Random Round Up of a Hot Week.

First of all apologies for the comments I didn't get around to replying to....The day just went.......whoosh!

It's quite strange in this country to go to bed knowing the next day and the one after and another after that will be dry and sunny and even more unusual to know it will be really hot. 

This week has been like that and more the same for next week too - I am thankful to be able to do very little - even avoided going out really early for shopping. I was sad to have to cancel a lunch with cousins but the heat is getting to me more this year than ever before.............an age thing I guess.

The dustbin men have been starting work early due to the heat and my bit of the village is one of their first stops so they've been coming not long after 6am but it wasn't them that woke me on Wednesday morning, instead a man on a ride-on mower went into the churchyard to do the paths - I looked at the clock - just after 5am - he really did want to get it done early!

We got through the exercises at our Keep Moving Group. .......all windows open and much water drunk. Two other ladies led the exercises - it was too hot for me. I set up my phone for the 10 minute meditation and then went and sat out in the porchway to cool down. Several people have dropped out recently - perhaps it's only because of the heat and holiday season - I hope they return.

As I shut the living room windows very late Thursday evening I noticed a sort of dark patch on the grass(not good enough to call it  a lawn) so went out to look and YES - a hedgehog, first I've seen here in 5 years.  

I have 10 billion wasps eating the pears on the small pear tree - there were lots of pears - soon there will be none.

The climbing French beans are producing a few beans - very tasty.

I've not done a Being Grateful list for ages....... since March in fact, but this week I'm grateful for..... 

• Enjoying watching tennis on TV without having to be there in the heat.
• Being retired and not working in the heat.
• Stocked cupboards, fridge and freezer so I didn't need to go out shopping ....in the heat.
• The library books that I have here to read, indoors out of the heat.
• The bread machine that makes my bread so easily even when the weather is  hot.

Bit of a theme there!

Not sure if anything is happening this weekend but tennis is on TV for sure although Arthur Fery's  brilliant run at Wimbledon was ended by Sascha Zverev who's 6 foot 6inches tall with a massive serve  and - hooray- Jannik Sinner beat  Djokovic  setting up the Sunday final that I have no idea who will win.

 At 11am in the men's doubles wheelchair finals Alfie Hewitt and Gordon Reid are aiming for yet another title to add to the 24 they already have!

And there is a football match tonight - but it's after my bedtime again.

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday.

Under the Weather...............

....................is, when you think about, a very strange saying . Most weather comes from above so we are always under it.

Anyway, I've been under it all week. Just feeling bleurgh...........not seasick (or any sort of sick!) like the original meaning................

The expression has maritime roots. In 19th-century sailing terminology, sailors or passengers who felt seasick or ill during rough, stormy conditions would go below deck to hide from the elements. By doing this, they were literally going "under" to escape the bad weather, which eventually transformed into the idiom we use today.

I even missed Keep Moving Group, which is complicated because at the moment I take the attendance chart, take the money and pass it to the Village Hall treasurer, buy/take the milk for coffees, find the meditation thing on the phone and lead half the exercises. I seem to be the only person who doesn't have holidays or Tuesday doctor/hospital appointments and goes regularly to the Group, so  have been lumbered with all the jobs. I took everything to the hall, apologised, and left it to everyone else to sort out and went home again!

Last weekend I mentioned hoping  the weather would be fine for the men's tennis at Queens club so it was on TV to watch  and it was fine and due to feeling grotty I was able to spend all afternoons watching it - which wasn't really as planned........................ I should be careful what I hope for!

Plenty of reading has been done too. I've now read all of the Inspector Ramsey books that Ann Cleeves wrote in the 90's before she wrote the Vera and Shetland series and read this...........

In this book the author does five walks around different areas of Suffolk and writes about the authors who've also walked/written/lived in those areas, from the C17 right up to date................

"...nor had I made allowance for the endless switchbacks and the roads reduced to single file and the mess being made of this part of Suffolk by the building of the Sizewell C nuclear power station.............the thousands of trees that have been felled............how to restore the generations of creatures that would have lived in them " Did they at least allow the archaeologists to have a look round?" I asked our taxi driver as we went past more skinned earth, more red and white tape curving in the breeze, and he said yes, they did, and very glad he was of it, the archaeologists being the only ones who drank, who needed lifts to and from the local pubs. Those building Sizewell C, he said put not a penny into the local economy:not in the shops, the pubs, or the restaurants. They sit in their block-booked holiday cottages all week then disappeared at the weekends..................."

 (it's the archaeologists who've kept YD in work and partly Son too of course! Local people have had a love/hate relationship with the Sizewell Power Stations since the 1960's. The only new shop to open in Leiston is one selling Hi Viz and work gear - while many others have closed.)

********************************************

 

Anyway, I'm fine again now but still doing nothing because the much, much warmer weather that had been predicted for a week arrived yesterday. Positively HOT. I got the grass cut early and then stayed inside with the doors and windows wide and curtains closed. I watched young Arthur Fery get knocked out of the tennis. If I go out over the weekend it will be early - to an Art Exhibition in Debenham Church  and car boot sales too of course. The  semis and finals of the tennis to watch and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the Wimbledon qualifying and the Eastbourne tournament on BBC red button next week .................by choice rather than necessity.

