Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey Topics), 1 March 2015

Good Luck with the painter, Heather. Whatever you do, do NOT cancel his appointment. Although we are pleased with our decorator's work, I could not go through it again. I will have to wait for the memory to fade LOL He went on holiday twice, mid the work. OH reckons that was because he charged so much !! Don't panic..............

Hello All - Very sunny to start with but now clouded over and looks like rain, quite a cold wind also.  Yesterday I managed to plant some of my new plants in spite of knee and shoulder pain!  I just cannot kneel down at the moment, I never realised until now how much of my gardening was done kneeling, standing and bending to do everything brings on another ache, back-ache!  OG - you were right about the garden centres, Simpsons for lunch and Howdens for plants.

Annette - Nice to hear about your Salvias, there are so many varieties, a lot of tender ones which I like but cannot really grow here.  Your lizard sounds interesting, I would like to have seen a photo, do you see them often in your garden?

Starling -  Hope Baxter will settle down at night, he must miss his mum and siblings to cuddle up to at nightime.   My puppies were always the same at first, very understandable but tiring for the new owner.   Amber was alright as it was the first time I had used a crate and she was very cosy inside with lots of blankets and teddies etc, and she settled very quickly, whereas my other puppies had wandered about outside their bed and kept doing puddles etc., all night, they felt so lonely, and we usually ended up  having them in with us for a while, where they slept all night without a sound and no puddles!

Lynette - that poor eagle, sitting on the nest in all that snow, I remember EJ sitting tight on her nest with snow on her feathers and one year arrived back and could not land on her nest at all, it was piled so high with snow.

Brenda - so sorry that your OH has injured his finger, does he know how it happened? hope it will improve quickly.

Heather - How nice to have your kitchen redecorated, hope it will help to divert your mind from some of your ongoing worries.

Hello! Just had to sign in, not had to do that for ages. Lovely day here so we've made the most of it and enjoyed a coffee out by the harbour, plus shopping, then lunch on our balcony, just cheese & apple with a slice of crusty bread. My OH has just headed out for the beach with his book. Shopping here is much better than a few years ago, when we had only tiny local shops and had to drive to other towns for supermarket stock ups. Nevertheless, my OH still hates it: I try to keep it to a minimum but if we don't go for a few days, we run out of just about everything & then he looks at the bill with horror! Can't win! I try pointing out that " we still eat when we're at home" but he seems to think that even buying a few bits of bread and fruit are luxuries, not essentials LOL!! He will be in for a rude awakening if anything ever happens to me LOL!! :-))

Just lost a post.

Starling - aaaw! Pups do miss their family. Expect he'll soon settle down with lots of love from you. Heather - painters, builders & plumbers are a pain: you have to fit in with them and not the other way around. I'm sure your visitors won't mind if things are a bit out of the ordinary. Lynette - lovely pics of the Eagle on her snowy nest. I'm another who'll never forget the sight of our EJ with snow on her back, bravely sitting it out. Annette - pups are supposed to have two lots of injections against the main diseases before they walk where other dogs go. We are lucky as our pup had one lot just before we came away and our breeder has kindly offered to arrange for Bonnie to have the other one whilst we're away. ( we've paid her, of course) So when we return, on a Wednesday, we are going to pick her up on the Friday after and then only have to keep her in over that weekend - it will be nice to keep her in the house to bond with her, anyway. The breeder is also going to give us a piece of cloth with the mother dogs smell on it, for comfort.

Boringly neutral CLARE!! Rooms are not large and I'm not very brave:-((

OG - sounds as if you're already geared up for getting back into the greenhouse again. Clare ,- You don't seem to have heard back from the last interview - my fingers & toes are still crossed!

Heather - I used to favour very beige walls, especially in small rooms, but when we moved to the house we are in now, there was not a lot of light in the sitting room so we wallpapered it a lovely warm, honeyish yellow! I love it! We also chose a pale yellow for the kitchen where there is not much wall left, if you know what I mean, as I have a lot of wall cupboards. This has now crept out through the archway into the dining room. Very cheerful, especially on a winters day. In the dining room I have a sort of Mediterranean theme going, with paintings of seasides abroad, blue and green Wedgwood plates on the walls, and Terra cotta coloured carpet.

Speaking of sunshine, I must go out now before my OH wonders where I've got to!