General Chat

such a stressful business selling property Linda. Hope it still all works out for you.

Bother, bother, bother. I just had a call from our estate agents and our chain has fallen through. Our buyers have lost their buyer at the very last minute, they were supposed to be moving out this week. Our estate agent said they have two people who have contacted them in the last couple of weeks asking to see the house if the sale should fall through, so they are going to put the house straight back on the market and contact them. If we can get another suitable offer quickly, hopefully we can still get the house we want as they were going to move in with a son, while they found somewhere, If we do lose the house, there just hasn’t been anywhere else on the market within our price range, so we will have to wait until the spring and see what happens then

I just looked out of the window and it has started to snow. OH has just left for his walk with the Ramblers, rather him than me. I will be staying in the warm today.

Yesterday afternoon we packed everything which was in the cupboards in the dining room. That was a fiddly job because it was crockery and glasses etc. Everything had to be wrapped in bubble wrap, but it is done now. I had ordered a very large roll of bubble wrap and probably used over half of it, so I have ordered another couple. I don’t think it will all get used, but I would rather have too much than run out

I have been trying to get the conveyancer to give us a time scale , but she just says that she is waiting for the last of the replies from the solicitor for the new house. We still have no idea if we will be moving before Xmas, or after.

Hi to all.
Bitter today, quite calm but hardly had any daylight all day, woke to find it hailstoning & heavy enough to lie.
Too cold & dull for me to go outside so I have been quite lazy & spent most of the day doing my crosstitching.

You are right Linda (in Herriot country) not quite a forest but certainly a large wood, the house sits in the middle of the surrounding trees.
Most of the trees we planted ourselves, & I really never thought WE would be taken some of them down, I was told that trees don't /won't grow in this part of Aberdeenshire but we have had no problems in growing them, & manys the time I find seedlings growing in the gravelled areas or in planters, lol.

Shopping day tomorrow & I am hoping the weather will be ok, also need to have some reasonable weather on Friday as our eldest is coming over to finish off a couple of outside jobs, he has to come down from Forres so a long drve.
I will only fret if the weather turns nasty whilst he's here.

Joan.

That is a shame Linda, I think it is fairly common for jobs to turn out to be commission based sale jobs, not what they make them out to be.

It is freezing here today, I went into town and there was a car abscovered in snow. It must have driven down from the moors.

We have decided to bite the bullet and start packing. To make room we need to dispose of some furniture. We don’t need the double bed from a spare bedroom, so I posted that for free this morning . I was inundated with people wanting it, so it has already gone.
We have a shop in the market place run by the local Community Care group, it sells furniture which people donate to them. We have given them lots of things in the past. I went in to arrange for them to collect our dining room furniture. We have an extending table with six chairs a display cabinet and a corner cabinet. I looked on EBay and it is selling for quite a bit, but we just want it to go quickly. The community store can’t collect until December 14th, so I booked it in for then. When I came home advertised it on the free sites and someone wants it and is supposed to be collecting in the next couple of days. I will leave the advert up and the booking with the community store until I am sure it has gone.

My grandson has just graduated and went after a job in media went through all the interviews got the the job the family were over the moon he went for the iindoctrination yesterday and found out that it was only sells not what they were advertising so disappointing for him, but am still going to take him out for lunch on Friday like I promised can’t let him down . When his brother passed his 11 plus’s and a exam to get into this grammer school I took him out as well very proud of both of them <3

Oh dear Florence, just what you don’t want. Stay warm and I hope you feel better soon.

You sound like you are clearing a forest Joan. OH did a bit of gardening this afternoon, but soon came in as it is absolutely freezing.

This morning I cleaned the oven, OH even took the door off. It is sparkling now, so I will have to try and keep it that way.

We got all the contracts for the purchase of our new house today. We had to sign everything and have them witnessed. OH got them straight back in the post, so hopefully things can start moving. I have asked the conveyancer if she has any idea of the timescale yet, but she hasn’t replied yet.

My neighbour said that she had gone into the cemetery to have a look at yesterday’s burial. Three flat back trucks full of flowers followed the hearse in. She said that the flowers were amazing, in the form of cars and computers etc. some of them were on easels. There were so many that they were covering all of the graves surrounding the new plot. I will have to go and look tomorrow .

Good morning all.

Sorry to hear you have a cough Florence, coughs can be soo debilitating & annoying, take care.

A nice sunny day here now after some heavy rain earlier.
I have managed to clear a large pile of branches this morning but they were very wet & therefore very cold to handle & I have had to come in to warm the hands.

I am hoping to shift at least one more bundle of the same but I can't see me getting rid of ALL the bundles today, just a bit too nippy for my liking.

Linda, what a terrible situation re the travellers, things could have become even more serious if any of the emergency services had been required !

Joan.

Good morning all.

Its a lovely sunny but chilly winter's day. So nice to see the sun shining.

I'm not feeling too good as daughter had a terrible cough last 10 days and yesterday evening, I started coughing. Its a dry cough though so feels like sand in my throat.

Today, I'm hot and feel awful so shall not be doing anything to strenuous, I don't have the energy. Just will be drinking plenty and sucking a boiled sweet as that seems to help.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Florence in the hebrides

good job they were only there a short time Linda. and a good job it is not a frequent occurrence. difficult if it happens when selling your house if somebody comes to view. And presumably no sign of the police booking them for parking.

