General Chat

Another good spend up then Anng. Always makes you feel better with something new.

Did a bit of ironing this morning waited for my one egg of the day and got it but there was a broken one in there when I first looked in and Daisy was sitting so I just whipped the shell out.

I am going up the border now as the suns still shining and its quite warm today. Must remember to take something incase theres any more blackberries up there before I cut the brimbles down.

Had a good trip out, bought myself a three quarter sleeve winter weight top, some soft grip socks and three or four presents as well as two lots of violas for baskets.

Morning Anng and all,

We have sunshine this morning and it makes such a difference to the way you feel. The sky has some little white clouds in it but theres lots of blue too.You'll have gone now but enjoy your trip out and your coffee with a friend at the garden centre.

Nothing planned here for today but dinner which will be minted lamb leg steaks my new pots and my long beans and not my mushrooms.

I may go up the border today and cut back some more stuff.

Good morning all

grey/white sky 14 degrees so a bit warmer and not so windy. Off out at 10 o'clock, just to another large garden centre.for coffee

being picked up at 10am. normally there days I am awake by 0630 today, because I need to be early it was 0715 because i couldn't get back to sleep at 4am and when I did I slept on. still I am showered and hair washed and dressed and off for my breakfast now. Have a good day. :-) :-)

night night all. Hope you all sleep well tonight and good luck Mandy for Saturday.

Evening all,

Been busy and tomorrow the girls are coming again for a couple of days .

Ann scarecrow competition is Saturday, I've added some more bees to the sunflower on Mr crow they are on wires so they move about also added a butterfly on wire to Mrs crows hat :-D

Island love the little cameras and I hope that nasty cough soon eases up for you.

Mel love the little boats and the pom poms .

Nice to hear from Gill and i hope you can soon find the trades people you need so you can get things moving .


I had an email saying they would like to have the scarecrows on display in the church over the weekend and for a few days next week so we won't have to collect them on Saturday.

Anng that poor woman all that after just pricking her finger ,makes you think doesn't.
Hope you enjoyed your afternoon with your friend ,must awful for her to be unbalanced but what a difference for her when she has the switch on ,they can do some marvellous ops these days .

Sorry, I missed you there Ann.
I'll catch up tomorrow

Strepsils Mel? I need the big guns :-0

I managed to pull out the mangy peas and bag up - masked and gloved.
I wouldn't have wanted to forage through them for a bowl of peas, not worth the risk with resp issues. What with being away for nearly a week then being poorly for another week and a half, they were rather neglected. Next year PSB, in the same cage hasn't been affected.
I did a colour wash on two sheets of A3 ready to make a mini sketchbook and that's it for today. I'm pooped. Early bed and hopefully have less coughing and more energy tomorrow.
I hope everyone had a good day.

Evening All,

A rather dull day here t but I did go out and prune another humperful of the Bottlebrush and Viburnum. It's lucky OH paid for the bigger garden bin that holds plenty and I think one more go at those 2 shrubs will finish them and I can move on to the rest!

You are doing very well with the garden Gill and it sounds like you will be busy planting all those bulbs next! At least when you do a place up there is always another job you can do if there's a holdup with other things. I hope you can find a plasterer and electrician soon so that you can get your bathroom and kitchen planned out and fitted. At least you will be warm with the new boiler and rads. Sorry that Glynn still has a painful shoulder. It must be frustrating when you both want to be getting on with things.

The 'new' old mower sounds good Mel and it was good that someone else commented on it too. How was the apple and blackberry crumble? It made my mouth water thinking about it! The company that deliver our Sunday lunch have trackers on their employees. You can watch them on a map on your screen getting closer with your lunch! I expect it is important for them to know so they can see where their employees are if another delivery is needed and to see who would be nearest to do it next.

As AnnG says things were very tight in the Civil Service. Every visit or tour of visits we did had to be logged with where we started and whether from home or the office with the time and our mileage with any excess mileage shown and the reason for it. We never had mobiles for many years and were still sharing and signing for them by the time I left. We would leave our tour of visits with our manager and if you didn't turn up on time where you were supposed to be, managers would scramble to go and look for you. At the end of your visits we had to phone the office on our return home or our boss's home if they had gone home to let them know we had gone home. It was good though as one person was murdered on a visit. Home to work mileage had to be deducted if you started off from home when you claimed for your mileage and expenses were checked by your manager, then by his/her manager then had to go to Regional Office to be authorised before they paid you! I started in the 70s when we were in an old factory with brick walls and concrete floors and old furniture. Phones were shared between us, only one adding machine between about 12 of us, no calculators were provided, new biros were held by the supervisors and you had to produce your old one to get a new one and questions would be asked if you needed a new scrap pad too often. The public still thought we were in our ivory towers drinking coffee all day though! By the time I retired in 2003 we had computers and laptops and there was software with lots of codes where we had to identify our time spent on different activity throughout each day, eg training, meetings, visiting, casework, interviews and so on. I hated having to do that! Any gossiping at the photocopier went with the introduction of robust targets that were increased every year Island. If you didn't acheive them, your pay and so your pension were all affected, or could lead to you being sacked!! :-S Targets were good in some ways, as the good managers didn't mind us Inspectors doing a lot of work from home as long as we were producing the results. In short almost everything we did was tracked!

