Hobbies and Crafts

I'm here and feel rough again but the sickness has stopped and I'm just so
pleased that my hubby seems fine and has no sickly feelings. Huge relief!!

Your kind words have cheered me up so thank you everyone. Much appreciated.

Fingers crossed that Kandj and he OH are both ok

We had a lovely time at the theatre. Mr Toad (from The Wind in the Willows) ran up into the audience at one point, lifted our youngest out of her seat and pretended to hide behind her. During the final curtain call he spotted her in the audience and pointed and waved. Her face was one big smile and it absolutely made her day.

Today has been an easy day - well apart from washing and ironing the girls' clothes, cooking a full roast dinner and contacting the NHS helpline as the 14 year old seems to have a bit of an infection where she has recently had her ears pierced. But the girls have all been in happy moods and it has been a good day. Our son and his wife will be here about lunchtime tomorrow and the girls are preparing lunch. They will leave mid-afternoon. I do feel tired but I will miss them.

Today I have seen the grand total of one pigeon in the garden.

Kandj posts on the Christian thread pretty much every day but she hasn't posted today. I do hope she is OK.

I do hope you are feeling better today Kandj.It is horible feeling Yucky with an upset tum.Hopefully it was just a 12 or 24 hour bug and that you don't pass it on to your OH.

Vera I hope you enjoyed the theatre with the girls.Your house will be so quiet tomorrow once they have gone home.A litle bit of 'you time ' will be on the cards :-D

Yes very windy here too Jane.

Kandj I hope you will feel better in the morning <3

It has been a pleasure to follow your wedding postings Vera. Not long to go before
the girls are taken home. Your home will seem very quiet when the family have gone.

I was wondering how Mitzi was just now. It's strange the Vet couldn't find a reason
why she is like she is, but thankfully she is still with you and not in pain.

Wet and windy here and I watched the biggest pigeon preening its feathers on the
top of our garden wall before it flew into next doors garden.

I have spent nearly all day in bed feeling ill with a sickly stomach bug. Not nice at all.

Rennies,Cramp ,tv controls LOL what a night that was Vera.
I have thoroughly enjoyed all your posts .What a wonderful wedding and weekend. I think too how amazing that your Son's Wife's ex husbands family came all that way for her Wedding.That says a lot :-D :-D She must be a lovely woman.
There can't be too many weddings like this one.
Now a trip to the theatre with the girls !! I expect all you energy reserves will be completly drained by the end of this weekend lol

It must be a worry for you with your Mitzi.At least she doesn't seem to be in any pain.I wonder what on earth the problem is.

The little birds have been blown off the branches today in this wind.I was watching the ones perched on really thin branches .One minute they were there and the next minute WOOSH ! gone :-S.They have had trouble actually landing on the window feeder,and when landed were soon gone again LOL

Yes Ann, we are having a quieter weekend. The girls are fine with their iPads and books and we have cards and board games etc. The only definite thing planned for this weekend is a trip to the theatre this evening for a musical version of The Wind in the Willows. Son and wife are arriving about lunchtime Monday to pick them up and the girls are organising lunch. I am just being told what ingredients they need. I think they are planning fajitas and salads and various nibbles.

My brother regularly gets foxes in his garden and one came in while we were there with the girls yesterday which was lovely as I don't think they have seen one quite so close before. Unfortunately the youngest one rushed across the room to get her camera and startled it so it ran off.

You will be worn out Vera, can they not have a quiet day amusing themselves? I have forgotten their ages.

We had a blackbird in the garden routing around for worms this morning, Goldfinch and Great tit on the seeds and coconut and a flock of four or five juveniles that we thought at first might be greenfinches, but came to the conclusion that they were probably Dunnocks. And OH saw a Robin yesterday on the coconut, which has mealy worms embedded in it.

Glad you enjoyed the story of the wedding. We are enjoying having the girls here though I am exhausted! Tuesday we spent around the town here and walking by the river and in the water meadows. Wednesday we went to Clacton for the day. Yesterday we met up with local friends who also have a granddaughter staying and all went to a country park that has a lot of activities available. Today we are off to my brother's at Southend.

