General Chat

Oh dear Sylvia, I am sorry about your friend. It is a difficult situation because you don't want to lose a dear friend, but in another way, quicker is better <3

we're back in the rain and wind :-(


Our friend is not doing well ......... she is now on morphine for the pain, and is in Emergency for the weekend as the doctor thinks she is dehydrated, so they are trying to re-hydrate her. She is down to 86 lbs ....... that's about 12 lbs lost since we saw her 3 weeks ago. She's never been a large lady, but never that thin.

Things are progressing so fast that we fear she will be in palliative care very soon.

Brrr, it is freezing.

I took my old lady for a hospital appointment this morning, then had to go back to the same town this afternoon for OH's opticians appointment. He didn't need a new prescription, so in the end I was not needed to help choose new frames.

It is good to be back home,so we are having comfort food tonight, good old mince and dumplings

they just set out to annoy us :-)


think what many of our generation and the one after us have done to annoy their descendants ;-D

I have variations on the spelling of a few of my ancestors, sometimes they change and then change back again. Means when I search I have to go with all the options.. wild cards turn up too many discards more than not.

One of OH's lines is a family who started out life as Dugger, but in the 1850's or something like that one of them moved north and changed the spelling to Dugher. His southern children had the original spelling, but the northern lot had the new spelling, so following down the lines gets confusing

glad you've found your lost gt grandmother!

I'm still trying to find one of OH's gt gt gt grandfather's (I think that's right!) who apparently died 1827/1828, but no-one can find a burial for him or even a mention in the local newspaper ......... he was a fine upstanding farmer. Someone did find the proving of his will in 1818, giving his wife the rights. It's strange, because there are Parish Records of burials of many members of that family before and after that date.

I did succeed last year in finally finding my own gt gt grandfather before 1851 ............. he'd changed his name from the original Bucktrout sometime after 1841 :-D

Can't say that I blame him :-D :-D



Persie ........ hope you find your new home soon. We're staying here until we're carried out!


Linda ...... we're like you. We still communicate with over 100 people, and until last year, we bought cards and put together an annual letter. It costs a fortune as about 80 of them go overseas. Last year, we decided to just go with a letter, which greatly reduces the postage costs!

Like you, Christmas is usually the only time we do have any contact ............. but we do get cards and letters from them, so it is a 2-way thing.



Sue ....... it is also damp to very wet here, and surprisingly warm here. In fact we broke a 60 year old record for high temperature the other day.

Yeah, I finally got the death certificate for one of my great grandmothers. It was the one missing certificate for my central family line. I have a complete set of certificates for everyone now.

I have been searching for this for years, not helped by misinformation from my mum about her own grandmother, plus a mistranscription on the main bmd databases.
i actually found it a few weeks ago, but having ordered it, it didn't arrive, so the GRO have sent out another copy. She was determined not to be found. Now I need to find where she is buried

We still send a large pile of cards which cost a fortune to post. It is crazy as for some people it is the only contact we have.

I hope you find another bungalow soon, large bungalows are expensive here because of the land value, which is why most houses are two storey. You could always get a stairlift

Some days you feel doom and gloom and will it ever sort itself out.. must send you some photos of one house and its garden.. we won't be buying it, it is two storeyed but the gardens are magnificent.. but no driveway to park the truck.

My OH had curly hair when little. I have just been looking at some photos at their daycare Christmas party.

Trying to get an up to date photo of Evan (from his mum) it is his first year at high school and he got 1st in Produce Development (whatever that is) 2nd in Science and 3rd in Maths. So I guess we will keep him on as a grandson with those credentials.

I am sorry your OH found out the hard way that Christmas ornaments can break.. woe betide anyone who breaks my owl one which is made like a bauble type but as there will be no tree here I won't worry this year.

I just have to do a few NZ cards now, as most of us do e-mails to each other now. None of this ninety to a hundred odd like my mother used to send and receive.

Stellan is one already? He is gorgeous.

No I'm not talking to you Linda - but your old lady sounds lovely :-)

I hope you'll find another house soon, Persie. Do you find it stressful? I would.

Very warm and muggy here with very little rain. I feel for the people in Cumbria - the photos on the news look horrific.