As Vera would say, that's enough of me for now! I can't believe how dark it is outside! :-0

Strepsils are good.

That made me google it too as michaelmas daisies often get a lot of mildew (mine are ok so far).

Inhaling mold spores may cause allergic reactions, most commonly from July to early fall, but because mold grows both indoors and out, allergic reactions can occur year-round. Symptoms may include coughing, shortness of breath, and wheezing.

I think it is more worrying in people with low immunity.

Have you asked the pharmacist for medicine Island? Not sure if there is anything over the counter off prescription though.

We would not have got away with that in our office Island. Although I am talking the 90s here, I retired in 2000. But working for the military you play it by their rules. although we were on flexi time that had to be abandoned if a job needed finishing past out allowed home going time., open plan offices aso always on show. However we were allowed to chat a bit as long as we didn't take advantage but that depended on which officer you had in charge of your office, I had one who was a bit of a swine, didn't like females, and particularly civilian female officers. But the last one I had was lovely.

Nobody Island.

The peas should be ok in the pods if the pods are mildewy. Sorry the cough is still bothering you did you try the warm honey and lemon drink to sip?

Morning all
grey here too but forecast looks good for next week LOL That'll change.

Up at 6am as I couldn't stop coughing and still going strong.
Outside chance but I was in among the peas the other day and they are very mildewed so did a google...... :-( I was planning to pull them up anyway and harvest the peas but they will have to be dumped too, It's a good job we have plenty of masks

It's nice to get an update from Gill, it sounds as if things are coming together.

Mel, I wouldn't take a job where I was tacked either especially after 5 minutes! Not that I'm a slacker being self employed but I have seen skivers when I've worked in an office - nice to get paid for spending time putting the slap on for an after work drink and gossiping too long by the photo copier - do they still exist?

Anng, enjoy the afternoon with your friend, I'm sure you will. Poor lady having balance problems, not nice.

I wonder who's popped in ahead of me.... :-D

Morning Anng and all,

Its another grey day here too but its dry which is the main thing if we want to get on in the garden.

Oh seems to have cured the old mower and has been using it again on the outside of the wall. I must send some pics of the zero turn mower he did up as it now looks like new in fact when we had a delivery of sosmething two weeks ago the driver thought the driver thought it was a new mower and was talking to oh about it and his firm rang him to find out why he had stopped for five mins. It seems they track their drivers and know exactly where they are all the time. I don't think I owuld like that.

Gill its good you now have some work surfaces to work on in the kitchen. Good luck with the electrician and your plasterer. YOu'll soon be straighter and start to enjoy your new kitchen and bathroom. You've done marvels in the garden and now you have all those bulbs to replant, good luck.

Good morning all, no change in the grey weather here, so depressing when it stays dark all day.

Good to see you gill, pity you can't find that electrician you need. Good that you now have somewhere to work on in the kitchen. and certainly sounds like you have been busy in the garden.

Vera, yes I had a good day spending a bit of money yesterday, not easy to get excited over a garden fork and shears though.

I had better get going, this afternoon I have a friend coming, this is the young lady who helped with my dressings on my back. She has had a cochlear implant and needs to walk to build up her balance that the op messed up. she is getting there and is much stronger so will be fit for the 'switch on' of the implant in a couple of weeks. At the moment her balance is 'off' because she only has hearing in one ear.

Hi all

We've been busy again, OH built me a frame to put a couple of worktops on in our kitchen that Sandra gave us so now I finally have some workspace which is a godsend. They're only lightweight so I might use them up in the loft when it's been boarded and the new ladder goes up and the new kitchen goes in.

I've cleared all the plants in the front garden so I just need to dig up all the roots as OH can't do it at the moment with his sore shoulder. He went to the doctors today and was told he has tendonitis so has to see a specialist. He's back at work but only on light duties.

