General Chat

Afternoon All,

It's supposed to be 12 degees here but doesn't feel it with being rainy and so windy. We nipped to the shop early this morning to get a few bits and a paper and were glad to get home again. OH of course has still braved it to go to a match this afternoon about 40 miles away. He was well wrapped up though, but will come in dripping I expect.

How sad AnnG but I totally sympathise having had the same sort of illness and issues with a family member in the past. I dread a similar phone call one day, but sometimes after years of trying you have to step back for your own peace of mind and sanity as well as safety. Medication stops being taken as soon as they feel well and because of side effects they then think the medication is making them ill and leave it off. I spent years visiting Mental Hospitals, even prisons, clearing and redecorating a trashed flat with OH, in a constant worry. They can dress and act strangely in the street and get cruel taunting from people who don't understand the torment they already live with in their heads. It's very sad, but at least your niece is at peace now and her family can draw some comfort from that.

Well the boiler man rang this morning with profuse apologies and is coming tomorrow morning now, so hopefully the tap will be fixed and I can start filling the cupboard again. It's a mixer tap and we have managed to get it in a position where it hardly drips and only gushes everywhere if you don't turn it on really low.

I've never thought to keep a list of my medications with me Mel and it's a great idea, although I have never even heard of the cards that Gwyn mentions. I will make sure I cut the address off mine though. Remember that friend of Jane's who went on a course in London one day and lost her purse with her address in it and when she got home she'd been burgled. Gangs can communicate with each other and know your house could be empty for a while if you are miles away.

Yes, what a horrid day today would have been if you had been visiting family Gwyn. You chose the best time last week.

Yes Mel it will be nice to see more of your makes. I use the chicken tonight in the slow cooker too and freeze some portions for another time. I must admit I don't ever use my grill, but the oven function of the microwave does the same I suppose as it heats from the top

OH has had his X ray appointment come for about 3 weeks time at a better city hospital to park at. It was a walk in service as soon as your doctor referred you when I last went, but obviously not anymore.

I must order some ink for the printer and also finish my food order. I keep hanging on in case I think of something else to add. I used to just add something every time I thought of it, but now here is the bank code to get and add every single time. :-S

Good afternoon all

No snow here but lots of rain and it is very, very blowy. It's really dark as well - lights have been on all day. The weather on the computer says it is 8 degrees but the wind is making it feel like -3. I don't believe that. My phone says it is 8 degrees but feels like 5 which sounds much more likely. I've faffed around with odd jobs all day but don't seem to have achieved very much.

Today, I had an appointment letter from the hospital giving me an appointment in 4 months' time at the eye clinic, but it doesn't actually say what it is for. I am assuming it is for cataract assessment and I will then go on the waiting list to get my bad eye done. What I don't know is if that means I will no longer have to go for appointments every few weeks as I have been doing for the last 2 years. Have I been discharged from that section? No-one has said as much. Doubtless I'll find out in due course.

Do you know I must be dumb. It hadn't occurred to me to have a list of medication with me when I go out. I have a list and a prescription, plus a list of Covid jabs with manufacturer and date, that always come with me if we are away from home. I must remember to put something in my handbag. I have got OH's phone and daughter's programmed into mine under ICE.

Isn't it frustrating when you lose a post Mandy. That's why I do a lot of mine in Word and then copy and paste. It's a shame your Christmas lights switch on has had to be cancelled but I think that's happening in a lot of places this weekend. We usually have a look at our Christmas tree festival but I haven't seen anything about it this year. I'll have to check out the local paper which I now read online. I used to buy it but it seemed to get fewer and fewer pages but go up and up in price. It's not that many years ago it was 90p a copy and was a thick paper, now it's £2 for a thin paper. When I saw a special online deal that meant I could read it for the equivalent of about 50p a week I stopped buying it and took out an online subscription.

I had some sad news this morning. My 54 year old niece passed away yesterday. She was found, apparently by her lodger. She was sadly more or less estranged from the family including her Mum, my sister. She was Schizophrenic but often didn't take her medicine. She lived in London as do two of her daughters and her ex husband. A very sad ending to a wasted life. I have not seen her for about 40 years now although have had some contact with her on occasion. I prefer to remember her as the pretty little girls she was.

sorry re-reading this that 40 should read twenty years.

Afternoon all ,

It was very frosty when I looked out in the night but then the rain came in about six ,it's turning windy now.

Son came this morning they had been to mole valley and got the christmas trees so he's put the tree down near the shed for now to early to out it up in the front but he likes to get them early do there's a good choice .

