Limping Along.........

 
A quiet uneventful weekend. Sunday and Daughter sent a WhatsApp message early to wish me happy Mother's Day, she couldn't come over as she was performing with The New Cambridge Waits 

Although they actually looked like this

Son had planned to come over but instead he phoned to wish me happy Mother's Day as he was coughing a lot and decided to keep his germs to himself. 

I told them both that as I'm their mother every day of every year they don't need to spoil me on a specific day, I'm happy to be spoilt any time. 

Not the best week physically as my right foot started to hurt and rapidly got worse making it hard to walk and painful to sit in the chair and disturbing my sleep. Four days in and Thursday I gave in and phoned the surgery. Got a call back from a nurse practitioner who listened, made some suggestions and said I had to do a self referral to physio. Here in Suffolk the NHS outsource physio to a company called Allied. I filled in their online questionnaire which gets triaged and I've now a couple of exercises to do while waiting for my appointment on 20th April, and they said they will bring that forward if they get any cancellations. 

Some very ripe bananas to use up so limped round the kitchen and made chocolate banana muffins. Mmmmmmm

Friday evening and we joined a cousin's 80th birthday celebration. We had to drive to East Barnet in North London which is two hours on the road there and back. But it was worth it. Family and friends we haven't seen for ages, lots of hugs and great buffet with lots of cake. 

Birthday girl really enjoyed her celebration. And we had a very full and noisy table. 

I was trapped behind all the tables so a very good excuse not to get up, so Hubby brought buffet food to share and sisterS brought back double cake to share. More people now as my Facebook friends and we have another family messenger group, so no excuse not to stay in touch. 

Till next week then, stay warm and keep your umbrella handy.

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Social Scoffing......

 
What a lovely start to the week, our two wonderful children had included in their Christmas gifts an afternoon tea for the four of us. So rare to have our children all to ourselves! 

They had booked The Swan at Lavenham a beautiful old hotel and restaurant filled with character. Good service and really lovely food, we all had little take home boxes and needed them. I couldn't eat another thing for the rest of the day. 

Monday morning was our usual coffee morning and the neighbours bring various contributions for the table, this week there were seeded cheese straws and shortbread biscuits. 

Almost immediately afterwards friendM picked me up and we went to The Belstead Brook Hotel (locally we all still call it that although it's changed owners quite a few times who all tweek the name each time). Two course lunch and lots of chatting. Again I ate nothing else for the rest of the day! 

Tuesday, I fancied something hot and tasty for lunch and made this really good cauliflower cheese. Lasted two lunches as Hubby doesn't eat it. 

Yes I eat mine with ketchup, don't judge! 

Our normal Wednesday gang ate in Prezzo this week then headed to the pub so the guys could play pool. 

Thursday I was dog sitting for Daughter all day (she brought homemade biscuits yummy) plus we had organised for Son and Fiancé (with their dog of course) to come over while their new extension got knocked through into the upstairs bathroom, the new downstairs shower room isn't fitted yet, so they were escaping here for a fully functioning loo. I'd plenty to feed them already in the freezer which is where it stayed when they had to cancel as Son had woken unwell and put the builders off till next week. 

Friday we ended the week with us and 10 of our coffee morning neighbours going out for brunch at a local pub. That was fun we all agreed needs to be repeated. 

Thankfully I've just found mince and chicken in the freezer to thaw as I'm back to cooking for the weekend. 
Take care everyone.

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Marching On.....

 
Well lots of carrots sitting in the fridge needed making into cakes right? 

I'd written our next street party invitations and printed them. Last time some neighbours said they'd misplaced or thrown out their letter by mistake so this time I'd printed the backs too, hope that helps. 

Thought it time to put them out, so coffee morning I handed out to those that came and asked if anyone could help me do the letterbox drop, they all took a few and in the end I didn't need to do any. We've lovely neighbours. 

Hubby has now finished the loft, a mammoth task of moving stuff, sorting stuff, lifting boards, adding more cross bars, filling with more insulation, boarding on top, repositioning the ladder fixings and then arranging the stuff neatly. Phew!

I needed photo proof as I don't do the loft ladder. 

Seemed like the whole UK this week had snow but here in East Anglia we got off very light. We've had some very light flurries during the week but not enough to settle. Friday morning it was wildly windy and very wet until about 10am-ish then it snowed really heavy enough to settle on such wet ground. 

A lot heavier than this photo but I was too busy to take another pic in time, as about 11:30am-ish it stopped and the sun came out and it all melted away. 

An amusing thing to share (well it amused me). Lying awake in the early hours one morning with a painful right knee, I started thinking how most mornings something hurt or was really stiff before I got my body moving. From that came Old/Middle Age Bingo

Leaving you with that thought I'm about to reluctantly do some exercise. 

Have a good week and stay warm.

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Remember When.........

 
As technology has changed so has how I use it. Now I photograph so much to have as a record and I add pics to this blog to put them into context. 

Hubby asked if there was any photo evidence of the first time he rebuilt the bathroom and how he'd plumbed in the new shower cubical he had built. Well that would have been sometime in the 1980s! In the days of a limited number of shots on film to be sent off for developing and we had young children which I was obviously more focused on. 

Hubby went through lots of printed pics, very full memory sticks and our spare hard drive backup without success, but he quite enjoyed his trip through the years. 

It was 40 years ago that we all moved from being neighbours in the small Essex village of Silver End. We are all real friends that keep in touch, go out when we can and we have holidayed a few times with one of the couples. Not often we can get this many together at once and it was lovely. Lunch in a pub, back to N&T's for coffee/tea and we came home with a cake that friendV had baked and gift wrapped. 

Yaay we have a working shower again. The nice engineer came and fixed their faulty part and he installed the remote from our broken one into the new one, which Hubby was going to do but this way it doesn't void the guarantees. 

Excuse me if I post this quick as I'm off to have another long shower! 

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