General Chat

It has been drizzling softly this afternoon, it's a pity we don't have our water tanks installed yet. It would be really good to have a wet Christmas.
At last our tree has been put up, so will be admiring it to-night once it is dark and the pretty lights are flickering. There is a couple who live fasirly close by who decorate their home every year with thousands of lights outside, it always looks lovely, they have a box for donations at the front door aqnd anyone wishing to make a donation is welcome to do so, the proceeds are divided between Hospice and a Children's Home in the district - I think that is a really nice gesture.


Oh well, time to think about what to make for supper.



Val.

one more night shift to go and hopefully I will notneed to do anymore...please keep your fingers and toes crossed. Learnt to day tha Boss wants me here all day on Christmas day and I said NO> I have one of my sons driving for five to six hours to spend Christmas day with me.I konw that Lunch here will be something very special and of high quality but after that I am going home for the rest of the day. Son has agreed that he is quite happy to have lunch here but not all day....

Then Home for two weeks back for a short time, two or three weeks to see friends and family and the HOME. How true it is that Home is where the heart is.


OH was very romantic when I told him that it had been publicly announced that my last day would be Feb 4th, He sent me the song Beautiful Bluebird, and it brought tears to my eyes as he used to sing this to me many years ago.

Bye for now

well good evening everyone. How are you all?
I have been in bed nearly all day, well from around 11am.It has been great, I have dosed off, played the Jewel ganme, fallen a asleep and then had tea and biscuits. had a call from my son who is going to spend Christmas with me,, it has been realy relaxing.
I checked the signing in book whist at work and I have worked 7 nights in one working week and also worked an average of 6 ours on each day shift.

Have decided noot to go into work tomorrow and aslo take a couple pf days off and go to see my elder sister.
Younger sister sent me an email reminding me that next week end is her 40th wedding Anniversary, Her and her hi=isband are going to London to see the sights etc so O am sure that they will have a wonderful time.

I am going to have something to eat now so may be back later

Take care everyone...

nudge

Goodmorning, it is now 7 a.m.and it is already quite hot so I think to-day will be another scorcher.

I am having a perm this morning and a cut not that there is much to cut mind you as my hair is quite short, but oh dear it seems to be getting sooo thin, it would be nice if there was something on the market one could use to get it to be thicker!!

Bridget, it will be lovely having your son with you for Christmas, make the most of it. Enjoy your days off, have a nice relaxing time.

Our frst visitors arrive to-morrow afternoon , I still need to finish getting the room ready, as we have only one spare bedroom the younger of the two will be sleeping on a mattress in the study which must still be tidied up, Jimmy always manages to have so much stuff lying around! They will leave on Saturday morning and my sister will be arriving on the bus at 10.45p.m. that night. Our friends from EL arrive on the 23rd so my sister will then move into the study so that they can have the bedroom, talk about musical beds!!!!



Bye


Val.

I went to see my elder sister and her husband and had a wonderful time doing absolutley nothing. I felt relaxed as soon as I arrived, We did not diecuss the ways of the world or how awful pliticians are nowdays and how they cannot be trusted, we did not discuss how much money had been spent on christmas gifts or the cost of food etc etc but the time passed and I unwound and it was wonderful, The TV was not put on once, I wrote out all my Christmas cards and posted them we looked around the very small town and laughed when the rain came down, we had a hot coffee and a cake, we went into the shop my niece works in selling hand made jewlery and now designer bags, chose onefor husband to buy for me when he comes over and when she introduced me to her colleagues she called me Aunty, I was so thrilled , my other sisters children call me by my name and I realised I prefer to be called auntie,

we had fish and chips from the fish shop and it was delicious

I slept better than i have for ages. Now i have decided to take tomorrow off as well and roll on 4th February

You sound as though you really had a good time Bridget. I must agree with you I also preferred being called Auntie, these days even some very young children have called me by my name. While my Aunts were alive,even after I was married I still always called them Auntie.

We have had some lovely rain overnight and it is still raining softly, don't know, however, if much has fallen in the catchment area. A town called Beaufort West is in a worse posiition than we are they have no water at all, and all has been put out for anyone travelling through there to please bring bottles of water and drop it off at a collection point in the town, there has been a wonderful response.

The ladies selling pancakes for church funds had a very good day yesterday, they made R1100. That was their last sale for this year.

