General Chat

Afternoon All,

Done it again and lost a post just as I was finishing it. My laptop is raised up a bit for doing painting and I think that's why I am catching keys on the edge. I slept well last night after a couple of bad nights and feeling a bit 'off', but I feel much better today.

Oh Mel that was a nasty fall to leave you so bruised, wrenched and battered! I would take it easy today. I'm glad Kim managed to contact you. She's a lovely lady who lives in Australia and she was on our thread for years. She put up a pic of her granddaughter with their daughter's family dog today. He is a lovely rottweiler who has lost a lot of weight, can't be cured and is sadly being put to sleep this afternoon. The little girl is going to miss him badly.

Speaking of emptying baskets I must start potting up any geraniums I want to keep. Some have almost stopped flowering now. I've tried overwintering them before without much success, so any tips are welcome! I seem to either not water them enough or too much through winter. My pebble plants in their bigger pot seem to be doing really well and are ready to flower any day now.

Apart from the pots and veg tubs we are mostly evergreen and gravel here so it never seems to get very bedraggled and keeps tidy and green throughout the winter. We want to tackle and cut down the quick growing Acer which isn't evergreen though before leaf fall. We are also making a start of dismantling some of the old exercise bike, so bits of it can go in the ordinary bin! It's a bit heavy for OH to get into the skips at the tip on his own, so stripping some bits off will make it easier to handle and lift. The people who advertise for shredded paper have started advertising again so OH can drop some of our bags into their roadside bins next time he goes to Hinckley.

Hubby was saying today that parents of a child feeling unwell felt sorry for them to miss a school trip, so allowed them to go. It turned out to be covid and every other child on the trip caught it, plus a teacher who is quite poorly. :-S

I hope Vera has the nice sunny weather we have today and has found somewhere nice to go.

I hope Frank is enjoying his Spanish break too.

Now to tackle the pile of magazines in here that need sorting or chucking out. :-S

Yes the garden is a bit like me today. run out of steam!!!

Take it easy Mel <3

Anng I know what you mean by bedraggled, I'm stripping the runner beans today so the raised bed will be bare on one side.

Its 18 degrees here now and I am going to do something outside before I get the lunch.

It is sunny here Mel and 17 degrees, I had a long sleeved top on and walked to the post box, had to change into short sleeves when I got back as I was hot.

I spent half an hour emptying my Petunia baskets which is always a sad job. Two baskets with 'Million Bells in are still ok but the petunias had gone over. The older I get the more I dislike this time of year when the garden is slowly giving up its summer coat and beginning to look bedraggled. I keep cramming things into the brown bin there soon will be no more room.

I suppose I ought to make the most of the sun and get back out there but the spirit being willing doesn't necessary mean the flesh is not weak. :-D

Anng her board name was megirl.

Fed the chickens and oh is out mowing although the grass is very wet.

I am about to give the kitchen area a little hoover with the cordless to tidy it up from the crumbs and leaves brought in.

Up to 16 degrees here now and the sun is trying to put in an appearance.

Right Mel, no heavy jobs today. Just rest and hopefully the pains will ease.

Was Kim only on this thread or did she go on the general boards? What was her board name do you know? I think I ought to know her being on GR since 2003 myself. It is a shame we have lost most of the people from other countries.

Morning Anng and all,

I have heard from our Kim in Oz this morning. I don't suppose many of you on here remember her as she was back in the old times on the thread. She had tried to contact me and Ann let me know because I don't do facebook.

14 degrees here this morning and computer says FOG. Cloudy sky and very still.

I have a beautiful black bruise on my left hip where I fell on the watering can and bucket on the decking yesterday and my hip hurt a lot too and I have a pain in the shoulder blade. Apart from that I am ok!!

good morning all A brighter morning but only 13 degrees. Been up an hour reading the mail on line but better get dressed now. Looks like we should be getting boosters and flu jabs soon but no mention so far of either here.

Tree surgeon didn't turn up yesterday which is annoying. so many of these workers are good at their jobs but awful at the admin surrounding them. I now have to wait and see what is going to happen.

Evening all,

What a dreary old day it's been ,its rained nearly all day and still going one good thing we don't need to water .

Oh goodness Mel that was a nasty fall I hope your not to sore and bruised tomorrow .

Oh I give up when that happens Ann ,I think my thumb on my left hand just touches the corner of the page where there's a little cross and whoosh it's all gone .

Yesterday we had a good day in lovely sun shine in the garden emptied 6 hanging baskets and took rubbish to the tip, I picked a few runners which I think will be the last so they will be the next thing to takedown.

Oh Vera what a shame you didn't enjoy your meal ,sawdust sausages don't sound very appetising,hope you can find some to have a nice meal .

Gill I think its going to take you a while to get all that glue off so have a go now and again as that will make your neck painful.
Hope you can get an electrician to come soon who would have thought it would be so hard to find someone .

