General Chat

LOL Florence, some would say I have too many breaks, with all the garden seats dotted around it's easy to sit down regularly, & sometimes not want to get up again, :-)

Joan.

Afternoon everyone looking in.

As much as its lovely to see the fog lifted, the sun is just too hot for me today at 25 degrees. We certainly have had more sunshine than in recent years but being asthmatic means, I cant handle really hot weather.

So am staying in the cool kitchen as sun is in the front room and showing a temp of 25 degrees. I decided to make a few handmade cards as my stock is running low. I have made 3 in the last hour and was getting neckache so taking a wee break.

Joan nothing wrong with having lots of breaks especially when its warm! But I guess if you sit and get comfy, the desire to start working again has dwindled lol.

My bedroom carpet has been cancelled for Thursday and rescheduled now for Monday. I dont mind as that means we have all day Sunday to shift things.

As for tea today, well anything cold and light so maybe yoghurt with blueberries and strawberries as can't handle anything cooked.

Hope everyone enjoying the sun and taking care with suncream.

Florence in the hebrides

I have had a lovely day at the seaside today. It is 25 here, but was only 19 on the beach. It was very sunny, so felt hotter.I went with my next door neighbour, she is a keen outdoor swimmer, so she had a nice swim in the sea while I looked after her bag and sunbathed :-D
The sea is very shallow at Saltburn, so it is nice and warm. We had a long walk on the beach and fish and chips. In the afternoon, we walked up through the green valley to the Italian gardens.

Esme will be back soon from her seaside trip, I bet she has had a good day as well

Doh, I burnt my feet yesterday. I had put lots of sun cream on, but forgot about my feet. Now the tops of my feet are red and one of them has a diagonal white line across it from my sandals.
We are currently waiting for Esme’s big girls bed to arrive. The amount of help for disability aids seems to vary a great deal across the country. She has a wheelchair and a wooden chair to lift her up to the correct height at the table. In the past, she had various walking aids as she learnt to walk, she was five before she started walking, but they have all gone back. Obviously she had ordinary pushchairs when she was smaller which her parents just bought, but she had outgrown those. Luckily her parents applied to a charity and they kindly supplied a large disabled push chair which we use in places when her wheelchair isn’t suitable. As soon as you attach the word “ disabled” to anything, the price shots up, so this pushchair would have cost a fortune if we had to buy it.
When she was little, she had an ordinary cot, but the head end had to be on blocks because of her reflux. Once she got older, she needed a larger bed, but it still needed cot sides, plus the ability to be tilted and importantly raised to a high level in order to change her. Bending over a low bed is really bad for her parents backs. In London, there was no option to have one supplied, so luckily we spotted a second hand one being sold buy a nursing home, so we bought it for her for £250 . We got a new rubber mattress for it and it has done well for a few years.
The problem is that now she can stand up, she is leaning over the bars and we are worried about her tipping out. Also this bed only tilts, so it is like sleeping on a slide, especially when she is having one of her sickie sessions and the head needs to be even higher that normal. Anyway one of the social workers here, said that they supply special disabled beds, but there was a two year waiting list. The company would come and demonstrate the bed, so that the correct version would be ordered. They came a month ago and set it up in the lounge. It is going to be ideal because it goes down low so she can get in herself, at the moment we have to lift her. It raises right up for changing her and it is profiling, so she can have her head up without being on a slide. It has small bed guards for the sides, so she won’t roll out.
It only costs about £2400 to buy. :-( We were just deciding that we couldn’t wait two years to get one, so OH and I were going to buy it for her, when the social worker rang up to say that the funding had been approved and that it is arriving today :-D
So this morning we dismantled the old one, the wooden super structure was in a bad way, so OH has taken it to the tip. The metal ends and the motor are still of use for spare parts to the company who originally made it, so they are going to come and take those away

So tonight Esme will have her big girls bed, she is “ super excited” and can’t wait to get back from school.

Morning all
Sunny & hot again here but i'm staying in the cool kitchen as wanted to get some ironing done early.

Linda your trip to the seaside sounded lovely and fish & chips to boot too what a nice treat.

Last night I was so thirsty so I filled a glass with my flavoured water and stuck a blackcurrant ice lolly into the glass. When it had melted, removed the stick and the drink was ice cold and very enjoyable. I buy the miss molly lollies from Tesco as you
get 8 for not much money. Was better than ice cubes and tasted better too.

