General Chat

Safe journey Vera. Gosh it did go quickly but you packed a lot in.

What a pain AnnG. Nothing ever seems to be straightforward.

Today we went on a tram to the Belvedere Palace. That was an interesting experience as we hadn’t got a clue where we were going or how many stops it was. We managed to get ourselves there and back without getting lost. This is a big area divided into Upper Belvedere and Lower Belvedere and both now house museums and art galleries. My back wouldn’t take standing around or slowly sauntering so we didn’t do the galleries/museums. However there are Alpine Gardens and Botanic Gardens in the same area so we visited those. They are not prettily set out beds of plants. They are a bit of a wilderness. They are owned by the University of Vienna and I think are used for botanical research. It was pleasant walking down all the serpentine gravel paths. There’s a small charge to go in the Alpine Garden and the Botanic Garden is free. We spent about 3 hours there.

Mandy I can’t send a photo of an ice cream concoction as we haven’t had any. The ideal time to have one would be mid-afternoon but because we’ve been out and about we are never here at that time. In the evening I feel we ought to eat a proper main course and I haven’t had room for one of these enormous treats after that.

I can’t believe our holiday is already over and we’ll be on our way back tomorrow. There’s so much more we would like to do. I’d better start packing I suppose but at least we don’t have an early start tomorrow. The taxi is picking us up to take us to the airport at midday.

Why is nothing simple?

At the moment I am fuming.

Just picked up a message on my NHS app telling me that the appointment is at 10.20. As I am going on the bus that is nowhere near as convenient at 12pm. I will have to wait until tomorrow now to see what has happened.

I am not likely to meet hi. Mel so would not have caught it from him but it is in this area which is a concern. One member of the gardening group has it and will only come to the meeting if she tests negative. But there are many following instructions that once they are symptom free they can go back to work.. my sister had it recently, she tested positive after five days her symptoms had gone but it was eleven days before she tested negative..

Evening all

I’m glad that both you Anns have your appointments fixed for hospital and door repairs. That will be a relief for you, particularly AnnG, but why does everything have to be so stressful these days?

Mel, I also read “smoked kippers” at first and wondered what that had to do with socks. The afternoon cakes are mostly pastries like small danish pastries or croissants filled with chocolate plus there is always a Gugelhupf cake which is a flavoured sponge with chocolate icing. Annx asked about breakfasts. They are typical continental breakfasts and are very good. Lots of fruit salads, melon, prunes and juices, cereals, a variety of breads, croissants, jams, yoghurts. pastries, different hams, cheeses and so on and they always ask if we would like eggs cooked in any way we want.

OH is waiting to go out for his dinner so I’ll post this and, if I have time, finish it later.

Gosh Anng you don't want to catch covid so its just as well he had'nt made your appointment. So only two days to wait for it then.

I have baked 18 spicey buns this afternoon as I have been fancying a cake. I think I put a bit too much sugar in them for my taste and shall have to remember in future to put less in. I even sprinkled a bit of demerara on top when they came out of the oven!! but they have a nice lot of sultanas in which I love.

Yes I have been fancying a cauli cheese which is why I bought the cauli. Think I will be able to get enough out of it for me anyway and it may not be as bad as it looks but they have refunded me for it.

Better go round and corn the chickens now its been raining steadily and its down to 14 degrees here now.

Ah he has just got back to me has been off sick with covid. anyway looks like Friday at 12pm so that is a relief.

I feel really stressed now. I have not heard anything about my appointment still so I emailed the main booking office to ask the manager to check with ENT booking why I have not heard. He looked at his list and said their is no appointment at all for me this week. What!!! So I have email the man from ENT booking again (third time last two no replies). If there is no appointment booked I am just going to give up, it is too stressful. and then I can't go for an appointment until after the 25th. :-( :-( :-( I will just have to assume that everything is as it should be I suppose.

Afternoon all,

Its not been a bad morning here ,got all my washing dry and it's nice and sunny .
We had the cooker out and the fridge ,oh my goodness the bits underneath and cobwebs behind the fridge :-0 all nice and clean now just got to clean the oven shelves.

We sat chatting when to had our coffee and I said to Colin we mustn't forget that we have to renew your driving licence ,good job I went and looked at the letter as Colin thought it was on or around his birthday that it needed renewing, no it runs out on the 17th September ,I rangson and he's coming on Thursday to do it on line ,I must remember to ask him about ths storage on my tablet its saying its full so I can't take any more photos and I wanted to take one of my Christmas gnome to show you.

On Ann that sounds as if that garden centre has a lovely display I bet it all looked nice .
Our binmen are here really early, twenty past six last week they usually wake me up with the bins lumping .

