HAPPY NEW WEEK!
Last week's Chat thread is here.
Annette: I thought I'd go ahead and start this week's thread. I don't mind at all. When my next freelance project comes in, you (or someone else) can do it if you want to.
Everyone have a great week!
Good morning
LINDY - I suspect that you and your OH will need another break to get over The Visit. No wonder you still feel wiped out...
I enjoyed reading MARGO's account for ROSY about how Billie found them. Serendipity indeed.
OG - I do hope that you three can find a church community with whom you feel comfortable. Sometimes I think that the very place where one would hope to find peace is the place least likely to provide it.
It is much less cold here today. OH is doing quiet jobs in the garden. He has realised that he has too many begonias all of the same colour (!) so is dumping quite a few. I have many pears just waiting for me to have an inspired moment. They are not the best variety - small and take ages to ripen. Any ideas?
ROSY - OH and I are retired and live in the Highlands. He is originally from rural Aberdeenshire and I was born in South West England. We married later in life after both of us were widowed. Between us we have six children and nine grandchildren.(I just had to count them on my fingers!) The oldest grandchild is 22 and the youngest four months.
You will see me mention my brother from time to time. He is living an impecunious life in France. He went there, among other reasons, to put some distance between him and his needy children who all seem to be on bungee cords. Two of the children have followed him to France and the third keeps hoping that his parents will return to the UK.
Hello Everybody - I am back on here at last . Brenda - I did not realise it was so long since I last posted. Thank you to everyone who has enquired after me and I really do apologise for being away for such a long time. To tell the truth, after my son and family left in August I felt quite low for a while as I still had a lot of pain and swelling in my knee and in spite of doing exercises a lot of the time did not seem to be improving as quickly as I had hoped. I looked out over my overgrown unkempt garden and wondered when I would ever get it back to normal! However, I am very much better now, I started to improve when I was able to drive again and get out and about visiting my local garden centres, etc. My physiotherapist has signed me off now and is very pleased at the way my knee is working, she says I am in the top10% of people who have had this operation! I am back gardening again now and what with that and doing my exercises and and sessions on my exercise bike I do feel tired afterwards and that is really my excuse for not posting on here ( although I know that is not a good enough excuse!).
I have also had some family worries - my Daughters 13 year marriage has broken up and she has been going through quite a bad time. I have tried to give her all the help and advice as needed but I am such a long way away from her. It has upset the whole family actually , as we all really liked her husband, he was just like a real son to me and I am heartbroken to think that I will probably not see him again. Of course I am very worried about my grandson (12years old) who has had these big changes in his life but he seems to be coping alright.
I am also trying to move house. My eldest son wants me to move down to live near them now I am just about to have my eightieth birthday, they worry about me being so far away. So I seem to spend a lot of my time online looking at houses and never find anything that I like at all. the trouble is that it is so much more expensive down there and I will never find or afford a house like this down in Solihull. Also, I really love living here and do not want to move at all. However, I do understand their point of view and so I suppose I must go. This has been going on for two years now and in that time I have found about five houses that I like and put offers on three of them but lost out. the others went before I could even put an offer in. The latest one was last week , several people wanted it and so went for a much higher price than the asking price. I was secretly relieved , as It means I am still here for a while. I am determined not to move from this house that I love to a house that I do not like; the location is important too, I must have some countryside around , all my life I have lived in villages with fields,etc, around and I do not really want to change now. ( sorry, I seem to have ranted on a bit about this).
Will post this now, and come back later with the rest of what I want to say, will leave you with a picture taken yesterday of one of my Acers in the morning mist,
Rita, I am so happy to see a post from you and to know that you are fine. So glad that your knee has now improved so much since your op.
So sorry about your daughter's marriage and how your grandson will cope. Will you not be able to stay in contact with your son-in- law ? He would possibly like you to do so. He must be still seeing his son.
I do understand why you are possibly moving to Solihull, but it does seem such a shame when you love your house/ garden and have so many friends there. I did smile when you said you were relieved when the last house possible purchase fell through. That statement says a lot. {{ HUGS }}
That is a beautiful acer.
Happy New Week everyone.
Special thoughts to all who are going through sad and difficult times right now.
Nice to 'meet ' you Rita.