My little tomato plant my neighbour gave me recently seems to be growing on a daily basis. I got a bigger support stick but it has now grown taller than that so I found a bigger one. Its nearly 2ft tall and has about 12 little flowers which will hopefully yield some tomatoes. I have it on the window in the sitting room as the sun on it makes it like a greenhouse.

Hope everyone looking in today is having a nice day and drinking plenty in this heat,

Florence in the hebrides

Linda, our post crossed!

I am so delighted for Esme getting her new bed. 2 years to wait!!! Its unreal isnt it how disabled children get treated. When my daughter had cancer aged 5/6, she spent a year in hospital and they rented a water bed for her. It could be raised up and down, the head and bottom and water moved every 5 minutes underneath her so she wouldn't get bedsores as she was in bed most of that time.

I asked the sister how much do these beds cost and she said "we are renting it at a cost of 10k a month!" She had it for 7 months!

We also had a super large buggy that the hospital loaned us as she was also too big for a normal pushchair.

I don't think people realise how difficult it is to get all these things.

Bet her face will light up when she comes home later bless her. :-D

Edit: Oh no your poor feet Linda. Put loads of after sun on or put them in a bowl of cold water

I was wrong about the cost of the bed, it is £3200.

They sent one man on his own to deliver it. As it is brand new, it came in lots of tiny bits and he had never put one of this type together. OH helped him, I don’t know how he would have managed without him. He was here for two and a half hours in the end. It is far more complicated than the one we dismantled this morning and that was bad enough. We were wondering how we would manage when we move, but luckily they have an equipment moving service, so they come and do it for you.

good morning all 14 degrees here at 0700. Another hot night but I didn't sleep too badly under just a sheet.

Linda I hope Esme had a good night in her new bed. It costs a lot but I guess that is because of all the different functions it has. So pleased for her that the funding came through quickly.

Morning all . You are an early bird AnnG :-D

I had a very sleepless night and was up every 2 hours, just couldn't get settled but im not feeling tired....yet lol

Very hot here already but at the back I watered some plants in the shade as last night the beasties were out in their millions even though the haar came in really thick and fast so was dampish but still they were biting. Daughter and I only managed 2 jugs of water and then ran in quick as we got bitten grrr.

Tesco coming between 1-4pm so quite a good time to get the chores done.

Linda, hope Esme loved her new bed and slept well. I hope you feet are not too sore today, keep putting cream on them.

Joan hope all is well with you & hubby. Hope you have managed to do lots in your beautiful garden and also relax on your new chair too :-D

Off to be busy, take care all

Florence in the hebrides

Oh what a HOT day once again, it's much too hot to do anything, the house is terrible even with windows/doors open & curtains drawn.

I went into the garden first thing to water the various plants that needed, took me 5 trips back & forth to do that job, all is looking good with the vatious plants so far, I had a wee chuckle at your description of my garden Florence, err beautiful, lol.

The main/best bit is not so bad, tidy anyway, not so colouful at the moment, waiting for more of the flowers to bloom to give more colour, the Poppy has 11 huge buds on it just now but only one of the buds has opened so far.
I bought 2 Gentian plants yesterday which are in flower, the deepest blue, they look nice in the planters.

Very pleased that we don't have a midge problem like you Florence, must be awful having them around.

Well it's Fish & Chips day today, bit too hot for that but hubby is looking forwrd to them, lol.
I'm going to be over heating whilst I cook them !!

How did the new bed go down Linda, I hope Esme slept well etc.

Joan.

Afternoon all, Very hot here ,our lounge gets full sun nearly all day and at the moment it is 26.5deg. in there and just slightly cooler in the kitchen . Our garden is looking colourful but if we don't get rain soon the flowers won't last long.
Florence I am also glad we don't get the midges or I would never go out in the garden ,any bites I get always seem to end up with me on antibiotics .

AnnG I was up at 6am this morning and it was already hot, I had a large glass of cold water to take my meds and then sat in the kitchen for a bit with the door open . Too hot to do much else.

I had to phone a company this morning and as well as the now usual list of options and endless music I got put through to the agent and 2mins later got cut off Grr

Joan I hope your OH enjoys his fish and chis and you don't overheat.
Linda the bed is very expensive but worth it for Esme, good you didn't have to wait 2 years.

