Friday's Fave Five (on Saturday) - 26/6/21

Yes I know it's Saturday but I have so many things to be thankful for that I couldn't miss the Friday's Fave 5 again.  Thanks to Susanne for hosting - give her a visit at Living to Tell the Story and see who else joined in.

1.  Well firstly I'm thankful that my laptop seems to have dried out - hubby spilt some wine on it on Thursday evening and yesterday it was typing complete gobblydygook!  Here's a before and after:

Thmeb quj7icykb b rown,b foxb ujujhmpsb overb thmeb lazykb dog

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Just trying to type my password in to get into the laptop took ages and really challenged my patience!  So no blogging done yesterday but this morning all seems ok. Phew!

2)  I'm especially thankful to my GP service and our NHS.  I missed last Friday's Fave Five as I was in hospital.  I'd gone to my GP on the Monday as a cyst I'd had for a while quickly became infected and turned into an abscess.  He prescribed antibiotics and arranged for a breast clinic referral - mainly as a precaution.  By Thursday morning things were much worse but again I was able to make contact with my GP who arranged for me to be seen by the surgical team at the hospital.  This resulted in a hospital stay of 5 nights and intravenous antibiotics.  I came home on Tuesday with oral antibiotics but the wound is healing and I'm feeling better although still tired.  Being in hospital is not restful, especially when you getting woken at 2 am each night for observations and the night staff seem to think the day starts between 5.30 and 6.00 am!  (Yes I know some of you reading this are early risers and will agree with them but I'm a night owl lol.)

3)  While I was in hospital I was seen by the breast clinic and thankfully it was confirmed I'd had a sebaceous cyst in my chest wall and there was nothing causing alarm in the breast.  They managed to do an ultrasound but I was spared a mammogram - that will be done in about 6 weeks just to be completely sure all is ok.  

4)  A catch up with my best friend.  She came for a visit yesterday and brought me this:

Isn't it lovely.  Not the best picture - it says welcome on the sign.

5)  It's my birthday!  Despite all the craziness in the world right now I've lasted another year.  And this year we can celebrate with some of the family - our daughter and youngest son and their families are coming for afternoon tea today.  

I started the day with breakfast in bed and then hubby attempted to do croissants.  Sadly the first ones got forgotten, burnt and ended up on the floor!

Fortunately there were 2 left and they were delicious.

Apologies if I haven't got around to visiting all your blogs yet.  Normal service is gradually resuming.

Have a good weekend all.

21 in 21 - Weekly Photo #24 - w/c 14/6/21

This is why I haven't been here.  Unfortunately by the beginning of last week a cyst I'd had for a while became infected.  My GP put me on antibiotics last Monday (14th June) but by Thursday not only was there no improvement, things were actually worse.

A referral to the hospital followed and I was admitted, spending 5 nights there to enable IV antibiotics to be given.

I came home on Tuesday with oral antibiotics to hopefully clear the infection completely. 

The antibiotics are Linezolid.  Unfortunately I cannot take pennicillen or the usual alternative erythromycin.  Yep I'm special!

 

Saturday morning - 12/6/21

Looks like it's going to be another hot sunny day here.

I'm sitting at my dining table writing this, looking out onto the garden.  It's quiet in the house (hubby is still in bed) but the birds in the garden are making quite a bit of noise.  I have the patio door open so I can watch them on my bird feeder.

When I first came down this morning I wasn't sure what was  on the feeder at first but a closer look revealed it to be a squirrel.

The cheeky thing was having a good feed from the bird seed.  He would probably prefer the peanuts but they are in a squirrel proof feeder.  He opted for the bird seed instead and was having a really good feed from it until I disturbed him.

Once the squirrel was gone the magpies arrived.  They mainly seemed happy to scavenge the seed dropped on the ground by the squirrel.  There were four of them at one point.  

They've gone now and the pigeons are picking up what's left.

Haven't seen any parakeets yet this morning but there are plenty of them around.

