🦞 The Lockdown Gang still chatting 🦞

Oh dear Grammaretto.
Sorry to hear that - how long has it been there and was it a standard one?

I love to make a fuss of our local very dark brown (almost black) cane corso, "Rocky". He's still a puppy - well really an adolescent I suppose - and he loves a good rub and making a fuss of. He does get fed up if we chat too long with his person though and is keen to get off.
We have a local Cane Corso breeder here so I'm surprised we don't see more of them around.
I did read ages ago that there were strong ties with Puglia - but I think I only ever saw one there. They are really gorgeous dogs - I love their huge "paddy" feet!

I just looked up cane corso. NN . Blimey! They are huge but the puppies look like the sweetest, huggable softies.
I think I would like a photo of them but not the real thing. 😃

What made you choose such a large dog?

My apple tree has fallen down in the storms. 😩

NN , Cane Corso !! Wow. I met one last year at the hospice. Like sitting next to a pit pony. The biggest dog I’d ever seen. I have to say it was extremely well behaved but I was slightly worried as the very slight lady at the other end of the lead told me she’d only had it a month from rescue. I did wonder if a month was long enough to judge the character of such a huge dog when there is no way in the world she could have controlled it if it took flight.
ixion please give my love and a big hug to our friend and to you too of course,
Jax you are always welcome here as is anyone who wants to pop in. Lovely to hear from you.

ixion a grim day for a funeral. So sorry. Was it someone you knew well?
NN wow what a story. I bet you were glad to be home after such a nightmare 24 hours.
Grammaretto oh dear it doesn’t sound like your new helper is helping much. In fact she might be bringing you down. Is she with you long?
Jax nice to hear from you. Hope you’re ok.

Thank you ixion I’m grateful 🌻

Jaxjacky

Excuse me gatecrashing, ixion I would be very grateful if you could send love to Cherry from me. She was so very helpful hand holding me when our granddaughter was diagnosed with epilepsy. I have no other way of contacting her, Imogen is doing so well now and my support for her and her family were directly influenced by Cherry.
Thank you.

The continuing saga of disappearing messages ...
I think the storm outside has a lot to do with dodgy connections. Apologies.

I have passed on to Cherry your message of gratitude and love, Jax.
I am sure she will be thrilled to hear that you are thinking of her.

Gatecrashing, Jax?
Certainly not- it is always lovely to 'see' a different face.
You're more than welcome here😀

I only take people for 2 weeks max. Ixion
She knows that.
I have written a reference. It's a volunteer job. I didn't say much about her just told them how keen she is to come to help at the Buddhist centre! She made a good job of cleaning my kitchen and the apple pressing.

I hope they reply.

It's still wild outside. How is it with you?

How long is she staying for, Grammaretto?

I would say that I have been asked before for references from my helpers and that I feel I am never in a good position to write one until they had been with me for 4 weeks, to get a fairer picture 🫣.

Hopefully she wasn't booked in with you for a month!

Travelling abroad with pets does sound complicated so well done to those of you who do!

When I returned from the wedding last night, through wild winds, the kitchen was spotless and my Helper has left a note on the table asking me to write a reference for her for a live in job she has applied for.

I am in a quandary! I hardly know her. Surely she must have someone else to ask who knows her better? I can't help but be suspicious that she's hiding something or running away from someone - she did allude to a bad situation with her family or a partner back in Ireland. Oh dear. What should I do.
Anyway I don't expect she'll be up for a while so I have time to think 🤔

The wedding was really lovely. I sat at a table with people I know including Music man and his wife. I danced most dances and was introduced to a cocktail called a Hugo Spritz 😲

I hope all you lovely Lobstars have a great day and you make a good decision about the picture NotSpaghetti 😊

NFK....we bought 2 soft collapsible crates for the dogs to travel in the motor home. The 2 smaller dogs were used to going in a crate...we have one permanently up at home so they have somewhere to retreat to if needed....so we had no real problems with them. The Cane Corso had never been created and made that very known by ripping the front out of it within 30 mins!!!! Kira sounds much better behaved so it might work for her. We are going to Ireland next year and hoping that the pet passports have been reinstated. We are hoping to book a pet cabin.
Not Spag.... I'd have given up by now and put the picture somewhere under a pile of other things to be attended to....at sometime in the future. IKEA do a fair range of frames...if you can steel yourself for a trip.
Grammaretto...that sounds all a bit tricky re the new helper and I'm not sure you need all of that just now. How long is she staying? I hope you made it to the wedding without getting drowned!!!
Doodle ...good luck in your new role.

How lovely Jax and so kind of Cherry.

