Another manic catch-up....

Haven't written for about a dozen days so this could be a longish catch-up, go make a coffee first but do come back :-)

Change of phones was needed as mine had an almost invisible crack in the glass meaning that some of the time I could type or select an icon and sometimes it needed to be tilted or turned continuously to avoid gobbledygook and sometimes nothing worked but a bloody good shake! I tried to avoid texting in public :-) So when hubby replaced his he unlocked his old one and gave it to me, and so the process of getting used to a different way and transferring stuff and deleting stuff and creating links for synchronisation etc, which frankly doesn't come easy to me so all takes time...plus Hubby's phone had some problems of its own which is why he replaced it. I'm getting there :-)

Baking bread is giving me pleasure these days and my focaccia is improving each time.

Lots of children times which has been lovely. They've all been here together for lunches a lot more recently and they've been here separately too when they haven't all needed to be in the same place elsewhere. Only day we didn't enjoy quite so much was O with me for a whole day and suffering with a bit of toothache, when a boy needs his mum a grandma with calpol and lots of distractions fits the bill only about 80%.

We've been getting regular visits from a heron to our pond. And although they are beautiful elegant birds they eat our fish and churn up the murky yucky muddy water from the bottom and hubby has had to rebuild the pond twice because of leaks which we think may have been due to a heron's beak, so lots of deterrents have been tried like string on sticks then ropes on fences and a plastic heron on guard and now it's heavy wire mesh just above the water. The wanted wildlife can still get in and out but it doesn't look a particularly natural feature anymore :-(

My social life seems to revolve around food! Out to lunch twice this week and out to dinner twice too. Holiday only two weeks away and I won't fit into any of my nice clothes!

Hubby has been on-call lots all March for the voluntary blood running he does, in fact he is out on a call right now.

Online scrabble is becoming a bit of an addiction. I can't sit down at home without checking if it's my turn, which it invariably is as I've so many games on the go. But brain exercise is just as important as physical exercise (ok I need more physical) so I'm justifying the time spent.

I've actually bought a long dress for my holiday and you have no idea what a major thing that is for me. I don't do dresses, but it's a cruise so I thought I should. Yesterday I finally got round to getting Daughter to pin the length for me and we discovered that a wonky body needs a wonky hem!!!

 We had an email the other day to say our cruise itinerary has changed so a little change of our pre-booked excursions was needed as they have cancelled Tunisia. The explanation was that the last time they docked there no Isrealy nationals were allowed to disembark. Norwegian Cruise Line stated that as they will never tolerate any form of racism they will never include Tunisia on their cruises again. I'm all for that attitude so well done NCL.

So we have a very busy April ahead.We are having to postpone a mother's day lunch to Tuesday as Daughter has a hectic weekend.  There is the Dancing On Ice tour at Wembly we are taking our granddaughters to. The medieval banquet and London hotel overnight we are doing with two other couples. The holiday for nearly two weeks. Two evenings at the theatre. A concert at Snape (E doing solos in that). Plus our usual coffee morning for our neighbours. AND the clocks go forward so it will feel like we've got so much to fit in with less time hahaha.
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I need to do this.....

How easy it is to let things slide, to take time out cos you can't be bothered or just to make excuses, however, I've not written much lately more because I've had nothing much to record apart from medical updates and that could be depressing if I let it, which of course I won't!

But I do need to diary because that's what I do, and after a good roast dinner today with Daughter&co all here, and now all alone I'm feeling quite content so it's as good a time as any eh?

As for the medical update, previous post was called "head, shoulders, knees and toes" and even though there was nothing wrong with my shoulders at the time.....spoke too soon and have had really bad pain in my left shoulder blade down my back and the top of my arm, came on one day and lasted a couple of days then went, so I'm assuming I'd pulled a muscle or similar. Had the results of the MRI scan on my head and was very pleased to hear the inner ear is all clear but of course I still have the uncomfortable feelings in my head so now being referred for Vestibular Balance testing which I thought a bit odd as I've no problem with balance at all, but at least it may eliminate what the problem isn't. Knee pain is being tolerated just now, really think my GP forgot to do the referral to the knee clinic but I'm happy to deal with everything else for now. And the ingrown toenail was surgically fixed and is healing very nicely. Only other thing is I'm waiting for an appointment at the hospital renal unit but my GP did say it would take a while.

On to other stuff.....I had a lovely sleepover catchup with friendHG Friday and as she lives the other side of Essex I left home early and fitted in a visit to NieceL too as I hadn't seen her for months. On Saturday morning we both went to her son (I've known him from birth) as he was viewing two flats and a house for a possible move and wanted his mum's opinion and asked mine too even though I was keeping quiet and just enjoying the nose around. The properties are all within an exclusive gated estate so very posh and interesting.

