General Chat

Amanda - jonquils are like little daffodils. They are beautifully scented.

It's dull outside and forecast for rain - this after days of glorious Autumn sunshine.

Hello Sue , I'm not sure what " jonquils " are , although I have heard the word before , I shall have to go and google :-) for some reason my brain is saying Shakespeare :-S maybe there is a connection ?

All three of my daughters are gone out together this evening , this is almost un-heard of :-0 , they hadn't planned a big night out or such like , I hope they have a pleasent night .

Sorry to read about your train trip, Linda. You must have been exhausted :-(. Looking after Esme is a big job but I'm sure she will get used to you being around. Having a rare condition means not knowing what to expect but Esme may surprise everyone.

The gardens appear to be blooming so Spring has sprung. As the temperature drops here the gardens are starting to slow down. I did get a surprise when I went to feed the goat yesterday. I saw some unusual yellow amongst the bushy area. When I went to have a look there was a clump of jonquils. Why they were there I don't know but obviously someone has tossed some bulbs there and they've taken. Luckily the goat can't reach them. Strange time of year to be in bloom :-S

Good morning Sue,

I think that Tecs family might have arrived , hence his disappearence :-S

Good morning Sue :-) I hope you are well and OH also :-)

Good evening everyone :-). I'll just read back.

Hello Tec, you are going to need another wheelchair now to use in the bedroom, then one for the bathroom level, one for downstairs and one for the garden :-D :-D

You could go with your daughter to shop. All the big supermarkets have trolleys which clip onto the front of wheelchairs

Linda , I hope both you and your daughter are feeling better soon .

Good evening Tec :-)

Your emoticons are working :-S :-)

The Verbascums sp sound interesting , I have gown a few over the years , including the wild ones with furry leaves and yellow blooms . Their height is useful in the boarder .
I grew the perfect " crown imperial " frittlirey sp this year , it was just about to open when the lily beetle decended :-| :-| :-P I pulled it up in a mood and went on a murderious hunt for the enermy .I won't bother again in the future :-(
It is good to know you have reclaimed your upstairs area :-)
Have you got the fish tank yet ? Mine is becomeing overwhelmed with guppies , they are very pretty , endler crosses .

It is amazing that I got an appointment immediately, normally you have to book way ahead. If I had been cleared, I would have gone back to the nurse for the jab

My daughter has a cold as well, but she has a sinus infection and has anti biotics for that

Hello Everyone, :-)

Don't know how long I can stay here. I am expecting my daughter and SIL any minute. They had planned to arrive in the morning, just for the day, but phoned a while ago to say they are coming later this evening, so as to wake up here tomorrow.
Daughter will do a big shop for me in the morning, then we will all visit the Duchess in the afternoon. Then they are going home, as they have other commitments this weekend.

Linda, what an horrendous journey home you had :-( Why can't our railway system get its act together? we are only a small island after all.
Like I said, I'm sure Esme will get used to you, and have some smiles for you too :-)
Her feeding regime must be very tiring for her and for you.

Berona - Good to see that you had techi problems, and nothing wrong. We do notice you know when you are AWOL :-D.

Amanda - The foxgloves will look splendid in flower. I bought some verbascoms sp recently, and have high hopes for them. My lily's are doing very well, in tubs, and should look good in the summer.
I will have to get help in the garden. The weeds that I can't reach are laughing at me now. I see more every time I look.

Sylvia I haven't killed anyone yet with my scooter

Huia, I hope that you get your ISP sorted quickly. I can't bear to be without my laptop - feel as if my throats been cut lol

My emoticons are not working - so please imagine them where appropriate.

Today a guy turned up to fit a very short length of stairlift that will enable me to negotiate the two steps on to a higher landing area that were preventing me getting to the bedrooms.
Now I can get to the bedrooms easily. I shall have the double bed taken away, and have the bedroom decorated before I move back in there.
It will be good to sleep upstairs again, and I can reclaim the dining room.

:-0 :-D

Hello Linda , it is good to know the Drs saw you so swiftly and reassureing that your oxygen levels etc are okay . Do you think it might be the London air that gets to your chest ?

The gardens are filling up , it never ceases to amaze me that all the plants just emerge on cue :-D

Hello Amanda, it is lovely to see you.

OH was out in the garden today and I went to see him, I was amazed to see that all the bare borders are now full of perennials again

I went to the doctors this afternoon to get my pneumonia jab, but the nurse was concerned about my cough,so she magicked up an appointment with the doctor at just an hours notice. I had a mooch around then came back and sat for another half an hour until he saw me. he checked me over and said that my lungs were clear and my oxygen level was 98%, so it is a viral infection. He didn't want me to have the jab for a couple of weeks, so I will have to go back again

Hello everyone :-D

Linda , it sounds as if you had one hell of a journey , glad to know you are back home for the time being . I hope you can get some rest , dealing with Esmes problems must be very draining , I hope , as time goes by that she gives you some of those smiles , instead of saving them all for her Mummy ...... little tinker :-)

Diane , it sounds as if you have quite a task on your hands with your Aunts garden . Although it sounds like hard graft at least you are outside in the fresh air :-)

Tec , I'm sure you will get your garden under control eventually , for the time being try thinking of it as a cottage garden :-D I have some wonderful foxgloves thrusting skywards , I think they will be in flowe befoe much longer !