I have just looked at the time, 12.45 p.m. I can't believe how the morning has flown, must be the visitors!.

Enjoy the rest of the day



Val.

What a few days! My house phone isn't ringing and I have no idea whet to do to put it right and \i cannot make outgoing calls so that is a bit of a problem...
Next \\\\\\\\\\\\\my much loved very old mobile has finally died. \i do have a back up phone but cannot recall the passwrord to activate it and so went to buy another one today. I must have played the oart of a dimwit because he also offerd to set it up for me which was very good of him otherwise i would have to ask one of the younger members of staff to do so.
The weather her is very strange, lovley sunshine which suddenly disappears and the down comes the snow and we are told that it will freeze overnight which makes a dreadful journey home in the morning.
Hopefully and fingers crossed etc this will be my last night duty and then soon I shall be on my way home for two weeks and the last working day will be looming in front of me and I simply cannot wait for that day to arrive.
Tomorrow the church singers will be coming to the home although we are unsure who actually agreed to this but I am sure that it will be excellent. The residents are quite firtunate in the number of events we have leading up to Christmas but they are not always very pleasant in their comments.

If I ahd been at the Church Funds event val, I would have bought some of the pancakes,,,I cannot resisit them and always tell myself " well they are so light there cannot be many calories in them" Did you eat many. ???
On the 19th this month my younger sister will have been married for 40 years, it really doesn't seem possible...all those long years ago standout in my mind as if it were only last week. How time flies
Bothe my sisters hab=ve long happy marriages with my elder sister having been married for 54 years. Sadly I am the one who didn;t conform and have been married twice, once for 22 years and now for 18 years so I will never make their achievments but I cam say that \i am still on good terms with my first husband and am still very mi=uch in love with second husband..which is why I am so eager to be e=back home,
well enough of my ramblings, time to gather everything for work and hope that I can get up the slope in all this snow.
Take care everyone

Bridget

Well I managed to get to work and had quite a pleasant time. Then it got to midday and I realised that the person I was going to interview did not turn up! I was rather cross so called her house number and she said she had got lost had driven arround for a while and then went home. Anyway a new appointmnt has been made but I awat with trepidation ...we shall see

I had to go and buy a new mobile today as one has died, "RIP little phone" and the other is locked and we cannot recall the password!! I was amazed at the choices and finally settled fo a rather nice looking white Sansung, normally I have a Nokia but this is white and cheaply priced and I got £30 off as I had bought some groceries. Now I have to work out how to use it and the instructions are written in such tiny print so think I will look for the help on the internet,
Well it is nearly Christmas and this year the snow is early already we have had 4 inches of snow and Now I have heard that the roads are dangerous becuase of ice, I may have to stay here
Well bye bye for now I need to make a coffee so I can stay awake
Bridget

It is a dull morning here,I have not yet been able to find out whether our dams have benefitted from the rain we have had.

I am also having trouble with my cell phone, daughter's dog pulled my bag which was open off of the bed and all ghe contents fell out, the cover at the back broke and now it doesn't clip back properly. As it is coveed by our insurance I think I will be claiming a new one.

Our first visitors leave this morning, must get the room ready for my sister who will be arriving to-night at 11.45pm

I remember when I was nursing, on Christmas eve we would all collect at the front of the hospital and go to all the wards singing carols, it was really lovely, not done much any more sadly. In fact over here nursing is nothing like the "old days" , to-day the nurses are only interested in their pay packet at the end of the month, they even go on strike!

My friend of many years will have been married for 50 years on the 27 od this month but I am n ot able to join in the celebrations. We have been married for 53 years, not sure which on e of us needs a medal!

I thought I could let my birthday pass quietly next week but that is not going to happen! I have been told that a few friends will be here for tea, so will have to get busy on Monday doing some baking.

Have a lovely weekend.


Val.

So nice to hear of talk from back home. I stumbled on this MB by accident and have been reading the weather reports from the last few years. The weather here at present (Brisbane, Australia) is waking up to around 22 degrees C. By lunch its nearly 30 and then around 2pm the storm rolls in and it PELTS down rain for the next 2 hours. Flash flooding, driving in rain when you cant see the car in front. Sometimes we get hail, other times we get massive bolts of lighning that make the sky look like a hollywood set. The fun part for the storms was when you had the ligntning at night. Everything outside was so black you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you and then it was as if someone had turned on a light switch - instant daylight. The storms in Australia are both fascinating and tragic. I was visiting a hospital last year Val, and was pleased to see that the nurses there were doing the rounds in the Childrens ward singing carols. Apparently there are still a few Hospitals out here that do that - perhaps a Brit came out and started them off....

