Showing posts with label family and friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family and friends. Show all posts

Saturday, September 19, 2026

A quiet week

image from Magnific.com

Adrian was down south for a few days this week, so I was "home alone" 😀  Well, I say "alone" but sadly for me, my inner Domestic Goddess decided to put in one of her extremely sporadic appearances, so any thoughts I might have had along the lines of lazing around on the sofa reading, whilst munching biscuits and/or chocolate (accompanied by copious cups of tea, of course 😉) went right out of the window 😏  I'm sure that had she been feeling better, Beverly would have come over and rescued me from the tyranny of my inner DG but alas, she was still recovering from a bout of Covid 😳  Is that the correct way to refer to Covid now, do you think ~ like a bout of flu?  Well, however we should be referring to it, it's still very firmly "out there" in the community isn't it *sigh*

I'm sorry to report that I have no photos to share with you ~ simply because I just didn't think to take any once the IDG got her claws into me!  The weather has been pretty crappy this week, so any ideas I might have had to get some more work done in the garden were firmly squashed.  Thinking about it, that's probably how the IDG was able to get her foot in the door ~ if only I'd been quick enough to escape to my craft room, she might have stayed hidden 😄  Oh well, at least I got a couple of jobs done that I'd been putting off for a very long time 😉

Mondays and Thursdays are usually somewhat "bitty" sorts of days, in the mornings at any rate, as that's when I have my bi-weekly Komp calls with my Dad.  I usually just potter about until we meet up at 11am, have an early lunch, then try to work up the enthusiasm to do something constructive in the afternoon LOL  This week, Monday was soon taken up with laundry, Komping, and doing my online Tesco shop.  I also thoroughly cleaned the fridge, inside and out.  When I saw the layer of sticky dust on the top, I felt it prudent to clean the top of the freezer too 😯  

Tuesday rolled around and the IDG decided she was definitely going to put in an appearance 😖  As I have told you many, many, times my lovelies, I am a slut when it comes to housework and I try to avoid it at all costs!  However, I'm sure that there comes a time in the life of even the most dedicated "housework slut" when she decides that something will have to be done about the dust and mess ~ and I'm no exception, it seems!  I've been meaning to tackle our bedroom for months now, although to be fair it wasn't too untidy although the dust was about an inch thick 😁  So I set-to, dusting, cleaning, and vacuuming every surface to within an inch of its life LOL  Actually, that's not entirely true as I didn't have the energy (nor the inclination to be fair) to haul the stepladder upstairs to clean the top of the wardrobes ~ that will just have to wait until my next bout of housework madness 😏

After the cleaning, I changed the by-now very dusty bedlinen (with the duvet cover as always a rather mammoth task to tackle when doing it alone!) and decided to slightly rearrange things in the room, although I left that for the following day.

I must confess that the top of my chest of drawers was very untidy, piled up with stuff that really needed a proper home.  I'd been thinking about sorting through my costume jewellery for quite some time, as I have quite a lot of it and wear very few of the pieces.  Most of my jewellery is cheap 'n' cheerful, even the stuff that I don't wear and just keep for sentimental reasons.  The chest of drawers has three fairly small drawers, two of which are very shallow and were stuffed with necklaces and brooches.  I decided to be ruthless and have now whittled that down to just one drawer of necklaces that I am likely to actually wear.  My earrings are kept on a metal carousel-type thing which sits on the chest of drawers and I weeded out a few pairs of those that I never wear.  I was then able to rearrange the other two drawers to hold things like hair brushes/combs, spare perfumes, make-up, etc.  

I moved my childhood teddies (that I've had since I was a baby) from the top of my shoe cabinet and across the landing into the guest bedroom.  This cleared a space for me to put a large wooden box there instead.  It belonged to my Great Aunt Mary and I suspect she may have used it as a sewing box, although I do have a smaller wooden box that was hers which actually does have sewing bits and bobs in it, as well as a "proper" sewing basket.  Perhaps she used the big box for storing papers ~ who knows 🤷  Anyhoo I'm now using it for the brooches I decided to keep, along with the "sentimental" jewellery.

