General Chat

Disappointing when that happens Sylvia and it is the sort of thing that regularly happens here. Lovely bright night skies for days on end then, expecting an occurrence and it is cloud cover all over.

Hope you are feeling better today, Linda. Not much fun to be looking after a child when you are under the weather!

Well, that was a wipe-out of a solar eclipse!!

We were only going to see about 30% coverage of the sun, but we saw nothing!

Rain and cloud all day. There MIGHT have a slight darkening and then a slight li8ghtening of the cloud cover at the appropriate time, or that might have been our imagination! :-D

Afternoon everyone looking in.
Its a chilly 9 degrees here but the sun is shining and the wind slowly abating.
Gonna wait until tomorrow before sorting out the planters as need to remove the liner which is full of soil and then bring the 2 planters indoors to sand and paint.

The weather towards the end of the week looks like gales again!!

Not much happening around the village as still the school children on holidays so the rds are quiet and people still away.

Hope everyone else ok today

Florence in the hebrides

The only other place to take her would be a soft play centre and being up the top of a climbing frame at my age is not much fun. At least at the theme park, there are two half hour shows to watch, plus a half hour dance party, so I get to sit down for those while she dances away at the front. This theme park has been changed to under twelve’s, so there are plenty of tame rides to go on. She has a special wrist band, so we don’t have to queue, though I only used it once on Thursday as the queues were very short. They will also stop the rides when it is the type where the car slows down for people to get out and the next people get in. As she is only partially sighted and not terribly stable, she needs the car to be stationary and to be fair, so do I :-D

The weather has now turned and it is lashing down, so I hope it clears up before tomorrow

Getting a head start on your decorations is a good idea Florence, although it is a long time until Xmas

Oh Linda, as Florence says you are both probably run down and that is not helped by having to look after the children, especially Esme. I hope that your daughter and son in law appreciate what you do and that you should by now be being able to live a relatively quite life. I do admire your fortitude. Will Esme always demand so much attention and 'on the go' activities or will she settle down more as she gets older. I know you don't resent having to look after her but you must long for quieter times.

Ah Florence I had not thought of you using the thicker candles. with pricing, I have always known that whatever I make I could never try and include the time spent making things. If you were to cost out time and expenses you would never sell anything because it would be too expensive.

AnninGlous, had to laugh at your comment" if it gets hot" :-D :-D :-D it never gets hot here!!! I will store them in my wardrobe. The bigger candles are 1/2 size pillar candles so they wouldn't bend. The smaller ones are quite slim but only about 10 cm tall.

Can't decide on how much to charge yet. initially thought £10 for the large ones and £4 for the mini ones but shall ask a couple of friends who craft what they think. I don't want to overcharge but the cost to make was several pounds.

I have now finished painting about 100 pine cones with gold paint so when we make some more, it will be easier to have them ready.

Its horrid weather as still very wild and raining now. Thank good ness we don't have to go out anywhere.

Oh Linda, poor you & hubby. I suspect all the stress etc of moving has caught up with you and you are both run down. Is there not anywhere else you could go with Esme? I so hope you both feel better soon.

Off to enjoy a well earned coffee with a choccy biscuit now.

Good afternoon from blustery Yorkshire.
The weather isn’t bad here, quite warm and sunny, but windier than yesterday
I spent the morning playing with Esme so her mum could go out shopping on her own rather than having to take Esme with her.
I don’t feel well at all, my chest is tight, the glands in my neck are swollen , I have a headache and feel incredibly tired. OH is the same, but has the horrible cough as well. My daughter goes away in the morning, so I have no option other than to cope. I am taking Esme to the theme park tomorrow because she doesn’t go back to school until Tuesday. That is hard enough at the best of times, so I am not looking forward to it.

They sound pretty Florence but where will you store them all? Not easy to store I think. Be careful storing the candles as, if we have hot weather in summer (if!!!) the candle will bend.

Morning all

Its pretty wild here with the wind over 60 mph and staying up until tomorrow!

But we havent lost power so thats a good thing.

Yesterday daughter and I spent all afternoon making our new crafty things. Xmas centrepieces which will be for the xmas fayre later in the year. I wanted to see how they would turn out and get used to using my new glue gun! Took a wee while to get the hang of it but in the end we did quite well.

