General Chat

*nudges dear Petunia back from the Aga*

I am sitting here, because my assets are frozen to the bone, my icicles have got icicles on them. I need the warmth of the Aga more than you do, dear.

If you have any honey and lemon to spare, I could add a teaspoon of brandy to it for you, because all that practising the Scales might give you a sore throat.

But what an honour, to be sure. You havent said who the Very Important Person is, are you keeping us on tenterhooks?

Oh well - at least I dont have to pay your electricity bills so if you are turning all the heating back on, all over the house, I can relax in the Morning Room for the evening.

CC

Hello Susan, I am surviving thank you, and hope you are all well and enjoying a pleasant spring season?

The cake mixture was delicious but Mrs Berry got rather impatient when she turned around to find I had used my finger to scrape all the cake mix out of the bowl - there was nothing left to bake the cake with. On the plus side, Mrs Berry didnt have anything to wash up because I'd licked it all very clean.

As you are so good at washing cars, perhaps you could pop over and wash mine? Mind you - you'd need to bring your thermal unmentionables and a fur coat. It was sooo cold this morning, our porch glazing was badly condensated, and I've never seen it that bad before in the porch.

Heyho .... after 21st December, the nights will get lighter again, and warmer temperatures will return to the UK ..... assuming we are all still here on 22nd December, since the 21st is the End Of The World according to the ancient Mayan prophecies.

As the End Of The World will reach you first, Susan dear, before it reaches us, can you please let us know so the last person can turn off the lights?

CC

Runs puffing on to the thread, cooooooeeeeeeeee Auntie,




Get the knitting needles out, the Royal baby is on the way :-D :-D :-D :-D


Teresa

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhhhh guggle guggle! I am gargling with honey and lemon ladies, because I have some wonderful news. The ladies of the parish are to sing at the Albert Hall!!!!!!

The dear Vicar told us yesterday at the service that the combined choirs of the Parish are to sing for a Very Important Person. Such an honour. I am beside myself with glee. Can you see my twin?

I shall have to turn the heating on all over Motie Towers now dears, I cannot have a cold to my throat. Oh dear no, how can they hear my solo if I am croaking like the Frog Chorus?

Cherry dear, move away from the Aga dear, I need to warm up my larynx.

Washing cars dear Upsidedown Susan? Is that work for a well brought up young lady? Tutty tut. Do you not have hired help to do such a thing? Yes apparently your All Blacks team had gippy tums over the course of the week. If I had not been on an errand of mercy, I would have nursed them myself.

Well, my practice.

Silent Niiiiiiiiiight. Hoooooooly Niiiiiiight.

Toodle Pip
Auntie Petunia

Petunia, your avatar is positively,err, delightful :-S... I am so pleased you are not sporting an 'xmas' themed garment. Poor Lesley is undecided as to which she will choose.....

CC, oh dear, things happen don't they. I had a spate awhile ago of breaking things. One ornament in particular that I really liked, no value as such, but I liked it :- I hope your pain has abated a bit??

How was the cake mixture? As children, we used to 'hover' as my mother cooked a cake. Four of us got to 'lick' one item each, be it the bowl, mixing blades, spatula or whatever mother had used. Nothing tasted as good back then as raw cake mixture. Not sure that fruit cake mixture would be very tasty :-D. Madeira cake was my favourite ;-).

I have washed two cars this afternoon, probably not as well as OH would - but tough. They are done well enough for me.......

Petunia, I wish you had nursed our oval ball fellows, they needed all the help they could get.... :-|.. Oh well, never mind... They were beaten by a better team on the day. Thank gawd the season is now over ;-).

Time to think about cooking dinner,

toodle pip
Susan

Petunia dear I am so glad to see you are back home, Motie Towers is not the same in your absence. Perhaps you should include among your many Good Works a Mission - to stand in SainsCo and other shops, handing out handkerchiefs to the shoppers so they wont openly cough and sneeze all over Moi !! ;-) ;-)

You know, it is extremely cramped, just living in the Parlour, the Dining Room, and the Two bedrooms. Pat-trish-aaaah having her little flat may have her privacy, but the light and heating she uses in those rooms are running up the power bills. Perhaps it is time for you to put your foot down with a firm hand, and insist that she sits in the Parlour and the Dining Room with you. Then, all the lights and the heating in Pat rish aaaah's rooms can be turned off - just think of the pecuniary savings that can be made.

