General Chat

Morning all,

Nice and sunny here ,we had a little rain in the evening yesterday and must have had a little in the night as there is a few puddles on the road.

Anng I love the little sungold toms they are nice and sweet, mine are still green ,you did well with your potatoes.

Mel there is lots of people with covid this way that we know have covid perhaps you should do a test to check as you were with lots of people at the wedding .

Ann ,we have the full fat milk so I know it doesn't keep as well as the semi skimmed etc ,I have never thought about turning the fridge temperature down ,I would have thought you'd need to turn it up with the heat , I never move the dial I think its set on about 3 I shall have to check .

I have the bedding in the washer so I have the bed to make up and I need to have a good hoover through and then no doubt I'll find plenty more to do .

Morning all,

Nice bright morning here at the moment pc is saying 14 degrees and mostly sunny so that good too.

Got a bit of a raw throat this morning and keep sneezing so I think BIL was right and we both picked up a cold at the wedding.

Remind me Ann when you go in for the op??

good morning all. Just a quick hello as I have a long list of things to do. Just seen them off on their journey back. Not used to them not staying an extra day so it does eem strange. Still a lot need to be done to prepare for a week of probably not being able to do too much with stitches (I assume) in my face.
I did tie up the tomato plants in the planter, had to cut them down too. had a handful of sungold little tomatoes and quite a few on the other plants near the house. Also got another 2 pounds of potatoes making 6 pounds in all off three plants so I am pleased with that.

Thank you Mel got the rain :-) just fine stuff to wet the road ,no puddles yet ,the gardens will love it if there's some over night .
Oh the plums look good .

Vera congratulations to your granddaughter, I hope when she's decided where she's going that she is happy with her choice .

Anng glad your home safe and sound ,the plants seem to shoot up so quickly when your away but so do the weeds .

Gosh Ann your arms are going to be full of pin pricks lol glad the nurse was good at her job and you didn't feel it .

Gwyn I hope keeping the seal on the milk stops it going off ,it certainly helped mine as just lately I've had a couple of bottles turn ,but then again it has been really hot which doesn't help.

I picked two big cues and two small ones today ,we've already had five small ones ,no toms yet they are still tiny and green .

Congratulations on such great news for your granddaughter Vera. :-D It must have been a relief to be cooler last night after the heat you have had where you are.

Mandy, we used to have some Asda skimmed milk go off before the end of the fortnight between our orders. Now we have no trouble with BoB or Cravendale skimmed milk which keeps well, but it does cost more. Did you turn the temperature down in your fridge in this hot weather as that helps things keep.

You had a nice trip out and a little spend up Mel and got some bargains too, which is always good. Those belgian buns sound lovely and plum jam sounds nice too!

Yes a lot of weeds are in the garden bin now Gwyn and he's worked hard and made quite an impact today. He does tell me I'm better at dealing with workmen than him, but I think he misses having a PA to delegate tasks to like he had at work.

It's good you are home now AnnG and sorting out your tomatoes already! It didn't sound like a great journey though. I expect it would feel warm to you after being cooler in the north.

Been raining here and now its 17 degrees shall I send it your way Mandy and Vera?

Sent pic of the plums and berries.

Did'nt get any jam done boo hoo well not yet anyway I will do it tomorrow now.

I forgot to cangratulate your granddaughter Vera. She's a clever girl and I hope she likes which ever place she choses.

Nice to know your back home safe and sound Anng. Hope you can sort out your tom plants ok. Remember to wash your hands with soap afterwards or you will get yellowy green on your clothes. When I wash with handwash it dos'nt remove it properly.

I only forgot to do the library today and now its shut tomorrow until Saturday and thats not a good day to go incase BIL comes.

Chickens are laying well three or four eggs a day now and the tray inside is full. I cleaned out their nest this afternoon as they had broken an egg in it and made an awful mess plus the red mites are back with this heat. All sprayed now and clean woodshavings nice and deep.

Afternoon all

Wonderful news about your granddaughter Vera.
Congratulations to her.! She has done so well :-D

I hope you get your scripts sorted out. What a change there, as you often used to praise the service you got. Why did they have to change it? :-|

Mandy,
Strange that you should post about milk going off, because today I had to remake my morning coffee, as when I added the milk, after pouring in the hot water, it all curdled and I had to start again :-|
The milk was still in date by several days, so next time I will try your suggestion about the seal top.
I know we are advised not to keep the milk in the fridge door, as it is the warmest place, but my fridge is too small to store it in the body of the fridge.