Saturday Round-Up

Sunset out the back of the bungalow............too many houses! - luckily they're all hidden when the trees leaf up

How good it was to see the sun here in Mid Suffolk on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and a bit of warmth ....especially through  glass. Pity about Wednesday and Friday.

 I trundled off back to the opticians at the beginning of the week and had the tests that involve eye drops, bright lights and no driving for a couple of hours. No problems were spotted and I went and had a coffee and sausage roll  in the Co-op and read a book while waiting for the effects to wear off.  I'll now have a check every year instead of every two years which it was before.

We sometimes get up to 16 people at the exercise group but for several weeks in winter we've been down to just seven or eight . So I put information about the group on the facebook pages of some of the local villages and we got a shock this week when suddenly 8 new ladies, who all knew each other, appeared, all from the same village a few miles away. It was a bit overwhelming! Altogether there were 22 of us -  A record. Just have to see if any of them will  come regularly now they've started. The only problems is that it's difficult to learn names with so many new people all at once and we can't fit around the tables at coffee time!

It seemed like a good plan to keep the car topped up with diesel due to the 'happenings' in the Middle East which the UK seems to have been dragged into whether we like it or not. So even though I filled up last week I put in another  £16 worth  to top right up again  and according to the dashboard reading that should do over 500 miles - although I'm never sure how accurate that is. I'm glad I got the heating oil ordered before prices rise. Still waiting for delivery, they are probably suddenly extra busy. Someone said it's doubled in price in a week! - No price cap on oil - we're out in the country so don't count in the minds of politicians.

Once upon a time I used to write a little list of the  things I had been grateful for during the week. Why have I forgotten to do that for 17 months? 

I want to note the small good things - the opposite of the news we hear every day.

• A few days of sunshine and dry weather after the wet Winter
• A goldfinch on the birdfeeder
• The mobile library and good books for free
• The winter Paralympics are on TV now for the week - should be interesting to watch. 

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday

January Jigsaw and A Cold Country on Radio 4

 The snow on Monday meant the Grandchildren weren't here after all so instead I got the January Jigsaw out of the cupboard. It's another nostalgia puzzle by House of Puzzles. It has a bit more sky than any I've done recently - if the colours are too much the same and  too muted I might give up before hardly starting - just like trying a not-so-good book, no point in persevering with something that doesn't give enjoyment.

 I've also sorted out threads to do a small X stitch book-mark/card. So two things are ready to start - but instead I began reading another book - so many left to read, I started on How to Solve Your Own Murder, but it seemed a bit strange so I soon gave up. Then began  on The Red Shore by William Shaw which seems very good so far.  I'd already abandoned Cacophony of Bones, for the second time - and many others have given up on it too I think as the pages were still very tight in the second half of the book - seems very few had got to the end. I'll be collecting  several more books from the mobile library soon......weather permitting of course. 

Not as much snow here on Monday as there is in  a place that I heard about on a programme on Radio 4. Longyearbyen is the world's most Northerly settlement, way up north on the group of islands - Svalbard - belonging to Norway. The settlement is there for the coal mining but that is coming to an end which will probably mean the town won't continue to exist, with so many weeks of complete darkness in winter not many live there by choice (The programme is in their Illuminated series titled 'The Frozen Light' - on BBC sounds.)

Love the houses with all their different colours. 

I suppose there is no oil or minerals here so not somewhere you-know-who wants to acquire!

K is for the Keep Moving Group

 I've only missed a handful of  mornings at the weekly Keep Moving Group. It's part of my week and has been for the last 3 years.

It all started in October 2022 with exercises led by a physio from a Community Interest Company called Spot Wellbeing. They started several other groups in East Suffolk and  some, like our group, carried on after the six weeks thanks to another 12 weeks of funding from another CIC, we then took over to fund and operate the group ourselves. That second CIC lost all their funding and were disbanded early this year and now Spot Wellbeing have lost their funding to start new groups in other villages. Now they are only funded for people who are referred to them by their doctor and...............

• They must have multi-morbidities / complex health and wellbeing needs.
• They must be over 50 years of age.

Or:

• High user of primary care services

So much for prevention - which is what our group and all the other groups were started for, with exercises to help balance and movement and to help stop older people ending up in hospital from falling.

It's sad that people in other villages won't get a chance to start their own groups.

Every now and again our numbers drop down to 7 or 8 and then I put a note about the group on all the local village Facebook pages and luckily that seems to work as we find some new people to join us. We do everything ourselves, with two or three ladies able to lead us working through a list of exercises, getting chairs and tables out, making coffee, sorting the meditation on a phone and one lady brings her CD player for some music. It only costs us £1.50 a week as we only need to cover hall hire and coffee/biscuits.

This is our favourite 10 minute meditation 

Back tomorrow

Notes From The Middle of September

• Thank you to everyone who commented on the holiday photo posts. It's lovely to see that they brought back memories to folk who had visited or lived here in the past .

• Decided the large fir cone definitely had to go from the Autumn display so I pulled out the coloured artificial fabric/paper leaves that have been used every year for around 8 years. I gave them a bit of a wipe with a damp cloth to refresh and it now looks much better.  In October I'll add in the few Halloween bits.





• The British Heart Foundation charity shop  in Stowmarket, which has been there for years, closed down with no notice. The volunteers were just told 'This shop is now closed'. I believe they did the same thing in Diss a few years ago. Very odd. The shop is still full of stuff.

