A Warm Bank Holiday Weekend - Can This Be True?

It certainly is forecast and the weather yesterday was several degrees warmer than the rest of the month, but before that I'm sure it rained at sometime almost everyday during the last week. It felt like it. 

 

In a couple of dry bits I managed to strim round the edges of the back and front lawns and hoe out a few weeds and then cut the front and back lawns. I also had a close look at the one tree tucked in the corner that appeared to be a fruit tree and some fruit has set so I cut off a couple of bits of the Ceonothus and the tree to the right to give the fruit a bit more light. I'm still not entirely sure what it is - hope it's not just  a crab apple - that would be annoying -  prefer things more edible!

The garden gave a surprise when  I discovered a Hosta tucked away behind the huge Peony. I love Hostas, so what a shame it's so hidden. I've always grown them in pots to help avoid slugs and to see them better, but this is a bit big to move although it's pointless leaving it where it is.

 

Last Sunday someone tried to phone me on the home phone and then got me on the mobile to tell me the home phone was dead.

After calling BT I found they'd cut me off for non payment of 2 bills! Puzzling since I'd only been here 2 weeks! Actually someone (me) had forgotten to check that the Direct Debit had been set up again - Whoops! And someone (them) hadn't properly changed the date of my move and cancelled the April bill when I was living in the holiday lets. One of the problems with not moving directly from one home to another.....it certainly complicated several things.

After 5 years of rootling around in small under the work-top fridges, I've at last got back to a tall 50/50 fridge over freezer and also my first ever dishwasher (and I'm 66 years old!) is now installed - although I haven't used it yet - I'm waiting for Eldest Daughter to visit and show me how it works! One of my difficulties in life is learning how to use new machines. 

Luckily I didn't need to read the instructions for the fridge/freezer😃

 

Also this week I've looked after the two youngest grandchildren for an hour while DiL went for her first vaccination. Hope she doesn't have side effects as they are off down south to visit her Dad and have a camping holiday.

 

On Friday morning I had to shop ready for the Surrey family's visit and met Rachel-in-Norfolk for a coffee in Morrison's cafe. I nearly double booked myself as I also had an invite for a meet up from Ang but that was in the wrong direction so not really on and as I'd got the Fridays wrong in my head anyway and had already arranged the coffee but not jotted the coffee meet up down  it was a good thing I didn't.

Quickly home and unpack shopping then it was a 2 minute walk past 4 houses in the road for a hair cut as my usual hairdressers, which used to be an 8 mile round trip by car.

This week I have been grateful for

• Finding out that I'd not imagined May as a wet, cold month as there's been only 1 day over 20℃ so far whereas last year there were 21 days over 20℃
  
• Hearing a hopeful weather forecast at last
• Getting the big curtain pole up and fixed almost by myself.
• Good books to read
  

 

Hope you all have a really good weekend and the weather is perfect for whatever you are doing.

I'm going to enjoy time with my Eldest Daughter and Eldest Grandson and will be back one day next week. 

Sue

 

All Out of Library Books

My final 3 library books have all been read.......they were:-

 

Robert Harris - Munich.

Set over 5 days in 1938 and mixing fiction into fact. This tells the story of the meeting in Munich between Chamberlain and Hitler. Hitler is determined to start a war and Chamberlain wants peace. Two young men .....................Hugh Legat is one of Chamberlain's private secretaries and Paul Hartmann is a German diplomat and a member of the anti-Hitler resistance.........were friends at university and haven't met since their last visit to Munich 6 years before. Now they are going to meet again and have secrets that could prove disastrous. 

A good read and an easy way to learn about history while reading fiction

Judith Cutler - Green and Pleasant land.  This is an author I had read before but not lately. Newly retired ex-Chief Superintendent Fran Harman and her Husband Mark - also retired from the police force - are asked to assist a police force to look at an old un-resolved crime from twenty years ago. But no one seems willing to help or tell the truth. 

I found this a tad annoying but finished it.

Elly Griffiths -  The Night Hawks). The most recent  in the Dr Ruth Galloway series set on the bleak Norfolk coast and the fictional University of North Norfolk. As usual a really good story, which has jumped on a year or so since the last book and Ruth is now back at the University. The Night Hawks of the story are a group of metal-detectorists who for some reason that isn't really explained go out at night even though they are a legitimate group. When they find a body on the beach as well as a hoard of Bronze Age weapons Ruth is called in to look at the weapons while the police try to find out more about the body. This is followed up by an apparent murder-suicide in a remote farmhouse linked with Black Shuck - the local legend of a Big Hound.