Merry Christmas all.

Jonathan

After a dull start to the day yesterday the day turned out to be quite hot -28C.

How nice to "see" a new face on here Jonathan, please drop in again.
|I am in South Africa and the storms which you describe sound like those we have in some parts of this country. I must admit I do not like lightning so am glad that where we live now we don't have many storms. I remember as children my mother would make us sit perfectly still during a storm - we hardly dared breathe!! She would cover all the mirrors with blankets and we could not sit in front of the win dows.

The stands for our tanks are being done to-morrow and the tanks will be installed next week.

My sister eventually arrived at 11.15p.m. last night after a 16 hour journey
on the bus.

I have been watching Sky News, seeing all the snow heard that some people have been stranded at the airport for hours. Do take care all who are "snowed in".


Val.

Jonathan Welcome to our thread. I am Bridget who started this thread one morning when I was up early watching beautiful scene across the Med. It has been a great success and we write whenever we can about where we live, what is happemning locally and in the world, we have supported each other through difficult time, written about where we live etc. It is rather similar to having Penpals.

A an English nurse, who is about to retire I recall only to well how we used to walk around the hospital with our capes turned insideout as the meant we were dressed in red and sang Christmas Carols in every ward. It was a moving and wobnderful experience. I do not know if it still happens but I do hope so although I suspect that there has been a motion to say that this could cause non Christains some distress.......Politics gone mad.

We all welcome you aboard and hope to hear from you soon.

To everyone else you will all know that I am counting the days to retirement and also hoping and praying that the snow stops falling and I can get my flight home in the small hours of the morning on 27th...please pray with me or call the gods or whatever may help!!!
Going to have my lunch now but will look in again at the end of today.

Just wondered if anyone has "Christmas Rituals" they would like to share

Bridget

nudge

Everything crossed Bridget, that all will be ok on the 27th for your flight home.

Cold and snowy here in Birmingham, however some planes have landed at BirminghamInternational instead of Heath Row.

Have got son and two younger grandsons here at the moment. So a very busy time for me.

Will be back when not so busy.

Tess

The rushing around is over - I hope! Now waiting for friends fromEast London to arrive.

On Christmas day we usually start the day going to church then it's home for tea and getting the lunch ready. As this is the middle of summer we settle for cold meat and salads, it is just too hot to slave over a hot stove. After lunch we just laze around! This is our first Christmas without my older brother, and my other brother's wife who is ill was admitted to the Frail Care Unit last week so he will be alone over Christmas, fortunately his very good friends have invited him to lunch, as they will be braaing they seem to be puzzled as to what they should give him to eat as he is a vegetarian!! He will be happy with salads which he loves.

Bridget I do hope all goes well and you are able to fly on the 27th. Have a wonderful time at home.

May you all have a very happy Christmas.



Val.

Hello everyone, so sorry noy=t to have written on here for a little while. work life has been chaotic to say the least and very lomg hours yet again ,,,all quite boring so I am not going to talk about it,
Praying hard that I can get a flight home on 27th early in the day. The forecast keeps changing but I shall go to the airport what =ever the weather and simply wait!

I tried to persudae Boss man that it would be OK for me not to return to work especially as the new manager will start on the fourth of Januray which is the second day of my two week holiday, but he said no I have to come back and work upt ot the 4th february....Oh well I suppose he wants his monies worth. he has already told me that the new chap will not want much induuction soo quite what i shall be doing I do not knw.
OK I have my ramble so now I can put them to oneside.

We need some suggestions about how we move forward and bring some of our previous contributors back here...any ideas

I have some wonderful pictures in my head of the palces that people have described and sometimes look back as well and am surpised at how many subjects we have discussed since the thread started,
Well once again I have rambled on so have a greta Christmas and enjoy yourselves and if you need a few quiet moments just send a message on here.
Bridget

nudge

It was worth a try Bridget

Glad you think so Valerie, Maybe everyone is just too busy.
Have a happy Christmas day