🦞🦂 *What are we up to?*🦂🦞

Happy Christmas to all our 🦞s, near and far.

Thinking of you all🎄 x

🌲🌲🌲Lots of love to my lovely Lobstars family. Wishing you all peace and happiness today. X

Merry Christmas all. I’ve just returned from a lovely day with DS2 and family. Raised a glass to DH and shared some memories. Played silly games and had a lovely meal. Tired now but just wanted to pop in and say thank you all for being part of this lovely group and I hope you have a peaceful and relaxing time 💕

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202512/medium-97hsbw-35647a8b-8cc0-4735-815a-e1ec4ddd6943.jpeg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202512/medium-3jp721-img-2838.jpeg

Just popping in with Spud and Aoife to wish you all a peaceful Christmas and all good things.....think of you often, read daily. Mr M and I are well and still travelling, growing things, digging for genealogy and generally b***ering on 😁 x

On Christmas morning my son text - 'I know its short notice but...' and it turned out he'd been asked to invite me and totally forgot,

I saw their lovely new and spacious house and we had a happy Christmas Day together.

Joe prepared and cooked the traditional turkey lunch complete with "Yorkshire Pies" as my DGD calls Yorkshire Puddings.
With brandy snaps and cream as dessert.

As he was driving me home, Joesaid, 'When I was in London, cooking for the family was one of the biggest things I really missed.'
Made me a bit teary.

He's always enjoyed cooking, even when very young, as has his brother but DS2 will go to a lot of trouble with extras and presentation.

A wonderful day and amazingly, the weather did an about turn and we had hot sun the whole time.

Where is my post?
Oh no! Lost it again!

Basically very pleased to hear of happy days yesterday - especially Kaimoana - and wishing nice gently easy ones today!
Love to all!

I was so pleased to hear you had such a perfect day Kaimoana and even the weather changed.
Magic!

Mamissimo gorgeous photos of Spud and Aoife and to know you are OK.

DS & co did get away after all thanks to the weather change. There's a photo of DGS in his togs on a sandy beach with the bluest sky and sea and Kapiti island in the distance.
Beautiful.

I meant to add, sorry your post vanished NotSpag because I wanted to hear about your Christmas which will have been peppered with sadness this time.

The all female lunch was great fun. I only knew a couple of my friend's friends beforehand but they were lovely, one an ex neighbour of hers just popped in to see her and was invited in. She was most appreciative of my veggie Wellington and the cosy welcome and crazy party game.

Oh no! "Not another one!
Will write later... sorry

Here I am - late as usual! Hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday! DH and I went to our local pub and had a great meal. I was looked after very well as usual - poor old soul hobbling around! - came home and went to sleep! My youngest daughter had to have her so much loved 14 year old dog put to sleep a week ago and rgere have been so many tears. Its sonhard when you lose a pet isnt it? My eldest daughter will be here next week for New Year. I have never been one of those mothers who insist their grown up children attend everytime I click my fingers!! Too many memories of my mother in law doing that!
Today is a lazy day with an unfortunate amount of chocolates lying around! You can tell what I will be doing!
Anyway hope everyone has an enjoyable Boxing Day with lots of chocolates and delicious foods!

Mamissimo lovely to hear from you and what a smashing photo of Spud. Lovely looking young man. How he’s grown.
Oh Kaimoana I’m so pleased you spent Christmas with your son and family. How wonderful to see Gubbins again.
What a lovely day you had .😊
Grammaretto sounds like you had a lovely time with your friend’s friends. Lots of jollity and from what I read on the GM thread perhaps a little imbibing? Lady asleep on the floor with her dog! Glad you had fun.
Jan lovely to hear from you too, sounds like you had an enjoyable day. Shame about your DDs dog. Pets mean so much and it’s a great loss when it comes time to say goodbye.
Notspaghetti sorry you keep losing your posts. Hope otherwise all things are ok although a difficult time for family.
I’m off to the hospice soon for some quiet time with Dh . DS2 is coming too. He often goes there on his own to sit for a while. Tomorrow I’m going to DS1 . Now if only I could find the chocolates I bought 🤔
Have a good day all

So much 🦞activity at the GN waterhole despite the various Christmas activities.
Lovely to hear from everyone and of your doings, both fun-packed and contemplative.
Especially for Kaimoana, whose guardian angel transported her into a true family gathering❤️.

It's been lovely here too, with DC connected at various times.
A lovely FT chat in particular with DGS1 (10), conducted sotto voce as the rest of the family was around.

I've got a lovely present for Mama.
Tell me about it!
She does the cleaning in the house, so I've bought her a pair of those slippers you wear on your feet which work like dusters, so you can dust as you walk about ..

And, he added triumphantly, they only cost 3 dollars from Kmart.

