General Chat

Good afternoon although nothing good about it!

The horrendous showers here look like snow along with gale force winds. Heatwave?
Some joke that is.

Both my parents have health problems and its causing me concern. My mother is vague and not with it and has yet another infection. She is dehydrated but wont admit that!
Dad had bloods done, was asked to go to hospital urgently as liver and kidney tests are abnormal. He is supposed to get his monthly cancer injection elsewhere in a hour. He explained this to reception but they are unconcerned!

What a worry being so far away from them, so hard.

Dad will phone later with results. Personally I think he has high sugar levels as he is always thirsty and doesnt always take his insulin tablets as too stubborn to listen.

Anyway fingers crossed all will be ok.

Florence in the hebrides

Good afternoon to all looking in.
Well my head is scrambled today dealing with various paperwork etc!

I bought something online 5 weeks ago from a company. The products were not suitable as the creams made my skin red and blotchy so I packed the box back up and daughter sent the parcel back through main PO.

I had requested a refund and now 6 weeks on have not received a penny. Unfortunately, the receipt had been misplaced so i cannot provide the tracking number to trace the parcel at the company's returns dept.

They have been less then helpful and even after several emails, they are not budging ie, no proof of posting, no refund!!! We are talking about £50 here not £5.

No idea what to do now except hope that just maybe sometime soon, the refund may appear in my bank but im not holding my breath. They were so unhelpful grrrr

My plants arrived today...some violas i ordered and although were still very watered, they were squashed and some were damaged. I shall use what i can and see how I get on.

Just been one of those days today and its really cold and rainy too so roll on tomorrow and hope the sun shines. Tomorrow is another day as they say.

Hope all's well with everyone

Florence in the hebrides

Exciting in your village then Florence.

rained here all morning which was good for the garden but I am hoping it will clear up now.

Linda did you check the heat in the potato after you swallowed some. It may be that your throat sis extra sensitive. I had the bad cold and cough and I seem to have been left with a very dry and quite sensitive throat as has my daughter.

hopefully you and your OH will soon recover.

Off to the local garden centre in a minute with my neighbour.

Afternoon all.
Oh Linda, I guess that was inevitable that your OH would catch it. At least your daughter is out of quarantine now so can get out to get shopping etc.Here's hoping you both make a quick recovery.

Well the sun has finally shown its face after all the rain last 3 days but it still looks like showers are never far away. Its also quite chilly here unlike the heatwave predicted down south....bring it on up here, we need the heat!

My strawberry plants that i moved to the lounge window are coming along nicely and have decided to leave them there and hopefully will get a few strawberries later on.

Not much to do today except off to strip my bed and tonight off to a village AGM with my neighbour.Last year there was nearly fisticuffs after 5 minutes lol!!!

Hope all is well with everyone else.

Florence in the hebrides

I can’t remember the last time I went in a bus Ann, our bus service is pretty dire in any case.

OH now has Covid, but thankfully little Esme went back to school today. I was trying to play with her yesterday to occupy her while her mum was working, so that was hard going. I just feel really achy and have a horrible cold. My daughter is out of her quarantine, so she has taken over the shopping from OH

The worst thing was that I had a jacket potato for dinner last night and as I took the first bite, it was so hot that it really burnt my throat. I don’t understand it as it had been out of the microwave for a while and cut in half, standing for a while before I started eating it. I could have done without that

Afternoon everyone.
Well yesterday the weather was horrendous and typical as it was bin day!! Oh yes, struggled in the gale to get the bin out and then got soaked getting it back in Such dreadful weather.

Today started off much brighter and around 11 the grasscutters turned up. All done and it looks nice. Fast forward to after lunch and the heavens opened once more. More like winter here.

My poor pea plant that i put outside on Saturday has now been bashed and dont think it will survive grrrr.

Glad you had a nice trip into town Ann and a glass of wine to boot lol. Good you bought something nice too.

Linda hope you are feeling a bit better with the Covid.

Cant be bothered doing much for tea so might just be a tin of soup and crusty bread, comfort food needed!

Hope you are ok Joan and your weather is better over there than ours.

Florence in the hebrides

Hi all not a bad day here today, overcast but twenty degrees, however the wind has come up now. I caught the bus I. To Cheltenham the first time since July 2020. It was good to have a good look round the shops. I bought a pair of chinos and a pair of sandals both in M&S. Had coffe and scone when I got there about 10.15am then tuna sandwiches and a glass of white wine for lunch. Buses are a bit hit and miss with the driver shortage but it worked out ok.

Linda sorry to hear you have Covid hope it is like mine was, just a bad cold, felt off a couple of days but not so bad I couldn’t potter at things, just felt quite tired but no worse than a bad cold. Just let your OH spoil you and hope he doesn’t catch it.

Good afternoon peeps
Oh dear Linda, sorry to hear you have Covid. Really hope you get over it quickly without too much bother.So glad that as hubby is negative just now, he was able to get and stock up on foods for you all.

Yes Joan, the clothes were a major disappointment! My wardrobe is full of clothes I have had for many years and some things are still in good condition but Im always wearing a black tshirt and cardigan with black trousers.Its slimming and black suits me but i ordered 2 coloured tops to brighten me up but to no avail.

Re your ginger cake, glad it turned out ok and my fruit loaf has nearly disappeared too lol.As for not wanting to move after a sunday lunch, I thought thats what sunday afternoons were for, sleep it off!

Compared to yesterdays lovely sunny weather, today is windy, overcast and quite cold so I did not venture outside at all.

Had a very lazy day doing very little except Ive nearly finished my diamond art. Another 1/2 hour and it will be finished.

Have to get up early tomorrow as its black bin day and daughter is still away!