Ann thats good your MOT is sorted all done now for another year .
We filled up with the new E 10 petrol last week so I hope the car likes it .

We had some nice smoked haddock tonight boy it was tasty ,it was some frozen fish i bought from Iceland ,also got some Basa but haven't tried that yet.

Drat! I just did an Island and brushed my thumb pad over a key on the left and whooosh.....everything vanished!

Gunby Hall sounded quite good Vera, especially the gardens. They should have alerted folk to the fact only 3 rooms were open really as it would be annoying if you pay and then find it's the case. I expect it's hard to tell what difficulties some businesses have had. The bannisters would be a high touch area needing cleaning after each group as there is still some risk with hard surfaces albeit small. I had to smile (sorry!) at your disappointing sawdust sausages, and would love to have seen your face when presented with the potato mash mountain, No doubt you will find somewhere better next hopefully. We have stumbled into some disappointing places on holiday ourselves when we haven't known the area.

That's good your friend liked the 'rooms' in your garden AnnG. It sounds like she enjoyed her visit if she was so talkative. Fancy you both having working in the same place all that time. Mind you it was the same where I worked and I rarely ventured upstairs. When one of our longstanding managers did, he was 'challenged' by a member of staff who did not recognise him and thought he was a stranger who had got inside the office somehow!! Once they see me again after all this time I think my friends will be seeing a few more whrinkles!! :-S

Apart from taking photos of OH's car to upload and getting lunch, putting things back in my car boot I haven't done much this afternoon :-S

After Boris' announcement I wonder if we will get ou booster with our flu jab next week our later and which vaccines we will get.

I think he's got on my mums old net curtains!

I think Lewis Hamilton has copied Mandy's scarecrow! :-D

Met Gala 2021

Vera look on it as a rest day. Anywhere planned for tomorrow.
They could get round that by having hand spray top and bottom of stairs and a notice. And surely I read they didn’t think there was a problem with surfaces. And what about buses, shops with stairs and escalators Etc?I think it is an excuse.

I am not sure they lost that much. Most of the visitors always appear to be members and we paid even though they were closed so they had their money and probably furloughed paid staff. So not as much expense. And probably lower utility bills as well.

We asked about the upstairs rooms being closed and were told it is because of the problem of keeping the stair banisters clean. I understand to a degree but it seems to be mainly the NT that is finding it a problem.

Still raining quite hard here and according to the forecast won’t stop till late tonight. OH has read and dozed and watched a very bad Western on the box and I’ve read a bit, fiddled about on the iPlayer a bit and got a bit bored. It’s like the Marie Celeste here - everywhere is deserted. Never mind, tomorrow’s another day and, as long as it’s a bit drier, we’ll be out and about again.

Anng They are probably only opening downstairs rooms as they have t have a very good clean up once everybody has gone. If they opened upstairs as well they would have a real job to get everything up to standard because of corvid. These places all need to get some money in after complete lockdown last year. Just think of their overheads.

We have had a big yellow helicopter flying around at lunch time and now it has just hovered over the Gardens and its an Electricity one so must be checking the leccy wires and poles for the tree growth as they come and cut our trees down out the front every so often. Hope they do as I will ask them to leave the shredding oput the front so I can use them as a mulch for the border.

no sune here Mel, still drizzling and 16 degrees. :-( :-(

:-| :-| :-| I was just typing a long post, brushed my wrist on I don't know what and it was gone!

so ~~~~~~ to all and Mel, I hope you are ok and not injured.

Ouch Mel, that was a nasty (wet) fall. I hope you have not bruised your poorly knee. you now need to rest. I know what you mean by it being a long time since you saw your waist!! But I had a little chuckle as one sentence you were saying how far you had stripped down and in the next breath food delivery had arrived. Hope you were dressed by then.

Ann that is round about what my car cost this time when it went in for Mot etc.
Yes it was annoying that it rained but it did stop long enough for us to go down the garden as she wanted to see what all the different 'rooms' were. Her garden is very neat and open but she liked mine because you can't see it all at once.
She can't half talk though, she is very welsh and we found that for 8 years we both worked in the same place when it was the RAF camp. It is a huge place though and I never crossed her path. I am very bad at judging how old people are especially when they have grey hair but I was really shocked (although didn't show it) to realise that she is only about 65/66, I was bracketing her with my age group :-D

Vera, pleased that you had a good trip yesterday. I wonder why they are only opening the downstairs of these places, it is such a shame as the more interesting rooms are the bedrooms and I notice they are not charging any less. Is it lack of volunteers do you think. It feels as if the rest of us have returned to normal and the NT have not.
Good job you found some books as it looks as though today will be a reading day. I suppose at least it will be a rest day for your OH.

Suns out here just after oh came in from mowing!!!! Its 19 degrees. Hope Anng has the sun for her friend to see her garden.