General Chat

Afternoon All,

Yes we are both ok although OH was a bit dizzy this morning after I'd popped to the shop. Although it's probably his meds, it's happened a few times now so he's going to get a check up with the doctor and take his BP checks he's been doing with him. He needs to ask about the MRI scan he's supposed to be having as that seems to have gone off the radar anyway and also about having the blood test to see if the lower dose of statins is ok.

Well Mandy that was a bit of drama having the CID visit and some of your camera footage taken! There might be something saying what it was all about in the local paper in the next few days. It does show though how useful household cctv and door ringbell footage can be to the police. Someone was obviously up to no good by the fact they were running away.

It's amazing all the cues you have had. I think you may struggle to beat the 98 next year but you never know!

Things are so expensive now it's no wonder people are eating out less and cutting back what they have. OH found the receipts for the tuna jackets we had last week. There was a small portion of finely chopped salad no bigger than the potato and a small pot of homemade coleslaw with them and we had two teas and it came to £26!

I used to freeze half a loaf when I lived on my own AnnG. It saved a lot of waste. Now I just have the small Warburtons wholemeal with no added sugar, or their small seeded wholemeal, but tend to eat less bread now anyway. OH has their large seeded and sometimes the half and half. Regarding Cillit Bang, I just couldn't cope with the fumes from it, even with both bathroom windows and the door open. I've not found anything to remove old mould from the silicon sealant. It's probably best to get it resealed, which first OH did in the past and is an easy job for a handyman and I've noticed there's a mould resistant sealand now called XPRO 365 which might be better. I stopped the man who did the ensuite floor from sealing round it with white sealer and made him use clear sealand as white is so noticeable when it gets grubby. I was too late when the fitter did round the shower tray though or I would have got him to use a grey colour.

Well yesterday we went back to the blind place to choose another blind. The lady spent ages trying to find the blind we ordered in their many pattern books, (which I didn't understand why), but when she found it, she pointed out that it did indeed come in blackout option. Off she went to their factory across the road and to cut a long story short, it seems the manufacturer of the material for the blind had sent the wrong type of fabric, despite the shop ordering the correct black out material. So all is well, more has been ordered, and they will still be able to have the blind ready for when they come next week. It was a nuisance they didn't check it when it arrived, but on the other hand, if they'd said nothing and just made it up I would have just thought it wasn't a very thick blackout material as they do vary.

I've made an appointment for the people who built the wardrobes in to come and see if they can make less deep cupboards under the bedroom window where I have cupboards at each end with drawers and a window seat between across the square bay window. It looks nice and I doubt they will still have the same material the wardrobes are built in and it would give me a bit less storage, but I need to be able to get closer to the window without climbing to wipe or clean the windows properly. Thinking of the future when I won't be able to get my leg up!

I'm glad all went well at the clinic with your eyes Vera and hope you can get your cataract done soon and can see what impact that has. It's good your granddaughter has managed to stand in like that as it will have helped her to ease in too. I had a silly thought and imagined she would be speaking Chinese, but I suppose it's in English! :-)

I was right about there being three baby Swallows then Mel. Will they be big enough to migrate do you think. I don't know whether they stay here if not.

Edit: I didn't see your latest post till after I posted. By 'thingies' do you mean the ports where you plug things in? You must learn the lingo or we won't understand what you are talking about. You do seem to have a lot of problems and I wonder if it is the same for your neighbours. I had trouble with my laptop yesterday as it wouldn't let me enter all of my password for some reason, despite me closing it down and trying several times. Then I unplugged the seperate keyboard I have now and it worked with the old keyboard after a few attempts. I plugged the new keyboard back in and it was fine with that then, so I have no idea what was the matter. It's good you have contact with the outside world again as it must get lonely with no car either.