I painted the circular slices of wood with a gold paint, then painted the pine cones gold as well. The candle was white but have found some red ones online and ordered them. It was fiddly but fun and we made 8. I think they look jolly nice and would grace any table or windowsill at xmas. We also made some smaller ones with little pencil candles and they turned out ok too.

You may think its a little early, but as the weather prevented us from getting outside, we decided to be productive inside. Nothing like being organised lol

Hope everyone else is safe in this wind. No damage or flying pots etc so thats ok.

Happy Sunday all :-D

Florence in the Hebrides

It is very windy here, with huge waves breaking on to the beach and dumping all sorts of rubbish. Next-door will have a field day tomorrow picking up all the drift wood for his fire. Sometimes the logs are too heavy for him to carry, so he goes down with his chainsaw.

OH went up to the village this morning and had trouble standing up. It was high tide at the time and the car got well soaked in salt spray on the way back! :-( The wind is very noisy, but so far no damage, unless you count the flowers on the camellia - the path is now pink.

Yesterday we had a sprinkling of snow and all the surrounding hills were white. It didn't last though and by midday it had all thawed.

He didn’t get all of the blinds up Ann, he discovered that the clips they had sent were still too small. They were supposed to be size 24, but they sent size 22, even though it says size 24 on the order. He got the ones in the lounge up after a fashion with only three out of four clips on each of the four window sections secure. They had sent a couple of the correct size and they just fit perfectly. So we phoned them up yet again and they are going to send out another set, hopefully the correct size this time. He can then take down the ones he has struggled to fit in the lounge and put them up again. Then he can fit the four in the kitchen which he hasn’t even attempted.

It is still warm and sunny here, but the wind is starting to pick up noticeably

Good afternoon all.Alexa tells me it is 17 degrees here. It does feel quite warm outside and I have been out in just a long sleeve T shirt but it is extremely windy, gusty so fifteen minutes putting copper tape round my hosta pots was long enough out there today. A bit bored now as nothing interesting to do indoors. Shall have to resort to card making.

Florence I hope the storm is not too bad and you don't lose power.

Linda hope your OH manages ok to get all the blinds up. When it is all finished he won't know what to do with himself. But it sounds as if you will have a house to be proud of.

I hope your power doesn’t go off Florence. It is warm here, with a high of fifteen forecast. It isn’t windy at all which is odd as the artisan market in the town was cancelled because of the predicted high winds. The sky does look very ominous though, so we shall see what this afternoon brings.
OH is busy putting up all of the Venetian blinds as the new clips arrived this morning, he is still having a struggle. They are the perfect fit type and stupidly expensive for what they are. We have decided they aren’t worth it, but we have bought them now.

Morning all from the "wild west."

Storm Kathleen is coming now and the wind is getting stronger as we speak.

Indoors day so shall have to find jobs to do to keep busy.

Yesterday we filled a black bag for the charity shop so that made a space .

Hope everyone else looking in is ok and not on flood alert! Some snow in the highlands but not over here.

Joan, if you are looking in, hope you are ok.

Linda, what a nuisance with the socket!! I always think that the actual moving and packing is nothing to sorting out the tel and utilities etc, that's what causes the stress!

Right off to fill a flask just in case.

Shall look in later on.

Florence in the hebrides

I hope you are keeping warm Florence.
I have had a couple of days on grandma duty this week. On Tuesday, I took Eve out, we went into town to follow a trail of painted windows- don’t ask! I have seen them before a few years ago, but we couldn’t find any so we abandoned that and went for lunch. After that we went to a small museum about the history of the town. I thought she would be bored, but she was actually reading all of the boards. We asked about the painted windows only to find that they had all been removed , but are still promoted on the tourist website. By the time we had done that, the rain had set in, so we just went home, but it was nice to get her out and spend time with her.

Yesterday, I took Esme to LIightwater Valley Theme park. We went lots last year and she loved the shows. The shows are different this year, but the cast are the same and they all remembered her as she was their number one fan. She had a great day, but I was very tired after pushing her wheelchair around all day.
Her mum is away in America on business next week, Esme doesn’t go back to school until Tuesday, also I will take her back to the theme park to fill Monday in.