Mel
Your plums and blackberries sound great. I hope the jam works out well. What a lot of lovely fruit.
A friend of mine picked hedgerow fruits for jam one year, but unfortunately it didn't set. She boiled it up again, but the result was still not to her satisfaction. Eventually, several of us were given little jars of delicious jam, set to perfection. I had to smile at the label, where she had printed ' Third time lucky jam ' :-D

Annx
Gosh you must feel like a pin cushion! So good though that the nurse is such an expert and it didn't hurt at all.
I hope the window repairer can be dealt with successfully and that you have a clear weeded flower bed ;-)
Perhaps OH knows you are really efficient, so thinks he'll just leave those sort of jobs to you.

Anng
Good to know you are safely home. Isn't it amazing how a garden changes so quickly left to it's own devices? ;-)
I hope your plants are not really damaged.

The wind is really picking up here now and I can hear it really whistling outside. After the oppressive heat of the last few days, the slightly lower temperature and moving air is so welcome.
Still no rain in this south east corner. No wonder we were, I think, the first area in the country to have compulsory water meters. :-0
I think we are due overnight rain today coming in from the west.
The gardens could do with some.

Pleased you are home safely AnnG. It doesn't sound as though it was a very nice journey.

Thank you for your congrats for granddaughter. Things have changed since lunchtime when she phoned and said she was going to Keele. I had a text an hour ago saying she was just doing her acceptance for Keele when an offer came through from Nottingham that she liked better. So it now looks as though her course will be Physics and Astronomy at Nottingham but don't hold your breath it could have changed again by tonight! She is phoning for a chat tomorrow afternoon/evening.

Just a quickie, home now, quite a slow journey as traffic was very heavy and the first 2 hours was in heavy rain. dry here, cloudy and 24 degrees, feels very warm to us. Just had to tie up all my tomatoes as they had grown huge and got tangled in the wind.

Congratulations to your Granddaughter Vera.

Maybe BBL.

Its 22 degrees here now and I went up the post van and it was'nt coming today or tomorrow so it was a trip to Holsworthy to post the two parcels and of course you go to a place with shops and you spend money. I had a good bit of retail therapy and spent £38 odd in the factory shop, bought a sandwich in the Co-op. a linen and viscose shirt in the hospice shop for £2 half price and it will do lovely for gardening as it won't catch on everything and if it does it dos'nt matter for £2. Some sweets again in the factory shop and some solar lights, an ivy curtain of five strings of lights and two spotlight again in solar. They were now two for the price of one so I shall give Di one set of the ivy ones. Not quite sure where to put them yet. Went a got some diesel then and came home.

I was naughty and also bought two belgian buns in the Co-op as a treat with an afgternoon cuppa.

We have a good breeze here today too which is making it more comfortable but now I am goiing to stone 2lb of plumbs and make some jam in the micro. It should make about 3lb.

Afternoon All,

I didn't sleep so well last night, probably because I needed to be up early for my appointment at the docs for my 3rd tetanus jab. I didn't even feel it, as this nurse is really good at injections. Just the 2nd MMR jab to go now till the RSV one next month and then the flu and covid ones in October. I think it will be a total of 12 vaccinations I've had this year including the spring covid booster. I told the nurse I was running out of arms and should have been an octopus!

It's cooler here too at 19 degrees and rained a little during the night, but is supposed to reach 23 degrees later on. It is a bit windy too which is nice and dried our towels quickly. I'm waiting for a call from the window repairer as OH txted him this morning and he has said he will call back this afternoon on the landline. I was hoping OH would deal with him this time, as it always seems to be me that deals with anything that goes wrong at home, so I asked him to ring the man, but the little devil sent a txt in my name, so he will ask for me when he rings!!! He's disappeared into the garden now, I reckon to make himself look busy and be out of earshot of the phone! Still he will be doing more weeding which is still badly needed. He hates doing trivial jobs and then hanging around waiting for people to call back (don't we all,) but someone has to do them.

Heard from granddaughter. She got the A-Levels she needed and is going to Keele to read Physics and Astro-Physics :-D :-D

Good morning everyone

It was a bit cooler overnight thank goodness. It was still warm enough to sleep without any bedclothes but I didn't need the fan going all night. It's going to be another warm day. It's 21 degrees now and is supposed to get to 26 later on. I haven't been outside yet but it looks as though there is a bit of a breeze which should help.

