General Chat

I'm not sure when you actually go AnnG but wish you a safe journey whenever it is. You shouldn't feel guilty about daughter and sil in law collecting you but I totally understand why you do as I am the same.

You have been busy with your pond Mel. There's a lot of work involved with maintaining a pond. When we had one OH spent at least one full day every week on it, plus plenty of odd half hours.

What have I been up to today? Not a lot is the answer. I did a few odd jobs around the house and then showered and washed my hair. Then we went out for our usual Thursday coffee meet. 9 of us turned up today. I bought a bit of fresh veg and some milk while we were out, then it was back for lunch. I've prepared tonight's dinner; a sort of bolognese mixture with extra veg in it, shredded carrot, chopped leeks, a tin of tomatoes, tomato puree, mixed herbs, a beef stock cub and a good slurp of OH's red wine. We'll have it with noodles.

We had quite a bit of rain overnight and first thing but it stopped by mid-morning. The computer is telling me that it's 25 degrees and it is hot and muggy but there's no sun, just grey skies.

i have been mucking around with the pond all morning and into the afternoon.

I think I may be going to lose Banty as she is not very steady on her little feet. I suppose she won't last forever but she has to be at least 15 years old now.

What have you lot been up to?

Morning Anng and all,

17 degrees here now and bright and sunny like you Anng. If your daughter did'nt want to come for you at this time of year she would'nt so do NOT feel guilty but enjoy your time with them.

Had a bit of a bad night, got up around 4am for the loo and could'nt go back to sleep and then got hot Looked at the clock at 5.15am nd tried again after a while I dropped off and woke at 9.40am.

Hope you all had a better night than i did.

Good morning all. 14 degrees this morning so cooler than yesterday but dry and bright so far. Just received email from daughter to say 'leaving now' that was at 0735.. Hoping to beat some of the holiday traffic. I do feel guilty knowing they choose to do this journey this time of year to get me up there.

Afternoon all,

Been really busy this morning and had to do the pond filter and get the scimmer working. Then I had to fill the pond up from the well as I could'nt get the scimmer to work till there was more water in the pond. I also had to go into Shebbear to post a parcel. Now why could'nt she have paid yesterday so I would only have had to go up there once.

Its nice and sunny and quite hot 21 degrees at the moment and temp dropping tomorrow as per pc.

Went to the shop after the post van and still my scripts were not there so now I have to go to the docs to collect them as I have run out of painkillers.

Must go before the one I took this morning runs out!!

Thanks Vera, the longer I am up and away from the dream the better I am getting. I will be fine, it was just a bit of a jolt. But really I don't have time to be miserable today, too much to do. :-)

That’s distressing for you AnnG. Keep yourself busy and think of the happy new memories that you’re making with your daughter <3

good morning all. I slept really well until 0415, got up for the loo then just couldn't get back to sleep thinking of all the things I need to do before tomorrow when daughter arrives. I did drop off somewhere after 6am and then had a dream which involved old friends now gone and T who was going away somewhere and I was talking to him when I woke up and found that he was not next to me and really had 'gone'. That set me back about 18 months and my recent positivity had upped and left. Still trying to shake myself up and out of the doldrums. :-( :-(

Good morning

It’s going to be another hot day. It’s already 15 degrees and bright sunshine.

It was too much to hope that I would have 2 good nights in a row. I slept for 2 hours, then woke at 1.30 am. After lying quietly for a while but still being wide awake I got my book out and read for an hour,, then tried sleeping again. I tossed and turned and probably dozed for a few minutes here and there but couldn’t sleep so eventually got up and was doing the ironing by 6 am. I feel shattered and headachy but on the positive side the ironing got done before the day got too hot :-)

I don’t have any plans for the day and nowhere I have to go so I’ll probably just blob around.