The rest has been the usual out with friends, and Daughter &children here for some lunches, some jam making that ended up more like a sauce, some very yummy bread making that I was proud to take as a dinner party contribution, lots of playing Words with Friends (online scrabble) and a bit of shopping for things we need for the cruise which is less than four weeks away now! And that's it you're up to date :-)


*** Oops, day later edit because my head isn't what it should be and I forgot to mention that the ENT Consultant recommended another eye test so I booked into Specsavers and my prescription hasn't changed at all so they did a complete refit on one if my pairs of glasses to see if that was the problem, definitely improved vision but still makes my head hurt. Also seems I now have an underactive thyroid that has medication but I may have mentioned that before just can't remember along with everything else I forget!
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Travel broadens the mind....

We are so very lucky to have family and friends that want to holiday with us. This year we now have three holidays booked!

In April we are going on a Mediterranean cruise with friendsL+K. We went over to theirs last Thursday (an hours drive away) so we could sit together and book the excursions, it would be dreadful if we found ourselves on different trips by mistake wouldn't it?

SisterS and bilK want to holiday with us again this August and they are happy to stay in the UK this time because they know I'm rubbish in the heat of August abroad (I'm very grateful). We started looking at hotels but they are so expensive for two weeks which is why I guess most people go abroad when here it's a gamble with the weather! Lots of internet searching for self catering instead and searching in Wales as sisterS has never been to Wales. Eventually I found a cottage in Pembrokeshire that we all liked so I phoned and booked it, yaay!

Then I had to do it all again as friendsN+T had suggested we holiday together and we managed to just about synchronise 10 free days in June...then they left in their camper to spend a couple of months away and said they'd be more than happy for me to just find somewhere and book it without waiting for their approval as they'd have very limited internet access! Big responsibility!

Because friendN won't fly we are staying in the UK and I really liked the idea of the Isle of Wight and found 4 very good holiday cottages to choose from but knew that the big music festival would interrupt the end of our planned days and when I phoned to book they said a Wednesday to Wednesday stay would cost double the normal rate that should have a Friday changeover grrrr. I then checked with my son who has done the festival a few times and he confirmed that when the festival is on the island roads become a traffic jam nightmare and the ferries are full of smelly people hahaha decided to give it a miss!

Fingers crossed that the holiday let I found and now booked and paid for in Littlehampton, West Sussex will be perfect.

Add to the what, where and how much dilemmas I also had the added challenges of searching on a tablet that refused to let me use the filters on the holiday search sites, it teased by letting me think it would then shutting the browser, and so I had to fire up the old laptop which is soooo slow,  and after bookings and receiving the confirmation emails I had to fire up the laptop again as this tablet won't print. So broadening the mind it may well do, and narrowing the bank balance it definitely does, but stretching the patience to its extreme at least will soon be forgotten.
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Head, shoulders, knees and toes.....

.....and lots of filling my belly :-)
Our usual Wednesday with most of the crowd at the pub for a meal. Friday for Hubby's birthday we went out to lunch with Daughter, M and the children. Continued celebrating on Saturday night with another pub meal with Son and Fiancée (Son paid which was even better). And last night was a thank you dinner for FriendA and Hubby for the DIY repairs they had done at the vicarage. The Vicar and his wife are a lovely warm friendly couple and she is a good cook too, so FriendP and I were very pleased to be included as a thank you to us for loaning out our husbands hahaha.

There's been a lot of medical stuff recently. I had an MRI scan last Tuesday to see if there are any inner ear problems causing the tinnitus, results in about two weeks. Last kidney function blood test showed a drop so I'm waiting for the referral to the hospital renal unit, hopefully just a medication tweek. I rebooked the mammogram (cancelled the automatic appointment that came through last October because of my op) for 26th February. My knees have actually been quite a bit better since I've cut out (almost) dairy foods which is a blessing as now I've got an ingrowing toenail painful enough to force me to the chiropodist,  and it needs the surgical fix I had done on my left foot four years ago, and he's booked me in for the 25th so I'll be very grateful if it's dry the next day when I'm hobbling to my mammogram in open toe sandals hahaha

There's been a bit of crafting with my new found crochet skills. I've made cuffs for some boots so they will come up higher to help jeans stay inside.

I haven't worked out exactly how to sew them in securely yet, but there's no rush as my poorly toe won't actually allow me to wear them yet.