Safe journey home AnnG. I expect you are well on the way now It sounds as though you had an enjoyable birthday.

I haven't had any trouble with milk Mandy and find it's usually fine for 2 or 3 days after its Best Before date. Do you buy full cream milk? I think that may turn quicker than skimmed or the semi-skimmed that we have.

I would have loved some of your plums Mel. I wish you lived nearby. I've always liked plums and often use tinned plums to make a crumble.

I know what you mean about "generic" online forms Annx. One size definitely doesn't fit all. I have this problem with travel insurance. I needed to add my eye condition to my medical details. I can do it over the phone and be charged £15 or I can do it online for free but the online form mostly only allows yes or no answers; there is nowhere you can add a note. If I say "no" to being asked if I am still receiving treatment and I need treatment while abroad they get out of paying up by saying you didn't tell us you were still attending hospital. So I have to say "yes" which makes things sound much worse than they are. Nowhere can I put a note saying I am attending hospital but only for checks and am not currently receiving any treatment.

Well, OH is waiting to go to our Thursday coffee meet so I'd better go. I am on tenterhooks waiting to hear from youngest grandchild with her A-Level results. She will be fine I'm sure and is predicted to do well but I had a text from her at 6.30 this morning saying she was "super nervous". She must be if she was up and texting at that hour of the morning!

Morning girls,

Dull and dreary this morning and we may have had a little rain in the night as the car looks very wet. Pc says 18 degrees and partly sunny er.

Have to pop up the post van this morning and may go to the shop and get some lemons and make some plum jam will see how many jars I can muster or how many I give away. Gone are the days when I would keep going out to the table out the front but it was good while it lasted.

Hope Ann has a safe journey home today and its not too busy on the roads.

Talk about changing everything they've changed ny phone provider to EE and I am not sure if I want it or not as I don't htink I get as much coverage with that here out in the middle of nowhere. I know BIL is on it and its cheeper each month but not by a lot.

Morning all,

Sounds as if you had a lovely birthday Anng, your probably well on the way home now so safe journey and hope the roads are not to busy .

Off to do a bit of shopping this morning then calling into sons for a coffee .
Still very muggy indoors as it was still quite hot yesterday again ,Cloudy today and it does seem a bit fresher but it's still early and if the sun comes out I'm sure it will be hot again .

Oh Mel I love some of your plums ,could you bottle some and freeze some ,oh and blackberry jelly my mum use to make that .

Ann thats good OH can have his teeth sorted at the hospital as you say it will save the cost at the dentist.

Oh Vera what a todo with your scripts ,I really thought it had been sorted when you went in ,these things are sent to try us .

Does anyone have any trouble with milk going off before the date ,we always seem to get about an inch or so left in the bottle and it goes off ,I think I've now solved it by leaving the paper/ foil top under the lid on the bottle and just pulling it back at the front of the bottle just enough to pour the milk out that way your not letting as much air into the bottle ,we'll it worked on this last bottle so we'll see if it does on this next one.

Evening All,

It's been cooler today thank goodness. Something has happened with the little window I have open in the bedroom at night and it catches and won't shut without lifting it hard to pull it in. It's UPVC and now I daren't open it again till we can get the window man who has renewed sealed units for us in the past to come and look at it. I hope he will be able to come before the heat returns or I might be sleeping on the settee where it's less hot!

Oh I remember your saga of your tablets before Vera. As you say, why do they change things. I think it's a modern ailment to keep changing things that often don't work properly and drive us all mad. :-S I had an experience with a building society today and their online form that didn't cater for what I wanted to do. 'Oh it's 'generic' I was told on their 'chat', as if that made the problem ok for their customers and they needn't change it. It's such a waste of time when you've jumped through all the hoops of logging on and using codes from your phone to reach a dead end doing something that would have meant a simple phone call in the past. I hope it gets sorted properly for you this time when you see the surgery pharmacist. OH is going to have a problem now he's added statins to his meds, as they will be out of sync with his other meds. I wish our surgery would simply either increase or reduce a new prescription the first time so it renews with our other medication if it's to be an ongoing regular thing.

