General Chat

He's back.

Be careful of those ads as they show two on there and one is much better than the £45 one.

Yes Annx I bought one as I thought it would be good for doing round the back of the bungalow and the car. I have a BIG bucket from the fish food which I used. It did get the green off some of the filter shed but its not as good as the actal pressure washer and it seemed to use more water than the was in the buck but I think you can attach the hose to it.

BIL has mowed and I think he said he was going to strim but I have not seen him since he went out agaian.

I have cut down some of the blessed Ladies Mantle flowers and a Spirier (sp) and then I got a cut on my left hand just the side of a vein that runs up my thumb so of course I managed to get it on my shirt so that came off and it would'nt stop bleeding so I had to come in till it stopped which I think it has now so I may go and find BIL and see just what he is doing.

Morning All,

Warm and sunny here and we both slept well last night. We've prepared for the electrician this afternoon again, then showered and OH went for a short walk while I went to the shop. Easy early lunch, breadcrumbed cod with roasted peppers, courgette and red onions and with mashed potato for OH. I want to do a bit of weeding later.

Mel I thought I was one for adding bits to sauces but Stu leaves me behind! It does add extra flavour though and I would have enjoyed your meal. That's good you have entered some of your miniatures in the show. It's good to meet some people with interest in making things like yourself. I wish we still had shows and fairs round here but I haven't seen any advertised.

We might get a 30% chance of a short splash of rain tomorrow AnnG but nothing is forecast then till 3rd August! We've got a Karcher washer that plugs in for the patio, but do any of you have the cordless ones you can now get and are they any good? You can drop a hose to it into a water butt to use them and I thought one might be useful for watering from our water butts rather than carry watering cans.

Mel I think Gwyn is OK she was on MTG's thread earlier and says she is very busy.

Mandy, in answer to your question. No, even though the flamingo is in the water it is actually the main subject of the photo, the water isn't. Hopefully it can be used in a subject some other time.

Morning Anng,morning all,

Nice bright sunny morning off to town later to get our tablets and see if the fish man is there for a crab .

Mel sounds as if you had another nice meal at Stuart's he does like his spices in his dishes doesn't he.

Anng would your reflection of the Flamingo in the water be in your choice for the photos for this afternoons meeting that was a lovely one .

Morning girls,

Lovely morning here and its 16 degres but the pc says expect three rainy days starting tomorrow.

Don't know if BIL is coming today but the only thing I have to do today is take my little figures down the show tonight between 7pm and 8pm.

I would really like to get in the garden and cut down some stuff outside the wall. Theres lots of nettles up the side of the wall and the holly growing there, a varigated one has a huge leader that is green so that need coming out and the red Hazel has only one bit of live wood on it so I need to cut the rest down and its as tall as the wall.

Hope you all slept well.

Sending love to Gwyn hoping shes ok as we hav'nt heard from her for a while.

Good morning all, sunny and 14 degrees. I checked the forecast for here and there is no rain forecast at all until Sunday week. I hope tey have got that wrong.

Photography meeting this afternoon but nothing planned for this morning so might potter in the garden.

Not that I know of Annx but iv'e not been up there for quite a while now. BIL had put a padlock on the front door anyway.

Stu cooked his usual chicken dish but it never comes out the same each time. It depends on what he puts in the sauce. Tonight he put mustard, mayo, barb q sauce, wholegrain mustard, ginger, paprika, garlic and ginger in it and a bit of thymne chicken leeks and bacon. He did roasties in goose fat and I think they were the best he's ever cooked me. I told him I bring the potatoes up to the bil before roasting them and I think he now does that. Gosh it filled me up.

Just watered all the pots on the patio and now I am going to watch a bit of telly.

Hope you all sleep well tonight.

Even though we open the big and the little windows wide open in winter as well as summer when we shower and for a short while afterwards. We get some mould come each side of the window on the grouting and it is hard to get to clean it where the roller blind is fixed at the top.We should put our towels and bath mat outside to dry but tend to use the radiator in the winter which can't help. It might also be that the loft above slopes down to the wall at that end of the room and the loft insulation above could be short of the edges to allow ventialion. The ceiling below would be colder. I've found the mould cleaners I have tried and one is an Astonish, the other is called Dettox, so are different ones. The bathroom is fully tiled on the two walls where the bath and window are and half tiled on the others. It was done in 2006. I think that's enough of my bathroom/ensuite for now!

