General Chat

Well that's the big meal of the day done! We just had a puff pastry topped chicken and bacon pie between us today with leeks, green beans, cauli and cabbage. The washer is on and when OH has washed the bits that don't go in the dishwasher I'll set the oven to clean itself. OH has a busy week so I think I need to catch up with some HW while he is out as I will get it done quicker then and it won't seem such a chore hopefully.

That was good coming second in the quiz Mel and a nice change of scene for a few hours. I hope your BIL's knee improves with the rest today.

Vera you do well with your cuttings. I think all but maybe 2 of my geraniums have had it, but I will leave them for now in case some new shoots appear. Isn't it annoying when yiou want to do things but our bodies make it wise to stop. We haven't touched our garden this year yet.

A bill to pay next and some paperwork to sort. Doesn't it pile up quickly!

Afternoon all,

Thank you all for the birthday wishes and cards ,I've had lots of nice things and we went to see son and family for coffee and birthday cake which was lovely.

Another dull day here Gwyn no sun but it's not really cold out .

It's odd how some of these links widen the page .

Oh well done Mel coming second in the quiz ,did you get anything for second place .

I had already deleted the link Vera before I read your post so back to normal now. Ann My bricks were obviously from what I found, not Bayco, they were Lotts and looking on line, if I had some in original box they would be worth something. Gwyn that sounds as if we both had the same set. Wonder if that was a local firm at the time to us?

I have done two lots of gardening adding up to over an hour but came in to rest and will now get lunch, it looks like it is going to rain, if it doesn't I will go back out again. It is hard work weeding as the soil is claggy but I have cleared quite a lot on my what is now, worst border.

I think the only way to get back to normal sizing now is for AnnG to remove that link. I know that you can shorten long links by using tinyURL but I’ve never tried it so don’t know how it works.

It’s lovely weather at the moment and quite warm. I did 30 minutes in the garden tidying up my big pots of agapanthus and topping up the compost. I’m letting them get a bit of air and sun at the moment then I’ll cover them with fleece again. After that I individually potted up my geranium cuttings. When I took the cuttings I popped 3 or 4 in each pot and I thought they could do with a bit more room. I took 8 cuttings of our yellow argyranthemum and 7 rooted and are doing well. My problem is to stop them growing too leggy. I would have liked to stay in the garden but by then my back was quite painful again so I came in.

While we are talking plants the white trunked trees at Anglesey Abbey ARE silver birches. They are very much a feature, only some showing in the photo I sent. Their trunks are given a good wash from time to time (once a year?) and they look sensational in December when the plants are all lit up for Christmas.

I’ve nothing else planned for today, apart from cooking our roast dinner. Loin of pork is in the oven so I’d better get the roast potatoes parboiled.

EDIT I see you are ahead of meAnnG and have removed the link already.

Afternoon All,

<3 <3 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MANDY! <3 <3 I hope you have a nice day with some goodies to eat. :-)

Your Bayco set in the link looks very similar AnnG so perhaps the one I played with was stone too, unless the one Gwyn played with with a friend was plastic?

Lunch has dinged so I'd better go.

Happy Birthday, Mandy.
I hope the sun shines for you and that you have a lovely day <3

Ann,
I remember playing with stone building blocks, probably a hand-me-down from my brother. I particularly remember little window stone blocks with green lattice patterning.
My primary school friend, Ann had a Bako set and we loved creating houses together.

Mel
That sounds a fun evening. Well done !
My daughters and I sometimes go to quizs. Depending on the location, it's tricky knowing when to play the joker...... some places we play before the round. ...some places after. and yes it can be the deciding feature when it comes to the final score.

The avatars have all shrunk because you put that link up to the building bricks you had.

I too had the ones with the metal rods that you slid the bricks and things on.

Suns out again here now after a good rain shower. Must get on incase BIL comes today and I am in a mess.

Why have all the avatars shrunk?

Happy birthday Mandy have a lovely day.

It is my great grandson's 8th birthday today as well.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

<3 <3 <3 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MANDY <3 <3 <3 Hope you have a lovely day.

Morning all,

Not caught up with yesterdays posts yet as the screen has gone all strange all over to one side when I go back and our pictures are all squashed up. Late on parsade as I went to the wine and wisdom last night at the village hall and had a smashing time. There were tables of six but only four on our tabel and we came second, how good was that? We played the joker on the wrong lot of questions and should have saved it till the last lot as that was one liners of songs with extra points. If we had done that we would have won. Anyway a good laugh was had by all, good cheese and wine.

