General Chat

Hope he can finally get through Vera. I was in McColls the other week, a small supermarket near me and was the only one in there. Luckily I didn't need fruit or bananas the only thing on the veg shelf was three bananas. I did get a pint of skimmed milk which was all I needed to tide me over.

This morning I vacuumed the stairs with my hand help goblin cleaner, cleaned the small hall that the front door opens into. Had some spot cleaning to do on the carpet there, and cleaned/dusted the lounge and dining room. Now making some veg soup with left over veg.

Heavy showers here, have to hope they don't happen this afternoon.

Poor Malcolm meeting a sticky end.

We had heavy rain earlier this morning. Now it is just on and off showers and there is a hint of blue sky. There are warnings in this area for heavy rain and strong winds tomorrow so I don’t think there’ll be much done in the garden this weekend.

I have a Sainsbury delivery on Tuesday afternoon but needed a top up of milk, bread and fresh veg before then so I went shopping early. I decided on the Co-op as they are never as busy as the other local supermarkets, although they don’t have as much variety and they are more expensive. There were a lot of empty spaces on the shelves. There were no carrots and not much milk. I think I picked up the last 4-pint bottle. There were only a couple of people in the shop and I was home again by 8.45 am.

OH had a text this morning from physiotherapy to say they had received a doctor’s referral for him and he should ring for an appointment. That’s fine if you can get through! I think we are going to try just before their closing time again. It’s another example of outsourcing that is supposedly more convenient for the patient.

I hope your flu jab is OK today AnnG and it doesn’t cause a painful arm.

Not sure what I am going to do now. It’s too wet to garden and I’m not in the mood for h/w.

EDIT. Just noticed your last post Mel. Good for Malcolm :-)

Good news!!! I saw Malcolm last night he was under the hand basin when I picked up something on the floor I spied him.

Morning Anng and all,

Sunshine breifly then rain and it 14 degrees at the mo. I think the winds dropped a bit but hav'nt been out there yet so shall find out later.

Must get the scripts in today so we don't run out if I can do it online. I seem to have trouble every time I try but I suppose its because I do both ours on one email address.

Pinch and a punch for the first of the month and where did September go? I seem to say this each month and I hope we get St Luke's l;ittle summer this October which is usually about the 19th I think.

Awe poor Malcolm Mel.

Good morning from a very wet Glos. 13 degrees though so a bit warmer than the last few days Nothing planned for this morning, just the vaccinations this afternoon. I believe the flu jab can make your arm painful this time but I will see, it doesn't usually bother me. It will probably be in my right arm so may stop me typing later. Probably a day for 'doing' the lounge and dining room as certainly no gardening.

I think I may have squashed Malcolm by accident. He was on the door frame and I went in the loo and put my hand on the door frame. Never done that before but I hav'nt seen him since.

Will report in the morning if I have seen him or not.

I missed you there Ann you were two minutes ahead of me. I was awake at 4am too, couldn’t get back to sleep for ages, strange how it happens sometimes isn’t it.
I have just closed the curtains to shut the awful weather out..
I look forward to your mono painting. Are you copying a photo for it? I love mono photography but think painting might be quite difficult.

Vera I can understand your OH not wanting to take pills I am the same. The skill is in knowing when to give in and take them. My OH fought against it to the end.

I hope you don’t have to wait too long before the letter arrives and that things can be sorted.

I have some bedding geraniums but think I will just get rid of them before winter, they are not special. I will overwinter the Ivy geraniums though as they were Tony’s.

Very grey and cold today. We've had a couple of heavy showers but they didn't last long.

You did well with your shopping yesterday AnnG and it sounds as though you have been busy today. I hope your new neighbours turn out to be nice. We were supposed to have new people in the bungalow on the end of our Close by now. The lady that lived there had to go into a home and her house was put up for sale. Contracts were on the point of being exchanged when she died. As the bungalow was still officially part of her estate the sale can't go ahead until her daughter has been granted probate which is taking a while at the moment. If the buyers drop out because of the delay daughter will have to start all over again.

It's good you enjoyed this week's lesson on Zoom more than last week's Ann. Your geraniums should be fine outside until it starts getting frosty. Over the last couple of days I have taken a few cuttings and I've also lifted a dozen white ones I had in troughs. They are pretty big now as I've had them a few years and each year I think they won't survive another year. While I was potting them up I realised I am quite vicious with them. I chop them right down, sometimes there are a few leaves left and sometimes just a few bits of stem, and I also cut a bit off the roots, then I pot them and water them in. I then put them in my mini plastic greenhouse and pretty much forget about them. I might look at them once or twice during the winter if I think of it but they seem to thrive on a bit of neglect.

