A good drying day.

Another lazy day, full of good intentions.
Yesterday I bought the Sunday Times travel magazine - an indulgence at £3.40 - which had three competitions, one of which could be entered on line.
I made the poor decision to log on shortly after breakfast & then spent most of the morning on line.

I did learn that Bali has four lakes & that Lake Bratan has caves along the banks, dug out & lived in by Japanese during World War 11. (comp 2)

Otherwise, I did loads of washing which dried beautifully on the line so that I could iron it all & replace/put it away& cleaned upstairs
I ventured to Coleshill. The car thermometer said that it was 13C - it was certainly much colder in the open, with a cold wind - the snowman hasn't yet all melted.
I would like it to warm up now.

G has a bad stomach & has suggested that last night's dinner poisoned him, despite the fact that we both ate exactly the same & I'm fine.

He has refused to eat tonight & gone to bed early!

I think that most gastric problems are caused by putting dirty fingers in your mouth.

Self indulgence.

I had a great day with Thomas yesterday, including a very long walk around the park & local area & a visit to M&S food.
Unfortunately I left my purse in Thomas's pram.
I was very low on fuel, but, because there was a lot of traffic, I decided against filling the car with diesel on the way home, which would have been a little embarrassing with no means of paying.
I realised what I had done when I got home & so I started the day with a rather fraught journey to P & A's to collect my purse, with only 30 miles of fuel left which fell to --- before I arrived.
P assured me that A often drives around with --- fuel, which cheered me up & I did make it to Sainsburys to fill up & then on to the gym.

Grandchildren must keep you fit as I did an extra 10 minutes on each machine without realising how long I'd been working. I even managed extra time on the rowing machine. Beat that!
I went to M&S for a decaf tea & a cheese scone & then looked for a wedding outfit for a family wedding next month, but found little inspiration. (G says no M&S!)
I bought some scrummy food/fish & vegetables & came home for a cup of tea.

This is for Tim.
This is as good as any that I saw, but not for me!

I only ate the one, honestly.

A good evening's sleep.

We awoke to bright sunshine & about 2 inches of beautiful, powdery snow this morning.

We got up early to make the most of the snow before it disappeared.



After breakfast G fashioned wellies/overshoes for Tim from thick polythene & tape & we did a little sledging before utilising much of the snow on the top lawn to make "Dennis" - complete with carrot nose & ginger nut* eyes, mouth & eyebrows, assisted by Ben & Steve.


Tim rode the tractor around,collecting snow in the bucket, but found the snow too cold to handle. (I did have the advantage of my best rubber gloves!)

By lunchtime most of the snow had gone. We enjoyed a leisurely lunch of roast beef followed by spotted dick & coffee with a celebratory chocolate cake; KP & Thomas joined in for the first time.
(small portions, low fat suet & having a no-diet day)

Between lunch & tea we walked to the sports field where all of the children enjoyed half an hour on the play equipment.

We have since cleared up & I have had a snooze on the settee, waking in time to see the final episode of "He killed coppers".

Time for bed, said Zebedee!


*The ginger nuts that I made yesterday that Ben decreed "not fit for purpose".The birds may enjoy them.

A prize for the first person to identify the origin of each picture And Dennis's surname.

Hi-jacked!

G is now a blogger!
Friday, I worked my socks off cleaning & polishing everything in sight & then went to Kenilworth to shop, for a change. It's a pleasant drive & about the same distance as Solihull with nice little shops & a good Sainburys with free parking.
JS had sent G a "burthday present" of a voucher for a box of chocolates, again, which I collected. Why don't they send me a pressie for my birthday since I'm the customer - G never darkens their doors.
We went to "Cineworld" in Solihull & saw "Vantage Point" - an attempted assassination of the US President seen from a number of vantage points.
Good, not great.
We had a portion of fish & chips from Coleshill on the way home as G was not hungry (I was!), consumed with a bottle of chardonnay.
I liked Cineworld, G did not.
It is like a small Star city but less threatening, with an integral car park.

Saturday, we went to Solihull for G's appointment at D & A (opticians). I had half an hour to shop then we went to Bromsgrove to collect a part from Paul Matty, for the lotus.
G was so long in the spares department that I sold two elises whilst I was waiting for him.
Could this be a new career?
I was considering becoming a central heating installer as I find that I have a natural bent for boilers & valves - last weeks episodes involving British Gas were highlights of my retirement.

