General Chat

It's very warm though there is a nice gentle breeze. The weather app is telling me it's 23 degrees and feels like 25. The computer is telling me it's only 20 but it does seem to think I am at Stansted which it mis-spells Stanstead.

It's been a busy day again. OH has been busy outside doing (totally unnecessary) repair jobs but it has kept him busy and out of my hair, lol. I hoovered through downstairs and gave the kitchen floor a thorough wash. I think I've said before that we have a large hall, large kitchen-diner, a utility, downstairs cloakroom and a conservatory that are all tiled. Nearly all of it stays looking nice except for the kitchen bit of the kitchen-diner and that always looks grubby to me. I think over the years bits have been dripped on the floor and got ground in. We usually use a steam cleaner but today I got detergent, mops and scrrubbing brush and had a real go at it. I'm still not happy with it :-|

After lunch we popped to Sainsbury's and got some salad and veg and milk and then went into town to stock up on fish at Waitrose. Their fish is nice but it is expensive so if I want any I go on a Friday when it is 20% off if you have a Waitrose card. Since we got back I have wrapped all the fish and got it in the freezer and OH is watering all the pots.

It's good Colin has managed to get some rest Mandy. I hope his tum is feeling a bit better now and will continue to improve.

What a performance with your internet Annx. Sometimes I think we ought to go back to the days of pen and paper but then we had things like a decent postal service to help things along. Somewhere I have a postcard from my great grandmother to a relative in which she says she will be along for tea that afternoon. She posted it in the morning knowing the recipient who lived in the next district would receive it by lunchtime. Can you imagine that today? Btw, we can't order repeat prescriptions by phone normally. It's only to ask for a reissue once you have had your allocated 6 scripts, but I never have to order my tabs because I have nominated a pharmacy to be my usual pick-up point. Everything is done electronically between the GP and the pharmacy. All I have to do is go in every 4 weeks to pick up the meds.

Mel, I hope your plumber is getting your flush fixed and isn't charging an arm and a leg. Your fish had pretty markings and was a good size. I would worry about only paying £12 to have my feet sorted. That price is way out of kilter with normal charges. Is he properly qualified and insured? I pay £41 and that's an average price here.

You must have enjoyed talking to the old members of staff at your school anniversary Gwyn. They probably had a few tales to tell. As you say, where do the years go? It seems only a few weeks ago that I was talking about the birth of our great-granddaughter but in 3 weeks she will be a year old.

Things were pinging just now so I checked and found I have 2 separate emails and 2 texts and an online letter all telling me my June 13th appointment has been cancelled (!) and replaced with one on 23rd August. I am glad I have got the appointment at last but that will be 18 weeks since my previous one when the doctor asked to see me in 8 weeks.

I am now going to go and make us a few sandwiches which we can eat while watching the Olympics opening ceremony. I also treated us to a couple of cherry and almond lattice pastries in Waitrose - a bit naughty but very nice.

Mandy he did bring a load of stuff with him in a cardboard box said he had'nt changed the plug abut put oil in it and something else, I ws'nt really listening as he waffles on about thing I know nothing about. He cut all the lawns without the grass collector on and the mower went really well.

I now have a flushing loo too so two good jobs done today I must go and check the scimmers now as the fish are sucking green stuff off the liner and it blocks up the skimmer net I put on it.

Now I am going to say this now as I keep forgetting, I have 4 eggs in the Swallows nest now. Last time I look about a week ago there were only two but she dos'nt like me being in there and flies out sometimes.

I left Colin having a doze after lunch and went shopping i was gone about an hour and he slept the whole time .
It's really hot out there now .

Mel thats a very good price to have your nails done ,when Colin use to go it was forty pound and that was a few years ago now so goodness knows what she charges now its bound to have gone up, I do his nails now as his feet are not like they use to be ,he use to go to the chiropodist because he had a lot of calluses from wearing boots and trainers for work .
Did bil get the part he needed for the mower .

I picked a nice handful of runners so we're looking forward to having them with a nice shop bought chicken,leekand bacon pie and some other veg.

Back and he's put his prices up to £12. Plumber not arrived yet and I need to feed BIL.

I'll be jealous of your beans Mandy.

Nice to see you Gwyn now the kids have broken up we expect to see you on here more. Have you still got swans down the river or have they all disappeared?

Got the foot man this afternoon. BIL is here and then the plumber will be comeing after 3pm to fix the flush.