Sorry Berona, I wandered off. Esme is nine months old now, but she looks more like four or five months. She is starting to roll on her side which ius good, but she probably won't be able to sit up until she is one to one and a half years old for instance.

It is just a waiting game until the genetic tests are completed there are four related syndromes which it could be and sometimes they never find the faulty genes and just have to go on the symptoms. She probably won't eat until she is between two to four years old. In the meantime her mum is going to start making her own baby food which has the maximum calories in the smallest volume. There are good online support groups four tube fed people which are a great help. She will need a £500 hospital standard blender to do it. It is a good job that we can afford to buy it for, them

Linda - that was awful, what you went through to get home. British Rail isn't what it was when I was over there - but that was a long time ago! How old is Esme, now? I get all these babies mixed up and time just flies - it only seems like last year that Eve was born. You will need your next holiday to get over all this.

Hello everyone, it is nice that you missed me :-D

I travel home on Thursday evenings and OH should pick me up at the station at 9.35pm, assuming the train is on time

Except, when I got to Kings Cross last night, it was to find that my train was cancelled :-(

It is a small train company called Grand Central and they have limited rolling stock,so if they have a problem,they are stumped. Instead, everyone was to get on the 7.30 East Coast Mainline train to Newcastle. That doesn't stop at my station, so it would mean getting off at York, or even better at the next stop which is only a fifteen minute drive from here. The man on the info desk said we should get off at York and then catch a local train to get back. Great, except i knew there were no local trains at that time, as the man discovered when I made him look it up. He then said in that case ,they will be putting a bus on to transfer you.

I said it would be much easier to go to the next station along and I would be picked up from there, but no, I would not be allowed to do that because it is further along than my ticket is valid for, I would have to buy an extension to the ticket.

I rang OH and he said that rather than wait for a bus, he would drive the 35 mins to York and collect me. I knew the train would be horrendous,so as soon as the platform came up, I sculled along the platform as fast as I could and was lucky to find an unreserved seat. Others were not so fortunate and were sitting all over the floor.

There were no announcements about where to get off until we were ten minutes from York, when they said people for my station, shouldn't get off there, we should stay on the train and get off at the station I had been told I couldn't. There would then be a forty minute wait to get a train back down the line which only took eight minutes. I was so cross because it was too late to contact OH by then. I shall be ratting off a strongly worded email to the train company.

By the time I got back, I was so tired, I just went to bed and I had a long sleep in this morning.

As soon as her mum walks through the door, Esme flips a switch and becomes a smiling contented baby, she sits in her reclining high chair, or propped up on cushions on the sofa and smiles. The second her mum leaves,she cries and is only consoled when I pick her up and stand up. She knows when I sit down,so my back is aching. She has to go in her high chair to be fed the baby food through the syringe, that takes forty to fifty minutes and she is upset through all of it. Ideally she should stay still for twenty minutes after the feed, but I have to pick her up,so she throws up.

The same with the milk feeds which take an hour and a half, but at least for those I can put her in her buggy and push her round the streets, so she is contented and eventually goes to sleep. Of course the second you stop pushing she wakes up, then throws up.

It is almost certain that she has an extremely rare genetic condition, one symptom of which is excess mucus production, so her stomach is full of slime, which is why she vomits so much.

Oh well, we will get there in the end

I have been trying to sign up to a new ISP (Orcon) but I don't know how they will let me know. I was told today that it had happened but they have not sent an email and I don't know how I get onto it. I might disappear for a while as my current provider was supposed to be closing on the 30th April (2 days ago) but I am still connected, however the sub I had paid is due to expire tomorrow, so I will probably lose connection then. I hope I wont have any trouble getting onto Orcon quickly. I hate being without a computer. :-|

Just reporting in to say sorry I haven't been here for a few days. .. I 'cleaned up' my computer and went a bit too far. I found that each time I wanted to post a comment, I had to log in first. I then sought GR's help and managed to cut myself off completely - couldn't get in at all!
However, thanks to Alex at GR for his/her prompt and efficient help, I'm back in business again and can come straight to the current page with one click on 'Links' on the desktop, once more.

Hi Sue, and everyone


we've had a glorious few days here ....... sunny, and WARM!

we're all wondering how long it will last :-)


Diane ....... it is such a shame that your aunt's house and belongings were so badly treated.

Have you got any comeback at all on those who took stuff??



Tec .......... enjoy your trip tomorrow. Don't scare too many of the locals with the speed of your driving :-D




take care everyone





s
xx