General Chat

The great Scottish summer, indeed!

At our local annual agricultural show, there's always a tractor on standby at the end, to pull cars out of the muddy parking area of the field.
I can remember only a handful of occasions when the field was dry enough for that not to be necessary.

And everyone always wears wellies at it. Well, locals do - unsuspecting visitors might not, but quickly realise their mistake!

:-D :-D :-D ArgyllGran...U & I next to each other but probably muddy by then. lol It has stayed dry so far but clouds are grey and heavy looking and probably why my head is sore...low pressure!

There are a few county shows coming up and I'm sure they will be washouts sadly, never fails and one year i did have wellies on as it was so muddy and a pushchair which kept getting stuck, complete nightmare.

Oh the great Scottish summer!

"Mud August" might be right, Florence - in your post at 13:23.

It's cold, wet, and windy here again today, and the garden is soggy.

Ginnie, I forgot to say, oh my your garden next door sounds like a jungle!! Hope they find someone soon to move in and get it sorted out as sounds awful!

Afternoon all
It's a better day but there is still a stiff breeze and its bashing my plants! Daughter helped me move some large pots around and now the Escalonias are either side of a huge pot which gives some shelter The watering takes some time but I dont mind as it means im out in the fresh air.

Just Ginnie, poor you, what is wrong with your legs?It's awful when they dont work properly isn't it. My left leg is double the size of my right leg and can hardly bend it.

AnnG, sleeping at night can be awful as my legs wriggle about a
lot and that wakes me. I only manage 3-4 hours at best anyway. Pray the day I can sleep from midnight til 6am, that would be bliss.

When my polytunnel is built, the company are putting in 8 raised bed 1m square for me. 4 on each side so that will make it easier for me to plant etc. Should be mud August so not too long now.

Was watching an old episode of Endeavour last night that cant remember seeing and Morse gets arrested wrongly for shooting the ACC. It ends with him in a prison cell! Unthinkable that really.

Well coffee time now and then I may strip my bed as the wind is good for drying today.

Florence in the hebrides

Afternoon all,

Ann, I hurt my knee many years ago and it never got a 100% better. If I knelt down it would sometimes lock and was very painful for a while. Then I dislocated the same knee after a fall and haven't be able to bend it properly since. I also have arthritis in my toes and ankles as well as other places. Sounds like I'm a right old crock :-D :-D :-D .
My mother and aunt both had severe arthritis and some of my cousins as well but my fathers side didn't but 4 of his 5 brothers all died from mining related lung problems in their early 60s, and his youngest brother was killed in a mining accident aged 14 and my dad (the eldest) left the mines and joined the army. He was a POW in the war and lived till he was 81.

Florence are you still having your polytunnel ?


Well hope everyone has had some good weather recently.

Ginnie

good morning all, 14 degrees so cooler here and not as sticky as yesterday. cooler overnight as well which helps, still get up for the loo but seemed to drop back to sleep quite easily.
Ginny I have one raised bed and it does make a difference, as do the pots on gravel now I had a lot of the garden gravelled. Still quite a lot of weeding needing doing though and I find the weeds that grow between slabs and bricks hard to get out.
I don't remember if you have said what is wrong with your legs. I have pains in my left leg that are worse at night, haven't been to the doctor with the pains as I thought at first I had strained something when walking on holiday. I still think that is probably the answer but it does deter me from walking too far now.

Hello all,

We have had a few lovely days here but today is cloudy and cooler but dry . Been out in the garden weeding and dead heading and doing a general tidy up. The veg patch is doing ok so quite pleased with that. I do like having the raised beds as they mean I can go out and do some gardening instead of just watching OH do it .

I finally got my blood test results and happy to say all is ok. Just wish I could walk better but can't do much about that.

Still no new neighbours next door and the gardens haven't been touched for months now . the weeds in the front are about 3ft high in some places that and the litter is not a good look. The back is even worse but at least the back fence is high.