Afternoon all,

Glad I was missed! I had no internet this morning and it took me over three quarters of an hour on the phone to a lovely chap called Joseph from BT who was in Ireland. He was great and guided me through all these steps and eventually between us and over the phone we managed to get back onto Wi Fi and all it was was an ariel thing that my neighbour took out of the back of the pc when he got me back on ages ago. Only last week I had put this ariel thing away but today I could'nt find. I did in theend and between Joseph one end and me the other we managed to get the Wi Fi back and me into my emails and back on the net. I'm glad it was an 0800 number I had to ring. This was given to me by my neighbour this morning and I am going to keep it in my phone now. The only thing is this small ariel thing is plugged into one of the two thingies ion the pc box where I usually charge my camera and other things in. I can't take out the one for the new keyboard as when I did that this morning the new keyboard did'nt work. This small ariel thing used to be plugged into the back of the pc box but I can't see round there to put it back in where it was. I shall have to wait until BIL comes on Friday and see if he can do it for me.

Anyway its been a wonderful sunny day here all day but I lost the morning with the blimmin pc and Em came and took me up the post van to bank my cheques and get some money out and then I popped in the shop for an anniversary card and some hame and bought a telly paper for next week which I can't understand at all. O to be able to have the Mail on a Saturday once again when I eventually get another car. Not having the pc this morning I felt very alone, no car no pc no one to talk to very strange. The poor girls did'nt even get fedtill 1.15pm but they did have food still in their trough so they did'nt go hungry.

Enough of my moans hope you all slept well.

Hopefully Mel and Ann and OH are all OK. They are probably just busy and Mel sometimes seems to have a bit of trouble with her internet so perhaps that's the reason she isn't posting.

It's nice and sunny and computer says it's 16 degrees but it's still quite breezy and there is a real nip in the wind.

I've had the lights go in both display units in the kitchen so we went out this morning to try to get some new ones. We went to a couple of proper electrical places that OH knows. One just said they are no longer made but the other was more helpful. They also said those particular lights are no longer made but said if OH could get one out and take it in they will see if they can match it for size and fitting etc in their stock. So back home we came. OH has taken one down and we will have to go back to the shop in the next day or two. I think the lights were put in when the house was built in 2008 or 2009 so they don't owe us anything.

It did feel like a wasted morning so I've tried to get on with a couple of jobs this afternoon though I don't feel like I've achieved very much. I think I'll now go and pot up 3 or 4 argyranthemum cuttings that I've rooted in water and they now have good roots on them. There are 2 or 3 more that look as though they are just starting to make roots so I'll leave those for a while.

I expect tomorrow we will go back to the electrical shop with this light and then go on to our usual Thursday coffee meeting.

I had not noticed that Mel has not been on so far today and also hope ann and OH are OK. I expect they are just busy.

Got all the cucumber plants cut down but haven't emptied the pots ,cut seven more cucumbers that were hiding so the end count was 98
It's quite warm out there in the sun today.


No Ann yesterday so hope they are both OK
No Mel this morning either ,I know she said Em was taking her up to the post van so perhaps she took her shopping as well .
Hope Gwyn is OK too .

It is horrendous Mandy when you stop and add it up. I have the sliced best of both bread I put it in the freezer and take a slice at a time.

Morning all,

Grounds wet so I think we must have had a little rain in the night ,its a very cloudy morning but I'm hoping it will stay dry as I need to do a bit in the greenhouse ,the cucumbers are finishing now so if I can cut some down then I want to get three of my tomato plants in there that stand outside and are loaded with green tomatoes .

The prices of a slice of cake seem expensive and if you have to buy for a family when you are out it soon adds up ,I was looking in the bread shop in town and just a small white loaf was 3 pound something now that's a lot if you have a family to feed so I can understand why lots buy the sliced loaves in the supermarket , I buy the seeded sliced loaf and we get through two loaves ar least a week as we have toast for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch ,if I bought those small loaves from the bakers we'd probably need three of those that's nine pound or more just on the bread without the filling ,what ever would our mother's think of the price of bread now or the cost of everything .

Good morning all, very grey but still dry and a wee bit warmer at 8 degrees.

Slept ok in 2 hour 'bits'. Out this morning visiting the ladies who were spinning at the Butterfly garden,

Vera that was a huge amount for a piece of cake, I hope it was a decent size. We always, for a long time, shared one piece of cake, and sometimes still do that with daughter. although usually out with her cake is off the menue because of her diabetes.

It was quite sunny this morning but the sun was deceptive as it was definitely on the chilly side. It clouded over this afternoon and then we had some rain

You've certainly had a bit of excitement in your road Mandy. I wonder what those men had been up to. I expect the police were pleased to find you had some recordings even if it did take them a long time to transfer them.

