Good Morning Friday 13th February 2026

My sons 34th birthday today 💙 his unlucky day was earlier in the week when his car was written off, keeping his birthday free for nice things 😀

Etoile2701 - I love that!!!

Good afternoon from a dull cold drizzly miserable week in East Anglia. We usually get the driest and best of the weather, albeit a bit cold, but sooo depressing. We are promised a dry sunny day tomorrow though, so at least we will be able to see the deep dangerous potholes hiding in the puddles.

Ooh! that sound so down. May I wish you all a lovely day. The snowdrops are out in abundance in the garden, the apple tree got heavily pruned a couple of weeks ago and it is rewarding us with leaf buds.

My late Irish grandmother always stayed in bed all day on Friday 13th.

G’day from West Yorkshire where it is trying to snow, very cold and wet. The allotment is flooded so no work done recently. Our garden make over has come to a standstill due to excess rain etc. The builders will return when they can.
So we have bought a Valentine’s meal deal for tomorrow to lessen the blow! Who says romance is dead? 🥰

Good afternoon, I don’t worry about Friday the 13th as it’s my birthday!
I’m currently at the spa awaiting a massage, my DS& DIL have treated to.
I’ve got a nice wine in the fridge for later . Happy days 😊

Oh dear, it is Good Afternoon from the south coast from me, Mick and GNs. My circadian rhythm means I am just about compos mentis by 10.00am. I normally wake up at 8.30am with breakfast at 9.00am unless I have an earlier appointment. Am then always amazed at the conversations of larks online at 5.00am!
Commiserations to Cornergran for the eye injections which my brave friend also has. Thank you as usual to Madeleine for all her thoughts and stories. Am still thinking about my lovely birthday Indian meal out with close women friends last week - a new updated beautiful and comfortable restaurant and delicious meal. Today I heard that a friend who had dementia has died. I cried with sadness.

good morning (actually afternoon now). nice and sunny in poole right now.
been to have my hair done and right now i'm in sainsburys.
home soon and a lazy day i think.

Good morning a little late today from a very wet cold Cambridgeshire.

I slept well but having a job getting going today. DH has gone to Breakfast Club with the neighbours they go most Friday mornings for a couple of hours. It a boy only thing. The girls do Book Club on the first Tuesday of the month to get together. There are only 7 houses in the road and we are all a similar age and all lived here over 30 years!

I’ve had scrambled egg on toast and contemplating over my coffee what to do. It is pouring with rain. I don’t like Friday 13th always try to ignore it. My grandmother and my dad were very superstitious.

We are meeting friends to celebrate their birthdays tonight which will be nice. We rarely venture out in the evening really since covid times.

Well I guess I had better clear the kitchen and go from there. DH will be home and I’m just sat here gazing at the rain!!

I do hope your dil fights her infection and is soon on the road to recovery such a worry for you all MD and also your own health improves.

Thinking of FGT’s there has been no news for so long.

Madeleine 💐

Finally wishing everyone a good day, take care stay safe and well and get well soon everyone who is poorly 🌼

Morning all from West Oxfordshire.

I’m having another day on the sofa. I feel slightly worse than yesterday - at least there’s nothing on the calendar.

Have a good day.

FGT2S 🌹

Good morning everyone from rainy Lancashire.

It has been non stop rain here since yesterday afternoon and it’s much colder. We may not be going out today, a day for snuggling up warm and reading. My eye seems to have settled down now after the botox jab, I hope yours does too Cornergran. The team looking after me has agreed that botox at 6-monthly intervals is the way forward as it is working well for me. I have strict instructions to contact them if any problems.

Thinking of all who are struggling with life at the moment.

Wishing you all a good day, whatever you’re doing.

Good Morning from Co Armagh, it’s actually bright and dry !!
I’ve got caught up in watching the curling ! Just as well I’ve nothing on today
Been out admiring the crocus , some anemones are braving the cold too
Yesterday walked up to Mass , no schoolchildren, it’s half term 🕯️ and 💐

Came back to see if Ekwanimitee posted.

