Feeling Hot Hot Hot......

 
Saturday was the day we met Son&fiancé's dog for the first time.
She has been with them a few months now but had a planned operation on her leg which has needed very slow healing. Initial barking as expected but very soon it gave way to curiosity and wanting to explore the house garden and us.

She certainly molts a lot of white fur everywhere and on everyone! 

Sunday was 25°C at 8am and quickly got a lot hotter. 

E and R had their birthday, and we had invited them here for a birthday dinner with M and their dog too. 

O was away at Kentwell being his 1970s self and

Daughter was working with The New Cambridge Waits parading the streets in wool clothing in this heat phew! 

We had afternoon birthday cake and an evening meal followed by cornettos, more favourable than a hot dessert.  

When M was ready to take R and the dog home E stayed and we called it her moving in day. 

Monday our coffee morning was outside for the first time this year. As you no doubt experienced yourself this was such a hot Bank Holiday weekend but thankfully we survived and so did the chocolate goodies people brought when I put them in a cool bag with ice packs and were enjoyed quickly, (would have been rude to let them melt). 

E had decided upstairs would be her bedroom and she would use downstairs as her day room to relax in. She reported that being upstairs "the old people being noisy in the garden" didn't disturb her. 

Tuesday was busy as I had my monthly blood test booked for 10:30am. Just over a week before neighbourJM announced it was her husband's funeral at 10:45am! That morning we discovered there were serious traffic issues on the Orwell Bridge causing chaos throughout town. The heat was actually making the road break up.  We left home earlier than we would normally hoping to get in a bit earlier but the heavy traffic meant we got there exactly on time. Thankfully the very heavy traffic also delayed things at the crematorium. Hubby did a great job of zigzagging the roads and we parked and walked up the cemetery path behind the hearse which had just arrived. It was a lovely service and there were quite a few of us neighbours there showing our support. 

Afterwards most of us headed to the wake at The Swan Inn. Unfortunately the room there was very warm and with a low ceiling it was really loud and just after some food came out I got the start of a migraine, so a quick bite cos Hubby had already got a plateful,  and we made our apologies and came home. 

Daughter popped over in the afternoon mainly to swap her car for mine when Hubby reminded her her's was booked for an MOT.

That evening E came in the lounge to discuss registering with our GP. Things have changed such a lot in recent years and E managed to actually register online. She then reluctantly set an alarm for 8am so she could phone first thing and amazingly got a face to face appointment with a doctor at 10am for a consultation who then made her a second appointment at 4pm for extra tests. She's done all this before living in Dorchester and again in Norwich so please all keep everything crossed some progress can be made this time 🤞🤞🤞

Wednesday Daughter's car failed, got repaired, then passed its MOT and of course was expensive. 

Thursday Hubby's old school friendG came over, a social visit and also had a few things for Hubby to fix. Hubby fixed his phone but declared his car sat-nav way past fixing. Unfortunately he didn't bring his laptop and wants Hubby to go to his house to do it (an hour's drive away).

FriendM had been away in Spain until very late Wednesday so we switched our night out to Thursday. The pub must have been very busy feeding people this bank holiday and school holiday as we had a very limited menu to choose from. 

Friday and E tried to get ahead of some admin like changing her address online and phone calls. It's quite a tiring brain activity that she managed really well. 

So much more stuff for Hubby and I to move and possibly remove so E has space to unpack into and it's a useful job to sort some of our old clutter BUT why oh why does it all look such a mess before it improves? 

Enjoy your weekend.

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Making Changes Is Tiring......

 
Apologies for what will be a boring read for you but was actually quite a busy week for us. Tomorrow R and E have their birthday and as Daughter is working away and O is reenacting as his 1970s self we invited the girls with M and the dog here for a birthday dinner. You'll have to wait till next week to see how that went. E had decided to stay here afterwards as her moving in day. All her stuff has been heaped on top of all the bedroom full of the boxes they brought from their flat in Dorset a couple of years ago. She will be sleeping in two rooms here, the guest room upstairs will be ideal for a Sunday night then she won't get woken on Monday when the neighbours are sitting right outside for coffee morning, the rest of the week Hubby's office will become E's bedroom as it's more sociable down beside the dining room and garden if she doesn't have the energy to get out of bed, although it might be a little noisy at times, we'll have to try a few things to see what works best, and upstairs will make a good dressing room. Fingers crossed she's comfortable and feels at home. 

Little rant from me...

I use the Optrex Dry Eye Spray very sparingly and it lasts for ages, however I have been using it more recently and when I need it nothing else will work. 

As you can see it's tiny, just 10ml (half the cap is empty and a little liquid gets left behind because the tube isn't fully submerged into a corner).

Hubby kindly went into our local chemist and bought me another one

£16!!!   £16!!!   £16!!!

