No T Words mentioned at all - a fresh start

hoglet121

Oh Kate that's so funny!!!!!!! They are such characters aren't they?!

Alfie has started climbing up my leg when I'm in the kitchen until he gets something - of course once I thought it was cute and now I've created a monster....!

scottishminnie

Evening all. I've been MIA a bit lately. It's been the week from hell at work however it's now Friday night and I'm watching Gardeners World with a large glass of Merlot. Interesting that they had a part on Chrysanthamums. I remember them being very popular when I was a child and they are still very popular in the US, particularly at the end of September. They work well in autumn displays however they are a bit harder to find here.

Hoglet - great news on the home front. 3 acres is a nice amount. We have just over an acre however being surrounded by my parents land means we can ask for more at a later stage if we have more time to spare managing things.

MrsLW - how is Olaf? Thriving I hope.

I'm desperate for some good weather to get gardening again, I plan to treat myself and buy a heated windowsill propagater for getting things started. I will order it this weekend, I meant to do it weeks ago but work got in the way:(

I hope everyone else is relaxing at the end of the week. Hopefully I'll get back over the weekend with more of an update.

candlelight_2013

Hi everyone,

Cool but dry here today, but with a fresh breeze.

I haven't been out today, did 2 loads of washing, managed to dry and iron it so all put away, nice feeling.

DGD1s birthday today she is 22, where has the time gone. She was born on Mothering Sunday, but not in this City, so I was on the train on the Monday travelling to see her. My office knew as soon as she was born my holiday would start:) My first grandchild and I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. She has grown into a lovely young lady, so caring and kind. She hasn't had an easy life with a father who hasn't spoken to her for 6 years and a mother who is ruled by him.

Anyway, she is coming tomorrow for a roast dinner, with her boyfriend, brother and sister and DD1 and we will all give her her birthday presents. She doesn't see much of her brother and sister so I try to make sure they all meet up here, and it is so lovely to hear them talking and giggling (as girls do, I was a dreadful giggler, drove my poor Dad mad):)

DD1 is doing well with her driving and managing to do her own shopping, so after 12 months we have more time to ourselves. She is being dismissed from her job on the grounds of ill health, which I can understand, because being a nurse she just couldn't do the job using a crutch, but it seems so sad that after all her training and the years she has worked there it has to come to this. She has never done anything else so she is going to have to give it a great deal of thought. The trouble being she cannot sit for very long or stand for very long without being in dreadful pain. We will have to wait and see. She is a good girl though she never moans.

FTM are you and everyone OK? I miss your stories of the girls and the rest of the family. How is Simon doing?

Hoglet are you viewing any properties this weekend? I imagine you must be so excited with the prospect of living in the country and being fairly self sufficient. I am excited for you.

Kate, you seem to have some very sound experience and knowledge of such things, I hadn't realised your new home had so much land.

SM my dear Dad loved the big pom pom chrysanths, and grew them quite successfully. I hope you enjoyed unwinding with your glass of Merlot and sorry you have had the week from hell. I am so glad I am retired, I remember very well what those weeks were like.

AOT how are you doing, are the legs working any better? Hopefully it won't be too long before the warmer weather is here and the heat will warm your bones. I know I always feel better when the sun hits my body

Lyn I hope you are enjoying your weekend with Nell.

Nursemaggie I hope you are OK.

Have a good weekend everyone

Much love

Candlelightx

nursemaggie

I'm fine thank you candlelight just not got much to say. I found hundreds of Midsummer murders on you tube been watching them and knitting premi baby matinee jackets. I am using up all my spare wool.

candlelight_2013

Glad you are OK Maggie.

I have to laugh about Midsummer Murders. It probably sounds dreadful, but about 7 years ago I was watching an episode in the afternoon (obviously a repeat) and Himself came in from the garden, and I looked at him and thought he looked a bit strange, but went back to watching TV, and then I looked again and I thought "Oh my God he is ill". He had no pains but was vomiting. I phoned 999 and told them I thought my husband was having a heart attack.

Paramedics were with us within about 5 minutes, and yes he was (it was a silent one, so no pain at all). and rushed off to hospital with me sitting in the front of the ambulance. Had 2 stents inserted n one artery

So, as you see we both have a chuckle about MM, and I had been making the invitations for our Ruby Wedding party prior to that, which thankfully we were able to have.

Much love and take care

Candlelightx

hoglet121

Morning everyone

Candlelight - we didn't go and see anything this weekend - I think we're going to be a little circumspect over what we view as they are all quite a long drive and we could easily lose all our weekends to it. Fortunately both of us have the sorts of jobs that allow us to browse the real estate websites during the day and converse over them fairly extensively. We are happy to take on some rennovation work, but would prefer it to be mostly cosmetic - new roofs and structural work is not something we want to be overseeing. This weekend we concentrated on getting some of the half finished DIY jobs finished around the house - the main bathroom is now finished and looks really nice. Some of the cat damage needs sorting too! While I was doing the painting in the bathroom DH vacuumed and dusted downstairs and washed the bedding - he's fab :-)

I also got out to the fruit man on Saturday - apples quince and figs. I've started the quince and apple jelly, got 5 jars of fig chutney made yesterday, and made us a little starter of roast fig, bacon and goats cheese on ciabatta on Saturday, and fig tarte tartin last night - both were utterly delicious. For 6 bulging bags of fruit (the sort of canvass shopping abgs you'd buy in a supermarket) the fruit man charged us the equivalent of 7 pound 50. I gave him 10 - partly because he didn't have any change on him and the idea of him fossicking around for the change was a bit off putting (he is a little bit ripe in the BO department), it was easy for me and my friend to split and also we had so much it seemed terrible to pay so little for it all.

