5 OS pleasures in your day today - part 3

mhagster

Hello. 

Didn’t wake up until 6.45am which is very late for me.
Went back to skinny club ( had taken 2 weeks holiday) and had put on a wee half pound but I’m absolutely okay with that! 

Had a walk round park and picked up 68 conkers. 

Home and grabbed my doggy and off we went to the castle. It was the most beautiful day.
Came home and enjoyed a puppy free day. And got all sorts of things sorted  out. 

Neighbour stopped me to  ask if I wanted plums. Oh yes please ( expecting a wee bag…it’s a huge bag!) 
Log burner on late afternoon.
Made curry for tea with quorn and veggies. Using up what I have . Was very nice.
Then just finished watching Strictly which was very good for a first show. 

A good day. 

ampersand

1.  Another £465 raised on home match raffle yesterday.  Attendance down, so a gratifying sum.

2.  Unexpected win, even better!
.
3.  One prizewinner was a Tring player, who kindly donated his prize back, saying the ref. had definitely favoured them at critical moments.  Yes.

4.  Being driven to Birmingham as we speak.

5.  Numerous wonderful msgs from friends.
#
It's a rainy day all the way so far.
Hopefully can watch some rugby later.
All blessings and welcome to our new ospers.👍😃

Happycas

Good afternoon

Gosh Frith!  Thank you for keeping us going single handed for 24 hours!

I do have an excuse though.  We have spent the last three days clearing out the caravan.!  It's amazing.  It's a small two bedroom caravan we've had for only 8 years and the amount of stuff we'd accumulated is astonishing.  But it's sorted now and keys handed back.  End of an era, but hopefully other adventures await.

Great treat today.  Book 18 in Louise Penny series ( can't remember title, sorry) is 99p on kindle.  Snapped up pronto.

Shall watch Strictly on catch up later.  Only way I can bear it so I can fast forward all the drivel.  Still love the dancing and the frocks though.

Hope everyone is well and just happily busy, or busily happy.

Happy Sunday everyone

PaulieHerts

back to our favourite holiday place (abroad) Anaxos in Lesvos (Greek island).  Lunch on the beach, breakfast on the balcony, dinner at the lovely tavernas.  Lots of dips in the sea as it’s been very hot (30 degrees) weather is set to cool down gradually 🌞🇬🇷

Ampersand, you raise an amazing amount of £ on your raffles 😊
Best wishes to all, hope everyone is ok 😊

DigForVictory

I have been remiss & not posted, but some weeks are a little more crazy than others.

Purple Kitten - just very best of luck! Owch poor Nestle but "sad ferret being made a fuss of" sounds like he was being consoled. Dungeness sounds like the place you need to remember hard when medics are about? Met forecast check as reach for pegs, yes indeed.

Highdays - stick at the healing & research the bracelet you want for Christmas? Love the Christmas baking plans!

PaulieHerts - Flu jab & eyebrows, ready for holiday! And what glorious photos - all the stunning blues!

thara1996 - welcome! The chance to laugh out loud is wonderful.

Frith - ergh the cough. Chinese lanterns - aunt had these in tubs (they're escape artists?!) hope yours settle in happily! Rousing cheers on layer one of kitchen wall paint, & escaping IKEA. For an intinerant cat, he has an impressive coterie of concern! Yeay Par kRun

LaineyT - love the idea of equine duvet day, while you polish boots. Ah, podcasts... well, vets can be busy & occasionally forgetful!

Happycas - pegging laundry on a Sunday is Wrong?! Ulp. I'll have to pray harder. Caravan all cleared out? After 8 years, strewth. All courage.

BoP - yikes, penned in a budget hotel with budget TV. Ouch! Tee mugged - that's the stuff.

mhagster - even your blah days are busy! Big blow then pipping the rain - hurrah & son cooperating with sorting Stuff. Puppy with you, Everywhere. (I remember that with small sons!) Then the peace when puppy is taken away! Oooh plums - crumble, jam, both?

ampersand - Dear Gods, you need a DUKW  just to get you to & from a higher ground garage! Awed at your raffle success, & the lovely chap from Tring.

OS Pleasures this last week & a bit!

Me torn between anxiety & laughter as Middleson’s been a bit snippy at my speed awareness experience but this morning [Er, Saturday last] overslept & is missing his course… Goose! [rebooked, he thinks all fine]

Forecast cloudy but breezy - damp bedlinen back on line! [And off, clean & dry!]

