General Chat

I usually watch the rockets from the school firework display explode over the houses opposite. For the first time they seem to have moved it so could see more of the shorter fireworks due to the layout of the area. Many of the rockets were now difficult to see as the were much more overhead and almost behind me. Also much quieter with no mortar bomb rockets shaking the house.


Even more surprising was that it started on time.

You have such a lot of entertaining places and events to go to in your area, Linda!

Hallowe'en was pretty much a non-event in this village, this year.
There are very few young children living here at the moment, and the teens don't bother with it. I didn't hear sounds of anyone going door to door.


[ADDED: A neighbour has told me that she had 5 guisers - but they were pre-arranged! ]

There won't be anything on 5th November, either, apart from one or two people letting off a few fireworks in their gardens, perhaps.
There used to be a big public firework display and bonfire in a neighbouring village - a spectacular affair to which crowds of people went from miles around - but, sadly, some years ago the insurance and H&S requirements became too complicated and expensive for the volunteers who ran it.

No one around?

We had a nice afternoon yesterday visiting Mother Shiptons Cave. The weather was kind, no rain and fairly sunny for a November day. They had a special Halloween event with actors dressed as witches, so Esme really enjoyed it.
We had dinner with them and spent the evening there. We watched Strictly while my daughter was trying to sort out a problem with my laptop.

Well, that was a good firework display, we had a perfect view from our bedroom windows.
We had an even better view of an idiotic bloke walking his dog off the lead in front of our house. The dog shot off when the fireworks started, it went down the path at the side of our house into the woods. He obviously called for reinforcements because more people appeared looking for it. I assume he had missed all the advertising about the event. Poor dog must be terrified, but if he had it on a lead while walking down the road, it couldn’t have got away.

Good morning from sunny Yorkshire. It has been really good weather for half term which is just as well as I have been out and about every day. Today I have a day off to recover thank goodness. I have a horrible cold, but have just had to get on with things despite not being on good form.

On Wednesday, I took Esme to Lightwater Valley for the last time this season. They had special Halloween events and shows which were absolutely excellent . Esme had a great time , but it was very tiring as we were there for much longer than normal to see all the shows. They do have a Fireworks event next week, but it finishes very late, so we aren’t going to it. The park then closes for the winter, so I will buy her another season pass next year and our visits will start again.

Yesterday OH and I took Eve out for the afternoon to do a scarecrow trail around the town. There were twenty four hidden scarecrows to find. It took us two hours including a cafe stop. We found them all and handed out sheet in as there is a prize draw. On Sunday we are all going to Mother Shiptons Cave to use the family voucher which Eve and I won on a treasure trail a while back. Esme didn’t want to come, she said that she was too tired to go out and wanted to stay at home. Oddly she made a miraculous recovery in time to go out trick or treating.

When they lived in London, they always made a huge effort to decorate their house. We usually went down for Halloween, so helped. They had a projector which projected dancing ghosts on the front windows, a smoke machine, speakers in the garden amongst the gravestones, decorations and lights etc. They weren’t able to do that this year as the barn conversion they now live in is down a long private track and there are very few neighbours. They actually came and parked on our drive and walked around our area where there were plenty of houses to visit. They really missed doing up their own house and didn’t think much of the standard of decorating in the houses they visited, so have decided that next year they are going to decorate our house and make it the best in the district :-( It will be fun though, so I don’t mind.

I remember the wall paper covering for books as well. These days if they have to cover books, they usually just buy the coloured plastic covers. or use the sticky backed plastic. For some odd reason, even though she is in year ten ( fourth form in old money), one of Eve’s science teachers told them that they had to decorate their chemistry exercise book with scientific symbols or drawings. Eve who doesn’t do things by halves printed out a huge number of tiny pictures and covered both the front and back and inside covers. I bought her some sticky backed clear plastic to cover them so they wouldn’t rub off in her school bag.

The first of the fireworks displays starts tonight. The town one is actually in the cricket club just a few hundred yards from here. I don’t think the girls are going to that one as there are more in Harrogate next week. We should be able to see tonight’s display from our bedroom windows, so can watch it in comfort

I think much of that mindset was a hangover from wartime rationing.
My parents were the same - and therefore so am I, to some extent.

Why throw away something which is in good condition and can be reused?

And now it's trendy - "saving the planet" !

Exactly Gwen. Once the sellotape was off she would then fold and smooth the paper and only then would she look at the gift.

I think all gifts were recycled. I can still remember the mothball taste of chocolate the nuns brought on a visit to my poorly brother. Must have been nearly 70 years ago.

Was that so that the paper could be reused, Names?

My mother was a great one for reusing nice wrapping paper.
When we cleared the bungalow (I was a grandmother myself by then ) we found tucked away wrapping paper from my 21st birthday :-) :-0

When parcels came through the post tied up with string, that was carefully unknotted and stored in a special place and the paper smoothed over and also kept for future use.

I went to a Covent school and one nun used to drive us up the wall whilst she very slowly peeled each piece of sellotape off the wrapping paper around presents.

I think I used wallpaper because in the early 1970's, mum had wallpaper in every room and the hall so there was always bits left on a roll. Buying coloured paper like wrapping paper was far too expensive.

We then had to put a label on the front with the subject, class and teacher's name.

We were also given a rough note book but only 1 per term. You good write notes, draw/doodle what ever you wanted. But if you used up all the pages before the term ended you had to provide your own notebook.

