General Chat

Hello toyou all.
Not the best day today weatherwise, foggy first thing then the rain came on & hasn't stopped yet, but much warmer than of late.

Our daughter took me to Morrisons this morning for the weeks groceries, buying much less than i used to obviously but I am trying to use up much of the freezer items, quite a lot of meat things to use up before restocking.

Bumped into a couple of people that knew my Jack & chatting to them brought on the tears, but I coped with it.
I bought 8 Primroses in different colours in Morrisons & this afternoon I ventured into the garden & got them planted up, they had already starting to flower & they do look lovely, really bright & colouful.
It was raining at the time & I got a bit wet but it saved me having to go round with the watering can, LOL, I just wish Jack could have seen them.

Not sure what to have for tea, I had quite a heavy meal yesterday & so I am thinkng a nice cheese & Tomato sandwhich would be nice.

Hope everyone is keeping well, & I hope the house move goes smoothly for you Linda.

Joan.

Wow Ann, you were a busy bee. Hoping you are resting with a well earned cuppa.

It is 17 degrees here today and, until the last half hour we had blue sky and sunshine. I went to town on the bus as I wanted to post something in the main post office (which was empty for some reason, I also had a good wander, called in for a latte to a favourite cafe, bought some bits in M&S, including a new sweater. Came home, had lunch then did 45 minutes in the garden cutting out dead branches in an old rambling Rose. tired now so back indoors and it is looking like rain soon.

Hello chit chatters.

Been busy today and feeling much better as a headache was with me most of yesterday but I think I was maybe dehydrated. So have drank loads and feeling more myself.

Cleared all the ironing, and cleaned the house. Had a rest for lunch and have just made a huge pasta bake for tea. I used up all the half used onions, carrots and mushrooms that were lurking, a tin of sweetcorn and a can of chopped tomatoes'.
(In one large pan, I poured a good panful of fusili pasta)

Threw the tomato mixture all in a pan with some black pepper, tomato puree and some dried herbs. Added a jar of pasta sauce with chunky veg and now all ready.
Just pour all the mixture into a large rectangular dish and cover with grated cheese. Into the over for about 30 minutes later on.

There is plenty for 2 days, so that's tomorrows meal sorted as well.

Re my bulbs ladies, yes maybe they will come up at different times. I was beg to think, I planted some upside down? lol

Linda, that's good, you will have some societies near you so you can carry on your activities in your new area.

A very damp and overcast day here and misty on the hills so no venturing outside for me.

Hope everyone looking in is well today

Florence in the hebrides

Just read back my post and had to edit it as had forgotten to add the pasta!!

I remember a few years ago, we went to a car supermarket place to look at two cars, both the same type. One had lower mileage, but when we opened the door, it stank of cigarettes. It had been professionally valeted, but the roof lining must have been ingrained, so we bought the other one with more mileage on it.

We have lots of snowdrops in the garden. There are lots of other types of bulbs , but they are just pushing through now. The new house has a much smaller garden much to OH’s delight. Our current garden requires a lot of maintenance and he says he is getting too old to do it

Florence even the same type of bulbs (daffodils, tulips etc) will grow at a different rate and flower at varying times so you will need to be patient :-) :-)

Linda How awful that smoke filled house. I think if you were continuing to be delivering there you could refuse to go in for health reasons.

Re smoky houses -
when house-hunting many years ago, I looked at a house which had been lived in by a chain smoker.
Most of the house wasn't too bad, but the living room was stained dark brown with sticky nicotine deposit from top to bottom - ceiling, walls, everything.
Needless to say, I didn't make an offer for that one!

Cold, grey, and damp here - but windless.
Lots of snowdrops in bloom, and mini daffs just on the verge of bursting open.
Some purple crocuses.
Bullfinches pecking the buds off the damson tree - which never produces any damsons.
Tulips in pots outside have leaves about 6 inches high, but of course no flower buds yet.

Florence - maybe your multi bulbs are planted at different depths, and will therefore appear at different times? Or maybe the different varieties come at different times.
I would leave them alone for a few more weeks and see what happens.

Good afternoon, it is very chilly here. I gave the built in fridge in the kitchen this morning a good clean as obviously that isn’t coming with us. I then started to clean all of the skirting boards, but still have lots to do. For a modern house they are quite ornate, so lots of ridges to clean. I had done everything before Xmas when we were supposed to move, but they all need doing again now.

OH has gone to his Probus meeting this morning , some of them go to a cafe for lunch afterwards, he always has a bacon sandwich. There is a Probus group in Knaresborough, so he will join that once we move. He will also join the local Ramblers group. There is a Wombles group for me as well, so I will get in touch with them. Once the work on the house has been completed, I will find some sort of voluntary work to keep me busy. The town centre is a thirty minute walk from the house, but there is a regular bus service as well. We will have to drive to the supermarket, but I do that anyway as there is usually too much to carry.

