General Chat

Your pocket's a bit lighter now Mel. It's an expensive business isn't it? At least your fish should stay nice and healthy in properly pumped and filtered water.

I'm glad the deep clean wasn't too awful AnnG and you have 4 weeks before you have to go through it again.

How strange to find your 2nd cousin living so close by Gwyn. As you say, it's a small world. Of course we had to miss a couple of our annual gatherings during Covid but we managed one last July. There is one couple in the family who are older than us but their health isn't good and they don't travel now. A few years ago their son was organising it and he booked a small hall close to their home and they were able to come along for a couple of hours which was lovely.

While we were having lunch the doorbell went and it was a delivery from my daughter. It was a beautiful bouquet of flowers in a box with some Belgian chocolates. Tied to the ribbon round the box was a packet of sweet pea seeds. There was also a birthday card which said that this was my present for Feb 2024. She was making sure she didn't miss that birthday which made me smile.

I'm off to put my thermals on now as I need to go down the road to post a card and it is freezing out.

Expensive business Mel but it will be worth it when done and it is all working properly.

Good afternoon all,

It was sunny this morning but now its clouded over and its 7 degrees. There was a hard frost again last night too.

The pond man rang me very early this morning and said he would be 20 mins. I was'nt dressed or washed or had my teeth in or put my hair up. He has only just gone and now I am £150 lighter so More Expense as our Frank would say. He has got my big pond filter going but what a job we had keep changing pumps and he said he would leave me with just the skimmer pump going but them changed his mind. He found three pumps in the pond and said the new one oh put in only did the scimmer. He took out another one out of the pond and said that one had gone so I needed a new pump. Here we go I thought this is going to be expensive...... He also said I needed two new UV tubes for the thing that kills the green. Homeleigh does them he said for £40 EACH!!!!!!!!! So I looked on Amazon and ordered two for £34 something. They should come on Thursday. He will come and fit them when they arrive.

Vera, How lovely to have an annual family gathering like that.

The extended family had hoped to have a big 'gathering of the clans' a few years ago, but Covid restrictions stopped that :-(
Saturday was the birthdays for 2 members of that family, so they went for that date.

The senior member of the family is my 2nd cousin.
I always knew of her, but never met her, although when she was young, her immediate family visited my family in Hampshire before I was born. We even had photos. Her mother, mum's cousin died very young and the father took the family of 3 children to live in the London area and they lost contact.
Fast forward to 2006, when my husband and I took our grandson to visit the area in South Wales, where I spent holidays as a child and the landlady of our B & B asked what brought us to her tiny village.
It turned out that she regularly wrote to my 2nd cousin, who now lived in Kent in our nearest main town :-0
What a small world !
We meet fairly regularly for coffee and a chat, but I had not previously met all of her family before Saturday.

That is one side done, quite gruelling as usual but not painful, just all numb on one side now and cold from the walk back and can't have a drink to warm me up yet either. Next appointment for the other side 27th March. he is very busy I was 45 minutes late going in. I think he had an early emergency, he was apologetic.

Gwyn yes it was the Fratton Co-op and Landport Drapery Bazaar was in Commercial road. I don't remember if there was a FC at either Handleys or Bulpitts in Southsea (Maybe Palmerston Road) though.
I love the Portsmouth FB Nostalgia thread (and the Fareham and Gosport ones as well).

Goodness Ann, you have rekindled memories talking about the Portsmouth nostalgia posts.
My sister and I used to be taken to the large Co-op in Fratton, Portsmouth. It was a store which amazed me as a child, because of it's money vacuum tubes. When one paid for the goods, for example with a 10 shilling note, this was put into a little canister and then placed into the small area in the wall and it would magically be sucked away only to reappear a minute or so later with the correct change in the little canister.

