General Chat

Good morning all grey here but thank goodness that awfully depressing freezing fog has gone, it never lifted at all yesterday. Took a while to get to sleep so put the light on and read then slept until about 7am so did ok in the end
No Plans for today, maybe make another couple of cards, not got back in the painting mood yet. did make two cards yesterday so a start. Might walk down the road and back if it is not too cold. decisions decisions.

Morning AnnG, morning all,

We have the freezing fog here this morning and it looks really bleak out ,the fire is lit and it's nice and warm ,must get my ironing done it keeps looking at me every time I pass it :-D

AnnG I hope the teeth can be found and they haven't gone in with the laundry .

Ann what lovely photo's of the icey plants they look so pretty all frosted ,you can see the tiny crystals of frost on the edges .

Vera it sounds as if you still need to be a bit careful with your foot and what shoes/boots you can get on ,you don't want to put to much pressure on the foot .

Good morning Mandy, not dry here any more rain/sleet stuff coming down 1 degree out. Don't think it is icy though. Still glad I don't have to go out.

Good morning all, VERY FROSTY HERE, and we have had a sprinkling of snow.

Ros has just popped to Tesco for Steak and Kidney for a pie tonight.

Won't be going out until late afternoon, then only to get my COVID injection. Then back home in the dry and warm.

I have just got a couple of more chapters of this book to finish, then I will start another. It's so nice to have a book on hand, which I enjoy.

Take care, and stay safe. xxx

Morning you lot of busy posters,

We have the sunshine again this morning and blue sky with long lines of wispy white clouds. Temps 6 degrees so not bad really.

Still having trounle with the keyboard and pressing two keys at a time and having to go back and edit it.

Our oil delivery was suppoaed to come by yesterday buit it did'nt arrive do I think I had better ring them today as its been ordered over a week now.

Good luck with the injection today Frank and enjoy that lovely steak and kidney pie. I am doing meat pie today.

Morning/afternoon all

Ooo Mel, that mud looks cold for those bare little chickie feet - can't you knit them some socks? LOL Mind you, with that caked on mud they won't be able to lift off and escape LOL

Annx, your icy plants look beautiful. Will they survive? I didn't think to check the garden for winter wonders yesterday as it was too cold.

I'm told it's up to minus 2 today after a very thick frost with a layer of snow in the night. As Mandy says - it's bleak.

Afternoon all

It’s very grey and damp here though it hasn’t rained this morning. It doesn't look a bad day for a walk till you step outside and realise it’s still only 1 deg. There is a yellow warning out for snow but the sky doesn’t have that snow look about it. We ought to expect it anyway - it is winter after all.

I slept a bit better last night and reckon I might have got well over 5 hours in two spells of sleep so I’ve had a burst of energy this morning and given the upstairs a really thorough dust and vac. OH often does it but I don’t think he moves much and he tends to waft the dusters around in an airy-fairy way and somehow gets round a great deal faster than I do. Bless him. I wouldn’t change him though. He might not be a dab hand at dusting but he can wield a screwdriver with the best of them.

And here he comes with lunch :-). Bbl

They don't need socks Island they need duck foot shaped wellieds.

Suns gone and now its dull and dreary and as Mandy said bleak. Not a word you hear a lot is it?

Need to put some more fat balls out for the birds and think I will corn the chickens early today then I only have to go out there to take the bantams food out tonight.

The oil just came but I had to ring them this morning to see what was going on. Apparently the tanker had a puncture so the girl on the phone said and when the chap came he told oh he had a breakdown for two hours.

Afternoon All,

Another good sleep but OH woke me early this morning. He's had ear trouble for over a week now and he's had another flea in his ear yesterday about not getting it looked at. Well it has been weeping with blood and pus for a couple of days and he said it was affecting his hearing and painful in the night. He rang the doc this morning and got an appointment to see the Nurse Practitioner just after 2.00pm. He thinks it is a fungal infection and has prescribed antibiotics and an anti fungal spray. The pharmacy has to order it though so he can't fetch it till tomorrow. Why do men wait so long with these things? :-|

Glad you liked the pics. The frost adds a new dimension doesn't it! BBL must go now for zoom meeting.