That cauliflower wasn't a good one Mel ,I might get a cauliflower this week as we haven't had a nice cauliflower cheese for a while .

Morning All,

Breezy and rain clouds thankfully scooting across the sky and not dropping their rain, at least not yet. It's 16 degrees here now. OH has a packed week ahead, so we nipped out and paid the papers, then went for a small breakfast at a garden centre. They are already well into getting Christmas decorations out and had a bigger than ever 'villages' display set up with two working little trains and two tunnels. They have half the building turned over to Christmas decorations, lights etc and since a couple of years ago they have added another large building that usually has garden furniture in it and filled that with christmas decorations as well. They've been quite innovative with storage too and the carpark extension now has at least 30 of those big metal shipping containers along the back that they can use for storage.

Vera the museum does sound interesting and a good choice for a rainy day. What kind of breakfast do you get at the hotel? I can't rememember what we had for breakfast in Tuscany many years ago. AnnG made a good point about your back and strange beds, as I can have back trouble if a different mattress isn't firm enough. It was our good pal Frank that put me onto the mattress I next got and it has been brilliant. I can go to bed with backache and wake up fine since I had it. OH says it is like sleeping on a board!! lol. I wonder what you will do today.

After berating the window and door company yesterday they have been quick and emailed me a date for the engineer to come and it's a week on Thursday so not too bad after all. I just hope they don't send the grumpy individual that has been before and was keen to try and find the fault was ours. I know the lock will probably behave perfectly for him and he will be smug, so I shall have to dig my heels in and insist on it being changed, even though it will mean buying more spare keys which are expensive.

The binmen were here very early at 6.45am this morning for the garden bin according to OH but they still haven't collected the recycling yet.

AnnG it will be good when you can wash your hair without having to be so careful with the water and the wounds, but at least you have managed to do it.

Mel, it seems very autumnal here too with leaves beginning to fall and the darker mornings are making me oversleep my tablet time so I ought to set the alarm. I need to give the invasive weed we have another blast with the weedkiller this week before they stop growing, as the first dose seems to have worked well.

Better crack on now with admin and some short bursts of HW. :-)

Shopping arrived and my cauli has lots of black marks in the middle.

Rain in the air here and still 15 degrees and cloudy and feels quite cold.

Morning girls,

Dull and cloudy and 15 degrees so not uch change there then.

No subs on the shopping today so thats good but I could'nt pronounce the name of the driver if I tried.

Just had a sneezing fit!!.

For some reason, and I don't know why, I could'nt drop off quickly last night I seemed to lay there for ages. Perhaps it was because I was colder last night. Its certainly Autumnial here and the leaves are starting to turn and quite a lot are falling already.

good morning all 14 degrees but supposed to be getting colder. Slept ok with an hour awake in the middle. got to wash my hair this morning. Still having to do it with the spray over the bath, not easy. But until I can get this appointment have to stick with it.
:-D :-D :-D Annx I can't unsee that on Mel's thread now (smoked kippers!!).

Yes Vera second blood test booked for after I return from son's.
Pleased that you found somewhere to visit in the rain but it sounds as if strange bed and dashing around have not been good for your back. That museum sounds interesting. I remember visiting Motzart's house/museum in Saltzburg. (and I realise now that is a long memory from the late 90s.)

Evening All,

I thought you put smoked kippers there for a moment Mel, Yes it does seem that people light bonfires when they've been rained on. Smoke from our our neighbour's bonfire or barbeque always blows over our garden and inside if windows are open.

Another frustrating day here! First I was pleased to get an email from the window people, but it was only to confirm an engineer would be sent, not so pleased that they would email an appointment within the next fortnight! Makes it hard to make other arrangements till I know when.

Then I had to ring my mobile provider, as they said last month's payment hadn't gone through and so I was on their full charges! OH had the same last month as we have both had new cards, so I knew and expected the same. OH just rang and notified them and everything was ok again after the phone call. Not so when I did it! They notified me after my call that the payments had been restored again, but didn't tell me they hadn't restored my service!! I only found out later when I tried to text a friend and it said my service was deactivated. A lengthy phone call then and they tried to get me to take my sim card out, which needs a pin to remove, so instead they said switch the phone off and on again and they would ring me in 2-3 minutes. An hour and a half later they rang and asked if it was working, but I had to try it then as they hadn't said to try it! Anyway it is working now, but no apologies and most of my day disrupted!! It's a good job I hadn't gone out and broken down with my car earlier and couldn't ring the breakdown people.

