The Garden Fence - proper Old Style support and chat!

pollyanna_26

MrsCD said:

@-taff we're still doing ok with the mattress topper  a few weeks on. My dad likes his too, so that's a win for us all!

Hope you got your phonecall with OT sorted @MrsFarmer19 and can continue your getting better process. A short bit time outside works wonders, I've found. This time of year, with all the rich colours has a healing effect that nothing else has.

Had my covid jab yesterday and feel rubbish today. DD was the aame a few weeks ago. OK on the Saturday then woke up aching all over, and brain fog started mid morning.  Keep falling asleep too. Hopefully it won't last long.

WAVING TO MONNA!!!

My mattress toppers are sitting in a large Amazon trolley which has been been building up for months planning ahead for winter.

We've had awful problems with Amazon and Hermes over the years. Parcels not delivered or claimed to have been delivered. We used to have a good Hermes team  it was run by a lovely woman who most of the time did my deliveries.

One day I had deliveries from JL , Next and Laura Ashley showing as delivered but they hadn't been. I contacted each in turn then phoned the woman in charge of the team.

She called round and said she had  many problems and would investigate. She went to visit the courier who'd claimed to have delivered my parcels and foung her garage full of undelivered orders.

She contacted the companies who were showing my parcles as delivered and they all sent mine tracked Royal Mail.

She came here shortly afterwards to tell me she was tired chasing couriers and was looking for another job. It was a shame as she was lovely.

Hermes were taken over here by an awful woman already in charge of Amazon who would spend all her time lying that deliveries had been sent. it wasn't just me everyone in the area wasn't getting their orders and there were a lot of people arguing with her. She wasn't delivering just complaining. Her priority seemed to be making a lovely supper for her friends and we were a nuisance/

I reported her to Amazon as did many others.

never see a courier here nowadays.

I did look at our local coop as Amazon claim they have a pick up point there. Not according to the  Coop and I've asked whenever I've been in.

Coop use Uber and Deliveroo to deliver from their store but they have very bad feedback I 've never shopped there without people complaining about their delive

Kev my postman will push small things through the letterbox but other than that I never see a Royal Mail van or DHL who used . to be very good.

It's like the land that time forgot.

Considering I'm needle phobic I haven't reacted to any of the jabs. Youngest is like a pin cushion well used to needles but she reacted to a couple.

Hope the  brain fog clears soon. If you feel like sleeping give in and sleep your body is telling you to rest. It's familiar to both youngest and myself.

I think she took paracetamol for the aches rather than the stronger meds and that helped.

I'm another still hoping Monna is ok but I think when the time is right she'll pop in again. She's been through a lot both physically and emotionally and I think it's a lot for somone much younger to cope with.

I'm still trying to come to terms with the loss of a dear friend younger  than me from Covid The winter before last. we moved here at the same time but with lockdowns etc everyone was taking care and obeying the rules. and it was only when I asked  about her last November my neighbour over the road told me she'd passed away a year earlier.

 She was ECV but still working not answeing  the phone I didn;t want to put her at risk as she;d had heart problems  but her job was her life.

I hope you feel better soon.

pollyx

MrsCD

Thanks, polly. I'm feeling much better today after a good sleep and a couple of paracetamol. We've been out this morning to top up with petrol and a walk around the shops for nothing in particular! I got a pack of gold, silver and bronze sharpies for writing gift cards etc. I managed quite well but was ready for a cuppa afterwards. I worked out that I haven't had a full day in the house since 5th October. That's probably got something to do with how I feel. I need to get the house cleaned for Christmas and I need to start now to give myself a chance to be done by 1st December. Then I can enjoy some down time and watch some films.

Catsacor

Christmas is 7 weeks away .... i remember saying it's 11 weeks away and thinking it's ages to go, now it's galloping up on us at top speed 😲

grandmanerd

Sometime in September is the 100 days mark, which is when I used to start serious planning and list making (mum would buy big lego sets half price in the August sales and keep them for me). I'm sort of organised - token presents for my grown up sons and their partners, lots for my baby grand-daughter (need to set a budget for myself next year). DS3 and Beloved will be getting lots of house warming stuff when they leave (hopefully early next year). I owe DS3 a 'trousseau' load of stuff from about 5 or 6 Christmases ago - I had no money so I wrote an IOU of all the things I wanted to buy him.  And a kettle because DS2 needed one and I gave him DS3's (still in it's box).

I'm going to start wrapping things soon as I'm hoping to meet DS1 and DS2 and their partners this month. DS2 sent me a photo yesterday and we had an exchange of messages. I've suggested meeting up with him, gf and grand-daughter at my local garden centre. It's on the far side of a roundabout at the top edge of town but everything on that side of the East Lancs is Cheshire. My house isn't fit for visitors (it isn't fit for me really, improving but still overcrowded and still have 8 large boxes of LPs hanging around - DS3's share of sorting out their inheritance). 

The garden Centre is fairly near to me, has a range of eating options (all very expensive and it's my turn to pay), does wonderful Christmas displays as well as other entertainments, both inside and out. My mum and her partner used to take the boys there quite often - it has playgrounds and lots to  look at so I've suggested it as a new Christmas tradition. DS2 and family are doing a big family Christmas in Northern Ireland - gf's sister who also had a baby in the summer is coming from Australia to be there. I'd already told DS2 it was okay if they wanted to spend baby's first Christmas with gf's family (her dad lives down south and her grandma's in Scotland) as it's easier to travel whilst the baby's so young. In a couple of years it'll be "we're staying home" and either family visit them or they do a 'tour' in spare weekends before the big day.