Than you, Heather for telling me about yourself. Very nice to have a combined family with so many children and grandchildren of different ages.
Waiting to hear of Lindy's next instalment about cousin with verbal diarrhoea , and where they all went/ate for lunch.
OG, Sorry about further church problems, or should I say church members. You have too many other things to worry about, especially this week. You will be just as well to be at home, than in church with bad thoughts. We had a missionary from Africa this morning, who was lovely, but he missed out all the sung prayers and hymns, except for the entrance and exit hymns, which we started for ourselves. We were back home much earlier than usual.
Linda, I hope lunch was a success. Don't worry she will be back home very shortly. Just make sure that she doesn't miss her flight :-))
Dibnlib,Thank you. I have replied. I hope you enjoyed your lunch with your friends.
We have had sunny intervals today, after waking up to rain this morning.
Mowing in progress - yay! High humidity this morning, but lovely sunshine has shifted it, so work could proceed. Need the same tomorrow to do second half - oh dear, never satisfied!
LINDA - only two days to go! I hope you enjoyed a good meal despite the relation!
RITA - so glad to see a post from you, and know you have done so well with the knee! So sorry about the marriage break-up - still having fall-out from our own Daughter's situation, so I do know how it can be. Sorry the moving proposal is disruptive for you, but I do understand the family's point of view, having you so far away. Lovely Acer!
Ospreys Rule OK, but Goldfinches come a close second!
Sorry Diane, I didn't thank you for starting the week. I understand from your reply to Annette, that you don't have a project at the moment. I do hope something arrives soon for you.
Hi, Brenda - sounds as if that missionary thought he was there just to give a talk, rather than being part of the church service! One of my problems with our recent church was the number of "Focus" services (as they called them) where we had to think about things which were of general interest rather than hearing from God's Word and concentrating on Him!
Morning all:
Heather: I really did laugh out loud at the thought of kids on bungee cords. What a perfect description! :-)) Maybe your poor Bro can arrange to be kidnapped by a benign group of terrorists and spirited away to a "secure location" on the Riviera?
Lindybird: I don't believe what you're all going through with the visitor. But wait - yes I do! This reminds me somewhat of last Christmas and moving daughter's horses to Arizona with a trip to Disneyland thrown in and daughter leaving suitcase (with all her meds) in a taxi just to complicate things even more! When I go to the UK, I see my niece and nephew typically only once or twice coz they're so very busy with jobs/families. Can't wait to hear how you all manage. Hope there's a glass of wine (or two or three) on hand for lunch.
OG: Bummer about changing churches again. Seems like that would be the one place you shouldn't run into issues. I'm reading Then There Were Nuns, where the author, whose spiritual travels take her to convents and monasteries, mentions how much harder it is to focus on spirituality when part of a parish vis-a-vis being in a convent, etc.. It's actually quite funny in parts.
Rita: Please don't apologize for being busy. We just wanted to make sure you were alive and kicking - even with a bad knee. How nice to be in the top 10%! Gosh, you really have a LOT going on right now. So sorry to hear about your daughter's breakup, especially since you really liked your SiL. Heather may have some pointers re grandsons in this situation. Don't assume you won't see SiL again - these kinds of upsets do settle down after a period of adjustment when bruised feelings are not so close to the surface. Not easy in the meantime though. Re moving house: My sister and her OH in Lincolnshire were planning to sell theirs and move closer to kids in the south but had the same issues - finding something as nice that didn't cost three times as much and was half the size - and with no fields, cows, or horses over the hedges; just more houses. Do you have any home-help groups in your area that might be there for support should you need it in future? None of my business, but it worries me that you feel you "must" give up living in an area you love so much and that is so good for your mental health, which is not an insignificant consideration. Lovely Acer you've got there.
OH's friend and his wife are passing through our area on a vintage train ride (the friend is a railroad buff), so I'm going to go wave at them on their northbound ride. OH may not be awake enough to focus so I'll stuff him in the car to wave as they go south back to LA in the p.m.. Also off to Farmer's Market for some local honey, but will be back later to see how Lindybird's lunch went.
rita so pleased to see a post from you but so sorry that you are having such a stressful time. Always got the impression that you just love where you are living and that it is going to be a terrible wrench to move.