🦞🦂 Lobstars 🌟 still shining bright 🦞🦂

Grammaretro lovely photos. Good news about your trip.
Kaimoana hope he gets to visit you more.
Forgive me all I am reading but typing is so hard on my hands and makes them hurt, sorry for such short replies xx

NN it was so kind of you to look up The Native Farm but it's a garden centre and I have no garden. Maybe they do sell kumerahou tea in their cafe but at they are about 187km away and I have no transport, it's off the menu for me Swet of you to try thought. Ican actually buy it locally bui it is far too expensive to sustain.

Tauhe is new to me Doodle though not to Waipareira. He is very gentle. We had a hilarious conversation about Julian & Sandy (remember them) and the language Polari.
He could hardly finish lunch for laughing.

No word of or from Karen. I fear the worst but hoping for the best.

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Photos, hopefully of party and aftermath

Fairly good news on the whole from Lobstars.
Kaimoana isn't panicking and hopefully won't need surgery.

Ixion has a nice new toilet seat, I'm glad to know.

I did have a U3A outing today Doodle a history walk in the rain. We walked the history trail through the old part of our town. I spontaneously invited the group for coffee afterwards as the trail passes near my house.

I am going away for a night or two on Wednesday. I have tickets booked for a play at Pitlochry little theatre. I shall meet DD there.

Doodle is mending, hooray!

NN is hen partying in Spain soon.
I hope she can escape her achy poor sore bits abd has a brilliant time. ❤️

And NotSpag's MiL is making good progress.

The garden party was rainfree, if a little chilly for the summer dress I decided to wear.
You can tell an eternal optimist by the number of Summer dresses they possess.
Photos show aftermath of the party.

Naughtyneine how I enjoyed reading about all your preparations. Sorry about your btm. A very enthusiastic church goer grabbed my poorly hand and shook it during the “Peace,” on Sunday, apart from wincing I managed not to stamp on his toes.
Ixion a new toilet seat.! Will there be a grand opening and ribbon cutting?
Kaimoana Tauhe sounds nice not heard of him before is he new. Any news of Karen yet.
grammaretto have you been out with your U3A group recently?
Went to hospital for checkup today. Wrist ok enough to start light exercises but for some reason they want to remove the plate in 6 month time in case it does some damage. 🤔🤔

Kaimoana, I looked up Kumerahou in the UK but didn't find anything suitable but there was a place in NZ called The Native Farm that sold it in the form of tea...would that help?. You might have to check with your Consultant that it's ok to take as some natural meds react with prescribed meds. The one good thing about your diagnosis is that they are not pushing you to have it done forthwith so you can make a considered judgement and also if they thought you were not suitable for the surgery they wouldn't have proposed it. That is a hopeful thing

NotSpag..... It's so lovely to read that your DMIL is coming along...maybe not leaps and bounds yet but definitely progress is being made..I loved her comment about buying a house...

Ixion... I'm a bit like Mr I...I hear something and then want to find out more...yesterday I got distracted listening to Desert Island Discs and missed at least 3 of the persons choices because I was reading up on them on Wikipedia. Likewise I'll be watching something on the TV and suddenly need to Google to find out more about a person, place , thing
The first house we ( ex and I) purchased was £11000 and the deposit was £500 and that took some doing. No bank of Mum and Dad back then

Doodle, I hope the pain settles soon....I can't imagine how frustrating it must be...I hope too that church brought some solace.

Grammaretto...did it rain? fingers crossed the sun shone for the garden party

The wedding is now less than 3 weeks away and my nerves are a bit frazzled... It's not helped by the fact that a) The pain in my ...well let's just say operation site is causing me some grief....DH without thinking patted my btm in what he thought was an affectionate gesture ( It normally is) but on this occasion only the fact that we were in the middle of M and S stopped me from punching him.

B) I very stupidly bent down to pat the puppy and most have twisted at the same time ....after my spine surgery I was told I could bend...and twist but not both at the same time...the result is now that my hip/back doesn't want to play ball. No housework ( oh well into each life a little blessing comes along) but the miriad of things that need doing pre wedding are being done at a snails pace ....grrrrrr as my DGS used to say.

My hair has been cut into a shape... I'll say no more...The Princess Fiona (Shrek) tiara has been returned to whence it came and been replaced with a thin hairband ( the like of which I haven't worn since I was 6).

Tomorrow I have another visit to the dress maker to reveal the newly adjusted bits...hopefully that's all that will now be revealed and there will only be a slight hint of cleavage as opposed to the page 3 effect of previously.

My friend R arrives today....we are going to Spain on Thursday to a 60th birthday party....we are flying from Bristol...and our other friend is flying from Gatwick...for the last 20 plus years we have been known as Thelma,Louise and Vera.....that probably tells you all you need to know about me really....we have had some hysterical moments along the way...laughed so much that our sides hurt for days afterwards. I hope for more of the same this weekend

Love to you all...

