General Chat

Florence , I laughed at your comment about eating naan instead of rice to lose weight. I do Slimming Workd of course and rice is “ free” but Naan is absolutely loaded in syns. A large plain Naan is 19 syns, a mini one is 9 syns. You are only allowed 15 syns in a day for all the naughty extras, but if you eat lots of syns, you will only lose weight slowly.
Naan has far more calories than rice

We have come to my daughter’s house, so my son can see it. She is cooking dinner and it smells nice. I have to stay over as she goes to London early tomorrow. Mt son and husband will go back to our house and come back in the morning

Lol linda. Well normally we have a microwave packet of rice between us but..... in the freezer I had 1/2 a plain naan from the local butcher. So I cut it into 4 pieces so we only actually had a small quarter each which had less carbs than the half packet of rice. The naan is very thin, not like the supermarket ones.

Enjoy your time with your son and hope the meal is lovely.

Dinner was very nice Florence and slimming friendly. I stayed over last night, so that I could look after Esme as her mum is on the way to London.

All is nice and quiet now as both girls are at school. I have just had a tidy up and am having a sit down before I do a bit more. OH and son are coming back mid morning and we are going to go to Harlow Carr Gardens which are just down the road. I haven’t been before, I think summer might be a better time to go, but there should be some nice autumn colours. They have a Betty's restaurant as well, so we will have lunch there. We will come back in time for Esme getting home, so we can play. I will make dinner and do bath time etc. My daughter gets back about 9.40 pm, so we can go home after that.

Afternoon all.
I love garden centres Linda. Last time I was down south, dad took me to a huge centre about 20 minutes away and it was fab.

We had a lovely meal and spent hours looking at everything from plants to garden furniture and of course all the gifts and goodies.

Yesterday my friend took me out for the day which was great. organised my bag and parcel for Australia on Wednesday so she arrived and off we went. Arrived at the PO and then.....panic stations. I had left my phone on charge in the kitchen which also had my bank/credit cards in the wallet of my phone!!!! I could not believe it as usually i am so organised. Thankfully my friend said just buy everything you need and when you get home, do a bank tf to me to settle up.

What a lovely friend indeed. But I felt really embarrassed as that has never happened before. Anyway, i got to the 3 shops I needed to, went for lunch which was great and then to the big supermarket.

Have to admit, my legs were aching and very sore in the knees by 3.30pm so we wrapped up the shopping and headed home.

Haven't laughed much in ages so yesterday was more than a shopping trip, the laughter was the best medicine lol

Today, just gentle pottering and tidying up. Getting organised for the next fayre tom but a later start 11am not 9am. Everything is the boxes already. I have removed my cards from my phone wallet and put them back into my purse as what happened yesterday is not going to happen again.

Could have managed without the phone as friend had one but not without my cards!

I seeing that snow has been forecast for next week. Eeek it's jolly cold here today anyway so anything is possible.

Hope all is well with everyone looking and keep warm :-D

Florence in the hebrides

Wow Florence, good job that you were not on your own and friend could bail you out, I am sure that you would have done the same for her. Pleased that you had a good trip. that was as good as a tonic for you wasn't it. Like you I do so appreciate the frinds who take me out. even though I can get to two towns easily by bus it is friends who take me to garden centres.

Oh goodness Florence, you are lucky to have such a nice friend.

We went to Harlow Carr Gardens on Thursday,it isn’t a garden centre, it is an RHS garden. I managed to walk 4.2 miles around it, which was good exercise. The autumn colours were lovely, but I would like to go back in summer when the flower borders will be in full bloom.

It has a Betty’s cafe as part of it, we had to queue for twenty five minutes to get in. Once we were inside, I wasn’t impressed by the speed of the service. Despite being told that the waitress would be with us in a minute, no one turned up, so eventually we grabbed a manager and complained. The waitress then came immediately ;-) Once we ordered, there was a really long wait for the food to appear. It was really nice when it did turn up and we weren’t pushed in any way to vacate the table, but overall, we weren’t impressed especially as it costs so much.

Yesterday we went to Beningbrough Hall, a National Trust property near us. It was surprisingly busy to say it was a cold November day. We waited until one o’clock to get lunch and poor OH was miffed because he always has soup of the day and they had runout.

We have had a lovely time with our son, he is leaving this morning and is going to spend the day with my daughter and stay overnight before he goes home tomorrow.

I hope your card sale goes well Florence

Brr, it is so cold today. I went to my slimming class this morning, amazingly I had lost two pounds last week. The toads were awash with water, I didn’t realise that it had rained so hard during the night. It is really windy now, we have a coal effect electric fire and the wind coming down the chimney has just blown some of the coal onto the hearth.
I have just planned the meals for the week, so will go to the supermarket this afternoon to get the ingredients for the week. I need to get a card for my great niece and get that in the post. Her present is going straight to her home courtesy of Amazon and her mum will wrap it up for me.

Evening all.
Gosh, the day has passed so quickly as i was so busy.

Got all my ironing up to date and that took ages as had sheets and duvet sets to iron.

