Weekly Photos - 22/2/26 - 28/2/26

Not an inspiring batch of photos for this week but here goes:

Sunday morning I did a bit of cat sitting for my daughter.  Milo is very cute but as my daughter said "we're going to need a bigger boat!" He was almost falling off the top of that tree.

Sunday afternoon we managed a walk down to the lake to look at the progress made on the demolition of the scout buildings that were previously burnt out.  The site is well on the way to being cleared but no plans have been finalised yet as to what any rebuild will look like.

On Monday the pesky squirrel had found an easier way to get at the bird food.  Instead of hanging upside down to get the food, he'd managed to get the whole thing onto the ground!

I didn't take a picture on Tuesday!  But this was what I was reading.

This was what I was doing on Wednesday evening.  We had a lot of fun and raised a lot of money for the Foodbank. (£605)

Thursday was spent at the Foodbank as usual and I took these photos to show how we'd organised the crates of potatoes and red onions which we have in abundance at the moment.  And cabbages!  Lots of cabbages.

  

Friday I was doing well with my "Almost Done" list although of course it's never done as I just keep adding to it!

Saturday and it's finished!  Ella was very happy.

It's hard remembering every day to take a photo but I'm working on it.

Start here

#SoCS - 28/2/26 - Smooth

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “smooth.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

Our host for #SoCS is Linda who blogs here.

Why is it that building works never seem to keep to plan and run smoothly?  Many of you will know that I volunteer at our local Foodbank which is actually held in a Church.  We run sessions on a Tuesday and Thursday, with a community cafe operating on Wednesdays but after the session on Thursday we have to clear all the food from the Church into a storage room.  

Well that was the start of the post I was in the process of doing when our landline rang.  It hardly ever rings and it's usually some sort of spam or scam but it was actually my eldest brother as I discovered when he started to leave a message on the answer machine.

Fortunately I intercepted his call before he hung up.  Unfortunately he was ringing to tell me that my SIL passed away peacefully this morning.  Not something I was expecting.  Life definitely isn't always smooth.

Friday's Fave Five - 27/2/26

Well I'm going with the Tulip picture this week as there are lots of tulips in the shops although they are more expensive than last year so I resisted the urge to buy some. 

But it's Friday, again, so time to pause and think about the blessings of the week.  As always we're prompted by Susanne who blogs here.

1)  A relaxing Sunday morning with my daughter's cat Milo.  They were away for the weekend so she asked me to pop round on Sunday morning to feed him and check he was ok.  Well I thought he might like some company for a bit so I spent a couple of hours there with my book and iPad.  And a cat to fuss.  

2)  A fun night out on Wednesday.  One of the local pubs had agreed to host a Bingo Night as a fundraiser for the Foodbank.  I haven't played Bingo in years but it's a nice pub and I got there early enough to have my dinner before it started (Chicken supreme which was very good.) There were quite a few volunteers and committee members there plus the pub usually has Bingo on Wednesdays so plenty of regulars too.  In total £605 was raised for the Foodbank.

3)  Less rain this week!  It's still been a bit drizzly some days but definitely more sunshine and I've managed to do a bit of walking each day.

4)  A Hubby who steps in when I need him to.  I was supposed to collect Grandson Nathan from school yesterday and take him home and wait for my DIL to get back with Ella after a ballet class but I was shattered after a hard session at the Foodbank but Hubby offered to step in without me having to ask.  I was very grateful to be able to sit down and relax and not have to go out again.

5)  An easy system of ordering repeat prescriptions.  I can order them on an App, the GP sends the prescription to the local chemist electronically, then they send me a text when it's ready to collect.  I was able to collect it on my way to the supermarket this afternoon which also gave me a reasonable step count again today.

I've also managed to finish 2 books this week so I'm back on track for my reading challenge!  Plus our DIL had leftover veggie lasagne that Nick brought back with him yesterday so an easy dinner!

Have a good weekend all.  We're babysitting for my daughter tomorrow evening.  Of course I love the grandkids to bits but they're not the best for going to bed but we're both going so we divide and conquer lol.

Read then Write - 26/2/26

Well I finally managed to finish "Grandad there's a Head on the Beach"! 

Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach by Colin Cotterill
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well if this was ever made into a film it would be fast and furious and completely farcical. Which is a shame given that at the heart of the story is the awful way Burmese people are treated in Thailand and used as slaves in the fishing trade. But I just couldn’t get on board with it. It took me 10 days to read this book and it’s only just over 300 pages long! It probably wasn’t helped by it being the 2nd book in a series but I’m certainly not going to read the first or the last.

It will be interesting to see what other members of the book group think of it.

I've now moved on to this book:

This is the evening book group's choice.  I'm enjoying it so far although I was a bit on the fence about The Miniaturist by the same author.  But I need to fit more reading time in if I'm to meet my targets.  Doesn't help when you end up binge watching a series that's based on a book I haven't actually read.  I don't usually like reading books after I've seen a TV show or film but I might have to make an exception.  The series was Curfew based on a book by Jayne Cowie.  

Oops, I got so engrossed in the final episode that this post is slightly late lol.