Soop's warm and welcoming kitchen...

Have just said farewell to a visitor who arrived an hour ago for "a wee blether".

Back to the painting of a pal's Pomeranian dog named Bawbee. When I've completed the painting, I shall share with you and hope for a favourable comment, or two.

Care home visiting day tomorrow. I shall return to our kitchen early afteroon.

TOYA

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grannygravy you will be well looked after no doubt, but I wouldn't relish that either.

soop you and macs are in for a really exciting time. Please try to contain yourselves. Loving the fox hat and the gorgeous boy wearing it.

corner, I hope you have found some equilibrium. It is sometimes quite elusive, isnt it?

Well done to your son grannysomerset. He has done brilliantly. Our eldest son also had a debilitating stroke 12 years ago and has made great progress. Aren't they strong minded?

Dd and the children have just left. Wolfie liked his present I think!

Evening all,

I have to confess I haven't a clue what's going on in the kitchen , but shall have a read up as soon as Ive posted.

Its been dull and wet here with nothing of note to report ( apart from an excellent roast turkey dinner provided by |Grampy yesterday!) .

So I shall just wish you all a lovely evening , leave this hefty chunk of banana bread here on the side with some lovely local butter and say - back soon !

Beautiful pictures of grandchildren and great grandchildren.Love Teddy in his Fox hat and Wolfie enjoying his birthday chair??
Massive congratulations to your son grannysomerset,what an achievement?
Grannygravy,try not to worry too much about the endoscopy.It isn’t as bad as you would imagine and over quite quickly?
Have had a quiet day today for a change.We bumped into our neighbour and had quite a long chat.She has just texted and thanked us,said it really helps her talking to people.She is very lonely,I was so shocked as she lives with her husband and family.We will need to make an effort to keep in touch with her.
I am now going to attempt to catch up with all the posts in the new kitchen.I may be some time!
TOYA

So many medical happenings for kitcheners so I am sending many (((hugs))) and good wishes to you all and safe travelling to those who have long journeys too. Be as kind to yourselves as you can!

Lovely pictures of gorgeous little people, seems far too long ago that ours were that size but then also seems just like yesterday. Reminds me that DD is coming at the weekend for a few days so I am very much looking forward to that.

We are really living it up at the moment, went for tea with a 91 year old today, tomorrow we go for a birthday coffee morning for a 95 year old and came home to find a reminder on the phone about coming for tea on Thursday from a 95 1/2 year old! (Seems the 1/2 regains it's importance at the top end of the century! ) Hard to keep up with all these nonagenarians around here - am hoping it is something in the air up in these hills and with which we too will be blessed! The lady whose 95th birthday it is tomorrow was out distributing her baking around our neighbours this afternoon which is how we came to be an add on for the morning's 'do'. Makes me feel that I must try harder!

We have a visiting badger(s) and they clearly love the fruit from the damson tree which has 'gone over' and become more like luscious prunes. Just wish they only came for their pudding and not the first course of grubs which they are digging out of the lawns. Their toilet habits are a bit anti-social too although my neighbours' grandson thinks the results are prizewinners! TMI I know but Himself is much amused by the little boy's wide eyed admiration of said deposits!
I have decided that we need a hedgehog house for the protection of our other regular visitors so have sent off for one to keep them safe from the badger(s). It certainly seems to be more than one visiting badger judging by the mess! I just wish I could get Smokie indoors before nightfall when they come visiting as they are not friendly towards cats either but at least he is good at running and jumping.

Not sleeping well at present - such a pain!

Me too synonymous, went to sleep without problem, woke at 3, wide awake as I still am. Nuisance that’s for sure.

Your badgers sound energetic, our son has one or more that invades his garden and I know would agree with you about the mess. We get photographic evidence regularly, he likes to share the joy in his life .

I love the sound of your neighbours. The most active person close to us will be 94 very soon. She’s an inspiration and always looking out for others. Enjoy all the tea and cake, we certainly do .

I’m yawning now so will try for sleep again. A few more hours would be good. I hope you’ve managed to settle, if not stay warm and comfortable.

I hope that you managed more sleep corner, it makes all the difference especially when you have so much to deal with as do you at present. My own tiredness has built up to such an extent that I can't remember when I last had a full night's sleep. It does seem counter intuitive being too tired to sleep but that's where I am at and sounds like you are too.
Must flit as I am gadding about this morning and need my wits about me to keep up with these nonagenarians! The birthday girl was a teacher and she still looks the part, being full of bustle and no nonsense!

Here is our latest arrival with his big sister........Mummy and Baby are doing well, Daddy (our youngest son) is exhausted!!!!

GrannyGravy your DGC are beautiful!

I have finally sorted out our freezers, blimey what a lot of unusable freezer burned food had to go in the compost, I feel so utterly ashamed.

I have told Mr.Gravy that we are eating out of the freezer until we go away in November, I shall have to be inventive and actually use some of the multitude of recipe books that we have accumulated!

Commiserations to my fellow "non-sleepers", it has always been a puzzle to me that I can be so totally exhausted but unable to sleep. Then then the worrying begins, about things that do not enter our minds during the daylight hours.

Going to have a sit down with a cup of tea

TOYA ?

Dragonfly thank you we have 7 and one due in January and we think they get their genes from my late Mum.

Here is a photo of her on her 18th Birthday

GG another beautiful photo of two photogenic children. His sister has the maternal instinct. Daddy is exhausted- doing exactly what may I ask? His work is only just beginning because I doubt if those two angels will remain so relaxed 24/7!

Wolfie is growing so quickly and he is so happy with his new chair- another content young man.

corner I do hope you managed to get back to sleep and try to forget about the buggerations obviously in your life at present.