All these big birds means we rarely see any small birds on the feeders but yesterday we had a tiny bird on our kitchen window edge - the window was open at the bottom and it perched there looking like it might come in!  It was obviously young but fledged and too quick for me to get a picture! 

I bought a new water feeder recently and it's been good to see the birds using that too.  

I love having the peace and quiet of the house to myself and watching the birds while I have my first cup of tea of the day.

Friday's Fave Five - 11/6/21

 

Susanne at Living to tell the Story reminds us every Friday to look back on the blessings of the week.  Here are mine:

1)  A quiet week and good weather.  My daughter and her family have been away on holiday this week so although that has meant looking after their cat there haven't been any requests for picking Nathan up from nursery or babysitting for them.  I've done quite a lot of reading!

2)  Babysitting for Rory & Vinny on Wednesday.  We went over late afternoon and put them to bed without too much hassle while our son & DIL went out for a meal.  First time they've done that in a long time.   It's a blessing for us as we love seeing all the grandkids.

3)  Our anniversary (also on Wednesday) - 37 years married to this wonderful man.  

 The confetti got everywhere!

We didn't do anything special to celebrate as we were babysitting but I do have some lovely flowers.  I always love having fresh flowers in the house.

4)  A visit to one of Nick's sisters on Tuesday.  We hadn't seen her for a while so it was lovely to catch up.

5)  Walking.  I didn't walk on Wednesday but I've managed to walk on the other days and I'm planning to go out later.  The weather has been lovely and warm this week so I've tended to go out late afternoon/early evening when it starts to cool down.  Hubby has been going on a few organised walks and doing a fitness class twice a week and this morning he started a 6 week course to get running.  He's putting me to shame so I'm trying to at least keep my walking going and increasing my distances.  

We currently don't have any plans for the weekend but my daugher and her family are home today so I expect we'll catch up with them at some point.

Enjoy your weekend!

21 in 21 - Weekly photo #23 - w/c 7/6/21

 

Well this photo was taken on my phone this week but of course the original photo was taken a while ago.  37 years ago on Wednesday to be precise.

Not going to forget my wedding day am I?  I made a good choice.

21 in 21 - Weekly Photo #22 - w/c 31/5/21

We took a walk through a different section of woods yesterday.  It was early evening so very quiet - we could here the birds singing.

We came across these:

Someone had been busy!

Friday's Fave Five - 4/6/21

 

Susanne at Living to tell the Story reminds us every Friday to look back on the blessings of the week.  Here are mine:

1)  More time with our eldest son and his family - they didn't head for home until late Sunday afternoon so we had almost 10 days with them.  We made sure we got a photo of us with the two Grandsons before they left.

2)  They came to replace our damaged window this week - when we had our rear windows replaced recently one of the glass units was damaged.  It had to be fitted as they had already taken the old windows out before the damage was noticed.  Now the works are complete.

3)  Entertaining friends.  I had 3 former work colleagues here on Wednesday for a late afternoon tea.  It was the first time I'd really entertained in the new house because of all the Covid restrictions.  I made a proper afternoon tea with sandwiches, scones with jam & clotted cream and cakes.  It was nice to be able to get things like my cake stand out and really entertain.  The weather was kind too and we were able to sit in the garden and catch up for hours!  We didn't drink much tea though as we continued well into the evening and wine seemed more appropriate.

4)  There's a cat in the house.  Not permanently - we're cat sitting while my daughter is away.

 5)  A day with no plans.  Today was the first day in what seemed like ages where there was nothing in the diary.  No one coming, no where to go, nothing to prepare for.  I've had a nice lazy day having a relaxing bath and reading a book.  It was raining for most of the day but I did manage to get out for a walk this evening.  It was still drizzly but not too wet and the swans were on the lake with their cygnets.

And the bonus for this week was that we celebrated Rory's 3rd birthday on Tuesday.  We had a joint celebration with Noah when he was here as there's only 2 weeks between their birthdays but Tuesday was Rory's actual birthday so we had cake and icecream with him when he got back from nursery and enjoyed watching him open his presents.

  Have a good weekend all.