We both had Specsavers this week, Hubby for his two year check and I requested a one year check as I'm getting really blurred vision. My optician did lots of investigating and discovered that the blurred vision is caused by the evil pills which has yet another side effect of severely drying my eyes so she prescribed eye drops which coat the eye and remain longer than the spray. When I came out Hubby had been waiting quite a while for me and we both went to choose frames as he needs a new prescription too. We go back to collect in a couple of weeks time. 

Remember a couple of weeks ago friendKK asked Hubby to transfer old home videos onto DVDs well she wanted to pay him which of course he wouldn't take and he laughed and said he would accept a lemon drizzle cake and this week she turned up with a box full yummy, half went in the freezer too save temptation. 

And the rest of the week has been emptying cupboards in both of E's rooms so that she can do some unpacking and have clothes to wear. I made a start and hung clothes up and found a few of her frogs to put on display and make her feel at home. Going to have to pace myself as I've an achy back now and my craft room looks a tip as that was the "don't know where to put it yet" place and more will need to go to the dump! 

For now I'm going to enjoy this bank holiday weekend as we have guests every day and be very grateful for the really good weather forecast. Enjoy yours too.

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Changes At Home........

 

Way back in September 2024 I decided to paint these two large boxes in an arty crafty way as they live in my craft room, I was really enthusiastic and pleased with each layer, then lots of things got in the way, that room often gets too hot to comfortably work in, or the weather is wet meaning the clothes horse needs the space to get laundry dry, or the ironing board needs the space. However I'm so pleased to report that this week I've now finally finished them and the acrylic paints and paraphernalia that I was using,  which has been out on the desk ready for two and a half years  has now been put away. 

We were surprised to hear that E is moving back to Ipswich, sadly she is suffering with the long term illness of M.E. Daughter's house isn't ideal for the help and care she may need from day to day with O at college and Daughter, M and R all working long hours so we are planning on the probability E will move in here as we are mostly at home. 

Monday I needed to chase my overdue meds delivery and discovered that Oncology Pharmacy wouldn't issue them as my last blood test had one result missing, so my Oncology Nurse urgently booked me in just to have the missed FBCs done at the hospital and issue the prescription as soon as they see the results, although I asked if I could pick them up as I'm there to save them urgently delivering them. The nurse managed to get them to agree to that. 

Not easy crossing town mid afternoon to get to the hospital as there are so many road works and temporary traffic lights and it was getting towards school pickup time. When we arrived all the car parks were quite full so we had to park furthest away which left a long walk and of course an even longer walk to get to Oncology Pharmacy after the blood test, in fact my phone recorded just my hospital walk as a total of 2,562 steps!

And when we got there the pharmacist had to tell us they were out of the pills I need. They were on order and will be delivered. Actually I got a call on Tuesday confirming I'd be in and delivered Wednesday. 

Thursday Daughter picked up E from Norwich and also all her belongings. We already have one bedroom filled with all her belongings from moving back from Dorchester and now more stuff has joined it. Even though we still haven't made a decision about which room she will want to settle into and where her most needed stuff needs to be Hubby and I keep sorting spaces which is as good a motive as any to get rid of things we no longer need. 

Another thought we both had was if she chose to sleep in the downstairs room it has glass in half of the door and I remembered having a spare curtain that matched the others in that room. Measured and cut was the easy bit but for some reason a quick machine line got more and more complicated. I was using orange top thread and yellow in the bobbin then managed to sew the hem upside down so the unintentionally wavy yellow line was annoyingly in full view right across the front. 

Hubby could see it was making me grumpy so offered to do the unpicking for me. That's love eh? 

No curtail rail just fixed with drawing pins so when light is needed the bottom can just be flicked over the books. 

Meanwhile there's no rush as E is staying at her mum's for a week or two and there will always be flexibility and we can make adjustments as and when needed. This weekend nothing planned. Enjoy yours. 

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Life In Threes.......

 

Wasn't the best start to this week, I've now been back on the evil pills for six weeks and the side effects are kicking in. Mainly achy limbs and joints and painful headaches stopping me from sleeping. 

Talking to my two Sister's on our WhatsApp chat Sunday morning it turned out neither of them slept Saturday night either. If we'd known all three of us were lying awake we could have kept each other company online. 

Tuesday first thing I got a phone call from neighbourJM saying she had popped down to the pumps to put some fuel in her car but then her car completely died. Hubby instantly left home to rescue her. He came home once to bring her shopping home so it wasn't sitting in her boot getting warm, he changed the battery in her car key and also took neighbourRW to help him push J's car out of the way. Turned out RW had the right sort of battery pack to give the car enough to make it home. 

After lunch I had a nails appointment. For the most observant worried that I'd said Tuesday when I always have nails on the first Monday, this week Monday was another Bank Holiday. While chatting my nails lady said she didn't like her new car as she didn't understand the dashboard and steering column controls so when Hubby came to pick me up he gave her a full hands on tutorial taking about 20mins.