I'm off now, to join Mrs Berry in the kitchen. She has the Aga going and it is blissfully warm 'yn y cegin'. And I have to test the cake mixture ..... !! dont worry I will wash my hands first :-D

CC

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ to Teresa, with sincerely meant Warmest Wishes !! brrrrr it is cold enough to freeze the ........................


Hello Susan, thanks for your good wishes, alas I was up in the night with such severe mid-back pain I was gasping for breath and had to wake MFH, who looked after me. First he rubbed my back, then he got the TENS machine and positioned the paddles down my back for a 20 minute session, then he rubbed Pernaton gel over the affected area. All this took about an hour so he was missing his beauty sleep. I was forced to take a Tramadol, a drug I prefer to avoid because of the side effects. :-( I managed to get back to sleep, and am pleased to report that the pain is not so severe at the moment.

I know what triggered it, he had a new cabinet to put on the dinette wall yesterday, and I was needed to hold up the cabinet while the first screw hole was drilled in. This meant raising my arms. Sigh. These things are sent to try us.

But my damaged finger knuckle seems to be coming along nicely :-)

We had two little accidents yesterday, first of all while moving some delicate glass ornaments to put in the new cabinet, one ornament fell onto its side, and the top parted company with the base. This was soon remedied with a Superglue treatment.

The other accident was when MFH was putting a picture back on the wall, and it fell off, landing on a lamp which was my 25th wedding anniversary gift from him. A shocked silence followed ... you could have heard a pin drop. Then, I said that accidents happen and we'd better just clean up the mess. It was broken so badly it couldnt be repaired, not even with superglue. I may not have the lamp any more, but I still have the memory of him giving it to me. Oh Well ..... them's the breaks ... :-S

CC

Gooooooood Mooooooorning Ladies.

Tis I, bound and masked to avoid germs and all kinds of nastiness that is floating around in the air!!!! Why people think it is alright to cough and sneeze without the protection of a lace edged hankerchief I do not know!! Tutty tut.

The Christmas lights are up in Town. Multicoloured ones. They are there all years around, though obviously not lit in the Summer. Jolly Santas, Snowmen, Stars and Crackers. Very pretty for the children.

The ajoining Town has decided to be more select, and they have blue lights strung in the branches of the trees. Very tasteful, but very boring. However, they come on about 4pm, so they light out way back home.

Tis very cold. One cannot afford to heat the whole house, so we are now living in the Parlour, Dining Room, the Two bedroom, and of course Pat-trish-aaaah has her little flat.

I think the warmest place is the kitchen, perhaps we should all decamp down there.

Off the church soon dears. I think we will be having the service in the Vestry, there are so few of us, and it has blow heaters in there.

I too have supervised the shopping of the Christmas Meat. We have a piece of Aberdeen Angus, a boneless leg of Pork, and two choooks. We do not like Turkey so we digress from the norm.

Did I hear the words frozen Yorkshires? Oh dear no dear Susan. One must always make from scratch. I can supervise you if you wish. runs for cover................

The bears are circling my porridge..................must dash

Auntie Petunia

Marmite .... :-D,

We have no Marmite on our supermarket shelves. After the factory was damaged in Christchurch, production has stopped... Nearly a national disaster in itself.. I had a half full jar that fruit borrowed, did it come home? Did it heck...
We are not a vegemite house so refuse to buy that product.... I would love to be a fly on the wall in a supermarket when Marmite finally reappears. ;-).

Lesley, Please forward me a copy of your family photo :-D... I have been shopping out of town this afternoon, I spotted some fleecy onsies in a shop., adult size. Heavens to murgatroyd, surely no-one has purchased any :-S.
I had my list of christmas presents I needed to buy, plus the four birthdays this month... The trip was partially successful.

I hope Petunia and CC are on the mend?. We can't be having troops down now can we??

I have a nice piece of beef roasting in the oven, I cheated and bought frozen yorkshire puds ;-). It is a wet afternoon so a nice roast dinner will be just the ticket.
Just love a roast dinner, taties, pumpkin and kumara (sweet potato to you), plus cauli, broccoli and carrots. I can hardly wait.

