garden for about an hour, I planted up a pot with white parrot tulip bulbs and another with red tulips and again two more smaller pots wit Tete a Tete daffodils. I still have a couple of packets of allium and some more red tulips to plant but it was lunch time and since then it has been showery.

It will be good Ann if the pies prove to be to your liking especially as you know where they come from.
I could really do with giving my car a longer run but don't like driving around for the sake of it.

Mandy you struck lucky with the petrol then, that was good.

Afternoon All,

Sunny again here but a bit of cool breeze. We didn't have a good night either. I had my usual pain that will keep me awake all night sometimes and OH had a bad neck and headache shortly after he went to bed and was up taking paracetamol at first then Ibuprofen. His head was fine again this morning and we managed an early start so went to the farm shop. Just 2 other people in the shop and the paper roll in a bin of sanitiser that you pull through a slit in the lid was still there to clean your trolley as was the foot opererated hand sanitiser. They have started stocking home made meat pies from one of our haunts we used to eat at and liked very much, so they are obviously branching out with having less customers. We bought a couple to try. With OH chivvying me to get some bread for him I completely missed the salad and I really could do with lettuce and cress. No pork again except a couple of thick chops, each as big as my two hands side by side, so I left those although we could have had one between us.

We went a longer way home to charge my battery and noticed just one person filling up at a local village garage so that was good as I am below half now and it drops quicker then. OH noticed traffic on the M1 when we crossed a bridge was at a standstill so there must have been an accident I think as I saw a helicopter when we set off for the farm shop.

Washer's on and I trimmed more leaves on the toms and I filled the pockets of my fleece with toms before going in. I thought it would be just my luck to get an impromptu hug and squash them all, but he was busy typing notes! :-D

AnnG you are getting things done in your garden. We are hoping to do more tomorrow.

Mel it's disappointing when you get imobilised and pain like that. I hope your hip settles down again soon. As you say the walker is always handy if you need it. The new girls seem to be settling in if they've found their appetites! Hope they send the right size oil tanker.

Vera sorry you had a bad night too and you do have a busy week ahead. You need your sleep to have some energy for it.

I had a pet Goldfinch at age 15 from my paternal grandfather when he passed away. I never met him as mum had nothing to do with dad's family. All I knew was that the men had awful tempers like dad. In recent years this is where I found some Romany ancestry which probably explains the keeping of the Goldfinch. Anyway, dad turned up with 'Joey' plus a stuffed Barn Owl for me. Joey was very particular about which seeds he ate from his finch seed mix, shunning the rape seed, linseed and millet yet would empty the pot scattering everything to get to his favourite hemp seeds first, then the Niger seed. Chickweed was also a great favourite. We used to get goldfinches on the feeder with Niger seed here, but then Like you say, they suddenly vanished. I hadn't seen any the past few years but they have been around nearly every day this year in their little flocks in the back field.......until the past few weeks when they have disappeared again.

Afternoon all ,

Bright and breezy here lovely day for getting the washing dry .

It's Colins birthday today so son and DIL called in this morning then we went out to get eggs and I needed milk ,we also went to screw fix for paint and got petrol from tesco as there was no queue they only had petrol no diesel, morrisons had a huge queue for petrol so we thought we'd try tesco and struck it lucky .

Mel it sounds as if the newbies are settling in their new home if they are eating ,I wonder when you'll get your first egg from them .

Going to post this now as yesterday I lost a whole post again your heart sinks when you see your post just vanish into space .

Strange birds goldfinches, when they were visiting a lot a couple of years ago they would only touch niger seeds, then somebody new moved in over the back and started to feed the goldfinches so not so many came here. then they disappeared completely and I haven't seen one for several months. I will leave the niger seeds there and hope they return.

I have given the car a short run this morning, it did start first time which was good as it is 3 weeks since I ran it.

I then tidied the greenhouse and took in the baskets of fuchsias and generally tidied a bit round the garden, can't do much until after tomorrow when the brown bin will be emptied. I did pot up a viola that I bought last week and am about to pot up another plant, one with little orange balls on, and may also plant the Tete a Tete.

Mel, as Vera says go easy on that hip.

Vera you have a busy week, have you noticed that after a few eeks doing not much everything comes at once.

Morning everyone

A bit on the cool side but bright and breezy here this morning. My early night didn’t do me much good as I was still awake at 1 am so I got up and read till 2.30. When I did eventually fall asleep I slept for 4 hours without moving.

I’m dashing about this morning as we seem to be busy for the rest of the week. So far I’ve tidied round, changed the bedding, got two loads of washing done and on the line and towels are in the wash now. We’re just having a cuppa and then I’m going to get out the garden for a bit more tidying up out there.

Tomorrow I’ve got a haircut, a food delivery and the AGM of the Ladies Club. On Wednesday we’re meeting friends for coffee and I’ve got things to do in town. On Thursday it’s the dentist in the morning and I’ve got to get a new passport photo so that’ll have to be done in the afternoon.

Mel, take it easy with that hip of yours. Perhaps you have been overdoing it. I remember you had x-rays, were you put on a waiting list for a replacement?

AnnG, will you be able to attract goldfinches with the Niger seeds? I know goldfinches are supposed to love them but they won’t touch them here. What they do love is sunflower hearts and there are usually a couple on the feeder.

Well, I’ve drunk my tea so I had better pick up my trusty secateurs and get outside. Enjoy your day everyone.

Morning Anng and Island and all,

Bright then dull here this morning and we've had some rain too. The sky is a bit grey with the occasional blue bit and its 10 degrees.

Our oil comes this afternoon so I better get round by the tank and pull the rose cuttings away from where he has to stand.

Left hip is really bad today and was yesterday and I am hobbling about so it may be walker use today. I don't use it if I dion't need it but its nice to knwo its there and of course to use as a seat on the patio.

Not been top the girls yet either!! but they have plenty of food and water in there.

Morning Ann

It's bright here too so I may venture out for a bit of garden clearing.
I'm sure yesterday was forecast to be dry but we had several heavy showers so who knows if it will be garden or art today.....

Enjoy whatever you do

Good morning all from quite a bright (so far) morning in Glos.

Nothing much planned for today (what's new?) except I do need to run my car at least a short distance. It is getting more and more likely that I get rid of it. But there is still the feeling that it is there if I need it.