General Chat

Morning all,

Dull and dreary after a nice sunny day yesterday. Its 9 degrees with a yellow warning for rain.

We never seem to get two nice days on the trot.

Shopping day today and I have no subs and it a driver I like, Carl.

That was the problem Ann, nothing to check, the ad didn’t show the year anywhere. I imagine it will have caused a similar problem last year. The ad should be taken down. And not helped by being shown above the ad for this year.

That was silly someone didn't check the date in the ad AnnG. Not so good with the price rise and part being roped off though. I noticed the garden I thought about visiting seemed a bit expensive. They must be trying to get more money for charity as the cost of opening a garden can't be much extra. OH gets tinnitus too and it is worse at times as you say......irritating though. I think I was lucky with the paintbrushes as they were nowhere near the other art stuff, but were in a jar on a table with mostly children's things that were reduced. That's annoying your coping stone has been dislodged. Our neighbour's low wall with coping stones the Asda driver knocked down at the corner of our drive is still in a heap. The neighbour has now been paid, but the rest of the wall has loose copings so I think she might get the rest done too.

Oh Vera your OH saying 'have they started yet' did make me chuckle! It does sound a rather strange event altogether, what with the weird sound effects too. Like you say, you need to know a bit more what to expect with something like that. I hope your speaker tonight is more entertaining.

Yes Mel, what is the 'new thing?' These washing programmes annoy me these days. Once mine starts I can't stop it, even if I switch it off for a while and as soon as I switch it back on it carries on from where it left off.

Well, I have added a few more bits to my tree, focussing on my parent's siblings and their children. Mum was the youngest of 10 and dad was the youngest of 8 and 3 of mum's siblings had no children. When my grandmother had my mother, she already had 11 grandchildren, so mum was born an aunt to 11 children herself. In total my grandmother had 42 grandchildren. I have 39 first cousins that side of the family and 26 first cousins on dad's side of the family so I have 65 first cousins in total. I didn't even know the names of all my uncles and aunts until I started doing FH and have only met 4 cousins, 2 just once when I was a little girl. I imagine all of my cousins born in the 1920s will have passed away now.

Somebody has solved the mystery of the snowdrops. Although it appears at the top of the listings the ads we (and lots of other) saw was one from 2018 when the open day was on 18th February. Unfortunately there is no year on the advert.

As somebody else said, it was very disappointing and has gone up from three to five pounds half of the garden was roped off. So don’t feel bad about it now.

Mel am I the only one to be intrigued by the new something?

Ann a good buy in the works, benefitting by not many artists shopping in the Works maybe.
It is really annoying when people turn using your drive isn’t it?
When I walked out of my drive this morning I found the large topping brick from my low wall standing leaning against the wall. I can only assume somebody backed into it and dislodged it. As it is not broken I guess it may have been loose and it can be cemented back on when I eventually see Jake again.

Vera that light show sounds a bit weird.was it amateurish? I think that sort of thing needs a leaflet when you go in that explains what you can get from it. Was the screech anything to do with a light source maybe. Was anyone actually there in control to explain things.

I walked down to Irene’s with some books and used batteries. Then after coffee I did an hour in the garden filling up the garden bin. I cut back a bit of lawn edge and finished weeding the right hand border which was overgrown with celandines.
I also moved a few pots off the slate bed which is where hopefully the. Hostas Will come through.

My tinnitus is really bad this week. I wish somebody would find what causes it.

What a shame Boddington Manor got in a muddle with their dates AnnG. That must have been annoying and frustrating for everyone who turned up on the wrong day.

I remember those tiny Hovis loaves Mel. My brother loved them. When we were young we were able to choose a treat for tea on Friday and he always had one or two of the little loaves and had Sunny Spread on them. I think that was a blend of honey and something else.

Good job your paper delivery man didn’t bump your car Ann. You might need to keep an eye on him. It sounds as though you might have got a good deal with your paint brushes.

I got all the washing done this morning but it was grey and a bit drizzly so I didn’t hang it out but put some in the drier and hung the rest around the house. Of course the sun came out and it warmed up so I wished I had hung it out. OH went to the opticians for his annual eye test and one pair of glasses is still OK but the other pair have to be changed.

