General Chat

Good morning all, very grey at the moment and 11 degrees, supposed to get warm later so we will see, also supposed to be showers, that will probably be the bit that comes true.

Ann it sounds as if you had a good productive day and a nice lunch, with OH providing the entertainment. Are his hands a bit shaky maybe? Or his eyesight not as good as it could be?

Vera that does sound an interesting house. I think NT places are always more interesting if they have (or still do) a connection to a family or person you recognise. That Vita Sackville West exhibition sounds just the sort that I would enjoy. Imagine the skill to make the costumes from paper. I did try and find info on it on line but had no success. But it was late by then and I was tired so gave up. Maybe I will have another go later.
Thanks for the photos, I got tired just looking at them. You are gradually making a difference though. How long is it since you scraped the path.

O gosh what is he like Ann? It sounds like you had a good meal and a good laugh. Sleep well.

Evening All,

Thank you all so much for my birthday wishes and for your cards, which are all lovely and are now on show in a prominent position! I kept waking up last night and then couldn’t get off to sleep again, so hardly had any sleep at all. I expect it was because I needed to be up by 7.00am to shower, do the BP checks and see the nurse for my blood test at 8.17am. I got there over 10 minutes early with the children being off school now, so I got called in before my time and knew the nurse so asked her more about compression stockings the doctor told me might help for now with ankle swelling when it’s hot. There are so many kinds I wasn’t sure what to get and she told me the pharmacy would measure me and tell me what to have. Now why didn’t the doctor tell me that. Then we went home to swap to my car and went to fill it up, then called in the shop and got another magazine file. We were only a mile from home, so called in the garden centre on the way back and I got a couple of nighties and two T shirt tops from Edingburgh WM.

I didn’t take a cushion to our meal in the end as I wore a coat with it being chilly and folded and sat on that instead. They tried to sit us almost rubbing shoulders with the only other couple in there, so I frowned a bit and the girl suggested a much better table where we could chat without whispering. It also had marginally better seats too! I had to smile a bit later as a lady not far from us asked for a cushion! They went and fetched her one, so I must remember to do that if needs be. It was a tapas type meal so I chose roasted vegetables with a chicken and ham skewer and some deep fried dough parcels filled with mozzarella in a tomato sauce. OH had fishcakes with cubed, deepfried potatoes with cheese shavings and also mushrooms in a creamy sauce on sourdough slices. He also had garlic bread and I had some as he couldn’t manage it all. The only trouble with tapas meals is all the dishes and bowls for everything on the table. So it wasn’t long before OH caught the edge of his glass of water and sent it cascading over his lap, followed by his precariously balanced knife. Luckily it was water and he wasn’t wearing pale trousers. Lol. He managed to use all my spare tissues I had in my handbag for my own emergencies to clear up with. Next he was trying to transport his sourdough bread with whole mushrooms balanced on them to his plate with his knife and fork. Honestly, why not just pick the dish up, tilt it and slide them onto his plate with his knife. My nerves were on edge watching him and the wobbling mushrooms and few close shaves later he got them to his plate but the sauce had dripped everywhere on the table as he didn’t move the dish close to his plate first. Having soaked his own paper napkin, he used mine to clear the mess up. I had to chuckle, as did he and I just looked at him, then the table and said that they’d think a two year old had been sat at our table when they saw the mess he’d made or think that I’d brought Mr Bean with me! IHaving run out of tissues by then, it was probably lucky that with eating less lately we couldn't manage or should I say risk a pud!!

I’ve already written enough to have you nodding off and am really tired, so will get the BP monitor whirring yet again and go to bed and catch up with your posts tomorrow.

Sent a few pics of the path.

Just come back in from outside again. I started to scrape the path along the rockery bit and up the orchard. It looked like grass but I am tired now so thats enough for today. Salad and home cooked ham tonight and I think I have earned it.

AnnG, it's near Sevenoaks in Kent. I'm not a huge fan of coach travel either but we'll have to get used to it if we want to go out and about. These trips have been going for years and I think the organisers have run out of places closer to home. 2.5 hours is about our limit.