Good morning. I was up early to give DD2 a lift for her hospital eye appointment. Now sitting in the waiting room . Hopefully good news.
Not sure what I’ll be doing the rest of the day. I must make a quantity of pastry ready for lemon meringue pies and some chocolate butter icing for MILs birthday cake on Sunday.
Wishing a good day for all.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202602/medium-lxhxf-1000020161.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202602/medium-1skxo8-1000020162.jpg

Good morning all from the Scottish Borders. A snow scene outside so I may have to change my weekend plans.

I'm very tired today which isn't really a surprise as both yoga and ceilidh dancing and a serious meeting with my prospective house buyer yesterday. I want him to buy it but he has to pay me and has to raise money.

I volunteer this morning but ought to dry my hair first....

Hoping everyone has an auspicious Friday.

The photos are the Pentland hills yesterday.

Colder but bright and dry, a welcome respite from what feels like continuous rain since new year. Oldies’ coffee morning, laundry and then three new books to luxuriate in - a very nice if selfish day ahead. Hope Marydoll survives (and enjoys) her day with Dollie - grand daughters are so precious and a great reward for being old.

Good morning from Durham. Rain on the windows and it’s very cold. Not a good night, so I got back into bed at 6am and dozed a little. My right leg reminds me it’s still not 100%.
I’m having my Monday morning coffee today - my friend will be at physio and I’ll be at the dentist, so we’ve brought it forward. I might venture down to Tesco this afternoon - the Winter Olympics don’t interest me, so I’ll find something else to watch later. I’m not a fan of Friday night television.

I hope your day goes to plan MD although I’m sure you have PlanB - just in case. It’ll be a long day. I hope different meds help your DinL’s condition.

Best wishes to all. X

Good morning from a damp northwest coast. I managed to meet up with my friend in the city yesterday, but it was a struggle as the painful neck and shoulder have reappeared. I should do something about it. Add on a late rehearsal the night before and I felt like a zombie.

We had lunch at a university restaurant, full of character. But I didn’t have the concentration for exhibits. No matter as we talked for a long time and his hip is bothering him. He had to get back to teach piano too, so it worked out as well as it could in the circumstances.
My neck was so painful, I have had a bad night, even turning over in bed excruciating.
All the best for this ominous date! Thoughts to FGTs and all🌺

Good morning from a dry,so far, and quite clear day but no sign of the sun. I had a phone call from one of my school friends yesterday who lives near Stockton and the walk with a group of her friends planned for today in the Cleveland hills had been cancelled because of snow.

It is an empty day for both of us today so I think I’ll have no excuse to delay tackling the ironing pile. We might go out for lunch to a local pub but may not……because it is so popular and it’s Friday and I haven’t booked a table,it might be difficult to get a table.

I hope it is a good day for all and those who are unwell feel they are getting better.

Good morning all from a very cold Glasgow, 1"C, with snow predicted.
Much to my relief, yesterday's ptedicted snow did not materialise. We had a contingency plan to get Babydoll home, thank goodness we didn't need to use it,
Our actual difficulty was roadworks, they are everywhere. DH was forced to return by the twisting, narrow country road in the dark. I had my eyes closed most of the time😱

Unlike some, today's date has no significance for me, I am in no way superstitious. On the contrary, today is State Pension day for both DH and I, 😂

DIL is still very unwell and has now been in hospital for three weeks. She still has an infection, therefore the consultant has recommended changing her antibiotics.
However, I felt she was a bit brighter yesterday, despite being in pain..

Initially, Babydoll was in great humour, but then had a meltdown in the pharmacy, because I wouldn't buy her elastic hair bands from a stand! What a strange demand,
She did the foot stomping thing, which I ignored, but caused much amusement among the customers and staff.
One customer thought she was older than she is and was shocked at the level her vocabulary.
On the way out the door, through clenched teeth, without prompting, she muttered, Sorry. to the staff.