TOYA

GrannyGravy Your photograph is marvellous. Yes...I can see a strong family resemblance between your late Mother and your grandchildren. Fabulous!

kitty Young Wolfie is a bonnie boy. His chair will become a family heirloom. I love it.

N&G The banana loaf smothered in real butter has my mouth watering.

Synonymous The elderly folk in your locality sound like born again youngsters. What's their secret?
As for badger poo. When I discovered a monumental heap on our lawn, I blamed a fox. Seems that I may have been mistaken.

Our neighbour went on to the beach to watch an otter yesterday. As soon as the otter saw him, it was away just offshore and watched him from a safe distance. As our pal turned to leave the beach, a huge dog otter rushed by him and almost knocked him to the ground. He returned home "all shook up".

This my Mother age 19 with me...

Soop What a beautiful photo.

Beautiful children GG and your mother was a lovely lady. We too have been trying to eat our way through the freezer contents but seem to have a very strange collection of foodstuffs left and no clue what to do with some of it. My head says "who will know what ends up in the bin" but my heart says "how wasteful".

soop lovely photo of you with your mother, she was a very young mum! I must look out some of my old photos. We were sorting those out when the crash happened and then everything went on the back burner of course.
Funnily enough we were talking about the average age being so high around here and my nonagenarian neighbours say you have to keep moving and always be busy and interested and clearly it works for some! They all have a zizz in the afternoon after lunch but only one goes to bed and the rest "watch" tv in their armchairs. The birthday girl said she is not sure whether she will make her own 100th birthday cake or have it made for a change and we all fell about laughing! Himself had a lovely time with all the ladies and I had to drag him away in the end, the other two men who were supposed to be there had other appointments which was a shame really. We were told that one had a young lady to help him shower this morning which actually had Himself speechless and that in itself caused great merriment to all the ladies.
As for the badgers, they certainly have much to answer for!
I hope that you and MacSporran are relaxing as much as possible when you can. x

Evening all,

Its been unexpectedly busy here today but I started out the day in style with a loss at slimming ! And given I have put on for the last four weeks that wasn't bad :-)

I think you can definitely see 'you' in that picture soop , you haven't changed a bit ;-)

Your mother was beautiful GG , what gorgeous hair!! And the black and white photo is stunning , sometimes a photo screams out for that treatment and this is a corker !!

My sympathies Corner for your sleep challenges. Nothing worse than not being able to sleep if you are tired. I had to chuckle today , I had to sit for a panel of year 3 medical students while they grilled me about my kidney disease. One question was about how I slept … well I can sleep on a knife edge and often do , no insomnia in my house. In fact maybe its too far the other way- I would miss my afternoon nap - and that's a get into bed nap!!

They were all terrifically polite and earnest but I came away feeling a bit stupid because they asked me all sorts of questions about the issue and my medications and more times than I care to count I realised my answer was- because the doctor said so . I need to start questioning I think.

I don't think we have badgers Syn but we do have a hedgehog who has now met Sam several times. They have agreed an uneasy truce after Sam got his nose prickled for being too nosey. We too have a hedgehog house to stop Sam, the walking dustbin, eating the hedgehogs food.

We have an M & S meal tonight in celebration of our weight loss ( we'll pay for it in lbs next week I'm sure lol)

Happy evening all !

Synonymous Your post made me chuckle.

GrannyGravy My mother married at eighteen. She died from breast cancer when she was sixty two. When young she looked a lot like Judy Garland.

I'm logging off until tomorrow afternoon. Ironing mountain to climb tomorrow. My pal will be sure to top up the basket with 45 mins to spare.

A lovely sunny day here in Kintyre. A grey sky at the moment.

TOYA

Evening All. A much better day in cornerland. Sleep returned and this afternoon there was a lovely beach walk in the surprisingly warm sun so spirits were lifted.

Love the photos, I’ll try to find one of my Mum to add to the gallery. Beautiful children grannyg, that’s an image to treasure.

That was excellent weigh in news n&g, I admire you for sticking to an eating plan. I’d have no hope .

Our immediate neighbour is 94 synonymous and declares regularly that the trick is to be busy and go out every day. It works for her that’s for sure, she’s my role model but I think I need to try harder. .

Time to put feet up now. TOYA and take care everyone.

n & g well done on the weigh in ?

GrannyG that is a lovely photo! I am waiting at the chippy - we sort of missed out tea and I am on an overnight babysit tonight. DH will eat with me before he goes home to the cat. I hope everyone manages a good night tonight - I am
Sharing with a three and a six year old, so not convinced I will get much sleep ?

What lovely pictures. Striking teenagers, both GG’s mum, and yours too soop. Lovely little baby soop too.

GG, forgot to say, the little ones are lovely too

Hello everyone. What smashing pictures, a delight to see.

You may remember that I had a scan on Tuesday? I saw the Consultant for the results this afternoon. I have a fracture in my spine, which hopefully will heal itself over time. Also there was something showing up near some metalwork by a previous fusion. I knew that there was something very wrong and was dreading it. He is fitting me into his clinic on Thursday morning and I'm to have an X-ray standing up as this will hopefully show more of what is going on. I just hope that I can stand for the required time.
I already had an appointment later in the morning for an injection in my foot, so I'm having a 2 for 1 as it were.
It is very difficult to sleep, although I feel drained.
Over the last few nights I have watched all 15 episodes of Bleak House on iplayer on the iPad. I can hear my late mother saying - you'll have square eyes.
As I appear to be the last in the very new, very tidy kitchen tonight, I will switch off the light and hope for cake, any cake tomorrow.
I will catch up with all the news but slow down a bit please, give a girl a chance.
TOYA ??