To continue:
Knole is an extremely large house, one of the largest in England. It’s built over 4 acres and there is another 1000 acres of parkland. The Sackville-West family still live there. A lot of it isn’t open to the public but there is still a lot that is and it was really interesting. It took us a couple of hours to get round the open rooms. Although there were people around it wasn’t overcrowded at all and we could take our time. OH is a great one for asking the volunteer room guides questions and they were very knowledgeable and informative so we were standing around talking to them quite a lot and then only moving slowly from room to room and I think that is what made my back so painful.

In one hall they had an exhibition about Vita Sackville-West, her life at Knole and her wedding. She was born and brought up at Knole, an only child but when her father died she couldn’t inherit because she was a woman so Knole went to the nearest male relative. She married Harold Nicholson and moved to Sissinghurst with him. I think she designed the famous white garden there but she is probably most famous for her books and her many affairs with both men and women and in particular her affair with Virginia Wolff. I had seen a similar exhibition about her at Sissinghurst pre-lockdown but this was a little different in that there were various tableaux about the wedding and this is what I think all you crafty people would like to see. The first one we saw were life sized models of 2 bridesmaids, 1 older and 1 younger, and a pageboy. The clothes were beautiful but it wasn’t till I read the board in front of the display that I realized everything was made of paper. I think the model figures themselves may have been a more durable material but all the clothes, hats, shoes, flowers and even hair were paper. A little further on we found the bride with 1 or 2 other bridesmaids and it was impossible to believe it was all paper, I think the paper for the wedding dress was specially printed as Vita had a figured gold and white dress. Finally there she was in her going-away outfit. I wish we had taken photos. It was allowed provided you didn’t use flash but for some reason neither of us took any. The best I’ve been able to find online is a picture of the going-away outfit on the NT Knole website in the section on Vita: Discover a Story of Life and Love at Knole, and there is a picture of the wedding dress “material” on the delicarta.wordpress.com site under New Exhibition at Knole.

With all this we had very little time left to explore the parkland. Knole is renowned for its deer herds and we did have about 45 minutes before we had to leave so had a wander over the grass. One of the deer groups we saw had 3 albino deers with them. At least I assume they were albino unless they were a breed that are normally white. When we used to go when we were young you could picnic among them. You still can but it is discouraged as people will feed them all the wrong food and they can also get a bit aggressive as they try to get at your picnic. These days it is pointed out that they are wild animals and the NT prefer people to picnic in a fenced off area with tables and chairs. We do have a photo of our son aged 7 or 8 with a bag of crisps and a deer has got his head in the bag. He wasn’t deliberately feeding the deer, he just didn’t move his crisps out of the way fast enough, so it’s probably better these days to stick to the designated picnic area.

Well, I seem to have written a book again. You’ve probably all dozed off by now so I’ll leave you in peace and go and see what I can rustle up for our meal tonight.

Knole is in Kent Anng near Sevenoaks I think.

I have just come in from the garden and made another mess in the orchard as I cut out some brimbles from the box hedge and an Elder and then some low branches off the apple tree and then the battery ran out. I had to come in anyway cos I have war wounds from the brimble and was bleeding on both hands. That'll teach me to get my leather gloves on but they were in the back of the car and I did'nt go and get them. Then after putting the battery on charge, yes I actually managed to get the small one off, I went out with the strimmer all round the apple trees and down underneath the box hedge down to the house and then I was thirsty so came in for a cuppa and read the posts.

I did hoover the kitchen this morning after a hunt for the pipe for the cordless. I had left it right over the side of the lounge and could'nt see it from the door. Also gave it another haircut.

Waiting for continuation now :-D

Vera I get really frustrated that my head thinks I can do something and my body doesn’t agree.
I did go to town on the bus this morning. I took my stick folded in my bag. (Disadvantage of that us that it is quite heavy to carry.). But I walked round the shops I wanted to go in, didn’t go all round town, it was busy lots of young teenagers around. And when I got home I had not used the stick at all. So I was quite pleased with myself. And very tired.. and we had a really old bus that demonstrated just how awful our roads are, so uncomfortable, no wonder the buses don’t last long.