Morning all,

Nice bright sunny morning just hung some washing out and I looked at the runner beans I think there's just enough for tonight's meal .
Colins on the move at last so I hope it's going to help his tummy pain .

Oh Mel I didn't realise you'd had the shingles jab I must have missed a post with you mentioning it my heads not my own at the moment.
She was a lovely looking fish with pretty markings .

Oh Ann what a palaver who would think that one little snip would cause all this upheaval and probably cost into the thousands time they have finished, I should think that chap will be in big trouble .
Did your drawing course finish I haven't heard you mention it lately .

Anng hope it stays dry for your walk out to the photography group if its only a short walk you should be OK

Right I'm going to pick a few beans ,I'll send a photo .

Good morning all.
After a damp start from overnight rain, it is now a beautiful sunny morning.
I have to think which day it is now that the school holidays have started - they broke up on Tuesday until September 2nd.
Sorry to read that Colin has been so unwell. I do hope that he can soon get back to his usual self and feel much better.
Take care of yourself too Mandy.

Thank you Ann for the photos of the birds. Amazing to see them so close and how cheeky of the magpies to think they can take on a red kite. I don't think I've ever seen one around here, but there are plenty of magpies, especially at nesting times, when the adult blackbirds in particular shriek at them if they are too near a nest.

What a saga for you regarding your connection. It sounds like something off a stage farce. I hope it is all resolved satisfactorily soon.
I often wonder what my Dad would think of the way we communicate now. He was in the Signals then later joined GPO. and would be amazed how we can link up so readily and chat over the internet to people on the other side of the world.
I was lost without my laptop, when it was out of action for a while recently. I wonder what he would think of such a device.

Vera
Your area sounds great for you getting together and meeting with friends frequently. How lovely to meet up with friends from your old village too.
At school this week, staff from long ago were invited in to mark a significant school opening anniversary. There were people there who taught back in the 70s and 80s, so it was lovely to catch up and also take a trip down Memory Lane.
What happened to all those years in between? :-0

AnnG You do seem to keep very busy, what with your garden, outings and various interest groups. It's always good to hear what you have been doing.
Do you have a subject of interest for each photography meeting?

I see from the forecast that the temperatures are due to climb over the next few days, so I ought to get into the garden before then,to get more in the garden bin before next week's collection. Since my melanoma, I avoid working outside in the full sun, but always wear sunscreen anyway, even on dull days.

Another bag of clothing ready to be taken to a charity shop. I ought to be more ruthless like AnnG and sort out my books too. I recently came across some autobiographies here and thought that I would read them again, before getting rid of them, so back on a shelf they go ;-)

Good morning all 16 degrees and sunny. supposed to be a pleasant day today I have a photography meeting to go to this afternoon. Just a short walk away so it is good it looks as though it may not be raining.

Morning all,

Quite a nice morning so far shame I have the plumber coming and have to go and get my nails cut.

Hope you all slept well and that Colin is a little better today.

Good grief Ann.that gave me a headache reading that. Goodness knows what it did to you. All because an engineer made one mistake.
However if you get free faster broadband it will be worth it.

Gosh Ann your problem is turning into a really big one now and all because the first engineer cut your cable and connected it to next door. What a fool.

Mandy my arm hurts from the Shingles jab I had today not me injuring it. Hope the peaches and rice work with his sachets to get him moving again. I am sure he will feel a lot better once things get on the move again.

The fish was about nearly 2' long and a good 9" deep that I had to get out of the pond and that was a struggle in its self I took a couple of pics before I removed her clad in rubber gloves and had to put a cotton cloth over her so she did'nt shoot out of my hands when I picked her up. She was very heavy but she had the most wonderful scales like tiny fans with silver threads. Don't think they came out in the pictures.

Evening All,

Oh Mandy you must be worn out with listening for and helping Colin. I hope you manage to catch up with some sleep tonight. If he can keep eating a little and drinking plenty with the sachets helping too, it should work. I expect he will feel a lot better then. Those hydration sachets if you've any left could help too. The walker sounds much safer than the stick as well. It was a good idea to do a covid test and great that it was negative. They say these festivals like Glastonbury and all the sport and holidays will cause a spike with all the people mixing.

What a shame about your fish jumping out Mel. It obviously caused some harm to it. Now you are needing work in the bathroom. These annoying jobs never seem to end do they! It's good you have found you already have something you can wear for the wedding and the fuschia top will look good with your black trousers.