• Very mixed Autumn weather this week, very windy on Monday and Tuesday and wet and nasty on Wednesday and really chilly. Then milder on Thursday and positively Hot on Friday. Difficult to know exactly what to wear everyday. 

• I've spent some time this week feeling ugh!  Have I become intolerant  to something I eat that previously hasn't affected me? Didn't have much energy in between jobs, so plenty of reading time. I read two of my own books while waiting for the mobile library to bring my reservations. Also watched the World Athletics Championships from Japan. How they run in that heat I've no idea.

• Because of the weird stats numbers I've been looking more often and  last Saturdays post had a crazy number of page views...........over 7,000 by the time I wrote this post. I hope AI is enjoying my ramblings and adding them to their knowledge of how to speak Suffolk!

• Ed Sheran and his family are deserting Suffolk to go and live in the US - he's the main sponsor for Ipswich Town FC - hope he doesn't abandon them. He says it's while he's touring and writing Country music - so maybe he will be back eventually.

• Now I've reached the right age I've made an appointment for shingles vaccination next week, are there any side effects that I should know about?

• We need some more people for the Keep Moving exercise group, people are not coming as regularly as they once did, some weeks recently we've been down to just 7 or 8 of us. Three ladies are poorly, two more came once and then never again. Perhaps I will put a message on the local face book or next door website pages again, it worked at the beginning of the year. 

• I managed to get through the whole week without seeing any TV coverage of the State visit here from a certain person. That's a win in my opinion.

• Quite a lot of garden clearing done this week, cutting back one of the buddleias and a lot of other bits until the garden bin was full again. Then I got the grass cut on Thursday, it was getting long due to me being away and it mustn't get too long or the battery mower struggles and I have to get BiL to cut it - try not to let that happen as he is always so busy.

And here we are at another weekend, decent weather is forecast - best to make the most of it with the equinox on Monday there's no getting away from the fact that Autumn is really here.

Back Monday

Saturday 12th

 More tennis watching all week. Yesterday's semi's were very different, in the first there was a good fight between Carlos Alcaraz and Taylor Fritz but then Djokovic was knocked out easily by Jannik Sinner, the number 1 seed and so Wimbledon is over 😢 bar the finals but there are the two British guys in the men's doubles final, which is on before the ladies singles finals today and Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid defending their title in the men's wheelchair doubles final, also today. It's unusual for the Ladies and Men's singles finals to be scheduled later on Centre Court today and tomorrow (not before 4pm it says). Usually they are up first.

There was more heat this week although not too bad Tuesday so there were 10 of us at our Keep Moving group. The temperatures here  weren't as hot as a couple of weeks ago and not as hot as other parts of the country - high 20s ℃ (mid 80s) ℉  rather than low 30s  and  cooler at night so not too bad for sleeping with freezer icepacks wrapped in tea-towels and  gel cool pads working well

Apart from all the normal house work jobs I don't seem to have done much or achieved much this week, although I did make another batch of the Sweet and Sour Cucumber pickle. Strimming round the veg bed edges was quickly done but haven't needed to cut the grass this week. Getting some of the weeds out of the driveway shingle out the front was on the list again - but it was too hot for that job.

Shopping was only a quick very early trip to Aldi - don't need many veg now with courgettes and beans doing well here and beetroot from BiL's garden. I found milk had gone up in price again. From £1.45 just a few months ago to £1.55 and this week £1.65 for 4 pints semi-skimmed. That means cheese and butter prices will also rise soon.

Obligatory photo of the first (almost) ripe tomato! Mini Plum variety

and the size of Giant plum variety Big Mama - still green - when they are ripe they'll be made into Red Hot Relish.

I've now done 5 out of the 6 weeks of the arthritis exercise and management course. I shall be glad to finish as going to something that starts at 1 o'clock  -  neither morning or afternoon  -  seems to spoil the whole day! (and THAT surely is a sign of getting old). Next I can either see a physio again, carry on just doing the exercises at home or do another 6 week  general exercise thing. That starts at 11am so a better time.

In between everything else there has been reading of course, two library books were abandoned, so now reading from my shelves until mobile van visit toward the end of the month - there are already nine ready for me to collect.

And that was the week  finished again.

Have a good weekend, not sure what's happening apart from staying out of the heat and watching the last of the tennis. It doesn't seem long ago that I would be sitting out and enjoying the sun but they say skin gets thinner as you age and I certainly feel burnt even with Factor 50, so best to stay in.

Back Monday

A Hot Lazy Tuesday

The overnight temperature on Monday was supposed to be around 20℃ - uncomfortable for sleeping - so I took two freezer ice packs and two cooling gel pads to bed with me and slept soundly from 10pm to 4am , perhaps it wasn't as hot as forecast.

I made an effort yesterday morning to go and open up the village hall in case people came for the Keep Moving Exercise group but the few of us who did arrive decided it was far too hot for any sort of exercise so we all went home again to keep cool.

 Then it was another good day of Wimbledon tennis on TV and more British men through to the second round. Jack Draper was two sets up when his opponent retired due to injury and Jack Pinnington Jones - one of the wild cards and playing in his first Wimbledon (I think that's what they said) also won in straight sets and lots of top seeds have been knocked out - makes it more fun when that happens.    I was glad to be at home flaked out as the temperatures climbed to well over 34℃ there and not much less here. I switched off the lap top before the Djokovic match ended when it was one set each but I expect the old misery won through.