This no spend month is a bit hard (I lapsed on Amazon & bought Meaux mustard) but as I drain the little stashes into the high interest transfer to mortgage account, it’s very satisfying. Martin steered me to credit unions & it really is a joy facing Christmas (& potentially Another rate rise). [Now, Not! Phew}

Middleson has said he’ll look out some antler for me. I want to make nalbinding needles for crafty friends for Christmas. The family will get jam again. [Couldn’t find it. Gift making will have to wait.]

Flu & covid jabs offered & accepted - another early Saturday morning event but the flu queue is very sociable.

Went up to check my wedding anniversary plum Opal - still alive but near drowning in bindweed. No longer…  The grafted apple has one single apple on it! I’ll leave it there to remind me to go back up and fight the good fight against bindweed trussing the other plants. To the sound of church bells, very soothing.

Watching Antiques Roadshow, boggling at the V.C. & can hear Himself’s delight that the cash value means nothing to the family but the pride. Ordinarily he’d snarl as medals shouldn’t be valued in cash but a V.C. In family hands & to hear the family planning to choose a museum? He’d be cheering them on, & I am here too.

Colleague is visiting her father in Gran Canaria just as earthquake reported - bless her, she replied to an anxious work message as all fine.

Another colleague startled & delighted me by handing me a mystery parcel - a fine healthy kiwi cutting from one she’d grown from a supermarket fruit! I’m eyeing Diego (a lemon seedling a mere 2’ high) for cutting potential. [ampersand, please could you suggest a good robust Kiwi name?]

New starter got off on exactly the right foot volunteering to organise the Christmas Do. Several of us thankful that this fraught challenge taken on by Anyone else & amused that it should all work sweeter as she’s not expected to know anything about individual tastes & preferences.

As I finished a roundup of “we all have to hear even if we ignore it” stuff, a Leeds colleague grinned I’d missed a calling in standup - well, I doubt that, but it seems my “did I say that aloud”s helped get through some really not riveting material.

Got home via pharmacy & receptionist so three appointments sorted in one pass.

Potted up the tiny lime seedling in the hope that it’ll get more light & get leafing before it’s down to a few hours a day of whatever gets past the cloud. Wrestling with the “have an LED light & battery pack” ethics (to date Nothing has been boosted other than plant food, no extra heat or light)… [Crumbled. It’ll get one battery & then we’ll see.] {Two}

Rereading “my family & other animals” & thinking the Durrells could easily have been relatives. It might be Larry who’s supposed to be nifty with the written word but brother recording verbatim irate brother (on snakes in the bathtub) sounds as if that phrase stuck in the minds of every guest & was included in reminiscences for generations… The rather small bathtowel adds to the credibility - this is Corfu, brother is hopping mad, enough guests are sufficiently well known - this is not the environment where English laconic understatement thrives… Even if it has been reset & polished,  the original gem shines through as family.

Shifted credit union money to pay down  mortgage. Not feeling the rush but have had a mortgage for so long, can’t really imagine life without one. (Ridiculous imagination - will happily drag youngest shopping in a dressing gown or reword an accounting headline to imply lurid improprieties but life without owing & it sits bewildered…)

Joanna Lumley & cherry blossom - just wow. I adore cherry blossom (you may have heard) so I was enthralled. 

Awww Youngest trying to cook low-calorie high-protein. (Doing so well then added the hash browns.) Bless him, he doesn’t need to loose most of a leg of kilos. His expression even I explained a hash brown is a root vegetable cunningly disguised was a picture & then when I added ok it’s actually a tuber he looked as if I’d just hit him with a trombone case. Even he knows what a tuba looks like. Me eschewing is tough on the family.

I am to stop using artificial lighting on the (tiny) lime seedling. Mostly as son is embarrassed that from outside my office looks like a “really amateur weed warehouse”. That the leaf shapes are wrong makes no difference - he’s embarrassed, & I am to stop. (How does he know what a weed warehouse looks like?) {"I am no longer accepting questions at this time." I am So Lucky in my amazing sons, who make me laugh so much.}

Scouts! Playing “sleeping lions”, lying in the floor, trying not to move (or laugh) or they’re out. Bizarrely, they loved it, our constant motion younglings briefly still.

Got to love the Americans. A lost fighter jet is described as a “Class A mishap”… there was me thinking only the English do understatement that thoroughly.

