Pick n Mix.......

 
Early Saturday morning I get a WhatsApp hello from my children who are out on one of their walks. The view behind them is The Orwell Bridge (I think). 

The next pic I received was the empty mugs and plates inside an eatery of some sort. 

My beautiful orchid has been naked since Christmas and now it is full of buds all taking their time to gradually try on their new dress and show it off. 

Schlumbergera often called the Christmas cactus  or Easter cactus depending when yours flowers. This one has never made up its mind when it wants to flower and most years doesn't bother. So that was why I got excited when I saw a bud, a single bud but a promise of a flower. 

Long before Christmas we bought the stuff to clean our ovens with. It never happened. Every time I used either oven it was a poke to my conscience but it still never got done. 

Finally I got round to it when I knew the ovens would be redundant for two evenings running. I have to confess that I started it all off but when I stopped (too early in the proceedings) Hubby took over and did a great job as he always does. 

Monday evening we were out to eat at a really lovely Italian restaurant, 

iI Palazzo, Chelmsford. 41 miles away from home but worth it as it's about the same distance from the friends we were meeting. We met friendsL&K and friendsL&M. Always too long a gap between meeting up and catching up with each other. 

Wednesday night out again as our usual group of six, in our most frequented pub..... The Grosvenor which has recently been refurbished. Last week was my first visit there. It's mostly OK but we were reserved one of those horrid booth tables which isn't really big enough for six and both friendT and I had difficulty sliding along, also the backs are very high which made seeing round the room and the entertainment tricky and a couple of dinners even had to be served over the seat back. I was at the wall end and just above me was an opening/window that was covered with a wire grid, I felt like I was inside the rabbit hutch!

This week when we arrived it was quite empty and we noticed they had replaced the small round table in the far corner with a large round table, the way it used to be years ago. Made us remember all the fun social things we've done as a group and friendM and I found our old coach trip holiday photos to laugh at. 

Sadly another horrid thing to report about our NHS. On Friday our neighbour,  the one that had suffered hours and hours before getting a hospital bed two weeks ago, then caught noro virus while in there which got passed to his wife and daughter. He was brought home by hospital transport and was home for less than two hours when his wife had to call an ambulance again as he was sick and then passed out and did it again when the ambulance was there. Apparently the paramedics said it was definitely a failed discharge as their tests showed he had low magnesium and low potassium and was dehydrated. We all need to worry about this! 

Back to happy things, today is a celebration day and a Doggy Day Care day so I'm off to get ready.

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Getting Springy.....

 
While Hubby was looking out of our lounge window this little chap was looking in. 

Around the garden so many of the spring bulbs are now showing through.

It's still cold and quite damp most days. 

Cuppa at Daughter's and we were there as Hubby had to help her get her broken dishwasher out of the back room and removed to the tip ready for the new one to arrive the next day. Hubby was there for the new one to install too. 

I hate moaning about our NHS as they have certainly given me all they have over the years, however there are now so many problems! Last week our neighbour had to leave home in an ambulance. It arrived with three paramedics from Colchester as Ipswich didn't have one to spare. We heard later he had to spend nearly eight hours on the ambulance as there was no room inside A&E. That stopped the ambulance and three paramedics able to take more calls!  He then spent 24 hours in A&E before there was a bed on a ward for him! For me two things this week. On Monday I ordered more prescriptions online and left a message on the answerphone of the urology consultant's secretary. Tuesday the NHS App showed my prescriptions had been issued direct to my chemist. Thursday I still hadn't heard back from urology so asked my Oncology Nurse to chase for me, she did and rang back to say I can't get a more urgent appointment than the end of the month. Friday when Hubby called in the chemist they had no meds for me, so I rang the surgery who said they had been predated for next Monday..... they have never predated meds before and she didn't know why these had! 

Friday was the funeral for Jo Carrick, owner and director for The Red Rose Chain Theatre and R's boss. I knew the town centre church would be full and I joined them online at the live stream. The front choir pews were filled with her theatre performers, including R, who all came out to the front four times and performed songs Jo had written, with Vincent on guitar and R on accordion. Her husband and son both gave very emotional tributes and poems were read. It was a beautiful service. 

Enjoy whatever you have planned for the weekend. I'll see you next week.

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Ho Ho Ho Again.....

 
Saturday 24th January and the table is set for 10.

Gifts are wrapped and ready for those that didn't make it here on everyone else's Christmas day. 

And we are ready to have our own 2nd Christmas day. 

