Friday's Fave Five - 1/8/25

Well I have been AWOL again (but I'll explain why below) so it's good to be here and catch up with Susanne and other like minded bloggers to look back on the past week (or three!) and remember the things we're grateful for.  You can find out more here.

This week I'm all about Family!

1)  We had our son and his family here from Vermont here for just over two weeks.  It was so good to see them.  Of course the time flew and saying goodbye to our son last Friday and then our DIL and grandsons on Wednesday this week was hard but we've definitely had some quality time with them.

2)  For the second part of their visit we also had our other son and his family staying with us.  It was a busy and hectic household but it's so lovely to see the cousins interacting like they saw each other yesterday even though it's been a year since they were all together.  And of course we made sure to get all the grandkids together as much as possible.

3)  One of our nephews hosted a get together at his house during their visit so they were able to catch up with lots of cousins, aunts, uncles etc and they all got to meet the latest baby in the family which was lovely.

4)  And then we all (apart from my US son*) went to France last weekend.  Hubby's sister Anne Marie lives with her French husband Jean Marie in Dunkerque and we were celebrating his 70th birthday.  Jean Marie is also one of 8 siblings so it was a huge party.  Thankfully the weather was good and they have a big house with a huge garden.  Their 4 sons did an amazing job and we all had a wonderful time.  There was a good turnout from both sides of Jean Marie's family and although some of us are not great in a second language we all managed to communicate!

*Michael works for the US Government but gets 10 days leave!  Here in the UK he would get at least 20 days leave if not more each year.  This makes it hard for him when he visits.  I know he probably could get more unpaid leave but he's been in this job for less than a year and he's also had to take a few personal days when the kids have been sick so he flew back to the US last Sunday and missed the trip to France.

5)  Thankful that my DIL and the 2 grandsons made it home safely to the US on Wednesday.  They were delayed for 2 hours on the tarmac due to the technical issues the UK had that day and they ended up staying with friends in Boston overnight before driving home to Vermont yesterday but they are home and of course we miss them already but so many happy times over the last couple of weeks.

A few of the siblings from both families in Dunkerque.

 

A trip to the beach is a must when in Dunkerque.

They had a photo booth at the party which was very well used! (And although the photos were printed instantly there was also a link provided to access them all digitally!)

Cousins and Jean Marie (in the white shirt)

Anne Marie - definitely the hostess with the mostess!

Their (2nd?) cousin Maya gatecrashed these pics.
(L-R)Rory, Ella, Maya, Vinny, Noah, Nathan and Miles)
So hard to get all our 6 together for a decent pic.

We all travelled to France on the same ferry.  The children were very excited.

They took in a show.

Made Rocky Road

Getting 4 boys to sleep in the same room worked better than we thought it would lol

Love this one.

And now my house is quiet - well apart from the washing machine which will be going non-stop over the next few days as I work through all the bedding and towels lol.

Have a good weekend all.  Mine will be spent quietly catching up on some sleep and relaxing. 

Friday's Fave Five - 11/7/25

It's Friday so time to look back on the week and remember the things we're grateful for.  Our host Susanne reminds us each week, even when she's having a difficult time and then we link up here.

1)  I'm thankful that my daughter's family all seem to be recovering from the Norovirus they had at the end of last week and over the weekend.  Thankfully my daughter stayed well but both grandchildren and my DIL were unwell at various times.

2)  Thankful that my recent blood/urine tests all came back in the normal range and for the NHS app which allows me to see the test results as soon as they are processed.  No waiting for the GP to contact you.

3)  We had some rain earlier this week but now we're back to very hot weather again so thankful for the fans we have.

4)  Two catch-ups this week - with the Ladies Lunch group after our exercise class on Tuesday and then a Knit and Natter on Wednesday evening.  

5)  The safe arrival of another great niece on Tuesday.  This is Nick's sister Kate's 3rd granddaughter.  There were lots of oohs and ahhs on our family group WhatsApp chat.  It also happened to be his sister Anne Marie's birthday.  Hard to find a date that doesn't have a birthday on it with the size of our family!

I've been busy today cleaning through the house and getting the washing up to date because as of tomorrow I'm going to be busy!

These two will be boarding a plane very shortly (with their parents of course.)  And of course I'm excited!

Have a good weekend all.

Wednesday Hodgepodge - on a Thursday! 10/7/25

Joyce prepares the questions each week and then we all join in the fun here.

1. What's an adult problem nobody prepared you for? 

Just one problem?  Umm where do I start?