Gonna watch my favourite programme at 8pm. Grace. I have all the 14 books so am really enjoying seeing hows its played out on the telly. I also like seeing places around the south coast I know so well.

Off to make a cuppa then its feet up for the night.

Florence in the hebrides

Edit: Just heard on the radio Dennis Waterman died today in a Spanish hospital.
He was good in Minder, New tricks & The Sweeney.

I thought it was too good to be true. A while back when my oldest granddaughter had Covid, non of the rest of us in the house got it. Last week little Esme caught it from school and of course she passed it on to her mum. They have been camping out in the bedroom for a week to keep out of the way. I hoped not to get it, but I felt ill overnight and did a positive test this morning I have a cough, headache and runny nose. Just the symptoms of a bad cold really. OH tested negative this morning, so he has gone off to the supermarket with a meal plan to take us to the end of the week. My daughter should be clear by Wednesday, so she will be able to take over again as OH is bound to catch it

I do test my speeds, it does depend on the device and time of day. On my iPad the upload currently its 58 and the download 12,44. On my iPhone it is 69 and 12.91

That is pretty pathetic because there is no full fibre broadband here. We have fibre as far as the cabinet, but the last part to the house is still through copper wire. We are a long way from the cabinet which doesn’t help. In their London house, my daughter has incredibly fast full fibre which makes ours look like a snail in comparison. My daughter works full time from our study, so she has her works laptop connected by an Ethernet cable, so isn’t reliant on the WiFi.

Having said that there is no full fibre in the town, that actually isn’t true. A firm calle zoom are currently digging up all the pavements and making a real mess while installing full fibre. They have just started to offer packages, the lowest offers 150 for both upload and download, but it is more than I am paying now and I can’t be bothered to change to it. As soon as my daughter moves out, hopefully in the summer, it will just be the two of us again, so there won’t be such a strain on it

Thanks for that information Florence. I always think any problems are down to me rather than the device or internet ;-)

I keep looking at changing provider but hear of people having so many issues I don't want to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

I don't need it for work as I am retired and there is only me at home most of the time so it is adequate for my needs.

However, speed does depend on a number of factors.The time of day is one. I was told once that when America wakes up, it slows down the internet here in the uk as more people are then using the net!

Also the area where you live whether city or rural like me where we dont get the high speeds the bigger cities get. The age of your device too. The older it gets, the longer it takes to fire up and search for things

The ping speed is measured in milliseconds and this represents the reaction time it takes for the computer to respond to a request either on your lap top, phone or PC.

Between 50 and 100 MS is normal

My Ping speed is 33MS

Florence in the hebrides

Wow, they are good speeds!

Thank you for that link Florence. Just out of curiosity I checked mine as I am always saying how slow my laptop is , but maybe I should just be grateful it works as the results look ok.

Download 44.43 Mbps Upload 10.46Mbps
And then there's ping :-S
Whatever that is it's 23.6

Here is the site to test your internet speed.

www.speedtest.net or speedtest by Ookla

Florence in the hebrides

Edit:
I just tested mine and this is the result

Download speed 10.41 Mbps Upload speed 1.05 Mbps

Linda, just a thought. My son is a gamer and when he was in a tournament live on the net and i was also gaming which was live, our net used to cut him off!!

The reason was, our line speed was only 1.5 mb. So we both need 1 to operate and when 2 of us were on at the same time, the speed would cut in half which wasnt enough and disconnect one of us, usually him! So if you have many devices and you are all on the internet together, check your line speed to see if it can cope.

I be back in a tic with a link to check your upload and download speeds.

Florence in the hebrides

It is very chilly here today. I have been batch cooking soups this afternoon for the freezer.
We have five iPads, four phones and three laptops all connected to the WiFi. When tbe WiFi goes, all of them disconnect at the same time. Trying to reconnect individual devices in their settings doesn’t work. The only thing to do is to switch the actual router on and off. It only takes a minute, then everything automatically connects once it comes back on. We usually tell it needs doing when Esme starts to shout and complain that the WiFi is broken again. She loves her iPad and gets very cross when it doesn’t work. Actually we have six iPads because Esme has two! As well as her home iPad, she also has one supplied by the school which she she used to use to construct sentences from pictures. She needed that before she started to speak. We can mainly tell what she is saying now, but she still resorts to it when we don’t understand. The school mainly use it now for her English and maths lessons

Linda, ours does that frequently. Nobody seems to know why, but I sort it by right-clicking on the little wi-fi symbol at the bottom of the screen and then clicking on troubleshooting. It then sorts it out, usually very quickly! :-|

Good morning .
What a gorgeous day it is too. Warm & sunny for a change. I went for a walk around to the back of the house and inspected my plants around there.
My beech tree is now in full leaf. I was given it about 5 years ago and was tiny, just a small plant really.
But now it is at least 12 inches tall and growing year by year. I shall leave it in the pot until it really is too big.

Ive ordered some bedding plants today to put in these little metal pots. They will hang on my little fence. 20 mixed violas, so heres hoping they arrive safely.

Computer seems to be ok today Linda and yes it was very frustrating and time consuming. When your Wifi/internet dies, just shut down the computer and restart. You dont need to turn off the router box to do this and is a bit quicker too.

I had to buy a new computer last year as the old one was so slow in starting up, but was 8 years old!! But Openreach are forever on this village road doing some work. Think they are trying to upgrade the network but it does mean we are up & down.

Hope everyone else enjoying good weather.
Hope your Ginger loaf turned out ok Joan. I used to make that. It was like a thick batter when you poured it into the tin?

Off to be busy for a bit, might look in later.

Florence in the hebrides