It was a very quick read  - huge sized print and double spaced - as all her recent books have been, which always makes me thankful for libraries so I've not had to spend £20 on it! 

 

There are 9 reservations waiting for me to collect when the library van is round next Thursday and in between times I'm reading  a couple of my own, bought during my stays in holiday lets - just in case!

 

First a Jan Morris book all about her home in Wales for the many years before her death last year.

                                                         

 

And then I'll read this below described thus - Earthed: A Memoir, ‘A beautiful memoir of one small plot of land and one complex human mind’

    

 

 

                                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among the 9 waiting for me are two by favourite authors - Jacqueline Winspear and Alys Clare. Good News indeed.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Brother-in-Law, Concrete Slabs and Raised Bed Edging

Sometimes my Brother-in-Law Andrew is willing to help me with odd jobs that I can't manage but being a life long bachelor he's used to doing his own thing all the time and now he's retired he's just as busy as he was when he worked, so I don't like to ask too often.

But sometimes he surprises me by doing things I've not even asked him to do . For instance when I first moved in and he brought the garden stuff round that had been stored at his house for 9 weeks he put the dalek compost bin in the empty storage area behind the garden shed and I said I'm going to get some slabs to stand it on so I can make a bit of compost without rats being able to get in. (The District Council Garden Waste bin is literally only for garden waste so things like vegetable bits from the kitchen or tea bags are Forbidden......with a  capital F!)

Last week he rang up to say his next-door neighbour was going to be replacing a paved patio with some decking and how many slabs did I need and they were 2 foot by 2 foot by 2inches so I said good grief I'll never be able to shift them even if I had a sack barrow. He said he'd bring them over in his trailer as they were a bit awkward to get in and out of his truck. Which he did and then proceeded to level off where they needed to go and lay the slabs - job done....brilliant! I asked him if there had been any smaller slabs as one was needed out by the front paths where there was a gap which meant stepping over the soil at the end of a flower bed every-time when going between car and front door. He said no they were all much too big for the gap. But then later he rang to say he'd found something smaller to fill the gap and would bring it over and fit it in for me as he had a rubber hammer and some sand which was what was needed. 

And he did........... It's much more sensible now as you can see below. The lighter slab and smaller bit have filled a gap that the previous owners must have been stepping over for 7 years? or maybe all owners since the bungalow was built in 1983!

Then early last year when he was cutting some wood for me he said he wouldn't cut up some large sturdy lengths as they were just what he needed as extra scaffold boards ready for using while painting his house. So when I moved here and was thinking about what to use for the edges for the raised veg. beds I asked him to hang onto the boards when he'd finished painting as they would be ideal for what I needed.

A couple of weeks ago he said as he'd now finished painting his house he would give  the boards I wanted a coat of weather proofing ready for me!  I said "brilliant thank you, I'll be able to dig some slots for them to stand in and then fill the middle with flattened cardboard boxes and some soil". The next conversation was him asking me what size the veg beds were going to be as he would cut them to the right length and find some angle joints ready to fix them together!

I keep telling him he needn't do all these things and there's no hurry but it's been a real help, and I'd better treat him to Fish and Chips again when he's next over!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Picture Wall

 I've made a start on a picture wall

 

This area is above the pine book shelf unit between the tall bookshelves and the patio doors out to the garden.

There were two hooks here already so I've just drilled a few more holes and put screws in and the  smallest pictures are fixed by the sticky-backed velcro-type stuff that just clicks the pictures to the wall.

Still to go up  is the unusual tile picture that I found the other day. It needs a deep frame of some sort. And there's room to add more whenever I find something small that I like.

The little tapestry bottom right is something I stitched years ago. The owl and the hare lino cuts came from an art show. All the rest came from car boot sales.....Amish Buggies, Stowmarket town centre, an old embroidered picture and two little hand coloured flower prints.

Thank you for all the comments yesterday.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

I Had To Smile...............

............. the other day when I said  downsizing meant I could now afford the dentist bill, an  "Anonymous" commented  telling me how wrong it was to boast about the size of the house I sold and to mention finances......... at least I think it was what they said. I deleted it so quickly that I can't really remember the gist! As Sue said Anonymous snarky comments get short shrift here and are a real waste of Anon's time.

