OH has recently had a big birthday and it was lovely to celebrate with him and I wanted to source a really special bottle of malt (his tipple of choice) which had been aged for the same length of time as him.

A and I went on a sourcing adventure which indeed led to a very special bottle being bought but it wasn't quite what I wanted so when I got home I went online to see what I could find.

I did indeed find a bottle - at a cost of £49,000.

I didn't buy it.
10 October 2020

This lockdown has been so difficult in so many ways and things in the house are going wrong so many times!  The seals on the windows overlooking the back garden both went just as lockdown started; a leak in the dining-area under the radiator meant the boiler having to be topped up daily otherwise no heat or hot water and as we had just had an expensive new floor laid this was disastrous - however the plumber solved this (just at the beginning of lockdown) by isolating the radiator which means the area is chilly; I broke a front tooth and lost a filling in March and the dentist is not doing ordinary repairs; our broadband was cut off by someone repairing someone else's broadband; the trellis in the back garden is now beyond repair and as a final straw we lost mains electricity a couple of days ago.

To be fair the electricity repair men were lovely but the house was cold and dark and there was every chance my beautiful front garden was going to be dug up to find out where the fault lay.  Thankfully, they found this was not the case and the fault was on the pavement but having repaired it and re-instated our power within 24 hours, they have left the whole thing open to the elements which is interesting to look at but not very safe I would have thought.

We were given a small generator which gave us warmth and light but we could not use the cooker, hob or kettle and what a blessing it is that OH had bought a cracking calor-gas cooker which meant we could at least have hot drinks and basic meals.  What joy today to be warm, entertained and fed and able to use the washing machine.

All good stuff.
This is the way that the pavement and junction have been left - I am not entirely sure that it is safe but as a friend pointed out it is indeed waterproof!
12 October 2020
So, when our broadband and phone went off this afternoon I ventured out and spoke to this poor, cold and wet engineer who refused a hot drink but did say that the electricity folk had completely sliced through the BT cables and he was having to replace them all.  He has been here since 8am and I spoke to him at 4.30pm so I think he must be thoroughly fed up!

He is not alone in that.
Although OH is of an age to know better he really does like teddies.  I was making this one to donate to a raffle at the church we now attend and he liked it so much he snaffled it!  Ah well!
12 February 2020

This is the last lot of knitting I have done for a FaceBook Group which supplied hospitals with premature baby clothes and the lady who runs the group has decided to concentrate on her suprise gift of a one-year old, so with sadness, is no longer carrying on.

I have managed to find another couple of outlets but at present am struggling with rather complicated Easter Bunnies for my GG Nieces.
12 February 2020


I cannot believe that January has sped by so quickly and already we are nearly half-way through February.

We had a splendid visit from the grandchildren just after a peaceful Christmas and they thoroughly enjoyed bouncing on our big bed and this is what I found when I went to clear up after them!
17 March 2020

Well, that's that then!

Between beating the boiler blues, rats in the garden and now coronavirus 2020 has given so many gifts I don't quite know where to start!

The boiler goes on and off at a whim and our lovely plumber, C, is, although he would never admit it, at a bit of a loss.  After several weeks of cold mornings we think it is all sorted but who knows?

The rats are a new problem; the garden behind us has now become a jungle and a real rat heaven.  We have eventually had to succumb to poison which we did not want to do as we have a family of woodmice but we can see no alternative.  The rat catcher will not help as the rats are coming in from next door and the useless Council advice of "block up all holes" would have us using a ton of rocks and I don't think that would work.

So with much sadness we are having to restrict feeding the birds.  The blackbirds still come to the kitchen door to beg for sultanas so for now, that will have to do.

Strangely this squirrel still seems to try his luck!
29 March 2020

This lockdown is proving challenging to say the least and it seems a curious fact that the more time I have to do things, the less I am inclined to do so!

As asthmatics of advanced age (!) OH and I are staying firmly indoors and slowing down to the point of being moribund!

I would have thought that being forced to be indoors and solitary would have meant that I managed a great deal more in the knitting and crochet line but curiously this has not happened. As no cleaners are available I have undertaken the task myself and today took delivery of a Hetty - the princess of vacuum cleaners.  Suffice it to say that even when things return to normal I shall not be requiring the services of any cleaners - having moved a small wall-hanging today which was eye-level and therefore fairly easy to spot - the back was coated with a level of dust which I could not contemplate remaining.  However, Hetty roared through it with minimal effort from me so I can see that deep cleaning is going to be my new hobby.