I have had neither head banging session with Talk Talk today . We were supposed to have an Openreach engineer coming next Tuesday to move our master socket, but haven’t heard anything. Of course it turns out that there is no record of this job. So after going through everything for the umpteenth time, a new form has been filled in and apparently OpenReach will contact me. I was then told that I needn’t ring up, I can see everything through my account. Hmm, that is where I looked this morning to realise that the job wasn’t booked in :-(. After I came off the phone, I looked at the account and the job has been marked as being completed and the case closed, so I doubt very much that anything will happen.
I will wait for a few days and if nothing happens, we will find a telephone engineer ourselves and just pay to have the cable moved. You aren’t suppose to mess with the master socket, but we had it moved in our old house by someone else.

Morning everyone looking in.

The weather is just awful. Very wind and freezing cold with a promise of 70mph storm at the weekend!

My heating has been on for the last few days but usually in April, we dont need it on.

I sometimes have to wonder if the planet is heating up ? Maybe in other places but up here in the NW, def not.

I stripped bed yesterday and so the ironing basket looks full again but not in the mood for ironing today. Im a lot better and daughter too but still have a chesty cough that sounds like I'm a heavy smoker lol( I gave up in 2007)

Waiting on some crafting accessories for an idea for the next xmas fayre and I ordered a glue gun too. Cant wait to get started on that. Sandpaper still on route grrr and looks like rain so that project will have to be put on hold until a dry and warmer day arrives.

Sylivia, I enjoyed reading reading your saga of the black forest ham! Chutney is good with anything to boost the flavour.

I am making a prawn stir fry tonight as haven't made that in ages and wanted something different. I have beansprouts, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts etc plus prawns, onions and seasoning. Shall have it with some rice and hopefully it will be tasty.

Hope everyone is well today :-D

I have been having problems getting onto the General Chat as well Sylvia. When I try to open the board, I just get a list of the terms and conditions, yet all the other boards open normally. I had forgotten that I had the same problem last year. I use Chrome as my browser and the answer is to use a different browser for GR. If I use Safari, it opens normally. After a few days, it righted itself and Chrome worked again, but now it is playing up again, so I just have to remember to use Safari and I can get in

I haven't been able to get to this Board for the last 2 evenings for some reason. GR would open, but then would just go round in circles for General Chat, although it would open Genealogy Chat.

That's a new problem for me! :-S

First ........... the Black Forest ham was an interesting experiment, but not one to be repeated!! Basically it was deli processed ham but with Black Forest "flavourings". We tried Major Grey's Chutney with it, and that improved it!

We will eat the last of it for dinner tonight!

Linda ......... I'm glad that you've finally got your landline sorted out. Took a woman to do it , as always :-D

Florence ........ I hope you feel better, and that you soon get good news from the sol.

We had a couple of lovely days on Sunday and yesterday, so OH got quite a bit done in the garden, pruning back the roses and the kiwi vine that really fell in love with the cherry tree last year :-( Tomorrow is compost and recycle pick-up, so he is filling the wheelie bin.

Today is cloudy with rain threatening, but it is still warmer than usual at around 13 or 14C. I'm having to find out my lighter short-sleeved tops about a month earlier than usual!

We have inherited two garden sheds here. OH doesn’t want either of them as we have loads of space in the double garage. One is in the main garden, if we get rid of it, it will be a good place for a veg patch.
The dining room furniture arrived this afternoon, we are pleased with it. I have unpacked lots of boxes, but still have more to go. I can’t really get finally sorted until after the new kitchen goes in, but that will be mid June, so I will just have to wait :-(

Of course it took a woman to sort it out, Linda!

Yesterday the old leaky roof of my garden shed (sagging corrugated bitumen) was replaced by clear plastic panels.
Now full daylight into every corner of the shed - wonderful!
Once the damp patch on the floor has dried out, I'll spring clean the inside of the shed.
All the dirt and cobwebs are showing up very clearly now!

Dry and mostly sunny today - but such a cold wind.