General Chat

Morning all

I'm off out today with a friend to the "big city" lol Shame about the weather as its raining...what's new but nevermind looking forward to a mooch around the shops and a nice lunch etc.

Had a mild migraine yesterday but managed to stave it off getting any worse and feeling ok today. Think my neck was sore as stood too long doing ironing in the morning and that may of triggered it perhaps.

Linda, glad you enjoyed a few days away and all your dishes sound scrummy with all the fresh produce.

i shall be back later with my tales!

Florence in the hebrides

I hope you had a good day Florence. I went to get my haircut this morning and felt very sad because I had decided that it would be the last time I went there. I first went when I was expecting my first child and he is forty five now.
The hairdresser used to have a shop in town with lots of people working for him. Over the years, it whittled down to just him and Lesley who did all the shampooing and blow drying etc. A few years go they gave up the shop and continued working from her house, turning one of the bedrooms into a salon. They were living together long before that. They didn’t advertise or take on any new clients, just taking their long term clients with them. I kept going because he really is excellent at cutting, people always ask me where I get my hair cut. It was only half an hours drive from Thirsk, so that was fine, but it is over an hour from here, so I don’t want to be doing that in the winter.

I feel awfully guilty though, especially as Lesley is so ill. Last time I went five weeks ago, she asked if I could shampoo my hair before I went and they would just wet it. She had just had a hysterectomy, so couldn’t do the shampooing. I was worried because she seemed to have lost a lot of weight, but today she was skeletal. It turns out that she has pancreatic cancer and is just about to start chemo which is only to try and buy her some more time.
He is going to continue cutting just to try and keep his mind off things, but he is hopeless at blow drying, I will need to wash my hair tomorrow to sort it out. After all this time, it is so sad to leave,I used to teach Lesley’s children, so know all of the family as well.

Afternoon all

Well I had an enjoyable day out albeit raining hard and blooming midges grrrr!

But i had a good mooch around the shops & bought a few xmas presents. we enjoyed a lovely lunch and finished off getting a few bit & bobs in the supermarket.

Got a bit of a shock though as I picked up a gardening magazine with some free seeds and a xmas food one with food for xmas ideas.
Was only when I got home and went through the bill, I suddenly realised how expensive they both were. One was £6.99 and the other £7.99. Oh my goodness, i thought they were around £4-5 so last time i buy one.

The district nurse came this morning as arranged and remeasure my legs without the wraps on but as she was only a relief, she didnt had the previous measurements so i have no idea if they had improved or not but this time i took a pic with my phone of the measurement sheet today so have that in my records. Shall have to wait now and see what happens next.

Anyone watching the drama Platform 7? Its jolly good and gripping with the last episode tonight.

Another good watch coming on Sunday by my fav author. Grace is on for 4 weeks covering the next 4 books in the Grace series by Peter James. They are 2 hour episodes 8-10 pm ITV

Linda, how very sad about your hairdresser. I didnt realise you were a teacher? What did you teach?

I have been working on the last twig of the family tree branch today but no further afield in connecting my DNA match, very frustrating especially when you have messaged several others and they dont reply grrr.

Hope everyone is well today

Florence in the Hebrides

I taught Physics at GCSE secondary school level Florence and obviously general science for the lower years.

It isn’t a bad day here, so I have taken down my summer hanging baskets and put up the winter ones. They have an ivy plant a little conifer plus a heather plant. I have a couple of old chimney pots out the front as well, they have a plant pot in the top. I have taken the summer ones out and put a winter pot in with heathers. It is early to put the winter pots out, but the summer bedding was looking really tatty.

Tomorrow I am taking Esme to Lightwater valley, but for once Eve is coming as well. That is because we are meeting up with my niece and her two girls. They are eleven and six, so they should enjoy it as well

Good morning all. Pleased that you had a good day out Florence. Yes those magazines are very expensive now OK if you only buy very occasionally but otherwise best to take out a subscription if you really want them. Maybe just buy one next time. I did buy Gardeners World a couple of months back but that was to get the 2 for 1 offer that lasts until April.

Lynda, wow, I was awful at Physics and Chemistry and dropped both before O level. But Well done for teaching it.
Hope you have a good day with the girls and family.

Afternoon all
Well its been a sunny and bright day but the wind will not die down grrrr I went out to water some pots in the shelter as they were very dry and the wind was sooo strong and very irrritating.

My local forecast shows very little wind but couldnt be more wrong.

Very quiet here just now but my neighbours are back and my other neighbour i was chatting to them in the front garden for awhile so that was good having a catch up.

