General Chat

Morning all
Not too bad here as wind has died down but still windy after storm Connor. i ventured out for the first time in a few days to the recycling bin and it was surprisingly not too cold!
I have Tesco coming between 12-1 today which is good as I hate it when its at the end of the day. At least afterwards i can then get on with other things.

Linda, I have been buying books of stamps with my shopping order so i dont have to buy 60 odd stamps all in one go! Why on earth have you not got a timer for your heating? I used to have 3 programmes a day for heating & hot water so i would set it for when I needed it on 7 days a week. It cant be right coming home to a cold house surely? I have never heard of your system where if your phones are away from the house it wont come on??

Whenever we went on a family holiday back in the day even only for say a long weekend, i would programme the heating to come on for 2 hours an day to keep the house from getting damp but turned the hot water off as that would have been a waste.

Sylvia, will the place you now stay in not have xmas cake or xmas pudding? Can you buy a small one for yourself or get daughter to send one to you?

Oh my the weather has suddenly changed in the last 5 minutes as now its raining and I can't see the hills as covered in fog!!

Oh well better get on with some chores before my shopping arrives.

have a good day everyone looking in

Florence in the hebrides

It is good to see you posting Sylvia. I hope that the removal company come back and finish what they should have done in the first place.
This morning, I went to Esme’s school bakery, OH went for the first time last week, but he chickened out today. He said that he needed to get his hair cut, as he doesn’t have much left, I really can’t tell the difference.
This afternoon, I sat down and wrote all of the Xmas cards. I did a generic letter on the computer to enclose with some of them, but then added a lot of individual hand writing to each letter. I think that I will have to take a mortgage out to cover the postage :-)
Last night we went round to my daughters and had dinner with them and didn’t get back until late. As we were out, the heating goes off when I senses that both our phones leave the house, so it was really cold when we came back. I was so cold in bed that I had to go and get a blanket. I will be glad when spring comes

names ................ losing them would usually have been my problem, but I have so little space compared to the house that I'll be OK, as long as I don't move them into one of the boxes in the storage room!

Florence ........ my birthday is in early January!!

So I'm hiding both OH's and my Christmas presents, as well as 2 birthday cards for me. Daughter bought not only a Christmas card but a Birthday card for OH to give me, so he has the Christmas card in its envelope leaning against a photo on his chest of cards. He has already pointed it out to me twice yesterday and once today ;-)

Daughter didn't know that I had given him a selection of cards of all kinds, including blank cards, so that he wouldn't worry about it.

I'm really tired today ........ daughter was like a whirlwind, intent on sorting out boxes for me! She's left me a lot to get rid of, as we found that the moving company had not done what we'd asked in a couple of cases, so I have very old bills and things to get rid that they should have taken away for shredding. I am still in touch with the owner of that company, and she's told me several times just to ask for anything and she'll help me. So I'll call her when I've done the double check to make nothing important is in there.

I'm going to miss Christmas pudding and cake this year :-(

Afternoon everyone looking in today.
Its a calm day but there was a heavy frost as I can see ice on the roads.

However, i de3cided to take a wander down the graden to llok and see how my plants are getting on in their new beds. The soil was frozen solid! All the berries that were on my Cotoneaster plant have been blown off and now lay frozen in the soil.

I hope it will be ok . My holly is thriving well so that's good. The bulbs are covered over so they should be ok.

So back indoors and did the ironing as wasn't too much and no bedding so didn't take too long. I then decided to go through all the shampoos, shower gels etc as we have 3 large baskets at the end of the bath full to the brim!!

So I threw out quite a few very old ones that were virtually empty and cleaned the plastic baskets, resorted it all and now it s all back in place looking much tidier.

So off to make a cuppa and a sandwich for lunch in a minute and then see what needs doing this afternoon whilst I'm feeling energetic lol. i do need to finalise my Tesco order for Saturday as well.

Good to see you posting Sylvia and enjoy having your daughter around. Glad you survived the storm and people were looking after you well and checking on you.

When is your birthday? We have a few December birthdays on here including mine next week!

Hope everyone looking in is keeping well.

Florence in the hebrides

Tucked away! That usually means I would never find them ;-) :-D

Well the builder has been, nice chap, seems it was the guttering rather than the pointing. We knew one clip was more or less off but he said another was missing and another broken, The guttering is also old and brittle.

Luckily we have a de humidifier, not a really good one, but is helping, so has a couple of sunny afternnoons. The sun hits the wet patch if it comes out.

Hi
I can't remember when I last posted on GR! I was unable to get on sometimes (apart from this week's fiasco!), and sometimes I was just too tired.

We had a "bomb cyclone" on Tuesday last week, it's called that because the atmospheric pressure drops rapidly in the centre of the system. We were threatened with heavy rain, high winds, and power outages especially overnight. One of the nurses came round during the evening to check whether we had torches ........ I had 4, so she was satisfied!

We were really lucky here, the rain was very heavy, but the worst of the winds passed us by, so no problems. But areas less than half a mile away were without power, with downed trees and damage. It was really weird how the storm hit. Then we had another wind storm on Thursday/Friday before many people on Vancouver Island had even bee re-connected.

This month has been really wet!

This week, our daughter is with us. She arrived late Sunday afternoon, so checked in her hotel, had a quick dinner at her (and our) favourite Japanese place then came up to see us. She will be with us in the afternoons and early evening until tomorrow (Wednesday). Then on Thursday she changes hotels to one downtown, sees 2 school friends during the day as well as having a quick coffee with one of our financial advisors to get to know him. Friday and Saturday are why she is able to be here ............ a business retreat! Her plane ticket was paid for by them, but we're paying the costs up until Thursday! It's been really nice to see her, and she has been helping me with sorting through some of the boxes that came with me back in August! She also took her Dad out for a walk this afternoon, which he really enjoyed.

She has left our Christmas presents and my birthday card with us!!!!

Never had them so early!! I have tucked them away in the hall cupboard and will forget about them until next month!

Morning all
Well after a very stormy weekend, the wind has gone, the rain has gone and the sun is shining and....its not that cold either so a good day so far :-D

Im home alone now until next Monday but thats ok as I do have several jobs to do and better with no interruptions. I can also sort out all the presents etc without someone being nosey lol
Yesterday i wasnt feeling good at all and had a temp, and was coughing all weekend, daughter had it too. But today, my migraine has gone and im feeling much better so that's good.

i saw all the flooding in Wales & northampton and it was just awful!! I simply cannot imagine what it would be like to lose your home and everything in it!

Hope everyone on here didnt get flooded or suffer damage from the storm.

Names, not sure what the problem is but hope your builder finds the leak and fixes it quickly for you.

Joan, hope you.re ok in your area. Dont think anyone lost power this time.Hope you are keeping a small torch with you when you are sitting in the evenings for the "just in case."

Right better see to the chores. Bin men have been & gone and at least it wasnt raining!

Florence in the hebrides

It can be really difficult to find out where water is coming in Names, so I hope that the builder can pin it down.
OH went for a four mile walk this morning, part of it off road. I thought that ge would be knee deep in mud given all the snow melt and the non stop rain yesterday, but he said that it wasn’t too bad.

Linda :-D :-D :-D

Hoping the builder turns up in a couple of days. With the heavy rain and wind from a certain direction we now know where the puddle of water comes from - more or less.

Busy cleaning out the gutters this morning so didn’t go shopping, which is probably a good thing as the place the road always floods is still bad. The fields on both sides are very bad, rarely see them quite that bad. The nearest ware course, next to the fields, is also very full. Hopefully will all start to go down before the next rain. But the watercourses are so high. Water meadows near here never dried out over the ‘summer’.

Oh well, anything from yesterday is permanently lost according to the post GR put on the board. I doubt anything I said was important anyway :-D

I will be glad when today is over. It is supposed to be eleven degrees outside, but it feels colder than that. The snow has mainly melted , there is just a lot of slush.
I haven’t been out at all today, we just binge watched Moon Flower murders, a BBC detective series.
I hope that the storm has settled and that you are feeling better Joan.

Good afternoon all. It is very blustery and heavy rain here and 12 degrees so quite mild. Luckily I had no plans to go out today so am happily in the warm.
Joan I think these weather reporters and some of the news reporters like to sensationalise the storms. I think they must get bored with normal reporting when the weather is just jogging along calmly so they get excited when it is different. Best to watch another programme until they calm down. I am pretty sure you are safe in your house as you have not said there is anything needing fixing etc. I know it is hard if you are nervous thoug. Have you got any needlework that you can get involved in to take your mind off what is happening outside?

Hi Linda, & everyone else looking in.
We have heavy rain at the moment, it's slowly getting rid of our snow but what a messs it is making, the wind is picking up as well just now.

I am feeling on edge re the storm, I have always worried about them but managed to get through them with Jacks support, but now he's gone & I am on my own I am so worried, I'm praying the power stays on.

The tv doesn't help, I watch GBNEWS channel a lot but today I have had to switch it off as they keep on & on about the storm & what could happen etc it's really scaring me.
They have weather reports every 1/2 an hour & then talk about it in betweeen, don't they realise that there are a lot of elderly out there who live alone & are frightend at these times. They scare me I can tell you.

Take care.

Joan.

Good morning from snowy Yorkshire. We woke up to a deep covering of snow. The town has a steep hill at each end going down to the bridges over the river and they are both blocked by cars, plus all of the buses in the Harrogate region have been suspended. It is raining now, so the snow is turning slushy and the temperature is rising. Hopefully it will continue to get warmer so that the slush doesn’t turn back to ice. It is only five degrees at the moment, so the heating is going to be on all day .
I hope everyone is OK.

It looks like we are going to get a huge amount of rain tomorrow, but at least it is going to be a lot warmer, just one more really cold night to get through.
I hope your electricity stays on Florence. That is one thing which is different in this house, we used to get lots of power cuts in Thirsk, but it is far more stable here.

Well, well, there was me in the middle of posting when the electric went off!!

So its back on now but strangely its very calm here and no wind! So shall try & remember what typed.

Joan, its so lovely to see you posting on here today and to know that you are keeping well albeit you are still feeling fragile bless you. But the dark nights a month from now will start to get shorter and the days longer so hold that thought <3

We are getting storm Bert tomorrow & Sunday and of course we have a big fayre on tomorrow. I so hope its more supported and the windy weather wont keep people away.

Gwyn, I love xmas pudding and for me its the best part of the xmas dinner. Xmas without the pudding wouldn't be right would it? I love it with evaporated milk as dont like cream...mmmn yummy!

Well i shall not linger on here too long incase the electric goes again.

So stay safe everyone and keep warm

Florence in the hebrides

Sorry, I missed your post Joan, I think we posted at the same time. It is good to hear from you, These dark winter days do drag on, roll on spring.

I must start thinking about Xmas presents some time soon :-D
I used to make a large Xmas cake and my children would decorate it when they were little, then Eve and Esme took over. I stopped making a cake because it is only OH and I who actually want to eat it. For a few years I bought one, then last year, I bought two small ones, so that each of the girls could decorate their own. That seemed to work well , so I will do that again this year. They like rolling out the marzipan and icing, then decorating it. Eve makes decorations out of the icing and food colouring, Esme just crams on all of the little decorations which I have.
No one is bothered about Xmas pudding after the meal, the girls just like a big bowl of custard

I took OH to Esme’s school bakery this morning, that was an experience for him :-)
We then went to a couple of garden centres to look at the artificial Xmas trees, but couldn’t see anything I liked. We always had a real tree, but when we started to go away for family Xmas gatherings, I bought a really good quality realistic one in a sale one year after Xmas It was very wide which was fine in our old house, but we need a slimline one for here, so I gave the old one away. Now I can’t find a new one, most of them have shiny plastic looking leaves which are horrible. I saw one which would have done this morning, but it was stupidly expensive. They are cheaper on line, but I want to be able to actually see it before I buy it, so will have to keep looking. OH said it would be best to wait for the sales, but then we wouldn’t have anything for this year :-(

good morning all. A sunny morning here but a bit cloudy too and we are braced for Bert to hit us tomorrow so not looking forward to a wet weekend. Although fortunately I have no plans to go out. It is 7 degrees here so milder than it has been. And it really is the lull before.....

Joan so good to see you, we do get concerned when we don't hear from people for a while. sorry to hear that you still feel fragile. This weather which seems to be mostly unpredictable and which keeps us indoors, is not good for our mental health. At times like this I am so grateful for contacts on here and wonder how my parents coped if the weather kept them in for days at a time with no internet. I think my Mum would have spent time on the phone chatting to one of her several siblings and my Dad worked into his 70s and a bit of snow would not have kept him home. And when he was home he would be in his big shed/workshop making something or other.

Gwyn we often end up having the Christmas pudding on boxing day when we have a lighter meal but we always have one, both now when at daughters and before when T was alive, as he loved Christmas pudding. For many years ours has been made by my lovely next door neighbour.

Morning everyone.
Good to see you posting Joan <3
I don't blame you wanting to stay home in this cold weather. I hope your daughter was able to get your shopping home to you.

No snow for us so far this winter, but the rooftops were white again this morning. There's bright sunshine at the moment, so I hope that keeps up to warm us a little.

We are finding we are wanting 'comfort' foods this cold weather, so I'd be no good in Linda's Slimming class ;-) There was a Christmas pudding tucked away, which I have been eating these last couple of days. Not sure why we had that, as daughter here usually makes ours for Christmas day, so it was probably a post-Christmas bargain, which never got used.... It has now ;-)
I heard on TV that many people are not bothering with traditional Christmas pudding nowadays and to be honest we sometimes don't want ours after a big Christmas dinner, so we often start it later in that afternoon. We'll probably still make one to our usual recipe though, as it's much lighter than shop-bought ones, because it contains no flour, but does have fresh breadcrumbs. All the taste is there, but not the heaviness.

It is bitterly cold here. I had to go out to Slimming World, as I suspected I have out a pound and a half on while my sister was here, which takes me out of my target range, so I have to pay for the class. The pavements look icy look icy, so I was walking very gingerly . I was glad to get back home, but I have to go out again this afternoon to get my hair cut.