AnnG, the tea in Dobbies was OK. I think it was £5 but we had a big pot of hot, strong tea. We had 2 cups each and there was still some tea left in the pot. It was the price of the cake that really threw me. It was £4.50 a slice. Even the scones were £3 each. I assume you got some butter with them for that price but if you wanted jam it was another 75p. That's the way things are going I suppose. I had a Tesco delivery this afternoon and nearly everything on my list seemed to have gone up again. It was a big order as I only order every 2 or 3 weeks anyway and I had bought extra stuff to take advantage of some special offers that were ending today. Even so there was only 1 sub and that was to my advantage.

I went for my blood tests this morning. The phlebotomist was a real no-nonsense sort of woman. Usually whoever does the bloods spends ages messing around trying to bring a vein up. Not this lady - it was a case of tighten the strap round my upper arm and shove the needle in. She kept filling 1 tube and then putting another in till I wondered whether I'd have any blood left. It reminded me of an old Tony Hancock sketch called, I think, The Blood Donor. When the doctor said how much blood would be taken Tony Hancock exclaimed "How much! That's nearly an armful".

From the surgery I went to the hairdressers and she got a bit scissor happy. My hair, particularly round the sides, is quite short. As she usually brushes my hair upwards I feel you could turn me upside down and sweep the floor with me.

Then it was over to the bank for my last visit there. I had a nice chat with the teller that served me and she said she'll probably see me again as she has got a job on the tills at our local garden centre.

OH was supposed to have an appointment at the memory clinic tomorrow but the specialist nurse he was seeing rang this afternoon to say she wanted to discuss with the consultant psychiatrist whether OH's episode of transient global amnesia a while ago could have any lasting effect, The consultant is on holiday so his appointment is put off for a week or two and we now have tomorrow free.

Evening all,

It's been a chilly day ,it was sunny first thing so I hung my washing out and we went off into town ,met a few people and stood talking for quite a while and by the time we got to the last shop it had started to drizzle which then turned into heavier rain so we sheltered until it eased up but my washing was wetter then when I pegged it out so I gave it a while but the sky looked so black I thought its going to come down again so in it came.

What a day we had yesterday ,when we went to bed the night before we noticed a police car outside with police looking about with their torches ,any way yesterday the CID knocked and asked if they could look at our camera footage, well they were here over an hour trying to send the recordings that they needed and finally went after lunch time
The phone rang in the afternoon as the very recording they needed hadn't gone through ,they had saved the recordings on my tablet so just before tea back came another CID chap to try to send it ,well he had a job as it kept saying recording to big so in the end he had to split it up to send and he was here over an hour
I did say couldn't they film the recordings on their phone bur he said the courts won't except it ,it has to be the actual recording ,apparently some thing happened down the road ,no idea what but there was two chaps running about on the recordings shouting and they didn't know where to go ,one ran through past us into town and the other went back down the road ,the CID also looked at a car that went down the road .
I did say to the CID chap that they didn't seem to know where they were going and he said I don't think they are from about here .

There was only three Swallow babies in the last nest as they have gone now and theres still one egg in the nest..

Cleaned the girls out this morning and did a wash and have only just put it on the line as I forgot it was inn the machine as it finished while I was doing the chickens.

OK thanks Mel.

The Cilit Bang gets rid of the mould on my bit of silicone round the sink ok. You leave it on for a little while then wipe it off and if it dos'nt get it the first time I do it again. I get a lot of mould in the corner of my bedroom on the wallpaper and it gets that off too. The caravan ceiling is a plastic stuff and that was mouldy when we got the caravan but it cleared all that nicely and it did'nt come back.

Shopping arrived and I sent back the choc buttons but I did'nt see the Hovis instead of Warburtons wholemeal and I don't like the Hovis its too sweet. Now I have to find someone who would like a large Hovis loaf. I'm sure it did'nt come up when I looked at the subs this morning.

yes Mel I did see that among all the others if I tried them all I could stary a specialist shop with them. who knew so many were good at removing it when nothing I have tried is. I will try a few of them when I get around to it. I think it depends what you want to remove it from.Mine is only in the shower end of the bath and only in the silicon type grouting.