I did buy two tee shirts in M&S as they had some new colours in, I didn’t really need them but my Sparkes had 20% off tops. I did try on shoes as well but they are all such hard stiff leather and not at all comfortable so I will make do with what I have. Sadly can’t wear heels any more. Live in trainers normally.

That NT visit sounded good Vera, where is it geographically. Ok I know I could look it up so just asking because I am too lazy to do that. I would have been interested in the conservation area, surprising there were not many people in there. 2.5 miles is a long drive though, I am not a great fan of coach travel.

Is that the same Mr Nobody who regularly visits us? OH wanted to rehash the security light in our porch the other day. It took 3 hours – 1 hour to do the job and 2 to locate the bit he wanted for the masonry drill.

Goodness Mel, that mower seems to spend more time being repaired than it does mowing.

AnnG, I know exactly what you mean about strength and stamina seeming to disappear once you get past a certain age. I swear I have aged 10 years in the last 2. I struggle to walk far now, yet up until recently I could still walk a fair way at a reasonable pace. Now I get exhausted just walking round town. Today I have vacced right through the house and spent an hour in the garden just deadheading and a bit of gentle weeding, and now I am yawning away and struggling to stay awake. I don’t know if you feel the same but I get quite frustrated as my mind isn’t ready to go into old lady mode yet.

What a kerfuffle over OH’s scans Ann. It’s a bit disconcerting when the doctor doesn’t know what she is supposed to be talking to the patient about. I hope OH doesn’t have to wait much longer for his bone scan results. I suppose there are so many medications available that the doctors can’t know everything about them but a lot of people don’t read the leaflets so wouldn’t query whether their various tabs would mix okay. Good job your OH did read it. Some while ago I bought some Kalms herbal pilIs to help with sleeping. I asked the chemist if they would be alright to take with the tabs I was taking and was told they were fine as they were “only herbal”. When I read the leaflet it actually mentioned my beta blockers by name and said not to take Kalms if you were taking this beta blocker. I took them back to the pharmacy and the chap was very apologetic and embarrassed. Anyway, I am rambling on. I hope you had a lovely birthday lunch. Did you go to the Italian place you like and did you take a cushion?

On to Knole. We had a good journey there and back, about 2.5 hours each way. OH and I both thought the coach driver took a slightly long way round but maybe he had heard something about hold-ups on the route we would have taken. When we arrived most people went straight to the café for coffee and cake but we decided to wait till lunchtime and just get on with seeing all we could. We went first to the Conservation Studio where a chap told us all that was going on and we could watch from behind a barrier as a large painting was being worked on. OH mentioned restoration and was very firmly told “We don’t restore, we conserve”. The NT have 2 of these conservation studios but this is the only one the public can go in. Even so we were the only ones there.

From there we made our way to the Gatehouse Tower. Edward Sackville-West had rooms there at one time (can’t remember when but possibly 1920s). His bedroom on one floor and his music room on the floor above are open and you can go up another floor to the top of the tower and look at the view. Well, I hope Edward S-W didn’t drink much or he would never have made it up the narrow stone spiral staircase to his rooms. I went up to the music room but going round and round was making my head a bit woozy so I didn’t go on up to the top to see the view. OH did and I started to make my way down. I was terrified of meeting someone coming up and trying to pass each other so at each floor where there was a space to pass I stood at the top and yelled down the stairs “Is anybody coming up?” But I made it to the bottom safely and OH appeared a couple of minutes later.

Then we went for lunch – jacket potato for both of us with a cake and a pot of tea. NT tea is always nice and strong which we like and their cakes are good too. I had a slice of a blueberry bakewell tart and it was yummy.

I’m doing a c&p but as this is getting quite long I think I will post this part and then carry on with another post.