Obviously not a lot of housework was done although I did manage a quick hoover round  and picked enough beans for another two meals, they are doing really well, I'm making the most of them as there are no runner beans this year.

It cooled down beautifully late evening and a bit of rain was forecast .

Back Tomorrow 

Saturday 29th - Clocks go Forward

 The last Saturday in March and time for the clocks to go forward by an hour overnight.  Just makes it more difficult to get up early for car boot sales!

Another of the illustrations from the Angela Harding book. Orford is over on the Suffolk coast, the strange buildings to the right were left from the 'Cold War' out on Orford Ness. Boats cross from the quay to visit the nature reserve in summer.

Orford Hares

Reading:-

After finishing ' A Time From the World' by Rowena Farre that I wrote about during the week, I read another book from my shelves - 'Apricot Sky' by  Ruby Ferguson. It's a Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean St Press reprint from a book first published in 1952. Set in Scotland in 1948 it is a lovely story of a family and their visitors and preparations for a wedding. Similar in a way to D.E.Stevenson but very witty and good descriptions of the countryside and weather. 

 They've stopped the 'suggestions to buy' page on the library website due to the changes happening in June - and not knowing what Suffolk County Council will do about anything at the changeover. I wonder if it will mean a whole new computer system - more money wasted.

Watching:-

On the 4 catch up channel I've been watching Jack Irish - a rather violent thing from Australia dating from 2016-2021 starring Guy Pearce - who I remember best from the early days of Neighbours.

Gardening:-

My three veg beds are almost completely covered by the wire-netting frames (which turn into fences later) to keep the neighbours cat off. Before I did this I removed half a bucket of cat s**t, I thought about chucking it back into their garden but of course I didn't.

Now about  a hundred sycamore seedlings have appeared under the frames so I'll need to take them off and hoe out. It's funny that there have never been so many before but now the tree has gone they've all rooted this year, almost as if they know they've got to replace the mother tree - weird.

Pepper seeds germinated eventually, they are growing slowly, should be plenty, and three aubergines. Grass cut again, garden waste bin two days late being emptied but then I pruned some dead bits off the ceanothus and half filled it again.

Socialising:-

 15 people at Keep Moving Group this week which is really good. An odd thing happened. When I was looking in the car glove box to find the book thing for the repair shop to stamp after the service and MOT, I came across a piece of paper with a printed list of exercises that we did with the organisation that started our group in 2022. I must have had it without knowing all this time as I don't remember it being given me.............and why in the glove box? Anyway I'm now going to write out a new sequence  of exercises for us to do for a bit of variety........... as soon as I get a new sharpie pen.

Over 60's group and a guy who volunteers at a workshop for adults with disabilities came and told us all about the workshop and the wooden things they make. If I still had a house with land they make bird-boxes for every type of bird you can think of and I'd have one for each - and bats!. I visited their workshop on a pre Christmas Open Day a couple of years ago.

Eating :-

I got the freezer defrosted on Monday, so that job's done for a year. I'd half forgotten about some of my own raspberries from the summer - better get them eaten - they are a bit sharp when frozen, always better fresh but there were so many last year I froze a few. Shall I mix with meringue and cream and call them a variation on Eton Mess - probably rather too many calories!

What a useful thing a quiche is to make - four days meals without having to think - tuna and sweetcorn this time served up with something different each day it doesn't matter that that it's the same thing for four days.

50/50 Granary/ White bread in the bread maker this week - my favourite.

And that's my week.

Have a good weekend, I'll be back next week - if I have something to write about?

Another Quiet Week in Suffolk

A week of sunshine - I'm sure it was the most sun seen since last summer. Even had the patio door open for a couple of hours on two afternoons and I got the grass cut. Last year I managed to keep it short so as not to need BiL back to cut it with his motor mower. Hope to do the same this year again after he first cut it for me two weeks ago.

The sunshine fired up the 'growing food' bit of my brain! and I brought in the windowsill electric propagator to make sure it's still working, and it was, so I filled up 5 small seed trays and popped them in to warm the compost ready for seed sowing today or tomorrow.

During the week, after falling asleep with the Radio tuned to Radio 4 which switches to the BBC World Service after 1am, it was a  horrible shock to wake in the night to that man giving his State of the Union speech. Turned off radio PDQ.

Couldn't understand one blogger saying the Oval Office spat last week was funny and another saying they all went off to dinner together afterwards. Really? I'm trying to avoid being worried about everything but it's hard when what the loudest voices say is all bad news.

Back to Suffolk and better news............. a tin of pre-prepared lemons for marmalade  getting used this week. I didn't realise it was way past it's BBE date (Sept 2023) but it was fine, made 6 jars. With the Orange/Whiskey marmalade and the marrow/apricot jam both made last autumn I've got plenty to last me for a year at least. 

 

I went to both exercise groups again, we ran through our usual sequence at our Keep Moving Group but the other group, for a one-off session, had a lady leading exercises who works at hospices, they were all sitting down exercise  again. She also talked throughout the exercises about 'bodily functions in older age' - she said she loves to talk to her older clients about "wees and poos"- it was all very odd - although I do know lots of elderly people end up in hospital due to urine infections - so perhaps she has a point. Hopefully next week will be more energetic. 