So I thought I'd share this photo copy of  press cutting with you -  It's all about improving property to make a profit so as to move up the housing ladder - lots of boasting about making money here!

 Don't think this has been on the blog before.

It dates from the late 90's  and The Stepping Stones feature was in one of the Sunday papers that our neighbour used to pass to us for fire lighting. I noticed it as it said they awarded £100 for the "best" one. Someone came out to take the photo - of me with two goats and it appeared in the paper a few weeks later. We never did get any money for it being featured!

 

There you go Mr/Mrs or Ms Anonymous - how's that for boasting!! Or as my Mum would have said "put that in your pipe and smoke it!!"

(but thank you for giving me an idea for a blog post 😛)

Back Tomorrow

Sue

So What Is In The Borders?

 There are all sorts of plants around the border of the back garden, mainly one of each of the larger things, there's also lots of empty spaces which will let weeds in unless I fill them with something. In places there are things that spread like weeds that I'd like to take out - the "foreign" bluebells. And worst of all there is some ground-elder creeping in - horrible stuff.

It's rained at sometime almost everyday since I moved in with no chance of getting out there to do some much needed weeding.

Here's a photo tour

Stepping out of the patio doors from the living room and first on the left is a purple Acer - love this.(Edited in to say this is actually an Elder)

Next under the living room window some Hebes - Hate these! and no, I have no idea why. Looking at them just makes me feel odd (and yes that is weird!) 

Mrs F who owned Clay Cottage before we bought it in 2017 had several Hebes too and left behind several seedlings in pots which I didn't keep

To the right of the arch above (which leads down the side of the bungalow to out the front)  is the start of the border around the grass.Several things in the garden seem to have caught the late frost including this Hydrangea.   Odd really as in theory the garden is quite sheltered.

There's a young Silver Birch  with a climbing rose behind it and some Helebores in front.

In the corner are 3 small trees squashed in. A Hornbeam (or a Beech) not sure yet. Then something I thought at first was a young Apple but the flowers are not quite right so it might be a Pear but whatever it is it won't do well squeezed in between. Right in the corner is a small Flowering Cherry.

 

Also in the corner a Spirea and a Camellia and more Helebores and another Hebe and a Rose

 

A Large Ceanothus is just starting to come into flower

 

The biggest thing in the garden is a Flowering Cherry, which must be the only thing more than 7 years old, that's how long the previous owners had been here.

 

To the right of the tree are two things I'm not sure of - the yellow thing isn't a Laburnham  and the other is possibly a Weigela.

There's a Lupin and some smaller perennials

A Lavatera at the back and a Poppy and Foxglove with some other perennials and the blinkin' ground elder creeping in!

 

This is a different sort of Magnolia. The removal man plonked my old  bird bath here (we found it half buried at the smallholding in 1992), it's all on the huh! but too heavy for me to move. Just noticed another Acer at the back there

 

The bigger Magnolia is just finishing

 

All sorts of different perennials and the foreign bluebells spreading too much

 

A Peony and a few Aquilegia

 

A large spring flowering Viburnham

Another Buddleia and climbing rose on the trellises around the shed

Honeysuckle and Jasmine

Below is another Buddleia. I've popped 2 courgette plants in here in the hope they will grow.

On the left below is a small clump of Autumn raspberries - Very Very prickly and in a strange place. I have plans for a narrow Raspberry bed  beside the greenhouse. There's another climbing rose and the Rhubarb I brought with me, which is funny as the only other edible thing here is a...... Rhubarb - I had no idea

 

What's this below? Purple flowers with yellow middles like a potato flower - making it look poisonous -it probably isn't. It's not something I've had before another thing that was caught by late frosts. 

The rhubarb that was here hasn't got much room to spread

And finally by the other side gate is a Flamingo Willow Tree

 

To the other side of the patio the trellises have more climbing roses.

 

 The things I brought with me including 2 tubs of strawberries, Monkey Puzzle, Yew tree ,my Bay tree and very young Fig with the tomato and pepper plants under the cloche thing.

