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Fancy a Natter?

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fancy natter
19K views 328 replies 11 participants last post by  britbunny 
#1 ·
Hi everyone and anyone,

How are things in your world at the minute?

Things are generally good with me, there is still some uncertainty about DH's job - but his boss has been discussing some long term projects with him so it points to his job being safe but you never know. I'm also looking for a job, but at the minute I'm looking for something I want to do rather than just any old job, but obviously there's not all that much about just now.

But other than work everything is brilliant. We all love the new house and the new area, getting out and about lots. Plus we have the bonus of quince and blackberry bushes in the garden *yum yum*
 
#31 ·
CrazyHomaker, I had never heard of such a thing! I was thinking it was some kind of pipe that fed water to the garden instead of the septic tank. Big No No out this way. Thanks!

How's your clean eating plan going for you?

FW- We never water our lawn, we've got to much land for that, our well would run dry. Most live with what ever color it happens to be out this way, only the mega rich and the golf courses water. I can't even imagine how much water it would take to keep our lawn lush and green, and if was town water, :yikes: I so would not want that bill.
 
#32 ·
People around here need more to do.

People around here worry very much about there lawn. Most people have service.I have teens. They water constantly it seems. When they are not obsessively blowing or edging. We water in Aug. to keep the lawn alive at all. We have the most natural lawn which is bad apparently.
 
#33 ·
Ahh well, the mega rich out here have services, oh and the keeping up with the Jones types. Our lawn may look dead, but it will come back next Spring. It probably has something to do with the differences in climates being it is Cal. and this is Pa.
 
#35 ·
LOL! Opps! I totally knew that too. I wonder where my heads at tonight. LOL!
 
#37 ·
Today it is going to be another scorcher (yeah great - NOT!!!)

After dinner yesterday evening I watered the gardens then went to bed since that is the only rom in our house that has airconditioning. I lay in bed for 1 hour just watching TV and enjoying the cool.
It was SOOOOO great!
After that I was knock-out.

Anyhow, it is now 8.15 in the morning and I am planning to have a quick shower and get out to the farmers' market to get some delicious fresh fruit and veggies before the real heat starts.

Then I wil stay in the house cleaning and doing more laundry etc. for the rest of the day.
No way I will be going out unless I really have to.

Britbunny, I had to smile at your story about walking on the beach in the rain. My most favorites times in my youth were spent on the beach in the winter with my dearest friend and both our dogs. I absolutely LOVE LOVE the beach in the winter.
It was actually quite funny now that I think about it.
My friend and her family got a puppy around the same time that we did. She got a golden retriever and we got a minature dachshund (sp?). We used to go to the beach as often as we could with the dogs but at least once or twice per week.
The two dogs grew up together and became friends.
Trouble was that when they ran into the waves, I had to rescue our mini dog because he couldn't understand why he couldn't go out as far as his friend.

Have a great day everyone.
 
#38 ·
Yes, sorry a hosepipe is indeed a garden hose thingamy. I actually don't own a hose... well, not for watering the garden with, we keep all the electrical cables inside one to stop the bunnies from chewing through things!

Lots of people here have a gardener/lawn service partly because we have quite an elderly population and partly because some people have lots of cash! Our lawn is mainly moss, but it means lots of birds drop by to feed on all the insects so I quite like it that way. In our old house we only had a small yard with a stone floor, now we have "proper" garden front and back with lots of trees and grass (well, moss) so it's very cool. My mother bought me a couple of bird feeders so we can attract more birds in and we have all manner of small things now. We mainly have seagulls though - who'd have thought at the seaside? lol

I don't know what happens with the golf courses though. We have two huge courses in our town, I don't know if they're still allowed to water them or not. I can guarantee when the Open is here in 2012 there will be enough water for all the greens!

The beach in winter is great, I'm really looking forward to it here, especially towards Lytham where it's closer to the estuary, there are lots of migrating birds apparently so that should be good when the time arrives. I'm happy to see the sun today, it has rained non-stop for the past 2 days, there's even been a couple of flash floods nearby, but today it is very sunny so I can take my laundry out of the garage and put it outside for a while. Ever the practical one.