There was a small side table in front of the window which had been downstairs.  I brought it up to our bedroom as I thought it might be useful but we have never put anything on it in all the time it's been there.  It was actually a tad annoying, to be honest, as it made closing the curtains a little difficult.  I decided that since it was just standing there empty, it could go ~ so it's now in the guest bedroom too!  I also repotted my beloved aspidistra.  It didn't need to go into a larger pot but the compost had shrunk down quite considerably.  I tipped out the old stuff and replanted it into some lovely fresh compost.  I suppose I shouldn't really have favourites, but the aspidistra, along with the monstera which lives in the dining room, are my most beloved plants in my little houseplant collection 😊

Wednesday can also be a rather fragmented sort of day, as we usually have our Tesco delivery in the early afternoon, but the interruption didn't stop me from finishing in the bedroom.  It doesn't seem like I did very much, really, now that it's written down but it's surprising just how long all this took to get done 😳

I was already feeling a bit fed-up with the IDG by the time Thursday rolled around, but allowed myself to be persuaded to tackle the guest bedroom.  Again, it's amazing just how long it took me to dust, clean, and vacuum in there!  I did some furniture/picture rearranging and picked up all the yarn that had been piled on the floor ~ sadly it's now piled up on the bed but I totally ran out of steam to sort through it, as I found it rather overwhelming to be honest.  Beverly has agreed to help me be ruthless with it when she next comes over.  I also repotted the two houseplants that live in the room.  One did need a larger pot but I was able to simply replant the other one into fresh compost in its original container.

By Friday I decided to tell the IDG to bugger off and spent the day just pootling about, not doing much of anything in particular, although I did get the hems taken up on a new pair of trousers that Adrian had bought quite some time back.  It's not a job that I particularly enjoy and I always procrastinate about getting it done.....which is a tad unfortunate, really, as virtually every pair of trousers he buys has to be shortened!  The daft part about it, though, is that once I "gird me loins" and get on with it, the task really doesn't take that long to do 😏

I was rather hoping to get out in the garden today but alas the weather gods are not smiling kindly down upon us.  I did manage to dig out some potatoes this morning during a very brief respite from the rain, which wasn't the most pleasant of jobs with the soil being so cold and claggy!  Since then, though, it's been absolutely chucking it down out there so goodness knows when we'll be able to get any garden work done.  I just hope my IDG doesn't decide that I can fill my time with more housework instead 😬

Monday, August 10, 2026

It's a long way.....


.....from Orkney to Norfolk ~ and a marked difference in temperature, too 😬

We travelled down last Monday, with our lovely friend Phil getting up at what seemed like the crack of dawn to drive us to the airport, collecting Beverly en route.  It was a long day, with a good few hours between our arrival from Kirkwall and the onward flight to Norwich.  We deposited our suitcases in the left luggage section at Aberdeen Airport and took ourselves off into the city for a couple of hours to kill some time.  The flights themselves were quite short, to be fair, but it was the hours between the two that was a tad mind-numbing and tiring 😖

The heat hit us when we stepped off the plane at Norwich Airport, with the temperature well over 10℃ higher than when we had left Kirkwall earlier that morning 😧  Thankfully we haven't been hit with the heatwaves that England has seen in recent weeks, so it came as something of a shock to our systems to find ourselves in temperatures so much higher than we'd had up here!  We had booked a minibus to collect us from the airport to drive us to the Potters Resort at Hopton-on-Sea, where we were staying to celebrate Dad's 90th birthday, and it was waiting for us when we arrived.

Dad, Amanda and Liz, and Adrian and I all had penthouse suites, whilst Sam and Beverly had deluxe rooms.  The suites in particular were very nice but all the accommodation was extremely hot, despite having balconies with patio doors.  Personally I think that Potters could do with installing air-conditioning in the penthouse suites at least, as they were up on the top floor of the hotel and the difference in temperature on the different floors was quite extreme!