I have lots of xmas presents all over my bed in piles lol. So daughter came home with some things i needed to finish off some and then tomorrow, I shall be wrapping and parcelling ready for posting a bit later on.

Dad tel to say, his 2 front teeth are coming out on Wednesday. One is giving him lots of pain and the other is nearly falling out. So I listened to that tale for nearly an hour!! By then it was time to make some food. I just had cheese toasties and daughter had some pulled pork? with new potatoes.

Linda, I heard about storm Debi so hope you are not too badly affected but I think Ireland has bore the brunt. That was good you lost 2 lbs . well done you.

The fayre was ok ish but not as good for me as the last one but was better for daughter. Swings & roundabouts i guess but we have done ok between us.

Saturday is smaller with fewer stalls but that may well be in our favour...we shall see.

Well some paperwork to do and then watch the soaps later,

Hope all is good with everyone else looking in.

Florence in the hebrides

I am glad you haven’t got the storm in Scotland this time. The rain was pouring down when I went out this afternoon. The wind was dreadful, but OH was pleased firstly because it was stripping lots of leaves off the trees and secondly because it was blowing them into next doors garden :-D
The wind has died down now thank goodness because it buffets my bedroom wall if it is bad, so it should be a quieter night.

Cold today and wet same as yesterday . Most of the trees opposite have given up their leaves now but the little one across from us is hanging on to them defying the winds. l

OH has been given a date for his knee op. So he has the pre op apps to go to and of course his other apps. ie eye test and diabetic eye test both come through as well so he is out and about to various clinics this week .

We finally got my sisters estate wound up and everything settled at last.

Hope your next Christmas stall goes well Florence . Nice to have people appreciate handcrafted work and buy it.

Hope everyone is ok

Ginnie

Good afternoon to all.
A better day for us today after a terrible day yesterday, not stormy but the rain was relentless, rained all through Sunday night & absolutely chucked it down all day yesterday, the water bowie was so full it was on permanant overflow.

We still have some leaves to come down, on Sunday afternoon I managed to get rid of some piles of leaves that I had left lying.
Our son in law came over on Sunday to try & deal with one of our very tall mature Cherry trees, he got a few large branches off it but the chain saw wasn't working well, it had become rather blunt & so SinL had to give up, new chain & sharpener on order, hoping he can come over again soon to get the tree down.

It's a nice dry day today so I have been outside this morning & made a start on lopping the many branches into smaller easier to handle lengths that SinL cut down, a boring job but has to be done, gives me something to do, lol.

Ginny, good to hear that you have got your sisters estate finalised at last, been a long time.

Linda, I wish when the wind blows all our leaves would blow over into the surrounding fields, it would save me having to clear them up, some do end up there but most just collect up against the low lying garden walls, & they have been sooo wet this time they are not so easy to rake / sweep up.

Well I must get outside & do a few more of the branches, I would like to get the rest of them sorted, then all I have to do is move them to the area of the garden where we can burn them.

Joan.

Afternoon everyone looking in.

It is now raining here and fairly blowing hard and of course it was bin day lol....never fails.

I have been busy wrapping gifts and have parcelled up 2 boxes ready for posting so that was job well done.

Linda, you made me laugh about the leaves blowing in your neighbours garden :-D :-D :-D, my mums old neighbour was so grumpy, he would have thrown them back over the fence.

Joan, shame your leaves couldnt blow away from your garden too as that would save a job for you. Hope you get the new bits for the chain saw soon and then you can get the tree cut down.

JustGinnie, so glad for you getting the estate sorted after all this time. Its quite a relief isnt it, not having it all hanging over your shoulders.

I have just received an email from the manager of the estate agents that we cancelled with along with a marketing report etc and that they are thinking of new ways to sell the property :-S :-S

I have just replied informing them, I gave 21 days notice to end the contract and this expired on the 9th Nov! Maybe they may like to communicate with the whole team as its quite obvious one person has no idea what another in the office is doing! It's really just sums them up :-P

Well haven't my lunch yet so off to make a sandwich of some sort. As for tonight's meal, haven't got that far yet lol.

Florence in the hebrides

I am pleased that your sister’s estate is finally settled Ginnie, everything does take so long. We are still mired in all of the legal stuff for the house sale, with no idea of when we will be moving, so we are just in limbo

It is a much brighter day today, but still drizzly and cold. Despite the wind all of the Beech trees surrounding the house still have lots of leaves on them, but they will stay until the spring when the new ones start to grow

Morning all
Beautiful sunny day here and not too cold. Just been on the phone to previous estate agents( see new thread) and oh my is all I can say!!

Good day to get some washing out in the fresh air and save the dryer.

No real plans for today but bits and bobs to chase up and sort out.

Did quite a big order to Amazon last night and that has almost completed my xmas shopping. Actually just remembered, Tesco is coming tomorrow...ooops totally forgot so need to go through the list one more time.

Hope everyone else has some sunshine today :-D

Florence in the hebrides

Hi Florence & others looking in.
It's lovely here, nice & calm & lot's of sunshine & getting better & warmer by the minute, I have been outside & done some lopping of the large tree branches, much easier for me to handle when I get them shortened.