Today I am having a puttery day, doing a menu plan and so forth. I've already boiled up some dried beans and they're now in the freezer, I have dealt with two very messy bunnies and had a general tidy about. Time for coffee and apple crumble cookies I think. Which reminds me, anyone in the UK who fancies a splurge try the new Marks and Spencer cookies - the Black Forest Gateau cookies are delicious, closely followed by the lemon meringue pie ones. Very unhealthy but amazing!

Have a good day everyone.

Oh yes, that reminds me, Blockbuster are still hanging on here for the time being and DH has offered to buy me some Hunter wellingtons for the wet weather *yay*
 
#39 ·
That's a great idea! The keeping the cords in a hose. It would be great for puppies too!

Your garden sounds just lovely. I'm partial to shade gardens, it seems to me moss would be a shade plant? I happen to adore seagulls, so having them as frequent visitors would delight me to no end. :)

In the area where I live, to have a lawn service is a symbol of one's economic and social position, as is membership in the country club and trips abroad. The country club has always been here, not so of the influx of really wealthy people.

Our lawn is full of dandelions in the Spring, burnt out grass in the dead of Summer, and mountains of leaves that never get raked in the Fall. We care little about status, or keeping up with our snotty neighbors. Our defiance of the status quo is obvious, and much an affront to our neighbors.

To allow a golf course to get even a smidge parched would be a sacrilege, as the wealthy business men/doctors/etc. worship the sacred greens daily. We have several private courses and they are always deep green with the sprinklers running full bore, even when we are in a drought.

It rained here twice today, good for me no watering the garden. It's still blazing hot and relief is days away. Garden is growing good. :) Husbands working :) Kids behaving :)
 
#40 ·
Our garden is full of dandelions too, and it is very much appreciated by the bunnies, they love them! The back garden is southwest facing so it does get plenty of sun (in theory, but this is England) I think it's just from neglect really, the house was empty for a while before we moved in so everything is in need of a bit of love.

Even though there are lots of people here who are pretty wealthy it's not in a real conspicuous consumption kind of a way, I think there is lots of "old money" so people just get on with it, and everyone is very polite, something you don't always get with the "flash Harry" affluent types. We drove past the local pub on Sunday and there was some kind of Rolls Royce meeting going on - there were about 30 of them parked on the green outside. Very odd but totally unsurprising, lol. There are plenty of benefits to living in an area like this, things like great local businesses where you get great customer service. Wonderful local produce, and not that I eat it, but fresh local seafood too. And not too expensive, I don't think the locals would put up with it, they're very much the type that you don't keep your money by wasting it unnecessarily!

It is great to have seagulls, when I hear them first thing in the morning it reminds me that it's not a dream and we do live in our little sugarlump of a house by the sea!

We intended to go to the cinema to see Inception last night, however we tried 2 different places and we couldn't get in. The first cinema we couldn't even get into the car park and the second one we could see the queue out of the door before we even parked up! I couldn't believe it. I think it's a combination of two things - we live in the town down from one of England's biggest seaside resorts and the phone company Orange do "Orange Wednesday" which means 2 for the price of 1 tickets. And Toy Story 3 is out next week, think we'll give that one a wide berth for a while. It wasn't too bad though as we got a coffee and went to the beach - never a bad thing when that's the fallback situation :)

Good to hear the children are behaving. Is it the school holidays yet? I guess it must be as we live in the next street to a small school and it is SILENT, normally at play time there's a real racket, it's cute to hear them all having loads of fun though.
 
#41 ·
I'll post about today, tomorrow morning.
Been in the ER with Fiori (our daughter) most of the day.
 
#42 ·
Dutchie-prayers for Fiori. Hope everything smooths out soon.

Brit Bunny-We have violets and dandelions (try as we might not to) and our neighbors are none to pleased. I supposed we should roto the lawn and reseed but they are so pervasive I am not sure it would help. Bring your bunnies for assistance please!!lol.
 
#43 ·
Dutchie, hope it's nothing too serious, get well wishes to Fiori.

Maybe I should start a home based business hiring my bunnies out as a lawn service! I would love to reseed our lawn but I think that would just attract more birds than there already are! More harm than good I think!
 
#45 ·
Thank you for the well wishes for Fiori.

THANK GOD that everything turned out OK but for a while it was VERY scary.

Fiori left for her work yesterday morning at 8.15 and I remember thinking to myself, what a great day, everyone is at work and no one will be home till at least 3 pm. I can get everything done in my own time. I wasn't even dressed or showered.