At Christmas time, it was a special treat to visit Father Christmas at the Co-op. My mother paid at the entrance, then my sister and I went in to sit for our 'journey' You're right, we really did think we had travelled quite a long way and marvelled at the scenery through the 'windows'. We eventually reached Father Christmas and had a little chat and were given a gift, then ushered by helpers along a winding corridor until at the end, there was our mother.
How could that be, when we had travelled so far :-S
It was indeed magical.

Good morning all. 0degrees but no frost. You were up late Mel last night, gone twelve when you posted. hope pump man arrives today.
Dentist today at 11.15 for the first dreaded deep clean.

Mum and dad always took me to pantomimes when I was young. I can remember seeing The London Paladium all lit up and having little binoculers (sp) and ash trays on the back of the seats in front. I don't remember which stories they were though but seems to think one was cinderella.

The other thing I remember was puppet shows where they were all black and little people came on so you could only see the the puppets moving about. I think thye were called Magic puppet shows.

I have a fishing glass float in the big pond which travelled around with the water when the pump was going. He used to have a toy yatch in there and I cleared out the filter shed today and found it stuffed down behind the small scimmer filter in the corner broken mast and looking very sad. It took me all day and I had had nothing to eat until 5.58pm only had a milky coffee in the morning and that was it. Man should come tomorrow lunchtime. I got a lot of muck out of the big filter mainly the needles off the trees out the back and broken up dead leaves so I am wondering if the pump is blocked by bits or the impella is stuck up with muck also and there is blanket weed in the pond a bit which I can treat but I don't know how much water is in the pond. I know you can work it out by size and depth but can't remember how and I am not sure just how deep it is. Oh used to say I could'nt stand up in it with my head out of the water.

Anyway off to bed now after a busy day. Night night see you all in the morning.

U3A has older members by design university of the third age, members have to be over (I think) 50: that may be 55. Retired or working part time only.

I saw that Peter Pan show Vera and it was Margaret Lockwood I remember I loved it. And the could fly!!!!

There’s been a bit of sun today but it’s been really cold. I want to do some cutting back of plants in the garden but I am a bit wary while we’re still getting overnight frosts.

It’s good your pond hasn’t totally frozen over Mel. I know they say you can float a tennis ball in a bird bath but you would need something a great deal bigger for a pond. I hope you can get your pump fixed quickly. Thanks for telling me about Larry Foley. I’ve never heard of him so I shall have to do a bit of googling. I do remember Lambchop.

How lovely to meet up with all your family Gwyn. I bet by the time you got home you were hoarse from all the chatting. On my paternal side we have always been a close knit family but are spread throughout the UK and overseas now. We have a big weekend gathering once a year, usually in July, and anyone who can get there does so. Usually about 50 manage to attend. Whoever is hosting it provides beds for their own immediate family and everyone else finds a hotel or b&b or camps (that’s mostly the younger ones). When this all started OH and I were newly wed and just starting a family. Now we are the oldies. This year my son and dil are hosting it.

I’m glad your step-granddaughter and her OH are beginning to get settled in their house AnnG. Decorating can be done when they have the time and energy. You said about U3A people being mostly on the elderly side. I think that’s true of lots of organisations these days. Our clubs find it impossible to attract younger members.

You brought back some memories with your story of visiting Father Christmas. I don’t remember ever being taken to one of the stores to see him but I do have a vivid memory of going to see the pantomime of Peter Pan at the Lewisham Hippodrome in about 1949 or 50. In my mind Peter Pan was played by Margaret Lockwood but I might be wrong about that. What has stuck with me was the final scene when the stage was in darkness and gradually filled with tiny twinkling lights. I thought it was wonderful. I’d never seen anything like it before and nothing since has had quite the same magic.

I had a long phone call with my daughter today and teased her about forgetting my birthday. She was horrified and very apologetic but the poor girl hasn’t been at all well, is coping with long hours in a stressful job and has been up to her eyes in tiling etc as her house is being extended and renovated and they are on the last jobs now.