Dh's heart sank, when he realised that the café was full of people from church, Having had little human interaction for weeks, I was of course, delighted! 😂
After finishing her snack, she then shared the snacks of other toddlers in the room. She had no shame about accepting.

However, she was challenging in the afternoon, refusing to go for a wee and reluctant to wear underwear, even kicking out, when I tried to put her pants back on. I think she has an infection,
To distract her, despite me feeling awful, we made Mars Bar cake, daddy's favourite. It was a marathon, cumulating in a meltdown, because she wanted a knife to cut up the final result.
On the way home in the car, she leant her head against mine and said, Don"t tell daddy I kicked you, sorry Ga, Ga,
She isn't three yet. What was going on in her head?
By the way, I did tell daddy!

Today is an inservice day and we are looking after Dollie, Initially she requested to go to Silverburn, but it changed to Braehead. I don't like driving to Braehead, because of one difficult junction at the Clyde Tunnel, but couldn't refuse..
I never said anything, but DH said he would come. He hates Braehead, but our plan is to leave him in a coffee shop. He is only coming, because Dollie is there.♥️
She already has an itinerary, but so do I. We could be there all day. I shall dose myself up with a concoction of meds, to get through the day.

Marzipan, as a student, I travelled the line to St. Ives and loved it. However, on the way home back to Glasgow, there was torrentional rain, with flood water lapping the railway lines.
I have always wanted to go back.
That rover ticket sounds a great idea,

My hair is a mess, so I need to wash it, job I loathe, before I go out, in case I bump into anyone, I know. 😉

Sending my best wishes to all, Llfl and Madeleine, I hope you are feeling better, than you were.
Have a good day folks.

Good morning everyone from yet another grey damp and dreary day in Northampton. Rain forecast all day, glad I don't have to go out.

My neighbour and I chatted for nearly three hours yesterday morning, aided by coffee, mince pies and brownies! We certainly set the world to rights. After she left I had a quick lunch, then hopped.on the bus to the vets to pick up medication for the cats. I was back within an hour and spent the rest of the afternoon reading.

The eye clinic phoned yesterday to make a first appointment regarding my cataract; as I am away for half of March I now have an appointment for the end of that month.

This morning will be spent preparing a chicken curry for the slow cooker; Friday has always been curry night in our house, ever since DH and I were married in 1972, and I still keep up the tradition even though he died 8 years ago. I make that nearly 3000 curries!

More reading after lunch; I must make a start on The Bell Jar.

Wishing all a pleasant day.

Good morning from Shropshire.Light rain at the moment.

We had a lovely day out in Manchester yesterday.Lunch out and then we met DD who had been to the theatre.The Young Voices concert was very good.The children had a brilliant day.A very noisy coach journey home as the children were very excited.

Today a quiet day until we collect the children later for their Friday night sleepover.My legs are aching after all the walking yesterday.

I hope your eye clears up corner and isn’t too painful.

Hoping for positive news from Marydoll and thoughts with all unwell.Hope you’re doing ok Jax.

Wishing everyone the best day possible🌻🦩

Good morning Mick and all GN's on a very dark still morning and cold that meets you when you open the curtains, on a poor starting morning. It is definitely a friday the 13th morning beginning to my day.

Firstly woke up yelping as I had horrible cramp, and it has taken me about half an hour to struggle up, and muscles still sort of juddering, so that I am having to be aware of how I am moving. Longing for a much needed coffee but havent dared to try to make one yet. Still have not found my latest glasses, so have had to resort to the last pair, and this morning my left eye is watering and somewhat painful, so I will not be attempting to read the small print on my local paper this morning. Cant really think of any places that I havent looked in, but will have to make another effort to check everywhere for them, and to cap it all am back coughing! Oh the joys of a day like this !

Well I am at least restarting my morning as the wonderful Bach before 7 is now playing and a piece I especially like , the Bach Magnificat, a piece I have sung many times, is cheering my morning now.