I had used bacofoil on occasions to wrap a gift when i didnt have any wrapping paper and just put a bow on the front. It always got noticed how "different" it looked lol

My chicken, throw it all together is just about ready now so better see to it.

I can remember art classes at grammar school included potato printing on sugar paper to be used for covering a new set of hymn books for daily assembly.
We too covered text books with wall paper.
The book was numbered and issued at the beginning of the school year and we had to hand it back in perfect condition at the end of the year.
The number was checked against the issue list.

We had to cover all our text books too, but not with wallpaper - nobody had such a thing. Our were all done with brown paper. (I seem to remember DIY being invented in the early 60's, with the first B and Q nearby. It was a fascinating place.)

Memory is a funny thing, I don’t remember covering text books but our exercise books all had to have colour coded ( for subject) waxed paper ( which I expect we had to pay for).

Can’t get ready for Christmas yet. Poppy on tomorrow and then trying to get the kids to decide what they want for their November birthdays - then I can think about Christmas.

Just had to buy a new mobile. The free 4 g sim has fried my old 2g phone. Can’t wait for the ‘how did we do’ message. Can you do a minus on those.? The person on the other end of the help line was appalling.

AG, so did we have to cover our school books and wallpaper was brilliant. i also loved doing that too and btw, no we are not sad just creative lol

Hope you get on ok with your jags.

AnninGloucs, please can I have some of your sun to brighten up the day!

The flu jag is made of egg and i'm severely allergic to that so don't have it any more.

Currently recharging the batteries as the rechargeable ones from last year are near dead and tested in the xmas ornaments showed very dull lights. Can only do 4 at a time and takes hours!!! i still maintain the 20 Kodak i bought in the pound shop was better value but hey ho.

I think it depends on how fir we are physically, how susceptible to colds and various other things as, If it is the same jab that I had for covid it hits your immunity system. However, maybe it is the flu jab that causes some people problems, no idea what is in that (which is quite a concern really). I had mine last Saturday, had a sore arm on the side I sleep on (which is the covid side) but no other problems. My much younger neighbour had hers two days before me and the day after she felt exhausted and nauseous) but only for one day.

It is a beautiful day here, sunny with clear blue skies. Whic means I should be out in the garden. :-D

AG, OH and I had our jabs last week, covid in one arm and flu in the other, and neither of us had any side effects at all, not even sore arms. We were in and out in 10 minutes, so here's hoping yours goes as well. :-)

I like wrapping, too!
In my schooldays I used to love covering schoolbooks, as we were expected to do in those days. Wallpaper was good for that. I took pride in making a very neat cover - how sad am I ?!

Yes, Sylvia, your sniffle may well be an after-effect of your jabs.
Several people here have said they felt completely exhausted for a day or two after their most recent ones - apparently different stuff is being used this time.
I'm going for my jabs this afternoon, so hoping it doesn't affect me like that.

AG forgot to mention, i looked at flight radar and saw there was a lot of jets and Ryl Air Force about in the west of Scotland and yes, they are really loud.

This is the first time in 20 years, we didnt do a shoe box :-( But we have given very generously over the years and yes its amazing what you can fit in. Wrapping the lid & box was quite tricky even for me who actually likes wrapping lol

Morning all
Not a nice day here as windy & raining and now quite misty so indoors today!

ArgyllGran, I bought a xmas jumper 2 years ago and it is black with a lovely Robin on the front and a very cosy wear. Hope you enjoy wearing your too all through the winter.

What a nuisance with your electric meter :-( Gosh I so hope they sort it out for you and can they not revert the heaters to come back on at their normal time? The signal isnt probably strong enough. Here a few miles along the rd. there are plenty of blind spots where there is no coverage or signal for the internet or or mobile. The joys of living in a remote & very rural area.

You can't move the hills not even with all the modern technology!!

Sylvia, i am so sorry youre not feeling great. Maybe its the side effects of the jags? They say after about 10 days, you may feel groggy and have a cold and thats letting you know the meds are in your system I guess.

I so hope you feel better soon.

Being organised for xmas or any other event is ingrained in me from my banking days. We were trained to be organised from day 1 and keep your desk tidy, your filing 100 % accurate etc, use a desk diary too. All that training has remained with me throughout my life. So i have always been called " Mrs organiser" lol or Mrs fix it as i was trained to problem solve which has been a valuable asset too in life.

Today, we are doing something which some may say NOOOOOO but it has to be done when we are both here and daughter is going to be busy with volunteering from next week soooo. Yep shes going up to the loft to get the xmas tree and decs down and before anyone thinks we are putting it up were not! It will go in her room as she has more space until the time we decide to put it up.

My big responsibility is to hold the ladder steady and catch her if she fell :-D :-D :-D
Heaven help me if that happened as I would fall with her!!

Anyway, that's the plan in a bit. For now just usual housework and then some lunch.

Looking out my lounge window and I can see just how wild it is as the top of the Rhododendron is being moved about and that takes some doing as its huge and a heavy plant. Thank goodness I wasn't going to town today.

Well better crack on just now.

I may look in later

Have a good day all

Florence in the hebrides

I hope your sniffles clear up soon, Sylvia.
How is your husband coping with not seeing you for several days?

You say you don't think there will be a Christmas tree - is that because it's a multi-faith community and they don't want to either favour or offend anybody?