AnnG I hate packing clothes for holidays as I never know whether I'll end up too hot or too cold! The weather seems so unsettled this year and changeable too.

Well you are lucky in other respects with your surgery Vera as we can't renew/request prescriptions over the phone. We have to call in or do it online. As for medicine reviews, they are done by the doctors without any contact with us at all which I don't think is very good. Your problems with all the traffic on your journey back home today reminds me of ours. The road from the middle of our village that takes all the traffic for the motorway junction is now closed for 5 weeks while they do various work on it! It means the traffic now has to continue through the village past the end of our close to the main road. It's been horrendous with long queues already and of course it's as bad in the other direction with the traffic coming the other way that would normally go down the closed road. OH has had to go a different way and further to his council meeting this week and to footie tonight. Thank goodness the schools have broken up as there is a large senior school between us and the village. I hope the road is open before the children go back to school as it will make it even worse otherwise.

Well we are not sorted yet with our broadband/phone! We didn't know when the engineers would be back, they couldn't tell us, and our provider said last night that we didn't need to be at home anyway as they wouldn't need to come in the bungalow again. So we thought we could get up bit later this morning, shower and go to Boots on the retail park. I was just cleaning my teeth at 8.00am and the doorbell went. OH was half asleep and scrambled to find his dressing gown in the wardrobe, couldn't see it, so had to answer the door in just his PJ trousers!! It was the different engineer we were told would come and he DID need to come inside! I hid in the ensuite in my nightie thinking he would be gone in a few minutes once he'd looked at our set up, but no! OH chatted to him for a few minutes, then came to find me to tell me to forget having a shower and get dressed, the engineer would be here ages and we needed to move the book cases with all my beading stuff stacked on the shelves and move everything off the worktop that runs the length of the study, the filing cabinet and other things on the floor! How annoying that we were told different! Anyway by the time I was dressed OH had emptied a lot of my bead boxes off the shelves and of course hadn't kept them neatly in the size order that they were on the shelves. It turned out that our signal inside wasn't as it should be anyway and he had to rip out the old main phone input in the lounge and put a new one in the study, so now we have holes in the wall to fill as well. (good job we need to redecorate anyway!). The good thing is that our broadband is faster now and that because they were doing it as part of the outside work, it didn't cost us anything which normally it would. Everything went off again for most of the day while they tracked the cables outside to find the fault up the road. The engineer who came yesterday arrived then as well as it was 2 man job between two boxes at some distance along the pavement. Then there was still a problem with the signal not being as strong as it should be and eventually they found another box that was covered by the grass verge round the corner at the end of the close and that and the cable to it need renewing and raising to surface level. I hope you are keeping up! Goodness knows when that will be done and everything down again while they do it because health and safety means they have to erect a cage barrier around the work, they think the pavement may not be as wide as required for pedestrians then, so need to contact the relevant department to find out. If it isn't, it means they will have to cordon off an area of the road for pedestrians and erect traffic lights. The traffic lights would only be a very short distance from the main road island and traffic lights too which may be a problem and of course the already busy road now has horrendous traffic queues due to the other road closure! :-S

Have you been lifting something heavy Mel to make your arm bad ,hope its better in the morning ,get one of your heat pads on it .

Just got Colin settled in bed and I'm having an early one too I'm bushed .

Sleep well everyone .

My arm is really hurting now and its a job to raise it.

Mandy it was a huge Koi that died in oh's big pond. I took a pic of her in the landing net.

We have just had some tinned peaches with a little rice pudding Mel so hopefully that will help along with these sachets , but nothing so far .
Oh what a shame you lost a fish ,I thought you had a net over the pond did it jump through it .
Sounds as if your getting lots of jobs done with the plumber so thats good .

Vera he was a nice young doctor and he did give him a good check over ,I'm hoping these sachets will soon work as that might help the tummy pain .
The covid tests came and he did one and that was negative but there does seem to be more people getting it again ,the over 70's had the booster again but the younger ones haven't so is that making it rise again plus people don't have to test or isolate like they did so thats going to spread it .

I had a doze after lunch as Colin had nodded off and I drummed it into him to wake me if he needed the loo rather than go through there on his own but I quite a muzzy head now ,I only had about twenty minutes .