The lights switch on in the town tomorrow has been cancelled because of ths weather such a shame when things are all organised and it doesn't look like it will be rearranged, the church has a christmas tree festival starting today and the little school and the middle school where Lewis goes have decorated a tree so we thought we'd have a look perhaps on Monday as it's still raining .

I did a whole post yesterday but lost the lot ,I didn't have the heart to do it all again so gave up.

Bert is getting more noisy here, but the rain has eased a bit...for now.

In one of my medications, there is a Patient Alert Card in every packet reminding me to carry it with me at all times, so I tick the dosage on the front of the card and fill in the 'Any other medications' section and keep copies in my purse and various coat pockets. I also have given one of the cards to the school secretary and if we go on a school trip, I tell the designated First Aider where to find the card in my bag or on my person.
Never needed it yet, thank goodness.

I am often out locally without a handbag, so I hope someone thinks to look in a pocket if I should be involved in a mishap.

Seeing this weather, I'm so pleased that our visit to meet up with family in Hampshire was last weekend, as it would have been awful to have to make a long journey competing with Storm Bert.

Mel I keep a copy of my prescription in my purse.

I like the chicken tonight and some of the other sauces One (I will have to look up the name Lloyd something) is in much smaller jars and are nice in the slow cooker. But you can use half the big jars Mel, do the lid up tight and use again 3 days later with different meat. Or use the whole jar with a larger amount of meat and freeze portions. I like butterchicken (spicey), ceam mushroom and Spanish chicken. In the smaller jars I like tomato and garlic or tomato and basil.

I too like the honey and mustard Chicken Tonight sauce but not keen on the others. It a bit too much for me now.

Its getting really windy here now and its raining and the temp has gone up to 13 degrees in the short space of tim esince my first post.

BIL may come again over the weekend to do the grill for me but its a case of wait and see.

Just the shop to do this morning and then the rest of the day is my own.

I agree that thigns are getting harder to do paying bills on the pc and all the things you have to do and all the things you have to read through. How many of you keep a note of the meds you are on in case of an accident? I keep a prescription paper in my bag jus tin case so people would know what meds I am on.

I must wash my glasses as they are so dirty I can hardly see through them. Its the plaster dust and having hoovered yesterday my hoover seems to blow out dust as well as collect it.

I must get around to sending more pics of what I am making as Iv'e not sent any for a long while.

Morning girls,

Dull and a bit windy here a d its 12 degrees. All the snow went over night as it started to rain before I went to bed.

Good morning all blowing a gale and raining and 7 degrees here. Still quite dark so another lights on everywhere day.
Nothing planned that is exciting. So present wrapping, a couple of admin jobs, Tesco 4-5 and change the bed today. Bedding is in the washer. Oh probably dust upstairs as well. Got a bit of a back ache from sitting still in the meeting yesterday. Just watching out the window just now and anticipating all the leaves off that tree that will be on the ground by tomorrow, and probably all wet and soggy and so hard to pick up.

I was surprised at how many funghi there were too and daughter, I think got even more than I did as she could scramble under branches to get to them.

Just seen the forecast for parts of UK when they say 10 to 20 centimetres it doesn't mean so much to me than if it said 4 to 8 inches (of snow).

It is amazing you came up with almost all different ones AnnG. We used to get those that made fairy rings when we had the lawn and then we had tall white dome ones in the front garden that popped up in the gravel every year, but they seem to have gone since the fir tree was cut down.

Well I'm not very happy as the boiler man should have been here between 3 and 4 pm and didn't arrive or contact us. His phone's going to voicemail so I've left a message. Maybe he's had a difficult job that's taken more time, which I don't mind, but he could have saved us sitting here twiddling our thumbs all afternoon if he'd let us know. I suspect he's forgotten with his phone switched off now and it means next another day disrupted. He didn't charge us for the tap job, but OH is wishing he'd hung on paying him for fitting the boiler now. :-S On the other hand he may be ill so we'll wait till Monday and see if he phones back.

Vera I sympathise and am getting fed up with everything being geared to mobiles these days. I won't do any financial things on mine yet and, like you find a bigger keyboard less prone to making mistakes. Fancy all the palaver you had and I've never heard of having to speak a code and video yourself doing it before. I just told OH who wandered in here and he said things are getting that complicated we'll all starve as we get older because we won't be able to work anything!

Mel your soup sounded perfect for a cold day and your production line of your miniatures seems to be speeding up with all the little parcels to wrap!

Mandy it's the Honey and Mustard sauce that we like best. :-D

Thank you all for your support. It is much appreciated. We are such a close family that I can only imagine how difficult it must be to be estranged from your child so my heart goes out to you Mel. I know two other people in the same position as well.