I cannot escape my creative side and these Easter Bunnies, which will now be delivered well past Easter, have kept me really busy so perhaps that is the reason that I am not in the mood to do more!
16 June 2020

The backstory to this is that a lovely lady has been using her long front drive to let Scooby and pals do all kinds of things such as rock-climbing, wire-walking and other lovely, silly things and because of being in lockdown I have probably spent more time than I should viewing Facebook and other sites and have absolutely loved looking at Scooby et al.  Z is raising funds for Diabetes UK and has a collection box by the end of the drive and as I cannot get out I have donated over the JustGiving page.

I looked every day at her postings and commented that I was sorry that I could not get up to her house in person to see the displays so imagine my reaction when she arrived this morning, courtesty of a singing friend who gave her my address, saying that Scooby had asked if he could come a give me a surprise.

I wept.


16 June 2020

I was feeling a bit low today as I am finding this lockdown irksome to say the least.  I have now been in the house and garden since 17th March and although I fully understand the reasons our little village is pretty safe with very few cases of this virus.  However, on this, the 35th anniversary of Mum's death, OH came rushing to me telling me to look out of the front door quickly.  Wondering what on earth could have gone wrong (everything in the house is going wrong at the same time!) I rushed down stairs to look.

On reflection it would have been kinder of him to tell me to put on a dressing gown but he didn't so the result was that I saw this wonderful display and the lady and her girls who had done it for me whilst clad in a not very nice nightie!  Thanks a bunch!
31 December 2020

In early November OH bought me a new external hard-drive as I was being driven mad by Office 365 saving things in places I didn't want!

Sadly, there was a colossal problem with the drive and it corrupted so much of my hard drive that I lost quite a few files and some were duplicated so much that I have thousands of pictures all over the place and it will take me, even with a program to suss them all out, years to fix!

The strange thing was that, having sent the problem back to Amazon and been refunded, we discovered that the item had been completely removed from the website, something we have never seen before with that particular company so it probably wasn't just me with difficulties!

It didn't help that the OneDrive app has a mind of it's own and decided that doubling up on all my files was a really good idea so the backlog will keep me occupied during this awful lockdown - our little village is in Tier 4 with 1 case in the last months which just does not seem fair!
31 December 2020

In early November OH bought me a new external hard-drive as I was being driven mad by Office 365 saving things in places I didn't want!

Sadly, there was a colossal problem with the drive and it corrupted so much of my hard drive that I lost quite a few files and some were duplicated so much that I have thousands of pictures all over the place and it will take me, even with a program to suss them all out, years to fix!

The strange thing was that, having sent the problem back to Amazon and been refunded, we discovered that the item had been completely removed from the website, something we have never seen before with that particular company so it probably wasn't just me with difficulties!

It didn't help that the OneDrive app has a mind of it's own and decided that doubling up on all my files was a really good idea so the backlog will keep me occupied during this awful lockdown - our little village is in Tier 4 with 1 case in the last months which just does not seem fair!
OH has recently had a big birthday and it was lovely to celebrate with him and I wanted to source a really special bottle of malt (his tipple of choice) which had been aged for the same length of time as him.

A and I went on a sourcing adventure which indeed led to a very special bottle being bought but it wasn't quite what I wanted so when I got home I went online to see what I could find.

I did indeed find a bottle - at a cost of £49,000.

I didn't buy it.
10 October 2020

This lockdown has been so difficult in so many ways and things in the house are going wrong so many times!  The seals on the windows overlooking the back garden both went just as lockdown started; a leak in the dining-area under the radiator meant the boiler having to be topped up daily otherwise no heat or hot water and as we had just had an expensive new floor laid this was disastrous - however the plumber solved this (just at the beginning of lockdown) by isolating the radiator which means the area is chilly; I broke a front tooth and lost a filling in March and the dentist is not doing ordinary repairs; our broadband was cut off by someone repairing someone else's broadband; the trellis in the back garden is now beyond repair and as a final straw we lost mains electricity a couple of days ago.

To be fair the electricity repair men were lovely but the house was cold and dark and there was every chance my beautiful front garden was going to be dug up to find out where the fault lay.  Thankfully, they found this was not the case and the fault was on the pavement but having repaired it and re-instated our power within 24 hours, they have left the whole thing open to the elements which is interesting to look at but not very safe I would have thought.