Excuse me gatecrashing, ixion I would be very grateful if you could send love to Cherry from me. She was so very helpful hand holding me when our granddaughter was diagnosed with epilepsy. I have no other way of contacting her, Imogen is doing so well now and my support for her and her family were directly influenced by Cherry.
Thank you.

Wow! That's some holiday Naughtyneine

You won't forget it in a hurry 😉

I'm glad you are safely home .

My Helper is a little strange. She's not appeared before 10.30 yet when I have already finished breakfast, cleared up from the night before, picked flowers for the cafe tables etc. She's a night owl and wanted to talk till midnight. She also has a lot of problems so added to mine we're not a match made in heaven 😕

I'm going to a wedding in an hour or so and have no idea what to wear. I don't suppose anyone will be looking at me but it would be nice to dress up a bit but wading through puddles and being battered by storms isn't the way I had envisioned it. 😔

Not Spaghetti displacement activity is a specialism I know a lot about. You have my sympathy.

Hope your day is going well Lobstars and keep safe from the storm.

Hello Lobstars, disgustingly I am not dressed yet but with a fairly good reason. We arrived home last night 27 hours after we'd been picked up from our hotel. We had a fabulous 5 days in Majorca...we loved Cala Bonar, yes it has the usual places selling touristy bits ( I did buy 2 fridge magnets as they had camper vans on them) but it was not overwhelming and we only saw one Sports Bar ....I hate places abroad that have 'English/Irish pubs' sort of thing. . Our hotel complex was about a 10 minute stroll from the sea in a more residential area which was perfect. I really couldn't fault it in any way, the food was amazing...even smoked salmon available on a fish themed night. That went down well with me and a little recently spayed kitten who shared it with me. ( A rather sour faced German lady tore me off a strip saying it wasn't suitable food for a cat....nobody seems to have told the cat that though by the way she firmly held my hand between her paws while she attacked it with relish) DH didn't help matters by muttering 'Don't mention the war and Don't tell them Pike' under his breath so only I could hear. 15 minutes before we were due to be picked up I received a message to say our 8.25pm flight was delayed...further info to follow.
I tried not to think about what that would mean with Storm Austen approaching and due to hit the South West in a few hours. Fast forward 8 hours and we have been taken ( along with the other 200 passengers) to a hotel near the airport in I think Arenal... Wherever it was I will not be hurrying back there in this lifetime. After hours of no information forthcoming ( Big disappointment in the otherwise really good Tui) our flight was cancelled. No food, drink etc and at the hotel all facilities were closed ( it was 12.15am by then).
Some people apparently had blankets and water in their room but not us ( we did have our own bottles of water and an emergency box of maltesers as you do). The walls were paper thin... I'm very glad that we didn't actually come face to face with whoever was in the room next door as I'm now very privy to which parts of your anatomy need to be epilated/waxing when you get home!!!!!
In fairness to the hotel..breakfast was substantial and after the night before I wrapped up some rolls and egg and cheese for later....just in case. Our new flight time was 15.05 which meant we should just about avoid the worst of the storm...my heart went out to the people delayed on the way out who had lost a day of their holiday and taking off in very windy weather.
We eventually took off just before 5pm...apparently there were 2 problems with the original plane..the first with the air conditioning and the second with a cracked windscreen....eek.
It was a bumpy landing to say the least but all credit to the pilots and then to Exeter airport staff who sped us through security etc. DH had done something to his wrist so I said I'd drive...not best keen on driving at dusk but needs must...we were about 5 miles from home when we came across a road closed sign...it had been there 2 weeks ago but in actual fact it was open all the way through so after 27 hours of excitement I ignored the sign and set off....DH was in hysterics as in fact they were actually in the process of closing the road ( if I'd had to argue the toss I would have said the cones were not actually all the way across the road at that point). DH said in between tears of laughter 'Who needs Verstappen and formula one when I've got Missy driving like she stole it. We got through with seconds to spare ....I really didn't fancy a 10 mile detour.
Home to a rapturous welcome from the 'children' who had been thoroughly spoilt by our dog sitter who is heaven sent as far as I am concerned...she was the lady who made our wedding cakes, one of the first friends we made when we moved down here....recently retired psychiatric nurse. We are going to spread the word about her....and she's coming back next Saturday as we've been invited to a 50th birthday party and had been trying to sort out the best way of attending. In my head I am still on holiday....apart from the fact that the heating is on and it's bucketing down and we have to go on a search of the field to find the 2 missing panels ( out of 5 ) from the greenhouse. Ho hum
I'll be back later when I've caught up with your posts.

Thanks Doodle, I have several art photos (bought in a Ukraine appeal) whose frames sound a bit like your idea.
They have a second piece of glass as the "backing board" so you see the paint or pattern of wallpaper from behind. In fact the one piece I've just reframed came out of one of these.