Enough of my tales of woe! I wished I'd had my camera handy when we had lunch as a young Squirrel went past the middle flower bed carrying what looked like a big walnut with the green casing still on it and must have left or buried it under the arbour. Then he went among the flowers in the middle bed and decided to have a wash and brush up and was facing us through the patio door. It would have made a nice shot with the Violas around him. That's reminded me that this morning I sent my photo of the Red Kite to Love your Weekend that's on on Sunday mornings to see if they wanted to add it to the pictures they show on the 'Walk on the Wild Side" part of the programme.

Mandy I meant to say thank you for mentioning those programmes that will be coming soon. It will be good to have them to look forward to. They say one job leads to another anyway don't they, but as you say, you have to sort what to do in the right order. We need a new bedroom carpet and some decorating doing, but no point till the ensuite has had tiles etc ripped out and all the mess cleared up!

That's good you found your test results AnnG. Our surgery site shows the NHS App too. I have been prediabetic before on tests, but losing weight brought mine down into normal, now I think it will be going up again!

I now have two pairs of smoked knickers and 4 pairs of smoked socks as I did'nt bring those in! O and a fleece hat.

One wet day today then Vera such a shame but it seems you enjoyed the Mozart's house museum. What are the cakes like in the afternoon with coffee? Is there a good choice? Its lovely your getting about but a shame the back is playig up a bit. Have a nicce rest after your meal tonight and I hope the rain eases by the time you go back to the hotel.

Its 15 degrees here now and the suns been out since just after I posted this morning. Done washing and theres been a good blow so it dried well enough to iron but when I went out for the fouth thing someone had lit a really smelly bonfire and all the smoke was coming my way so I had to rush and get the rest of the washing in. Why is it that people light fires on a nice day after days of rain. Don't they have any washing of their own? or dos'nt theirs see the light of day?I was so cross as I had the windows open too for a good blow through.

Moan over.

Its just started to cloud over a bit as I type. Better do the chickens corn as I'm a bit late.

Afternoon all

Well, it has been a very wet old day. In the last hour it has eased up quite a lot so that it’s just light rain now but it wouldn’t surprise me if it doesn’t pour down again later.

I looked at some maps and found Mozart’s House Museum tucked away down a side alley near the cathedral so we trudged there in the bucketing rain. That was a really good find, much more interesting than we expected and good value. It was the equivalent of £8.50 for seniors and everyone had their own piece of audio equipment to use or not in the different areas. We were there for 2 hours, just dried out nicely when we had to face the pouring rain again. It was getting on for 3 pm and we hadn’t had lunch but decided to get back to the hotel and have some coffee and cake there. I’ve since showered and warmed up but in another hour we will have to go out again for our evening meal.

My back is also giving me a lot of problems. I think it’s due to all the standing about and slow strolling I’ve been doing over the last few days.

Annx, I will remember that tip about the thick rubber bands. What a rigmarole it was to try to get your front door sorted and to set up your new account. I am sure all these new “improvements” create a lot more work and consequently more costs.

I hope you managed to get your second blood test booked AnnG and maybe had a nice chat to the friend who came to take you to the surgery.

Afternoon all,

It's brightened up now and dry after a drizzly start to the day ,its one of those days where I don't know whether to hang the bedding out or not ,it's 15 degrees but it seems warmer to me and still muggy indoors .

Vera I'm sure you'll find something to do in the dry but I hope you don't get to wet getting there , looking forward to seeing one of those ice creams .

Glad your OK Ann ,fancy having to wait for an email you'd have thought they would have been able to just sort if there and then ,why is everything made so complicated these days .

We sat this morning making a list of all the jobs that need doing inside and out ,not big jobs just little things like pulling the cooker and fridge out to clean behind ,what started the list was when I got my tablets out the other day pushing one out of the foil pack it shot out rolled across the cooker and went down through a slot at the back of the cooker so I must make sure when we pull it out that I make sure max is shut out so he doesn't get it .
Some of the jobs are well we can't do that until we've done this so there's lots to keep us busy.

Vera temp here has dropped from 17 degrees to 13 so looks similar. There was something about an Artic front expected with very low temps from tomorrow until Thursday here in UK.

Morning all

My goodness, this is a shock to the system. It’s suddenly gone from temperatures in the 30s and non stop sunshine to 17 degrees and heavy rain. The forecast is that the rain is here for the day so I have no idea what we’ll do. The hotel only does breakfasts so we’ll have to venture out at some point for food but I think we’ll come back like drowned rats. The breakfasts are excellent and coffee and cakes are set out in the breakfast room from 3-6 pm for guests to just help themselves. Being the town centre there are loads of places to go for a lunchtime or evening meal but on such a wet day it would be nice if the hotel had a restaurant.

Well, we’ve had really good weather for 5 days and I think it had been dry for a while before that so I expect the Viennese are glad to see some rain, even if we’re not.