Very dull and dark here at the moment 0820, not raining but looks as though it will soon. 5 degrees so not very warm, I think autumn has passed and it is now winter.

Brr, it is so cold here.

I couldn’t believe it this afternoon when my next door neighbour texted to ask if I had seen all the cars outside. I hadn’t as we can’t see the road from the lounge window because we have a tall Beech hedge. I went upstairs and looked out of the window and realised that there was a huge gypsy funeral taking place. The church is a couple of hundred yards to the left and the cemetery gate is about twenty yards to the right. The road has double yellow lines, but they had taken no notice at all. The whole road had cars parked down both sides, right across all the drives. We have a large grassed area outside and that was covered in cars and vans as well. I went out to have a look as I can’t see past our garages and was absolutely astounded to find a huge Range Rover with personalised number plates actually parked on my drive. Another car was parked on next doors drive as well. Good job neither of us wanted to get our cars out. The neighbour one down has a long drive and had driven her car down to go out only to find someone had parked on her drive as well, so she couldn’t get out . Another neighbour came back from work and she couldn’t get in because someone was parked right across her drive.
They were there for about half an hour before they went off leaving the grass areas really churned up. They will now all be in the pubs in the town, getting drunk and fighting which is normal for a huge funeral like this.
For whatever reason our church is a favourite for gypsy christenings. It is so funny when you see all the women going in, they wear the skimpiest outfits, more suitable for soliciting on street corners :-0

Afternoon everyone.
Gosh it's a very chilly one and a NE wind and of course it was bin day lol never fails.

People up here take their tree down on Boxing day as they say, xmas is just one day!!!

I like having the tree and decs up for as long as possible as it brightens up the house.

We always take them down though on 6th January.

Given the problems we had with things going missing last 2 years, daughter has posted some parcels today before it gets to the silly season. That way everything will arrive on time and hopefully not get lost amongst the millions!

My dad is the worst. he posts the cards on 20 Dec and then blames Royal mail when they don't arrive here before xmas, so annoying of him as if I did that to him, there would be an uproar!

Anyway, each to their own.

Joan, I'm sure with all the bulbs you are planting, your front garden will be a pretty picture in the Spring. The last of my roses have now stopped blooming and the buds are dying off. The fuchsias still have a few flowers though, but they are very hardy.

I'm sure it is going to snow. There was a little bit of rain but it was icy rain, almost sleet when I got the bin in.

Keep warm all

Florence in the hebrides

Growing up the tree wasn’t done until we had broken up from school. It might be a touch earlier now.

Christmas card box is still on the loft so don’t know how many I have.

We always put our tree & decorations up on the Sunday before Christmas Day, our children used to complain bitterly about it but it was soon enough in my opinion.
We no longer put up a tree or decorations & haven't done since 2004 when our last child left home.

Joan.

When I was a child, the tree was always decorated on Christmas Eve, so that it was all a lovely surprise n Christmas morning.

I kept up the tradition when my sons were small and I know elder son still does that, although he usually does it earlier in the day now that the granddaughters are old enough to help.

As for Christmas cards, I haven't written any yet, apart from the ones going abroad. I don't have that many to send these days, as the list gets shorter each year. :-(

Oh dear! Seems Ive broken the rules this year but.....always was a bit of a rebel ;-)

No, I am sorry Florence, I am with names on this one, no trees before December :-(

I know names, but I like to be organised ;-)

With that out of the way, that leaves me plenty time to make all the goodies, mince pies, xmas cake, cookies etc

I'm also making a peanut butter caramel cheesecake, its divine yummy. :-D

Poor Esme.

I wonder if the mother has given up or never gave him any guidance.

Florence - decorate the Christmas tree!! It’s not even December yet.

Hello everyone.
Goodness me Linda, what a dreadful thing to have happened, Esme was lucky not to have been more seriously hurt.

My grandaughter has had the same experience as Esme, with regards to an "Autistic" child, who also has attention problems as well !
For most of my grandaughters time in main stream Primary school she has had some serious confrontations with this particular boy who for some reason took a dislike to my grandaughter & was regularly throwing missiles at her & even physically attacking her, she regularly came home with various marks & scratches, & yet it was always my grandaughter that was taken out of the situations, moving seats in the classroom or being taken out of the classroom altogether, the boy in question was never removed which I thought was wrong !!

My grandaughter has now moved on to the secondary school (as has the boy) but he seems to be leaving her alone now, probably because the teachers & school are much stricter & will not accept any wrong doings.

Some chilly days here recently & plenty of rain so not much done outside, I have more than one pile of branches to clear up but not in the mood to deal with them at the moment.
I need the temp to rise a bit before I venture outside.

I will have to go out at some point though & finish off the new flower bed that I started on several weeks ago, I cleared an area of some long dead dwarf conifers & made a largish circle & surrounded it with some large stones, I have several bags of compost waiting to be tipped into the bed & then plant the various bulbs I purchased recently.

I bought some Minature Daffies, Fitillaria, Anemones, & White Grape Hyacinths, & dug up some Snowdrops from around the garden.
It should look rather nice next spring, really looking forard to seeing the result, just need a few nice days to get it done, it will certainly bring some colour to the area of garden at the side of the house.

Joan.