How time just speeds up the older you get.  (Note I'm doing this on Thursday because Wednesday just disappeared.)

How children have minds of their own - from Day 1.

How to become a parent to your parent and finally

How to deal with the loss of your parents (or anyone close come to that.)

Being an adult is hard!

2. How tuned in are you to all the recent food related health news? Have you gotten rid of your scratched cookware? Did you pay attention to food additives before they made the news? What's one healthy eating/cooking/food shopping habit you need to adopt? 

Probably not that tuned in as I find it hard to watch/read the news at present but I don't used scratched non-stick cookware.  I probably should be more aware about additives but we do tend to cook from scratch quite a lot so we know what's in a lot of our food but we could definitely be more aware.

I still need to work on eating more fruit.  I'm quite good on vegetables but I'm not great at eating fruit.

3. What's getting worse and worse as you get older? How about better and better? 

Again there are lots of things I could probably write about but let's use mobile phones as one example.

I hate the way we are so reliant on them and glued to them.  I used to know lots of people's telephone numbers but now the only mobile number I know (apart from my own) is my Hubby's.  Back in the day when numbers (here in the UK) had an exchange code and then a number they were much easier to remember.  But mobile numbers are much more random (and longer) so much harder to remember - and they are often changed. 

But.... I do like the convenience of them - being able to do so many things on Apps etc, being able to take and see a photo instantly (and delete that selfie that's not very flattering).

4. Are you more of an indoor person or an outdoor person? Elaborate. 

Well I'm definitely more of an indoor person - I'm happy at home with my own company but I do love to get out and walk in the outdoors.

5. If you had an expert personal assistant today, what would you have them do? 

Sort my clothes, get rid of things I don't need and purchase things to fill the gaps.  Oh and plan and organise a garden makeover.  Plus a personal makeover probably wouldn't go amiss lol.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

2 more sleeps before my son and his family are here - can't wait!

Friday's Fave Five - 4/7/25

Friday's are the time to look back on the week and note the things we're grateful for.  Susanne our host blogs here and she keeps us on our toes.  Pop over and see who else is joining in.

Well it's been 2 weeks since I last did a Friday's Fave Five and almost as long since I actually blogged.  Apologies for not getting around to commenting much either.

Firstly Happy 4th July to my American friends.  Hope you're all having a good time.

Now to my list:

1) I am grateful that the heatwave seems to have subsided a bit - the temperatures have been in the low 30s (centigrade) and with no air conditioning it has been unbearable.  Usually when it's hot I keep the blinds and windows shut at the front of the house in the morning and open up the back windows/doors.  Then in the afternoon as the sun moves round that gets reversed.  Well at the start of this week everything was closed - the air outside was HOT!  I find it very hard to function when it is that hot but thankfully we had some rain on Wednesday and since then we've been in the mid 20s which is lovely.  

2)  I had a birthday!  Always good to clock up another year, although the number is getting a bit too high for my liking lol.  But at least this year I will start getting my pension.  The day itself was spent quietly - I was at the Foodbank as usual but my best friend visited the day after and brought cake.  Then on Saturday we went to dinner at my daughter's and had rainbow cake.  Yes, granddaughter Ella picked the cake.

3)  Housework has been very much left while it's been this hot so I found time to complete the puzzle Hubby got me on my birthday.

I also treated myself to another puzzle board as the one I have wasn't big enough for the puzzle.  I went for the sort that rolls up with the puzzle inside.

4)  I have another crafting project on the go too:

the squares were amongst bags of stuff that belong to my daughter but are being stored here.  At some point she had time to make the squares but realistically she's never going to make time now to do anything with them so I'm putting them together and then I'll probably put an easy edging round them.  This involved another treat for me - a blocking frame for granny squares.

5.  Our freezer seems to be working properly again.  Despite supposedly being frost free it had got very iced up and although it seemed to be keeping frozen food frozen it wasn't freezing anything put into it.  It took a long time to completely defrost and we cut our losses on quite a bit of food but thankfully it seems ok now.  Note to self - defrost regularly and at the first sign of frost/ice!  It did mean though that on the hottest day of the year we were cooking a roast pork joint so that it didn't go to waste!

And finally I'm thankful that Ella seems to be on the mend after a bout of what they think was Noro virus.  She was very sick all day yesterday but has perked up a little bit now so hopefully over the worst.  It seems a lot of the children in her nursery class were affected and some of the staff.  So far the rest of the family have been ok. Hoping it stays that way.

Have a good weekend all.