Yes Mr Nobody seems to like making a mess in the shed and leaving things all over the place so eventually we have to have a good tidy instead of putting things back where they belong .
All tidy now until about a months time when we can do it all again lol

Oh no Mel not trouble with the mower again ,hope bil can get it sorted so he can mow .

Looks more like rain here now very black clouds looming .

Mr Nobody is around your house then Mandy.

Oh that is a shame Vera, hope that she recovers so that she can come tomorrow. As long as it was all fresh when it went in the fridge it should be OK.

I like the HE so He can find them again. Typical man thing Mandy. Mine was just the same.

The mower is'nt working properly at the moment so BIL has it in pieces again. Taken the carb off and leaned it out and still no joy.

Morning all,

<3 <3 <3 Happy birthday Ann <3 <3 <3

Hope you have a lovely birthday and OH spoils you ,enjoy your meal and I would take a cushion so you can really sit in comfort and enjoy every mouthful .

Oh Vera hope your granddaughter can make it tomorrow so you can enjoy your lunch together and have a good catch up .

We've just stopped for coffee we're in the shed having yet another tidy up ,I wonder who it is keeps making a mess in there and never puts things back in their place so he can find them again :-0

Morning

Change of plan for us. Granddaughter is unwell so not coming today. She’s hoping to recover by tomorrow so will come for lunch with us then. Hope the meal I’ve prepared survives in the fridge for another 24 hours. All its component parts are ready, even a jug with a marinade, but I haven’t assembled it yet so I think it will be alright. I’m going to take the opportunity for a bit of housework and possibly gardening and will bbl.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANN :-D :-D :-D <3

<3 <3 <3 HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANN <3 <3 <3
Hope you have a great day and yes I would take a cushion with me if I was going to the Italian place to be more comfy so you can really enjoy your meal.

Morning girls,

BIL here early again as he wants to get back home and do his grass before it rains.

15 degrees here and pc says partly sunny and it is quite bright at the moment.

I had a three year fixed price on my car insurance but dread to think what it will be next year.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANN have a lovely day and a nice lunch.
Good morning all. 12 degrees here dry but a greyish sky.
Mel, your car insurance is nice and low, possibly a good area to drive, age of car etc but good, don’t change that one.
How lovely to have a thrush so close. I rarely see a thrush in my garden.
Like Vera says I don’t know how you keep going for so long in the garden, although I suppose when I was your age I might have had more energy than I have now. Those years do make a difference to stamina which is so frustrating.
Ann Up until last year (when I was 83) I could still manage to go easily up my little step stool steps and also climb on the bed and stand up. I really seems to have been this last year that the strength has gone out of my legs preventing me doing these things. It seems to be how your independence slowly drips away which is not only frustrating but depressing too.
I have a very long feather duster thing with which I can dust lamp shades so that is not a problem. I am going to have to get daughter’s help to empty the top cupboards and find storage elsewhere. I do have large under bed drawers so will look to see if space can be made in those. Although there are four on each bed, four of those are not easily accessible as the are hindered by bedside cabinets (built in not moveable).
How lovely to see the Kestrel family, pity they were not close enough to photograph.
Mandy, how sad that your neighbour had a heart attack, I hope he will recover and can be returned to his home. Does he live alone?
Vera You have had a busy week with nice outings. Your get together for charity yesterday sounded a great afternoon and a lovely get together for your group within the whole thing. Nice to have all those tables full of your friends. I don’t think I would have been quite as restrained with all that lovely food around. But that is why I need to lose weight and you need to put it on
Yes the meeting went well, full of chatter that was mainly about gardening. Only 7 of us but that doesn’t seem to make a difference. This was the gardening Interests group. (Photography group meet in a hall). Luckily the sun shone so they were able to wander off round the garden while I made tea and coffee. I was a bit nervous about that because there were still so many weeds needing pulling. But they do all seem to like my scruffy garden, they spent ages out there examining plants and one told me my garden was beautiful. Compliments are always good to get I think. Of course we are all amateurs.
I also belong to a group called Garden visits as do some of my group and next week we are going to visit the Cotswold lavender fields. I so hope it doesn't rain.

