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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