Afternoon everyone.

Better day here and for now not raining. I donned a thick wool cardy and ventured outside. My goodness, the air was cold but smelt very fresh. I managed to stay for about 15 minutes before my fingers were really cold. I had a look at some of my pots and was so surprised to see one in the corner with tulips and daffs about 4 inches high. Was a welcome sight.

My little holly plant I purchased at xmas is growing steadily but not rapidly which is what I was told about it. its standing about 6 inches high now.

I looked in at the multi bulbs planter and some are growing but some have not? Not sure why. If it was a bit warmer, I would move the soil a little and investigate but far too chilly yet.

I have a huge basket of ironing that's calling me but today I don't seem to have the energy to do anything today so that will be on my list for tomorrows jobs.

I tf all my photos from my phone last week to the PC, over 7000 of them! I'm now down to about 3500 so slowly working my way through them all. This is what happens when you tf to PC and don't delete off your phone.....memo to self to do this next time lol So many doubles of pics, its unbelievable. Anyway a job I can stop and start and keeping me busy.

Once I have sorted them all into all the folders, then they can be tf to the various Pen Drives I have and delete from the PC to free up space.

JustGinnie, re lengthy marriages, its true my grandparents generation were all married 50+ years with few divorces just 1 or 2 but in my mums family at least 3 divorced and in their families(my generation) several have also divorced. But some of my cousins have married 2 or 3 times with kiddies from each marriage!

One thing that is of my generation is this. Out of all my best friends, we all married with now grown up children but.....none are married with children and none are bothered about it. my own are happy being single as are my friends children all single and mid 20's to mid 30's. None are in a relationship at all! So none of us think we will ever be grandparents. How weird is that?



Linda, I once went to visit this old lady years ago and she smoked too. The living room was always a fog and once I got home, I had to shower and change my clothes as they smelt awful! At least you wont have to suffer that anymore when you move.

Will you have shops that you can walk to locally in your new area? I wonder if there is a litter picking group too so you can carry on your good work. Does hubby have hobbies to keep him busy as well? Mind you with all your renovations, that will keep you both busy for awhile I guess.

Hope all is well with everyone today

Florence in the hebrides

I think you are right about the next generation down Ginnie. On my side of the family, although there are some stable relationships, they aren’t married. On OH’s side, there are multiple divorces and remarriages, but non of them have lasted.

It is a dismal day here, I did more packing this morning, then we did our last delivery of library books to the housebound. There was one new lady who insisted that I come in because she couldn’t walk very well. I didn’t want to because as soon as she opened the door, the wall of smoke hit me. I had to go in, but within a couple of minutes, I could hardly breathe. When I got back in the car.OH said that I stank. I am glad that I won’t be going back there again.

Hello all and welcome to Sylvia, good to have another person to chat to.

Rainy day here so not venturing out . It was lovely yesterday but back to the dismal weather for most of the week I think.

We have also been married for 54 years (55 in Nov.) and we met 2 years before that. In both our family our siblings have been married for 50+ but the next generation of 21 only 3 have stayed married and the others divorced or never chose to marry. Not so many people now will reach the anniversaries of 40 and 50+ yrs as if they do marry it tends to be after they have lived together for yeas.

Well take care all

Ginnie

Afternoon everyone looking in.

Well a very sleepless night! I went to bed around midnight and at 3am, the rain woke me. It was torrential against my bedroom window. Was awake again at 5am and then got up at 8 so hardly any quality sleep.

Its windy and still raining so an awful day here and glad Im not going anywhere.

Sylvia, you are more than welcome to join this thread. Its always lovely to hear news from afar. You don't have to post everyday, its up to you just whenever you feel like it.

Joan, when my mum died, she lived alone as my parents divorced when I was 2 so after we registered her death and went to the bank with the certificate. I went on that website Turn 2 us and they dealt with all her pensions, PIP and Pension credit. There was an over payment in the interim as all her benefits went into the bank so we paid that back straightaway.

The bank just wanted to see the will naming myself and brother as exors and then got us to fill in forms in order to close her 4 accounts and transfer the money to where we told them. That took around 3 weeks so fairly quick. The Probate came through after 3 months.

The longest part was changing all the utilities into my name.

I'm guessing if you didn't have a joint account, then that would take longer to deal with possibly.

Linda, when i moved in 2021, I think i did 70 letters notifying change of address as well as emails!! I paid for a years redirection to the PO but it was worth the money as it took nearly a year to catch every company etc to change my address.