It didn't go totally to plan, which is as expected, R didn't come as she was feeling unwell. We all knew it was mostly exhaustion and stress from the chaos at work the theatre is under, however E was worried about R germ spreading if she was brewing an illness of any sort. So Daughter ate with us and plated up a dinner for R and left early. She was going to leave anyway as she was working, rehearsing then performing with people new to her. 

M arrived just as we were finishing our dessert, as he had been working, but we had saved plenty of dinner and dessert for him. 

Lots of stories from Son&fiancé's holiday. Board games and chat. Tea and cake of course and a really lovely day. 

The consultant's phone call appointment happened to be right in the middle of coffee morning, but that wasn't a problem as he likes a very short phone call. His last call was back in September but he still doesn't linger and I'm not sure how much he even listens to my answers as his report letter afterwards slightly distorts the facts, though nothing that I would need to correct. 

 

I found an unopened jar of lemon curd in the fridge that needed to be used and the quickest way is a basic sponge mix thrown into a cake case and dollops of curd swirled in then baked. Yummy. 

We had a phone call from one of our neighbours whose garden backs onto ours, they had caught photos on their garden camera of two otters that had been disturbed before taking all the fish from their pond. They had got into their garden through a hole they had made in our fence. So finally we had confirmation of how all our fish had disappeared from our pond late last year, we knew it hadn't been a heron or fox as the pond was netted and when ours was attacked so had at least three other neighbour's ponds. There was speculation of otters but no proof and we did seem a long way from the Brook. So Hubby repaired the fence, warned the rest of our neighbours and we have decided that for now we won't restock our pond just keep it healthy for wildlife as we can't compete with otters. 

Within two days this week we heard of an old friend, Charlie who died after about four months in hospital. We haven't seen him or his family for quite some time so it was really appreciated that they let us know and we will definitely go to his funeral. Very sad. 

Then my niece messaged to let us know that her daughter, my great niece, is pregnant. Life goes on eh?

Remember to make memories. 

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Time Worth Saving.......

 
When we got up Saturday morning Son&fiancé were about eight hours into their second flight home, first was South Island New Zealand to Auckland on North Island and then leaving Auckland for Singapore. Daughter was at Heathrow to pick them up Sunday morning. I'm looking forward to seeing them. 

I've decided to reduce my needless tasks, like not renewing my Flickr subscription last month. Now my free membership allows me storage of 1,000 photographs and as I currently have 14,600+ I need to do a lot of deleting before the app does it for me. I've till the 1st March so I'm enjoying the wander through and remembering. 

I've also decided it's a needless task to print my blog posts. Originally I treated the blog like I've always treated my diaries as physical evidence and reminders of my life, I used to joke that if/when I get forgetful I would have them here even if the blog server was long gone. However, it's not good for the planet to waste all those trees and especially daft now the monthly subscription price of printer ink and paper has gone up again. So I've stopped! 

Hubby was on his mission this week. He has continued with the office warming up mission, and it has been continuous heavy physical work. He is determined to save our energy bills. The whole room is now back how it was with the addition of extra sealant around all the edges under the existing double floor. He hasn't taken final heating readings because as soon as he had finished we both had to move straight into preparing for Christmas! 

Yes today we are hosting our second Christmas day now our travelers are home. 

So I'll have to leave you now as there's food to cook and the table to set before they arrive.

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Sad News......

 
We did get one little flurry of snow over the weekend but it was sleety so didn't settle. The rest of the week has mostly been cold, grey and wet. 

Very sad news this week when we heard that Joanna Carrick had died, she was just 58 years old. You can put her name into Google and be swamped with information and glowing reviews so I'll not put that all here, however in brief, she was the founder and Artistic Director of Red Rose Chain Theatre Company in Ipswich, highly respected for her personal acting talent, as a prolific playwrite and for her inspirational community work. Most importantly to us is she was R's employer, director and mentor within the theatre, Daughter had worked with her over the years too and the whole family have been in the audience of so many of their performances. 

There is no doubt in my mind that the theatre and the ethos Jo has built is such a strong legacy that it will live on in her name. RIP Jo Carrick. 

I had just decided there was nothing else to tell you when Hubby announced he has a new solution to resolve an ongoing problem. We had an extension built about 25 years ago, part of which extends beyond the original house footprint so giving us four outside walls and the concrete floor remains colder than it should be even though it has double layers of insulation and double wood flooring. Hubby is now planning to add a more modern underlay but he will need to empty the room and very carefully lift the current wood floor so it can go back on top before all the furniture goes back. A very big job. I'll keep you updated. 

