General Chat

I get regular mailings of small catalogues from Cotton Traders. Some of their stuff is very good but beware that the photographer is a genius ;-)

I shop in store not on line but I like Edinburgh wool for tops and Tee shirts. I have also had a couple of nice things from Bon Marche, also bought in store not on line. Daughter and son in law shop in Cotton traders ans she is fussy. There is also Klass, but that is a bit more expensive and M&co, I used to shop with them when they were in the high Street.

I've also bought a fair bit from Cotton Traders though I don't think the quality is as good as it was a few years ago and you have to watch the sizing a bit, but there is no problem with returning goods. Several friends use Bon Marche, though I don't have any personal experience of them. What about Edinburgh Woolen Mills? I don't know whether they have the sort of clothes you are looking for but I know they have free UK returns.

Florence, I buy a lot of stuff from Cotton Traders. They are based in UK, the clothes are good quality and they have things in women's sizes as well as unisex.

They include a return label in every parcel and changing things that don't fit is no trouble.

I have just been looking at the labels and my trousers are made in Malaysia and my sweatshirt is made in China, but all stuff is posted in Britain.

My very fussy DIL buys a lot of stuff in Next, but I don't like their clothes.

Good luck.

The sun has got his hat on, hip hip hip hip hurray :-) :-) :-)

What a difference a day makes. Just lovely to wake up and open the curtains and feel the warmth. Really brightens you day and lifts your spirits.

I shall def be getting outside in a bit for some overdue fresh air and look at all the plants. From my window, they don't seem to have grown very much. The bedding plants haven't flowered much either

I shall have to go and have a word or two with them lol

Well my new clothes arrived and sadly, they are all going back and I have to pay grrr. I did not realise that Evans is now Curvedreams and is based in China. When I placed the order, I never saw any info that it was from abroad.

There are other rubbish clothes companies like Shein & Temu and this company smacks of them. The quality of the clothes is awful. Cheap shiny rubbish and ill fitting.

So back to the drawing board. I really need some new things before the end of the month.

Can anyone recommend an online UK based site other than M & S, Monsoon, River Island. I looked at JD Williams but nothing there I liked either .

I would like a matching top with trousers in good quality cotton/linen. If I could find 3 or 4 trouser suits and some other summer tops, that would be good.

Back in the day, I loved clothes from Hammells but they have long gone or others like it.

Hope everyone is well today and having some sunshine

Florence in the hebrides

Just read back on recent posts.

Sylvia, You are not alone.
If I look in at the hours you mention, quite often I get an error message, whereas it is usually trouble-free at any other time.
Many a time I have reposted something, because an error page has shown, only to have to go back and delete the later posting, because eventually the 1st posting had got past the error and had in fact appeared :-S

Its sooo cold today, the heating is going on now!!

Your hoover must be in the same place as my first lot of hedging Florence. That never turned up, so goodness knows where it went.
It is absolutely freezing here. I just went to Aldi and there is a horrendous black cloud overhead. Last night we had some huge hailstones.

We have finished emptying the kitchen , OH has taken all the tiles and skirting boards off. We have moved the fridge freezer into the dining room along with the microwave, kettle, toaster and just enough cutlery and crockery to keep us going.

Despite decluttering when we moved, I still have far too much, so I am going to really prune things before they go back in the new kitchen.

We are lucky Sylvia that our prescriptions are free, but we pay for them through taxes of course

Afternoon everyone looking in

Well it has calmed down here and for now is dry....say no more. Was bin day and they are still standing lol

Im very late today getting organised as only just showered and dried hair and not had any tabs yet! I guess i will be chasing my tail for the rest of the day.
I received my clothes parcel today but with 4 items out of stock so very disappointed with that and have asked for a refund.

Im not having any luck at all ordering any new clothes or anything else just now.

My new hoover never arrived and after ages with a customer service chappie on the PC, they agreed to send another one at no extra cost :-S
When I asked where was the original, they simply didnt know what had happened to it. So now another wait & see.

This is where you miss all the big dept stores where you could buy furniture, beds, cookers etc and get it there and then or they would deliver within a day or 2.

Online shopping works sometimes for small items like my craft things but appliances etc, there always seems to be a problem and.....trying to speak to someone in customer services is very time consuming.

They said my vacuum cleaner will be here within 24-72 hours :-D :-D :-D we shall see. I said I do live on an island and they said no problem .

Oh well better try and do some housework as the kitchen looks like a bombsite with clutter everywhere and mostly not mine!

Florence in the hebrides

I have no idea why I have such problems, but it is almost always at about this time .......... 7-8 pm here, which is about 3-4 am UK time, so not busy. I'm afraid I don't change browsers when it happens, I just shrug my shoulders, think "GR again!" and move on to another site for the rest of the couple of hours I'm on the internet in the evening.

It was another lovely day today, after much cloud this morning, and it was also a little cooler, so was nice. For some reason, tomorrow is forecast to have a much lower temperature ...... 10C, then back up t almost 20C for the rest of the week.