Yesterday it was a bit of a plodding along day, but at least got some of my favourite bread , did a bit of fridge sorting out, regrettably finding that the pears I had kept to soften had now oversoftened and so had to be thrown out, waste of money! I do not seem to do well with pears these days, especially if I buy from the supermarket. They can go from too hard to eat yet, to too soft , and I dont tend to take them on picnics as they bruise too easily . Oh well they will have to be off the menu until we have them in the right season. Oh for a lovely comice to eat right now! I should not have succumbed to the lure in a supermaket.

I spent a long time sorting out my blue hyacinths , as the stalks were too long and the flowers leaning at precarious angle, risking breaking. So somewhat of a Heath Robinson concoction, where I have used two sundae spoons, carefully pushed into the soil either side of the pot, and then two sets of ties going round them. Cotton doubled lower down to bring the stems into a more upright position and then a softer twine that I have struggled to tie higher up the stems to support them. I have put this pot into a ceramic pot, which looks a bit nicer but have still had to balance it carefully and let the flowers rest against another taller vase to stop them snapping off. Elegant it is not, but at least it is allowing me to have the perfume and if I ignore my handiwork the actual flowers are a lovely colour. My very yorkshire answer to the price of all flowers this weekend and didnt buy any daffodils yesterday after all, my hyacinths will cheer my day well enough.

Today I have a first meeting for the Talking Newspaper group. I was a reader for a long time many years ago, when I lived in Lancashire for a time, providing much of the news from the local paper for blind and partially sighted people . We had a good mix of voices, and used to share out the various stories to read, so that the listener didnt get bored with one accent or voice. My voice comes over quite well - you can never know what will sound well when you begin - we have had people who sounded quite pleasant, yet when they were recorded either sounded too squeaky , too quiet or whatever. We used to divide the stories up into three and often my 3 would be a rather lovely voice of a man with a slight scottish accent, another lady, who sounded somewhat like Jenny Murray from womans hour and myself. We had to do the cutting down ourselves as obviously you cannot read every word, not enough space, but whatever was left out on no account could "hatchs matches and dispatches " be left out or cut down. Births deaths and marriages were of great interest to our listeners , whether it was the joy of a new baby or their satisfaction (it seemed to me) as our listeners would inform us that they had outlived various people on the list! We used to get feedback from our listeners so soon learnt their preferences, and however much we needed to get into the tape, so having to cut down or out completely any article, there would be an outcry if that list was truncated in any way! We used to meet up with our very good sound recorder and spend time together , which on a good day might only be perhaps an hour, but on a bad day could be nearer two, if there were problems. We took the rough with the smooth, and you may get an interesting item about something new happening, but would be sighing if your appointed article was say the local council information about the rise in various parts of your council tax, important for people to have the information but quite boring to read.

Ah well I shall be seeing how the modern changes will affect me, as I gather that now they use zoom and do their own recordings at home, I am told. Well I will have no bother with the readings etc., but never got involved in using zoom up to now, so may be on a steep learning curve - or if I am useless at it might get thrown out on day 1. We shall see!

Due to the organisers schedule today the meeting is at 1pm, and so it will have to be a very early lunch to be sure of being on time and ready, or take something with me to eat after the meeting. So that is the time my day will need to work round, and the way it has started I must allow myself extra time to get ready and hope to be doing less coughing by then. So it is a steady plod through jobs and getting ready this morning with time planned to have a decent coffee whilst I practise my Makaton. I have deliberately not looked at it last night or this morning as I plan to test myself today to see how much is actually retained in my brain and where the gaps are , so that I can concentrate on those when I go back to the manual to both check on my good and bad efforts, and begin to try out a few more signs.

I also see a good use for a few of these signs, and plan to teach a friend or two, the signs for cup of coffee and yes and no etc and it doesnt need to be an actual Makaton sign but will devise a couple of signs to send secret messages to each other. One will be "lets get out of here" and another "please rescue me from this person" alongside the more polite "any chance of a coffee" to be used to signal across a room where you cannot be heard speaking!! So useful in bigger meetings , when you are not sat near each other!

