A VERY overdue Waffle - 28/9/26

It's been over a month since I've blogged - I didn't even really touch my laptop so I'm also way behind catching up with what's been going on in Blogland so forgive me if I've missed any exciting news or major events wherever you happen to be.

There was a lot going on and I really got out of the blogging habit.

Firstly I've been extra busy with the Foodbank.   On top of my regular Monday evenings, Thursdays and Saturday mornings I've also taken on co-ordinating the drivers for Wednesday evening pick ups.  In theory this shouldn't be too taxing - just a case of making sure there are drivers available and accepting the donations on an app - so all done from home or wherever else I might be.  Until of course a driver drops out and no one volunteers very quickly or a regular driver forgets to confirm that they're ok for collecting.  I do have a back up if I'm busy and so far it's been fairly ok.

On top of all that I've also been going in early on a Tuesday morning while two of the key volunteers have been on holiday.  We're getting big deliveries at the moment from Amazon and it's often a race against the clock to get everything inside and set up before we open the doors to our beneficiaries.  It's meant missing my keep fit class but I have been able to meet up with my friends afterwards for coffee and quite honestly volunteering at the Foodbank is more of a work out lol.

And then the guy who collects the food donated in the crates at our local Tesco had an operation on his eye so I've also done a couple of pick ups from there.  Still I like to be busy!

Prior to all this we had our annual family get together in Kent.  We had between 35 - 45 people there on various days so it's not what I would call a relaxing holiday but it is lovely to spend time with everyone and although we had a couple of spells of rain it was generally good weather all week.

Two weeks ago we travelled to France and Belgium for our nephew's wedding.

My husband's sister lives in Dunkerque and it was her youngest son that was getting married.  Well, having a wedding party - the couple were legally married over a year ago.

We'd booked a hotel for the Friday and Saturday nights in the town where the wedding was to be held - Poperinge in Belgium but we travelled via Dunkerque on the Friday as my SIL had been in Glasgow that week for work and there had been travel disruption with flights and trains so she opted to come in the car with us.  We also took my daughter with us - it was an adult only event so her wife stayed at home with the children.  

It was probably just as well because we ended up helping put up a very large gazebo in SILs garden - without proper instructions!  It took a while.

This was before we attempted to put the canvas on.  At the second attempt we got it on - (first time it was inside out) only to find that the pole arrangement wasn't right.  We needed all the seven people that were there to lift it up and get the legs in place too.  Being octagonal we could really have done with one more person.  And then we later discovered that one of their other sons had the instructions on his phone!  We were not amused lol.

Poperinge is a nice little town near Ypres in Belgium and only about a 40 minute drive from Dunkerque.

Thought I'd try out the new Google widget but I actually took some photos!

The Town Hall

Town Square

Town Hall at night

The town has a big market square with lots of cafes/restaurants around it.  We met up with other family members for coffee in the morning and then it was just a 10 minute walk from our hotel to the venue.

The venue was a guest house that had a large function room and lots of outdoor space.  The ceremony which consisted of speeches by the groom's brothers and the brother of the bride and friends followed by the couple exchanging vows, was held outside.  There was a drinks reception followed by dinner which was a hog roast meal and then of course dancing until late into the night.  The youngsters were still in full flow when we headed back to the hotel around 1 am.

One of the things that made it special for us was that our son Michael  and his wife Elizabeth travelled over from the US to attend the wedding!  They came on the Thursday and although Elizabeth had to travel home on the Monday Michael stayed with us until the following Sunday.  We didn't see much of either of them really because of the wedding and then they were trying to catch up with friends as much as possible but it was lovely to see them both.

Front left is our niece Olivia who took this photo with our daughter Rebecca next to her and then behind are our other son Matthew, his wife Amy, Elizabeth and Michael.

This one is of the bride Alexia, groom Felix and all their English cousins and partners.  There were a few missing but lots of them had made the trip.

This was a photo booth shot of us.

The Happy Couple

On the Sunday many of us travelled home via Dunkerque, including my SILs French relatives (her husband is French and one of 8 like her) so a lot of people.  We were glad of the gazebo as there was a bit of rain during the afternoon but it certainly didn't dampen our spirits.

                                

Last weekend was quiet but this weekend Nick's sister Helen turned 70 on Friday so we were at a party for her at her son's house on Saturday which was nice.  After we got home we got the lovely news that our niece Emma had given birth to a little girl.  We knew she was in labour while we were at the party and were all hoping the baby would come before midnight - Saturday would have been Nick's Mum's 98th birthday if she was still alive.  Well baby Freya did arrive before midnight and Mum and baby are doing well.  Grandma would be so proud.

I think that's a good point to wrap up this very long and overdue post!

Friday's Fave Five - 21/8/26

It's late here on Friday but I'm determined to take part this week.  Susanne reminds us each Friday to look back on the week and share our blessings.  The link up is here.

1)  Company at the weekend.  My eldest son and his family were here and we also had one of my husband's sisters (and her husband) here for lunch on the Saturday.  We were trying to plan ahead for our extended family get together next week.

2)  Planning ahead.  I volunteered to take a pasta sauce for the second night of our get together so today I have made the first batch.  