Still quite wet underfoot but the remaining leaves are drying up nicely, hope I can get them lifted before we get any more rain.
Other than doing the garden jobs nothing exciting is happeneing here, lol.

Nothing grand for our meal today, probably going to have a good old fry up, not had that in a while.

Hope all is well with others looking in, & the weather is as good as it is here.

Joan.

I hope everyone has had a good day. It hasn’t been bad here, but I haven’t been out. OH swept up some more leaves and cleared the guttering out on the garage. Our buyers are having the survey on the house done on Tuesday, so he wanted to make sure anything the surveyor can see from the bedroom windows was clear :-)

Our conveyancer sent all the search results for the new house this morning, so they took ages to wade through. She also sent the contract and transfer documents for us to sign. We got a neighbour to witness them and posted them back. There is no date on them yet, but at least we are all sorted for buying the new house, it is just up to the other solicitors to get their act together now.

I had a day out yesterday looking for curtains for the new house, but I couldn’t find any I liked. As they are taking the curtains and poles with them, we will need to get some very quickly as soon as we have exchanged contracts. I also went into a Seasalt dress shop and tried some things on. They had a lucky dip and I got a 20% off card. I found a shift type dress I really liked, but they only have the regular lengths in the shop and I need the tall length. The assistant looked on line, but Iof course, they had tall in every size but the one I wanted
I looked myself when I got home and she was correct, there was a live chat option, so I tried that, but they said they weren’t getting any more in, but sometimes get returns. So I looked again today and by a miracle they had the size and length I need. That was when I discovered that the discount code was only valid in store . Not to be thwarted, I googled for Seasalt discount codes and eventually found a 20% one which the site would accept. Hopefully after all that, I will still like the dress when it comes.

Miserable day here . Not much to talk about really but thought I would just say hello to everyone. Been looking on line for ideas for presents and found a few but need to buy things now.
Have just got my cards sorted and now need to write them . I don't send many by post now, good job really with the price of stamps.

Hope everyone is ok and having a good weekend

Ginnie

Good evening all.
Well after a couple of really lovely days today has been horrible, the rain was on when i got up this morning & it got worse as the day went on eventually stopping after dinner time, the sun shone for about 10 minutes then it turned dull & got dark prety quick.
So my plans for clearing the several piles of leaves away that I had left yesterday didn't happen.

The local farmer has put a flock of sheep into the surrounding fields so I am doing a lot of looking out of the window to be sure none have gained access to my garden, with the ground being soo wet I really don't want them plodding all over the plants etc.

because i couldn't get outside today I have been doing my crosstitching project only stopping to make a meal or cuppas, I have got a lot of stitches done today so the day wasn't wasted, lol.

Linda, what a shame you haven't managed to find any curtains that you like, hopefully something will catch your eye before too long.

Joan.

It has been a dreary day here as well, just drizzling but not raining hard. OH mended two fence posts which had snapped in the storms It got dark very early, some was pleased to close all the curtains and make the house cosy .

I sent for some curtain swatches from an online curtain maker, We have chosen a William Morris design. I hoped to be able to find them in a shop, but that particular material is only on the one site. It will take 7-10 days once we order them, but we can’t do that until we have exchanged contracts of course. Hopefully, we will be able to make a visit and measure up ahead of time.

The lights keep flickering and the electricity has gone off twice, but only for a few seconds. A couple of days ago, it was off for thirty minutes. I hope it stays on so I can watch Strictly tonight.

Evening everyone
So the last fayre today and it was the quietist of the 3! so was quite disappointed but it was an afternoon out of the house from 12-5.

I still have some xmas cards left but i can use them locally for my neighbours and a few friends so they wont be wasted.

I have cut down on posting cards by wherever possible putting them in parcels with gifts. All of mine will go 2nd class this year as JG said, far too expensive. I guess I will need about 40 2nd class but that used to be nearer 80 plus!

The day started bright but just after we got home the heavens opened so glad we wee back home. i just boiled the kettle and the electric went off but came back on within seconds. So oven went on toute suit with left over pizzas from last night and a few chips. The lights stayed on and havent gone off since, thankfully as not sure i could have coped with that today!

Joan , you sound like you are making headway with your cross stitch now, great job and sure it will be finished before you know it.

Linda, have you looked online for curtains? I used a company called Yums? Or something like that....no Chums it was called. I got lovely wine full length curtains and my teal ones 72 drop for this lounge and were good quality. My black wooden poles I ordered from Amazon as well and fairly reasonably priced.

A few bits came from Amazon today so now I can complete another parcel ready for posting.

As long all my parcels and cards are ready for posting by the 1st Dec, then I shall be happy. Then I can work on the menu for xmas day, boxing day etc. And of course decorate the tree lol

So the 2 plates are washed and now am going to relax for the rest of the evening with the remainder of the celebrations that were for the customers lol

I also bought a holly plant today. Its about 8 inches tall and the lady said it takes about 2 years before it grows the red berries as its slow growing but that's fine with me as I wont have to keep repotting it until its much bigger.

Enjoy the rest of the evening folks

Florence in the hebrides