Yes we haven't heard from Gwyn for a while perhaps she's gone away , hope she's OK.

Plumbers been and I need complete new inards in the cystern as he could'nt get the bit up that the wire goes on to work the flush either. He is coming tomorrow wiith the new staff at after 3pm. He also managed with a lot of trouble to get my shower door back on the runners. You should see the state of the shower floor with him in and out and its been raining. Also the rubber ring around the basin plug broke this week and he had one of those in his jar of rubber washers so he put that on for me too.

Mandy give him some fruit tinned or fresh that will get him going. You must be so tired keeping an ear out to see what he is trying to do. I was like that with oh and it takes it out of you.

Its 17 degrees here but felt very muggy out earlier on when I fed the chcikens and cleaned the nest box out. I think, keeping my fingers crossed, that the two who were broody have given up as none of them have been in the nest box for two days now and niether of them are clucking which they do when they are broody. Still only getting two eggs a day.

WE hav'nt heard from Gwyn lately hope she is ok. I wonder if the children round her way have broken up yet?

I managed to get the great big fish in a bag and I dug a big hole in the garden but it was in the wrong place and I hit the concrete edging all down the side of the orchard. After digging for a while my arm stated to hurt where I had my jab today so I gave up and put the old wheelbarrow over it till tomorrow. She's all wrapped up well and in a chicken food bag.

Very a good chat with friends then and nice coffee too. Were you naughty and had cake aslo?

Good afternoon all

Can’t really tell you the temperature here as the computer, iPad and phone all say something different. One says 20 degrees but feels like 18, one says 21 and feels like 19, one says 21 and feels like 24. Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer pick! Whatever the temperature it’s dull and muggy and has been threatening rain all day though none has arrived yet.

Shame about your koi Mel. When we had koi we were lucky and only ever lost one fish. That one had dropsy. We started with 20 little 3” fish and several years later we gave away 19 fish and the smallest was about 12”. It’s a pity the first wedding outfit you sent away for didn’t work out but it sounds as though the trousers and top you have picked out to wear will be fine and you’ll be comfortable in them.

I’m glad Colin is a little better but I am sure you would both really like to know what is causing his problems as what the doctors have said seems a bit vague but it sounds as though they will follow up with him and do other tests if he doesn’t feel better soon. It’s a good idea to test for Covid as there seems to be a lot of that around again. I’ve heard of 2 cases again this morning.

We had a lovely few hours with our friends yesterday. We just met up at a Brewers Fayre pub which is roughly halfway between us. It is a large one and was three quarters empty so no-one minded if we lingered and chatted at the table. It was good to catch up and to find there were a number of people in the village where we used to live who still remembered us even though we left in 1986. The journey back was a bit of a nightmare. We left at 4.30 pm and it started off well, we were getting along at a good pace but then we hit a queue of traffic. Every few minutes we moved about 2 car lengths forwards and stopped again. This seemed to go on forever; every bend we came round we found the queue still stretched ahead. Eventually of course we got close enough to see the cause. Just entering town on that particular road you come down a hill to a crossroads where there are traffic lights. About two car lengths back from the lights on our bit of the road a large HGV had broken down. A couple of cars would get into the space between the HGV and the lights and get across when the lights went green. At that point traffic would be coming up the hill from their side of the lights and it is a narrow road so nothing in the queue could move until the lights went red, traffic coming up stopped and two more cars could move in front of the HGV. You wouldn’t believe that one broken down vehicle could cause such long, long tailbacks. We were very glad to get home.

This morning I went to our weekly coffee meet. I allowed OH to stay home as I knew the two men he usually chats to wouldn’t be there. There were just 4 of us this morning but we still seemed to find plenty to say.

Now I must go and sort out something for us to eat tonight. I’m thinking it might be a meat pie that I can cook from frozen. It’s a bit late for an afternoon cup of tea but the sun must be over the yardarm somewhere so I might just pour myself a nice glass of wine to sip while I cook ;-)

Well Alexa is saying it is 21 degrees but I am indoors with a cardigan on as it feels cols.

Fed the koi a while ago and I have another dead one. A big female that jumped out the pond the otherr day and went crash against the wood surround. I had a look at her afterwards and she seemed ok but I think she must have knocked herself out there was such a bang when it happened. Now I am down to 8.

Yes he is eating a little bit more now Anng and I'm nagging him to drink a bit more which he is .
Just deciding what to have for lunch .