We were given a small generator which gave us warmth and light but we could not use the cooker, hob or kettle and what a blessing it is that OH had bought a cracking calor-gas cooker which meant we could at least have hot drinks and basic meals.  What joy today to be warm, entertained and fed and able to use the washing machine.

All good stuff.
This is the way that the pavement and junction have been left - I am not entirely sure that it is safe but as a friend pointed out it is indeed waterproof!
12 October 2020
So, when our broadband and phone went off this afternoon I ventured out and spoke to this poor, cold and wet engineer who refused a hot drink but did say that the electricity folk had completely sliced through the BT cables and he was having to replace them all.  He has been here since 8am and I spoke to him at 4.30pm so I think he must be thoroughly fed up!

He is not alone in that.
Although OH is of an age to know better he really does like teddies.  I was making this one to donate to a raffle at the church we now attend and he liked it so much he snaffled it!  Ah well!
12 February 2020

This is the last lot of knitting I have done for a FaceBook Group which supplied hospitals with premature baby clothes and the lady who runs the group has decided to concentrate on her suprise gift of a one-year old, so with sadness, is no longer carrying on.

I have managed to find another couple of outlets but at present am struggling with rather complicated Easter Bunnies for my GG Nieces.
12 February 2020


I cannot believe that January has sped by so quickly and already we are nearly half-way through February.

We had a splendid visit from the grandchildren just after a peaceful Christmas and they thoroughly enjoyed bouncing on our big bed and this is what I found when I went to clear up after them!
17 March 2020

Well, that's that then!

Between beating the boiler blues, rats in the garden and now coronavirus 2020 has given so many gifts I don't quite know where to start!

The boiler goes on and off at a whim and our lovely plumber, C, is, although he would never admit it, at a bit of a loss.  After several weeks of cold mornings we think it is all sorted but who knows?

The rats are a new problem; the garden behind us has now become a jungle and a real rat heaven.  We have eventually had to succumb to poison which we did not want to do as we have a family of woodmice but we can see no alternative.  The rat catcher will not help as the rats are coming in from next door and the useless Council advice of "block up all holes" would have us using a ton of rocks and I don't think that would work.

So with much sadness we are having to restrict feeding the birds.  The blackbirds still come to the kitchen door to beg for sultanas so for now, that will have to do.

Strangely this squirrel still seems to try his luck!
29 March 2020

This lockdown is proving challenging to say the least and it seems a curious fact that the more time I have to do things, the less I am inclined to do so!

As asthmatics of advanced age (!) OH and I are staying firmly indoors and slowing down to the point of being moribund!

I would have thought that being forced to be indoors and solitary would have meant that I managed a great deal more in the knitting and crochet line but curiously this has not happened. As no cleaners are available I have undertaken the task myself and today took delivery of a Hetty - the princess of vacuum cleaners.  Suffice it to say that even when things return to normal I shall not be requiring the services of any cleaners - having moved a small wall-hanging today which was eye-level and therefore fairly easy to spot - the back was coated with a level of dust which I could not contemplate remaining.  However, Hetty roared through it with minimal effort from me so I can see that deep cleaning is going to be my new hobby.

I cannot escape my creative side and these Easter Bunnies, which will now be delivered well past Easter, have kept me really busy so perhaps that is the reason that I am not in the mood to do more!
16 June 2020

The backstory to this is that a lovely lady has been using her long front drive to let Scooby and pals do all kinds of things such as rock-climbing, wire-walking and other lovely, silly things and because of being in lockdown I have probably spent more time than I should viewing Facebook and other sites and have absolutely loved looking at Scooby et al.  Z is raising funds for Diabetes UK and has a collection box by the end of the drive and as I cannot get out I have donated over the JustGiving page.

I looked every day at her postings and commented that I was sorry that I could not get up to her house in person to see the displays so imagine my reaction when she arrived this morning, courtesty of a singing friend who gave her my address, saying that Scooby had asked if he could come a give me a surprise.

I wept.


16 June 2020

I was feeling a bit low today as I am finding this lockdown irksome to say the least.  I have now been in the house and garden since 17th March and although I fully understand the reasons our little village is pretty safe with very few cases of this virus.  However, on this, the 35th anniversary of Mum's death, OH came rushing to me telling me to look out of the front door quickly.  Wondering what on earth could have gone wrong (everything in the house is going wrong at the same time!) I rushed down stairs to look.

On reflection it would have been kinder of him to tell me to put on a dressing gown but he didn't so the result was that I saw this wonderful display and the lady and her girls who had done it for me whilst clad in a not very nice nightie!  Thanks a bunch!