Enjoy the weekend everyone looking in.

Ginnie

Very hot again here too.
There's enough of a breeze to keep the midges away, thank goodness, and in a shady spot with the breeze it's very pleasant.

We're hoping for rain this weekend - hopefully lots of it, so long as it doesn't then keep raining for weeks, as often happens here.
People locally with private water supplies are almost without water now - including my daughter and one of my sons.

This long dry spell is very unusual on the west coast of Scotland.

In weather like this I keep the windows and doors closed, so as not to let the hot air in.
The spare bedroom is the coolest room, as it never gets any direct sun.

It's too hot to do much in the garden. Luckily the grass is only growing slowly, because it's so dry.
The strawberries are beginning to colour now - with the sunshine it should be a good crop this year.

So Tesco came a wee while ago and everything away and in its place. We made pizza bases today and created our own pizza to have with chips.

Talking of chips, I bought a large bag of Hearty straight cut oven chips from Tesco as they are cheaper than leading brands. I opened the bag and put enough for 2 into a freezer bag to make it easier to store in my small freezer. I made 4 bags up in all.

However, in the bag was loads of what we used to call scraps. You could get a bag of scraps from the chippy near the end of the evening for pennies. Tiny bits of potato.
I have never seen so many scraps instead of actual chips. So i have taken a picture of all the scraps, the bag, barcode and the date and am going to email the pics direct to the company and see what they say.

So anyway, was far too hot for me to sit outside and its still boiling. My little flower pots are so dry, the Alyssum and marigolds are dying before they have flowered. We havent managed out last few days much as the midges stopped that so really hoping we can give everything a good water with a jug a bit later on.

Joan Fish & chips sounds good whatever the weather. Always have when at the seaside on holiday.

Its currently 25.5 in my lounge as the sun is in here nearly all day but my bedroom is at the back and cooler at 23.

Mums flat has now had over 100 views/searches, just hoping for some viewings very soon!

So relaxing for a bit before putting on the food.

Florence in the hebrides

Florence, interesting to hear your description re "scraps" from the chippy.

In York where I was born & grew up (yks in general ) our scraps at the chippy were the loose bits of batter that fell off the fish,whilst being cooked, folks would always request scraps when buying fish & chips,& no charge. Yummy.

Here in Aberdeenshire chippies never serve them up to customers, they throw them away !

Joan.

They still give the scraps out here, people get a whole bag of them.

It is also extremely hot and humid here today. I went to the nearby town today as I needed a few things I can’t get here. I also wanted to go to the nursery to get some more bedding plants. It is a charitable organisation which trains disabled adults, so I like to support them. They had very few left, but they were all half or ice. I bought fifteen geraniums to put in the borders. They have bright pink leaves, very unusual, but they will be very striking in the borders. Best of all, they were only £1,20 a pot. I won’t put them in the garden until Sunday, we are due to have rain then thank goodness.

Esme loved her bed,she was really pleased that she could get in and out by herself. She often needs to go and have a rest during the day, she doesn’t ever go to sleep, she just watches her iPad. We put the side up at bedtime in case she rolled out, when she had her rest when she came home from school today, she insisted on having the side up, she must feel more secure. My daughter was pleased because she said that this morning Esme’s head was still on the pillow and she hadn’t slid down the bed at all

Hurray, it i# finally raining

I drove my daughter to Harrogate today with the girls as she has an appointment for an eye test. It was sunny this morning and we weren’t expect rain until later tonight. While we were having lunch, it began to get very dark and then it started raining. Of course we didn’t have any coats with us, so we ended up getting wet. It was quite warm though, so it didn’t matter.

When we got home, we found that there hadn’t been any rain, but it has started now. It isn’t very heavy, but as long as it keeps going, I will be pleased.

Well we had another hot sunny day and not a breath of wind and no midges...yay! :-D

However just after tea, we suddenly noticed how dark it had become and all the pegs were shaking on the washing line. So opened the back door and oh my, the wind had just whipped up like a tornado and the angry black clouds were above us.

The was some thunder in the distance but was awful seeing the sky like that.

I went on this site called lighteningmaps.org and there you can see where in the whole of Europe where the lightening and thunder is. I could see it was several miles from us but is edging nearer all the time grrr. I am quite scared of storms and daughter even worse.

however like you Linda, I don't care if it chucks it down as we are so desperate for water. The grass cant be mowed until there is some grass to mow as it is just bare and strawlike!.