I still haven't got hold of an electrician to move the electrics in the new bathroom so will have to make some more phone calls to see if anyone can do the job, then we'll need a plasterer to plaster the bathroom and hall before we can have our new bathroom and shower installed. We still have a few jobs to do so we're doubtful they'll all be done this year, but at least we're getting there in the garden as I've cleared a very overgrown boarder in the back garden and found around 1000 bulbs and moved almost 30 sandstone rocks. I still have another boarder to do and some plants to cut down. OH cut the lawns the other day and ended up filling a tonne bag of grass. I got an email today to say the garden bin is only being emptied once a month now as they haven't got the drivers so it's going to take a while to get rid of all the grass, but hopefully it'll all be gone before the winter. We're going to dig the grass up and level the ground, well I am as OH can't do it, so it looks like I'm going to be very busy for some time yet.

I hope everyone is okay and keeping well. I'll try and get on here more often if I can. I lost my Internet but think it was a tree in the front garden, we cut that down and my Internet has improved, so hopefully it'll stay that way.

Going to bed now, hope you all have a good nights sleep.

I’ve now managed to read back over yesterday’s posts. Who mentioned the C word? Slapped wrist for you. I refuse to think about Christmas till much, much later. The year is rushing away as it is without thinking that far ahead. As for February, which was also mentioned, I hate it and often get a bit depressed even though my birthday is in February. It’s often a miserable month weather wise but also several people close to me died in February. There was my mum, my dad, a favourite aunt and this year we also had my brother’s funeral. Sometimes I feel I would like to go to sleep at the end of January and wake up on 1st March.

I knew those knitted faces reminded me of something Ann but couldn’t think what until you mentioned the Easter Island figures. That’s spot on. Aren’t Island’s dinky cameras fun as well?

I love your little blue and white boats too Mel. You all have such clever ideas. Enjoy your blackberry and apple crumble. Can I come to tea please?

I did various tidying up jobs, did the ironing, prepared the veg for tonight’s meal and had a shower, all before 9 am. Maybe I should get up by 6.30 every day. We’re usually up pretty early anyway but if OH is up I don’t seem to get nearly so much done. I managed to get in a short walk and later did an hour in the garden. We don’t have anything like brambles or roses in the garden but I do try and take care as I know there is a lot of stuff out there just waiting to do you harm. A couple of years ago OH got Euphorbia sap in his eye and could have lost his sight and a friend had a very badly infected leg from an insect bite.

It sounds as though you had a nice trip out AnnG

Next year I’ll be pulling up walnut seedlings everywhere as there has been a squirrel around for the last couple of days. He goes across our garden and up our hawthorn tree from where he leaps into next door’s garden. I am not sure where he goes from there but each time he comes back he has a couple of walnuts and I know there isn’t a walnut tree next door. He’s stashed some in our garden and also in some of the pots.

The pain from OH’s possible arthritis is so much better that he is talking about not taking the tablets any longer. I’ve suggested he just cuts out the afternoon dose for now and see how that goes. He is still having problems with his “works” though he’s not in pain with that. The hospital rang about 1.30 and said they can do his CT scan on Friday morning and one of the docs from our surgery rang to say they haven’t got the blood test results yet but they will be in touch when they know those results and the results of the scan. He has had good service from both our GP surgery and the hospital.

Quite how I am going to be ready for the two men arriving Friday for 2 nights and the other couple arriving Sunday morning for 1 night I do not know, particularly as we are out all day tomorrow. We are venturing on a coach for the first time in a couple of years. It will only be half full to allow for spacing and they are all people we know and we will certainly have masks. We are going to Lowestoft which includes a visit to the transport museum there. I’m not that interested in the transport but I expect OH will enjoy it. I shall just enjoy seeing the sea for the first time in a long while. I hope it isn’t too chilly – I know from experience what it feels like when that wind blows in from the North Sea. Brrr!

That’s quite enough from me. Time for the afternoon CoT I think.

Thank you all for your comments on my little sailing boats with their mooring bouys.

It is not just blackberry brambles Mel it is roses as well, that is for whatever it was that the lady had that caused the infection, Sepsis can be caused by any infection but the swelling of her fingers without any sign of a thorn was something different which is why I put the piece up to be read.

Ann I do have adblocker and it does prevent me accessing some things as I refuse to turn it off.

Just back from a trip out with my neighbour. today we have been into Wales to a garden centre that T and I used to go to to meet our friend from Essex and her sister who lives in Chepstow. It seemed strange to be somewhere that still says Masks must be warn in this shop.
I bought myself some new shears and a garden fork, but a light weight smaller one than T used which is too heavy for me. I also got a few bits towards Christmas presents. But no plants today.

Just been checking that my car can run on E10 petrol. Luckily it can.