General Chat

Morning girls,

I am hoping its going to be a better day today. Its quite bright at the mo and pc says 16 degrees with a moderate thunderstorm warning. So perhaps my sunny bright morning is going somewhere else later on.

Sunday lunch out sounds nice Anng hope the foods good where you go. Have you planned to go anywhere you've been before? Wish I had someone I could go for Sunday lunch with it would make a nice change.

Ptobably do some minitrues or a bit of gardening is I feel like it. Bit achey from yesterdays stretching and bending cutting the thistles and docks sown and I had a go at the birmbles coming out the top of the box hedge. I don't think I cut the right ones.

Good morning all. strange night, slept tqo hours woke, lais awake about 10 minutes, slept another two hours (repeat), It was hot but not too hot so no idea why I kept waking.

I think we had some showery rain in the night so hopefully no watering this morning. Out for coffee to one friends house then 6 of us out for Sunday lunch.

Just reading about a family syndicate in Cork who have one the Euro millions (£213M) I can't imagine winning that much but it doesn't say how many are in the syndicate.

Well I felt I had had a good day with the small amount of gardening I got done and then we had an actual shower of rain that lasted about ten minutes.

Sorry that Vera and Mel had bad days hope tomorrow is better.

I just read that some of these shops have been raided including Nail Bars and Vape shops, car washes etc and all sorts of criminality has been found. No wonder our streets are becoming less safe. We noticed all the Barbers when we last went in the city. It seems from what you say they are springing up everywhere.

My hairdresser said she gets inundated with hairdressing for children for Proms Vera and also said how do they afford it if families are supposed to be hard up. I hope your cheesecakes turn out well and it's a good idea to finish them tomorrow when you will be fresher. I like the idea of freezing them beforehand too so it's a job out of the way with no last minute preparation. It's years since I made one, but home made always seem nicer.

Well we are both tired so are off to bed, or as Frank would say 'Bedfordshire'. :-D I never got any beading done, but my thread zapper has arrived and I have put a battery in it ready!

I too have had a bad day. BIL arrived to cut the grass which did'nt really need cutting at all. I fed the chickens and then cut some of the docks and nettles down round the run on the outside and collected my one egg. Fed Robby on the top of the run as I do everyday. carried on down the fence out the back and cut some of the thisley things that grow near my ground. Got round that thinking I will need the big trailer to pick it all up and then got really hot and I was in my wellies so came in to change them for shoes. Spied squirrels in the Hazel tree so got the gun out and fired at two of them then the gun needed reloading so came in to do that and in my hast I pout the pellets in the wrong side. Managed to get them out and tried again but the disc you put them in would'nt turn properly at which point BIL came in and said he was going. I told him I could'nt load the cartridge and he took it out of my hands to have a look. What did he do????? undid the srew on the back of it and took it apart and could'nt get it back together in working order so he went home leaving me without a gun to use. The one good thing is he moved my heavy statue off the decking by my pond as it was making the decking rotton.

Since then I hav'nt done a thing but I have just had another go at the cartridge and think I MAY have solved the problem but I am now frightened to try it. I have to wait till Monday to go to the gun shop to see if Rob can fix it or has a new 10 shot cartridge to replace it. I looked online and they are £34 something just for a little thing an inch by an inch and a half with 10 holes in it.

Then I was looking for the gun papers.....could'nt find them and had the whole kitchen draw out so I ended up clearing stuff out of that to get everything back in it. I am really fed up with mself today and its just started to rain. :-( :-( :-( :-(

We haven't got an influx of barber shops but every time there are vacant premises in this town they reopen as either coffee shops or nail bar/beauty places, all legit places I'm sure.. I keep wondering how many more our smallish town can support and how come they are always full if our population is supposedly hard up?