A worse problem for some locals were the last lot of floods we had that caused the brook to burst it's banks in the nice village where I go to the shop. Several cottages have the brook at the edge of their short front gardens and have a little bridge across it to their front doors. They have railings along the edge of the brook and hang baskets of flowers along the top in summer and it looks lovely. One was only sold last summer, but now that one and two other of the cottages are up for sale since the floods. Just down the hill from here there is a nice bungalow at the edge of a large field where the river runs through an old packhorse bridge. The bridge used to lead to an old Mill that was used as a studio by an artist when I was young. Then there was a fire there and it had to be demolished. The bungalow with 3 acres of land along the edge of the river was only sold last year and that is up for sale again now. I expect they saw how bad the floods were there last time.

Yes I wonder what's on the menu tonight Mel!. I meant to ask whether you ever had any more trouble after things were stolen from one of your buildings that time.

Its been a beautiful day here all day and its 21 degrees and pc say sunny but I can see that.

I was fiddling with miniatures when I heard a car come down the drive and it was Em for more eggs as both boys have now broken up from school. George the eldest is 16 tomorrow, where have all those years gone?

Better do the girls and then get ready to go out to dinner tonight. I wonder what it will be?????

Ann our extractor goes on with the light and stays on for ten minutes or so after you put the light off ,we've had no trouble with any black in there and Colin tiled it all out ,if you remember I wanted the white tiles turned to a diamond instead of being laid square on and we have black and grey long tiles as a border through the middle .

Well its rained here all day the sky is bright but its still coming down ,we keep saying oh I think it might get out now but no such luck ,hopefully it will be a better day tomorrow.

I did qite a bit of admin on the computer, including getting five 'water' photos ready for tomorrow's photography meeting.
I also spent 45 minutes in the garden cutting back one of the jasmine's which seem to grow a foot every time I turn away and back. And tidied out another part of the garden and cut back a lot of ivy and perennial sweet peas.

Ann my daughter has a telescopic 'tool' for cleaning her showers. I think she got it from Lakeland and I keep meaning to get myself one.

Afternoon All,

Overcast here now and we had a few spots of rain earlier for all of a couple of minutes. We popped to Costa for a coffee and cob each. We had one egg and spinach and one bacon this time and shared them. We then went in M&S for OH to get another pair of the jeans he bought recently and they hadn't got any 34 inch waist ones left only in long in the same style so I'll have to see if I can get them online. He did find some navy chinos he liked, so got those and they fit him well. He needs another suit and thin jacket, but we are going to the M&S outlet shortly to see what they have as nothing took his fancy today and most jackets had two vents in the back and he prefers one vent as they seem to hang better on him.

The electrician looks young around age 30 so I thought the children must be quite young. I was also wondering how OH would be able to work in the lounge diner and if he had a last minute online meeting to attend as well with little ones around. I remember in just one visit with my sister her 2 little boys took the stylus out of the record player (never to be seen again), reprogrammed the washing machine and we had to get someone in to fix it and covered the lawn with gravel that blunted the lawnmower blades after they filled the bird bath with it.

Yes AnnG I think most houses have a little spot prone to mould somewhere. We get it in the shower corner of the bath too. Like Mandy we have fans that come on with the light in the bathroom and ensuite and leave them on 15 minutes after our showers. We had a more powerful fan put in the bathroom, but it is in the middle of the room instead of over the shower which must make a difference. The ensuite gets sun all day and has never got mould before, but the shower is used far less in there. The bathroom outside wall faces north and doesn't get any sun on it and I think that may not help. We wipe thr glass and wall down after showering but we don't dry it. The other thing about the new shower is that it is too tall for me to reach the top of the glass. I think I am going to see what long handled things there are for future use and on the walls too.