Colleague was bemused as I switched tenses discussing family - but the only way I could explain it is they’re so present to me that I struggle to get tenses ‘right’.

And tonight we’re off to mum’s, so watering indoor plants & fretting will they be ok.

Some days we get this caring gig working - one carer is taking mum for a gentle walk in the (current) sunlight then to a coffee shop, while the other is going for a run. They’re both utterly wonderful & while they’re out, Youngest & I can meal plan & load the freezer.

Lady mother is reading & asking for explanations again. This is reasonable. “Podcast” is a ticklish idea & both noun & verb. On “woke” I wanted to run away screaming, but we agreed on short version “politically correct” & long version per Wikipedia & that its definition will vary depending on who you ask!

The card game “beggar my neighbour” requires absolutely no skill, just a willingness to burn time. So mum & I sat up late on a Friday night playing cards & chuckling. (As she floored me, repeatedly.)

Took mum to buy flowers (we arrived too late to come bunches in hand) & on the belt in front were ostrich steaks! Mum’s polite boggling was hilarious. I’m guessing it would taste like big chicken?! Buzzard?!

Last year I worried mum’s electric blanket might not be safe (a “heaty throw” was my boss’ solution to almost every personnel issue) & today I’m told it was not working & a new one is arriving.  All that matters is that mum can snuggle warm & as the temperatures plunge briefly, getting the blanket onto her bed today is today’s Must thing. [One sister lugged it, one carer fitted it, one mum crooning happily. Hurrah!]

Oh first world problems! I’ve an orange octopus (needed to vigorously prevent a key being put somewhere safe /relocated without permission) being delivered to Lancashire & Hendersons relish (galore) being delivered (late) to mum in Oxford so we can’t take the three spare bottles home. That we can divert the weborder, & Will Be Back Anyway, somehow doesn’t wholly draw the sting! [Orange octopus a massive disappointment so order cancelled, return started & a blue dinosaur ordered, already dubbed Mycroft - well, he Will be part of the security...]

Mum’s reading up on Quaker funerals. Out of a desire to make informed choices I think (hope!) & to prevent us daughters squabbling time future (well, it has to be worth a try). We chuckle over her grand-father-in-law’s memorable instruction “Not, Repeat Not, Abide With Me”. The rest was left as an exercise in affection & logistics but I gather his wishes were taken as law.

This house is full of noises. The soft crackle of a log cooling. The high pitched beeps as the washing machine cogitates (it’s far too intelligent). The intermittent clicking & sloshing of the porch (gutter blocked & being used as a birdbath) - I’m definitely not at home, these all took checking!

“I’ll get the kettle on!” Uttered by me at least 7 times, all to avert other ideas. Thank the kindly deities for tea.

Somewhat chivvied towards a salad & my face when the much hyped radish turned out to be a tomato… (Admirable just, raw, not as loved.)

Ye gods the first phone call of the morning as I am headed for the bathroom then yearning for the cup of tea. Sisters are a special pleasure… Who else expects you to listen to their relationship woes on a barely conscious Sunday morning?! Ah well, in another 20 years she’ll be the one of very few who gets certain jokes.

I’d forgotten how flavoursome & how filling one slice of Costco pepperoni pizza is. Still Youngest is happily ingesting a second slice — ah the joy of food you haven’t cooked, don’t have to share or wash up after! (He’s been cooking All Weekend & mum is lovingly stuffed & delighted. Carer has equally approved & appreciated.)

I must be rather more tired than I thought. Getting the Asda rewards thing to work took two tries…. Happily the Christmas savings thing is familiar & those fobs I will be loading at the start of November.

Health Strength Love & Courage to all as have need, & may I suggest a quick test of all HWBs and woollens for lack of moth? As the line drying is getting erratic & you only need Some holes!

Frith

Felt a bit funny today and didn't sleep well, after seeing the unsuitable man yesterday (not on purpose, we were at the same place at the same time). Had to make myself get up today and do things so here are my pleasures for today (Sunday)

1) Good to get up.

2) Pulled wallpaper down where the old strip light had been in the kitchen and filled some of the holes. Of course I had to do this in the gloom and without my trust steamer as the power had to be turned off before I started...

3) Painted around 3 of the windows (the recess??) in rooms where I had finished painting the walls.

4) Went to the tip.

5) Went to Sainsburys cafe for a pot of tea and did some Arabic.

6) Spent just over 2 hours scraping some weird wallpaper glue off the walls of the spare room. 