 The weather is good for car-boot sales both Saturday and Sunday and there is European Indoor Athletics Championships  to watch on TV this weekend as well as the Six Nations Rugby penultimate weekend. That's me sorted!

 Here's one of the beautiful spring illustrations from the book I borrowed "A Year Unfolding; A Printmakers View" by Angela Harding

Have a lovely weekend whatever you are doing and I'll be back Monday, although at the moment I have nothing to write about.

Don't Panic Susan!

Morning Adventures Last Week ....No Photos

 If only I'd thought about photos on Monday of last week you would have seen how my morning in the kitchen made me ......

2 Pizza Bases to put in the freezer

1 loaf of 50/50 Wholemeal/white bread

2 pastry cases also for the freezer

Toad-in-the-hole to feed me two days

Roast veg ditto

Sausage rolls for another day last week

And a  left over piece of rolled out pastry to pop in the freezer ready for sausage rolls again sometime

Very glad of the dishwasher!

Always useful to put a few things in the freezer and I soon need to think about re-stocking the batch meals as I'm down to not many left, but I need to do a defrost first. And there's still another pack of 2 Aldi veggie things I got in before Christmas to try. 

Next morning was Keep Moving Group and the guy from Spot Wellbeing, the organisation that started our group over 2 years ago, came to lead us through our half hour of exercises. He worked us harder than we normally do I think. We need to up our game. Although it's still aimed at 65+ so not overly difficult.

On another morning I went to try out another 'old people' exercise group that was also started by Spot Wellbeing just this year( a few miles in the other direction from home). They are now going it alone and are trying out various sequences of exercises and this week they were mainly seated and based on yoga. 

Then there was the usual shopping morning - no coffee out last week. Just Aldi and Asda.

Finally I went swimming - hadn't been for several weeks - it was hard work.

Not sure I can keep up that level of morning adventures! 

Back Soon

Sue

Saturday 22nd

Thank you everyone for comments yesterday. I've been to 114 churches in Suffolk now, small and large. Framlingham is one of the largest but it's not one of my favourites - it's a bit too 'posh' for me!

There was snow last Saturday evening, which was a surprise. It was mostly gone by Sunday morning.

Then, thank goodness, some sunshine for a few hours this week - it was so exciting! Also a degree or two warmer but it quickly went back to grey and dismal again on Thursday. Temperatures are set to fall back to cold and frosty next week - no sign of spring yet and the daffodils on the edge of the churchyard have been in bud stage for weeks. <<<<sigh>>>>!

February jigsaw finished, all present and correct. It was a good one to do.

I've sealed it up, labelled it 'Complete Feb 2025' and just need to decide if I'll do a car-boot sale or donate it. That's the last puzzle I'll do until next October. Car boots sales on the horizon and gardening too and I want to get my scrapbooks out onto the table now. 

During the week my cousin phoned to tell me his Mum, my 100 year old Aunt - had died. The last of the older generation of the family, she had outlived my Mum, the next eldest of 6 children by 26 years. She'd lived at home until a couple of years ago but was in a care home but still very 'with it' right until the end. 

So I must gear myself up to go to a funeral, which will be the first I've been to since Colin's in 2018. BiL seems to go to funerals every other month - he knows so many people.

Spot Wellbeing, the CIC (Community Interest Company) who started our Keep Moving Exercise Group over 2 years ago are running a six week course in a nearby village, so I went along with a list of the exercises we do to check they are all OK. John, who is one of the physios said it all sounded good and has promised to come along next week to give us a look. That will be helpful.

All in all a very quiet week waiting for spring.

Back Next Week 

Sue

Half of February Gone - Thank Goodness

 When did a Railway Station become a Train Station? When did Going Shopping become a Shopping Haul? Why is the tag line to TV adverts for Magnum ice creams "True to Pleasure" and what on earth does it mean?

These are questions that need answering........................or not!

But while you are pondering..........................

It's been such a cold and grey ol' week in Mid Suffolk, everyone I've spoken to - which was really only the people  at the Keep Moving Group -have been saying how dismal it is. 18 ladies there this week - which is really good - means we cover our costs (hall hire, coffee and biscuits) with our £1.50s, and build up enough to have more free weeks. One lady who hadn't been for a few weeks wondered where all the new people had suddenly come from - she didn't know that I'd put the info on Facebook Village groups.

The February jigsaw is almost done, I'm at the point of thinking there must be pieces missing - but hoping there aren't.

I finished one more book for my Reading-the-Seasons-not-really-a-challenge thing. It was by a new to me author. The story was OK but I thought some of the writing, especially dialogue, was a bit odd and clunky. 

Christmas has arrived in Cumbria, and wedding bells are ringing. As the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, DI James Walker receives a phone call that puts paid to his Christmas break. During the wedding of the year at a lakeside hotel, the bride's sister has vanished. When Rachel left the wedding breakfast before her speech, newly-wed Libby was furious. But as the night went on with no sign of her maid-of-honour, Libby started to realise something was very, very wrong. Before the wedding night is out, the lake is being searched for a body. One guest is a killer. 

I hope these two weather sayings for yesterday are correct............