I have 2 appointments this week .......... physio on Wednesday, and then a visit to the doctor on Friday to get a new prescription for almost my medications. We tried for years to get them to expire at the same time, but never managed it until this past year. The prescription is usually good for 1 year, so I get refills every 3 months from the pharmacist ........ but it does make it expensive when I need to do them all at the same time instead of spreading the cost!

Well, I googled it and you can get rugs with a carrot pattern, why would anyone want that? :-S

You are very sensible moving somewhere with more facilities Vera. I used to do community driving, picking up people to take them to appointments. There were so many elderly people in the lovely villages who were totally stuck because they couldn’t drive anymore. With no bus service, they were totally reliant on friends or family to take them out, but of course as we get older, so do our friends

Carrots:-D :-D :-D :-D

Sharp eyes vera, I missed that. I can't unsee that picture now!

Oops, that should be carrots of course, although carpets with a carrot pattern would be a bit different :-D

Afternoon all
Another dismal day re the weather so not worth mentioning grr.

Been busy ironing and then quite a bit of paperwork, tel calls and emails to catch up on but all sorted now.

in my back garden last week, we noticed some purple plants randomly peeping through the grass. Thinking they were thistles, I asked daughter to dig them out with the roots as they spread something awful. However on closer inspection, it was not a thistle so I planted the 2 plants in a pot and they have grown into a lovely flower. Purple with pointy leaves.

I searched google images and the nearest flower I could match it with is a Stachys Hummelo/Hummelo Betony . It's not a weed after all but seems to be a wild flower and no idea how it just started growing in the middle of my lawn lol.

Anyway for now, its staying in the flower pot and looks very pretty. :-D

Gosh Linda, your house will look amazing when it's finished. Scotland has a programme "home of the year." I'm sure you would qualify for that with all your renovations.

Sylvia, good to see you posting. I would like some heat but nothing over 23 degrees. Strange you have problems getting on. Does it give you an error message or is it maybe the heat affecting the internet where you are in general?

Do you know if anyone else in your area is having problems as well maybe?

Last night I made me cauliflower cheesy bake and there's some left over so looking forward to that for my tea later.

Hope everyone else looking in is having a good day,.
Florence in the hebrides

Your house will be beautiful when it is finished Linda and it will be worth all the upheaval. We spent years getting our last house just how we wanted it and then decided that, as we were getting older and we were in a tiny hamlet with no facilities, we would have to move to somewhere more suitable. All the work we had done to the house and huge garden meant that we sold the house in 2 months instead of the more usual 2 years for that area, so it was worth it.

Btw, you have given me a laugh on a miserable wet, gloomy day. I am now imagining your stairs, landing and bedrooms covered in replacement carrots :-D

It seems that nothing is straightforward Linda doesn't it?. when it is all finished I will look out for it in the House beautiful magazine. (Is that still published?) :-D

The biggest jobs left are replacing the double doors between the lounge and dining room with glazed ones, they are being done next Wednesday. Followed by a total refit of the en-suite, that is booked in for the second week in July, because the plumber is busy. The loft needs more insulation and we need to replace all the carrots on tbe stairs, landing and bedrooms. Once that is done, al, the major work will be complete inside and hopefully that will see us out :-D

The gardens need a lot of attention, but they will have to wait until we are finished inside.

Grr, the new doors just arrived, but they don’t look to be the same size, they look small. They come with a frame which we weren’t expecting. We bought the ones the joiner told us to, but I don’t think he realised they had a frame. If they have to go back, we will have to pay a fortune to do that. I have asked the joiner to come and look to see if he can make them fit :-(

Will that be the last of it after the kitchen is finished Linda? Or is there still more work to do. Anyone buying this house would have the same problem as it is stuck a bit in the 70s, although we did have a new kitchen after we moved in, but that is 1994 so even that is out dated. We did have a new bathroom about 8-10 years ago so that is still quite modern. We do still have the hated aertex ceilings too, although they are not heavily patterned, just stippled and I don't dislike them.

Have you tried using a different browser Sylvia, that works for me.

I was up early this morning as I had to go and look after Esme for a short time. My daughter had to drive Eve to school and normally her father would be there, but he had been away for the weekend. He had a hire car and they wanted it back before eight, so I had to step in to look after Esme while he took the car back.

We have started packing up the kitchen as they are coming in Wednesday to rip it bout and put the new one in. The cabinets came on Friday and are all in the garage. They still have all the new appliances in their lockup. Packing everything is a real chore, so soon after we moved in. Luckily one of the bedrooms only has a wardrobe in it, so there is plenty of room for the kitchen stuff. It may take them over a week to do it. We have moved the furniture round in the dining room because we will have to put the fridge freezer in there until the new ones are installed in the kitchen.

It is a real chore , but I am really looking forward to having the new units and a full height fridge and sep full height freezer in the kitchen. It has been a real nuisance only having the top part if the fridge freezer for the fridge. I cook everything from scratch,so have a lot of fresh food when I go shopping, trying to fit it all in the fridge has been problematic