Looks like I have rambled on enough. Thank goodness for C&P.

Sorry Annx, I somehow missed your last post. In case I don't get online till late in the day tomorrow I'll wish you a very happy birthday now. I wish you everything you wish for yourself. Have a lovely day <3

Good evening

I hope you have all had a good day.

You are really working hard outside Mel. I don’t know how you keep going. You must ache by the end of the day. I think I’ve done well if I manage an hour in the garden! Well done you for keeping going. It sounds as though you are getting a good deal on your car insurance. I think we pay well over £400 though that does cover both of us. Everything seems to go up once you’re over 80 but we get a bit of a discount because we have our house insurance with the same company.

That’s a shame about the chap near you having a heart attack Mandy. I hope he makes a good recovery.

I hope your meeting this afternoon went well AnnG. Was it the garden group or the photography people?

You don’t seem to have had a good day on Tuesday Annx, what with problems with the car park barrier and your car insurance and then hearing of the loss of another friend’s husband. I hope things have been going better since then and that you and OH are both okay.

We had a lovely afternoon. At a guess there were between 40 and 50 people there and 19 of them were our group that our friend V had gathered together. As we all pay £10 a ticket and we all buy quite a few raffle tickets he probably made between £250 and £300 for the funds. The organizers put together 4 large tables for our group. When we were all there V produced a load of picnic glasses (plastic) and 3 large bottles of Bucks Fizz to thank us all for our support. Wasn’t that a nice gesture.

The food was plentiful as usual though I was quite restrained. I had 3 small sandwiches, a scone with jam and cream and a bowl of strawberries and cream. For the entertainment there was a chap on guitar and his wife singing and a friend had come with them and was on the drums. They were very good and didn’t charge for their time. They kept going for about 2 hours non-stop, mostly music of the ‘60s and ‘70s. The husband and wife had both had heart problems and both had pacemakers fitted so joked that they had changed their “stage” name to The New Pacemakers.

With the raffle, there are so many prizes that it would take forever for numbers to be called and people to go and choose their prize, so someone draws all the numbers and then a number is attached to each prize and we all go and look to see if our numbers are attached to any of the prizes. We did find one of our numbers attached to a very nice dahlia plant in a pot so that has come home with me. We did have a laugh at our poor friend Joan. She won 3 prizes – a box of chocolates, a bottle of sherry and a microwave wheat bag. She suffers from severe migraine and chocolate is a trigger for her so she can’t eat chocolate, she doesn’t drink and she hasn’t got a microwave, so she gave all her prizes away!

Time is getting on and I still need to prepare tomorrow’s meal so I can spend all my time with granddaughter. I still haven’t told you about Knole but I will do, probably over the weekend now. There’s a couple of things that we saw that I think you might be interested in. Unfortunately we didn’t take any photos.

Have a good night everyone

Afternoon All,

I thought I had posted yesterday, but see I hadn't. I was quite busy though. I have a little pile of cards waiting to open now. We don't seem to get daily post now, just a bunch of envelopes every few days. It's been one of those horrid drizzly days all day that gets you wet in no time and covers your glasses. The Yarn Bomb opened yesterday, but there were only a few brave souls looking when I went to the shop. It did mean the car park had plenty of space for me though.

I've had trouble standing on the bed, but used to move it to reach the lampshade. The new mattress makes it much heavier to shift so I use a dustpan brush I keep clean to dust the shade. I have cupboards above the top of the bed too, but they have long handles and I can just about reach across with one foot on steps and one foot on the bed and a hand holding onto the door handles. I'm sure as I get older it won't be an option though and agree that low cupboard shelves are hard when you can't kneel, bend far or squat esily. When we did the kitchen in about 2008 I had a wide unit with just two big drawers and they are really good as you don't need to bend and can see everything in them. I also had a pull out corner unit with wire baskets like Vera, but there is still an awkward cupboard under the sink and ones in the utility. I started using cardboard boxes in them to pull out, but need more, so it's a reminder to measure them as the factory shop has some cheap plastic weave effect boxes with lids that rest on top so you can stack them. Wardrobes with drawers at the bottom are esier but we don't have any! Well the built in ones do, but I kept the original wardrobe that's built across an alcove and ended up using shallow boxes with wheels in the bottom of those. One of the expensive makers of bedroom furniture makes top shelves that have a handle to pull them forwards and lower them within reach which would be nice when we win the lottery!! :-) lol.