Happy Birthday Mandy :-D <3 :-D. I hope you have a lovely day.

Just going to do a few minutes work in the garden while it’s dry and bright outside. BBL

Ann it is very strange. I have looked at the Bayco building sets on line and, yes the houses look similar when built but. They were all bakolite and they mention the rods etc. Mine was not any sort of plastic, the bricks were solid sort of made of some kind of plaster all shapes and sizes and some with tiny bricks colouring them, some with window frames painted on them. The had to be 'built' by balancing, no rods. If dropped on a hard surface they chipped or broke. The different sized roofs were folded firm cardboard covered in red paper designed with tiles.

I imagine they may well have been produced by Bayco maybe during the war. Or they were a cheap copy.

I found some.... Lotts stone bricks

good morning all, very dull and misty this morning 5 degrees.
Nothing at all planned for today so I am hoping it will turn out to be dry so I can get out into the garden.

Evening All,

Wrote a post yesterday but see I lost it!

Thanks for the pics of Anglesey Abbey Vera. It looked like a nice walk with all the spring flowers. I liked the orange Cornus? and like Gwyn I liked the white trees similar to silver birch but they seem more cream.

I had the cardboard cut out dolls with tabs on their clothes too. I remember wanting the Kellogs boxes to cut out the animal masks they did on them long before the box was empty.

AnnG I played at a neighbour's with one of those Bayko building sets. They had long rods you pushed into holes in a board and you slid the bricks and window pieces between the rods. They had all kinds of windows and roofs to use and were really good.

I was a pigtailed, freckled tomboy, not very girly at all, but like you all say, girls got girly toys like dolls and boy's were given interesting boy's toys like trainsets I always wanted. Once mum taught me how to plait I remember trying to plait my dolls' hair!! I used to cut it as well and would get told off for doing that. Another toy I had and enjoyed was a farmyard with plastic animals. They were all the wrong proportions, the cat big enough to eat the horse, that kind of thing but I didn't mind. I hardly used my walkie talkie doll as well Vera. I remember she was blonde and had pink plastic bar and button shoes. I think mum must have sold her or given her away. It's funny how toys like my 3 wheeler bike would disappear without me realising. I had a few grazed knees using those roller skates rhat adjusted and were held together with a wingnut!! They would loosen and come apart mid-skate!!

Oh Vera, the school must have wondered what potential accidents they were taking on when they saw your scabby face. I made a mess of my face when I had a go on another girl's toboggan down a big hill near where I lived. It shot off course as it gathered speed and headed straight for a patch with no snow, stopped dead, whereas I didn't and slid headfirst along the frozen snowy edge with the toboggan flying upside down over the top of me. When my mother saw it and the blood she thought I'd been dragged on some gravel.

The floods are still bad here with the fields like lakes. An old schoolfriend came to our tip and was shocked how bad they were. They were even lapping at the edge of the retail park.

I see Northampton council propose to raise their garden bin cost to £45.60 ayear, so I expect all the others will follow suit.

We had to put off our trip to Boots after OH woke in the early hours with a terrible headache. I don't know if I said but he thought the way he had to twist and position his head and neck at the eye hospital plus the really bright lights may have caused it. He's ok again now.

Mandy it sounds like you may have got a couple of fat quarters from Katie's dress. :-D

Mel, are the meds from the doc helping the sciatica?

Ah so not magnolias I should have known it was too early for them but Inthought it might be an early one. Probably had them on the brain as daughter has just planted one in her garden.

I have emailed you Vera. I am probably wrong.

Went into town on the bus but was home by 12.30. Didn't buy anything, nothing new in M&S I did have a coffee and a hot cross bun toasted which was very nice and, wonder of wonders , my sparks on the M&S app worked. Very strange that I was not in the mood for shopping really. Not like before Christmas when it is fun looking round for different presents to buy.

Tesco this afternoon. I just had a wander in the garden as the sun is shining and it is 11 degrees but the soil is bitterly cold so I just pulled a few weeds then left it

Vera
Thank you for sharing the photos of your visit to Anglesey Abbey. What a lovely place to go for a walk and what a variety of plants and colours. I love to see snowdrops growing en masse and a friend and I are watching the forecasts to see when we can visit a country park fairly near here to see their display.
I like the photo of the white trunk trees too.