So now I really do have nothing else to tell you so I'll say cheerio for now and hope to see you back here next Saturday.

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Too Krispie?.......

 
Last Sunday and the weather was so cold the pond was still frozen but this beautiful rose was alive and in full bloom. 

Monday morning we woke to this covering of overnight snow. 

Hubby cleared a safe walk way to our front door and walked with a neighbour to ours to make sure she didn't slip. Our neighbours at coffee morning made sure they had the right grit-bin codes and two of them made sure our Close was gritted. 

By Wednesday morning it was all gone. 

We decided to borrow M's carpet shampooer as a few places needed freshening up. Ideal time as Hubby didn't have any other jobs to do and was  getting a bit cross with his new jigsaw. So the main walk areas in the lounge were done, some of the hall and the bathroom was done, then Hubby and I popped out to a couple of shops. We were actually shopping for a few extra Christmas presents, sounds crazy but we have a second Christmas day planned for when Son&fiancé are back from their travels and hopefully E&boyfriend will be able to make it here too. 

Even though our heating was on it wasn't the weather to have a window open, so back from shopping and the carpet was still too wet to walk on so we had lunch in the dining room then relaxed in the office and Hubby did a bit more of his jigsaw (it's a really tricky one).

As we were wasting time... or should I have said keeping busy away from wet carpet? I decided to make Marshmallow Krispies as there were lots of marshmallows bought for festive season recipes that never got used. 

As you can see the shapes are totally varied as I couldn't get the blooming things out of the dish and called in my backup but Hubby struggled too. There were pink and white ones so I cooked them separately. I used the traditional recipe, however I found a video of someone who did it all in the oven saving so much hob stirring and halving the washing up, so I went with that. The result was a lot more crunchy, mainly I think because of too big a dish so spread too thinly, but still a yummy sweet treat that I'm eating far too many of mmmmmmm.

Sitting most of the time under a blanket I've caught up this week with some admin spreadsheets, my accounts, my online address book and my online dates are now all current and usable. There are neighbours helping with recycling used postage stamps and Christmas card fronts so I've passed those items on and this information on. Those big plastic tubs that our Quality Street and Crackers for Cheese came in are being saved here for when we next go to a Green King Pub as they are recycling them for Macmillan fundraising. I've passed that info onto all our neighbours too. 

Enjoy your week ahead, keep busy and keep warm. 

See you next week.

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Hello 2026......

 
Last Saturday it was a slower journey to Canvey Island than it should have been with lots of traffic delays and when others arrived they all reported similar even though we all came from different directions. Suffolk(us), Twickenham, Berkshire, Surrey and the furthest driving down from Leicester. One nephew and his partner came by train, I think it took four trains in fact as they came down from Edinburgh! 

It was a lovely day, as it always is, when so many of our spread out family make it all together and hug in person. Our hosts, my nephewE and his wifeN made us so welcome and laid on a huge amount of food. 

They even created a fun picture quiz and that's when I took some photos but not sure I caught everyone. 

Thankfully it was a much easier journey home.

The next day Daughter was driving O into the West End and amusing herself while O and a friend saw a show. Two of my niece's were also going into Paddington to visit their uncle/ my cousin in hospital. Daughter arranged to meet up with them afterwards so then I got a phone call for his latest medical update which was useful as I could then update my siblings. 

Wednesday morning and I sent Son&fiancé a Happy New Year message as they are 11 hours ahead in New Zealand. At midnight UK time they sent one back, but I didn't actually see it till we got up Thursday morning as for the first time in my adult life I went to bed and didn't 'see in' the new year. I hadn't felt 100% all day and the TV countdown, fireworks and entertainment are not worth staying up for. There were fireworks going on outside we could hear almost all evening. We knew we could put the bedroom TV on at midnight if we wanted to but we were actually both fast asleep long before that. 

When we got up on a new day in a new year it felt like our festivities had been lovely but also felt over, so our decorations were taken down and packed away. All back to normal. 

Got a visit from Daughter on her birthday which was lovely. I had asked days before and she had replied that there was nothing she wanted to do to celebrate the day, so the visit was lovely. 

Well another year has ended and they are definitely whizzing by faster than they used to but I don't really mind, especially while it's dark and so cold. 

I hope you enjoyed the year gone and I wish you all a year ahead that is all you want and need it to be.... but for now stay under that blanket.

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