Going back to the birds.....there still don't seem to be many around. We have had some starlings back and one or two sparrows but that is about it.

Mitzi is still not eating much, just about enough to stay alive. She is really thin now yet she seems relaxed and happy and is clearly not in pain. Vet is seeing her again in a couple of weeks. I am concerned about her but I don't know what else I can do. :-(

Brilliant Vera, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading about the whole wedding weekend.
I feel as if I was a guest myself and what a lot of lovely special memories you have.

Thank you so much for all three postings..... not boring at all. Amazing in fact.
Have a good week with your Granddaughters. You are blessed with a lovely family.

Vera, thank you for giving me the best laugh of the day, I just had to read parts of it out to my OH. So pleased that you too are keeper of all things medicinal and have to dispense them. Why don't men carry these things? And my OH gets cramp as well so I know the feeling of just dropping off to sleep and being woken suddenly. I suspect it will be a while before he is allowed to forget the phone/remote incident. :-D :-D

Thank you so much for the account, I did enjoy your son's wedding. And how lovely that his wife's American relations from her first wedding were at their wedding.

Episode 3 of the saga of Vera's weekend:

We are back at dil's house and it is about 12.30. First I find that son has forgotten to set up a bed for the 10 year old, understandable with the pre-wedding nerves. So I had to pull out a mattress from under another bed and get it made up in the little room she was sharing with her sisters that night before I could get her into bed. Soon everyone was in bed except OH and me. We had a quiet cup of tea together and off to bed.

Just drifting off to sleep when a voice in my ear says "Have we got any Rennies?". OH has got indigestion. So, who do you think got up and rooted through two handbags and a suitcase to find the Rennies - yep, me. We settle again. A short while later himself leaps out of bed and starts hopping round the room. Now he's got cramp in his foot! Another half hour goes by and I am dozing off at last when he gets cramp again. By now it is 5.30 am and I am concerned about falling asleep as I need to be sure grandson is up and about at 7.45. My daughter who is sleeping elsewhere is picking him up at 8.20 as he is off to a week long youth archery tournament. I needn't have worried as the phone rang at 7.30. I knew there was a handset on the table on OH's side of the bed so I am hissing at him "answer the phone before it wakes everyone". Him: "I am trying to but I can't find the right button to press". Me: "I am not surprised. Why are you trying to answer the TV remote?" By now someone else in the house had answered the phone and guess what? It was an automated call about mis-sold PPI, grrr. At that point I gave up and got up. Not so much a night to remember as a night to forget I think :-)

Bride and groom spent the wedding night in a little cottage at the venue but came back during the morning. Loads of other guests turned up at the house from their various hotels and yet more food was put out for a buffet lunch. When we left with the three girls late afternoon our son and his new wife were organising a BBQ for guests still hanging around.

We got back about 8.30 on Monday night feeling exhausted.

Among the many great things about this wedding three things were special. The bride's first husband was American and about a dozen Americans from different parts of the States came over for the wedding, including her first husband's parents and sister. It was so lovely that they were prepared to make the journey.

Secondly, by pure chance in the few weeks prior to the big day our son was in contact with a couple of old school friends that he hadn't seen for years. A company contacted my son's firm regarding a business deal and the MD of this company was his old friend. The other man had traced son through friends of friends on Facebook. One came to the entire wedding and the other to the evening reception and it was great to see them again. The years fell away and they were three teenagers again, full of banter and laughter, just as they used to be when they were lads and drank all my coffee and ate all the biscuits in the tin.

Now what was the third special thing? Oh yes, I wore my new shoes for thirteen hours and my feet hardly complained at all :-D

End of story (I can hear the sighs of relief from here.)

I am loving it Vera :-D.What an amazing day . Waiting now for the 3rd instalment :-D :-D

It is nothing like looking at others photographs Vera. You have made it so interesting
and I almost feel as if I am sat with you all throughout a very special family event.