That's interesting about our eyes as we get older AnnG. I knew about the yellowing, but not about the rest. I did wonder whether my paintings had a strange hue as I read about an artist whose paintings you could tell were his later ones because of the colour. I have wondered as well like Mandy about whether we see the same colours and what colour do colourblind people see? It's the same with hearing and smells isn't it! lol. I've never been as attracted to white plants as they discolour more noticably when they are past their best. These boiling hot summers are making me think perhaps I should change the garden to more cool blue or white plants though, perhaps in the hottest corner.

I must check what make the mould remover is that I have tried before Mandy as I don't think it was a Cillit Bang one. I've resorted to bleach on the grouting in the bathroom before.

The pork steak meal I did in the slow cooker was very nice today and there was enough to freeze for another day. The knee that seemed to keep locking seems a bit better today so I hope that at least is getting better. I want to look round T K Maxx down the road tomorrow as I haven't been in there since last year, so it will be good if it's improving.

Now I need to order more meds and more post needs dealing with. Then maybe a short weeding session as they are growing fast just now.

Ann I meant to say that wasn't very good the workman bringing his children with him ,they must be young ones as older ones could be left ,you really don't want children you don't know wandering in your rooms ,as good as some children are curiosity can get the better of them and they could pick something up and drop it ,I wouldn't be very happy having them come into my house so you did the right thing changing the day .

It is good that you managed to get the day changed for the electrician Ann. I know these young people have to keep earning through school holidays but there are all soerts of reasons why they should not expect to bring their children with them. And neither should they be expected to stay in the van. Eaving them in the van if it turned out to be a hot day would be illegal (well probably not but it should be). And having them wandering around somebody's house is really ill advised. No matter how well behaved they are accidents can happen, they will want the loo etc etc and kids carry germs you are not used to.

Mandy, that is a good point about colour isn't it, especially when it comes to painting.

Morning All,

Quite bright here this morning and its 17 degrees.

Stu's tonight for dinner and thats all thats going on here today apart from maybe a little gardening as there's always some thing to be done out there.

I get mould in the bedroom on the inside of the outside walls if that makes sense. Its not so bad now theres only me but I have to ask BIL to pull the heavy furniture out for me.

Annx thats the trouble if the wife works and the electrian has to have the kids for a few days. Bit of a cheek though asking if it was ok to bring them or perhaps there is'nt anyone else that can look after them. I would'nt have been happy with them coming round with dad while he does a job though either. It does make you wonder what age they are.

Morning,

Raining here again a day I think it should be showery all day .

We have an extractor in our shower that comes on with the light and that soon dries out the shower and bathroom ,the big mirror we have in there never steams up so it works well , I use the cillit bang black mould remover as we get a little bit of black in the corner of the conservatory on the tile floor grouting and sometimes behind the washing machine ,you just spray it on leave it for fifteen minutes or so then I mop it off it always works a treat and takes all the black away ,I think the other one I used was a detol mould remover .

Ann I often wonder if we all see the same colours ,I now we say oh thats a nice blue or what ever but how do we know we're both seeing the same blue , I think that's why some people can paint like Ann does because they see colours, shades , depths etc differently I know people are taught to paint but I do think it's all about how people see things differently to others if that makes sense .

Hope Vera enjoys her day out and it's not to wet for them to have a wander round ,they'll be OK when they are in the theatre.

Good morning all. 15 degrees here at8am anda bit grey with soft cloud cover. I have no plans to go out anywhere so will be looking for things to do in the house and maybe in the garden.

Talking of gardens I was just reading something on a gardening group on facebook that I found interesting because it had not occurred to me before.

" here’s the thing: it turns out that as we get older, our eyes quite literally change. The lens in the eye starts to yellow a little. The pupils get smaller. And colours don’t look quite the same. Blues can seem less vibrant. Yellows are a bit muddier. Our eyes let in less light, which affects contrast, too.
And maybe that’s why some of us start reaching for softer tones. Pastels. Whites. The shimmer of silver foliage. They seem to glow, even on dull days, and they stand out more clearly as we age. It’s not just about taste, it might be our bodies quietly adapting to what we can still enjoy best."

I am trying to think, although not having been plant buying as much this year it is difficult to judge. I do still like the bright reds of geraniums but have always likes soft lilacs and pinks in the garden. Maybe it is correct about white plants though, they do attract me more these days, whereas I sort of used to find them a bit boring.