B,E T &KP arrived at tea-time.
B was delighted with his apple peeling & coring machine that we brought back from Denmark.
B & E went out for a romantic dinner, we had shepherds pie on the settee, followed by coffee cake.
G has a sore thumb from over-use of the Powerball. I hope that his muscles build up with some haste otherwise life could get ugly.
He is encouraging me to "have a go".
I think that two sore thumbs in the house is enough for one weekend!
A big family Sunday lunch tomorrow;; well - hung ribs of beef.
I may ask B to make the yorkshire pudding as his are brilliant, much better than mine, of late.

burthday

My 'powerball' arrived today so I now have a sore thumb from exercising it and trying to perfect the spinning technique. 10213rpm achieved so far!. An interesting gift - thanks to W,K&J for sending it.
Got half way though the first strip of mowing and down came the hailstones - got soaked for my trouble so packed up.
Had my eyes tested a.m. no change there so just cost me most of this morning after I had plotted the route for October's Karma Enduro locating all the stops with latitude and longitude. Some of the names were really quite impenetrable.
P,A,J&T + B,E,T+KP for lunch tomorrow - hopefully it will not snow and I can get out for a ride a.m. and get the mowing completed.
Geo.

The gas man cameth....again

No blog yesterday as it was the most uneventful/boring day I can remember.
The gas man was due to come between the hours of 9.00am & 1.00pm.
I did things*, like ironing & tidying for an hour & then went on t'internet to make the final selection of a holiday cottage, armed with the "AA book of Britain's coastline", to check out destinations
British Gas phoned just after 1.00pm to make their weekly enquiry as to why we have changed suppliers.
I explained that it was to ensure that I had a weekly phone call from them, having been ignored for the previous 20+ years, that the new supplier was cheaper & could they find out where the gas man was who should have visited before 1.00pm.
I was offered a phone number.
The gas man did arrive at about 1.30pm,gave me an overview of his daily habits, including the fact that he had not woken up until 9.30am.
I gave tea & sympathy (effects of changing the clocks/global warming on the older man) & he found the motorised valve that was sticking & gave us back the power to control the boiler.
This was one of the two valves that was such a mystery to the gas man on Tuesday.
It was nearly 3.00pm by the time this little adventure concluded, it was a cold, grey day, so I returned to the lap top to complete the cottage selection & do battle again with the "Good Housekeeping" site,which refuses to acknowledge my subscription number (written by the address on the postage sheet.
I filled in all of the boxes in triplicate to highlight this problem & eventually received an e-mail giving my subscription number.
This bears no relationship to any number anywhere on anything! Please explain.
I haven't yet attempted to use this number, it may be a joke!

I had scrambled eggs on Oatmeal, a banana & sauvignon blanc for tea as G was out.
Hardly foie gras, but very enjoyable.

I am going to the gym now.
I have prepared a casserole for dinner & was going to clean the outside of the downstairs windows before I went, but my new chamois leather has migrated from the laundry, I suspect that it is in the garage, but am fast losing the incentive to care, despite it's initial cost.
(All of this before 9.00am - I could handle a full-time job)
Have a great day!

*A display at the Viking Museum in Roskilde explained that the Vikings called their meetings "Things" & had various heirarchies of "things".
This gave credibility to a wonderfully useful word, much used by my mother, Auntie Norah &, increasingly, by me.

Happy Birthday George.

Thomas today. He was his usual fun self, ate drank gurgled, cuddled, kicked & slept(briefly)
Alongside this, the gas man came to give a quote for a new, condensing boiler.
This involved counting the radiators(3 times, as he kept forgetting), measuring the house by putting his mobile phone on walls here & there, & counting the number of motorised valves.
To do this necessitated removal of a panel in the kitchen ceiling & several phone calls to G & Ben. Gas man couldn't see the valves from the airing cupboard or the hole in the kitchen ceiling.
G, Ben & I all guessed that we were a two valve household, so he did a quote for one & two.
He left after an hour & a half, stressed; it took half an hour to clear up.

British Gas phoned shortly afterwards to ask why we had left them after 20+ years.

A gas man is coming tomorrow to mend the boiler clock hat was replaced two weeks ago, two weeks after having been mended.
I think that British Gas may be getting their own back by keeping me housebound for weeks on end.
The guy on the phone thought that this was unlikely.

Tonight P & A came to dinner to celebrate G's birthday, which we enjoyed.
The birthday cake was a banana cake , for a change & we ate a lot of fish.
G's cards seemed to have an ageist theme.
Fancy!



Yesterday I did paperwork, the gym & shopping in Solihull.
I decided that fruit from Morrisons was disappointing so I parked at M&S & shopped both there & in Sainsburys, who do pay for 2 hours parking if you spend £25.
No problem there.
I fell asleep before I could blog - sorry.

I still have to book a holiday cottage, Dorset or Devon, 4 bedrooms, near the beach.
Any ideas?