Well done if you got to the end of that tour!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Saturday Round-Up

 They say time flies when you're having fun but I reckon time flies whatever  I'm doing. This week it's been mainly unpacking boxes, then flattening them ready for the removal company man to come and pick them up. I'm giving him some of the 15 I bought and will keep the tattiest of the ones of his to use for the start of the new vegetable beds. The beds will have wooden edges (made from old scaffold boards that BiL has finished with) then the cardboard will be covered with soil, the theory is the cardboard kills the grass underneath and rots down over winter.....that's the plan although not exactly sure when it will happen.

Getting back in the swimming pool was good, only 4 people in the slow half of the pool so it was easy swimming round and round, I'm about a mile or 2 further away from Stradbroke Pool than I was before and actually nearer to the bigger pool at Stowmarket which is also run by the Everyone Active company, but it's much busier and  I don't fancy trying it out.

Several people said they liked the bookshelves. I bought them not long after we moved to Clay Cottage as we had left fitted shelves at the smallholding. It took me ages to decide as they were a big expense from the Cotswold Company but with Colin in and out of hospital I choose some made of solid wood that came ready built. I've not regretted them. More recently I got a long chest of drawers in the same colours.....navy blue with oak tops.

Tonight it's The Eurovision Song contest - I shall half watch - like I've half watched for the last umpteen years since the UK have had no chance of winning. I'm sure we used to watch properly when Our Song actually got Douze Points occasionally.

Great excitement being able to walk round to the doctors to pick up my meds! Maybe Great Excitement is  exaggerating a bit but it is the first time (not counting the year in Ipswich - which I don't count at all for anything) since 1992 that the doctors has been withing walking distance - instead of a car journey.

Having a view from the front of the bungalow across the road to the new part of the village churchyard is lovely as there are some wonderful trees which have really sprung into life in the last couple of weeks despite the grotty weather. On this side of the road the young Silver Birch is mine - which is funny as I said I wanted to plant some and there are two here already. One at the front and one out the back.

The first picture is straight over the road and the second is some bigger trees along the road to the left

(Don't look at the weeds under the Silver Birch - it's just been too wet and cold to get out there)

 

This week I've been grateful for 

• Seeing 3 out of 4 Grandchildren for a hour or two
• Getting the unpacking done
• Working out the pull out linen line - although the only thing I hung out was my swimming costume
• Making scones for the first time in 10 weeks

 

Hope you all have a lovely weekend. I'm going to treat myself to my first coffee and cake out since sometime last year

Back Monday

Sue 

Good Thing I bought a Cheaper Property!

The thing about downsizing from a Large 4 bed house with nearly an acre of land and a big workshop and double garage to a smaller 3 bed bungalow with a small garden is that the bungalow cost much less than what I got for the house. Which means I have some spare cash and after my dentist visit I will certainly need it!

I used to visit the dentist in a small converted house in the village of Debenham only a few miles from home which he staffed 2 days a week but his main Much Bigger practice is in Ipswich and due to Covid he's shut Debenham and doing everything in Town. Back in March 2020 I was all set to have a crown on a dodgy tooth - then everything came to a pandemic halt and not long later another bit broke off the tooth.

When another tooth fractured last week I thought I'd better actually make an appointment in Ipswich. Regular readers will know I dread going to the dentists - childhood trauma I reckon!!....it's true - my Mum took me screaming out of the dentist when I was about 8 when they tried to make me keep my mouth open with a big smelly rubber block! After that Mum sent me to the school dentist instead - they used to bring a little caravan round to school twice a year and she Never went to a dentist again!

Anyway, after X-rays he found not only that I need the tooth crowned and the broken tooth rebuilt, I also need 2 other fillings replaced,  Eeek - can you imagine how much that lot will cost!  (No NHS Dentists around anywhere to get it cheaper- sadly) and then he came through to tell the receptionist that it would need 3 appointments with the first one for 75 minutes ......... 75 MINUTES - oh my!

I have until the 14th June to prepare myself  but at least I don't have to worry about paying the bill although when I downsized this wasn't quite what I had in mind for my windfall!

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

It's taking a while..............

.......................for me to feel like I'm  living a normal life again. 9 weeks in holiday lets with nothing much to do has upset my rhythm. 

Also holding me up is not having a decent sized freezer. The one that came here was the small one I had in the back porch and my fridge is the teeny one we had during our year in Ipswich so I need to order a bigger fridge-freezer sooner rather than later. I've had chest freezers since even before we got married so I'm used to batch baking and cooking. 