What a wonderful time you all have shared. Little touches make for wonderful memories. I agree with Ann that you must make a diary and keep it very safe
so that you can read back in years to come and remind yourself of a happy day.

Thank you and I also will look forward to another posting. Enjoy your day at Coast.

Wonderful Vera, keep it up. I hope you are keeping this in diary form to add to your life story! :-)

Here we go with instalment no. 2.

After the ceremony, it was into the grounds for drinks, canapés and photos and this was the point when Buster joined us to be included in several of the photos. He looked very smart with just a neat grey bow attached to his collar and was so good, happily sitting quietly for all the photos in which he was included. After an hour or so his carer for the day took him away again. The photographers were amazing, one with a still and one with a video camera. They were around from 10am till 11 pm.

Then in to the meal. There was no top table as son didn't want too much formality. Instead we were allocated places at a number of round tables and son and bride sat at 4 different tables during the meal, having starter, main course, dessert and coffee at different tables. The food was out of this world and the table decorations sorted by our dil were exceptional. All the place cards were made by an elderly friend of the bride and she had also hand made every single invitation. The "favours" for the adults were tiny bottles of sloe gin made by the bride and groom.

Son then stood up and said that they hadn't wanted lots of speeches but he would like to talk for a few minutes. He then made a speech that was funny, serious and very moving by turn. He paid a wonderful tribute to his new wife who has supported him through some very difficult times, in spite of having problems of her own to deal with.

Then came a surprise item to most people. Our 3 granddaughters stood and sang Nat King Cole's old hit L-O-V-E for their Dad and new step-Mum and they absolutely brought the house down. They all have decent voices but they were unaccompanied and were pitch perfect with lovely harmonies. They had rehearsed in our car so I knew what was coming but they surprised me with just how good they were.

Soon all the extra evening guests arrived, the band played, dancing for the energetic and sitting around the lovely courtyard catching up with family and friends for others. There was also a hog roast for the benefit of the evening guests and those who still had room after the earlier meal (not me).

Just before midnight a 28 seater coach turned up to take back the 10 of us who were going to stay at dil's house and the others staying in a nearby hotel, cars being left at the venue for collection the following day.

That's enough for this post. One more to go.

It's worse than looking at friend's holiday photos isn't it?

:-D :-D

Waiting for the next instalment Vera :-D :-D..What a wonderful day it sounded (so far :-D ).Poor little girl leaving her shoes behind :-(

Ann we have an Aviator Hotel /Pub near us at Sywell Aerodrome.It is lovely to sit out and watch small planes/helicopters taking off and landing and sometimes aeriel displays.Sounds like you have had another lovely day out :-D

It has turned to be a very hot afternoon here.My house is so dark inside as I have had to pull all the curtains.

This morning we drove the few miles to Crickley Hill Country Park and had a coffee in their new cafe before walking around, first in one direction and then the other. It was a glorious sunny day with a slight haze so no too hot. The views were fantastic, you could see for miles to The Malverns, May Hill, Bredon Hill, the Forest of Dean and all places in between. Although going over there were still a lot of wild flowers. There were a lot of people up there, walking and playing with children, walking their (and what looked like other people’s) dogs, and picnicking. Such a shame that some people still don’t pick up after their dogs, even though bags are supplied and bins. We were interested to walk through a stand of beech trees that are 250 years old. These are in the part of the Country Park managed by the National Trust as opposed to the other part managed by the Wildlife Trust. Apparently they are struggling to save these trees before they succumb to disease.
After we left the country Park we drove to The Aviator pub at Gloucester airport where we had a coke and sandwiches sitting outside in the sun. I had prawn and Tony had Tuna Mayo sandwiches, served with salad and crisps, a bit expensive but very nice.

Not in the least boring Vera. Sounds like a good time was had by one and all
and I can't wait for episode two please. Enjoy the time with your 3 granddaughters.

Our Mr Blackbird hasn't been around for quite a while Ann. No idea where he is.