Before you get here, Sue. Yes, I know you are not talking to me :-D :-D :-D

(Facebook related)

I am just back from taking my older lady shopping. She spent a fortune on booze for presents, plus two litres bottles of famous grouse whisky for herself, because she likes a tipple before she goes to bed and it was on special offer :-D

She is 86 and a really nice person, I think we could have been good friends if we were the same age. Anyway, I am officially her friend as I do more for her than just the car runs. That means I am covered by the volunteer bureau insurance, should anything happen while we are out and about

Happy birthday Stellan, he looks really cute with his curly hair

I hope another house comes along soon. Here nothing happens over Xmas, but I suppose as it is summer for you things are different

wow

That year has passed quickly!!


it's rain, wind, cloudy ............... in wave after wave after wave, right through to at least next Sunday

Plus record high temperatures 'cos the weather is coming up from the direction of Hawaii .............. or possibly Australia :-)

Stellan turned one today.

I guess we don't want to give the appearance of showing off with an old Arts and Crafts designed house etc.

I had my eye on another house but we did not go and look at it... the houses along from it were really new built and looked a bit like a row of toy town houses... I mentioned it again to himself on Monday as it was still on the for sale pages... it had a family room and lounge, and two bathrooms .. I had really liked it but himself kept saying oh it maybe too new and not built properly etc.. however he contacted our agent on Monday and would you believe it a contract had been signed for it two hours earlier.. I am far more miffed about that one even though I have not been inside than the other one which did not really matter for me except the view and the size of the lounge.. otherwise it would be a bit of work changing it.

I gave a lot of my labelled clothes away, had not thought of doing the recycle sale shops. We don't have one in Huntly it is really just opportunity/charity places... get some good books from them.

It was a grotty day, so we decided to go out for lunch to a pub we haven't been too for a while. It turned out it was their pensioner special day, so that saved us some money.

OH asked if we were going to put the Xmas tree up this year. When we got back, I was surprised when he went and got the tree out, I would have waited a bit He normally puts the lights on, then leaves me to it, but this year he stuck around and got in the way :-|

I know where things go, but he kept moving things around. The last straw was when he fiddled with the tree and said " Oh, I didn't know they were breakable" as one of my nice glass baubles hit the ground. I was glad when it was all done

We are on cinema duty tonight, it is Bond which is annoyingly long

true ............

you don't often see rail and picket fences blown down. But everyone wants these 5' tall fences round their gardens ............ I suppose for privacy.

But our sundeck opens from the second floor, so we can see over it!

I guess we are lucky that the city does not allow fences higher than 5' unless you have a swimming pool in the yard, or else all these privacy lovers would be putting in great high fences :-(

I think a large solid fence can be worse for the wind. At least with a lattice the wind can pass through

Linda .............

glad you are feeling a little better.

Thank you for the message from Tec. He really is a very kind and thoughtful man xxxx

Please give him my love next time you speak to him xxx


I was reading last night about the flooding in Cumbria and other parts of England. They had an incredible amount of rain!!

We had the second in our series of storms yesterday evening, lots of rain and high winds .......... but not as bad as they had

Part of our neighbour's fence blew down during yesterday evening's event .............. we're between them and the street and thus the direction that the wind was coming from :-S

I heard a noise outside about 9 pm, and looked out because I thought it was something on our sundeck, but saw only a couple of small items had moved, one of which had hit the sundeck metal fence. OH went out and brought that in .... but neither of us looked down towards their garden.

That is, until OH heard voices from their garden soon after 10 pm.

The strange thing is that the section is next to our carport which is under the sun deck, so the gust of wind must have come through the lattice work fencing that we have next to the street, and then over the car in the car port (which is open on 3 sides). Our lattice fencing is still OK.

Their fence is solid to about 5' then has lattice work for the top 9" or so ............. it has only been up for about 8 years, but then much of that house was what might be called jerry built! The father had it built for his son and d-i-l .............. we know the parents quite well, and know they went for cheapest offer. We suffered from their incompetent builders for months, with them attempting to store framing timber, tools, etc on our lawn, messes on the sidewalk, wanting to hook up to our electricity to run their tools or borrow our generator, etc etc

................... our architect daughter was so worried about the competence of any builder that F would employ that she actually told us to get a surveyor in before the work started to survey our basement and the basic structure of our house and then have him back after the house was finished, in order to get evidence if we had any subsidence or other damage and so claim compensation!


The third storm is due this evening!

I have just had a chat with Tec, he is delighted to be on his own again. His sister says she is coming back for another week in January, but he is determined that she isn't :-D

He really is a thoughtful man, he is arranging to have a very special pice of jewellery made for his granddaughter as a keepsake. He has gone to a lot of trouble to source it, but is going to let her choose the setting herself so that it is perfect for her. It is such a lovely idea.

I have been out and about, but am glad to be back home with the curtains closed and the lamps on, so it is warm and cosy. I am thinking about Sue and her sunshine :-(