I've also cleared a couple of troughs of bedding plants that were coming to the end of their life and I've taken a few penstemon cuttings. There still seems to be a lot to do out there. Our tiny garden is definitely not low maintenance. I can't imagine now how we coped with a large garden.

As Ann said Mel, you must have come a real cropper when you fell for the bruises to still be showing. Thank goodness you didn't do more damage to yourself. I reckon you'll have a few more gardening days yet. You can sometimes get a bit of an Indian summer in October.

AnnG, OH took the news about his arthritic hips as he takes everything, very calmly. He is a matter of fact sort of person who deals with things as they happen; he can't see the point of worrying about things in advance. He has to be desperate before he will take pain killers and our doctors know and respect this but they have said there are drugs available to him if he wants them. Although there is a limit to what he can do at the moment, he is doing what he can and even when he is sitting reading or watching TV, he gets up and walks round the room a few times to keep himself moving. I missed him today and found him underneath the garden table unscrewing the big knob that holds the sun canopy in place. I wondered what was going to happen if he couldn't get up but he managed and the canopy is now put away for the winter again.

As to his last scan, OH rang the hospital today and asked when he could expect to hear from them. The lady he spoke to had the letter in front of her ready to go out but said the consultant had to check it over before it could go. She did however read it to him over the phone. It looks as though there may be something more to investigate but we will wait till he gets the letter "officially" as we don't know what the consultant is going to suggest as the next step.

I am sitting here with a nice glass of rose wine. I don't usually have a glass before about 6 pm but at 4.30 I decided I had had enough so I poured myself an early glass and then got involved on the computer and haven't finished drinking it. It was so cold this morning that I decided we would have stew for dinner and I have done enough for 2 days so I had better go and give it a stir, though we won't have it till around 7 pm.

Well I did all the floors upstairs (and had to change the cleaner bag for the fist time ever for me). I then gave my bedroom a thorough clean taking everything off surfaces and dusting and polishing and then wiping down all the melomine surfaces (windowsills, and all the white cupboard doors and drawers of the fitted wardrobe, built in dressing table etc. It took me over an hour but does look and smell clean now. Not that it smelt dirty before but it needed doing. I then dusted and did the same with the spare bedroom. Not done any card making as I was too tired.Still raining.

Afternoon All,

Windy and chillier here today. I woke at 4.00am and couldn't get back to sleep for some reason but I was in bed early so had a reasonable amount of sleep. I got the wall pots planted and left them outside the greenhouse. OH was going to put them on the wall, but decided to wait till the wind and rain stop. The Magpies and Jackdaws have been jockeying for the highest perches in the field trees in the wind and the Pigeons have got fed up and cleared off.

I see you had a good shop AnnG and got quite a few things, including pressies and some bulbs. It's good the Doves have spotted the new pole and are feeding. It will encourage other birds to come to feed as well. The second week of the course nearly didn't happen. Zoom can be confusing as there seems to be different routes to do the same thing and each teacher does it differently. Where we log on to the class with this teacher is different and I thought I had got it wrong, but it turned out to be his internet and he was late, most teachers put messages about what we will do and any pictures to use in 'Announcements' but this teacher puts them in an individual's 'in box' ,so finding the pathways is not obvious! It was a bit better this week, this teacher discusses a topic (monochrome this time) and some of the experienced start painting, a few others like me listen and jot things down. I'm quite looking forward to doing a picture this time, but from what I've seen, apart from two, the others do very abstract interpretations. As it is an acrylic class I didn't use anything else, but the teacher is now encouraging using multimedia. We are not allowed to use black paint though, we have to mix it from other colours!

Mel that was a really hard fall for the bruising to still be coming out so it's lucky you didn't do more damage. I'm hoping we gat some more good days as I haven't got my Geraniums inside yet. I've potted up the much better second sedum and decided to keep that inside over the winter too. You are lucky still getting beans and the long podded one sounds good, especially coming back the following year.

Thats nice Anng you know they hav'nt left your garden now.

I have just picked a 1lb of long beans now what am I going to put with them for tonights dinner????????

They say high winds for the weekend so batten down the hatches. I bet my beans will go ove and I want to save some seed from the very long one which were called Benchmaster and are over a foot long. This plant they are growing from has been in the tub for three years now. I just cut it down but don't dig it up and put the new ones around it. I wonder if it will survive again next year?

