Friendship, advice and support if estrangement has affected your life.

Well done hugs. My bird bath needs cleaning out once a month, clean water couple of times per week.

Bought some wallpaper paste but will check first if there is enough left in the box from the first purchase of wallpaper.

The nesting comment made me laugh Yogin. I think I've been nesting all of my adult life!!!

Thanks smiles. We've located a couple of new garden centres to explore but not been yet.
Cleaned my bird bath out yesterday Yogin and the feeders.

Hubby's brother is coming over shortly. A bit of socialising then some quiet writing time for me while they go on a boys' wander.

Oooh the wallpaper's arrived. It's fab and I'm so excited so we're going out tomorrow to get paint for the other walls and window recesses .

Oh bugger just wrote a long ramble and it disappeared😱. Hate that. I will be back .

I asked my upstairs neighbour when I first moved here; did we get lots of nice birds, he told me 'no, only pigeons & magpies.' Well, I now get all the lovely birds in, 2 robins, blue tits, grt tits, some squirrels & an unusual looking pigeon who is quite friendly. I was out in the garden this morning, putting some more bird feed out, when along came Freddie, as I call him, he looked right at me, I started talking to him and he was turning his head towards listening intently and being quite friendly!

Wallpaper up & looking good, not perfect, but better than before. We pasted the wall, then had a tug-of-war with the ready-pasted wallpaper to get it apart again after folding it together to save it. After hanging, there were a few wrinkles etc from the storage, so I iron it! Believe it or not it looks ok .

Good luck with yours Smiles

Well done Hugs It's a dirty job but actually doesn't take as long as you'd think.

oh, that's lovely yogin. We haven't had that many visitors to our feeders in the back garden yet, but a few. We get loads in the front garden - where we don't really sit to watch - annoyingly. A great tit was sat on the lilac yesterday and I swear he was demanding to be fed. Looks like I need a couple more feeders and some bird seed on hand in the front garden. We had a whole group of goldfinches perching on our telephone cable too. Glad the wallpapers back on.

Hope we get a sneaky peek at that wallpaper smiles. I'm excited for you.

Cleaning the conservatory windows and frames for me today, and a bit of sealant replacing if there's time.
Mr H is doing some pointing.
Quick after lunch brew then back to it.

Hi All

Smileless we had our afternoon tea shindig yesterday - 10 people plus kids - and the lemonade scones you posted the recipe for went down a treat! Thankyou. One person was vegan so I also made vegan scones and cakes which turned out fine, much to my relief!!

Quiet day for me today after busy couple of days baking and entertaining..think it will be a film on TV with a cuppa and left over cake. I recorded "Ladies in Lavender" a few weeks ago (Maggie Smith and Judy Dench). Wanted to see it when it came out several years ago so looking forward to watching it now

Have a nice Sunday All

Hi Madgran. Your shindig sounds lovely. I must try those scones sometime. Enjoy your Tv and cake time.

More windows to clean for me today and gutters for Mr H. Then we tackled the last defunct water feature. While the first one smelled like drains as it was full of rotting vegetation, this one yielded a large carrier bag full of soggy cigarette butts. The stench! I mixed some Milton sterilising fluid, sprayed it with that, and have left it to sit a bit before cleaning it properly. Urgh.

Footy on TV for Mr H and some writing time for me now.

Ladies in Lavender was a nice film. Unusual. Brilliant acting from Maggue Smith and Judy Demch. A rather sweet/sad story with a nice ending. Worth watching

Madgran* I watched that film "Ladies in Lavender" I really enjoyed it.

Morning everyone.

Glad your afternoon tea do went well Madgran and you enjoyed the scones. Wow vegan scones and a vegan cake, well done.

That second water feature sounds like a nightmare hugs. Fancy using it as an ashtray!!!!

Started painting the bedroom yesterday afternoon and will put the second coat on today. Once again I was right and Mr. S. was wrong. I said 2.5L of paint wouldn't be enough but he would insist and now has to pop out this morning to buy some more.