Thankfully we haven't been affected here by the dreadful flooding or the storms, it has just meant horrid weather so we stay home more. The very high winds have closed our bypass bridge a few times and that leads to total gridlocked chaos through the whole town but as we're retired we can avoid most of that too yippee.

The really bright sunny day yesterday did get us out of the house though. Daughter text to say she'd found a route from her house to ours that passed seven geocache (is that singular and plural or should it be geocaches?). So she came to collect Hubby and I to have a cup of tea at her's while she fought with all four children to actually get them off computers, washed, dressed and out of the house..."there are no socks anywhere!...why can't I wear crocks on a muddy walk.....if you carry your laptops there's no moaning that they're heavy.....I need a new toothbrush, the cat has licked mine!.....I can't remember if I've had breakfast or not ".

Eventually we did get out and apart from the children all taking it in turns to get grumpy or run off it was a lovely walk and four out of seven cache were found.

Arrived at my house and Hubby drove Daughter home to collect her car along with laptops a french stick and some bacon and we all sat down for a very late lunch. Then they all had some much missed screen time (only been off them about 2 hours but they were desperate lol).

Don't think there is much actually planned for this week so plenty of scope to do lots or nothing at all.
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Time to leave the cave.....

Just like the snowdrops and other spring flowers that are popping up ready to flower, so it feels like people are getting ready to stretch after the winter hibernation and think about meeting up, activities to do and holidays for the months ahead.

We went out with friendsL&K Saturday night and the main topic of conversation was choosing what excursions to book on the April cruise we are doing together.

Sunday friendN rang. They are heading off in their camper van to spend quite a few weeks in the south of France, but as we had mentioned holidaying together in the summer she thought we should synchronise some dates before we both get booked up and can't. Actually she wasn't wrong as even now there were not many opportunities to pencil in much more than a week! So early June we are both saving the same ten days and we'll decide what to do with them nearer the time.

Monday was a very well attended coffee morning of 17 adults and one toddler (with the grandparent on childcare duty). That is the most we've had and the dinning room was a bit noisy and squashed but it was really lovely. There was J who hadn't been up before but she retired at Christmas so hopefully will now be a regular and V who actually moved out of the Close towards the end of last year and he came back to see us all. Someone suggested we ring a bell every half hour to all change seats so we get to all talk to each other, but honestly it would have resembled a game of twister if we'd tried to move around each other with that many chairs squished together hahaha.

Been invited out to lunch with FriendsN&T and FriendsN&N. We all go back to being friends and neighbours when we lived in the same village more than 35 years ago, and now we see each other rarely so it's special when we do....so that's tomorrow.

Tonight (as my usual Wednesday night crowd are not meeting up because two are on holiday, FriendHM and I are going out and can enjoy a proper one-to-one catch up for a change.

And because I noticed that April, May and June are already quite full in my diary I thought I should email FriendHG as we always try to fit in three sleepovers a year but if we don't do the first one sometime in March it will be mid-summer!

Talking of mid-summer, SisterS wanted us to holiday with them again in August but haven't heard from her about it yet, so I'd better check if they still want to.
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Diary and dairy....

Nothing much has happened worth an interesting blog post, mainly due to yucky weather, but here's an update anyway more to keep the momentum of my diary going I think.

Well given my choice to stay indoors in the warm has meant I finished the third handbag and that one is now my favourite.

I'm making my way through the ironing, which I have to admit to being the highest pile ever. Having painful knees and then the kidney op gave me the perfect excuse not to stand at the ironing board so the pile grew and grew and even when I finally got back to doing about an hours worth at a time it went down a bit but then up a bit with the next machine load. The good thing at least is I'm looking for alternatives to wear and either giving long forgotten favourites a night out or committing to the charity bag something that has obviously shrunk in the wardrobe!

Another job I've been tackling is sorting my "What Room". It has that name as it used to be my son's bedroom, then was just a guest room, then O had his daytime naps in there and starts in that bed on sleepovers, but we can't call it O's Room as I have my fitted desk in there and all my arts and crafts stuff......hence a name that covers it all :o)
Another job that will take forever as I'm far too easily distracted by arty-crafty ideas, which is how I came to make the denim bag.

In the kitchen I've made more plum jam tarts and a roast dinner yesterday for Daughter, M and the children followed by a plum upside down sponge.

I have actually ventured out a few times, Tuesday during the day I went to the ENT department at the hospital (yes I have tinnitus and no they don't know why my head feels uncomfortable so referring me for an MRI scan) at night was a meal out with friends and we went to the Beefeater as I had loyalty card points to use which gave us £20 off the bill plus a free bottle of wine, so a nice cheap night. Wednesday night I was out eating Italian with friends and Thursday was an art night followed by the truck stop of course, this time our men went bowling while we were at art and they got to the truck stop before us.