Oh well take care all

Ginnie

lol names, but it was cold and chilly here yesterday so needed the soup to warm us up. We only had about 14 degrees, rain and very windy!

Soup! Yesterday!
That would have been a complete no no unless it was a chilled soup - and I don't like those.

Afternoon everyone.

But where is everyone? Have you all gone on holiday as its deserted on here?

Anyway, I was outside moving plants around as yesterday i was out in town for the day and went to the garden centre and of course I bought 2 ceramic pots in sea green and 2 Escalonia plants to fill them. They are outside but it is still breezy and the wind is blowing them about.

If the weather improves, i shall have to go and rearrange again i think as not happy with where they are for now.

I had lovely lunch out with my pal and we had leek & potato soup with lovely chunky brown bread, was delicious. Have a few birthdays coming up so i bought bits & pieces for those so all organised now.

Lazy day today indoors as weather keeps changing and right now its raining again.

Hope everyone else is ok

Florence in the hebrides

Evening all
Very quiet on here today so hope everyone well and ok.

After 2 curt tel calls to my GP surgery, i finally got a call midday from a district nurse to say, could she come at 2pm to see me.

Well she did arrive on time and measured all my legs, ankles, etc and then said, the Calfwrap for both legs would be £155 each leg plus the stockings and she would need to report back her findings to my GP and they make a decision as to whether they think I fulfil the criteria!!

They do not keep these things in stock and would have to be specially ordered and I'm guessing it comes out of a budget which the practice decide of they can afford it.

So whether I get what I need comes down to money! if they refuse, I will either have to pay myself for the items or go without wearing any shoes forever and risk my skin splitting open etc. What an awful thought

So whilst i was pleased that the nurse came, when she explained about whether I would actually get what I need, I felt really annoyed..

I have paid NI and tax for 45 years and here i am reduced to a £ :-(

Afternoon everyone.

The sky is dark here and think it's going to downpour very soon!

Thankfully Tesco came and nothing missing, all away now in the cupboards, fridge etc.
My Nescafe was bargain of the day as normally £7 for a 300g jar but was on offer at £5.50 so got 2 jars. That will keep me going for some time.

No plans for the rest of the day yet !

Hope all is well with everyone looking in

Florence in the hebrides

We will need a holiday Florence, so we are thinking of going in. September. Before Covid we used to take three foreign holidays every year, but we haven’t been since then.
.
We are going away with the family on Saturday night. Esme is eleven on Friday, she is having a party on Saturday afternoon, just at home with a bouncy castle in the garden. There aren’t many children in her class of course and unfortunately most of them can’t come, but she will still enjoy it. Her father’s birthday is on Sunday, so after the party, we are all going to Whitby, although on Saturday n,ight we are staying in a Premier Inn in Scarborough because everything in Whitby was so expensive. On Sunday morning we are going to a family performance of Dracula in Whitby Abbey, then we will spend the rest of the day in the town. He hasn’t really been to Whitby, although we have been dozens of times over the years

Morning all
Its a bit misty but the sun is trying to peek through and when i went outside I can feel spits of rain and I pit out some washing but it can stay there as it may clear up.

I saw that down south have horrendous rain and thunder storms and they can stay down south ty as I hate the storms.

I'm home alone as daughter awy for a family big birthday celebration somewhere until Friday so it's peaceful butt tidy here .

i have a lot of paperwork to sort and a few other jobs on my to do list so plenty to keep me busy.
Yesterday it turned out fine later on so i spent ages deheading all my flower pots, weeding and picking up all the dahlia petals the wind had blown everywhere so a good job done.

Glad you are seeing daylight Linda and I'm sure you hubby will be so glad once it['s all done. You will need a holiday then to recharge the batteries!

Hope all is well with everyone else looking in today.

Florence in the hebrides

I hope that your move is progressing well Sylvia. How long will it be before you move into your new apartment? You must have an awful lot of stuff to get rid of. I thought that I was ruthless before we moved here, but we still managed to bring far too much.