Just light chores and moving things out of my bedroom bit by bit. daughter managed to water the plants before the wind picked up.

Off to make a coffee in case we lose power.

Florence in the hebrides

Well, the rain stopped just after I posted and we haven’t had any more. Looking at the forecast, we have a sixty percent chance of getting some this afternoon, so fingers crossed.
I didn’t hear any, but according to the local Facebook page, there was a huge bang at 3.30am and half the town has lost its electricity. It is still off and isn’t expected to come back on until late morning.Luckily this time ours hasn’t gone off, so I can smell breakfast being made downstairs.

The girls came in just after eight with Father’s Day presents for OH. Esme wanted him to have breakfast in bed, but he hates that, so he is downstairs supervising.

The girls daddy isn’t here because he had to drive over to see his father yesterday. He said he was leaving at 11am, but he is so disorganised that is was 1.30 by the time he actually left. We are going out for Sunday lunch, but I doubt he will be back in time as he will have to leave his fathers by 9am and he will never do that. It will be a shame for the girls if he doesn’t get back, so we will have to see.
He wasn’t supposed to be away this weekend, but at 5am on Friday morning they had a call from his fathers fall alarm company to say that the alarm had gone off and they couldn’t get through to him so they were sending an ambulance as they couldn’t get in touch with any of his carers at that time. His father is ninety nine and still lives alone even though he has dementia. He has carers four times a day and it generally works well. The trouble is he won’t answer the phone and goes round unplugging things if he can get to them. When the ambulance got here, he was fine, but they thought he had unplugged his alarm box and that sets the alarm off. Later on it turned out that it was actually the robot vacuum cleaner which had “ eaten” the wires. It is programmed to clean the lounge and the hallway at 4 am, then go back to its docking station. His father rarely gets out of bed until the carers come, but occasionally he does, hence him having a fall alarm. The vacuum cleaner shouldn’t have been near the alarm wires, so maybe his father had been fiddling with things again. No one will ever know, but that is why the girls daddy had to go to sort things out.

Afternoon everyone looking today.

Thankfully, the storm clouds eventually passed over with just a couple of rumbles of thunder but no lightening.

Its a little cooler at 19 degrees but still warm outside. I shifted 2 chest of drawers, 2 bases and a king size mattress. Oh boy needed a sit down after that.

my lounge now looks like a junk yard as does daughters bedroom. But we hoovered my bedroom as the dust behind the bed etc was dreadful.

I have realised that the large pot where i planted some peas must have contained a few bits of potato from last year and the pea seeds are well out of date. So instead of peas growing. I have at least 6 potato plants :-D :-D :-D
So very strange! :-S

I stripped my bed and its all drying nicely on the line and a good breeze as I think our weather is going to break on Tuesday so making use of free drying.

Linda, poor son in laws father and what a carry on. At 99, is he safe to still be on his own one wonders. a robotic hoover? Never heard of that, must be a new invention.
Hope he does make it back before the girls are in bed though. Hope you enjoy your Sunday lunch too.

As for food today, I just cant face much. I have had a nectarine and a plum plus some toast and that's me full. See how I feel later.

Well off to make a coffee and catch up on some emails.

Florence in the hebrides

Good afternoon everyone, another lovely day here but we have a welbome breeze that has made my day in the garden so much easier to deal with.
No rain or storms yet ! really need some rain if only to save on my legs when having to water things myself, lol.

I have got quite a lot done today & still feel able to do more but i neeed to have a wee breather before its time to have tea.

I have trimmed back a 15 foot "hedge",which has grown up & over, along a garden wall, it's a bit of a mixture of plantings, mostly a Cotoneaster & a Fuschia ( a hardy native Fuschia that is almost impossible to get rid of !!
I have managed today to trim it all back to 1/2 the depth that it was & reduced the height, looking much better, really chuffed to get it smartened up, lol.

Our daughter came over with cards & pressies for her dad, she got him 2 vouchers for the local chippie, lol, lovely idea in my opinion, he's absolutely delighted with them. no use by date on them so we can have them whenever.

Tattie soup for tea, smells lovely.
Bye for now, enjoy the rest of your Sunday everyone.

Joan.