General Chat

Morning all
Joan glad you are safe and well. Yes I agree with winds of 93 mph up here, how come we didnt get the storm named then?/

Anyway, the wind went down late last night thank goodness but its pouring hard and still breezy. Not sure the calmness will last as there already warnings for more cancelled sailings!!
One reason i have never decided to travel south at xmas....the weather is unreliable!

Im just waiting on the fruit mixture to cool before I can mix it with the other ingredients for my cake.

So with that I wish everyone looking in on here a very Happy Christmas.
Eat drink & be merry but not too much sherry, ;-) ;-)

If you are on your own this year, do come on here as there will be peeps about to chat with I'm sure.

Better crack on with me xmas cake.

Florence in the hebrides

Good eveining to all.

It has been very stormy here, started yesterday morning & last night it was terrible continuing well into today, very high winds & rain, it hasn't let up for most of today, & soo dark, it's still very windy at the moment, & has managed ot topple 4 of my bird tables & a bird bath !
I hope it calms soon, I haven't heard anything as to when it might ease up.

I don't understand as to why this spell of bad weather hasn't beem givne a name ?? it's as bad as any other storm that we've had this year, in Scotland at least !!

Everyone seems well organised for Christmas, I hope it will be a good one for you all.

Joan.

JustGinnie, think our posts crossed.

Yes wishing you a Happy Christmas too and hope you manage to send all your messages.

Afternoon all
ArgyllGran, good to hear you are ok and have power. We didnt lose it but several other places did for a few hours. Its still wild at over 50 mph and no sign of it abating yet!!
I havent slept properly for 3 days although was so tired last night, i did sleep til around 5am!

As for carol services here???? Er no way. There may of been in the town but due to the inclement stormy weather, it would have been cancelled along with the ferries' & planes.

Gwyn, I'm glad you enjoyed your carol service though, sounded really traditional and well supported and in the courtyard of an old castle, how wonderful.

I have just managed to shower and do my hair and so glad the power didn't go off, as I didn't fancy having to leave my hair to dry naturally. I would have looked like "shaggy" from Scooby Do lol

I'm about to get everything ready to make my xmas cake tomorrow and then ice on xmas eve. Its not a heavy traditional xmas cake but one recipe you boil in a pan so much lighter and you make it the day before xmas and ice.

I hope Joan is ok? If you are looking in Joan, hope you are warm & cosy and are keeping a torch handy just in case.

Well I better had get on as quite a lot to be organising today and then to do some cleaning.

Stay safe and warm all

Florence in the hebrides

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and 2025 .

Hopefully next year will be a bit dryer and less stormy than this one has been/.

I am having internet problems atm which is a nuisance as I do messages to family at Christmas but hoping I shall still be able to at some point.


Take care and enjoy yourselves as best you can.

Ginnie

That sounds lovely, Gwyn - really Christmassy!

Here, nobody would even think of planning an outdoor event at this time of year - it would be sure to rain!

In the far south east corner, we have beautiful sunshine at the moment so I do feel for you folk further north who have wild weather to contend with.
I hope it improves for all of you.
Yesterday morning was grim here, but it brightened up, the wind dropped and by late afternoon it had dried up, so we went, as hoped to an open-air carol singing event in a village not too far away. Proper carols were sung heartily by the many villagers and visitors of all ages in the courtyard of an old castle.
With the ancient parish church next door lit up by the lights of the castle's large Christmas tree, it felt that we were linked to generations before us, who might have sang the same words.

Very wild last night here, too - and for the previous couple of days.

We had a power cut last night because of damage to power equipment by lightning, apparently, but it only lasted for about 30 mins, thank goodness, as they were able to divert us to some other bit of the system . At least that's what the follow-up phone call said!
There were two other brief cuts later, of only a few seconds each time, because they were working on the fault.

Today is much calmer, and not so wet.

I hope everyone's OK on here.

I hope that you survived the night Florence. The wind was absolutely raging here as well, there are trees down all over the place, but we seem to have survived unscathed. It has been very cold, but it is forecast to be double figures for Christmas Day

Hi all
Just a quick hello to say, I am ok but the storm is still raging at over 70 mph. Some have lost power but so far we are still on!

Hope everyone else is ok and keeping safe <3

Florence in the hebrides

It is a drizzly day here Florence. I just noticed online that they are forecasting high winds for tomorrow and the Glow at Harlow Carr Gardens is cancelled tomorrow, so we were lucky it went ahead nd we could go.
The girls are both still ill, although Esme is slightly better and has moved downstairs to a bed on the sofa in the family room which is next to her mums study. As she hasn’t been at school this week, I collected the cards for her friends which she managed to sign this morning. I took them in and brought back a bag with cards from her friends and a little present from her teacher.
Eve is still ill, she has lost her voice. I hope my daughter doesn’t come down with it.

Morning all
Well its breezy here and I guess in prep for another storm tomorrow with the promise of 80 mph winds....but up here we're well used to that and nothing we can do about it.

I have the last Tesco delivery of the year coming sometime this afternoon.

I ordered some new clothes and jumpers which came but sadly most of it is going back What is annoying as the pictures on line look so nice and then you get the goods and realise, they are not quite the same. The jumpers were far too baggy and stretchy, a dress just hung without any shape to it. Oh well at least Ill get my money back!

Hope your grandchildren are feeling better Linda? I enter lots of competitions but so far not been lucky but you never know, a win may come when you least expect it.

Hope everyone safe and well today and if you are in the path of the storm tomorrow, use today to charge up torches etc so at least you are prepared

I have a few pots at the front and in awhile, Im going to move them into shelter as dont want them flying elsewhere.

Just finishing off drying some towels too and then all the washing and drying is up to date.