It's been quite a bright day again but so cold and there was a light dusting of snow overnight. At the moment it is 1 degree but feels like -2. Apparently on Sunday it will reach 15 degrees but I won't be getting my sundress out as it will only feel like 7.

Thank you for those funghi photos AnnG. I had to show OH as I thought they were so good. I have seen the red one before. I think it's Fly Agaric but I hadn't seen the other one that Annx mentioned. Your subjects certainly make you use your observation skills and I'll look forward to seeing the different door knockers you find.

Gwyn, I think I shall start calling you Goldilocks as I now imagine you going round the school trying all the chairs in turn until you can say "This chair is just right" ;-)

It's been a busy day. I've done the ironing and washed towels and bath mats. I had a Sainsbury delivery with 2 subs, one of which went back. I had plenty of brown skinned onions so ordered just 1 red onion. Well, I had to laugh when I saw it. It was the smallest red onion I've seen, about the size of a tulip bulb. You can guess how big it was when I tell you I was charged all of 7p for it.

This afternoon I've had a frustrating time doing admin on the computer. I was registered with our hospital "patient portal" where I could see test results, read appointment letters etc. It was efficient and easy to use so, of course, it had to be changed. It mustn't be allowed to be simple. It now has to be done through an NHS system and I had a text to re-register and giving the website link to do it. I didn't want to do it on my phone as it's an old one and I find the little keyboard bit on it quite small for typing so I entered the website address on my computer.

So far, so good. I entered reams of information they wanted but I was getting along quite well till they wanted an ID photo and I ticked the box for taking it from my passport. Got out my passport, read the instruction and took the photo which then had to be uploaded. That's when I realised their upload system was directly connected to my phone and I couldn't upload the picture to my computer and send it from there. A few choice words followed and I started all over again doing the registration on my phone which I had been trying to avoid in the first place. Then, would you believe, I had to take a video of myself saying 4 numbers that they had texted me and upload that. Eventually I was told I had completed registration and sometime in the next 24 hours I would get an email telling me whether it all checked out or not.

I have just had the email and the photo doesn't check out. In the instructions for taking the picture it said to make sure it fits within the frame. I assumed that meant the actual passport photo but no, it meant the whole passport page. So I've now got to do it again :-| I'm reasonably competent using technology but it's a mystery how these website writers expect someone less confident to manage.

Having got frustrated over that I turned to registering as vulnerable (or in our case ancient) with the company who own the pipes supplying power to our house. We are registered with British Gas who supply us with gas and electricity but this is a different company. To be fair, the form was not difficult to fill out once I found where they had hidden it. I used the link on the card they sent us and I got in to a page which did say Priority Services Register, exactly what I wanted, except it also said Page Redirect - Do Not Edit. I tried everything but couldn't find the page anywhere. Eventually after scrolling through all the small print I found something that said Help for the vulnerable so clicked on that and there was my form, but what a waste of time. It should have taken 5 minutes, instead it took me 30 minutes.

You can tell I'm frustrated can't you? It just doesn't seem to have been my week. Oh well, things can only get better. Onwards and upwards. Sleep well tonight ladies and stay warm. I'll be wearing my socks in bed.

I think the last one looks like bean shoots.

Been doing up a parcels of 5 lots someone bought. BIL has been here and tried to fit the new grill element but thinks he has to pull the cooker out and as he wanted soup we thought we'd leave it for now so we had lunch together a couple of rolls and a big bowl of soup and a bit extra for BIL so need to start again now. I have had to boil out the soup sausepan as the barly caught on the bottom but I managed to rescue it in time before it tainted the soup.

Then I just got settled in when I heard another car draw up and it was Em come for eggs but I only had half a dozen and three. She said thats ok cos she had two over for the last time. Then I did up more of the little parcels and here I am.

There are so many fungi around here with the forest over the back. and they come up in my lawns a lot and some are so pretty and almost translusant.

I like the idea of door knockers for a subject and yes I can see how you would have to do the seasons ones in your garden Anng.

I remember you had the topic of reflections once and was it ripples?

There were very few repeats among the seven of us which is surprising.m there must be hundreds ov different ones.

Oh they have some interesting topics AnnG! Yes for the four seasons you would need to be sure you could be in the same spot each time. I like the funghi and door knockers ideas.

Just checked your email and like I said I have never seen one of the spotted ones or the one like grass. It's fascinating how varied they are.

I have sent them let me know if you don't get them please.

Our subject this month was Funghi. There were some very interesting funghi on dosplay and not a lot of repeats. We need to show 5 photos each. I will send out the photos I showed today.