Well, this light show thing we went to last night was odd. The blurb said it was an interactive light installation - a celebration of love. It’s quite a cavernous space. There were a few chairs dotted about and a few blankets on the floor and people just stood around or wandered about. At one end there were bars of light in a semi circular pattern that changed colour and a projector that was beaming onto a large clear screen strung up high. The screen showed light patterns and things like a frog swimming diagonally across. This reflected on to two further screens behind it. Every so often we got a few bars of a love song such as Love Me Tender or I Will Always Love You. Then from time to time a recording of someone saying something like “I moved here 4 years ago and love this place” or “I love my dog. I love my house” and an emotional one that I couldn’t make head nor tail of. People were wandering about with beer or coffee from the cafe and there were young children, some of whom could barely even toddle, milling about all over the place. After about 15 minutes of this OH asked me if it had started yet. We assumed it had. The interactive bit appeared to be younger children, with a parent, standing in front of the semicircle of bars of light and being given some sort of control unit which we think affected what was projected on to the screens but it was difficult to tell. I am in favour of art centres like this being innovative but if I go to something new and different I want to have an inkling of what they are trying to do or say but I couldn’t even guess what this was all about. Perhaps I am just getting old and boring.

Tonight we have a Club meeting. Our programme just says speaker to be confirmed so I have no idea who it is or what we are going to hear. I hope he/she is interesting.

EDIT. I forgot to mention that at the light show thing there was a constant weird screeching sound which was going on all the time over the top of the bits of music and speech and everything else. I think it was done with some sort of synthesiser. Imagine a whale in pain and you’ll get the idea.

I had to laugh at the jotting on old envelopes as I do that and can never remember what they were for, seems I am not the only one! :-)

I have change the bedding and washed it and done some admin and had a long phone call about a new something. Had a little walk around the garden as I saw the mauve crocus were all up among the snowdrops in the orchard so went and took a few pics of those. They have really multiplied and I have lots now. Writen a letter and now need to post it. Then I am going to have a hoover of the kitchen and bedroom, hallway and thats all I am doing for today.

The suns been out all day and with a tiny breeze, trouble is I set the washing machine for a long wash and it did'nt get out there till after 1pm. As I picked up my white dumper and walked to the kitchen to empty the machine I was thinking how long it had lasted me as I bought in in Morrisons years ago. Put the sheets in it to hang on the line and did that picked up the dumper by one handle and swung it on my hand and promtply put my finger throw it on the side just under the handle, BLAST, I should have said anything. I am going to see if I can put a bit of BIL super duper tape on it to make it last a bit longer as I hav'nt seen white ones anywhere.

Afternoon All,

I woke at 7.30am to a car revving that seemed very close, so I looked out of the window and someone was reversing up our drive very close to the back of my car. I heard a thud of something through the letterbox so assumed it was a local paper we pay a prescription for so not delivered by the shop. It drove off then. If it happens again I'll take the number and ring the deliverers. I think it must be someone new as the delivery is often before 6.00am. They only need to reverse one bungalow length to be able to turn round in the old end of the close so no need to use our driveway.

I was wide awake by then and so was OH so we got up and went to a local garden centre that has a Works inside and had a brekkie. We noticed lots of Daffodils in flower now on the way. The Works there is a big one (some in our smaller garden centres have closed since the pandemic) and OH found himself two books! They were selling some paintbrushes loose in a pot cheaply and I think they had thought some that had thin bristles at the edge were damaged, so I snapped a couple of those up as they are usually more expensive and are special brushes for painting things like grasses! :-D I also had a look at the shoes and was shocked how expensive they are now as I haven't needed any more since before the pandemic.

I've done a wash and filled the bin ready for tomorrow and am now updating some of my family tree. I keep jotting things I find on the backs of old envelopes and seem to have a pile now! I hope I can make sense of them. :-)

Morning all,

Woke at 8am and went back for a warm up after turning the heating on for a while just to warm the house up, woke up at 10am.

We have quite a bright morning with a little sun now and then but its grey out the front now. Its 11 degrees. Like Ann nothing planned for today but I was hoping to get my willows cut up the top, we'll see if it starts raining it won't get done again. The front field may just be too wet to walk on.

good morning all. 10 degrees and a bit grey looking so far. Still nothing planned today, maybe a bit more tidying in the garden. I think this is the only day this week that I have nothing planned.

Ann I was a bit annoyed about the snowdrops because it could have been avoided. However, it had been very wet during the past couple of days/nights and I thought it might not have been so pleasant walking around so, in the end a cup of coffee and a natter was fine. I have just seen from somebody on line that they had a good number the previous weekend so not everyone saw the wrong advert.