I've been whittling away at my own possessions as well as taking a second pass at some of mum's things and there are a few bags that never got unpacked. I checked with one of the larger cs and they have room for Christmas trees so I'm hoping to get mum's 2 trees and decorations out of her spare room cupboard this week (will also put the bins out as they need to be emptied before the bungalow sale goes through). The only things that need to come back here are in mum's 6' x 4' shed.

I've been struck down by winter bugs for the past 4 weeks but feeling much brighter for the last few days. I've been working on under the stairs - all neat rows of organised tins and dry goods now and nothing on the floor. My tools and diy and garden stuff should live under there but there was so much underfoot that I couldn't get in there. All sorted now and yesterday I installed a set of fairy lights. Only 3 of the 12 kitchen bulbs are working and they're on their last legs so it's gloomy by late afternoon and perilous after 6 pm. the lights make such a difference, highlighting the good bits and hiding the imperfections.

I need a whole new kitchen adapted to suit my needs for the next 20 odd years (current kitchen is 18 years old, the previous one was installed a few days before DS2 was born and did 17 long hard years of service) starting with better lighting (and with bulbs I can change without going up a ladder - I could manage a couple of steps). However Mr and Mrs Builder agree it will be much easier to sort after DS3, Beloved and half the furnishings leave. Mr and Mrs Builder are coming to do my new gate and fence and repair the back wall (next door's has fallen down and the bit of mine that joins their's is part down - the old coal hole frame needs to come out because it's been eaten by whatever ate through my fence and posts). 

MrsCD

That garden centre sounds just the ticket to help perk you up  @grandmanerd
I'm glad you're feeling a bit better today. As my grandma used to say, 'Make hay while the sun shines.' It all adds up.
I told you a while ago about my front door curtain which I lengthened by hanging from ribbons.
Here's the photo....sorry it's a bit fuzzy!

Today I hung a second pair of curtains on the back of the bedroom curtains. We haven't put the heating on in there yet, so we'll see if it makes a difference. 

MrsFarmer19

Morning all!

Thanks for all your supportive words, I'm feeling good this morning!  (I am aware that this won't last all day ha!)  So I've hung some washing out for a couple of hours before the predicted high winds and rain arrive at lunch time, yellow weather warning!  I've been out with the dog, watched a fox in the field for a good ten minutes before it spotted us and wandered off.  The dog needs to be bathed every other day at the moment with medicated shampoo, the vet says she has MRSP - like a version of MRSA in humans.  She's developed resistance to the antibiotics she was on, which we expected so now we're doing topical treatments instead.  Hopefully this will work!
Having a coffee now, then going to bake I think.

Have a good day everybody!

Jxx

MrsCD

Wow you have been busy! I was so tired after a busy day yesterday I slept in this morning. I've cleaned the bathroom and the towels will hopefully go out on the line once they finish washing.
Hope the creams etc work for your dog. I don't know if there any herbal creams that would help. I'm not up on doggie treatments.
It must have been lovely to see the fox. We occasionally see a bit of wilder wildlife around here, but mostly we enjoy watching the Red kites.
Hope your good day lasts all day, @MrsFarmer19

monnagran

-taff, just letting you know that I'm still around.  In fact rounder than ever, but nothing that a stringent diet wouldn't take care of.  As if!

Rarely make it to MSE these days.  Still waiting for the slow, peaceful, quiet old age that I've been so looking forward to, to kick in.

I really, really thought that once you were in your eighties everyone hung on your words of wisdom, continually told each othe how wonderful you were for your age, your family cossetted you and waited on you hand and foot and you spent your days sitting by a glowing fire and knitting while your adoring public brought you cups of tea in bone china cups and saucers.

I have to break it to you that this does NOT happen.

Perhaps in your nineties?

grandmanerd

Monna when I was young and buying this house, my dream life was to spend time reading, sewing and crafting (the small bedroom was to be my study/ sewing/ craft room. I would waft around in big straw hats, floating scarves, layers of cotton clothes and wearing gloves tending my garden (I had my grandma's chamois leather and cotton crocheted ones amongst others). 

RL hit me, the study/ sewing room became a nursery, one child became 3. DS3 was a planned home birth, I can still show you the spot in the bathroom where he landed and I'm still trying to ease him out of the nest at the tender age of 32. I'm nearly there, finally fulfilling my dream of living alone but I'll always look more like a bag lady than the elegant figure I imagined and I'll always discard the gloves at some point and end up grubbing in the soil with my bare hands. I'm only 64 but some days I feel older than time but there are always ways to love life and find joy in the simple things.

MollyWindley

Monnagran ~ not to dissapoint you too much but my mother is 93, and she is deeply dissapointed in her family's lack of cossetting   I get a few brownie points for regularly turning up, but I don't praise her enough and I haven't inherited her good looks or amazing charm either ...........
Grandmanerd ~ we had similar dreams and are of a similar age, I was going to waft round my garden in beautiful linen clothes doing some gentle dead heading and planning my latest sewing project......however all of my three sons turned out to have either autism or ADHD, and so two of them still live with us, my husband had to take early ill health retirement and my erstwhile cosy terrace is damp and overcrowded, I do though have quite a nice garden, I just don't get to do an awful lot of wafting!!!!!

I am glad to have found you all again, I regularly seem to lose this forum and they refind it, kind of like the room of requirement in Harry Potter it seems to turn up when I need some inspiration