Better crack on with me usual chores.

Florence in the hebrides

Oh dear Sylvia, having a visitor in the middle of the night must have been strange. You are wise to wear your alarm though, my mum always kept hers on. That was because her next door neighbour used to take his off and put it on the bedside cabinet next to him. One night when he went to the bathroom he had a big stroke. It took him five hours to drag himself along the floor and somehow got the alarm to call for help. That taught my mum a lesson.

Poor Esme was desperate to go to school today because of the Xmas concert, but she just wasn’t well enough.. I went to the school to take a carrier bag of presents for the class teacher and all of the many teaching assistants. I enter lots of advent competitions and one I saw this year was from the local garden centre. They were wanting people to nominate a local organisation to win a large light up golden deer. I nominated the school and I won. The deer is now by the front door with their Christmas tree, it looks really good and they are delighted with it.

I could do with winning something nice for myself. I have actually won a couple of travel mugs with some truffles, not exactly the biggest prize, but if good things come in threes I have my fingers crossed for “ the big one”. One year I actually won a holiday to Italy. It was good, but it was a Saga holiday and we weren’t quite ready for that, we still aren’t come to think of it.

Oh Linda, that was too bad about the girls.

We're at the start of another sequence of "atmospheric rivers". :-P

It began yesterday, with much rain overnight. Lovely sunny day today, but another one overnight tonight. Then a river on Thursday evening & night, Friday ditto, Saturday ditto, and also on Sunday.

A t least one day of clouds, but then a wet, wet Christmas :-(

The saving grace is none of them is stalling over us for days, so there is a breather in between, and hope that much of the water will drain away.

It is also warmer than usual, no hope for any cooler temperatures until some time next month. Even the nights are warmer than usual! I have the window open in my bedroom, had to throw off the duvet last night and find a light weight throw instead!

I made a mistake last night that I've been dreading!

We have to wear a Personal Alarm System (PAL ..... don't ask!) at all times. I wear mine on a neck cord, the alternative is a bracelet that you are not supposed to ever take off at any time. I obviously could take off my necklace, which I do to shower, but I sleep with it on. My dread is that I would at some point hit the alarm button while asleep in the middle of the night.

Well, I did it last night! :-D

The weird thing is that I had trouble falling asleep, had got up around 1 am, and then fallen asleep, but I was disturbed by something, and wke up when a light was turned on. Then the night nurse on duty in MLC (where OH is) came into the room :-0

"Are you OK?" "Did you hit your alarm?"

Bit of a discussion, then she assured me that it was OK, don't worry about it!

I must have only been asleep for a few minutes, because it turned out she came in at about 1:15 am

The nurse on duty this evening in MLC thought it was very funny when I told her!

Esme was too ill to go to Harlow Carr Gardens, so her daddy volunteered to stay behind to look after her . Eve decided to go even though she wasn’t feeling well. When Esme realised Eve was going, she started to complain bitterly. She wanted daddy to go and mummy to stay behind. As it was mummy who arranged it in the first place that wasn’t going to happen, so we left her shouting for mummy :-(
The gardens were absolutely beautiful with all the trees lit up and all of the Christmas lights. We went round really quickly which was a shame, but Esme was sending lots of texts demanding that mummy come home and Eve was struggling a bit. Anyway it was worth seeing, so hopefully next year we can all go.
I was supposed to be going to Esme’s school Xmas show tomorrow morning and to her Carol Service in the church in the afternoon , but unless she makes a miraculous recovery overnight, it looks like I will have the day off. It is a shame because she has been practicing the show for weeks and it looks like she is going to miss it.

Are you going to eat all of the cupcakes Florence :-D

When we got to Harewood House, we discovered that everything was open after all. Not that it made any difference because the weather was so bad that we wouldn’t want to walk in the gardens. The display in the house was excellent, all the rooms were dark with different animated displays in each one. It was very clever and the trees and sparkling decorations were superb. They had hundreds of artificial candles everywhere. It was a totally different experience to the usual stately home where you look at the furniture and paintings etc. We have done the house in the normal way before, so didn’t miss that aspect

Afternoon all
Oh Linda, that's not good is it! Every year when i was younger i always seem to have either bronchitis or tonsilitis so was always too ill to eat my xmas dinner even with it chopped up small. i grew out of those things though by my teens, it was just when i was around 8 or 9.

Its still blowing a hooley here and heavy showers. This weather is et to last until Saturday when a bigger storm is heading this way! My last Tesco is on Friday thank goodness.

I have just baked 2 dozen cupcakes and I'm waiting for them to cool enough for me to decorate with swirls of green icing, decorated with skittles to look lights lights on a xmas tree, well that's the idea lol.

Later on i have a small basket of ironing so may get rid of that.

Stay safe everyone

Florence in the hebrides

Not looking good then Linda. I hope the girls can get rid of these bugs before Christmas Day.

Both girls are ill now, Esme seems to have an ear infection, but they couldn’t get a doctor’s appointment until tomorrow. Then the doctors phoned back and said if they took her to a pharmacy she could be prescribe antibiotics there. So they got her out of bed and took her to a pharmacy only to be told that it is only antibiotic eardrops, not full antibiotics. In the meantime the dictirs have cancelled the appointment

We are just about to go to Harewood House, but I got an email from them to say that because if high winds the grounds and gardens are going to be closed, only the house and courtyard where the cafe and gift shop will be open,,That is annoying, but there is nothing we can do.

We are hoping that Glow at Harlow Carr would be cancelled this evening, but it looks like that is going ahead. The girls are probably going to be too ill to go, so that means someone will have to stay to look after them anc we will lose the money for the tickets if course.

So many bugs around this time of year. I have a cold at the moment, last one I had was in May.