So far it hasn't been a good day. I think last night was the worst for discomfort. It was hot, muggy and sweaty and all my fan seemed to be doing was moving hot air around. I couldn't sleep at all and sat up with a cup of tea and a book for a long while. I eventually fell asleep around 6 am and slept till 8 am. Then I got up but felt so bad I went back to bed and slept from 8.30 to 10. It rained heavily a couple of times during the night but it didn't seem to cool the air. By the time I was washed, dressed and breakfasted I was already running 2 hours late.

We have a family event with 35-40 people next weekend at my daughter's house. I have promised to make a couple of cheesecakes and a big fruit salad so I planned to get ahead with the cheesecakes which can go in the freezer for a week. I drove down to Sainsbury's to get some cream cheese and I was going to replace the other ingredients I was taking from the cupboard just in case something went wrong and I had to do the cheesecakes again. These days I usually use Philly full fat cream cheese. They had everything but; I could have it with garlic, with chilli, with something else I've forgotten or an extra light version. Eventually after rooting around I found some Sainsbury's own brand cream cheese and got that. I hope it's OK. Next I wanted evaporated milk. They hadn't got any. Then a lemon jelly. I got that after I hunted the store for an assistant who could direct me to the obscure corner it was kept in. Last I needed an 80th birthday card. They had a choice of one which I didn't get as it wasn't a nice card at all.

There were only 2 manned checkouts open and the queues for these were long. Then I found out why. Various scanners had broken down and the operators were having to punch virtually everything in by hand.

Eventually I got through just as the heavens opened again. I only had to get a little way across the car park and I had an umbrella so I put it up and ran for the car. The brolly kept my head and shoulders dry but the lower part of my T shirt and my trousers were drenched. I had to completely change my clothes when I got in.

I had a quick sandwich and a cuppa and decided so much was going wrong that I wouldn't make the cheesecake mixture today. I've lined the tins I'm using with cling film and made the biscuit bases and I'll do the rest in the morning. Even doing the bases was a hassle because OH decided to do something in the kitchen at that time (it couldn't possibly wait). So as I am trying to crush biscuits into crumbs and melt butter he was faffing about behind me and every time I turned round I nearly fell over him.

Now I've bored you all with moaning about my day I must go and see about tonight's dinner. I hope you are having a better day than me and that we all sleep well tonight.

PS There is one good thing. The downpours mean we won't have to water our garden or our neighbour's today :-D

I think I have seen somewhere in the press about the barber shops and money laundering, maybe connected to drugs. You would think that the police would have them under surveillance.

I did another half hour cutting down a lot of ivy again. I can't work out why flowering plants don't grow in the current temps and yet weeds and ivy etc grow well.

Stopped raining and the suns trying to shine ,I got my ironing done with the fan on ,it's still really humid and very warm in the house even though I have all the windows open to try and let a bit of air in .

We're certainly mot getting the rain and the storms they said we would get , it might clear the air a bit if we did .

Ann we have about four of those supposedly Turkish barber shops opened up in the town with the revolving barbers poles and bright LED lights on the last one people were saying its a money laundering shop ,there's vape shops with those lights too .

We also have accordly to the local news over one hundred ex affenders been housed in the town over the past year ,there's a lovely big house in town that years ago was our doctors surgery and it was turned into a nice hotel then it was sold and its now a place of multiple occupancy, it always seems to have the police there so it may be where the ex affenders are housed ,lots of people have said they now don't feel safe walking round the town and to think years ago mum would go into town and never lock the doors :-0

Afternoon All,

It was raining here when I woke up after a good sleep and has rained off and on all morning. OH saw the forecast and decided not to travel south for the footie match he planned to go to and has gone north instead to a match with an artificial pitch. All I've done is pop to the shop and I still feel as tired as the last few days. I think it must be the aftermath of the heat, not taking antihistamines for hayfever, as in the move of things I forgot where I'd put them and being so busy recently. My thyroid was borderline low on the April test so that won't help either.

I forgot to say when we popped to my bank about 5 miles away in a large village yesterday in the space of a mile along the main street we spotted nine new Barber's Shops, all lit up and with twirling barber's poles, likely not all legit according to the papers. Are they springing up where any of you live too?