DH had a great time as assistant referee to a much higher level game than he's usually been invovled in, on Saturday. He spotted one of the players doing something and told the ref - the team protested so much (don't they always) that he had a little bit of doubt about whether he was right or not. Afterwards the player approached him in the bar and congratulated DH on spotting what he'd been up to, apparently he'd got away with it loads of times before and no one had pulled him up for it, so that was a great confidence builder for DH.

We're in a funny time of year weatherwise - still hot during the day but much cooler at night so we end up constantly adding or subtracting layers! On Saturday I felt freezing when I got up, pottered around the kitchen in my super warm slippers and long trousers and then suddenly was absolutely boiling and was into the shorts and t shirt. I had a great time looking after my cousin's kids for a few hours - we played some games and had some lunch, all really good fun.

Right, that's more than enough rambling from me,

love to you all

Hoglet xx

candlelight_2013

Hoglet, I think you are quite right concerning the smallholding. If you are both to carry on with your jobs, you won't want an enormous amount of renovation work, certainly not structural. Someone would always have to be there overseeing the work. There is no rush is there, and as I said before you will know it when you see it.

Well done to DH, I hesitate to ask what the player was up to, and naughty man admitted he had done it before:eek:, but it can't have done DHs reputation any harm being "eagle eyed"

We have had a couple of not bad days at all, but I understand it is expected to be colder towards the end of the week. All the bulbs are coming through now so the garden doesn't look quite so dark and brown. I love to see colour in the garden. You did well again with the fruit didn't you, I don't think I have ever tasted quince.

Well we had a lovely day yesterday, 3 grandchildren, boyfriend of the birthday girl and DD1. Presents and cards were given, a very nice roast dinner was eaten, and then later chocolate tray bake, and some beautiful looking cup cakes . I can't eat things like that but everyone said how lovely they were, and very pretty. I bought them from Mr T and they were very good value, I could have made them but they wouldn't have looked anywhere near as good as these.

There was much giggling and talking, as I knew there would be and Himself took them home about 6. DD went home about 4 because she was in some pain but she really enjoyed herself, she looks on them as her surrogate children:D

Popped into town today to change an appointment we had made for DGS at Bank. Now he is 18 we need to change his account over to him solely, I made the appointment last week but found out yesterday he will be on his way back from France so have made it for later in April. Two down one to go, although she is only 15 at the moment, 16 in the summer, and I had quite forgotten it will be her Prom this year, I honestly don't know where the time has gone.

Lyn I hope you have had a lovely weekend, and I expect you will have some lovely sluuuuurps from Docky when you arrive home.

I hope everyone is OK

Take care

Much love

Candlelightx

[Deleted User]

Hi everyone, I'm just back but still travelling so I can't sit in the lounge with the TV on. It's the first time in many years I've felt travel sick but I had a backwards facing seat on a very hot and overcrowded train and was so very relieved when I crossed the river and knew I could get up and stand in the bit between the carriages as we were nearly home. That saying about it being better to travel than to arrive isn't true!!!

I had a lovely time with Nell and Pushkin and did indeed get a lovely welcome and many slurps from the Dockling who was waiting witn his Dad in the station foyer, very nice they were too!! Going to just be quiet now for a while and try to rid myself of the headache and queasiness, It's nice to be home though, always nice on your own patch no matter how lovely it is elsewhere isn't it?

hoglet121

Morning everyone

Candlelight - that sounds like a wonderful birthday tea, how lovely :-) DH's naughty player was a lock hooking the ball back into the scrum, not too heinous but still illegal

MLW - I know exactly what you mean, I just love arriving back home. I do hope you're over it all soon.

A quiet night for me last night - got 5 pots of quince and apple jelly made and I have a lot more to make. I always think quince tastes a bit like pear, but once the jelly is made to me it just tastes sweet and fruity.

I tried a new flea treatment on Socks last night - what a disaster! It had a huge amount of liquid in it and inevitabley it ran everywhere and she licked it. She was very unhappy last night and I was quite worried about her. She's much brighter this morning but I won't be using it again.

Traffic was horrific this morning - over 1 hr 15 mins to travel 30km and that was leaving at 6.15. There was no accident, just seemed to be volume of traffic.

Right, better get on to some work

Love to you all

Hoglet x

[Deleted User]

Found the thread again when I came online after walking the Dockling, it wasn't shown on the menu when this new format first appeared at lunchtime and I thought I'd lost you all, was very upset but AM NOW VERY HAPPY 'cos you're here again!!!