I have to say the one thin I regret is not being able to get a self defrosting freezer. We tried but there were none available and we had to replace our old one in an emergency as it had gone wrong. My fridge is self defrost. I would have though all freezers would, by now would be self defrosting but daughter's was in with the house and that needs to be defrosted and that is only 2 years old.

Afternoon all

It’s not very bright but it is very warm and “heavy”.

Deicing chest freezers isn’t much fun. In our last house we had a huge chest freezer. It was ex-canteen so you can guess how big it was. It was ideal as I could buy stuff in bulk and freeze masses of home grown veg but I hated defrosting it. I used to cover the bottom with towels and stand bowls and buckets of warm water on them. I closed the lid and the ice would start to melt so I could knock it off and gather it up in the towels. Then it all had to be cleaned out and put back on fast freeze before any food could go back in. When we moved here we bought an upright for the kitchen and another for the garage and they are both self defrost so I only have to wipe the drawers out now and then.

I’m glad you slept well Mel. You’ll be amazed to hear that I slept like a log too. I slept from about midnight to 4 am, got up for a trip to the loo, went back to bed and slept till 7 am :-D. I can’t remember the last time I slept for that long.

I’ve washed all our clothing and bedding that we’ve used over the last 8 days and remade the beds. After lunch we are popping out as I want to go to the opticians and sort out another eye test. I am going to take my last hospital letter with me so they can see the consultant has said it needs to be done now. OH wants to go to B & Q as well.

The sun is trying to shine through and lunch is just about ready. Have a good afternoon everyone

Morning all,

Its bright and sunny and pc says mostly sunny but it has rained a bit as everything is wet this mroning nd its 17 degrees.

Slept like a log last night, sorry Vera I hope you had a better night.

so all in the freezer ok Anng so thats good. Thats a job I am not looking forward to clearing my freezer out. Its a chest freezer.

Hve to get down the post van before the shopping arrives today and I still have one little parcel to wrap up so I better get on.

Everything seemed ok and I did read in the freezer's booklet that if anything had started to defrost then it was ok to re-freeze, and it mentioned meat. However, I checked and, because it is so full and everything tightly packed it was all well frozen and seems fine again now. I don't know even now why the door was not properly closed, it must nave been just one drawer not pushed right in. It is very iced up, needs defrosting so I think when I come back from daughter's they will stay an extra day and help me to de-frost it. It probably was a blessing that the ice is thick as it didn't even start to melt and it must have been a couple of hours.

glad that you eventually had a good day Vera even though so tired. But it must be very tiring to look after your friend, poor lady, but it sounds as if you are all contributing to make her life as good as it can be.

I hope the contents of your freezer have survived OK AnnG. It’s easy not to quite close a door properly but at least you heard the alarm.

Let’s hope the patches help to ease your pain Mel. It’s good the doctor said you can use Voltarol, but it was wise to check. I was definitely told not to use any anti-inflammatory medication with my tablets.

It’s been a bit of a hectic day today. I had an atrocious night eventually sleeping from about 5.30 am to 8 am. I got up then but must have looked dreadful as OH sent me back to bed and brought me in a cup of tea. At that point I was saying I couldn't face going to my birthday lunch. After a while I got up again and had a shower and decided I would go. A friend gave me a lift and we had a nice pub lunch and then went back to the birthday girl’s house for coffee and cake. It was 5 pm before I got back and we were out again at 7 for a club meeting. One of the ladies brought our friend with dementia and she sat with me for the evening. Sometimes she’s not bad at all but tonight she was hard work. When you’ve answered the same question 10 times in 15 minutes, made sure she’s drinking her cup of tea and not someone else’s and checked that she has come out of the Ladies and not wandered off to the wrong meeting room, you are exhausted. But she is such a lovely lady and a happy soul .

We had a very good speaker from The Dogs Trust tonight. She spoke very clearly and was happy to be interrupted with questions. It was a good evening.

Now I am going to make my way to bed and hope for a good night’s sleep as I need to spend tomorrow catching up on all the things I haven’t done today.