I’ve chatted on but I had better finish now. We had such a hectic morning that I didn’t have time to cook our meal at our usual Sunday lunchtime, so we will be eating in about half an hour and I need to check whether the chicken is cooked through.

I was just reading a post on the Portsmouth nostalgia thread on FB and they were talking about Christmas and in the past the things they had for children visiting Father Christmas. there were two large stores that did it well in Portsmouth and I remember being taken to both, late 40s/early 50s. One was landport Drapery Bazaar and the other a large Co-op. I can only remember exactly one of them I think it was LDB. It was a sleigh ride and you passed through scenery (or rather in retrospect the scenery passed by you). It was magical to us as children. But we believed in magic then didn't we? and it must have been wonderful after the austerity of the war years.

Good to read that the house sorting is going well, Ann.
A bit of wallpaper is not a problem as long as the walls are structually sound, so I hope it won't be long until the young couple can settle in to their new home to await their baby.

A lovely few hours for daughters and I yesterday, when we were invited to a 'Friends and Family ' gathering a few miles away.
It was lovely to meet up with extended family, whose names were known, but just a person on my tree previously.
Lots of chat as we all tried to define our relationships.
So good to meet up for a happy occasion, as sadly, as time goes on, it's often only funerals, when extended family meet.

The moving is going well, actually in the end they asked daughter and SiL to look after Amber until the evening of the second day. Amber is a 7 year old Cockapoo and they thought it would be too unsettling for her to be there in all the chaos but daughter and SiL went round in the evening for a couple of hours and said the house is looking good. Needs a lot doing to decorations as it was an older couple sold it and wallpaper is peeling etc but I think it was reduced because of that.

Morning all,

Suns out here ,don't think we had any frost but it's quite nippy out, nothing planned for today just got to have a hoover round and then it will be coffee time .

Vera your meal sounded very nice ,full tummies with that feast .

Anng how is the moving in going ,I bet they were glad of your daughters help .

Oh here comes the coffee will sit and have that and do a couple of rows of knitting .

It did'nt freeze lat night and the mans ringing or coming on Monday lunchtime.

Frost has nearly gone now and the suns still out and 4 degrees by the pc and partly sunny.

Good morning all, up late today but had a broken sleep last night so didn't rush.
1 degree here still but no frost as far as I can see.
Mel have you got anything that you could float on the pond to stop it freezing over completely? I am no expert but I am sure that I have seen that somewhere.

Morning all,

Heavy frost again this morning but no fern patterns on the car its jhust white but the suns out too so it should soon burn it all away. Pc says 8 degrees and cloudy so I expect the sun will dissappear after lunchtime as it has been doing for the last few days.

Pond man is going to ring me tomorrow at lunchtime about this pump. In the meantime I am going to see if I can get the skimmer going as I am worried the pond will freeze over with all these frost and I don't want to lose my lovely fish..

And I had 4 eggs today too. I did'nt think I was going to get any today after yestersday 5.

Maybe your daughter's card has gone astray in the post Vera. If not she is going to be very embarrassed. It is my sister's birthday tomorrow and I am just hoping her card has arrived ok.

The trouble with U3a is that the whole membership is not young. We do have some in their 50s but mainly we are all over 70. We have over 300 members in our U3a so we are bound to lose some over the year. But it is sad.

Yes I think the elephants ballet dancing were in Fantasia.

That sounds a lovely meal but I would have been awake all night as well. the cup of tea would have finished me.

Mel doing well with eggs then well done.

Vera your answer

It originates from a boxer called Larry Foley in the 1890s.

When I read your post it reminded me of Lambchop who was a sock puppet worked by a lady Shari Lewis I think. Now thats going back a bit. Funny how one thing can lead to another memory.

I have had BIL here this afternoon and he sorted my printer out for me but it took a long while. It kept coming up with pdf file to Save and we could'nt get rid of it at first but he sorted it out and now I can print again.