It's all the things like Drs, dentist, DVLA. I actually forgot to tell DVLA and wasnt until my boss said to me your driving licence still has your old address! If you dont notify them you can get fined quite a lot so I did it online straightaway.

But it was all the mail order companies that send me their catalogues, although not so many these days. They took ages to update their mailing list.

I have moved at least 14/15 times so really i have it down to a fine art and being organised is the key to a smooth move.Im not planning on another move but....never say never lol

I was in the shower when I heard the front door go, it never fails. Jumped out and threw my dressing gown on and a towel round my head only to see the local delivery van speeding away and 2 boxes left on the hall table! Of course daughter had gone to town and wasn't sure if it was someone knocking grrrr.

Well my kitchen needs my attention as the table is cluttered as per with daughters things as she was running late and left bits & bobs all over the place. She left a pile of washing too....very kind of her!

Shall look in later

have a good day all
Florence in the hebrides

Good morning, & welcome to Sylvia.
We do have a nice morning so far, sunny & calm & a tad warmer !

With regards to the "TellUs Once" help, when I registered hubbys death (done over the phone) the registrar dealt with that for me but it was only in regards to any Government things, ie receiving a state pension, getting any benefits, DVLA paperwork, Jacks private pension & other momies has to be done by us via a solicitor !

I am apparently due to receive 1/2 of his private pension but the Post Office Pension department won't deal with us direct without official permission ! mean while his FULL pension is still being paid out, so of course we will have to pay back any over payment.
I would have preferred to get it sorted out before that happened !

Joan.

Good morning, it would be lovely if you joined the thread Sylvia.
I will have been married for fifty four years in July and we met two years before that at a party at Leeds uni. I saw him when I arrived with a group of girls from my hall of residence. I thought he looked very nice, but he was with another girl who I recognised from uni, but I didn’t know. After a short while, they left , but after a while he came back and we started talking and dancing. It turns out, he had just met the other girl at the party and he walked her home when she wanted to leave. She by that time had decided that she didn’t want to see him again, so he came back to the party where his friends still were and presumably to try his luck again :-D. I did agree to another date and the rest is history

I remember the tell me once form from when my parents died, I could do with that now as I have an enormous list of people and organisations to inform about the house move. I would say we are about ninety percent packed now, but the rest can’t be done yet. We have been really ruthless in going through our possessions and getting rid of them if we haven’t used them recently or if they are not going to fit in the new house which is smaller than this one. Yesterday OH suddenly said that he thought we wouldn’t need a modern chest of drawers from the spare bedroom, so I put it on the free Facebook site and a couple of hours later a couple were taking it away for their daughter’s bedroom.

Joan yes it is a sort of 'limbo' time after the death of a partner when everything seems to need to be changed. I too was fortunate in having our daughter to help with contacting various people. But the funeral people were a help woo as they presented us with a form called 'Tell us once'. We had to list banks etc on the form and the funeral service contacted them all. that was we didn't need as many copies of the death certificate. I was very impressed with that. I hope that you can get straight soon

I am sure your snowdrops look lovely as the ones I had from you are spreading well in my garden and looked wonderful in yesterday's sunshine.

Sylvia, welcome, good to see you on the thread. Always great to hear news from abroad. When Tony died we had been together for 64.5 years (4 years 'courting' and 60.5 married)

I keep looking in here, and thought it might be time to see if I can join in?!

Joan ............... I'm so sorry for your loss, but am glad that you are feeling up to posting again.

I was taken with what you posted the other day about being married for 57 years but together for 60. That made me think about us ................. we'll have been married 57 years in August, but we first met 65 years ago! The fact that we didn't fall in love until 10 months before we married means that we did only court for 58 years! I hadn't realised that it had been 65 years of knowing each other!

Linda ............ I hope your move goes smoothly this time. I dread the thought of moving from this house, we've lived here since 1972 and accumulated so much "stuff" I wouldn't know where to start. I do know some of it is heirloom and either our daughter or one or t'other of 2 nieces and 1 nephew might want some if not all of that! How do we divvy it up if they all want the same thing(s)?!!

Florence ............. you did a great job when you started this thread! I love hearing about where you live. I'm sorry to hear about your eye sight problems. Mine both clouded over during the last 2 years, the left one first then the right. I thought that was it, but finally went to my ophthalmologist who sent me to a retina specialist. It turns out that it was on the artificial lenses put in when I had cataract surgery back in 2000! Seemingly some living cells from the original lens may be left behind when it is removed and they can grow up over the inside of the artificial lens, thus causing misting or cloudiness. This is not unusual. A few shots with a laser to each eye broke up that cloudiness, left me with floaters for several days, but clear eyesight now. I have to go see him again at the end of the month, and I should then be able to go back to my ophthalmologist and get a prescription for new glasses.