                                           St Valentine Breaks the Back of Winter

                                         To Saint Valentine the spring is a neighbour

Last piece of news for the week is that BiL came over yesterday afternoon with his motor mower and cut the grass for me. It was still a bit wet and clogged up now and again but it's done....... thankfully. I should be able to keep on top of it now. With the last of the Buddliea and now the grass cuttings the garden waste bin is full again, so I can't do any more clearing for while. I've had to stop using my dalek compost bins - Rats!

I'm hoping a lady gardener who advertised on the local facebook group is going to come sometime and get the two big borders back to some sort of tidy too, then I'll be able to cope with them again. She likes to be paid in cash for one-off jobs like this, so I must organise that. It sounds as if she is very busy locally. The person who volunteered to help me last autumn lost his driving licence before Christmas, for being over the alcohol limit -twice- and hasn't been heard of since!

Back Next week

Sue

First Week of February and I'm Still Puzzling and Puzzled

 I think the weather has been better this week, at least in parts, I remember putting towels out on the whirly on Tuesday and getting them half dry, apart from that I've forgotten! although I've done some bits of garden clearing so it must have been mostly dry. The garden waste bin is full of Buddleia again and the wheelbarrow the same - waiting for the bin to be emptied on Monday.

We now have 7 new people at the Keep Moving group and most have been for the last 3 weeks, some other regulars returned so we had 16 there this week which is very good news. It's only half an hour working through a sequence of exercises but I'm sure it does us good physically and then socially when we have coffee afterwards. Three of the new folk are people I knew from way, way back, when we lived in the area through the 1980s. They've not moved, while I've been halfway round Suffolk and back.

Middle Grandson had his 5th birthday this week, I went round for Pizza and Cake - his request for tea after school on his birthday - I'm not going on Saturday when he has 4 friends round to play! 

Thank you to everyone for comments this week - I'm glad I'm not the only person who doesn't like strong scents, random book gifts and only doing jigsaw puzzles I like the look of. The comments were split on finding the edges already separated of the February jigsaw, some people agreed that it was good to find while others said they would miss searching for them. It wasn't a new puzzle so would have been repackaged like that by the person who did it last. I'm very strongly in the first camp - it was a treat!

Here's how I'm getting on with it..........slowly.

My Bad Blogger post a couple of weeks back wasn't meant to be taken entirely seriously but since then  I've been ever so good and have checked the comments spam section everyday (well almost everyday!). Nothing in it most days which is good news, perhaps blogger is behaving itself, although I won't bank on it.

But I'm still puzzling over one comment that was left on the Bad Blogger post

Lizzy D21 January 2025 at 15:14

I comment often on your blog and rarely are they posted by you. I have become discouraged. I never know if the were removed for moderation bec you didn't like my [innocuous] comments or if they're lost in spam and you never look there. I found it ironic a week or so ago that you asked people to comment, please....Maybe they like me are lost in Blogger ether.

PS I see above my position is unpopular--to clarify, I don't mind if you don't answer! But if my comments are never posted, I will stop commenting, not just your blog but in general.

I don't have comment moderation switched on  and never have (except for the odd day, like after Colin died, or to get addresses for giveaways) so all comments should pop up straight away , so I looked back pre January and can't find any other comments by Lizzy D. I wonder if there is another place comments can go to that none of us know about!

However,  there are 66,000+ comments that Have been published - blimey no wonder I've not answered all of them!

Back Next Week

Sue

Through Another Week, Dull with No Photos

 Nowhere near so cold this week just gone, but milder means damper and grey at this time of year. It was often gloomy by 4pm even if sunset was gradually getting later by a minute or two each day. When you can't see the sun for thick cloud those minutes are really meaningless. 

The week hasn't been very exciting ...Dentist, Keep Moving Group, prescription review, bit of gardening, bit of shopping, swimming and snooker on TV. 

The trip to the dentist was OK, yet another filling needed so that's another tooth rescued for a while and it didn't take too long. I pondered on going into the town centre or to one of the out of town big supermarkets or Dunelm etc but couldn't be bothered, there's nothing I need so just went home.

Years ago the annual Prescription Review meant actually going into the health centre and speaking with the doctor, then it changed to a phone call with the doctor from the health centre and now it's a phone call with some random person who knows nothing about you or the health centre that you go to. Usually it's quite quick - but this week a doctor(?)pharmacist (?) grilled me for what seemed like ages - but mostly she wanted to know what I would do if I had suicidal thoughts!! I said I'd no idea as that was unlikely to happen but she said I  should turn to friends or family or call  someone so I had to assure her that I would but as Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health service is struggling......

30 Oct 2024 — The region's troubled mental health trust is still not meeting the needs of its patients, according to a damning new report.

...................I'm not sure much help is actually available.

Then she got onto the "taking Statins" talk, but I said no thank you and then the "increasing the dose of blood pressure tablets" talk so I had to agree to go and get a check up again.

The call finished eventually but not before she'd told me that statistics show that I have a 15% chance of some sort of trauma (heart attack or similar) in the next 10 years. Well, that's good to know as it means I have an 85% change of NOT having a heart attack or stroke. In 10 years time I'll be almost 80 anyway. If I get to that milestone I'll have done well I reckon, considering the amount of cancer in the family history and anyway I don't want to live forever!

One of the two new people at Keep Moving Group returned for a second week and several others who'd not been regularly for a while turned up so we were 13 in total which is good. I've put a note on the Facebook pages of local villages again as there is still room for more.