We knew before we moved in that there was a large amount of work to do, but of course you don’t appreciate how hard it will actually be. We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel though. The joiner turned up yesterday and put the new doors on between the lounge and dining room, they are a great improvement. OH needs to
paint them, but as they are already primed white, they look OK for the time being.

The plumber came and put the towel radiator on the wall in the en-suite, so they have finished. There is still a lot for OH to do in there. We bought a new heated mirror to replace an old one, so he has that to put up. All the skirting boards have to go back on and the ceiling is to mend and the walls painted. Poor thing is very tired, but he only has one small bedroom to decorate after this. He is spending the morning going backwards and forwards to the tip with all the packaging we have accumulated, there will be three car loads full.

This is the first day for ages that we haven’t had workmen in the house, which is nice, It would be nicer though if the kitchen fitter turned up to finish the job. It is two and a half weeks now since we last saw him, so I am starting to push to get it done.

It is warm this morning, but showery, it looks bad down south, so I hope everyone is fine,

I think it was July 2007 we had bad flooding in the Gloucester area. Flood didn't affect us but it hit the Electricity sub station and 48,000 were without electricity for 19 hours And it hit Severn Trent and 35,000 of us were without water for 18 days. Council set up depots to collect water and they also brought900 bowsers round for (I think I remember this correctly) water that had to be boiled.

I haven't actually remembered the figures I had to look it up. Hard to believe now, lots of money was put into protecting the sub station (which is on the edge of the floos plain and also Severn Trent at Mythe Bridge near Tewkesbury. Not had a problem since.

It is horrible being without water. Recently my son was without water for days. He has no car so couldn’t get to the pick up points. Said he didn’t need us as he was coping. Eventually took him several bottle f water butt water so he could use it in the loo. He didn’t get as much refund as expected as his area was supposed to have come back on, but the pressure was not big enough to get it up to the higher flats. He should have complained every day!

When we lived in provided accommodation the in-house works staff would turn off the waiter and go off for lunch - leaving several mums unable to cook for their tots. When one building was being converted the company turned off the big supply on a Friday - so I went and turned it back on. Don’t think there was a flood in there ;-)

Morning everyone looking in today.
My grass cutters turned up but decided as the grass hasn't grown in 2 weeks, it didn't need cutting! That saved me a few pounds anyway.

Its a another grey day but very still and just perfect for midges grrr.

Sylvia, my goodness such an upheaval for you after 52 years but you are lucky as we don't have that service in Scotland. At least for now hubby is in a safe place and being looked after but you have to try and look after yourself. You will be tired out as moving is so stressful and drains you of all energy. So glad you have your niece to assist you

ArgyllGran, isnt it just the worse without water and not being able to shower etc. We were without water once for 3 days!!! They left a truck with bottles outside neighbours house but it took 8 bottles just to flush the loo! The washing was piled up as there were 4 of us then. Boiling a kettle to wash in and wash dishes was a nightmare. So glad you have it back on now.

Sorry to hear about your brother too but glad he can still go walking with someone. Think its really important to let them continue their normal schedules as much as possible as change would really upset someone. Such a horrid disease to have.

Its bin day today and strangely no gale blowing lol That's a first!

Shall look in later as plenty to do now.

Florence in the hebrides

I've had a look at the "Out of Chaos" website. What a wonderful service, Sylvia!
There really isn't anything so comprehensive in the UK - at least as far as I can see from a Google search.
A definite gap in the market!

Dementia is a horrible thing. My brother was diagnosed about a year ago, and it's so sad to see his gradual decline, in spite of medication to help slow it down.
He still recognises people in person, but not in photos. He's always been a keen walker and hill-climber, and still goes walking daily - but now with a friend, so that he doesn't get lost. He no longer knows how to operate his phone or computer. And so on.

Yesterday our village was without water from about 3.30am (so I'm told) until 10pm, because of a burst main.
You don't realise how often you turn on a tap until you can't.
I've really appreciated my shower this morning, not having been able to have one yesterday.