Yes I have one sub, for my chocolate raisins they have sent Asda giant buttons so they will be going back.

Morning Anng and all,

Its 5 degrees here and I had misty windows in the bedroom again when I woke up. Pc says more rainy days starting Saturday so thats something to look forward too is'nt it?

I don't ever have a coffee or tea out so I could'nt tell you how much it costs down here.

Shopping comes today and I hav'nt looked yet to see if I have any subs.

Anng did you see about the Cilit Bang mould remover I posted?

Good morning all. 2 degrees again this morning, I am sure it is early for such low morning temperatures. Maybe I just forget.

You had a good day Vera and got the eye test over quite quickly.

As to the rising costs of restaurant treats. I think it is tea that has gone up quite significantly. When I go to town I usually have coffee in a cafe that is a bit more expensive but they deliver it to the table. A regulsr (which is quite large0 lattee and a pecan pastry costs me £6.50 recently gone up 10p. I don't think it is much less in M&S cafe. teas in Dunelm, which is usually cheaper than other places cost me £2.20 each (enough for two weak cups of tea each. I haave noticed that cake slices or single cakes seem to be about £2.95 each. But that does still make Dobbies more expensive doesn't it? I don't remember thinking that when I last had coffee etc in dobbies as thatw as in M Keynes and son was buying. :-D

The day has been quite bright and dry but a bit of the chilly side. I was wearing a shirt with a zipped front cardi over the top and still had to put a fleece on when we went out.
It was a cold night but I looked at the forecast before I went to bed and put a blanket over the top of my summer duvet so I was comfy and warm and slept quite well. I did hear OH get up at 3 am. Apparently he was cold and got up to get a blanket as well. I was up before 7 so I managed to get all our clothes washing done before we had to go out. I've still got bedding to do but I've got plenty of bed linen so that can wait a while.

Mel, I expect you feel lost without a car. Hopefully Stu can get something sorted for you soon. It's good that Em can take you to the post van later in the week. I am dreading the time one or both of us has to give up driving though we know that time isn't too far away. If I had needed to get a taxi to and from the hospital today it would have cost at least £80 and probably nearer £100!

What a shame about your en-suite blind Annx. You'd think they could have told you a little earlier. Yes, our branch of NatWest is biting the dust like so many other banks. I do internet banking but still need to go into the branch for some things and I am not looking forward to having to use our fairly useless post office.

I got on alright at the hospital. I was seen on time and whizzed through the various vision and pressure tests and scans but then had to wait to see the doctor. I was about 20 minutes in the waiting area and then was called in. She told me all the tests and scans were satisfactory and did a lot more shining of dazzling lights in my eyes and checking various things. She seemed pleased and I thought she might discharge me but no such luck. However next check up isn't for 6 months so not too bad. In the meantime I should have had the cataract done so the doctor will be able to check what effect, if any, that has had.

Dobbies garden centre is only about a mile from the hospital so we went on there for a cuppa. My eyes were blurry from all the different drops I have in and I needed to wear my dark glasses for a while but I could manage OK. Gosh prices in the cafe have gone up since the last time we were there. We had 2 pieces of Victoria sponge and 2 teas and it was £14. Wandering around afterwards I saw a nice Regatta fleece going at a sale price. There was only a choice of 2 colours, a sort of oatmeal and a dark greeny-blue that I'd call teal. I thought the oatmeal was a nice light colour that would lift the spirits on a gloomy day but I felt it might look grubby quite quickly so I bought the teal one.

As soon as we got home my phone rang and it was son so we had a nice long chat and I got all the news of his family. It's his middle girl who is in Hong Kong. and, although she wasn't supposed to perform until tomorrow, she was put in 2 shows to ease the pressure on another girl. Someone did a short video of that little segment and I have seen that. Needless to say I am very proud of her.

Over an hour ago I told OH I'd be on the computer "for a few minutes". I'd better go downstairs before he sends out a search party. Sleep well everyone.

Cilit bang removes mould Anng I use it a lot.

done a lot of damp dusting today in the bathroom and bedroom and some ironing. Lost the internet a while ago so could'nt get on here but now it seems ok since I restarted the pc. Its been a lovely sunny day again and I am just going to corn the chickens and then I may suck some leaves up off the decking as they are dry now.