Toodle pip,

Susan

Im out doing good works :-D :-D :-D

Will pop in and catch up tomorrow and for tea and hot toast and marmite

Teresa

I'll just wait for the bit of gouged skin to dry and drop off Lesley. I had a similar injury a few years ago (although it wasnt scissors on that occasion) and everything healed beneath the plaster. In other words ..... I dont want to go anywhere near a nurse with a needle and thread :-D

Do please excuse me sounding stilted and stiff. Its the icy cold wot does that to me. And there is worse to come .... HELP !! who knickered me fur lined unmentionables.

I hope dear Petunia hasnt taken the lurgy from her contagious friend .... :-S

CC

Good Afternoon Ladies.

I am trying to get all our family together for a Christmas photograph :-D know do you think we should go for........................... "Either Grandma is getting her sexy on, or Mom is looking for her youth - stop looking." ..........or.......... "Tragic" :-S as it is soooooooooooo cold I am warming :-D towards "Tragic" ;-)

Hello Ladies Here I Am :-D I've been trying to catch up on a few dead relatives.

Oh Susan share your cherries Pretty Please ............................they are my favorite :-)

CC I hope finger soon gets better :-) do you think it may have needed a stitch or two:-S

Just putting on my isolation gown and mask before I speak with Auntie Petunia :-D I hope you and yours are soon clear of the virus xxx

Theresa I hope that on Monday evening/Tuesday morning you didn't have to make a detour to and from your paid toil :-) the road near my house was like a river as it normally is when we get heavy rain as was I believe the Avenue of Remembrance :-S

thanks but no thanks Susan ..... the photographs might have a tracker embedded, so I shall pass on this one :-)

thanks for asking, we have been very lucky again, as where I am has been flood-free - we just got very wet in the rain is all.. The rain has stopped now, but we woke this morning to a definite drop in temperatures. When I opened the front door, it was worse than opening the freezer door.

Now - you should be ashamed of yourself, lazing in bed while the poor puppy waited at the gate for you. Have you made it up to her yet? :-D :-D

When our youngest was a baby, and the oldest a toddler, both MFH and I took sick at the same time with the Norovirus. No one would come in to help us with the children, in case they caught it too. You can imagine how frightened I was, having to cook the kiddies' meals, not knowing if my germs would transfer to them.

Cherries are very expensive to buy in the UK as well. Just dont spit the stones at this Cherry thank you, or else I will get the pip :-D :-D :-P :-P ;-) ;-)

Alas a damaged digit is no reason for me to avoid washing up. *martyred expression on face* No one else will do it. I have my Marigold gloves to keep my hands dry.

With Teresa talking of sausage casseroles the other day, it put a notion into my mind. I bought some low fat sausages from SainsCo, and am sitting here now with mashed potato, carrots and green beans, pulped in chunky vegetable soup, with grilled sausages and mushrooms, and not a trace of lard or oil anywhere to be seen, arent I a good girl.

And for afters, I shall be a naughty girl. I pulverised some digestive biscuits, mixed in some melted magarine, spread some Lemon curd over that mix once it had firmed. And its now in the fridge chilling, ready for me to spread some fat free Greek style yogurt over the portion I shall be eating. :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D A Poor Mans's Cheesecake.

For those who can still enjoy the luxuries of life, instead of the fat free yogurt, use Mascarpone; it makes an excellent topping :-)

CC

CC, hoping you haven't been subjected to any flooding.?

Puppy duly patted, she thanks you very much... We didn't have our morning walk this am, as fruit was to leave town early for work and I wanted a lie in. Puppy apparently waited at the gate for me....

The email in question is from another source and is a series of photographs. I will happily email it to you if you would like. I didn't want to upset your computer - I know you don't like 'junk'.

Petunia, you are a real Florence, well done you. Are you wearing a mask and gloves? :-D. Who would nurse you should you fall ill?
Some years ago, my OH and I were ill at thesame time, I never want to be that ill again. My poor OH looked like he had been starved to near death by the time he recovered, I,err, had more to come and go on to start with :-P.

I have had the first cherries for the season and they are delicious. As children, they were an absolute treat for us, a very expensive fruit. I love them, don't spit the pips off into the distance now though ;-).

Big waves to Teresa and Lesley, hope you are both well?. CC, you won't have to do the washing up for a bit - not with an injury to your digit ;-).