Amazing what can be done these days!!

We've been having some similar weather to you guys, with very unusual events! We're also facing severe drought conditions again this summer, as well as another severe wild fire season, as we haven't had sufficient rain over the winter months until the last 3 weeks, and snow fall in the mountains is well below normal.

Take care everyone

Afternoon all.

By golly I'm feeling it cold here today and with a biting wind too. I'm beginning to feel I have cabin fever as haven't managed outside for fresh air for ages as the weather has been far too awful what with the gales etc.

I'm seeing the tops of various bulbs in the big planter peeping over the rim. Cant wait for them all to flower. There was about 30 different flower bulbs, so should look pretty once they flower.

Joan, I'm sure your snowdrops look lovely Spring isnt far away and before long, your garden will be full of colour and new life.

Dealing with the bank etc does take a bit of time but hopefully your daughter will get things sorted fairly soon for you. My dad still collects his pension in cash from the PO but I think he was told, it will have to go into his bank now which he didnt want!

Anyway estate agent tel me earlier to say, she had finally got a call from buyers sol to say, paperwork will be on its way this week to our sol. I then tel my sol to pass this on and she said as long as no unwanted surprises we could complete in 2 weeks time so yay for that!

Having a large jacket potato tonight with cheese, beans and some salad. never seen such a huge potato!. I'm noticing my eyesight is fading fast as struggling when I'm typing and making lots of errors so I have to read it all back to make sure its ok.

Heres hoping I hear from the surgeon soon.

Take care and keep warm everyone

Florence in the hebrides

Hello to you all.
Linda you must be feeling excited about your house move, I really hope you will settle quickly into your new home & the area you are moving to & that any alterations you have planned go well, but don't forget to have some me & hubby time from time to time.
I know you enjoy being with your grandaughters etc but from what I have seen from your previous replies on this thread you are kept soo very busy with all your family, you take care.

I have had a busy morning today, I had to go into town to deal with some issues at the bank, then once home again I needed to contact someone about moving my state pension into our current account, thankfully our daughter is such a help when it comes to dealing with the likes of banks, car insurance, cancelling this & starting up that, I would be hopeless if I had to deal with such things on my own.

There are still a couple of things outstanding we need to change but we cannot change them until the courts allow it (Scotland) I will be glad when we get that in place & then I should be able to move on !

It's a lovely sunny day here, nice & calm but still very cold, I am so hoping it will warm up soon as I will be able to go outside & make a start on tidying up some branches that have been blown around.
I am so wanting to check on the plants & see if they have survived the cold & high winds that we have had in recent weeks, especially the 4 new Clematus thta i planted in November.
I just wish that Jack could have seen all our Snowdrops once again, they are everywhere, & the Daffies have put in appearance, no flowers yet of course but it won't be long.

Joan..





.

It is really cold this afternoon. Our buyers came this morning for a last visit before the move. Everything is in place and their solicitor has their money, so it should all go through quickly on the day - famous last words :-)

I have been packing kitchen things this afternoon, but am watching the rugby now. I will do some more kitchen things tomorrow, but the rest will have to wait as we are still using things.

I will have a box with me in the car Florence with the kettle etc. plus our medication, tooth brushes etc and some clean undies :-D. When we moved here, it was in a Friday and the removal van packed our old house and got here just after lunch. The problem was that the money hadn’t transferred along the chain, we were at the top. The removal men were getting twitchy and said that if we hadn’t got the keys by 4pm, they would drive away back to their depot where we had come from. As all their vans were booked out for the following day, they would have to unload all of out stuff into their warehouse. We would then have to wait until the middle of the following week before they could bring everything back because their vans were booked until then. Mercifully the keys were released with fifteen minutes to spare. They emptied the van at lightening speed so they could get away.

Joan, I think the time after the funeral when family and friends have left is the time when you feel your loss keenly. The arrangements keep your mind occupied and then suddenly you only have your thoughts and memories. I remember my mom saying that the evening and nights were the worst as in the day she could keep busy . I hope you will always find someone on here to chat to if you need to.

Good work with all that packing Linda . You certainly seem very organised . We have been in our house since the early 80s so haven't had to do that since then but my OH was just like yours. He may have been worse as he never labelled the boxes with what was in or which room they were to go in . Fun and games when it came to unpacking lol. I said I would never leave it to him again.

Weather hasn't been to bad today but chilly still, have noticed some little daffs poking up in the front garden so spring is on the way .

Take care everyone

Ginnie,