Horror of horrors yesterday on our way back from church, just got through a set of traffic lights and my car died again. Thank goodness Mr. S. was driving. He jumped out, popped the hood, disconnected from the battery, reconnected and we were off.

Less then 5 minutes later when we pulled up outside our house, it happened again so he's going back to the garage this morning.

It's really worrying me now because it's put me off driving my car. Fingers crossed that the garage will come back and say they've identified the fault (obviously it wasn't due to an old battery) and have fixed it.

I like that film too and Maggie Smith and Judy Dench are two of my favourite actors.

I haven't seen Ladies in Lavender. Must give it a try Madgran.

I'm always right with things like that too smiles - they never listen tsk.
Do hope the car is easy to fix and not too expensive.

Cleared out a small shed today - still clearing out the previous owners junk - and went to the recycling centre, which is right next to a lovely country park. We heard a nightingale there for the second time this week, as well as song thrushes, black caps. reed warlers, willow warblers, chiff-chaffs, wrens, a serin, and a restart. Also spotted our first American robin. Good birding trip.

What a lovely array of birds Hugs take it you are in the USA then. I'm getting lots of little birds now, makes me so happy.
Where I lived before, we got every bird you could think of and lots of them, must have been because we were between 2 big woods. I am by the sea here so different birds.

Worried about my upstairs neighbour, haven't heard him since Sunday night. We are getting on well again now, so would have thought he'd tell me if he was going away. I've phoned him and text without reply. I'm thinking of calling the police, but I'll check with my other neighbour first in case he told her about going away.

I hope your neighbour's OK Yogin. Checking with your other neighbour is a good idea and if they don't know if he's gone away, contacting the police may be the right thing to do.

I'm sure neither the police or your neighbour will mind if it hopefully, turns out to be a false alarm. It shows you care, and we could certainly do with a lot more of that couldn't we.

I finished painting yesterday and am really pleased with the result. I have a singing lesson this morning and Mr. S. is bowling this afternoon so we'll dismantle the 4 poster bed today so he can get cracking with wall papering tomorrow.

It's a man thing hugs; they don't listen and they don't look for things either.

Not good news about my car. It has to go back to a Fiat dealer on June 2nd for a diagnostic test, labour is £138 an hour. Just hope that the actual problem isn't major and it's finding out exactly what it is that's the problem.

The car's 10 years old, only has 34,000 on the clock and I love it so I'm dreading it being a really expensive job that wont be worth the cost.

I love being at the lodge for the variety of bird life and we're going at the end of the month for two weeks. Here it's predominantly sea gulls which I love, when they're not 'bombing' our roof terrace.

No, I'm in the UK Yogin so it was quite a surprise to spot an American robin. But my birdsong identifying app concurred with the visual ID. No idea how he got here but here he seems to be. There is a guy with an aviary full of all kinds of birds not far away so wondered if it might have been an escapee.
I do hope your neighbour is okay.

Well done with the painting smiles. Enjoy the singing and I hope Mr S enjoys his bowls. Oh yes - the not looking thing. Mr H has been known to ask where something is when it was in his hand 'Oh, I didn't realise this was it' (err label).
Ouch at the car repairs, hope they can sort it reasonably easily. Fingers crossed.

Resealed half the conservatory windows today then ran out of sealant so did a bit of weeding. Popping to Aldi after we've eaten for a food shop.

Well done on all your decorating Smiles hope you and Mr.S enjoyed your afternoons. Bad news about your car, fingers crossed they find the problem within the first hour with the cost being so high!

Hugs what does an American Robin look like? Has it a little cowboy hat on

Well now for bad news! My neighbour passed away. Awful situation! I had to wait till 4pm for my neighbour Maria to get home, asked her the 3 questions I wanted to know; has she a key, does she know D's ph no., did Dave tell her he was going away, she answered 'no' to all.