The resort is ideal for families as virtually everything is inclusive, but with it being August there were of course an awful lot of children running about.  To be honest, it's not somewhere that Adrian and I would have chosen to stay had we been just going on holiday ourselves, but it was a good choice for us as a family group.  The main thing was that Dad had a lovely birthday, and was very happy to have us all together on his special day 😊


Dad's birthday was on Thursday, so the table was decorated all day 😊


Birthday breakfast...


the "birthday boy" opening his gifts...


and the birthday cake 😋


And finally, a little photo of Beverly and I sitting in the shade near the prosecco bar ~ you can see how hot I look 😄

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Happy 90th Birthday!


Happy 90th Birthday, Dad...


 your two favourite daughters are looking forward to sharing the big day with you 😍

Thursday, July 16, 2026

Slow progress...


...but progress nevertheless 😊  Beverly came over on Saturday and we of course put her to work, despite the photo above seemingly showing her just taking life easy 😄 

I'm afraid that once again not only am I somewhat behind with my garden posts, I've also been a tad remiss with taking photos of our progress ~ oh well, I'm sure you are used to that by now 😉


In my last garden post, we had got the old strawberry bed moved into its new position and the stone chippings paths started.  Since then we've filled what is now the new pond bed with soil and Beverly helped us to get the pond in position.  Unsurprisingly it wasn't easy to get level, despite setting it on a good layer of sand, as I'm sure you can tell!  In the end we decided that it was just going to have to be "good enough"  Hopefully when it's got the aquatic plants in it (which should be arriving by the end of next week) and the plants around the edge have filled out it won't be quite as noticeable 😏


I somehow managed to bruise my right thumb at some point.  I really don't recall doing anything dramatic and can only think that perhaps it was when I was digging out the chunky wooden log that the windchime hook is set into, as it was harder to get out that I was expecting!


I finished planting around the pond, "shopping" from elsewhere in the garden.  I also hunted around in the wilderness on the other side of the garden to find the little frog house that I'd put there a few years back.  It had a fair few snails inside and I don't think any of the frogs that visit/live in our garden have ever used it to be honest, but it looks quite cute set out beside the pond 😊

Adrian filled the second bed with soil from the other two old kitchen garden beds on this side.  There wasn't quite enough of the "good" soil to completely fill it up, so I moved the three rhubarb plants into very large pots so we could start to empty the bed they were in.  The rhubarb will be found permanent positions in the back garden in due course.


You may recall that way back-in-the-mists-of-time we had a soil mountain that had to be sifted to get out all the pieces of rubble that was mixed in with it.  We did make use of some of that rubbly soil though as a base layer in all the old kitchen garden beds, except for the ones where we relocated the strawberries and the rhubarb bed (pictured above), as an added layer of drainage.  We've used some of the rubbly soil in the base of the second new bed but what is left will simply be spread over the ground to level the areas out. 


It's not a very good photo, I know, but I thought you'd like to see the flower on my pink ornamental dandelion (taraxacum pseudoroseum) ~ it's very pretty and I'm hoping that the white one I have in the same tub will flower this year, too 😊

Thursday, April 2, 2026

The wanderers have returned...

image from Freepik.com

 We've been south visiting family and got back home this last Sunday, a day later than planned due to the weather 😏  Still, at least this time I didn't have any gout flare-ups!

We decided to break up the journey more and so we had a few more overnight stops than we would normally make.  By the time we got back home again we were decidedly sick of hotel rooms!  We're thinking of flying from Kirkwall to Edinburgh then picking up the train to Leeds next time we go south, and perhaps trying the Caledonian sleeper again for the journey back to Inverness.  The worst part of the journey is the ScotRail section between Edinburgh and Inverness.  Although we always book seats, quite often different trains are used and it is a busy route at the best of times with all the tourists.  It's certainly getting less easy to travel as we get older 😖

We stayed in a really nice hotel in Leeds, Hyatt House, staying in one of their king bed studios with kitchenette.  We're hoping we can book a similar studio with them next time we go to Leeds.