Now I'm going to note this here just for the record really, but it may turn out that I'm writing/thinking total nonsense! Last weekend I had that awful stomach bug that is doing the rounds just now, so didn't want to eat or drink much for Friday or Saturday but to save dehydration I was drinking weak hot blackcurrant.  By Sunday and feeling so much better I still couldn't fancy anything dairy, I would normally have at least two very white  coffees in the morning and a bowl of porridge or weetabix with lots of milk, because women of a certain age need calcium right? Anyway by Tuesday /Wednesday I realised that I didn't have quite so many aches and pains as normal and especially noticed less in my knees! It may be shear coincidence but my plan is to keep to a reduced dairy intake till the end of February then introduce it all back again and see what happens!
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The one with the boring title.....

Made me laugh that my last post with the ever-so-slightly ambiguous title got so many hits from all over the world. Shame the stats don't show how long they stayed to look at my revealing photos....of crochet lol

Well yesterday was a lovely day here with Daughter and children, however things are definitely changing. The girls are very much into Minecraft on their laotops and now build/play/communicate/bargain/swap and generally live in a minecraft home-ed server village (all totally beyond me) but although they are sat with laptops the whole time they are chatting away to each other and co-operating all the time which is lovely.

O is very much into games on the ipad (they are all beyond me too). And when Hubby wasn't popping out to fix a techy problem for a friend he was on his laptop too!

Meanwhile I was making a birthday card and chatting to Daughter who was doing her crochet,  then we made lunch and the children allowed themselves just enough time to stuff some food in before heading back to screens. E had to shoot out for a percussion lesson but was straight back to her screen the moment she got back. How lovely Daughter and I have each other to chat to or it could be quite lonely in a houseful of people!
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I'm a hooker.....

I've been a knitter for as long as I can remember but have never really got to grips with crochet......but this time I've done my own thing (no pattern) and kept it all to just single stitch and made a whole very useful item!

I had ordered some handbag pockets insert thingies to use as Christmas presents, but they never arrived in time. So when they finally did arrive I put two away for future birthday gifts and kept one for my self.

The idea is that you keep all your stuff in this permanent liner and can then change your handbag in an instant.......so I just had to order some more wool :-)

This is the colour scheme of the one I'm working on now.

And yesterday I quickly upcycled some jeans. Think I'll increase the fringing a bit on the front flap.

What's that lovely smell.....

Best compliment of all as Daughter arrived yesterday and O bounded through the front door shouting "Grandma, Grandma what's that lovely smell?" It was my first attempt at Banana Yeast Bread,(recipe here) and it was as lovely to eat as the smell.

There was some jigsaw puzzling while Daughter cooked us all lunch, now on boards as they are still on the go. And there was our very own internet café which lasted most of the afternoon till they were dragged off for baths and showers 

Then back to art group last night after the Christmas break and onto our favourite truck stop for a meet up with friends and a bit of a dance to live music, so a great day all round :o)
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Happy as a hermit.....

I know it probably isn't the healthiest way to live but it's so wild wet and windy outside that I'm only venturing out when necessary and the heating is on constant mmmm cosy :o)

We saw in the new year with our lovely friends and neighbours P&A. They were overnight babysitting their grandsons so we waited for a text to say they were settled in bed then we joined them (just had to pop next door). Chinese takeaway and Jools Holland on tv for midnight then over to ITV for the fireworks. We did open the front door to see if any of our neighbours were outside but there was nobody about (not like years ago when the various parties all spilled out for a giant conga line).

My next trip out was on Thursday 2nd for our annual Mother/Daughter day as it's Daughter's birthday and we hit the sales. This year all the trousers she tried on were no good, but she did get a cardigan that was in the sales and a really flattering dress and lovely red ankle boots that were not on sale. We also enjoyed our traditional long lunch. Home via her house to collect M and the children for a roast dinner that Hubby cooked followed by the birthday cake I'd made already.

Saturday we had O here all day and E here some of the time while R had her audition for a local theatre company and Daughter was back and forth playing taxi and returning goods in town and shopping for clothes with the girls and bringing yummy breads for lunch and collecting M and a fish and chips dinner for us all.

Today was of course the first Monday of the month so coffee morning here with our neighbours with everyone wishing each other a happy new year :-)

Hopefully I'll venture out tomorrow evening for my normal girls night with friends, meanwhile I think I'll just curl up here in the warm with my book.
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