Back from town and chiropodist now quite busy in town, I think everyone is in buying school uniforms, carrying shoe boxes etc.

what actually gave you indigestion Mel? something you ate to avoid eating after about 6pm?

Was just about to say Morning all when the phone rang and it was the doc. we chatted for about a quarter of an hour. She is going to put me on patches for my pain and I can use the voltarol if I can find where I put it. I hav'nt liked to use it incase it was something I could'nt use with the pills I am on as Vera said something about that.

Had a dreadful night. Got indigestion before I went to bed so took so boiled water and went to bed. Woke at 3.42am for the loo and could'nt get back to sleep so got up again at 5.40 something just as it was starting to get light. Took a couple of rennies and went bck to bed and fell asleep till 8.30am. Had'nt been up long when the doc rang at 9am.

Good morning all. slept well last might woke at about 6.30.
Chiropodist today, 14 degrees so far and dry and quite bright so hope it will stay that way.
Also need to start sorting stuff to take away soon as has to be packed before daughter gets here as it is all in their room. Love going away, hate packing/unpacking.

I haven;t done as much gardening as I expected to but I have cut back a bit more of one of the Buddleijas. this is a very tall one so needs cutting back quite a lot before winter so I have just done the lower branches. I also staked a japanese anenome.

But I had a bit of an emergency, my fault I guess. I was eating lunch when I heard an alarm. Luckily I was in the lounge with the door open as I realised quickly it was my freezer. It took ages to stop the alarm from going which has made me realise that I cannot reach the plug to switch it off if I want to. Anyway I couldn't work out why the alarm was going but eventually managed to stop it (still don't know how). I realised it was probably because the door had not been shut after I put something in when Tesco came. So I pushed and shoved all the drawers, and switched the freezer off and on again inside and the alarm stopped. It was obviously starting to thaw, like yours, the fronts of the drawers were wet. (one way to de-ice it I suppose.). I couldn't keep opening the door to check as the sun was shining and the conservatory hot but I had a quick peep at 4pm and it was showing 16, Best temp is 18 so I am hoping it will soon come back up to that but won't check until the sun moves away. It was a worrying ten minutes as it is full.

I am pleased that you have come up with an answer to the plant I did send the photo to my son who has a programme on his phone that tells you what plants are but I have not heard from him so he must be busy.

Re. my mystery plant: I've had a couple of suggestions of Campanula and Mandy suggested Ladybell. I hadn't heard of that so looked it up and it turns out that is known as False Campanula, so you are all thinking along the same lines. Once I had an idea of what to look for I did a bit of googling and I think it is most likely to be Campanula Latifolia. Our plant fits Beth Chatto's description of it quite well. I'm not sure whether we will bin it when it's finished flowering or whether I will try to lift it and put it somewhere else. Thank you for the suggestions ladies. They were very helpful.

I've been quite busy this morning. I cleaned out a kitchen cupboard and washed down some window sills and the back door. I also cooked a full roast dinner with all the trimmings. It was a bit hot for that sort of meal but OH does love his Sunday dinner and he didn't get one last weekend so I thought I would spoil him. There's plenty of pork left so he can have cold pork and salad tomorrow when I am out for a birthday lunch.

My next job is to wrap a present for the birthday girl so I'd better get on with that

PS I meant to say earlier that when we were in Dobbies Garden Centre on Friday I saw they had Christmas cards for sale. That's the first I've seen this year.

Morning all,

I did wake up till 10.40am and its a beautiful sunny day here and 17 degrees so far.

I too have nothing planned for today except get rid of some of these plums to neighbours.

Must dp some washing and ironing. Thats the trouble when we get nice days the washing machine does overtime and then your left with a ton of ironing.

Glad you had a better night Vera as it makes all the difference to the next day but take it easy and don't rush anything.

Mandy too, relax after your busy day with Lewis. They keep you on the go don't they.