It was good to catch up with family, although we didn't get round to meeting up with old friends this time ~ hopefully we'll be able to do so next time we're south 😊   

Thursday, January 1, 2026

Monday, December 29, 2025

Christmas Every Day: Days 22-25

image from Freepik

And just like that, Christmas is over!  It always seems such a lot of build-up to a day that goes so very quickly ~ almost blink-and-you'll-miss-it 😄  It's been just the two of us this year, so very quiet.  Here's the last few days of this year's CED:

 

This little glass cactus came from the same shop in Leeds as the cat on Day 2...


just a little book with some seasonings to add to Beverly's collection...


she's rather partial to a glass of Baileys 😉...


and finally a jigsaw ~ and a rather sweet little terracotta Christmas tree decoration that I attached to the parcel 😊

I'm going to try to get a bit more organised for next year and perhaps make a few things for the 2026 CED.  Mind you, I say that every year and haven't managed it yet but I can live in hope, eh 😏

Thursday, December 25, 2025

Monday, December 22, 2025

Christmas Every Day: Days 17-21

image from Freepik.com

Well, that's the shortest day over and done with ~ now we can look forward to the days very gradually getting longer 😉  Only a few days left now of Beverly's CED:

 

a second hot chocolate melt and Christmassy glass mug, to match Day 8...


Beverly really likes jigsaw puzzles and Lego, so I bought another of these wooden 3-D puzzles to match the sunflower one I got for her last year...


an "edible" treat ~ peanut butter and chocolate, what's not to love 😄...


very much a "practical" gift in the "kitchen paraphernalia" box ~ a pair of tea towels to match the oven gloves on Day 5...

yummy "edibles" ~ I confess I was very tempted to keep these to munch myself 😉

Our early Christmas dinner went without a hitch on Saturday, although as usual I completely missed the planned 1pm serving time 😄 Needless to say I also completely forgot to take photos of the Larkin Christmas Turkey, so I'll have to try to remember next year...but please don't hold your breath 😏

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Christmas Every Day: Days 13-16

image from Freepik

Good grief, 16th December ~ how can we be halfway through December already 😯  The days are racing away and soon it will be the shortest day, then comes the slow climb back up to more hours of daylight 😊  In the meantime, here's the next batch of Beverly's CED gifts:

she really loves Twiglets and told me that she was relieved to see them, as she would have been disappointed if there hadn't been any this year 😄


More "fancy toiletries" ~ another hessian lavender sachet along with a different scented soap...


both practical and decorative, I guess 😏


Another "edible".  I debated whether or not to get this bread mix as Beverly doesn't like olives ~ in the end I decided that she could just leave them out.  She told me that she might use sundried tomatoes instead which, to be honest, I think I would prefer to olives too.

I'm on the countdown to Christmas dinner ~ I think I told you that we were having it early with Beverly as she is working over Christmas.  I like to get most of the dinner prepared the day before, so I shall have to get the turkey joints and the accompaniments out of the freezer on Thursday.  If I remember, I'll take some photos to show you what I always make for Christmas dinner ~ I think I'd have a very disappointed family if I made something different!  

Friday, December 12, 2025

Christmas Every Day: Days 6 - 12

image from Freepik

Here we are then, the next batch of little gifts for Beverly's CED:


"fancy toiletries" ~ the little hessian bag contains a lavender sachet...


"simply decorative" ~ I think that these little tealights are cherry scented but I couldn't swear to it as I've had them since last year 😄...


this one ticks three boxes, really: definitely "edible" and "practical", plus "simply decorative" as I should imagine the glass mug would only be used at Christmas-time really...


more "fancy toiletries"...


"edibles"...


very much a "practical" gift ~ Beverly was very pleased with this one as she said that she usually just uses a cotton bud...


and for Day 12 another "practical" gift 😊


I've had these socks since last year, too, as I got a bit ahead of myself and bought a few too many gifts ~ I've done the same again this year, but I suppose it does at least put me slightly ahead of the game for 2026 😄

Friday, December 5, 2025

Christmas Every Day: Days 2, 3, 4 & 5

image from Freepik

As promised here are the gifts for days 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Beverly's CED:


She has two cats, so virtually anything cat-themed is a safe bet!  This was one of the little gifts I bought when we were in Leeds visiting Sam in September, and it sits squarely in the "simply decorative" box...


the first of the "fancy toiletries"...


some more "edibles"...


and a piece of "kitchen paraphernalia" that ticks the "practical" box, too 😉
More to come next week!


