5 OS pleasures in your day today - part 3

balabooberlies

Time for an update.

Am home for a few days.  My sister in my place.  Thank you Sis..........

My Tiggy cried for hours yesterday, as if she wanted to tell me of all the times she missed me.  I listened patiently.  Have arranged for her nails to be clipped and for my favourite dog walker. I made her a special meal today.  'True Love' doesn't cover it.....


Thank you for still including me in your thoughts.  I pop in whenever I can.

Sweet dreams to all

bala

x

ampersand

Yes, it IS 0316h as I begin this......
& is in car, 2nd night thus, in Cleckheaton.
So much, so much.....2 RIP memories are further motivation right now, one being Jo Cox, MP, the other a 1st year of loss for another young LP person.....post passim.
#
1. & received cumulative chq for 1x1st+2×2nd LP mthly raffle draws and this was decisive.  Banked, it covers &fuel to Batley and Spen by-election. Left at 0430h Wednesday.

2. Keeping close virtually/via msgs, for someone else.  Major surgery, icu, hdu, came through the 72 critical hrs, recovery tfr day 7, but last night sudden news of urgent rtn>theatre and further surgery. Now in medically induced coma.  Prayers and prayers and prayers ongoing for all, as written.

3.  Met Kim Leadbeater early yesterday, in election rooms, within 100 metres of me now,. (& consciously keeping watch - even more necessary with filthy Galloway+thugs right here.). Kim is remarkable, instantly likeable, brilliant, courageous and warm. She will be a brilliant MP,  even if not this time. Of all 16 candidates, only Kim could vote as only Kim actually lives here.  

4. Camaraderie LIVED.  So glad to be doing this.  The memory of Jo Cox.....🌹♥️🙏.  So many good MPs and people yesterday- Yvette C., Ed M and  6 other MPs around and about all day. Extreme security for us all, working in 2s, minimum, male+female.  Policeman+woman beside me yesterday morning.
People have come from all over the country to actively help. 

5. A grey dawn's presencing as I write this. Weather to change after 2 boiling, blazing hot Yorkshire days, according to a delightful wheelchair voter, gardener, gent, & met doorknocking with last boards late yesterday  Have dozed for a couple of hours. Have thermoses. Have simple food and fruit.  World Service listening.  Safely through another day, conscious again of these 3 others in this context.  4am just struck.
#
Thinking of all of you whose lives I am reading here, very very much so.
All is heightened right now.
Battery down to 32%, so will leave this now.

Hearing a humane real President, a man, Joe Biden, right now, after his visit to the collapsed apartment  building.  Decency can return to our world.

ampersand

I am just hearing, Labour is ahead, tory is demanding recount....
I am in tears.
Heading to Cathedral House,  Huddersfield for the declaration, whenever it comes.
♥️🌹🙏
KIA KAHA AROHANUI !

VJsmum

Well done ampersand - it seems your efforts did not go in vain.  You must be very pleased.  Galloway is monstrous.

Bala - thinking of you.

Pleasures for yesterday

1. we finally have a second basin back in the house - but still can't be used for 24 hours.  Downstairs loo nearly finished and the basin going in there today.  
2. Lunch with friends 
3. A walk round the block having curtailed one through the fields due to cows! 😂😂
4. baked a cake (made up for the dreadful stir fry i made..)
5. DD got through her medical for her new job OK (was a bit worried that her weight might be an issue). She does her last shop shift tomorrow then is joining us on holiday.  Starts the new, much better, loads more prospects job a week on Monday.
6. generally proud of myself for battling through some feelings of 'fed-up-ness' and not wallowing.  Nothing major just a sense of lacking direction. the house disruption is not helping.

Off on hols today - the Lake District.  It's going to be a wet one i fear.  i wish i were going to italy (or France or anywhere abroad really.... ) but i mustn't be ungrateful.

Have a good day all.

villagelife

Pk hope all goes well with surgery.