That was a pity AnnG. I had been keeping an eye on the Deene Park snowdrops in Northampton that were to open today, but I noticed that they had had to close off some of the walks and had moved the carpark 200metres to higher ground because of the rain causing boggy ground. I haven't been anywhere today, but I expect the the fields are flooded again after all the rain.

I noticed one or two small clumps of twitch grass in the neglected border at the side of the drive yesterday when I drove up, so must get those out as a priority as once they take hold it will be a much bigger job! I had to empty a border round the back years ago and keep blasting it all with weedkiller for a few months to get rid of some that took hold in there!

Your lamb sounded lovely Vera. Lamb is one of my favourites. Our Waitrose moved out of the next village a few years ago to be replaced by Iceland. We had had a Waitrose there since I was a teenager as well. Parking was free then as well.

What a shame Anng but my snowdrops are over now and nearly all gone. I miss my little Fair Maids of February when they finish flowering.

Still you had a look round the garden centre and had a coffee.

Not done a lot today I fiddle with my little Tudor man and got the back of his clothes on and then got sidetracked by a video.

Are the bulbs exactly the same number Mel. When I searched Amazon I couldn't find them.

That was  a wasted journey. Boddington Manor snowdrops. the advert said 2-4.30 pm Sunday 18th February We got there at ten to two The gates were shut so we waited and waited. By 2.20 there were 12 cars and a large number of people who walked in. Somebody looked at their phone and said it looked like it was last weekend so we went to the garden centre for tea/coffee . But all those people couldn't be wrong. when I checked when I got home the advert we saw was still on there but there was another one we had not seen for the 11th. So they lost a lot of money. It looks like they realised somebody had put the wrong date so put another advert up and didn't remove the wrong one.

Just got the light bulbs from Amazon and they came in a thick brown paper envelope. Never seen one like that before.

We all posted with minuets of each other!

Thanks for the comments on BIL's pics. He loves his photography. He goes over Exmoor to get pics of the stags. I'll have to see if he will send me some of those are they are great.

Still no sun today and it feels cold indoors so I have just turned the heating on for a while to cheer myself up.

Another memory.... When I was little mum sometimes bought very tiny Hovis loaves for me. She would cut them into little slices and butter them for me to eat with my dolls tea set. When oh bought me the bread maker I bought a tin to make the tiny Hovis loaves but I did'nt use it. I came across it in the uti room the other day.

Good afternoon all

It was a wet night and it rained most of the morning but we’ve had a couple of hours of sun. Now it’s just cloudy. Clouds at the front are looking a bit black so I expect there’s more rain to come.

We’ve had our roast lamb dinner which was delicious; very tender and with a good flavour. It came from Waitrose so I’d buy lamb there again.

I wasn’t too well yesterday. I’m better today but feeling very tired and droopy so I haven’t done anything very energetic but I must get myself moving in the next couple of days as we’ve got quite a busy week.

Later we are going in to the arts centre for the light show I got tickets for. I’ve no idea what to expect but it only lasts 45 minutes so I won’t have time to get bored with it. I just hope there isn’t a lot of loud music.

Here comes OH with a cuppa. I hope you are enjoying your Sunday and haven’t been washed away with the rain.

Afternoon All,

It poured with rain last night and I was awake from 4.00am so heard it lashing against the window. I feel quite leaden today so all I have done is get lunch and sort some papers. I found one thing I was looking for, but not my blue handled scissors......yet. The food drop is later and I forgot to order my bread!

Thank you for sending BIL's photos Mel, they are lovely and you get so much variety of birds in your garden. I find the Wrens are usually too quick for a photo. Hopefully he'll be able to find a bulb for you. I find it quite confusing with all the types and fittings there are now.

I hope it stays fine and not too muddy for your visit to see the snowdrops AnnG. It's 13 degrees and the sun is out here now.

OH wants me to go to Lincoln with him on Tuesday. It's nice where he goes with the river running through but his meeting could last 3 hours. I would have taken my camera, enjoyed pottering round the shops and calling in a cafe for refreshments once, but my knees stop much of that now and 3 hours is a long time to fill, so I think I'll get on with things here instead. It could be very rainy as well.

Thank you for sharing the photos Mel. They are great.
I haven't seen a woodpecker in the garden for years, although at one time we must have had a nest nearby, as they brought the growing youngsters to feed.
So hard to catch a photo of a wren. Our garden visitor usually flits about quickly on the ivy-covered fence.
Robby looks well in his photo. He is thriving on his good food ;-)

I forgot to say the photos are great Mel (although I did respond on the email.

I am hoping to go and see snowdrops not far from here, hopefully we won't get more rain.