I'm going to put the little stack of drawers back in the ensuite for now so the door will hit the corner of those instead of the shower base till Adam has been to do the electrical work on Tuesday. Then I'll damp wipe the bedroom skirting boards and pull out side trays. There's no point putting anything else back in the ensuite till the ceiling has been filled and painted as that will involve sanding and mess!

It's still drizzling here, so no weedind etc today. It still looks cooler but drier over the next few days, so we can hopefully fill the garden bin then and I will get back to some beading this afternoon after my jobs

Just as I was watering Cynth's baskets we had a bit of rain, can't even call it a shower it was just drizzle in the air.

At 10am it was 18 degrees so I went out and tidied up all the pots and topped some of them with freah compost and feed. I was out there an hour, it does look a bit better even if not much flowering going on.
It is 20 degrees now, when I came in at 11.30 it was very humid. I was so hot that my glasses were steaming up.

Morning girls,

Started cloudy this mroning then the sun came out for a while. Blue sky and white clouds at the mo. 18 degrees and pc says light rain.

Don't know if BIL is coming this week as he did'nt come yesterday amd as I asked him if he would help get rid of some of the brimbles outside the wall he may give an excuse.

I am going to have a look up the west wall today and see if there are any blackberries to pick as a kind bird dropped me a big one on the road outside the house yesterday. This means somewhere inthe garden there are ripe ones. I must also have a look at the damson trees outside the wall.

Hope you all slept well. Thanks Mandy for the link and I have replied in an email.

Still can't get into my card games and I really miss them as I usually do them with my morning coffee.

Good morning all 17 degrees, not too hot at the moment. cloud cover, no sun. I wish we could have at least some rain, the soil in the planters is so dry it is like sand. I am lothe to put too much water on as it just goes straight through and would be water wasted.

The Charlotte potatoes are very nice but I don't think I will grow potatoes next year. I don't eat many so not really necessary. I need to find something that is really drought resistant to grow in that planter now.

today, if it stays dry I am going to try and tidy the plants in the pots that are looking like they are on their last legs. Strangely the hosta is not doing to badly, presumably no slugs around.

Tesco due 4-5, otherise nothing else to do once Cynth's baskets have been watered.

Morning all,

Raining here this morning so the gardens will be happy and I'll be happy I don't need to water ,still very muggy and I must do my ironing today I have already hoovered through .

I agree AnnG, we can't avoid all risks. It seems growing your own lettuce is the best idea! Your bargains you got from Primark sound good. Primark took over the BHS store on the retail park near here when it closed and I haven't been there for ages now. I must bear it in mind, although I haven't space for more clothes just yet.

Past my bedtime now and OH has already gone ages ago, so goodnight and sleep tight! I think tomorrow means more rain here........I'm not complaining though as the weeds will be easier to get out.

I wish it was cool here Mel. I am sweating like mad just sitting at the computer. It is so hot and humid. Our thunderstorms warning has just been moved forward from tomorrow to tonight and I can't wait for the storm to break..

Annx, it's really good news that your OH is doing so well and interesting to hear about the water used for flushing and the redesign of toilet pans. As for the nasties that can be picked up from foodstuffs - if we worried about it too much we'd all end up starving. I just stick with common sense rules such as wash fruit and veg well, particularly salads, take care handling raw meat and make sure meat is cooked right through. I am very careful with raw chicken and use disposable gloves if I have to handle it.

You are right about your email to me going in to spam but as I've said in my reply to you it didn't arrive till after 10 am today even though you sent it early yesterday evening. Anyway I have responded but you might have to look in your spam for my reply.

What you said about collecting tomato seed etc was also interesting. I really hadn't thought about cross pollination. As I've said before our tomatoes are pathetic this year but we have 2 of Mel's potted up. One has 4 tomatoes on it so far but I don't think they are going to be very big. The other one only has 2. I've also got 2 pots with Money Maker and 2 with Gardener's Delight but none are doing very well.