Oooh hopefully plenty of gardening days left yet Mel. October is usually ok for gardening. Hope so anyway. Haven't started on the housework yet,

Good to see that at least the Collard doves are starting to use the feeder on the pole now where the apple tree was.

Morning Anng and all,

Dull wet grey and windy............................................................

After yesterdays lovely sunny day its a big change over night and I think I need to put on something warmer during the day.

Oh brought all the garden tools down from the border yesterday so I suppose he thinks I shan't be up there again this year and I did'nt get all done I wanted to. I must dig out some of that chinese iris as its gone right in the hellenium and I did'nt finish cutting out some of the old rhizomes of the bearded iris.

Good morning all, wet and drab here this morning, no surprise as it is what was forecast. Nothing to do today so rain might force me to do some much needed housework. I am going to have to wait a few days I think for the dry days when I can plant my bulbs I bought yesterday. I slept quite badly last night and when I woke for the loo I was over an hour getting back to sleep. No idea why.

Looking out of the window at the house where the couple moved from yesterday, it was a quick turn around as the new people are in. Hopefully they are not going to be a problem, At the moment they have a very large van and a car parked on their drive and a car parked on the side of the turning circle. Obviously they were told they could park there, however we know that the people who lived there before were told many times years back that they should not park there. If they have visitors they are going to be parking outside our houses. Anyway fingers crossed they are thoughtful people.

You did do well with a big spend up and all you wanted you got. Successful day then and good company too.

I hoovered the whole bungalow this morning and stated to cut down the old Albatine rose as it has shot out two of three good new shoots and we have oil coming within the next 9 days so it had grown right through the fence and over the oil tank. Also a load of ivy had grown into it so most of it is off now but I had to stop to go and get the F & C's which we ordered online today and paid for for a 6.30pm pick up. The only thing was he had cooked me a streak and kidney pie and I wanted steak so I had to wait while he cooked the right one.

Anyone watching the new serise tonight? I hav'nt seen it yet as oh had The Repair Shop on.

We watched the space station go over so I missed the toy chest finished but I can go through catchup and watch that.

Still have my bruise all down the side of my leg .

Hope you all sleep well tonight.

Vera good result with the blood test then but not so good with the X-ray, although the answer while concerning was maybe better than you were imagining. At least it solves the problem of the groin pain. Hopefully physio will have a good result, more appointments but at least your OH will feel he is working towards something. Now you just want the bladder problem sorted. How did your OH take the results.

Ann how did the class go today? Any improvement?

Mel what a privilege to see a bat come for a drink in daylight.

I had a very good day out with my neighbour. We went to Hobbycraft first and bought some stuff of course including a set of scraper boards for Inara for Christmas, we also nipped in to Home sense and found one or two Christmas presents. Next on to the garden centre for lunch, it is a really big restaurant and we had a tankless in a partitioned off part with nobody else sitting there. Afterwards found some more presents and bought some white tulip bulbs, some pink Allium, some tete a tete. Couldn’t find a bird feeder pole but we stopped at our local garden centre and found one there so a good spend up and remarkably nowhere was crowded and most people were using masks.

We just been outside on the decking talking and a bat flew down and round the big pond and had three drinks of water and flew off over the bungalow!! Never seen one during the day before.

I need to do a spider suck up too Mel. There was one in the bath when I had a shower this morning and there are some more little Harvesters appearing with their webs too. As I said in my email your little tealight was very good how you had made the foliage and flowers to decorate it.I must get my other plants put in the pots after the class this afternoon if it isn't too dark!! :-0

This fuel business is messing everything up isn't it. I hope the online deliveries don't get affected next. It's a good job we have the military able to step in and help as they have been doing driving ambulances as well.

There was a long tribute from the Old Girls' Association in our local paper today for the teacher who has passed away. A biologist to the end, as she had recently had mobility problems and become housebound, but enjoyed sitting outside watching the leaves grow on the trees. :-)

You slipped in before me too Vera.

I'm pleased you have some results for your poor oh and hopefully phyiso will help. When does he get the results of his CT scan? for the other problems?

Hasve had a spider suck up this morning and at the mo I am in the bedroom and just have to hover the floor and then the hall and the little loo and thats me done for the day with the hoover. Iv'e done the kitchen but not the dining area yet.

You slipped in ahead of me there Vera. It's good you now know the cause of your OH's groin pain and he has my sympathy being a fellow sufferer only in the knees. Hopefully you will soon get the bladder results.