Apart from that, no post or any other deliveries today.

As for me tea tonight, no idea yet but will russle something up soon.

Hope everyone else is well and ok today

Florence in the hebrides

I was really hot yesterday when we were out. The girls enjoyed themselves, but it was much harder work for me than when I just take Esme on her own.
While we were out, I got a phone call from the local heritage centre to say that I had won the competition for the history treasure trail which I did with Eve a few weeks ago. We only got one question wrong I had to go to collect the prize this morning, it is a family ticket for Mother Shiptons cave. It is three years since we last went when they were just deciding where to buy a house up here. It was a lovely summers day and it was beautiful down by the river. That was when they decided on Knaresborough The only problem is that being a natural site, it isn’t wheelchair friendly. There are three sets of steep steps. I remember OH and my daughter hauling Esme up in her large buggy. She can walk much better now, so should be able to walk up the steps herself and we can carry the wheelchair up .

It is very sunny here today as well, so apart from going into town, I have had a fairly easy day and just done some cleaning.

Morning everyone

Rather overcast & grey here and I think a "midgy" day as there is now no wind!!!

I got great news yesterday about my Polycrub, its going to be put up on the 23 September, so I will be counting the days lol They are behind because of the awful storms we had as although the tunnel will withstand winds up to 130 mph, its no fun trying to erect the tunnel in a force 10 gale!

I am off out on Fri evening to another local Bingo session. heres hoping we are as lucky as last time and then on Saturday, a friend is taking me to a farm day some distance away for a spin and refreshments so a trip out to look forward too.

Linda well done on winning the treasure hunt. Glad you had a lovely day out with the girls. They are lucky to have such an active grandma.

Hope all is well with Sylvia and her moving. If you are looking in Sylvia, hope everything is ok.

What's everyone else up to this week?

Florence in the hebrides

You have a good week to look forward to Florence and it is good news about your polytunnel
I keep wondering how Sylvia is getting on as well

It is the first day of term for Eve, although she only goes this afternoon, for half a day. The majority if the pupils are boarders and they already there. They have a few days of fun activities settling them in, so the day pupils join in for half a day wearing their own clothes before the term proper starts tomorrow. I think there is a bbq this afternoon, so parents of new pupils can go along and meet everyone. The school bus doesn’t start until tomorrow,so her mum is taking her in, but I am picking her up.
Esme doesn’t start until Wednesday, but she is happy at home until then.

It us very autumnal this morning, but looks like it will be hotter at the end if the week. OH has gone off to buy some wooden planks to construct a fence on the side of the back garden. There is a hedge there which is made of mixed trees, but it is full of ivy which we are removing before it kills the trees. That has left the bottom of the garden fairly open to the public footpath which runs down the side of the house, hence the need for a fence.

How is your hawthorn doing, Linda?
Is that where the fence is going?

My younger son came over from Perthshire yesterday, to repair my carport, which he erected nearly 20 years ago
A couple of the horizontal beams had rotted and were threatening to collapse, so he has replaced them.
He also cleared out the guttering at front and back of the house roof. The back one had been overflowing almost constantly for weeks, with all the heavy rain we've had.
It was raining yesterday too, unfortunately, and midgy, so not a pleasant day for such outdoor work.
He's a good soul, and I'm very grateful!

We did have ONE lovely WARM sunny day with actual blue sky - Saturday.
That was summer.
Since then we've been back to heavy grey cloud, and rain.

ArgyllGran, yes ONE day of summer was last Saturday. The only day we have had too. In 30 years i have lived here, this has to be the worse summer ever.

The bin lorry has been & gone and wasnt the nice chappy today so i shall have to don my waterproof and go and put them away before a heavy shower comes as the clouds look very heavy!

The sun has been out for about 20 mins today and then went behind some very grey clouds . Yesterday was window day and our cleaner once said that he doesn't mind cleaning windows in the rain and since then I think most times it has being raining. Yesterday the rain was on most of the morning and then dry for the afternoon.
Hope you get your Polytunnel put up with no problems , I imagine you have lots of plans in mind for growing things. I know I would have.

I was doing a bit of tree work last evening and looking through my dad's record and one popped up that I had not seen before , it is a record of a form that he had to fill in after he was released from POW in 1945 . It gave details of were he was kept and how many times he was moved. I knew he had been a POW but not details. Nice to find new (to me) records . I don't do much family tree work now but just decided to check last night and picked dad's this time. Last week I found my mom's and aunt baptism record but still one aunt missing . I did know them all in person so I don't really need the records but it is nice to have them. Only 1 niece has any interest in family history and we do share any new things we find .

