Coffee and countdown....

Our monthly coffee morning was just a select 6 neighbours plus us this time, those that couldn't come were for various reasons including holiday, chicken pox, funeral, just too busy, or it could have been the wet weather, but few is good as we always have good conversations.

This afternoon Hubby and I made a start on the packing as only five days to go to our holiday and we also popped out to buy some bits to leave behind for my special little boy who has a birthday while we are away (I'm sad to be missing that).

Well that's it as I had a night in so just a quick post tonight.
.

London now and medieval.....

A great weekend with friendsM&P and friendsT&F. We stayed in the Tower Hotel overnight after a really fun evening at a Medieval Banquet in the cellars at St Katherine's Dock and finished the night in the hotel bar as the view of Tower Bridge lit up at night is beautiful. 

Up Sunday and it was pouring with rain so a very slow start. Breakfast then checking out and all took our bags back to the carpark then we said our goodbyes and headed off to do different things. As it had stopped raining and looking so much better our thing was taking the Thames Water Bus to the London Eye. The queue for buying the tickets was almost longer than the queue to get on the eye! We also did the 4D film experience too. Then we got a bus (on the road) for the trip back to collect the car and head home.

We did pause en route for a cuppa at my brother-in-law's as we haven't had a chance to see him for ages.

So a lovely busy fun weekend. 

.

Theatre: The Visitor by Barney Norris

I found this so beautifully performed and the relationships between the four characters so real I laughed out loud and cried too. Dementia and old age are shown to be an equal struggle for the carers and the inflicted.

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Barney Norris

★★★★★ Times, Evening Standard, Stage Talk, Auditorium

★★★★ Guardian, Telegraph, Time Out, Whatsonstage, Exeunt, Fourth Wall, Islington Gazette

Nominated for Best New Play, Best Director, Best Male Performance for Robin Soans and Best Female Performance for Linda Bassett for the Offies 2014

Touring to Cheltenham Everyman, Theatre Royal Bath, Guildford Yvonne Arnaud, York Theatre Royal, Arcola Theatre London, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Oxford North Wall Arts Centre, Ipswich High School and Salisbury Playhouse

In a farmhouse at the edge of Salisbury Plain, a family is falling apart. Stephen can’t afford to put his mother into care; Arthur can’t afford to stop working and look after his wife. When a young stranger with blue hair moves in to care for Edie as her mind unravels, the family are forced to ask: are we living the way we wanted? Visitors is a sharply funny love story that takes a haunting, beautiful look at the way our lives slip past us.

Featuring Linda Bassett, Simon Muller, Robin Soans and Eleanor Wyld Up In Arms present the latest collaboration between playwright Barney Norris and director Alice Hamilton 

#DOI.....

No not a twitter post but a whole day out for the Dancing on Ice Final Tour.
Hubby and I took R and E to the show five years ago and when it was announced that this would be the very last tour we asked if they wanted to do it again and they did. My niecesS&L were booking so we did it all together so we could sit together.

I've no photos, sorry, far too busy enjoying ourselves :-)
Hubby picked up the girls from home at midday, back here for lunch, set off just after 2pm and got to Wembley and our pre-paid yellow carpark just after 4pm. After a bit of a walk round the Designer Outlet Shopping Centre we went into Prezzo for dinner (my discount card effectively got the girls' pizzas for free).

As we were finishing we were swapping text with my nieces who had found a dodgy kebab shop to eat in. We all then met up in the Starbucks right by the Arena entrance, they had a friend with them so seven of us walking through the crowds to our seats struggling to keep together.

The show was really good of course.
The celebrity line up was Gareth Gates, Bonnie Langford, Suzanne Shaw, Beth Tweddle, Jo Pasquale, Kyran Bracken, Hayley Tamaddon and Ray Quinn of course as the untimate winner of the final TV series.
The judges were Robin, Karen and Nicky.
And Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean did all the comparing as well as a lot of skating.

Jo did a very funny performance of teaching us the basics and stripped down to pretty skating dress to show us what it's like for the girls. There was a beautiful dance by the professionals with the three girls wearing huge swan wings. Everyone performed a lot and so well.
The show ended with Jane and Chris performing their Bolero!

Very late home and all straight to bed happy :-)
.

Mother's Day part 2....

The children were going to do the cooking but there were various interruptions so E did lots, R did some, O washed his hands and stood on a stool and nearly chopped a quarter of apple ate a bit then said he didn't want to do anymore! And I did the rest.

It was lovely having them here and Daughter painted this fabulous picture for me :-)

The words are lyrics from a Randy Crawford song. I love Randy Crawford and have two albums of hers but not heard this song before so it was straight to YouTube.
.

A gift in itself......

...being a mother that is :-)

The card and flowers together with chocolates arrived with my son when he called in for a cuppa and chat.

Daughter and I have postponed Mother's Day till Tuesday when the children have promised to cook us lunch.

Yesterday R and O were busy at a dance competition and E was at her dad's.

The church social.....

Our lovely next door neighbours and friendsP&A invited us to join them at their church social which was last night and A even paid for our tickets :-)

Very well attended, I was told there were about 100 people of very mixed ages. The vicar and his wife joined us on our table (they are a lovely couple). Our entertainment was a six piece band, three excellent female voices and one of them played sax and tamborine too, the three men were on keyboard, drums and guitar. They were very good and their repertoire went from 1950s to present day with plenty of Abba, they are all members of this church too.

Food was provided in the form of jacket potatoes with choices of fillings and help yourself to lots of different salad items. Dessert was also a huge variety of choices. Tea and coffee was also provided. We took our own soft drinks.

FriendA was taxi to a lady who I was told has terminal cancer of the oesophagus. She did have problems with some of the food and ended the evening in a bit of pain, but during the evening she was up and dancing and determined to enjoy it.

A fun evening and we rounded it off with P&A coming in here for a nightcap (I had a cup of tea).
.

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.
.

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!
.
.

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.
.