7) Picked as many apples as I could reach off the cooking apple tree in the garden. I will cook them tomorrow (when I can see what I'm doing in the kitchen!) 

Quite pleased that I got so much done today. I will tidy up now then watch Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. 

mhagster

Hopefully you can see some progress Frith you’ve certainly got loads to do! 

Wind picking up and lashing with rain.

For today…3rd Sunday saying no work 😆 hurrah! 

Dropped off stuff to a friend. ( including plums) Chatted with her wee grandson.
Then went to meet niece at garden centre. Lots to chat about, I enjoyed my cheese scone and then we had a lovely wander round all the Christmas stuff! 

Home and grabbed a doggy and went to visit DD2. Dog and pup did much running around. They’re funny.
I stopped at supermarket on way home and met friend so we walked out together and had a quick chat. Dog could see me. 

Dropped off more plums to someone else, left at porch and texted to say they were there. Had already asked’ do you like plums😆’
Made a very yummy omelette using up bacon lardons and cheese with peas and sprouts (real food PP) 
Took boxes that I’d sorted stuff out back in to the garage. Went through a rucksack of sons. Saw the young lad across the road and said do you like Lego as there was some teeny tiny ‘Lego’ type blocks and some wind up boys toys. So he got them. Progress is being made…slowly.
Had leftover quorn curry for tea. 

Found my journal from just after my husband died. So I’ve been reading that this evening. Still miss him madly. 

Purple_kitten

Lovely photos Paulie

1 Sorted out the broadband renewal.

2 A lovely bacon brie cranberry grilled brekkie.

3 I’ve loaded up my car literally brimming with garden rubbish for the tip tomorrow.

4 Freezer tetris gave us long lost steaks, which cooked up amazingly well.

5 I’ve doubled up on exercise classes as my op date draws near again, I got the pressure down, but its gone back up on it’s own. I've kept to the diet, but it's' getting quite hard now.

LaineyT

For the weekend,

Early start, overnight bags plus most of small dog’s belongings packed into car.

The A1 rendered up its usual mammoth roadworks so we detoured through Yorkshire villages, oohing and aahing as we went.

Finally arrived at youngest DSS and lovely gf’s new home, more oohing and aahing as we were given the grand tour.

Walked to a nearby pub - they have hills! - which did tasty food and was very dog friendly, so friendly in fact that the waitress brought such a big bowl of treats for small dog that Mum had to quickly lift up onto table to prevent overeating, especially as she would rightly expect a chip or two to be smuggled off our plates.

Home again, played board games and answers got sillier as the level on the wine bottle went down!

Slept well despite a fox screaming from nearby woods.

Another walk up those hills, weather mild and not all grim up norf.

The North London derby finished with a draw, much appreciated with two of my loved ones supporting opposite teams.

Better journey home, stopped at Blyth services which brought back many memories of footie trips.

Back at the cottage, gave the modern equivalent of three rings to let young people know we were safely back and then into PJ’s to enjoy Bob & Paul’s fishing adventures.

Highdays

Morning all.

Been AWOL a couple of days with another infection, flu and Covid jabs knocking me sideways a bit. Have woken up feeling fragile but much better today so pleasures will be found.

Lainey - you've been up in our neck of the woods, they could be the very hills that my son marches me up and down!

Some pleasures:

1) Clear blue skies and sunshine today, love these September days.
 
2) Fruit soaking for Christmas cake number two so will get that made today. Little fella came in and weighed out all the fruit for me last night then added the Amaretto and rum which he was less impressed with.

3) Flu and Covid jabs done, just need to sort a private flu jab for spring chicken hubby who isn't old enough yet to qualify. All credit to our surgery which, the practice manager told me, was doing 1200 lots of jabs in one morning. Very efficient syetem, people everywhere, but I was in and out in literally5 minutes - hubby hadn't even found a parking space!

4) Brother-in-law picked up a new car last week and hadn't had it ten minutes when he was involed in a motorway shunt. He was fine and what was left of the car was recovered home with him to be collected later. He then started having stomach pains which they put down to seatbelt whiplash but finally a scan revealed acute appendicitis! He had surgery in the middle of the night Friday and thankfully now is home.

5) Feeling better enough to start thinking about a jobs list for the day. Some sorting and autum planning to be done, won't overdo it but a bit of gentle pottering and getting my ship in order is on the cards for today.

Hope you have a good day whatever you are up to and hope you have the sunshine too.