And another week gone!

I had all good intentions of doing a Friday's Fave Five post but that never happened.  Anyway here I am.  Sitting near a fan and watching birds fighting over our bird feeder in the garden - I spent ages on Saturday giving the feeders a good clean and then refilling them and the birds have been flocking to them ever since.  There were 6 parakeets trying to get on it this morning.  They're fun to watch but they are also very vocal.

I did quite a bit of gardening over the weekend.  Well tidying really - with all that was going on here I didn't even bother with containers this summer so I've moved them off the back steps and down to the shed.  

The only colour in the back garden is the lavender bushes which are in full bloom and, thankfully, attracting lots of bees.  I also did a bit of tidying in the front garden so that looks better too and the hydrangea there is doing well.  There's still work to be done out front but today I've been working indoors.

I think I've finally got all the "stuff" that came from my son out of the main house.  The garden room and garage are still dumping grounds but at least I feel the house is ok.  Especially as I'm hosting our "Ladies Lunch" on Wednesday.  A good incentive for getting things tidy and doing some proper cleaning.

I also managed to fix one of the kick boards in the kitchen which kept coming loose - it needed more brackets, plus I managed to clean out a drain in the back garden.  I will say no more about that lol.

But it hasn't been all work.

The Saturday before last we met up with one of Nick's sisters (Helen)and most of her family, including her 7 grandsons, at the camping site where we all used to camp before we wanted home comforts and switched to our annual "Big House" family weekend away.

It was nice to sit in the outdoors and do a bit of reminiscing about camping trips.

Tuesday night was a Knit and Natter evening.  Not a big group as some were on holiday but still a nice relaxing time.

On the Wednesday we visited the same sister at her home to deliver a bread machine to her.  It belonged to our DIL who had hardly used it so she offered it on our family WhatsApp group and it was quickly snapped up by Helen.

Friday evening I sat and watched the Olympics opening ceremony.  I think it was a bold move by the French to do it so differently and, while some of it worked there were bits that I could easily have skipped.  I'm glad I could watch it in the comfort of my home too, and not the pouring rain.

On Saturday evening Hubby and I went out to our local pub and then across the road to the wine bar.  We had a cheese plate in the wine bar which was a nice evening snack and we walked home to balance the calories!

We've chatted a few times with our American gang and it was good to get this pic of them all together again.

I forgot to press publish on this early so it's now late evening and I managed to fit a short walk in after dinner once it had cooled down a bit. (We're enjoying a hot spell at the moment.)  It was good to get down to the lake and see how big the cygnets have got over the last few weeks.  There are still 8 of them and they seem to be doing well.

And now.....it's time for bed!

Friday's Fave Five - 19/7/24

Well I'm trying to get back into the habit of blogging - I've been reading a lot more posts this past week and leaving a few comments here and there - I'd forgotten how time consuming it can be lol.

But this meme hosted by Susanne here is a good weekly reminder to take a breath and look for the good things from the previous week.

1)  A visit from my elder son and his wife last weekend.  He had managed to secure tickets for the Mens' tennis FINAL at Wimbledon!

Getting tickets for Wimbledon is a complete lottery - tennis clubs etc have one system for securing tickets.  Then you can go and queue for daily entry - which involves queuing for hours (even overnight) or you can enter a ballot for tickets.  If your name is selected you can then opt to purchase tickets (or not).  As I understand it you will be given an option of a day and court and my son was fortunate enough to get the Mens' final slot.  I have no idea how much the tickets actually cost - and they were seated in the back row but the two of them had a lovely day out.  

and of course it was lovely to see them albeit briefly.

2)  Tuesday we had granddaughter Ella here for a bit.  Lovely having a little one in the house again now that Vinny has gone.

3)  Kitchen sink fixed - we had a blocked sink recently and in trying to plunge it we ended up with leaking joints.  

4)  2 for the price of 1 this week - I was booked in for a shingles vaccination on Tuesday but I was also offered a pneumonia jab as I'm now old enough.  (No need to remind me of my age thank you lol)  Anyway I opted to get both.  I'm thankful they're done but my arms (particularly the one the shingles jab was done in) have been very sore.  I'm thankful that we have the chance to get these protections free but not looking forward to having the second dose of the shingles one in a couple of months time.