I woke up at stupid-o'clock yesterday and just couldn't get back to sleep, not least because my nose decided to be very annoying by sneezing and running in never-ending copious amounts 😒 Being the lovely wife that I am (😄) I decided to get up so that I didn't keep Adrian awake.  It's not often that I'm up early enough to see the start of the sunrise, even at this time of year, so thought I'd better take a photo to commemorate this unusual occurrence 😉  

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

Christmas Every Day: Day 1

image from Freepik


I was extremely organised over the weekend and got all our Christmas cards written, plus a gift parcelled up ~ I know, right, it's hard to believe I can be so organised, eh 😏


Anyhoo, whilst I was parcelling up said gift it occurred to me that over all the years that I've been doing this "Christmas-every-day" malarky (hereinafter known simply as CED 😉) for Beverly, I've never actually shown you the little bits and pieces that I gather together over the year that make up the CED.  Obviously I can't show you the gifts before they are wrapped, just on the off-chance that Beverly might take it into her head to actually read her mother's blog for once 😄  I can, though, share them with you once she has opened the gift-of-the-day, so that's what I'm going to do during this month.  Luckily I'll be able to purloin photos of said gifts from Beverly's Facebook page as she posts them each day ~ I'll probably post two or three days of the gifts at a time, though, so that I don't swamp the blog 😉


To be quite honest, I've been surprised by just how much her friends enjoy this rod-for-my-back tradition, and really seem to look forward to it each December!  Some of them have commented about how they really like the idea, but I confess that I've tried to discourage them from starting the tradition themselves unless they really love trying to think of 24 little things to buy each year 😄  Not quite so hard buying for a small child, I suppose, but definitely not quite so easy for an adult ~ especially trying to find little things that are reasonably priced, considering there will be 24 of them!


I try to remember to look out for suitable gifts over the course of the year, especially when we travel south.  This year, for instance, I was able to get a few bits 'n' bobs when we visited Sam in Leeds.  I try to aim for a mixture of things: practical, edible, and just simply decorative.  The "practical" stuff tends to be fancy toiletries, little items of kitchen paraphernalia, and just plain useful things.  The edible and decorative stuff varies from year-to-year, although I do try not to get too many purely decorative things if possible.  Of course the edibles can't be bought too far in advance!  By the time November rolls around, though, I usually know how many days I don't have anything for, so edibles fill those gaps very nicely.


Oh, and just in case you're wondering what we do for Sam, he gets two parcels of "edibles" every year 😏


One is a hamper of Orkney foodstuffs from Jollys of Orkney ~ I go for the make-your-own option.  This year I chose Orkney coffee (Jolly's blend), Orkney smoked cheddar (one cracked pepper, one sweet chilli, and the third red onion), smoked garlic bulbs, Orkney caramelised onion biscuits, Orkney butter shortbread, extra mature Orkney cheddar, Westray Chutney (spiced pepper), Orkney butter, Westray flakey biscuits, Stockan's mini oatcakes (one cracked black pepper, the other cheese), and finally Orkney Isles Preserves spicy tomato and onion relish.  As you can see, there's a LOT of cheeses in there ~ my son certainly does love a bit of cheese 😄  He loves Orkney butter, too, so I included three packs this year!


We also get him a selection of beers, sent down from the Orkney Brewery.  I'm afraid I can't tell you what he's had this year as Adrian arranged it and I can't remember now what he said he'd ordered!  Oh, and by the way, it's perfectly okay for me to tell you about the hamper and beer for Sam as firstly I don't think he's ever read my blog in his life, and secondly we arranged for them to be sent early this year (so that things weren't sold out, like the butter was last year by the time I'd got round to making up the hamper!) so he's already received them 😉


So, back to Christmas-Every-Day for Beverly.....she hasn't posted today's little gift yet but here's what she unwrapped yesterday: