No T Words mentioned at all - a fresh start

hoglet121

Thank you Candlelight, yes we are fine, thankfully. Lots of people are still out of power tho and may be until the weekend. Some houses lost their roofs in towns in the far north... Still windy but seems to be dying down a bit

I had my thermals on and lots of layers for the rugby... But the boys won so all good :-)

Glad to hear you had such a good time with your grandchildren :-)

[Deleted User]

HOGLET It seems so odd talking about winter storms when the weather here is so warm!!! I'm glad you are all unscathed and your property is undamaged, we seem to be getting more intense weather when we get weather here, the rain seems heavier, the sun seems hotter and the winters seem damper and chillier than they did but this might be me not remembering it right.

We had a wonderful day with DD2 and the Zebra child yesterday, he knew us when we arrived and we got smiles and cuddles right away without having to wait for him to relax, it was magic. His best new toy is Opas paper, which he was fascinated by and Opa gave him a supplement which he scrunched and rattled for ages sat on my lap. He's such a sunny little chap and likes interacting with people. Best smile of the day however was when he heard his daddys key turn in the door and when Daddy came in the sun came out, beautiful!!!

flowertotmum

Good morning all..ooh i love Sunday mornings..all chilled and relaxed..hubby doing Sunday lunch,girls playing,Sam sorting bits for his allotment and me..well i have a lovely cup of coffee and some quiet time..bliss.

I hope your all ok..

MLW..o how wonderful Ezra can roll..its amazing isn't it..i love watching babies doing new things..things we take for granted and all of a sudden Boom they are moving around and exploring..best of times. Am so glad you had a lovely day with him and his mummy..even now Simon loves it when he comes home and the girls go running shouting "DADDY"..it makes his day..and something he looks forward too..
I went to town and saw we have a new coffee shop opened up..its name is Patisserie Ezra..how wonderful..we are planning on a visit next week just to sample it ...

Hoglet..o hun i hope your all ok..i really do not like the wind..its scares the living daylights out of me..wild weather..so strange its your Winter and our Summer..we will all be jealous when we have our Winter and your basking in the sunshine...

Candlelight hi ya..did you get your ironing done..i had 2 huge baskets to do..but all done and put away now..very satisfying...

AOT..hello are you ok?

Well this week has been the normal..school work and gardening..i have been freezing the carrots Sam has been bringing home..i have pickled the beetroots..i can't keep up so i will cook them and then freeze them in small portions for later use. The radishes are coming daily..potaoes are still coming too..courgettes have all been stored ready for more chutney.
I have decided upon a new topic for us..The Continents and Oceans of the world..we have maps and puzzles and some written work too..but its mainly visual and and they will have to do some of it from memory...plus it will go well with our work on Capital Cities.
Yesterday was absolutely glorious..very hot and muggy..i filled the pool ans spent most of day outside..we had lunch in the garden and HM lollies..but after lunch we all got too hot and came in to cool off...we then spent time reading.
Well today i have not much to do apart from lesson plan..hoping to go for a walk later on.
Hope your all ok..
love
ftm

[Deleted User]

Afternoon folks, hot and sticky here at the moment and the lurcha doesn'r like it at all!!!

DD has reached Zambia (we tracked the planes up and down again) and we've just had a text that they are at the campsite all set up and she's in the cafe having coffee and the kids are in the market buying provisions for the groups supper, she says it's lovely to be back in Africa and all is well, bless her. I hope they adjust to the climatic conditions easily as I guess here is mild by comparison.

How lovely Patisserie Ezra, I'll tell Ruthie he'll be too little to understand about fame!! Hope you enjoy your visit. Love the sound of the new project, nice and meaty for you and the girls to tackle and lends itself to so many areas of the curriculum so inclusive and ongoing lessons will dovetail nicely. I've picked the first batch of Runner Beans this morning and the wigwam is absolutely covered in bloom, hopefully that means a good harvest, certainly the bees were busy on them this morning. I've also harvested 6 cucumbers from the hothouses and I'll be making a big batch of Bread and Butter Pickles tomorrow, it's the only way other than gherkins that He Who Knows will eat cucumber. Courgettes still producing well and raspberries just beginning to ripen and I've just been presented with the very first blackberry, fully ripe from the bushes on the back fence, Yum!!!

He Who Knows is currently taking down a very large and overgrown bay tree that lives outside the kitchen window, it's just grown too tall and there are some thin runners from the root so I'll let a couple of them grow and regenerate another tree and keep it quite a lot shorter in the future. I'm going to save some of the leaves though to dry off for use over the next couple of winters.

Hope all is well with everyone and that you are all well and happy, CANDLELIGHT love to your DD and hoping that the bone is now well on the way to mending itself, Lyn xxx.

hoglet121

Morning everyone,

Lovely to hear all your news, you have all been so busy :-)

We had a very eventful weekend... baking day on Friday went well, although the weather was wet, and I was up early on Saturday to get the bread proving, whilst the rain came down.... Early to the church hall to help set up and make the sandwiches etc and the rain kept coming down.... And it rained all through the party.... We started to notice the field behind the church hall was flooding.. quite a lot.... Then the police and fire brigade went past... And closed the roads around us! My cousin's family were completely cut off from their home and we just managed to squeeze out back to ours through a road that was closed 10 minutes later. So we had my cousin, her DH and the birthday girl staying at ours on Saturday night, her mum and sister with her aunt and her older kids staying with some friends. Sunday morning they just managed to get everyone back into their place by shuttling up and down the drive in the ute with 1 passenger at a time.

Cats thought very little of having an active 1 year old staying with them, and I found them all snuggled up in bed with DH on Sunday morning.

We went out on Sunday afternoon to a waterfall in the countryside about 10 km away from us to watch the flood water coming over. It was really dramatic. Normally it's quite a quiet spot and kids play in the stream there in the summer - it was an absolute torrent yesterday.

I just managed to get some soups made up yesterday and a bit of sorting out in our bedroom before collapsing into bed very early. Went to plug my phone into charge and found Alfie had chewed through my phone charger and my spare one! Little blighter! I think I've come back to work to have a break this morning!

Right, better get on and do some work, hope you've all had a far more relaxing time than us this weekend :-)

Hoglet x

hoglet121

Morning everyone,

Hope you're all well :-)

Just wanted to share this with you all... DH was out last night and I was snuggled up on the sofa with all 3 cats, when I was sure I could hear cat biscuits being eaten. Last year we had a rat which the cats failed to catch, so I was worried it might be the same visitor again... Nope, a huge fluffy tabby had sauntered in the cat door and was helping himself to leftover cat biscuits whilst our 3 snored on the sofa. Talk about cheeky! He ran away when I went to investigate...

I think he might have been back in this morning because the big boy kept running off into the garage where the cat door is, and wouldn't touch his breakfast.

You would think that with 3 cats in the house, 2 of them male, at least they would be able to defend their territory...!!

Hoglet x

flowertotmum

Morning all..

Hoglet..so glad your all ok, what a story to tell the little one when she gets bigger..laughing at the cats not being amused with a little one..cheeky cat pinching biscuits..Fern wants to know if you know the All Blacks??? lol..and if you get too wet you can always come for tea here..bless her..i told her and showed her where you live..her answer" o it's a bit far to come for tea..she can stay for a while"..o the simplicity of being little..

MLW..so glad your girl has arrived safe and sound..she will have a great time..so lucky...now in all seriousness the girls have invited you to come and play in our pool as its going to be hot and everyone needs a pool. When i asked why..they said " because your girls are all big now and you must miss them and all their toys"..o how cute is that..so get your cozzie on and come have a dip..

Right got to go..just thought i would share these with you..it made me smile so i hope it does you both..
love to you all
ftm

[Deleted User]

Oh FTM they are a delight aren't they??? Bless them for being so lovely I'll get my coat!!!

I'm off to stay with the Zebra child for a couple of days from tomorrow, his mum is poorly at the moment and needs a bit of help with everything so I'm going to look after him (and her) and give her a break until she feels well again. Nothing more from Nell but I didn't expect her to be able to communicate easily so not too concerned, good job I'm used to far flung trips in distant places by now isn't it?

HOGLET meet you at FTMs you bring the All Blacks, I'll bring cake!!! Lyn xxx.

hoglet121

Oh FTM how lovely. Well as it happens, we have met a few of the All Blacks...
Richie McCaw
Charles Piatau
Charlie Faumuina
Wyatt Crockett
Frank Halai
Piri Weepu - and they were all lovely!

When DH won a competition to play poker with some of the Blues players we were on a table playing with Piri. He was absolutely the loveliest guy, when he won a round he gave his winnings to other people on the table. DH came third overall, just missing out on prizes, and Piri was so lovely checking up on how DH was doing in the last round. NZ's loss is London Welsh's gain....

We would love to come to tea, but Fern's right, it is a little bit far. MLW's offer of cake is very tempting too :-)

We'd be very glad to add to the postcards being sent to Fern and Iris from around the world, and I'm sure I could find one of the ABs too.... I know I haven't been on the thread for that long, so if you would prefer us to send things to a different address to where you live we would totally understand :-)

Hoglet x

scottishminnie

Morning all. I did make it back last week - I just didn't get around to posting which I'm slightly embarrassed about!


I've been really busy with lots of little bitty things. Spent most of Saturday afternoon (was pouring anyway) helping an elderly friend complete his renewal for his blue disabled parking badge. The form runs to goodness knows how many pages and the questions are ridiculous. He has severe problems with his balance and is very unsteady on his feet so the badge is essential however I think the questions are designed to catch you out. He was quite indignant when I asked him if he got short of breath when dressing and said what did that have to do with his ability to walk a distance. It was a fraught hour or so filling in the form and I'm very worried it works on some sort of scoring which he won't meet. Apparently the renewal can take 12 weeks so we have a long wait ahead to see if it is granted.:(


I worked my way through a pile of mending on Saturday evening and I now have a few things which need dry cleaned. The nearest cleaners is about 5 miles away and I can only drop in on Saturday which means I have to drop off one week and collect the next. The challenge is remembering as they only open for 3 hours on Saturday morning and I'm usually at a fitness class. In the past things have languished in the dry cleaners for 3 or 4 weeks before I was able to retrieve them!


Whilst I was mending my mind started to wander - I have a few nice deep, long benches outside which we had made a few years back. They are in dire need of restaining however I began to think about buying outdoor fabric and making giant seat cushions. Realistically I think it will have to be an "over the winter" project and they could be ready for next summer. I think to get them done this year would be challenging. Better if I have lots of time to look for the fabric anyway.


Hubby has also agreed (finally) that we "need" some lighting up the driveway so now I'm also on the lookout for lamp posts. He's quite good at metal working so suggested I could find the type of lamps normally placed on stone posts he could make metal up-stands for them. I'm trying to find some outdoor lighting suppliers who can send me catalogues as I haven't time to go round the showrooms. They are all quite far away from each other. Some manufacturers have online catalogues however I'm a dinosaur - I like nothing more than gazing through nice glossy catalogues and magazines. It's not very environmentally friendly so I do make sure my magazines are passed on to friends. I know my Good Housekeeping does the round of 5 more individuals after me although I managed to read the most recent one in less then half an hour so I'm not sure I'm going to continue buying it.


Hoglet - your home must be very welcoming to the local feline population


FTM - a pool - that brings back happy childhood memories. My father could never understand why , as a chid I coveted a paddling pool. We had a river within walking distance where I could paddle and swim but the bottom was rocky and you had to climb down a banking to get in and, shock horror, the odd fish swam by me so I much preferred the clean, smooth bottomed plastic pool!


Mrs LW - enjoy your time with Zebra. Hope his mum feels better soon.