Florence we did watch Platform 7 and found it good . It makes a change to have something to watch that isn't a repeat. We are also watching Grace and OH is watching Sherwood but I'm not so keen on that one.

Hope everyone is ok and take care.

Ginnie

Well, after the poor start this morning, the sun came out and it has been a glorious afternoon.
The new Hawthorn whips are doing well AG. Out of the hundred we planted, there are only about six which haven’t grown. OH is still painting the fence boards, he is over half way through. The fence is not for where the Hawthorns are. We left a length of the ivy infested hedge from the back of the garage to the bottom of the garden. Having taken the ivy out of the other part of the hedge, we realised that if we did the bottom part, it would leave our back garden totally open, so we decided that we would put a fence up inside that part of the hedge. We will pull all of the ivy out when OH is ready to put the fence up, but it can wait until after we get back from holiday.

Its official....summer has arrived :-D :-D

What a beautiful day here, warm and sunny with a tiny breeze keeping the midges at bay.. I have just come indoors after being outside for about a hour or more. i weeded all the pots and de-headed, pruned etc and now everything looks tidier.

So glorious for a change. i took some pics of the loch in the distance as the sun was reflecting on it and looks very pretty. Daughter is coming soon and we are going to put up the windbreaks in the garden and sit out with an ice cream. I have a few cornettos etc in the freezer.

Hoping everyone else enjoying the sun and hope Joan you are outside in your garden too making the most of this weather.

Florence in the hebrides

You have stolen our sun Florence, it is cloudy and only seventeen degrees here, it has just started raining. I don’t begrudge you your sun though as you have had a horrible summer.

It is the first full day back at school today for both of the girls, so I am redundant :-D. I cleaned all of the downstairs floors this morning and washed the outside of the doors and windows, so that is enough for one day.

I am expecting three things from Amazon today, one of them has just turned up with the postman, so it must be from a small business . Annoyingly they have made a mistake with the order. As Esme has finally decided that she is a big girl and is out of nappies during the day, I ordered a black waterproof chair seat cover to put in the car “ just in case”. The delivery note says it is black, that is highlighted, but the item is actually a bright turquoise colour. I have gone through the return item process and printed off the return label. Normally with Amazon, you get a prepaid return label and just take the item to the post office. This label says that I have to pay the postage. I am not having that, why should I have to pay to return it when they have made a mistake? I have sent the seller a message expressing my displeasure and asking for a prepaid label, so I will have to see what happens.

Brr, it is really cold today, but the lunchtime weather forecast says it is going to be 25 degrees tomorrow.

I had an early start this morning as Esme had a podiatry appoint at 8.20 am She gets lots of hard skin on her feet as part of her syndrome, so she has it shaved off every month, she doesn’t seem to mind and actually asks for an appointment because the hard skin makes her feet hurt. I had to provide a taxi service because their car was in use taking Eve to school. It wasn’t far away, but it took twenty five minutes to get there because the traffic is horrendous in rush hour. She was not in a good mood ,she just wanted to go back to bed. She isn’t back into school routine yet, so would have been awake late last night. I must admit that I didn’t want to get up either :-D

OH is doing DIY, he has made a large shelf for the under stairs cupboard so I can empty out some boxes. When the new kitchen was put in, there were quite a few cupboard shelves which we didn’t use, I don’t know why they supplied so many. Anyway, he is using some of them to make a wine rack to go into one of the small kitchen cupboards. All the alcohol bottles have been in the under stairs cupboard since we moved in, so that is something else out of the way. I have been moving things round in the kitchen and dining room because after using the kitchen for a while, I wasn’t happy with where some thing were

It takes a while to get things sorted Linda and then we leave them in that place for ever!!

The storm has just hit here in the south. Thunder, lightening and heavy rain - which OH can atest to as he was popping out to the pharmacy as they had given him the wrong tablets. Didn't get far before he came back - clothes now in the tumble driet.

Oh no names poor OH. Gosh hope it passes soon..

So if I said we have another glorious day here would that be rubbing salt into the wound! I havent actually sat outside today as was busy with loads of stuff indoors but shall venture out later to water all the plants....as long as the midges are not out!!!

I have just made a cauliflower & veggie bake for my tea

I don’t think it will rain for a while now, cos’ OH is wrapped up in all his wet weather gear for his trip to the pharmacy :-D