General Chat

O and onion.

It has reached 4 degrees here now and the sky is blue and not a cloud in sight.

I have cleaned out the chickens and am about to put a big pot of soup on and I am not going to make the chilli but put the mince in the soup and I can have that tonight with doughboys.I have lots of veg, carrots, celery, leek, pots, tomatoes and barley and I may pop some pasta in it too.

Afternoon all

Our weather is like Mandy’s, not much frost but we have had several sleety snow showers and the sky is very dark. I was going to collect my glasses but didn’t fancy walking from the car park to the opticians if it was snowing so I’ve put it off for another day. Tomorrow is supposed to be very cold but sunny.

I’ve changed the beds and washed the bedding plus all the clothes we’ve been wearing for the last week. I’ve also decided to have our main meal at lunchtime today so that’s now cooking and I’m now enjoying a pre-dinner glass of wine. Hic.

I can’t decide whether to be good and do h/w after lunch or to be lazy and read. I’ll see what I feel like after we’ve eaten. Whatever you’re doing, have a good day.

Morning all,

No frost here but we have had a little snow ,it came down like tiny balls of polystyrene and the sky looks really dark .

Been to Aldi for a few bits ,mostly fresh veg and salad ,milk and bread ,tomorrow we have a load of wood coming but Jake is coming with son to help wheel it round .

Good morning sunny and clear again and one degree.we are just about to drive to Whitehaven to meet SiL’s daughter and Maya for lunch. So I will be back later. Have a good day all.

Morning all,

Bright again this morning but pc says mostly cloudy and 0 degrees. There was a heavy frost again last night which is still in placeswhere the sunshine has'nt reached and my car is completely white.

Must pay the leccy bill today as I forgot it last week.

I have a battery pack I bought in Lidl for oh years ago. I use it on my cd player as that wont hold a charge now. It lasts for ages and when I used to go shopping and take the cd player to listen to my books I don't have anything like that in my old car, bless her she's 20 years old this year.

I am managing with my old set of teeth but they do make my gums sore so I only use them for eating.

Yes a car charger is no good if the car battery is flat. So. Has a small charger that he carries in his pocket. It doesn’ give a full charge but gives enough for a while. My previous IPhone was about five years old and was four years old before it needed a new battery and the. It was not very expensive.

We had a brisk walk along by the beach this morning. There was a har4 frost last night, some of the roads through a village were really slippery, covered in Hard frost and all the grass at the beach area was frozen so it was a really cold walk even though the sun was shining.

I think I am a different breed to my children, neither of them feel the cold as much as I do daughter is here in a tee shirt, the heating has only just come on and is very low, and I was so cold befire it came on that I have four layers on which include a thick sweater and a cardigan. And earlier I put on tights under my heans, I was frozen sitting in the dining room which has a tiled floor and really big bifold windows. Lovely in summer but I find it cold in the winter months.

Yes a car charger is no good if the car battery is flat. So. Has a small charger that he carries in his pocket. It doesn’ give a full charge but gives enough for a while. My previous IPhone was about five years old and was four years old before it needed a new battery and the. It was not very expensive.

We had a brisk walk along by the beach this morning. There was a har4 frost last night, some of the roads through a village were really slippery, covered in Hard frost and all the grass at the beach area was frozen so it was a really cold walk even though the sun was shining.

Afternoon All,

Thanks so much for your ideas for charging mobiles. This one (Samsung) loses charge very slowly at the moment, but once I start to take more photos like AnnG, it will lose charge more quickly. As Mandy says, things I am looking at on it go over my head at the moment or I forget. Mandy I watched a video on youtube last night that showed a slim, foil thing that you can slip between the cover and plug in to this phone to charge it like you describe your son's. The cover I've already got for mine just covers the edges of it though and not the back. I just don't want to get stranded on my own with my car breaking down like OH nearly did once with his phone battery nearly flat!! I've bought cables to use at home. They also fit OH's newer car but my old car needs one with a USB socket. I think I'll pop to Curry's and look at cables and a phonebank. A phonebank might be better if the reason your car breaks down is a flat battery! :-)

We just had one of Asda's nice chicken, ham and leek pies with flaky pastry today, with extra leeks, peas, carrots and cauli. It's the food drop this afternoon, just one thing to go back and the flow tests were out of stock, not surprising. Terry has a livestream afterwards so I'll watch that. His grey cat Kitsy is 21 now!

I hope you have a nice ride up the coast Anng and Vera's talk of roast pork and Mel's crusty bread with ham and cheese coleslaw yesterday sound mouthwatering.

Next job is to order our scripts online as it worked fine last time. It's cold and dull here today as well.

Good morning all

There’s no sun here but, on the plus side, there’s no rain either. It’s just cloudy and very cold. IPad is telling me it’s 4 degrees but feels like 0. When I went out to the garage a while ago it felt more like -4.