Hate even writing this. I went for the 3rd time to look through his mottled-glass front door, and got a shock, couldn't quite believe my eyes, so went quickly in to get my glasses. When I looked with my glasses on I could see him crumbled at the base of the stairs! Police & ambulance came really quickly, crowbarred his door open, but of course he was gone.

The police told me to go indoors and put the kettle on, they then came in and asked if I was ok, I answered 'no, as he must have been there since Sunday night!' and I did weep. The police and ambulance crew were there for quite a few hours. They had to take the door off to get Dave out. A funeral director was called, and he arrived in a blacked-out van. They put big sheets up to stop anyone seeing as they bought him out, it was awful!

The upsetting thing is that about 8pm on Sunday I heard a loud bang/crash, I got my phone to txt Dave 'are you ok?' and then heard another couple of noises, so thought him ok. Before this at about 5pm I saw him go out with a young woman which I took to be his D or AGD, I heard her say ' you look nice' and off they went walking up the road. So that's why I thought he may have gone away as his D only lives round the corner.

After speaking to my neighbour Maria's upstairs neighbour Clair, I've worked out what I think happened. Clair took Dave out for a few beers as a thank you for something. They walked to the local pub, which is only a 5mins walk away. She told me she didn't think he looked well and was having problems walking and was out of breath. They got a taxi back and arrived at about 8pm. So therefore, I think Dave didn't make it to the top of the stairs but fell halfway or below that, as that would make sense of the noise [not long enough for a fall from top] & the fact, I hadn't heard him return home as I would normally.

Oh Yogin how upsetting and a terrible shock for you.

As you heard noises after the sound of a crash, it's understandable that you thought he was OK. It sounds as if he may have had a heart attack and if you'd alerted the police at the time, it may well have been too late by the time they managed to access the property.

I hope you're OK x

Mr. S. has finished the papering and it's fabulous. I'm so pleased and can't wait to get the bed reassembled tomorrow and the room sorted.

OH Yogin what a shock. Poor neighbour and poor you. At least it sounds as though it might have been quick.

Well done on the decorating smiles.

The other noise after the bigger one, I think was a broom, as that is what caught my eye first and then poor Dave. Found it hard to get him off my mind when teaching my 2 classes last night. Didn't have a class Tuesday, thank God, but I would have had to cancel if I had.

If I'd have called the emergency services on Sunday, I wouldn't feel so bad, but thinking of him lying there for 2 days is awful! If he had called out or knocked on the wall, I would have heard him for sure and looking at him he did look like he was still laying where he fell.

I spoke to his D&AGD [saw his grtGD] she [D] hugged & thanked me, I wasn't sure if she knew the whole story, so I told her, she hugged & thanked me when we parted, which reassured me. There will be an autopsy so will find out if it was a heart attack or aneurysm or stroke or maybe he just felt dizzy fell. Just would like to know if he'd got help straight away, would he have survived.

So taught me a lesson; being a pushy nuisance neighbour is better than this outcome. I was worried that if I'd called the police before I was absolutely sure he wasn't away and they broke down the door, he would have been really mad at me when he returned, but better that then this!

It's good to see your post Yogin. You've had an awful experience and I'm glad that you've been reassured by his D.

It does sound as if it was instantaneous or that he was unconscious so unaware of what was happening as surely he'd have knocked on the wall.

Even if it would have made a difference if he'd got help straight away, please don't beat yourself up over this. You weren't to know and when you were sure something was wrong you acted immediately.

Take care x

Thank you Smiles

Just had a very strange thing happen.
Just sitting here by my patio doors, sitting completely still, when a bright light shone on the inside step to the patio doors. I watched it, it was dancing around, about 5inch squared in a kind of triangle shape. I could see nothing that it was coming from, it suddenly shot away. I sat for a few minutes, trying to work out where this light had come from, but couldn't. There was then a knock on the door, a delivery of a big, beautiful bouquet of flowers from my neighbour's daughter, saying ' Thank you for everything you've done.' It actually upset me as I question if I had done enough.