Hope your not hanging about waiting to long for your jab Frank and if you do have to queue hope its in the warm .

That's good you've got the oil Mel after the breakdown /puncture .

In the Bleak Mid Winter came to mind when i looked out this morning ,i shall have tune going threw my head for the rest of the day now .

Oh dear we have Escape to the Country on and there's a woman on there with the surname of Crapper :-0 i said to Colin if that had been his surname i think i would have had to keep my maiden name , imagine having to tell people your surname .

Oh just seen your post Ann ,poor OH must be in pain with his ear ,i know when i had my burst eardrum that was weeping and was very painful ,hopefully the antibiotics and an anti fungal spray will help once he gets it .good too that he got in before the week end as it would have only got worse .

Glad you got your oil Mel, I expect there are a lot of people waiting if it was a two hour breakdown, probably had to wait for a new wheel. Must be difficult if it is fully loaded.
Mandy, unfortunate name, yes a bit embarassing for children too.
Ann, that sounds nasty, I hope the stuff from the pharmacy helps to heal it.

I am fed up waiting for the phone to ring. OH rang about hour and a half ago, started to talk to me and mentioned Cirencester, then he was obviously interrupted by a nurse or doctor and said I will have to ring you back later there is a discussion. and the phone went dead. All I know about Cirencester is there is a community hospital there so I am guessing they were discussing whether ot not to send him there. I presume no beds in Stroud. The only problem with Cirencester it is over 20 miles so will be difficult to get anything delivered to him as it involves a route through the Cotswolds, not good if there is snow around, And I am waiting for him to call back.

Mandy, I never understand why some women give up perfectly nice names for something awful - like Crapper LOL There's no legal requirement after all but I have heard of some men making such a silly fuss if the woman wants to keep here own name. Little man syndrome.

daughter just had a call to say he is on his way to Cirencester. Poor man talk about pass the parcel and that will feel so far from home.

So sorry it is Cirencester Anng as you say a long way to get things to him. Did he mention his teeth? if they had found them or not?

Poor G just as bad as toothache earache and not very nice if its bleeding and pussey too. Hope the antibiotics kick in soon and he get his spray.

We seem to be getting more and more long tailed tits as I counted 12 today. I think they must be telling the family which is the best place to eat or they are having a house party every day. Don't think they know we are not aloud to visit other family members as we are in lockdown.

I must try and get to the shop tomorrow thats if oh lets me drive as I could do with my paper and a few bits and pieces.

Which reminds me I must start the shopping list for next Tuesday.

He didn’t have time to mention anything, he said something about Cirencester then had to ring off, I guessed what was happening but we had it confirmed to daughter by phone. So I Really don’t know if he found his teeth.

Long tailed tits move in flocks until they split into breeding pairs and become territorial in the spring maybe they single ones are gradually catching up with the flock.

I’ve just come in from putting out clean bird feeders with fat balls, sunflower hearts and peanuts and I’ve put mealworms in a dish on the table and in the ground feeder. I’m only putting out a few at a time as they are getting so wet that they go mouldy before the birds finish them. My hands were frozen and I was only outside for about 20 minutes. I’m keeping one eye on the window at the moment as there is a robin and a black cat sitting on the fence watching each other.

It’s a very strange colour outside at the moment. Everything looks a sort of yellowish grey.

Oh, cat has disappeared and another robin has joined the first one. Presumably they are a pair but it seems very early in the year for them to have got together.

Steak and kidney pie sounds good Frank. Did Ros buy enough to freeze for another time? I hope your jab goes well and you don’t have to wait for long.

There are stories of people queuing for ages so I hope none of us get caught up in that situation. In fact I don’t know where we would queue as our “hub” is the smallest of our practice’s 5 surgeries and is just an ordinary small bungalow in an ordinary road. The “car park” at the back (originally the small garden) is minute. They are not starting here till next week so it might be a little while before OH gets his appointment.