These are now safely in the freezer.  I will make the second batch either tomorrow afternoon or Sunday morning.

I also found time to make some banana bread. 

It looks like we've eaten a lot of it but I gave slightly more than half the loaf to my daughter to take home with her - the grandkids love it.

3)  Cooler weather and some rain this week.  It's made things so much easier around the house.

4)  Easy meals.  Because I needed space in the freezer for the pasta sauce we've been using things in the freezer for our dinners this week which means Hubby hasn't had to do as much cooking.  

5)  Internet shopping.  There were a few things I needed this week which I managed to get on Amazon, including these:

The blades rotate when switched on and they keep flies away from your food.  I'm sure they're going to come in handy next week and at home.  I also got a home delivery this morning of the ingredients I needed for the pasta sauce plus some other items we needed here.  It saved me a trip to the supermarket.

We have my daughter's children here tomorrow morning so I'm also thankful that I haven't got a Foodbank delivery to take in.  Then on Sunday my son and his boys are coming down from Nottingham by train and we will take them to the holiday house on Tuesday with us in the car.  My DIL will join us on Friday after work.

I'm thankful to be able to help the kids out when we can.  We had a laundry thing going on earlier in the week as my daughter's washing machine wasn't working properly.  Thankfully that's all fixed now.

Have a good weekend all.

Wednesday Hodgepodge - 19/8/26

Thanks to Joyce for the questions.  The link up is here.

1. August 19th is National Aviation Day...do you like to fly? Last time you were on an airplane? The date is chosen in honor of the history and development of aviation, and celebrated on the birthday of Orville Wright. Have you ever been to the Kitty Hawk area of North Carolina? The city of Dayton in Ohio (their birthplace)

I don't enjoy flying.  I'm not frightened of it but, not being in a position to fly anything but Economy usually, it's not the most comfortable way to travel.  But it's a necessity for us to be able to visit our son and his family who are currently living in the US and the last time we flew was in June when we had a lovely visit with them.  Unfortunately the best timings for us to get to Boston airport and then home from Heathrow means taking an overnight flight and neither of us got much sleep. 

Never been to North Carolina or Ohio.

2. In what area of your life do you tend to 'wing it'? Is this an area you should be winging? 

I don't usually wing it.  I'm a planner and I like to be organised.

3. A favourite book, song, or movie that relates to flight in some way?   

Well the only thing that sprang to mind was the movie "Top Gun".  One of these days I might get around to watching the sequel lol.

4. Soft serve, gelato, sherbet, frozen yogurt, or good old fashioned ice cream...what's your pleasure? Your favourite flavour? How often do you indulge? 

Well we usually just have old fashioned ice cream in our freezer and mostly vanilla because it goes well with a lot of things but my favourite flavour would be chocolate or salted caramel.  We did have some lovely soft serve when we visited our son in Vermont, and of course we visited the Ben and Jerry's factory.  They have way too many flavours to choose from lol.

5. I never get tired of spending time with the Grandkids.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I didn't get around to many blog visits last week so thank you if you left me a comment.  I'm hoping to do better this week - I even had this post done last night and scheduled to post today!

A Weighty Waffle - 18/8/26

Well I am way behind in my posts, again!  Let's see, the last time I posted was the Wednesday Hodgepodge.  It's been a busy week.

Thursday was taken up with the Foodbank as usual, then on Friday evening my son and his family arrived from Nottingham for the weekend.  They were out during the day on Saturday, catching up with friends but we had Nick's sister Helen and her husband Bill here for lunch so Helen and I could discuss shopping needed for our upcoming family holiday.

On Sunday we had my daughter and her family here for lunch with the others so it's been hectic.

Yesterday I was at the Foodbank in the evening so as well as not posting on my own blog, I've not had time to read other blogs either.  But I have been doing some reading.

I finished this one just in time for the meet up at the library last week.

It got a mixed response.  I quite enjoyed it.  It certainly showcases Atwood's talent and her imagination.  

This is our next read:

This is the same author as "Americanah" which we read recently and I struggled to get through so I wasn't looking forward to this one much.  However I've found it easier to get into so hopefully I'll get it finished before the next meeting.  It's another long one!

I didn't even get to post my 5 things to be grateful for on Friday even though I had plenty to be grateful for.  The main one being running water.  I included that as a blessing a few weeks ago as some areas had been without water while burst water mains were fixed.  It was even more relevant this week as we had no water overnight on Saturday - it went off sometime after midnight but, thankfully, by the morning our supply had been restored.  Over 7000 people weren't so lucky as they had more than a few days without water while a major supply main was being repaired.  The response from the water authority was far from satisfactory too with the distribution of bottled water being chaotic.

We seem to be having burst main, after burst main with water gushing out all over the place and yet we have a hosepipe ban!

And of course there have been cases of fires around the country - the hot weather continues, but tonight and tomorrow we may get some rain.  The fires have caused such concern that on Friday evening the Government sent an emergency alert to mobile phones urging everyone to be careful not to set off fires.  The sale of disposable BBQs have also been suspended.  The alert was really loud and not like most of the tones we usually hear on our phones!

Anyway....that's me caught up. Now I'm off to check out the questions for tomorrow's Hodgepodge!