5)  Getting back into a normal rhythm now we have the house to ourselves although that has meant earlier starts as my body clock seems to have adjusted during the time that Michael and Vinny were here.  I've also managed to get back into the habit of reading and finished 2 books this week.

And the sun is shining!

Have a good weekend all.

It's quiet here - 13/7/24

They made it!

My son Michael and Grandson Vinny made it to Boston on Thursday and got through immigration so quickly they had to wait for Mummy to arrive to drive them home to Vermont!  And so their new adventure begins with the family reunited after what has been a difficult couple of months.

And now my house seems so quiet!

These last few weeks have been hard - physically and emotionally.  But somehow we got everything done in Michael's flat and it's now ready for tenants and on the letting agents website.

We had a lovely day on Monday - we took Vinny to a Zoo and Dinosaur Park.  He's a bit big for the buggy now but we were glad we took it as he got tired from all the walking and he's much too heavy to carry far.

Hertfordshire Zoo has an animal section but it also has a Dinosaur Park with huge (and loud) animated model dinosaurs.

Vinny loves dinosaurs but he was a little unsure about all the noise and how close they seemed to be at times lol.

The zoo is only about 40 minutes away from us and we got there soon after it opened so it wasn't too busy at first although several school groups arrived mid morning.

Wednesday was Vinny's last day at his nursery and they had a leaving party for him and the children that will be starting school in September.

Looks so grown up in this photo!

And then VERY early on Thursday morning they left and many tears have been shed.

I've been trying to keep myself busy and therefore distracted and there is plenty to do in my house now - it has been sorely neglected over the past couple of months.  My vacuum cleaner was at the flat more than it was here and dust on wooden floors seems to multiply overnight!

I need to get back to walking too - I haven't done much of that lately as the scales show.  But we did get a couple of things done this week that have needed doing for.....AGES!  (Yes we did move here over 3 years ago as regular readers will know lol.)

A new toilet roll holder in the downstairs bathroom - the old one sloped down slightly and the toilet roll was often falling off onto the floor.

A new shower head in the upstairs bathroom - that doesn't spray water EVERYWHERE except where you want it.

An outdoor clothes airer finally in use.  In an ideal world the holder for this would be concreted into the ground - but neither of us are confident about doing that so I bought a long spike thing that was supposed to just push into the ground and keep the airer secure.  Sounds simple but not if your ground is very stony under the grass and you can't get the spike far enough into the ground!  I then had the brainwave of using our old parasol stand to put the supporting pole into.  Except it's so old and the  screws are rusted so it's unusable.  No problem - I'll order a new one.  Which came quickly and seemed perfect.  Except, despite the fact that it's heavy, the side of our garden can be a bit of a wind tunnel - perfect for drying the washing but not so great for keeping the airer upright!  Yes, it toppled over!  Thankfully I was only drying some very wet dirty towels at the time before I washed them properly so no harm done.  But, having got that far I was not going to be defeated.  Now the old parasol stand is on top of the new parasol stand and together they kept the airer upright yesterday and my bedding dried in no time.  It doesn't look pretty - in fact it looks pretty daft but it can easily be stored away when the grandkids are here and it works for me.  (Also there is no photographic evidence of this madness.)

It will it save on some of the tumble drying now that summer is here.  Oh,  summer seems to have been and gone!  Hopefully it will put in another appearance soon.

One of the advantages (disadvantage?) of having a little one in the house for so long is that my body clock seems to have adjusted to waking up around 6 am each day.  It hasn't had that effect on Hubby though so I'm enjoying having an hour (or 2) in the mornings when I can savour my first cup of tea, watch the birds in the garden and work out how to fill the void that my son and his family have left.

People talk about their glass being either half full or half empty and I'm often more of a half empty person but I'm really 2/3 full because my daughter and her family are close by and my other son and his family are only a car journey away.

Actually my son Matthew and his wife Amy are coming down today and staying overnight as they have tickets for Wimbledon tomorrow!  Which reminds me the bed needs making up so I'd better get a move on.

I didn't post this as a Friday's Fave Five post but I'm sure there are more than 5 things in here that I'm grateful for so I'll still be linking up with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story with other like minded bloggers.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.