Have a lovely weekend, we are off to friends for dinner tonight....

Toodle pip
Susan

It isnt just a scratch Petunia dear. Look at the skin hanging off ... oh dear you do look pale. I hope you're not going to faint. I nearly passed out when I cut myself with the scissors. That TCP stings, by the way. not that I am ungrateful but ... YAROO !!

Do be careful dear, with all this rushing around you will collapse, and if you go down who will organise everything and everybody?

*groan* today I have the arduous task of matching up the credit card statement with the credit card transaction receipts. A dreary job, but someone has to check that no thieving b* has tried to put thru a fraudulent transaction in my name.

Oh well, Mrs Berry has just arrived, so I will go and instruct her to put the kettle on and make a nice pot of tea for two before she starts her day's chores. Mrs Berry and | get on so well, that I almost dont miss you Petunia dear.

Oh ................. there she was, gone.

CC

Rushes home with plasters, lint bandags, TCP and a little TLC to poor Cherry.

Oh my dear, I am here in my official capacity as Helper to the Sick and Needy..............................

IS THAT IT? Well dear, I can only surmise your pain threshold is very low dear. Tis nothing more than a scratch. A big scratch mind...............

Back to administer to Octavia. She has stopped vomitting now, but still going on Down Under......................

I hope to be back very soon, there are so many people not getting my full and deserving attention.

Pip Pip
Auntie Petunia

Susan dear, please do PM me with that disturbing email. I like disturbing some people :-D

Yes, it was on the news. Some Bright Spark actually snuck that "Vacancy" on to a government website, until the department concerned discovered it and promptly deleted. But not before it had gone viral.

Not only tummy bugs. Tramadol causes severe diarrhoea too, as soon as you stop taking it. I lost half a stone in five days .......

The older we get, the faster the years roll round. Its a fact. It is because we have more years "on us" to compare each passing year with.

I would like to keep warm ..... but not too hot, of course ..... but now that the torrential rain has stopped the temperatures have dropped. The River Thames has risen alarmingly, with flood warnings in some parts of Outer London and the Home Counties, and the River Lea runs out from the Thames .....................

Give the puppy a pat on the head from me :-D and next time, make an extra portion of porage :-)

CC
*getting into a wet suit with snorkel*

yes indeed, poor Octavia. As you know, I was one of this year's earliest victims of this dreadful Petit Cholera - mind you, I am very overweight so can afford to lose a few stones, but I didnt actually lose that much weight. My binbag ensembles do not need any adjustments as they are not too loose.

I am sure Octavia needs you, Petunia dear, but we need you too. Last night I had a little accident with a pair of scissors and have a flesh wound on my finger which is covered with a plaster. You were not here, and Mrs Berry had gone home for the night, and Pat rish aaaah was no where to be found. I had to apply the plaster myself, one handed.
*sobs* there was no one here to hear me crying "YAROO !!"

Alas all my old gowns were donated to Charity, in favour of the bin liner outfits, and there are no avatars of me wearing bin liners. And you must admit that Charity looks very good in my old clothes.

I do not wear liberty bodices, as you know, they are highly over rated. My dear Mama insisted I wear a liberty bodice in the 1950s, and I promptly caught new moan ee-ah. But I did enjoy the three months away from that Hell Hole known as 'School'.

CC
shivering with cold in the loneliness of Motie Towers :-S :-S

Petunia,
I am still laughing at a very funny/disturbing email I have received. Only in A.....a :-D. Some people are seriously weird, present company excluded of course.

CC, thanks for your email too. Do you mean that was actually posted ??

Oooh, tummy bugs are nasty - uness one needs to lose a few kilo's in a short space of time. :-D. I hope you do not fall victim to the nasty bugs..

I am puppy sitting this morning until I leave for work... The pup ate her own portion of porridge (made with soy milk) and apple and then barked at me for mine :-S, no way jose', as they say..

Nearly another month over, I am blowed if I know why this year has sped by faster than last year. Or do they all pass by this quickly as we get older??. I probably say the same thing every year..

I did purchase a frozen turkey this week, the largest I could find... Gawd knows how long it will need to thaw, let alone cook.
The madness has begun :-D.


Time to knock up a few sarnies and ready ,myself for the day ahead :-).

Toodle pip, keep warm,safe and well y'all ;-).

Susan