Ann, do you use your phone a lot? If, like me, you don’t use it much you won’t need all the different chargers. I’ve got a portable one that I never use and an in car one that only gets used if we are using either phone as a SatNav which does run down the charge. I’ve had my phone for several years and got the battery replaced for the first time last year. We don’t leave our phones on charge overnight as I’ve heard of a couple of fires caused by phones. Though I think that’s fairly rare I don’t want to risk a fire breaking out while we’re asleep.

I think I got off lightly when I shut my thumb in the cupboard door. It’s a bit red and a bit stiff and sore when I bend it but I thought it would be a lot worse.

I haven’t got any plans for the day except cooking our Sunday roast. It’s pork today and everything is prepared. I’ll get it in the oven shortly for a 2 pm dinner.

Have a good day everyone and keep warm.

Good morning all. Another lovely sunny blue sky morning but a frost again as well. Probably going a little way up the coast later but coming back for lunch.

Ann At home when I am indoors I plug my phone into the charger except over night when it is by my bed. It holds to 100% all night when not used. Here I use it more as I tske photos with it as well as my camera but it doesn’t lose much charge and I then plug it in over night to the charger as I don’t need it right by my bed here.

You can buy chargers to carry I. Your bag to give a boost if you lose charge away from home. But car chargers are a good idea as well. We always had them

Morning on this cold and frosty morning,

Pc is saying cold weather and -1 degree and mostly cloudy but the suns out at present.

Hope you all kept nice and warm and slept well. I got up and went to the loo and turned the heating on and went back to bed for half an hour. I have fern patterns on the car hav'nt seen those for a while.

Yes I think I will collect them the following day but I shall be so cross if the waterboard people don't come.

I always remember my son shut my theumb in the car door once and golly it did hurt and he had walked away cos he was cross at something I said so I had to open the door myself to free it up. It split right across between the base knuckle and the top one and went all blue straight away.

Its been lovely here today plenty of the yellow stuff, blue sky with some clouds and a couple of light showers that made a very vivid rainbow over the big house grounds.

BIL came with the cans of diesel and popped those in the garage and I had gone to the hsop so made hi m a COC and came back and made sandwiches which I managed to eat. He always laughs when I put my sandwich down as with loose teeth I cut it into fingers and today I had cut the crusts off as it was a nice cob I bought in Torrington yesterday and the crust was hard today but the inside was lovely. I don't often have white bread but did enjoy it today. we had nice ham from the shop and cheese coleslaw, I| only had a little bit in mine and picked out the small bits.

It got quite cold this evening when the sun went down but there has'nt been any wind and the flood alongside the chicken run had gone today.

Good you kept the old barrel Annx it shoud have a number on it I think or model code. Its all coming together now with all the jobs you had to have done.

O Vera I hope your poor finger is not too sore and bruised. You will need a nice glass of wine, to take the pain away, or two. Out with the frozen peas. Yes you must'nt cut Penstemons down till April. I have'nt cut mine down since last year but it needs digging up and splitting but I shall wait till the weather is nicer and warmer.

Iv'e had the deer in the garden a lot lately I think they can see the new growth coming on the day lillies and they love that. They still look in the orchard for apples but they have eaten them all this year as there was'nt so many on the trees, I think we had a frost just as the blossom came.

I am having two scramble eggs and bread and butter and fruit and custard to follow that should keep me quiet, I have made the custard.

Evening all,

It's been quite a nice day here after a little drizzle first thing ,I had a good clean in the conservatory, the windows really need a clean but with the sun shining through it would have been a devil of a job to see what I was cleaning so I left that for another day .

Ann you need a power bank each for your phones ,I don't know what sort your phones are but the new phone that son has has a case for the phone that you can charge up if the phone gets low on battery
I must admit he shows me what you can do on it but it just goes over my head ,just like his new smart watch that does all sorts too.

Oh Vera your poor thumb hope you don't lose your nail ,I'll never forget being in town and a women had shut her daughters fingers in the car door the child's screams were awful .
Oh dear you will have to hide the secateurs up so your OH has to ask if you know where they are that way you'll know when he's going to do the cutting and can check up on him lol

Anng that would be handy if the boiler man could come the day you get home to look at the boiler ,hope it's an easy fix .

Mel thats a devil the waterboard men are coming the same day as you need to go out ,could you go to collect them the next day instead .

I missed you there Vera, as I was interrupted part way through my post and sent it later. Your thumb sounds really painful. Sometimes you just don't know what to do with yourself for a few minutes when something like that happens. I hope it is feeling a bit better now. My OH would be liable to say 'what did you do that for?' Not helpful! It's good you got your broadband back eventually. We are so dependant on it as you say.

I was going to say send your OH here as our garden has become a real mess this year, but perhaps not if he is Edward Scissorhands! :-D My OH has to be watched, as his idea of pruning is to just cut everything down, rather like you would do with perennials. It sounds as if your plot is nice and tidy now so that is good. We have had a Camelia as tall as me completely die over the summer, yet others either side of it look fine. Maybe something got at the roots, or it was too dry. There is a concete path buried under the soil that side of the garden so roots can't go down far in places.

