General Chat

I had one too which was nice.

The sun is shining this morning and my internet is back. I don't know what was going on last night but it wouldn't stay connected. It mustn't like the rain

I have just had a message from our Diane - she sends a big 'hello' to everyone :-D

Goodnight Linda - sleep well <3

Today I'm going to do a little gardening. OH has cleaned up his veggie garden. We appear to have garlic and onions. It was difficult to tell with all the weeds :-(

My pots are looking good although nothing much is happening. The orchids are starting to show some life and my begonia and ferns seem to be ok - I just need to tidy them up. The garden isn't doing much at the moment - soon Spring will be here and that's when the garden comes to life.

The internet has only just come back, I keep resetting it but it doesn't last. We didn't get to watch WDYTYA, we will have to try again tomorrow.

It is time for bed now,so I will post this while I can and say goodnight

Hello everyone :-D

Good to see your son and partner have the keys to the house - now the fun begins.

Torrential rain for Linda and I assume sunshine for Tec.

Wallpaper :-D :-D

Some of the layers of wallpaper we stripped was 40s/50s.

I'm sure some of it was William Morris :-D

Dark green painted bathroom, and kitchen. Actually it was distemper, but you are much too young to remember that.

Stripping out old houses can be fun - the stair carpet was beautifully patterned Axminster - though thread bare in places.

My son did show us some photos of the house as it is now, I thought they were exaggerating about the terrible wallpaper and carpets, but they weren't

we are trying to watch Julie Walters on WDYTYA on iplayer because I missed it last night but it keeps stopping

Sue, tell your OH I started bottling the beetroot today. we have a mammoth crop this year

The internet has been off since I last posted, just managed to get it back, but for how long I don't know. It is raining hard now,so no need to water anything here

I'm back from watering - so many pots, almost dark before I finished, and bitten to death by midges :-(

Hello Linda,

Good news that your son has the keys, and able to off load the van.
Hard and dirty work ahead, but very satisfying when everything is stripped back to basics.
We had a skip to put all the old carpets and ancient kitchen fittings etc in.
Also good news from the electrician, we had to have a complete re-wire.

It is a good idea to take photo's of the place as it is now, to look back on in later years.

Well I have some watering to do before it gets dark. We have had no rain for days, everything is so dry.

I am having problems with the internet tonight so if I disappear, it is the torrential rain to blame

My son did get his keys this morning,so they have unloaded the van and have set about dismantling the house. They said the tasteful ceiling tiles were coming off easily. They are staying there over the weekend, but are doing a walking marathon for charity on Monday so will do that from their existing rented house which they still have for a while yet. We are going to the new house on Tuesday for a few days to help them to strip out the horrific sixties wallpaper and carpets. If we can strip it back to a shell they can start from scratch.

They had an electrician to test the electrics today and they are better than they thought, they just need a new fuse box. They have also had some builders to give them quotes for the work which needs to be done

Linda I hope that the legalities around your son's house purchase have been settled, and they can get on with it. Van hire is expensive enough.
We had a difficult situation when we moved here. The furniture removers had loaded their van the day before, and arrived here at 10am. Unfortunately the Estate Agent wouldn't release the keys.
I was assured the money had been electronically transferred the day before, but there were problems with Barclay's Property Co who were handling the deceased old lady;s affairs.
The furniture van , and us, sat outside all day while I was in the village telephone kiosk trying to sort things out.
Eventually I told the removers to break in, which they did.
When I went for the keys late afternoon I told the Estate Agent that I had broken into the property.
To which he replied "Why didn't you do that to start with"
I could have hit him.
Because the removers were delayed it cost me an extra £500 for the move.

Persie - Because I haven't been paying attention for a few days, I have lost track of what you're up to. :-D
I must read back later.
Are you moving?
Are you living out of a truck somewhere?
Why are you buying a tank?
My head is in a complete muddle where you are concerned, so I must read back and digest - you have confused me now :-D

How annoying for your son and partner. They would be so excited to be moving in and a delay would be such a let down.

Thank you for the birthday wishes for my daughter and also for the twins. We have a month of birthdays :-0 :-)

Happy birthday to your daughter Sue.

I am glad you had a lovely time with your daughter Tec. It is amazing what you find in the kitchen cupboards. I had a huge clear out a couple of years ago, but now they seem as full as ever.

I think a tank is going a little too far Persie, if things are that bad in your neighbourhood, I would emigrate. There are some lovely parts of inner London you could move to where they don't have riots that often

We are still waiting to hear if my son has they keys to his new house yet. They are first time buyers and the house they are buying belonged to an old lady who had died. It has taken ages fior the sale to go through. My sons solicitor was furious yesterday because the other solicitor had "forgotten" that the house was part of an equity release scheme. The old lady must have borrowed money on the value of the house. He had forgotten to tell the equity company about the sale. Apparently it normally takes two to five days for the paperwork to go through, but they are doing it by fax. I didn't realise that my son was moving most of his things in this weekend. They had hired a van for the weekend and had a full load packed when the problem arose, I hope the stuff was fine in the van overnight

And my daughter turned 45 only a week or so ago.. and yes I too remember when she was little in fact right back to when I had her .

Just been interrupted by himself wanting to show me a Skoda he would like to buy.. (not) it only happens to be a tank and is on our Trademe (equivalent of E Bay) they want $92,000 for it.... I guess it won't be long before one might have to buy a tank to protect ones own and possessions.

I too know what it is like having cleared out so much and still some more to go.. I apologised to my mother in my head when we took the large blanket box (glory box as she called it) to the SPCA charity shop. I never did like it but have had it for over 40 years and no one could see it in the walk in wardrobe.

Goodnight Tec - sleep well <3

Well as it's nearly midnight, I'd better get to bed.

Enjoy your day Sue, hope you get some rain to green up the lawn :-)

Goodnight,
Tec :-)

I hope you all have a lovely evening on Saturday.
Happy 40th to your daughter :-)

I know just how you feel about time flying. My daughter is 50 now, though I still consider her a girl :-D
She frequently reminds me how old she is, when I speak to her as if she's 16 :-D

and yes, I remember when she was a little girl, one of the happiest periods of my life. I was a very proud dad, as all dads are :-) and still am.

Oh dear - that doesn't sound good. Sometimes we get the tail end of bad storms in Queensland but usually it has quiet ended down by the time it reaches us.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) we are all going out for dinner to a Balinese restaurant to celebrate my daughter turning forty. I don't know how that happened - I can remember her being a little girl so clearly. How time flies :-(