Harks back to my teenage years when my sister and I had a pact to rescue each other from boys at dances or whatever. It always sounded so much kinder to say "sorry my sister needs me to ...." than simply reject their offer to dance or whatever . My goodness ,do any of you remember the conversation in the Locarno dance hall with the twirling silver ball of "are you dancing?" " are you asking?" followed by the choice answers of "ok then" "dont mind up to you" "dont know this one" or "No thanks!" I was a good dancer, doing ballroom , latin american, the cha cha and whatever else was on offer, and had lessons and with my dancing partner enjoyed the learning, but these would have been the local dances where the boys spent half the time in a group at one side of the room and the girls at the other. There would be much teasing and betting each other to go and ask one of the girls for a dance. For a lot of them it was just the way to get to meet each other, but I actually wanted to dance, and so was much more concerned to see who was a good dancer that I might partner for the pasa doble than which one I fancied!! There were other occasions when I would be sizing up the men and boys but dancing was not one of them for me!

Ah well, it has been fun remembering some of those days and those awful scratchy petticoats that you wore under the dancing dress to make it look good. Looking back at lovely friends, some of whom I still know and keep in touch with and sadly quite a few no longer with us, but so much part of that late 50's 60's times where the important thing was to remember your dancing shoes, not miss the bus, and have that emergency money for a taxi if you needed it. No mobile phones then and no hundreds of "friends" online. When we spoke of friends they were flesh and blood, and lived down the road!! Maybe this may set some of you off remembering similar things? Well it has definitely brought a smile to my face .

Mick, hope your day has started better and you get to Bicester in good time. GrandMattie . the date never actually stops me doing whatever so dont know whether that makes me superstitious or not! Gillymo I watched some of that snowboarding and they were magnificant to watch and quite brave. I wonder if they have some padding under their ski suits to help with the falls, or just have to grin and bear it and cope with the bruising? Good luck with the seed sowing. In our gardening club we used to have a little swap shop at seed times, as when you are on your own you do not want a whole packet of whatever and they are costly enough as it is, so we used to share a packet between us and get more variety each that way, Just tough if you liked something no one else wanted ! I never cared for spinach or chard so left those off my list!Bellasnana glad you had a good day and managed to keep the peace between cat and dog, but you will miss Winston today. I could have just done with a lovely cat to stroke this morning to soothe my horrible start to the day. Cornergran hope you eye continues to improve and you have a good trip out.

Well time to get started and in a better humour now with Bach and old memories of youth to smile at , I shall hope to get my coffee and perhaps by some miracle come across my missing glasses hiding in a drawer or a pocket somewhere. Hope you all have a decent day and started it better than mine. I will find out whether I am still able to do the talking newspaper or will be ignominiously thrown out for poorer voice quality or being out of date and a non zoomer. Watch this space. Enjoy your day and do you have memories of those teenage years dancing or skating together.Happy days folks

Good morning, Michael and all GNs. It’s not going to be above 3 degrees today and wet today. Yesterday I ditched a muddy walk in favour of a session at the gym, and bought myself a couple of new light fleece tops on the way back to the car. Then I drove on to have lunch with DD. We spent much time watching the birds on her garden feeders. She’s very excited about the amount of attention her bird boxes are getting this year. Several potential tenants are scoping out them out!

School this afternoon. Friday is a short session with year 4 who are always a joy. Half term next week.

This evening we are out to a country pub for GS’s birthday dinner. The food and the service are always exceptional. I must rifle through my wardrobe for something nice to wear.

Have the best day you can folks!

Morning everyone from West Lothian. There’s a slight covering of wet-looking snow and when I let the cat in, it was freezing. But it’s dry and fairly bright- yay!!
After two very busy days and early starts yesterday and the day before, today will be quieter. Nothing in particular is planned other than ‘life admin’ and household chores so a nice quiet day.