We don't meet in December because it is too close to Christmas and the hall we use will be needed by the church. Our January meeting is 'Four seasons. That is four photos taken in the same spot in Spring, summer, autumn and Winter. I have had to use the garden for mine. And then we have February 'old things' and March door knockers.

Afternoon All,

It's reached a heady 5 degrees here now and seemed warmer here last night too. Mel treat yourself to some bedsocks for Christmas! I have some pink fluffy ones handy for if my feet get cold! :-D My temperature control is poor with thyroid issues. If I get too cold I can't warm up easily and if I get too hot I can't cool off easily. Tomorrow is supposed to reach 14 degrees here!!

I hope your daughter is calmer after her chat with you Vera and she is lucky to have you to listen even if you can't do anything. Hopefully she will soon feel better able to cope with the help of your support.

I wonder what subject you have for your photography group this time AnnG. I hope it will be dry for your walk to it. Your daughter seems to do her best with watching her diet. I remember my SIL in my first marriage didn't and thought she could eat anything and just medicate it which isn't the idea at all.

The Royal Mail have tried to deliver the camera I returned but couldn't get an answer so will try again on Monday.

Gwyn OH has to sit and write notes at his school meetings which is more difficult from a tiny chair and he finds some meetings go on ages longer than they need to which doesn't help his back on a tiny chair. So he tries to get there before the others, so he gets a grownup chair, can sit away from the others who tend to think they can just help themselves to his own printouts he needs for his notes because they are too lazy or don't think to print their own and bring them. He wore a thick shirt last night in case it was cold.

Waiting for the boiler man now so had to have a quick tidy up and spruce up with the hoover.

Thank you for the snowy photos, Mel. Everything looks so pretty and almost magical. I particularly like how the photo of the really tall evergreen? tree shows all the branch and twig formations, where the snow has fallen on it.

It's supposedly up to 5 degrees and mostly sunny here at the moment, which is certainly an improvement on the early morning chill and frosty rooftops. Not looking forward to 'Bert' arriving, so I hope the rain and winds are not too severe.

School was marginally warmer yesterday, although the outside door was often left open. 2 classes have to use that door anytime they want to go into the main building, where the offices and toilets are located, so it does get used a lot and not always closed afterwards :-|


In the lower end of the school, the classroom doors to the outside are often open, as children are expected to be able to freely access outdoor areas in the secure section outside their classroom.
To answer Annx's recent question, my seat depends where I am. Yesterday I started out with my readers in an empty classroom, while that room's children were in the main hall, so I was on a child size school chair. As they are for children 9 -10 years old, they are junior size, but the larger version and not the really small ones like they have in the Early Years area.
When we moved into the main hall, the children and I each sat on one of the metal folding chairs used for plays, assemblies etc. when parents are invited.They are a reasonable size, but cold to touch and not overly comfortable, after a while. Sometimes in the hall I sit on a long aluminium bench at the long fold-up Go-Pak dinner tables... In the summer, I have even sat on the wooden picnic table/ seats out in the school grounds. I've got used to all this and dress accordingly ;-)

Morning girls,

6 degrees here this morning and sunny at the mo. Just as I got up I looked out of the window and it was raining but it did,nt last long. I am hoping the roads are clearer today as my parcel may be delivered now a lot of the snow has melted. Its still in the garden and going round to the chicken yesterday it was aboput 4 inches deep. It was coming from the east.

I wonder if BIL will come today? I do wish he'd let me know beforehand.

I have some tiny things to wrap today so that will keep me occupied for the morning after feeding the very hungry wild birds and the girls.

Enjoy your photography meeting today Anng.

Good morning all a grey morning here but 2 degrees, so not quite like summer but warmer than it was. But now we have warnings of storm Bert over the weekend which looks like it means constant wind and rain for two days and disk of floods.

But hopefully today will be dry so a walk to the photography meeting should be ok this time.

Mel I have visions of you now going to having to find 7 different ways to cook mince!! :-D :-D

Vera, It is true, once you have children you always think of them as your babies, whether they think they need you or not. Since daughter developed diabetes at the same time as breast cancer I have always had this little niggle at the back of my mind as to how she is. Even though the first has been more or less under control and the latter seems fine the niggle is there. And my anxiety went through the roof when she was bereaved and left on her own Then the worry of it she was doing the right thing marrying again quite soon (she seems to have been). And recently her switch from just medication, diet and watching blood sugar chart to insulin has increased my worry. But she rides with it and continues to 'look after' me. Bless her. And son developing diabetes hasn't helped much. I have to say that also continues (the 'my baby' syndrome) with grandchildren and Great Grandchildren. I guess parents were born to worry. Wishing your daughter strength to cope <3 <3.