DS has always reckoned he is a mercenary little s*d chap.

*Hello All... I'm so happy to read that Christmas has been good in so many ways for you all. Kaimoana a real Christmas wish come true for you especially, time with your DS and Gubbins, just perfect. I fulfilled a dream yesterday, a walk on the beach, it was absolutely blowing a houli and freezing cold but the sun was shining. I didn't manage very far and DH held onto me very tight to make sure I didn't fall. Then back to MoHo Maeve for a fabulous duck in redcurrant sauce. ( It's a Rachel Allen recipe and so easy) Roast potatoes and leek, cauliflower,shredded sprouts gratin. The sprouts have to be hidden so DH doesn't realise they are there.....he ate the lot). The dogs are loving their beach and fields walks and sharing Christmas goodies too. The picture is Storm helping to prepare said sprouts!!!!!
Today we ventured into Tenby...it was rammed with people who had come to watch the hundreds of nutters who were doing the Boxing Day swim. Next year maybe I will.
Enjoy your evening whatever you may be doing.

What wonderful, hopefull and happy posts. Just what we all needed at the end of what has been a rather challenging year for many of us.

Here's to a smoother 2026.

I wonder why post get lost so often?

I sometimes write mine in Word, due to my poor eyesight and then paste them here.

The Xray on my fractured spine which I should have had 2 weeks ago has been re-scheduled but still at a time when the Health Shuttle, my only transport, is on its hols.

I would have thought with so many (hundreds) of people a week, using it, schedulers would have some way of seeing from our records that appointments MUST be within the shuttle times. Especially easy now its all digital.

But that's only a small niggle, I am grateful for free health care at my age.
I wonder what, if anything, can be done for a fractured spine?

Maybe they'll inject some epoxy resin into the cracks !!

My DGD has some amazing polymer-based substance which is maleable to any shape and bounces.

I'd quite like the ability to bounce again.

Nice to see the scene inside the MoHo Naughtyneine it looks comfy although perhaps crowded with 2 dogs?

It's such a shame there is a lack of suitable transport for you to get to the hospital Kaimoana .

I hope you had a lovely time at your son's today Doodle and that the chocolates turned up.

Sorry about your DD's dog Jan 😔

I was invited to the other DGP today. She's a fabulous cook. It was also a chance to see DD and the DGC. I never see enough of them

Tonight's order was hot chocolate. Very good it was too.

Hello, at last,
We had a lovely (if exhausting) Christmas Day in the end, thank you for thinking of us. Our lovely daughter and husband (with the three boys) asked us to share our day with them.

She drove an hour with her 15 year old to meet us at an earlyish church service and after driving home with us - to collect contributions towards dinner and their Christmas presents of course - she drove us back to her home where her husband was already busy cooking a huge dinner.

It was a lovely day - with yes, some tears, but lots of laughter. We had way too much to eat, (all the usual Christmas things and more besides) played games, exchanged gifts, watched Dinner for One.

Our Swedish relatives watch this short piece as a traditional part of their Christmas- apparently it's watched every year in Sweden and Germany - but we have never seen it before.

It's a British stage act that in 1963 was turned into an 18-minute black-and-white film, it's performed in English by comediansFreddie FrintonandMay Warden.
"A butler, a lady, plenty of alcohol, and a tiger skin rug"

www.ardmediathek.de/video/dinner-for-one/dinner-for-one-das-original/das-erste/Y3JpZDovL2Rhc2Vyc3RlLm5kci5kZS80NDM3XzIwMjAtMTItMzEtMTUtNTA

We had a long WhatsApp video with our son and his wife in the Philippines - which was very nice - and we heard about the funny things, trials and tribulations of their recent life there.

She has been working for her family's hotel business over there and has recently been renovating and upgrading a restaurant- bringing in great local chefs - but recently only those who have worked substantially abroad. This seems to have finally made a huge difference and everything works so much better.

At last they can offer something that is closer to "fine dining".
They have been open only about a fortnight now and one customer has dined there on eight occasions apparently! They expect once he's tried everything he will maybe pace himself better!

Yesterday we spent the day at our middle daughter and family's house with our youngest son and his family.
At least we got out as far as a village park with the little ones yesterday after a Christmas day entirely inside - so today I'm intending to extend my "strolling stamina".

on another note - I have booked to meet a funeral director on Monday... still no death certificate though

So lovely to hear that we all seem to have had at least a fairly happy time... and Kaimoana a real fairy story day!

Sending warm wishes and lots of love

Me again - briefly! Forgot to mention but on Christmas Day on the way to our local pub we passed our village green and the daffodils were out! They are always early but never seen them on Christmas Day before. There are lots more too flower but very cheering to see quite a few out aleady.

That sounds too early Jan although some varieties are deliberately bred to be early, presume those weren't.