Bala look after yourself.

1. Work seemed so long. It seemed to last forever. The pleasure was leaving and it being warm and sunny.

2. Another free lunch.

3. Time spent in the garden. Tiny bit of weeding but just being in the garden.

4. Drink with DH and hearing the deer.

5. Chat with a neighbour.

LaineyT

Thank goodness Ampersand, common sense prevailed and all is well.

No pleasures to report as new GreatN is poorly in hospital, all posivibes requested and welcome x

balabooberlies

Oh Lainey, all the get well vibes to GreatN I can gather and send her way.

PK, thinking of you.....

Sue, huge hug......

VJ, have a happy hols

Happycas, thank you.....

VL, a big kiss for no reason at all.......

Love to all

bala

x

Happycas

Ampersand - Thank you.

Bala - so glad you're back with Tiggy for a while,

Lainey - prayers are with G niece. 

VJ's mum - enjoy yr hols. I know what you mean about a 'proper' holiday ( and I share your love of hot weather) but I am grateful we have our seaside caravan. Maybe next year.......

Anyway, Today is sunny!

Happy 🌞 Friday everyone

Nargleblast

Lainey, fingers, toes, everything crossed for the little lad. So worrying when it's one so young but he's in the right place.

Happy about the Batley and Spen result, here's hoping stuff gets done for that community.

Today's pleasures -

A lie in with celebratory mug of lemon and ginger tea as it's the first of 15 days off.

Warm sunshine in the park this morning, makes you glad to be alive.

Laughed at junior cat (sociable lad) on next door's porch roof, having a Mexican standoff with next door's cat who is a bit of a crotchety queen. He realised he wasn't wanted so came home for cat biccies.

Vacuuming, airing house, winding clocks, lighting candles - son due home sometime today from holiday.

Lunch of homemade chilli con carne with sweet potato fries and salad with avocado. Very nice. Dog agreed - she nicked one of my sweet potato fries.

This evening - open air rehearsal with choir. First time singing together in the flesh for over 15 months.

DigForVictory

Hurrah it’s the weekend! I will be retiring early to make extra time to pray.

OS pleasures recently

The strangest things can bring joy. That a box of scalpel blades & handles were Exacto, & not Swann Norton, & (better yet) were English-made!

That it was the colour, somewhere between daisy & fresh butter, that triggered the fizz of recognition, confirmed by the base stamp but declared by shape, heft, comfort in hand of yet another bit of Denby. Sure, it’s in my picture book, but the colour triggered the recall.

The ‘chyup chyup’ of the bird outside. It doesn’t seem to be a conversation & you’d be pushed to call it song, but it has a rightness, a belonging, that a prettier warble might not.

So proud of sister for growing an African violet from one leaf, just as our aunt taught us. Nearly bought 5 variants online to grow to give her for Christmas & thought, smarter to ask other African violet growers if I could take a leaf for my sister. Whilst offering herb cuttings (shorter feedback time) in exchange. Maybe date palm seedlings if I manage to get the stones to germinate. Mum thinks we’re amazing - we think just following the family example.

A long time ago, at a christening, two of a set of six wedding present Edinburgh Crystal tumblers were broken. Only this week did it occur to me these have patterns & I now know what to look for on eBay or at car boots!

Youngest, querying what we planned for supper, got the less than helpful “what do you suggest?” & intoned in his best stuffy maitre’d tones “the Lobster with the red wine.” Smart lad fled as we allowed the giggles to subside along with the vague regret we haven’t got any lobster…

The skip is here & a lot smaller than we thought. Dash. May have to remove the seats from my car to shift stuff to the tip, if son (whose car is already disassembled) declines.

The great sorting has started. After vigorously worded re-education on the storage capability of tea, I have thrown away huge amounts of teabags. Just my pace doesn’t half hiccup when I find things planned for three stockings..

A few small tools & a thick manual of further excitements is causing chirps of “got that!”  interspersed with “oooh!”s. 