At least I can start weeding the garden as my brown garden waste bin has arrived. It came on Tuesday afternoon in between showers of rain and hail, the water was running down the road. The bloke delivering it said he'd been in the South of the county with no rain. A while later my Sister's husband dropped some puzzle pages into me on his way to the doctors and he said they'd had no rain 4 miles away in their village and then later BiL Andrew (3 miles away) rang to say his neighbour's were getting rid of some paving slabs which he knew I wanted for putting under my 'dalek' compost bin and he said he'd been up a ladder painting his house  all day with no interruptions for rain and definitely no hail!

 I seem to have moved across the A140 from one village that always caught any showers to another the same. So very different to the 23 years at the smallholding near the coast where we often missed the rain.

One little bit of normal was going swimming again after a couple of weeks missed through the move. While I was out it had been dry here but then it started raining again - seems to have been rinse and repeat all week!  On the way home I called in at the charity shop in Eye and found another Persephone - this time I knew I'd not read it and that it would fit on my shelves so snapped it up for £1. Persephone 23 -Reuban Sachs by Amy Levy - originally published in 1888.........older than most books I read.

Here's how my book shelves are looking now I'm all unpacked. Even my cookery books are here in the living room as there is nowhere for them in the kitchen

I've gone against my library assistant instinct .....where everything is pulled forward to the front of the shelves. Instead all the books are pushed to the back of shelves to make room for all my bits and bobs that used to live on my dresser (that wasn't really a dresser) and on the mantel-piece. 

No more seasonal mantle shelf decoration! 

Although I could do a display on the top of the pine shelf unit to the left of photo which holds all my books that I use for finding out about weather sayings, folklore and trees and all the other things I sometimes write about. 

Because of wood-burners and endless dust it's been 30 years since I dared have all my books in the living room................ nice to have them close at hand again and I'm pleased at how many I got rid of (so there is room for more?!)

 

Thanks for all the comments yesterday about the yew hedge - it's honestly very, very ugly but no, even if it's mine I'll not be digging it up anytime soon.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Big Yew and Little Yew

  Big Yew

This photo of a huge Yew tree was taken on one of my cycle rides around my previous village last Autumn.

Little Yew

The little Yew was something I picked up a couple of years ago from a stall during a village art event. The idea was to keep it in a pot until it was big enough to add to the trees on the meadow - I had no plans to move back then. It's grown quite a lot since  but still less than a foot tall and has just spent 9 weeks stored at BiL's garden before he brought it here. Now I'm not sure what to do with it. It's not really suitable for a small garden that will have children playing.  All parts of Yew trees are poisonous and the garden here is too small  for something that gets quite big and can live for 100's of years, so it will need a new home.

 

 

 

 But look what's between my front garden and next doors - a Huge thick Yew hedge. I would like to find out if it's mine, theirs or belongs to both of us. I need to get all the paperwork back from the solicitor........... as I only ever saw the downloads on emails...... to find out.

 

 

 If it's mine it may well go to be replaced by something that isn't quite so overpowering.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Locally Produced

 Twice I've done a "sort-of" challenge of eating just  local food for a week at a time.

Look at these that I found last Tuesday..............

 

I was quite excited!

These come from the giant greenhouses near Ipswich that use heat from the waste incinerator and collect water and condensation to use too.

And as I won't be growing  many of my own this year this is almost as good.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

There Was Sunshine After The Rain .........

................and before the rain too

  The grass in my new garden is growing like crazy but the weather has only been dry for a while between rain, not heavy downpours but enough to make the grass too wet for cutting. Saturday was horrible with drizzle on and off all day so it was good to open the curtains and find a beautiful Sunday morning, sunny enough for an early trip out to the car-boot sale.

 

 Not many cars there this week - people were probably put off by Saturday's weather and a dubious forecast. It didn't take long to look round but I found a few useful things.

 

A pack of terracotta Das air-drying clay (after making the plant labels for the hampers for my sister and sister-in-law I wished I'd made some for me too - and now I can). £1.50. The gift set of secateurs and gloves for £2 will be a present. A Duplo police van for £1 to add to the box for the grandchildren. The new pack of Peek-a-Blocks will make a Christmas present for the new baby - I paid £1. The 3 coat hooks are much needed - there are no hooks like this anywhere here. I'm going to put them at the end of the hall, they cost me £2.