I had several dolls over the years and remember their names still. Rosebud and Margaret were my first proper dolls. They were a hard material, some sort of composition mix? which you had to treat fairly carefully or it would break or in Margaret's case, melt as I found out, when I lent her to my cousin to play with, while she was staying with our aunt. The doll got left in the conservatory and when someone picked her up later, their thumb went through just above her ankle :-| :-|
Both Rosebud and Margaret went off to the dolls hospital at some point and came out with new wigs. It was a kind thought of my parents and they both looked better, but I wasn't too keen on the new look.
Another doll was Elizabeth made of a hard plastic? who would walk, Violet ( who came dressed in a mauve dress) was perhaps my most played with doll. and an unusual one which never had a name was my Yes / No doll which would nod or shake her head depending on which button was pressed on her tummy or back.

Oh yes, I used to enjoy the cardboard dolls with the paper clothes with tabs. These posts got me thinking about dolls. I am sure I must have had some dolls but I can only remember one which was a large walkie talkie doll I got when I was about 8. I don’t remember playing with her very much and can’t even remember what I named her. I told you I wasn’t very girly. Outside we mostly played ball or skipping games or variations of hide and seek. Indoors I was usually reading or perhaps doing a jigsaw.

I was an accident prone tomboy. I was the girl who climbed over the park railings and tore her knickers on a spike, who didn’t notice the large sheet of glass where she hid during a game and sliced her leg, who failed to clear a tree trunk and landed the other side on her face. This was just before the important interview for grammar school so I had to go to it with a face full of gory scabs. My mother was not pleased with me, to put it mildly. Oh, I also managed to fall in one of the ponds at Blackheath and a lady took me to a nearby laundry to have all my clothes, including a thick winter coat, dried out. I was a walking disaster.

This morning was dry and supposedly mild but I thought it felt cold. Now it’s raining. I haven’t done very much. I washed some cushion covers and I’ve got a large fruit cake cooking at the moment.

Btw, AnnG and Mel, I am a bit puzzled. You mentioned magnolias and willows in the Anglesey Abbey.pics I sent but I don’t remember seeing any. Can you tell me which photos they were in please and I’ll look again.

Better go and check on my cake. Enjoy the rest of your day everyone.

Sun was out so in went the washing and it did'nt knock the leccy oput as I did'nt press it hard. Just as it finished the rain started and it is heavy. The wind is biting today too. pc says 7 degrees and partly sunny..

I had those dolls to dress in clothes with the little tabs. Did anyone have the paper weaving with the cards with lots of hole in and little wooden sticks to put in theholes? I also had a Pom pom pets with easy pom pom makers that clicked apart. I still have two of those but did'nt keep the long one to make the owl.

Just had two more cards and a parcel so that may be from SIL so I am going to save it for my birthday.

Always had jig saws and a little craft to make tiny dolls out of pipe cleaners and it had little heads with faces on. I still have the pipe cleaner as they are all different colours so I used white ones. They also had little round stands with two holes in so they stood up.

Aunty Kit knitted dolls clothes and when we came down to Devon at Christmas to stay with aunty Joy we would all go over the farm in Buckland Brewer we all had presents us girls (my cousins who still live down here, Joy's children ) Aunty kit had made little beds from shoe boxes and the doll was all dressed in bonnet, dress and knickers and the bed had a pillow blankets and sheets and the box was all covered in pretty material. Each of us had a different colour.

BIL just rang to let me know he is not coming today as his knee has started playing up now so he is going to rest it today and he may come tomorrow.

Morning all,

Nice bright morning ,cloudy but the sun is trying to peep through ,it seems a milder morning .
I think it might have been a View master Mel it had a bit on the side you clicked to turn the pictures round and if you clicked it to quick it missed a picture .
Oh yes I had those cut out dolls too and all the clothes would only fit if you didn't cut the tabs off the clothes and the times I did I would be so cross .

Got some ironing to do and some washing to get in the machine .

Morrning all,

We have sunshine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pc says partly sunny and 7 degrees.

I wonder if BIL will come today? Just the shop to do this morning and then wrsap a few things up to post on Monday. I'd like to get inthe garden and do a bit but not sure if the hip and knee will let me.