Wild Weather and Web.......

 
Saturday and our children met for another early morning long walk with Daughter's dog (Son's dog really can't walk far anymore), they did just over eight miles. Both here for mugs of tea and chat afterwards. Hubby tried to help Son fix his van door window but they couldn't. Then Son loaded up some of the wood we had here for his log burner before heading home. Daughter headed home too hoping that O and R would be out of bed and ready for lunch. 

Another named storm at the weekend, Storm Isha, apparently the 9th named storm in about four months! We certainly heard the very heavy rain and wind and the Orwell Bridge was closed all day and night Sunday, however Hubby still said his journey to Felixstowe and back felt OK just longer with the divert through town, and only one quick thinking swerve on the A14 coming home to avoid a huge chunk of tree in the road. Thankfully no damage to anything here. 

Then just two days later Storm Jocelyn hits the UK.  Really windy here but the main storm didn't come down country this far. 

It seems like it's mostly been a week of Internet searching. I've a friend who is having a really hard time with anxiety, confusion and delusional behaviour. Thankfully she is being helped medically and mentally. So I've been looking up things about alzheimers and dementia including Lewey Body Syndrome as I know so little about it. Scary and very sad. 

On a happier subject, remember as a group of four couples we holidayed in Zakynthos last year, well friendL messaged us all about Bamburgh in Northumberland as a possible location for this summer and set us the task for hotel hunting. UK holidays are quite expensive so after checking all facilities I made good use of all reviews. I found four possibles I shared and now waiting to see if the others find anything else. 

Friday was Doggy Day Care day, Son's dog was booked in with us quite a while ago and we nearly had both dogs but Daughter's dog can stress Son's nervous little one (she just wants to be friends), but thankfully it turned out R was working from home so the dog stayed home with her.  

Here is the one in our care today, she is totally relaxed. 

I've put a pouffe there for her to use as a step as she's finding the height of the sofa a challenge now she is older and arthritic. 

Thoroughly enjoyed this week's finale of the TV reality program The Traitors. No spoilers here just in case you haven't caught up. 

Enjoy your weekend, forecast warmer, see you next week.

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Plenty Of Sub-Zero......

 
Last spring we talked about removing our water feature as there had been a problem with it for some time, a leak in the underground reservoir perhaps as Hubby was having to add water to it every day, or it would dry out overheat and blow a fuse. We can't actually remember when Hubby created it, at least 20 years ago, and it looked like this (a waterfall with cascading water) 

As you know Hubby hates sitting still but even I was surprised that on a day that started at -2°C he decided to take it apart! 

Nothing more has happened to this so far. It will have to be replaced by something as the birds loved drinking, bathing and splashing around in the water.

We attended a funeral this week. It was for the brother-in-law of my old school friendL. As childhood friends and having sleepovers I knew the whole family well. The prayer room was quite full and it was an extremely cold day for standing graveside. An hour and 20 mins drive each way and they really appreciated our being there. It was an orthodox Jewish funeral and if you have never been to one and interested I'm happy to explain more.  

Our usual team effort to defrost the freezer. I unload and Hubby does the scraping while I keep the saucepans water hot. Then I reload. Less than an hour from start to finish. 

There were three pizzas in there, two vegetarian and one vegan, that Hubby and I don't like, Daughter doesn't eat pizza and Son refused them as his freezer was really full already. I can't throw good food away so messaged our vegetarian next door neighbour who immediately came up to collect them. 

No actual snow here but very frosty white mornings and a couple of -5°C readings on my phone when I've got up and guess it's been even colder during the night. 

On a happier subject I've caught up with printing the blog posts for 2023. Probably unnecessary but it's my diary so although all online I do like to see it as a physical thing. 

I've finally got round to shortening the sleeves on a new jacket I've had for ages and also made myself another little handbag. Mainly because it's always warm upstairs in my craft room. 

Till next week, stay warm and watch for slippy pavements.

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From Under A Blanket......

 
Daughter and Son met for a long dog walk early Saturday morning and they changed their planned location to Woodbridge for a less muddy route because of all the rain we've had. Afterwards they came here, picking up R on the way and they left after a couple of mugs of tea each. Son also helped Hubby get the Christmas stuff up into the loft as it's all getting too heavy for me now. 

And then it was finished. 

I also love jigsaws and we usually do them together, however Hubby was really enjoying the challenge of this one so after my initial help I tried to leave it all to him. 

We had Daughter's dog here twice this week. Tuesday afternoon when Daughter took O roller skating at Bury St Edmunds, it's a two hour HE session. O said there weren't many others there but he still enjoyed it. Second day was Thursday when Daughter had a plumber round to fix her heating problem. The dog may have been good and calm or she could have given the plumber a hard time when he moved from room to room, we didn't give her the option. Hubby went to play snooker with his friends and M decided to go home for the plumber, so Daughter and O joined me here for lunch. 

We have often seen a fox or two when we've come home from a late night out and we know they use our garden as Hubby has to do a poo patrol most days. However recently we are seeing them during daylight. Monday there was one in our garden while we were having coffee morning (it was actually snowing at the time too) and Friday there was one crossing the drive and heading into our garden at 7:30am. Unfortunately they are either too far away or moving too fast to get a clear photo on the house cameras. 

I love all the wildlife we see here. 

I was about to publish this then this morning I saw these two in our garden at 8:15am.

looks like an adult and a young one. We watched them for about 20mins.

That's about it as it's cold and damp outside and I've no need to be anywhere. Stay warm and I'll see you back here next week.

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In With The New........

 
They say "out with the old" however as we are classed as old age pensioner's I'm ignoring the first half and going with the title of this post. As with every previous year " in with the new" for me refers to new hope for wrongs righted and conflicts quelled along with new understandings and new friends made.  

We invited two neighbours AM and JM up to see in the new year with us (as they each live alone) unfortunately JM was unwell and couldn't come, so three of us shared the Chinese we'd bought and then chatted and watched rubbish TV until midnight. There were a lot of fireworks going on around us, starting from about 8pm and of course all the fireworks shown on TV from midnight. Happy 2024 to all. 

Monday morning and even though it was a bank holiday we still had coffee morning. Feeling like he was ready for 'normal' Hubby decided after lunch on new years day it was time to put away the Christmas decorations. 

Between us it was soon back to heaps for bags and boxes. Packed upstairs for the loft followed by a good vacuum all over. 

Daughter's birthday and she didn't want to do anything special so Hubby dropped her card round on his way to Tesco. The weather was dreadful with storm Henk hitting us so she didn't even pop round for a cuppa and I don't blame her at all. 

With little to do in bad weather Hubby started the jigsaw I bought him for Christmas. 

This is a "Wasgij" one which we've not done before and it doesn't follow the picture, same subject and so far looks like the same characters but all in different places and lots of things emerging that aren't in the picture at all. A fun challenge. 

After a couple more bad weather days, he's more than half way. 

We went out Wednesday night with our usual friends, just four of us not six this week. Hubby has also been needed next door to help neighbourA with his broken Hive system which after two days and being sent a new box still isn't working. Apart from that we've had a chilled week gradually sorting stuff and that's when I found at the back of the fridge in a sealed box the turkey giblets I'd saved to make soup with on boxing day but obviously had forgotten. Word of warning, don't ever lift the lid on two week old offal! 

Don't have nightmares over it, in this case "out with the old" hahaha

See you next week.

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