Anyhow the telephone went. It was Fiori crying that she had been in an accident with her bike. She told me where it was and I said that I would come to her right away.
She said to me that I had to call Lloyd (our youngest son/her brother and boss at the golf club) to say that she couldn't do the opening of the club. Then the line went dead. When she was talking I could hear people in the background.
I immediately called Lloyd and told him what had happened. He said to come and pick him up. The train taking him to the north of Holland for a long weekend was due so I was just in time.

Within 10 minutes I had dressed (don't ask what I was wearing - I just threw it on - didn't shower, didn't brush my hair or my teeth), closed up the house, put the alarm on, picked up Lloyd and was with Fiori.

When I arrived she was lying on the ground unconscious. She had had a collision with a motorbike. I don't know who was at fault because Fiori doesn't remember anything and I still have to talk to the police who were present. At that moment my only concern was with Fiori.

She did come round a couple of times and spoke quite lucidly but later she didn't remember talking with me either on the phone or at the scene or who was around her.

To cut a VERY VERY long story short. She was taken to the hospital (me driving behind) and given an EXTREMELY thorough check up.

In the meantime she had regained consciousness and was in a LOT of pain coming mainly from her right ankle and her head.

Various X-rays and scans were done but no bones were broken and there was no sign of any bleeding in her brain or fractures.

She is completely covered in scrapes and a few bumps on her head but further she is ok. She has a lot of aches in her muscles but that is to be expected.

Her bike is a total loss.

The weird thing is that her legs are completely scraped open but that the legging she was wearing hasn't got a mark on it and isn't damaged in any way.
I maintain that she had an angel sitting on her shoulder yesterday.

By the time that we got home (early evening) I was a wreck but VERY VERY thankful that she was ok.

Of course because of the concussion we had to waken her up every hour last night.
 
#48 ·
Oh My Gosh Dutchie!, How frightening!! I'm so glad she's okay.

FW- Violets? Well that's just fabulous! I'd love violets popping up in our lawn. But, I guess from what your saying they are considered a weed. It sounds beautiful to me.

"It is great to have seagulls, when I hear them first thing in the morning it reminds me that it's not a dream and we do live in our little sugarlump of a house by the sea! "

BritBunny, I'm just loving the visual on this! So happy for you that you get to live in your dream house!
 
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#52 ·
Well, busy week-dog in ER. Cut down favorite pine tree from my kids childhood and celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary. Woke up yesterday to find to other dogs eye red. Luckily today it seems fine. But enough. How's a girls to be debt free this way?lol.
Hope everyone is well. Is Fiori doing ok after her scary event.?
 
#53 ·
That is one busy week! Hope your dog is on the mend.

Preparing for a big night out on the town this weekend. Deep joy. The closer it gets the less I want to go... but I did promise and I'm sure it can't be half as bad as I think it's going to be.
 
#54 ·
Brit Bunny-Hope you had a lovely time. I had to laugh. When we went out for our anniversary the other night an intoxicated women was talking and laughing in DH ear. He was so patient. The whole patio seemed to relax once she finally left. Hope you don't run into anyone quite like her.lol
Please let us know how it went.

Both dogs are fine. But my cat has a scratched up face or was stung by bees?? Hopefully this run will end soon,please. I just can't afford this.
 
#55 ·
Awwww poor thing. The vet is so expensive, our previous bunny broke her leg a few years ago, goodness me that hurt the bank balance!

The night out is tonight. And I guarantee we'll meet some "characters". We live in a quiet seaside town but the town next to us is one of the busiest seaside resorts in the country and it has quite a reputation for being lively. Plus we're going to a cabaret show, so it could be interesting.

Have a good weekend everyone.
 
#57 ·
Just to let everyone know that I am still alive - JUST - LOL.

I think it must be something in the air with everyone having a busy time.

Firstly on Monday I had promised to take my youngest son for his driving test/theory. It was an early test and we had to leave the house at 8.15. Well I got ready and was just going to the car when I asked him if he his reservation nr. He didn't.
He went back inside, got it, I read it and it was for Tuesday GRRRR!.
Anyhow, I was up early and got going.