I think I am going to sit on the bed with my book or a crossword as I've got my wonderful fan in there. We bought it from Germany 2 or 3 years ago and it's the best one we've ever had. I hope it isn't so hot and humid where you are and that you all sleep well.

We're sitting out in the garden there's a lovely breeze now so we'll cool off before bedtime

Been in the garden again. I have pegged downabout eight new Strawberry plants, weeded pots of plants, repotted a Heuchera and my Cafelandra ?, fed the beans dos'nt sound a lot but I have been out there at least an hour and a half. Its lovely and cool out there.

Ah well I love seafood, not keen on mussels although many of those are farmed I think and less likely to feed on sewage. Prawns, scampi, crab, lobster.

Strangely you can catch norovirus from lettuce leaves..

I think if we worried about all the bugs we could catch we would starve.. salmonella from eggs goodness knows what from chicken etc etc.

I had tuns for lunch and taramasalata on crackers. Tonight is a ready meal of steak ragu.

Those of you that are growing Mel's saved tomato seed are unlikely to get the same tomatoes from your plants as I tried to explain before. You need to cover the flowers where you want to save seed from the tomatoes so no insects can get in to pollinate them before they open. Then when they have pollen, take the polythene bags off and pollinate them from other covered flowers with a paintbrush and cover them again till you see the tiny tomatoes appearing to grow. Any seed you then save from those tomatoes and plant the following year should all bear tomatoes the same as the parent plant. If you leave the flowers uncovered the insects will bring pollen from other different kinds of tomato plants in the surrounding area and pollinate yours, so those resulting tomatoes will produce a variety of crossbred seeds for the next year then. It's the same with my Antirryhinums. I started with a tray of red ones and a tray of yellow ones, didn't try to save any seed, but now the ones that self set each year are all sorts of colours, some very drab, some more than one colour and another a pretty orange colour.

Afternoon All,

Phew it's hotting up again, 25 degrees now and a bit humid. I've had a couple of busy days, cleaning the workmens fingermarks from inside the original wall cabinet then cutting plastic sheets from Ikea that I used to line the shelves of the new cabinets as it's easier to lift out and clean, then putting everything back into the cabinets. I had a look at the toilets with the bathroom in mind at the shop as we want one with steep insides to do a more thorough job when you flush (apologies if you are eating)! It's useful to know what I was told though as manufacturers can now only make toilets that have a 6 litre flush instead of a 12 litre flush in order to save water, so are engineering the insides of toilets differently. I don't see how it saves water if it causes you to flush more than once though.

OH had his final cardio assessment yesterday and walked briskly an extra 500 metres in the time than the first time when he started the course. He said his pulse hardly increased and he had no breathlessness. The nurse is pleased with him and his diet and walking. They would normally refer him to a course at the gym next, but want to wait till he starts to get treatment first as he is unable to do some of the arm exercise involving his neck and back yet.

Your trip out to the garden sounded good AnnG and I would have enjoyed your flatbread lunch. The U3a talk sounded interesting and I didn't know there were kings buried in Gloucester. It's a bit of an art with a talk to include enough of interest but not make it too long.

Vera I think my last email must be in your spam. It is of the rain we had yesterday. Re shellfish I've never fancied them although I confess I do have scampi sometimes. Like Mel I don't like fish pie either. Also we don't always know where they have come from and what also put me off was reading that they can have bacteria like salmonella, norovirus and other harmful things like tapeworm eggs, particularly mussles. The farm shop sounded good and you got well stocked up there. I like the name of the jam! Generous portions in the restauant too. I prefer the local meat at our farm shop.

I hope all of those bites are itching less Mandy. I've not heard of that bite stuff you used before. It's hot where you are today. Yes I wondered what would happen to the front of those stick out dresses when you sat down. I remember the stiff net petticoats I had one of as a teenager would lift at the front as I sat down so I had to hold it down with my arms.

Your toms and cues have soon grown Mel. I wonder what the toms will all be like. Yes leave the ironing for now. At least we haven't had to water today.