 

 

 

And finally the picture which I picked up because it looked interesting. I took it out of the frame which was pretty rough.  It's actually a painted  tile but with raised bits of metal pressed into the clay making the fence and little bits of clay fixed on and painted  to make the spotty mushrooms......intriguing. I'm a sucker for small interesting bits of art.

It stayed fine for a few hours on Sunday but the  rain arrived about 2pm for a while before sunshine again later and the forecast isn't much better for the week and it just doesn't seem to get any warmer.

Here's Elkie Brooks singing "Sunshine After the Rain" - from many, many years ago.

 

 Back Tomorrow

Sue

Getting Organised

 8 days after moving in and everything is getting organised.  The first thing I did was to leave messages with 4 different  builders/garden companies listed in the local parish magazines to ask about the concrete base for the greenhouse. One rang back during the day and offered a date in June so that's sorted (as long as he turns up!)

 

 A couple of days after I moved in a window cleaner was cleaning next door so I asked him to do mine when he's next round - every 6 weeks in summer he said and £10 a time as there's no upstairs.

Then last week a young lady was doing some tidying in the front of next door neighbour's and I assumed she was the wife of Avi who I've spoken to a couple of times but she was a gardener so I've got her phone number and will give her a ring when I'm ready to prepare some vegetable beds. She says she likes the No Dig way so I'd better save some cardboard boxes ready to cover the grass where the beds will be although that means not growing anything this year - which might be a good idea anyway as it will give me time to sort out what other things I want to do in the garden.

 

2 new pans have been bought for the Induction hob - it heats up so quickly. What a good job I didn't buy a new frying pan when I planned to - before moving - as it might not have been suitable. Also  got the breadmaker up and running. After a few weeks with supermarket bread it was nice to get back to the real thing again.

 

I've finished emptying all the boxes that were indoors  but the garage still has those marked 'Not Important'.........although I worked out that one is my preserving pan etc and another long box says "Christmas wrapping paper and other long things!" ?? 😕

A Brown Garden Waste Bin has been ordered from the District Council- they cost £57 a year........ never had one before as there was always room for compost bins. Might have a small one here when I get some slabs to stand it on. Also ordered a folding step stool so I can reach the top shelves of the very tall kitchen cupboards and dirt trapper mat for the living room patio doors which will be my back door until I decide what to do about a possible back door out of the kitchen.........I'll live with what's here for a while.

 

The water bill has been paid for all year - I will change to a water meter sometime later as that will cut costs of both water and sewer which round here are paid to two different companies. The Council Tax is a lot less than it was up the lane so I got that paid and out of the way too.

Yesterday I did a Tip Trip with huge bags full of all my packaging paper from the move and rubbish bags left by the previous owners who said they were recycling bags to go out but they looked like rubbish to me! After that I picked up some bags of Multi Purpose compost and a tomato plant to go in a pot on the patio - just one for now- starting small until I have more time.

And finally I've got round to organising a visit to the dentist 15 months after my last appointment. They've shut the small branch in Debenham where I used to go so it's a journey to Ipswich instead. Not what I wanted to do but a filling fell out so it was easier to stick with the same dentists group rather than find a new one nearer who would want a £50 New Patient fee on top of everything else.

 

Phew!......getting it all sorted feels good.

 

This week I'm grateful for 

• Getting all my books unpacked and shelved
• Finding all my possessions again
• A speedy dentist appointment to start sorting out all the problems that have appeared in the year.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

And hopefully next week I'll find some things to blog about apart from unpacking boxes.

 

Back Monday

Sue

Library Book Photo

Last Thursday afternoon I just strolled 5 minutes up the road to the Mobile Library stop - what a treat! and picked up my 4 reservations. Pleased to find there were several other people using the mobile here as I was often the only person in my previous village.(Although with only one person allowed on at a time due to Covid there was a bit of a wait! )

 I've also got to pick up two books from Debenham library as they were on the way there before I knew my moving date to change the pick up point to the mobile. One is 'The Night Hawks' by Elly Griffiths - finally got to the top of the waiting list.......very much looking forward to that.

Still busy unpacking boxes and trying to find somewhere to put everything - certainly going to miss an airing cupboard (oil combi boiler in garage here) .

Haven't even started on the boxes in the garage which were mostly labelled "Unimportant - Put in Garage"! If they were unimportant why did I bring them with me!!