Afternoon All,

Yes it's been almost springlike here too, so nice after all the rain,rain, rain and gloom! That sounded like an interesting walk for such a nice day AnnG. Did you get some photos of the trawlers? I hope forewarning your boiler man means he will get to you quickly when you get home.

The hoover seemed to go in fits and starts at first, but after we charged it up it was fine, so half the bungalow is cleaner now and I'll do the rest tomorrow.

The man fitted the lock and measured up for the glass and isn't charging us for the lock. We had him a couple of years ago to replace sealed units, so know him quite well now. I've kept the old barrel like you said Mel......good idea. It seems this flooding is everywhere this time. The old derelict mill they pulled down a quarter of a mile away sits in a lake now and the old mill house at nearby Huncote sat in a flood that made the road and it's driveway impassable last time and the people there sold up shortly afterwards. I haven't been that way to see how it is this time. It's draining really quickly here now. It must be heartbreaking to see 3 foot of water in your home. The insurance companies are going to take a hammering and no doubt putting the cost up for us all next time they are due. Could you try a nail file on any rough edges on your plate? At least it might make it more comfortable to eat with till you get the new one.

We are still getting the hang of these new mobiles and I've no idea how you change the batteries in them yet, so instead of getting spare batteries like we had with our old phones for when we are out and they run down, we've decided to get a spare charging cable each on Monday, so we can keep them in our cars to charge them in our cars, if they get low while we are out. Mine lasts a couple of weeks, which is much better than my old phone, but I don't use it much yet. I wondered what other people do?

Better throw anything out of the fridge that needs to go and wipe it out ready for the food drop tomorrow and also finish the order next. OH wants me to find and email him a photo of him to go on a website he is on. He seems to be finding me a lot of jobs to do already this year! :-) He's gone to footie in his long johns today as it gets chilly when the sun goes down. :-)

Oh dear Mel, what a nuisance the waterboard people are coming the same day that you need to collect your teeth. Will you have to go without the plate for another day and collect them on Thursday instead?

Has your lock been fitted yet Ann. You're nearly there with all your jobs now.

AnnG, that sounds a pleasant morning out even though it was cold. There's been the odd gleam of sun here today but mostly it's been cold, dry and overcast.

I've watched a couple of the Father Brown episodes as well Mandy and I agree with you. The older ones were better. It also makes me laugh when they say they are based on the original stories by G K Chesterton. I've got a book of the original stories and the only resemblance between them and the TV series is the name Father Brown

Our day started badly. We woke up to find we had no broadband connection but didn't know if the whole area was out or just us. We don't realise how much we depend on the internet till we haven't got it. I needed to find a phone number of a business in town but we don't even have a proper phone book these days. Ours is small and thin and the company I wanted wasn't in there under business or residential. Our broadband provider is BT and the easiest way to contact them or find their numbers is online. No use without a broadband connection. Eventually, after going through paper files we found the relevant number on a letter they sent confirming a change that was being made. OH rang and got a helpful chap who said there were no outages in our area so it was our hub. He tried to get it going again remotely which didn't work so he talked OH through getting it going here. So we have broadband again but don't know why it suddenly went off during the night.

I dusted and hoovered all the downstairs this morning and cleaned sinks and OH went out to the garden again to do more tidying. Well, it does look nice and tidy now; too tidy as he has cut down everything in sight! Some perennials do get cut right back but some just get cut back a bit as I want last years growth to protect the new shoots coming through. Luckily for him he didn't touch my penstemons. He knows his life won't be worth living if he does ;-)

While I was checking on what OH had done I noticed that loads of daffs and tulips are already through and about 2" high, even the late ones I have that don't normally bloom till April/May time. We're reasonably sheltered here so I hope they'll survive any heavy frosts to come.

Tesco are coming with my order between 5 and 6 pm. There's nothing missing and only one sub and that's one I had already agreed so I'm quite happy with that.

To finish up my not-very-good day I've just managed to shut a cupboard door while my thumb was still in the way. My own stupid fault. It brought tears to my eyes and I think some of my nail might turn a bit purple and black. I think I now deserve a nice hot cup of coffee. I am also hearing strange noises from downstairs so I think I need to go and investigate what OH is up to.

Well we can’t complain about today’s weather. Clear blue skies and bright sun all day. We drove the few mikes to Maryport and walked Rio miles around the harbour and back. Then up to the edge of the town for coffee. The tide was out but on the turn so most of the fishing boats were moored along the harbour wall. I counted at least thirteen trawlers of varying sizes. After coffee we came back home for lunch.

Good morning all. Sunny and blue sky this morning and a slight frost. Looks lovely but I bet it is cold. Hoping to get out for a walk today. Just a short one.

I have messaged the boiler Man to warn him about the boiler hoping he can fit in a visit after I get home.

Good to get the vacuum cleaner back Ann, all systems go on the floors then?

Hopefully, even if colder, we will now get some dry days so the floods can go down and people can start to dry out.