However the tooth that had played up during my vacation started to play up and I had already called the dentist so that they knew that if I called then I could come right away.
So I called and a couple of hours later (still Monday) I was in the chair. In between I had done some grocery shopping and some laundry (again). The dentist wasn't sure if I needed a root canal treatment or something else. She sealed the the whole thing and said that if she was right then everything would be ok and if she wasn't right and I did need a root canal treatment then about Wed. or Thurs. I would be calling them.

Tuesday I got up and repeated Monday except that we did go to the examination center with my son. (He failed!)
Then I got home and did a HUGE job, namely the finances (after the vacation - the cc bills had arrived BAH!!).

During the afternoon (Tuesday) my tooth gradually got worse and worse. I called our dentist but they had already gone for the day and the dentist on duty didn't think it an emergency (not what I thought at all). They recommended that I take a strong painkiller and wait till the next morning.
I did wait, took a painkiller, didn't sleep and got up like a zombie hovering over the telephone till the dentist opened at 8.30.
I got to go to the dentist at 10.30.
My jaw was shaking by the time she started but I was relieved to be rid of the pain. Yes, one root canal treatment later I actually felt great. I didn't care. They gave me a LOAD of painkillers because they said that they had done so much work in my mouth that I was bound to have a lot of pain after the novocaine had worn off and I did - but I didn't take anything.
The presuure pain was gone so I was fine. I didn't care.

Thursday I was all over the place and attended at dh's 85 year old aunt's birthday party. She is in a home for the elderly with dementia.

In between all this I was in discussions with our oldest son (about him and his wife splitting up (he is still living here). He is thinking of trying it again with her (waste of time if you ask me - I think that I mentioned what the problem is. She is an alcoholic, does not recognise that she has a problem and therefore refuses to do anything about it).

During all this, our oldest son threw our 2nd son out of his appartment (oldest is the owner of the flat) so a LOT of fireworks there. We are now helping 2nd son find something else (it is a VERY LONG and BORING story). He is staying with his girlfriend in the meantime. (You are probably thinking why doesn't eldest so live in this appartment - VERY VERY long story but for now he can't.)

Our 3rd son had 'something' to discuss with us. (This can never be good as we know from experience).
He is changing universities and wants to stop work full time (interfering with his studies - I had noticed this so I wasn't surprised) and therefore he can no longer live on his own, is it ok if he comes back home to live.
Sure! Our house is starting to resemble a zoo by now anyway.

Our daughter is recovering from her accident but we are still busy with the insurance forms (nightmare - because she doesn't remember anything so we are having to go by what witnesses saw and the police report).

And today on top of everything our youngest son - just as he was leaving for a vacation - came to us with the remark that his girlfriend has headlice - would I check if he has them too. EEK!!!!

I checked and YES he has them. Got stuff for him, got it done, got him out of the door for his vacation with instructions. Ran to his bed and pulled off the sheets, pillow cases and put them into the white plastic laundry bin.
A couple of hours later I took them out because I was busy with other laundry earlier on. After removing the sheets, there were a few 'things' moving on the bottom of the laundry bin. EEEWWWWW!!!!
His pillows, duvet and everything that is loose on his bed has been thrown AWAY!!!!
I went to IKEA and bought new ones (not very frugal I know but I don't care). I am now airing out his room, spraying his mattress and itching all over just at the thought of it all.

It's now almost 4 pm and in exactly 1 hour I am going t sit down and have a glass of wine.

THANK GOD that this week is finished!
Hope everyone's week was more relaxed than mine!

Have a great weekend evryone - and have a great evening out BB!
(I know what Blackpool is like - HAVE FUN!!)
 
#58 ·
WOW! What a week. I'm sure you must have had everything thrown at you since you returned from your holiday, surely that must be the end of it!

We have had a bit of good news today. DH ha a meeting with his boss, they are having a restructure due to the 40% cuts they have to make and his boss has suggested he manages two departments instead of one! I really doubt this will mean a pay increase but I think it should mean there won't be a pay decrease.

And looking back now everything might just work out for the best. When he went for a job in Blackpool he went for one job and didn't get it. He was then offered the job he has now. After a couple of months the guy who had the job he originally went for decided to leave and return to his old job. So DH is now on the verge of doing his current job and the job that they didn't give him in the first place. Weird how these things turn out isn't it. But if I ever see the guy that left I'll buy him a drink, lol.

It's not 100% certain but it looks like his job may be safe if this restructure is approved.

Hope everyone has a brilliant weekend.
 
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