I talked to my daughter on FaceTime last night and she looked exhausted with all these changes of school plans and the work they entail. The staff learned at the same time as the general public that the summer exams were being cancelled but individual schools could decide about any exams being taken in January. She had 90 children coming into school the following morning for an exam. After discussion the staff decided to cancel the exam so as not to disadvantage their kids against those getting teacher assessments in the summer and they had one evening to contact and speak to 90 kids and their parents. Now she is desperately juggling staff so that she can provide for the 76 vulnerable/key worker children she has got in while allowing normal live lessons to go on online. Then there is staff training for lateral flow testing and so on and on and on. She said that as well as a teacher and administrator she is now a nurse and a social worker. I jokingly said that it could be worse, at least she wasn’t the cook as well only to find she had that day made sandwiches for the vulnerable children whose feckless parents failed to provide a packed lunch. Gosh, I have gone on a bit haven’t I? I just get fed up when I see how hard my daughter works and then read letters in the paper about teachers’ easy life with short hours and long holidays.

I am waiting for a delivery which should be here anytime now. It’s a pretty yellow hellebore we saw at Anglesey Abbey a while ago but couldn’t find for sale anywhere. I saw it online recently at one of the nurseries so ordered one. It was £20 plus delivery but OH said to treat myself so I did. I also “treated myself” to six pink scabious plants that were going half price.

We were going to have sausage and mash tonight till I went to peel the potatoes and found only 1 there. OH last used the potatoes and forgot to tell me they had nearly gone. I got “I meant to tell you but I got distracted”. I swear I’m going to have 2 things engraved on his gravestone “Where is....” and “I meant to do it”. Sausage, oven chips and beans tonight then.

I’d better stop or I shall ramble on and on. I hope you all have a good night. Take care and stay safe.

EDIT. Did this before your most recent posts but didn’t submit it. Poor OH AnnG. He must be so fed up moving from pillar to post. I hope he is at least comfortable there. Ann, ears can be so painful. I hope your OH’s settles down very quickly once he’s got the medication.

We haven’t seen anything of Gill for a few days. I hope she and the rest of the family are OK

Yes I was thinking that we had'nt seen Gill. Hope Sandra's phone has finerly dried out and she got her tablet sorted.

Island I have said this before on this thread but I will say it again for those who hav'nt seen it. When my mum was at school she had a friend called Nora Bone!!!!! How unkind is that or did they just not realise?

I shouldn't laugh Mel but Nora Bone! LOL I think some parents are a bit dozy.
I know someone who has that well know unfortunate name and everyone thinks they are the first to make a stupid comment. That one wouldn't have been obvious to the parents at the time.

I'm having such problems with FB since some bright spark changed it to 'new facebook'. So today I thought I'd give it a good going over and ended up having to restore other passwords and tabs - and still FB is no better.
Is anyone else having trouble with it on a laptop?

Dinners bleeping >>>>>>>>>>>

Ha ha Mel! I bet she was careful who she married after that. :-) It's a good job you got your oil today. It sounds like the driver had one of those days he could do without.

What a name Mandy! I would be keeping my maiden name too!! It took me a while to get used to Mr G's surname. Fine for a man, quite Dickensian if you stick Ebenezer in front of it, but not so nice for a woman.lol.Your fire sounds nice and cosy!

Poor T being shunted around AnnG and further from home as well. I expect he isn't the only one being moved as they make space for more covid beds. What a horrid time for you and him though.

Vera our local news online had an article today where a keyworker carer went for her vaccination in the city and according to her over a hundred were there for vaccinations and no adequate social distancing. Ours will be at the racecourse conference centre and covers a lot of surgeries and is in a worst hotspot for covid so I am not keen. If we had changed to our village surgery instead of the one in the next village, we would go just a couple of miles to a small building where the beading classes I went to were held.

I hope Ros got more groceries than just the pie to save her going out so often. I hope Frank didn't have to queue today.

Yes Sandra was taking her phone to try and get it fixed on Monday wasn't she. She won't be happy if it isn't.

Well, after no fog or frost this morning it has just been dull and chilly today.

I've not decided what to eat tomorrow so better go and look in the freezer for inspiration as it will need defrosting I expect. :-(