We saw the Kestrel again yesterday, there were 2 this time and 2 youngsters as well. Since the farmer who leased the field at the back of us passed away, the field has been left as a meadow like it used to be and it looks like there are plenty of mice again now.

It sounds like you are all sorted for the wedding clotheswise now you have found a pretty top for the evening AnnG. It will be a nice stay with your daughter with a wedding to look forward to and enjoy as well as meeting up with other relatives..

That was sad your 'over the wall' neighbour from the flats had a heart attack Mandy but at least you know now why you hadn't seen him for a while. Gosh those geraniums were a bargain so I hope there were still some left! Were they in flower so you could see the colours?

That poor Hare Mel, I bet he didn't think he would escape! Hopefully he might avoid the road now. That is cheap insurance for your car and although they say it's cheaper to shop around I would stay with them too at that price if it's no more than £200! Mine is £276 till it goes up in a fortnight when they add this year's increase on and the increase for OH's claim. It does cover him driving it, a courtesy car, protected no claims discount and legal protection though. It's an 8 year old sports coupe, but with the less mileage I do now, other than servicing it has only cost me one new tyre in all that time. I think tyres and brakes were mentioned at the last service though, so next time I could be saying 'more expense' like our friend Frank! lol.

Glad you had a good time at Knole Vera. Strangely in WW this week there was an advert for it saying how big the estate is. I must look it up. A nuisance your back played up though, but good it has recovered and is much better now. It sounds like a great afternoon today with some lovely food in the buffet! I hope the tickets turned up, but it sounds like you will be let in anyway.

Well I think we are both getting mixed up about OH's scans now! It is the bone scan results that he was waiting for, not the head scan, as that one had come back and he had discussed it with the doc over the phone when they prescribed medication. This morning's phone appointment was supposed to be to discuss the bone scan results, but when yet another doctor rang him this morning she started discussing his head scan!! It seems she thought that was what the phone appointment was for and apparently she couldn't see any record of the bone scan results coming back yet so she will chase it up. OH noticed in the leaflet with the statins about one of his other medications and the need to discuss it with his GP and the need for liver tests while taking them. Nothing was mentioned about this to him previously so she will find out and let him know. What struck me as odd was that today's doctor obviously hadn't seen any record of anyone discussing his headscan on his notes?

Well I'd better be off to bed. Early shower and start tomorrow with my blood test appointment at 8.17am! Then I can relax and open my cards etc. I think I fancy the italian place with the sagging seats for lunch as the food is lovely. Dare I take a cushion in a carrier bag? :-D

Oo good hope you enjoy your afternoon tea save a cream scone for me please Vera.

I was feeding Robby meal worms on the patio this morning and down flew my lovely spotted Thrush it looked around and I went to get the meal worm box off the little shelf and got one out and threw it to her but she flew away. I have never in all the years I have lived here (31) ever seen a Thrush on the patio. Robby was sunbathing again thie morning on the dead grass in a tough I have on the edge of the patio but when I got the camera out he moved to the decking so I took a pic there but its not clear as the sun was in front of me.

Yesterday I had a letter from my car insurance place saying I was'nt insured as it ran out on the 7th July. I knew I had paid it three days before the due date so ignored the letter and today the insurance came in the post so I wish thye would get there act together and not send out these letters till they have checked. The lady I spoke to on the phone said she had worked for them for 15 years and had never seen anyone with a 25 year old policy, yes I have been with the same one all that time since I was 50. She also said she has'nt seen one as cheap as mine in all her 15 years so I must be getting a good deal, she said they were all now well over £200.

Machines stopped better this wash on the line.