Quite right Nfk there are indeed degrees of seriousness/severity but as I have no symptoms yet and there is absolutely NO impace on the quality of my life I think everyone was being a bit over dramatic as they do whenever 'heart' is mentioned.
And I got sucked into it for a while

Karen didn't turn up yet again but didn't text me to say so and I am worried about that as she is very vulnerable.
I had some pre-order groceries to pick up (they don't deliver ):-( at 11am ) and a hat to post for my grand-daughter and I needed fresh milk... te mea te mea te mea.....

Of course the agency didn't let me know they were sending a replacement at 10 minutes before I was due to leave for a 2pm dental appointment. Shambles.

They could have text me, how hard is that? This is crew who receive annual efficiency awards from Westpac bank !!!

Tauhe who took me to the dentist was able to scoot us to the supermarket afterwards where the uncollected groceries languished looking sad, lonely and abandoned.

The best part of the day was that Tauhe was able to share my lunch - home-made vegetarian gluten free lasagne (he had 2 helpings ) and salad.
It's not often I have a dinner companion and it felt so nice.

I have accomplished a lot today, thanks to a courier delivery at some ungodly hour of a new toilet seat.
Yay?

Some of the time was spent in washing and drying several items of decent foodstuffs found swimming in a sea of milk at the bottom of the weekly online supermarket food delivery, but this was made bearable by the fact that the nice young man scanned all said purchases and I am refunded nearly £20 in 'damaged items'.

The afternoon was spent assisting Mr.I in seeking online renewal quotes for buildings and contents insurance. The main sticking point was the value of the house and the cost of replacement. Unfortunately, DH was carried away browsing online local Estate Agents and peppering the research environment with exclamations like 'Good Lord, have you seen this?' and 'They must have done a fair old amount of work to justify that asking price'. One suggestion of the insurers was to take the value as estimated in the buyer's purchase survey. Sadly, that was in 1978 and the value - and price we paid - was £28, 500! And what a 'stretch' that was😆.

Enough excitement from maison Ixion.

I hope you Garden Party went well, Grammaretto, and good weather was the order of the day. I did keep everything crossed for you. Is your helper still with you?

Thinking of Doodle and hoping Church was helpful. Also of Kaimoana with much to think about and Cherry who, hopefully, is choreographing our moves for next season's ⚽️ .
And, of course, to everyone who makes this thread so welcoming even if I am boring.
🦞 🏆

Evening all. Been to church today whicch was nice then hospice with sons
Sorry till not able to write much typing really makes my hands ache. Love to all

Oh Kaimoana what a shock. I’m with the others. Think about it carefully and weigh up the options., please take care.
Love to all x

We will be with you Kaimoana ❤️
It's a huge operation. I hope it's not necessary and that you can have a proper discussion about it before making a decision.

Oh gosh no Kaimoana! Are there alternatives? There are degrees of seriousness for heart stuff but either way open heart surgery is a big operation indeed, and needs careful thought and a long list of pros and cons. And someone to talk it over with to help get a balanced view. Especially as its winter for you and a depressing time of year. Whatever you decide we'll be with you. xx

Kaimoana I can only guess what a shock this news must have been for you, I am very sorry.
I have contacted you.

Kaimoana...please don't say No

Kaimoana2 !
What! No more health issues, please. What a shock!

Please think carefully about your options... Don't just say no.
🙏

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What about a backgammon set or lovely chess set Grammaretto?
This is ours from the 1970s.

You might find a locally made one?
Ours is obviously imported!

Doodle are you having any physio for your poor hands? What a hassle these injuries must be. Sending lots of love.
xxx

Had a bit of a shock yestrday. Having had ecg, angiogram last month and now cardio CT scan, I was told I need open heart surgery.
Mmmm, I may or may not accept. Not sure I can 'go it alone' with this one and quite frankly, can't really see the point. I'm at the age where I just want to be left in peace

Heavy rain here too, and flood alerts issued but it's the cold that bothers me more than anything. I hate winter.

I bought my son a heavy, silver chain for his birthday, 25 years ago. He put it round his neck straight away and has never taken it off since.

A posh fountain pen?
I was staggered when DS was delighted to accept my late father's boxed presentation pen.

Fortunately, it was one which could be converted to cartridge filling.
It's only me who loves my bottle of Quink and sheets of blotting paper!

Lots of men wear bracelets now. I bought one for our DGs on his 21st.

Gracious Grammaretto you turned the young lad into an old man before his time🤣. A watch something to keep?

I like your thinking NotSpag . I had also thought of something engraved but not sure cufflinks would be worn....

I saw some nice jewellery at the ECA degree show on Monday but for me! 😂😂

I hope you are coping no handed Doodle

There are also some silversmiths who use recycled or "fairminded" fairly-mined silver...

Have a look at people just graduating?

Silver cufflinks?
My son wore his to his wedding.

He may not find them thrilling at the moment but they will mean something to him later.

My son's were hand made by a craft silversmith in Southern Ireland and are a sort of cross between traditional and contemporary.

You may have someone local?