Your Christmas sounds highly charged and very active NotSpaghetti . Isn't it unusual not to issue a death certificate soon after the event?
I know that film well. Our Swedish friends introduced us to it. It is very funny!

I am in a bit of a post 🎄 slump today.
It's cold, dark and raining and nothing planned.

I began to work on emptying the bookcase but it's no fun by myself.

🌧 ⛈️ ☔️ 🌩 🌧 🌂 ⛈️ ☔️ 🌩 🌧

Can Jeeves cheer me up please. Is there anything worth watching on TV?

I'm sorry you have slumped, Grammaretto. It's not like you to have time on your hands. If you can find anything on the tv, do let me know!

It has been sunny here but desperately cold.

A potter out to the village found me enjoying coffee and cake with a friend I bumped into. We have lots of cafés and eateries of various persuasions, but we always support an 'independent', tucked away off the main drag, in a large outbuilding and owned by a young girl who works her socks off and bakes on her one day off a week. She has luckily been adopted by the serious dog walkers and cyclists in lycra, those of us people who are happy to tuck themselves away, out of the public eye.

It transpired that DF was also on a mission to track down bargains. Our shopping bags revealed half price Christmas cards, Christmas puds, tree decorations and mince pies. All will be welcome next Christmas- if I can remember where I put them.

Jan, we have our first camellia in bloom - with many more buds on the way😳

Ixion i love your DGS présent idea. I wonder what his mum will think. 🤣
NN a beach walk sounds lovely. Even if it’s windy or rainy, nothing like it. Your time in your Mo Ho sounds a perfect way to celebrate Christmas. The dogs enjoying it too.
Kaimoana i Hope you get to your X-ray appointment soon. Silly about the transport situation. Not joined up thinking.
How lovely you got to spend time with Gubbins.
Grammaretto yes i found the chocolates. They were at the bottom of the bag I’d put in the cupboard outside and then forgotten about. Today was a lovely day with DS1 and family and their adorable cockerpoo who kept eyeing everyone with doleful eyes ever time food was passed around. We had a lot of fun opening our presents including the dog who fell asleep clutching his new stuffed rabbit toy.
Notspaghetti so pleased you have got to see so many members of the family and had a nice few days.
Jan wow that is early for daffodils. What a lovely sight on Christmas Day.
Grammaretto I’m like you in that if I have days of activity with others then am back on my own I go into a dip. It’s sort of like an anticlimax. I’m here on my own too. Shall we have a drink together ? Jeeves your services are required. 🥂
Well Ixion dyslexia strikes again. I was wondering why your DF was out trying to find bagpipes.!
After a nice day at our sons I was on my way home when I received a phone call from our son asking me to return to their house. I had apparently put our granddaughters phone in my handbag by mistake and driven off with it. Only when my son turned on tracker to find her phone did they see her phone driving along the road on the way to my house!

It's hard being a thief these days Doodle with all the tracking devices.
I hope DGD was reunited with her phone.

I'll gladly have a drink with you but I think mine will be herbal tea. I seem to have given away or drunk any alcohol.

Cheers! ☕️

I'm off to bed. Bound to feel more cheery tomorrow.
I watched some pretty awful films and TV so nothing to recommend apart from a tribute programme to Patricia Routledge and some others which was fine.

Ooh Doodle - I love the idea you have had your stolen loot tracked! - and on the way to your house too! ...

Grammaretto
No death certificate yet as my mum-in-law was still being triaged in A&E. They hadn't established for sure what was wrong.

The nurse practitioner who called the ambulance team out thought she knew what was starting to go wrong and the ambulance team monitored her all the way to the hospital - but because nobody really knows it had to go to the coroner who may want an autopsy.

Sadly I think her body had just done enough. In the old days they would probably have written "frailty" or similar... and had she refused to go in, the GP would have known her well enough to fill in something that was perfectly likely

I accept that this is the right thing to do though... It could so easily be "foul play" when someone is already weakened. I know in this case it was not, but everyone, however elderly, should be protected so accept it. She will not suffer, and we can wait
❤️

I understand NotSpag and it doesn't matter now.

I believe the Queen had old age as cause of death.

I have a death certificate for my 3 x gr grandfather who died in an extremely poor part of Port Glasgow in 1855 aged 97. That certificate gives cause of death as Senility 1 year.
Not bad for an Irish born linen weaver who had joined his children in Scotland in midlife.

Evening all. Just a quick visit as it’s very late and I’m very sleepy. Church today and coffee duty for me. Three of us went for lunch and managed to chat for a good few hours, a bit of shopping in the sales and then home.
Ordinary Monday tomorrow. I’m all out of sync with the days.
Yes DGD was pleased to be reunited with her phone. Made me laugh when they said they could see it driving along the road at 30 miles and hour. 🤣