I've used them previously in both the loos - I'm not big on wallpaper going everywhere but love some now and again.
It was, however,still quite tricky as the art needs to be able to carry itself with a patterned "border". I will look at this suggestion (...though the print is A3 so would probably end up near A2) and then if still not working I will look to put the whole thing elsewhere...
maybe in the study which needs replastering

Question to self -
Why am I spending time and energy on trivia when almost my whole house needs sorting, my mother-in-law's house needs sorting and my garden needs sorting for winter?

Just find a spare bedroom to hang the picture, NS that's what I do.
Do you have a study? That also provides a nifty excuse for relegation. I've put it where I can always see it while I am working quietly.

I hope your 'interesting' helper is settling in, Grammaretto and can give a boost to your decluttering. Where are you up to with house no.2?
🤞

Went to a funeral today, what weather. Challenging in the churchyard with rain coming down sideways, brollies blown inside out and grass a quagmire.
Heavy hearts anyway, not helped by the dreadful conditions.

Grammaretto sounds like your Irish helper will be good company to have around.
Notspaghetti I’ve seen pictures with a mount of the wallpaper on the walls if you understand my meaning. They’ve used the wallpaper to make a matching mount. Would that help?

Hello friends.
Nothing in The Range to fit (A3)... I went there first... but have found and mounted the photo print into a Dunelm frame quite successfully today.
It looks much better in a frame and the black also "goes with" the other black frames in my downstairs loo.... however - it just doesn't work... 😕
The plainer black frames work well in there as a whole as the focus is on a rather lovely carved black and gold victorian frame that I made into a mirror a few years ago...

So now of course the photographic paper around the image is TOO WHITE to put up in there (I didn't want to have to cut a mount) because two of the walls are papered with a background of ecru and it now looks really stark and bold with a black frame... It's going to have to go somewhere else now - or I'm going to have to give it a mount! Grrr!

I did pick up in Dunelm (as well as a new doormat and two mugs 😬) a really odd new black and gold frame for one of the pieces already in my loo though. It was in the reduced bin! Hooray... now I can swap frames again! Ha ha ha!

Sorry you lost your post NotSpaghetti

Good for you Doodle being on the board.
I try to avoid committees. I feel I've done my time. 🥱

My helper arrived. She's interesting. Irish.
We both went to ceilidh dancing tonight which was fun.
I'll give her jobs to do tomorrow.

My phone has stopped being able to send emails so a computer man is coming tomorrow.

Notspaghetti do you have the Range near you? They do lots of frames. Nice of her to think of you but I know what you mean. I have limited shelving and flat surfaces and people keep buying me vases and ornaments and I’ve not where to put them. Shouldn’t be ungrateful though. (Me that is not you)
Grammaretto hope your helper is good. Where is she from?
NFK Dh and I went to the Giants Causeway and DH was very disappointed. He was a keen photographer and had seen other glorious pictures of the stones. Trouble was you couldn’t see the stones for the number of tourists clambering over them. Maybe we got a bad day but there were hundreds of people there climbing all over them. I think the really good views would be Ariel shots.
I’ve been on the board before so I know what it’s like. We have a management company to report faults to and they arrange for someone to fix things. Yes you do get asked questions but o know my neighbours well and it’s ok.
Yes ixion please pass on our love to Cherry if you are in contact. We miss her.

Just spent ages on it.
Harrumph!
Will try to come back later.
Love to you all, meanwhile!

Where is my enormous post??
😱

I don't blame your Theo for sulking Jan. It is very soggy out there! And I am very intrigued as to how one acquires a random vicar. You must have had interesting parents. The Giants Causeway now has a fantastic visitors centre and you can still walk wherever you want and wander all over the stones - I didn't as it was damp and windy and I wasn't feeling agile enough. And it's National Trust. Being a member certainly saved a lot of entry fees.

I had intended to use the Cairnryan route Grammaretto, but all dogs have to be in their pet carrier for the whole trip and Camper bubble really doesn't have the storage space for one the rest of the time. Perhaps if I could find an inflatable one. Your new helper sound very useful. If she runs out of things to do, perhaps she'd like a holiday in Norfolk?

Being on the Board must be a bit challenging Doodle when you live on the premises. You must be perhaps rather too accessible? Do you have to sneak out to buy milk at silly times to avoid being accosted?

I do like nice pictures in downstairs loos NotSpag. A friend has old family photos in hers. All these people watching!

Please send Cherry my love too ixion. Miss her.

Kira is very beautiful NfkD . I don't blame her for showing caution. I would too if I was expected to run about on a wobbly bright blue surface!

I've been over on that ferry a couple of times except from Cairnryan to Belfast.

I do have a Helper arriving tomorrow Doodle. ★Well spotted. She's a trained gardener but likes decorating as well.