Gardening was just cutting down another of the huge Buddleias - only half of what I'd cut fitted into the garden waste bin. They put on 6 foot of new growth in a year whatever the weather!

Swimming wasn't the best experience as there were two women walking (?) up and down the middle of the pool talking non stop and not looking where they were going, and it's not a big pool, and three girls with very severe learning difficulties who were in the pool each with a helper plus another helper too. Good to see them enjoying the water but one of the girls shrieks at the top of her voice - and by golly she's loud! 

That's it. An unexciting week, quite boring to write and very boring to read!!

Back Monday

Sue

A Winter Book, a Snow Jigsaw, Keep Moving and Apple Crumble

 The short stories in this book were weird but I got to the end. It's only the second book with winter in the title so I thought I'd better finish it and it needs to go back to the library anyway.

The jigsaw puzzle is coming along and I'm way past how far I got with the other snow jigsaw before I gave up, this one has more colour and less snow and sky. This is a 'Spot the Difference' puzzle but I won't tell you what they are as I'll make it into a blog post when it's done.

I put a note on some of the local face book groups to tell people about the Keep Moving Group and we had 2 new ladies come along, which is good. Numbers have dropped from a high of 16 down to eight or nine due to illness, being busy elsewhere and winter colds and flu. We only had two weeks off over Christmas and New Year but we all felt so unfit! (or maybe that was just me!) Personally I feel Fat! need to get moving more so I came home and booked a swim. It's a pain going swimming in winter with so many layers to take off and put on but needs must. I'm hopeful that the Stradbroke pool will be quieter as the next nearest pool along the Norfolk/Suffolk border at Diss is reopening after being shut for a nearly two year re-build.

This apple crumble will do nothing for the weight but was delicious and next year I'd like to find more free cooking apples to put in the freezer. I don't keep ice cream in the freezer all the time  but got some in as a just-in-case thing at Christmas and didn't use it but I'll save most for the end of the month when the Surrey boys are here

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Saturday 5th and More Painting Planned

This is the living room end of my newly painted room with the new flooring and the new rug. The rug changes colour all the time with the light and which way it's looked at but has the gold/greens of the sofa and chair and curtains merging into blue at one end like the chest the TV sits on and the bookshelves.

Last weekend I was doing a bit of tidying in the small bedroom/toy room/playroom and realised that I had enough paint left from the living room to do that room, which is also grey at the moment. So I can get rid of the 15 little hooks the previous owners had - all were holding a photograph - and fill in all the holes that will be left. They have to be prised off with a screwdriver and pliers and leave a big hole behind. I've made a start but will get going properly next week. 

We had a lot of rain here on Monday and then again on Tuesday, and yet again on Wednesday. I took DiLs birthday present over early Monday and the water was already across the road in one place that flooded to a serious depth last year. Was it always like this? every day of rain producing flooding on country roads? I don't remember it from the past and we certainly never had problems getting to school in the 60's. 

For the first time since our Keep Moving group started 2 years ago, this week we didn't have enough people turn up to run it, numbers have gone down since the summer. One or two ill, others away, two with ill husbands - it's not looking good for the future - sadly. Other groups for over 60's exercise are further away and more expensive. We'll try again next week.

I took a boot-load of bags of 'stuff' to town on Thursday to pop into a charity shop, but had to go to 4 different charity shops before I could find anyone to take it. One shop was only accepting one bag per person, another two taking nothing but thankfully the new Mind shop welcomed my bags of unwanted crockery, toys and odds and ends. Those taking nothing said they were chock-a-block full in the back rooms. Are fewer people buying from charity shops? Maybe - I've only bought a couple of things from a CS this year..

There's been no phone signal in the village and some surrounding areas for O2 for the last few days. I thought it was me and my phone and something I'd done wrong but thanks to the local Facebook and Next Door website I read lots of other people are having problems too. Something to do with the mast that can't be sorted quickly apparently. Hope it doesn't take too long.

This week I am grateful for

• Lots of delicious eating apples from my little trees
• Help in the garden from someone looking to fill some time
• Getting to the pool for a swim

Have a good weekend.

Back Soon

Sue

This Week

The week has whizzed by again - 

Sunday............... Last spring only a couple of tulips appeared in the big pot by the front door. There should have been lots more as it was their second year. I'd planted crocuses too and only a few of those appeared.

 I fished all the compost out so I could refill and replant and found just 2 tulip bulbs and 3 teeny crocus and the compost was bone dry.

So I bought 10 tulip bulbs for £2.50 from the Saturday car boot sale and a tray of 9 viola or mini pansies for £2 and used some of my home made compost and the last from a bag and refilled the pot. There were enough pansies to put some in another little planter too.

 I must remember to water everything more often, there's no excuse really as I've got a water butt out the front and a watering can.

Monday........... Dentist check up - No problems and he just painted a back tooth with fluoride, at least I think that's what he said it was. It might break one day he said as it's got a very old filling - most of my teeth have very old fillings! He doesn't like them but while they are OK we are agreed on doing nothing. In and out in 15 minutes and all I had to do was pay the bill!

Then I did a big shop at Aldi and Morrisons, as I was in Ipswich, topping up things that had got low last month and finding a couple of  items for the two Christmas hampers. 