And for Hubby's third good deed in the same day NeighbourAM came in wanting help with his phone and saving and printing info. 

Between being needed Hubby finished another jigsaw

There wasn't another one waiting to start which was good as Daughter wanted him to change her wiper blades on Wednesday morning as she was feeling a little poorly having had three teeth extracted and Thursday Daughter had a skip delivered and of course Hubby is helping her dismantle a large shed that's falling apart and fill the skip with the walls, roof and all it's contents. 

To confuse my week even more we went out Thursday evening instead of our usual Wednesday, caused by the bank holiday weekend too. We had thought our friendHM was going to join us this week but last minute her work got in the way and she had to cancel and I still went even though paracetamol hadn't got rid of my headache. 

Hubby finished copying the VHS tapes onto DVDs and I wrote on all the boxes and discs (my writing is so much clearer than his) and FriendKK came Friday to collect them. She said a few are now destined to go to her son who can copy from DVD to memory stick so KK can share them. 

Hubby and I rounded the week off by playing our Thursday Jay's Online Quiz on Friday evening. I finished sewing my metal free bra and I gave the two I'd bought that were completely the wrong shape for me to neighbourT and she was thrilled as they fit her perfectly. Now I keep looking at the large laundry boxes I'd painted in my craft room determined to get them finished very soon. 

Enjoy your weekend, my forecast app is saying warm again Saturday but a bit chillier Sunday, and dry so enjoy.

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Everything's Coming Up Roses.....

 
Not many people still have video recorders or DVD players but we do and one machine that can do both at the same time,  FriendKK knows we do so asked Hubby for a favour. Could he please transfer her last remaining box of precious home videos onto DVDs? 

She brought over her box and Hubby found his blanks, all new and still in their cellophane plus a stack of empty cases to put them into afterwards.

Then as transferring each one is done in real time Hubby decided to take our equipment into the office and run it through that TV so it wouldn't spoil our lounge viewing. This meant taking the TV off the wall to get to the place it needed to be plugged into. Plugging in was my job and handing Hubby the tools while he was up on the desk doing the risky bit. 

Of course then he had to get used to using all this tech again that he hasn't used since the olden days. 

NephewE and his wifeN came to visit, in fact they invited themselves which they have been promising to do for the last three years or so but we could never synchronise with dates and we usually only see them on our big family day at Christmas. Lovely to have just us time for a change. 

They came with these beautiful flowers. I'd done a full roast for dinner and hoped to save my aches by doing a lot of the prep on Saturday, although there's still a lot to do with the cooking and entertaining. I sent them home with the Panda toy I'd repaired for his sister that she'd not come to collect and last Christmas I'd forgotten to take to our family day. 

Monday I woke very achy. Although his telephone appointment was booked for 11:30am the consultant called at 9:30am, annoying in some ways but actually as it was Monday it didn't encroach on coffee morning, he told me the recent scan result showed the cancer as stable with small shrinkage, so all going in the right direction! 

For scans I don't need to change into a gown providing I'm not wearing any metal. It was time to replace the bra I had made years ago and treated myself to bought ones but they didn't fit well at all and would need me to almost remake them to give me any support, plus I hate the climbing into and out of ones that don't undo. Then I found a plastic clip in one of my saved hoards of haberdashery, so found my oldest bra to attack with scissors. 

I'll let you know if I'm successful when I've finished all the sewing. 

We both went to a local pharmacy to have the next covid jab. It's a walk-in so no appointments needed. Neither of us are old enough but I qualify as vulnerable and Hubby usually gets jabbed too as my carer but the guidelines have changed and he's no longer allowed. The lovely pharmacist read all the guidelines thoroughly and asked me lots of questions about Hubby's health now and past but couldn't find a loophole as we were both cross and agreed it was a totally false economy! 

Thankfully no achy arm this time, just felt a little bruised when touched but I could still sleep on it. The next day though I started shivering after lunch and couldn't warm up at all, gotta be the jab, and I even needed my blanket plugged in which didn't do enough. An extra blanket over me on the bed did the trick and I slept it off. 

We've had the new wheely bins delivered that the council are issuing and leaflets and instructions on what goes in where and when they will be collected, although not in use till June. So pleased we have the space to store our five out of the way when so many neighbours will have to leave theirs in front of their house. 

Didn't realise how filthy that blue bin is until I took this photo. 

I'll finish this week with roses, with apologies I can't include their scent...

These were a thank you from NeighbourAB as she'd borrowed a handbag of mine while she was looking for the right one to replace it with. 

And the new blooms and lots of buds in our rose bed always make me smile. 

Now it's May! And warm enough to sit by the pond with a choc-ice (well it has been twice). Enjoy the long bank holiday weekend.

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