I'm glad you had two lovely days for your birthday AnnG. I have the same feelings about the children climbing all over the rocky outcrops at the ancient park that houses the ruins of the home of Lady Jane Grey here AnnG. It's a deer park that was bequethed for the 'quiet enjoyment' of local people but it's fast becoming anything but. The children climb and pull apart the ancient rocky outcrops and swing on branches of the ancient oaks and treat it like a playground. They've had to make a rule that all dogs have to be on leads now, because so many have no recall and have injured the deer. There's been damage and poaching and even the staff have been attacked and spat at and mountain bikers seen with a chain saw! The police have to work with the rangers now. A friend's father would take us there when we were children, but we wouldn't dream of climbing or damaging anything as we knew the trees and rocks were ancient and that we were lucky to have such a lovely place. I hope you have a good journey home tomorrow without too much traffic.

I'd have had some of your plums and blackberries Mel! You will have to start putting a table out like you used to do.

Not read Vera's and Anng's post yet as I have been picking blackberries and victoria plums I have a bucket full of plums and gave my neighbour about 2lbs of them and a 1lb and a half of Blackberries. Now what do I do with this lot????????????

Good afternoon all. I followed that very well Vera as I remembered the problem you had last time. Hope you can get it sorted properly with surgery and pharmacies. As if we actually enjoy having to take these pills.

I have had a lovely two days for my birthday. Seeing the young ones yesterday then going out to lunch at a lovely old pub in Caldbek, a village in the shadow of Skiddaw and reached across a fell with wonderful views.

Then today I was given the choice of venue for our day out. It is 18 degrees here but feels warmer in the sun. Which has shone all day and we also had brilliant blue skies. I chose Ullswater knowing anywhere is going to be busy. It is obvious that since Covid and all the hassle with airports more people are holidaying at home. The sad thing is that they flock to the beaches of the lakes like Ullswater and bring their paddle boards, canoes and other small boats, plus their own food and very little money is put into the local economy. The water was very busy and it was good to see the children enjoying themselves and we bought food in the shop in Glenridding and ate our lunch overlooking the lake. We were unable to get into the NT. ar park ar Aira Force so abandoned that and drove to Castlerigg Standing stones. A lot of people there too and we had another rant on seeing parents letting children climb on the stones as if in a playground, and adults all congregating and using the stones as seats. Despite little annoyances it was a lovely day and I am now all packed and sad to be going home tomorrow.

Good afternoon folks

It was so hot and sticky last night that it was impossible to sleep. I eventually dozed off about 4.30 am and slept for a couple of hours. It’s hot again today though maybe just a tad cooler. Currently it’s 25 degrees.

I’m spitting feathers right now. A while ago I went to see the surgery pharmacist to try to sort out my meds. For some reason I had ended up with 2 separate scripts which were ready at different times even though the tabs on one have to be taken with one of the tabs on the other. She said that she would get them amalgamated. Our docs will only issue 28 days meds at a time but will give a double ration if you are going to be away when the next 28 days are due. She said she would arrange this for me. Are you with me so far? Today I went to the pharmacy where I collect my meds and they handed me a tiny bag that contained one small pack of tabs. When I pointed out this wasn’t enough the girl found another larger pack that was in a different drawer. But that was still only 28 days supply. The pharmacy hadn’t been told to give me 56 days. However, the pharmacist said she would do them for me and the assistant brought the script up on the computer. Ten minutes later she gave me another large bag and I came home. Still with me?

At home I emptied all the bags and sorted things out. I now have 3 separate scripts, 56 days supply of 3 tablets but only 14 days supply of the other one. Grrr! So I am now going to have to go back to the pharmacist at the GP surgery and get these scripts sorted out and get a top up for the missing tabs. Looking at the scripts I think the surgery have amalgamated 2 scripts into 1 new one but failed to cancel the original 2 . The chemists where I collect them now have 3 on their computer and I think probably pulled off the wrong one today. What I’ve written probably makes no sense to you as I’m talking about 2 different pharmacists but writing about it has got it off my chest. I was so cross that I needed a good rant. Why on earth did they take an excellent system that ran perfectly and “improve” it so that it doesn’t work at all now.

Enough of that. Annx, thank you for forwarding on AnnG’s email. That must have been lovely to get a hand made card, that was very thoughtful and it’s quite an imaginative drawing. Well done, young lady.

Better get a few jobs done I suppose though I’m struggling to keep my eyes open at the moment. Maybe it will be a cooler night and I’ll get some much needed sleep. I hope you are all OK.