Probably taking a few days off now as writing about unpacking boxes everyday makes for Very Dull blog posts.

Back in a few days

Sue

 

 

3 Years Ago - Can That Be Right?

 Yes, it really is 3 years since Colin went into hospital and unlike all the times in the 5 years before,
he didn't come home again. Sometimes it seems like just a month ago and other times it feels like forever. I've got through the 3 years on my own because that's what you have to do, but I still miss him every day.

I hope he would have approved of  my move to the bungalow and it dawned on me that the day I got the keys for here - May 5th -  was exactly the same date as we moved to the smallholding in 1992, I remembered the date as it would have been Col's  Dad's birthday, so maybe all that waiting was some sort of "sign"! as we had 23 happy years there.

Back to the reality of  now and I'm still unpacking boxes interspersed with trying to change umpteen addresses for officialdom and hoping to find someone to quickly lay a concrete slab for the greenhouse as the children were absolutely horrified that I was planning to put the greenhouse on the patio which they reckon, and I agree really, that it would ruin the lovely patio area. 

There are also several things here that I didn't know about and have to work out and get my head round - like the induction hob - which I find I only have a couple of saucepans I can use on it and the fact that the en-suite loo is a Saniflo macerating thing - not a problem - but it would have been good to know! The pull out washing line is a puzzle as I can't find anything to hook it onto without it sagging to the ground and I still have to read and understand the instructions for the remote wireless thermostat for the oil boiler which two people have tried to explain! 😕

No worries.........I'll get there eventually......no rush.

Apologies if I don't answer comments or leave many anywhere for a while - just a tad busy and I will get back to normal in a week or two...........or more.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Friends and Family

 My sister L and her husband J offered to come and help with anything that needed doing on Saturday which was wonderful, especially as I'd discovered the washing machine connection was drip drip dripping. The WM is in a special big cupboard in the bathroom which sounds odd but a perfect solution when the kitchen isn't huge. I had turned off the water behind the machine but J was soon able to cure the problem.

We were just stopping for a coffee when the doorbell went and there was BiL Andrew who had brought some more of my gardening stuff over to put in the shed and garage. I wasn't expecting him as he's in the middle of repairing and painting the barge- boards and end walls of his house but had been rained off.

The doorbell went again later and this time it was the postman with a long parcel and what a lovely surprise when I opened it - a yellow rose bush along with a plastic lined fabric pot from blog friend Ang.

 

Thank you so much and what a lovely surprise present and how clever is a flat-pack rose! - (think that green stake was to stop the rose sliding in the parcel and meant to be taken out!) I guess it could be planted out in the garden later.

And  then much later blow-me-down when the doorbell rang again and there was Son who had come over to see if there was anything he could help with. 

So during the course of the day many more jobs were done.

Thank Goodness for friends and family. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Have lost internet now!

Edited in this morning to say ....now t'internet is back again ....as today is the day is was due to start so heavens knows how it was working between Friday and yesterday afternoon?
 

I'm In!

  I wasn't expecting to be organised enough to write a post for publishing today but thanks to Son who in no time at all got the new hub going (have to say well done to BT in this case who got the hub here 5 days before it was expected) and he managed to sort out some fiddly fixing on the back of the TV to get that attached to the dish.

 

Just two guys this time and this is Wayne fixing the legs back on my big dining table - told him I'd give him a mention!  I nearly sold this table...wasn't sure there wasn't going to be room for it but the living/dining room is much bigger than I thought. 

(The big white thing is my ancient settee without it's cushions and before getting its huge throw chucked over it.) 

 So TV, Internet, My own Bed and help from family - what more could a woman want! Apart from a magic wand for unpacking umpteen boxes 😉

Youngest Granddaughter and Grandson approve of my new home and while son was sorting the technology they were in the small bedroom and with the help of DiL unpacked lots of toys..... they certainly have their priorities right 😀

I've had 2 welcome cards from neighbours already and everyone who walked by with their dogs when the removal van was there (seems to be one heck of a lot of dogs in this village) said hello and welcome. 

I'm going to be a big disappointment to them! "popping in for a coffee" with people I don't know at all seems a bit odd to me although I will be joining the WI and probably going to the URC church sometimes and joining the friends of the doctors surgery to get to know people.

Back Monday......... should have unpacked a few more boxes by then.

Sue