This morning many “oof”s - cancer research are accepting donations of books - I can see some hall floor! Not Everything may go in the skip as “it’s too small” - oh. So I have to do tip trip runs, As Well.  It will all be worth it. I hope. I have a photo of the parquet floor hidden under it all with three beaming toddlers. The baby of whom is now the youth, beauty & muscle of this project. Marie Kondo is about joy. She missed the steel toecaps, the backache, the tears…

Sundry little wins, like the cardboard Christmas star made in 2006 & rediscovered, like the little embroidered purse that I think was a grandmother’s. More painful things released. Frankly Laurel & Hardy rubbish pickup when the bin bag is leaking & I didn’t realise for ten minutes…

Tired, stiffening, aching, yawning, I sent one son off “go, ingest, brother cake” meaning “your brother is back, go share birthday cake with him & your father” (while I pass out) A good lad, he picked icecream to go with when we were in the supermarket. Proud of my boys.

Darn. Over 25 crates, one midi skip filled another on order for tomorrow. Car stuffed for a tip trip. Christmas star & glass angels found, along with Christmas letters from decades past & agreement on glassware reached in time to hear our recycling bin sound glassily musical. (Just wait for the almost-certainly-too-old wine bottles! I have a few that improve with age [clung to] & more that I suspect do not.)

Sis won on a Superdrug lottery & shrewdly started Christmas shopping! Awed! So pleased for her - she’s a frugal soul & to have this unexpected windfall is a treat. Typically, she’s spent the bulk on her family, even if we won’t see it for a few months.

The Eden Project is on a site that used to be a school - mum went to it (& still dislikes the official green school hat decades later), but takes a proprietary interest in the Project. Amongst the stuff were two mugs with a millennium stamp design sunflowers blazing on fine China & to my delight both mum & a sister want them! I am being herded through a cull of stray mug, so that these lovely things have a home is a delight. There’s a bag of other mugs (bought for the default Christmas gift of mug of sweets) going to good causes.

Son has treated his dad to more of the bamboo underpants he loves. As the credit-card-wielding agent, I blew the surprise, but one lad has a bargain & one bloke has the preferred size & colour.

Most Christmas letters do not bear rereading. The ones I’ve found, at the start of my civil service career, announcing my engagement, freely admitting that the first four months parenthood & so on… Are quite amusing.

Oh. My. Stamps, my warrant (!), wads of love letters - as we sit in the sun fighting through decisions I manage to retain some books (my kindle collection both biting & sustaining me)… 

I am utterly In The Wrong. My stash of Lego has been found & the boys are being wildly ironic as well as “oooh another dragon, and this one is Mine!”…  (Mind, when I read the barcode of a sealed box & checked the eBay price, a son was overcome with partial forgiveness.)

It’s over 80 crates later. Phase 1 of clear the room (filling 2 skips) in complete & now the menfolk are advancing on my Denby. Well, planning their advance. We have stopped for the day.

Now I am being told to call ahead to find a charity shop to accept the bric a brac, the mugs, the not-books-or-CDs… the severity of the inflection suggests someone hasn’t eaten enough recently! [Sorted & the ladies crooned as lad & I lugged. Much better communications!]

Friday skip collection - company called to double check we wanted a second skip removed (lads delighted by her admiration!) & driver deftly stacked one skip on another to “help Friday along” - who doesn’t want to finish early on this sunny Friday with all the weekend?!

My parents are having Internet issues. So dad lugged a 10 kilo box from Amazon in without knowing what/who/why - Epsom salts in 1 kg bags as they help both parents unkink & recover from falls, gardening etc. Just hope we can zoom tomorrow! [Yes! Mum told a tale of sibling bickering & sisters & I shared “Phew, eh?!” glances. Mum delighted by Epsom supply, double phew!] 

Health strength love & courage to all as have need. Plus hurrah it’s the weekend!