Tuesday........... One of the people at the Keep Moving Group had been on a Western Mediterranean cruise and was talking about the 19 storey high ship with 6,000 people on board - I said it sounded awful! and got lots of funny looks from all the others who had also been to Morocco, Madeira ("so many times, we wouldn't go again" one person said) and various other places, when I said I'd not been out of the country since 1977. I 've always been out of step with the majority in so many ways, even people 15 years older than me! (I didn't mention the School Cruise I was on in 1968 or 9 - we were on the S.S. Nevasa and it was it's almost last trip - a very old Steam Ship - definitely not as plush as cruise ships now!)

Wednesday....... I ordered heating oil, birthday presents for two Grandchildren and Son and some Christmas things, all without leaving the house. Spent a fortune but saved on car diesel! 

Finally got round to cleaning windows inside, I try and do it as soon as the window cleaner has been and done the outsides and he was here over a week ago.

Thursday .......Met my school friend again in the church café in Stowmarket for a coffee, we are still catching up on 35 + years of news. 

On the way home I was following a big motorhome, until it turned off. It had the symbols  +   x  ÷   =  and  − painted on the back. Was the driver an Ed Sheeran fan? or perhaps it was Ed Sheeran himself on his way home to near Framlingham!

The news said it was the worlds hottest year since records began   - not in Suffolk .

While I was out the heating oil was delivered, one day after ordering even though it was supposed to be sometime next week and I don't know how he got in the gate! The tank wasn't as empty as I thought so the fill up was £100 less than quoted. Altogether odd.

Friday........... Swimming and not a lot else. 

A few people this week have written about blogging and it's future and Sue in Lancs has paused her two blogs- which is sad as I was enjoying her go at modern WWII rationing - hope she will come back like she did before. 

Here in Suffolk I just keep rambling on, because I enjoy writing and don't take it too seriously and even though less people are reading-  no huge revelations to reveal or exciting adventures to write about -  I'll just keep turning out posts.

Have a good weekend - temperatures rising in Suffolk the lady on TV said

I'll be back Monday with something about something I'm sure.

Sue

Halfway Through July Already

 "That would make a good pond for my garden" I said to youngest granddaughter as we were looking round the Domestic and Rural Bygones sale. I've had butler sink ponds before and they always do surprisingly well for such a small area. " I'd like a pond in your garden" she said............

so I left a bid of £6 - the lowest possible bid, fully expecting for someone to outbid me but they didn't so I had to trek back during the week to fetch it. One of the porters put it in the car but how to get it out again?

Nearly doing myself an injury I hauled it out and rolled it down into the wheelbarrow which I'd lined with an old blanket to make a bit of a cushion and took it round the back. Next I need BiL with his grinder machine thing to take off the waste fitting underneath and I'll nip up the road where they are building the new bungalows and ask the bricklayers for a small dollop of cement to block the plug-hole. Then I'll need to dig a hole so it can be set into the ground a little. Photos to follow........eventually. It will need oxygenating weed and water snails and then we shall see what happens.

First tomatoes from the greenhouse  this week - deliciously firm. Will there be 5 like this for the show in August? - Hopefully yes.

The greenhouse is full of green-ness. Peppers, aubergines, tomatoes, cucumber, parsley and one extra courgette plant that doesn't like being there. There's basil too but it missed the photo.

What else have I done this week? Ah yes, met up with Rachel-in-Norfolk for a catch up- she's already written on her blog about my soggy crumpets in Morrisons café - and no, that isn't a euphemism! 

I've exercised body with the Keep Moving Group and swimming and exercised mind with the daily NYT Wordle and Sudoku . Also read "At Mrs Lippincotes" by Elizabeth Taylor which is a Virago Modern Classic so should have been good for the brain although it wasn't exactly riveting - not a keeper. (Good news for the brain is that Only Connect and University Challenge are both back on Monday evening.)

 

Some tennis has been watched of course and a while spent pulling up all the dead giant Papaver poppies out the front. There is more weeding to be done in the back flower border but my compost bin is full as is the council garden waste bin until it is emptied on Monday.

And I've eaten my own raspberries everyday for the another week which has been a real treat.

Have a good weekend.

Back Monday

Sue

First Saturday of the Month

Sorry to keep going on about the weather here but I want to shout very LOUDLY to the weather Gods - please can we have less of the NE wind and some of the sun and warmth that you have given to everywhere other than us in East Anglia. Lack of sun is making the greenhouse tomatoes very lanky and making me very cranky!

Managed to find a few roses not attacked by green/white fly to bring in for my flowers on the table this week.

Two new people came to the Keep Moving Group this week which is good - the more people we get, the less we will need to pay to cover costs, so I hope they come again next week. 12 of us going regularly and hardly anyone misses a session and we all think it's very beneficial.

Then there was the Suffolk Show. It's a massive show and I love it, but it was really cold there and of course ever so busy. More children than ever I reckon - children get in for free and there's plenty to see that doesn't cost any extra. So if you take your own food the only cost is adult entry as long as you're not tempted to buy all the nice things in the clothing and gardening shopping avenues.

 I'll sort out the photos I took ready to post on Monday. 

The only other things I did during the week were going to the mobile library and shopping.

Hopefully I shall get to car boot sales this weekend, not sure if anything else is happening. But there's plenty of weeding to do.

Have a good weekend. I'll be back Monday

Sue