Help calm me. House buying and selling stress *Part 9*

Nice to read these chatty posts about how you are doing, yum yum freshly baked cake, sigh it is only a memory now and a beautiful family gathering ahead yogi

I have been on a walk to the local shops, purpose was to visit the two charity shops for dvds and books. I got 3 sets of dvds and no book. The dvds are already out of their space-taking cases and in my dvd filing case. I am planning to give up amazon prime when the sub is due, will not be worth the £95 a year to me

I also got some local grown organic veg and popped into my lovely local library, which I am intending to join and brought the forms back. They are starting knit and natter next week so I shall get a sock started to take, will be something easy to do while I concentrate on whever is there. Lovely start to my day tbh.

Morning all, just back from the beach and the plums I'd put out out the front for people are all over the pavement and road, and the washing up bowl has gone. I thought that I might have hit it coming out of the drive, but that doesn't explain the bowl's disappearance. Bit shocked, it's a nice road, looks like we've had a not so nice visitor.

Just watching 'Capture' on BBC Iplayer, I'm intrigued!

unbelieveable. What some people will steal. Some of them just don`t appreciate generosity

Yet another change, I was fine with plusnet at £12 a month, I had to renew and it was either £18 for the same snail speed or £24.50 for fibre and everyone said to get the fibre, so I did. I see that it will go up next march with rpi plus 3%, that is a lot. Anyway the router has come and I have set up my 3 things, tv, phone and laptop. Faster broadband makes no difference really, I don`t want my life to get onto the faster everything escalator but it seems that we cannot avoid it unless we live in the middle of no-where

Strike my last post! Found the very squashed washing up bowl up the road when I walked the dog. It must have stuck on the tyre and blown off. So Halloween Pumpkin will go out after all! I can hardly believe it's almost Halloween again already.

I'm paying £32 with TalkTalk karmalady, I need to do some shopping around. I must say having the faster speed has been good whilst I've been watching tv on my laptop. I still haven't set my tv up as I need to move about 12 heavy boxes, the cable has got caught behind them.

£24,50 with plusnet razz and it is fast now. I got stuck trying to get my soundbar to connect with new wifi, so that alexa could connect. Took me well over an hour and an app on my mobile, frustrating time

I am glad you solved the washing up bowl mystery in a good way

My throw is just about finished, very warm and quite heavy. Enough yarn left to make another for dd

Well I am back home, and waiting for my Sainsbury delivery later this morning, and then for the arrival of my Sister-in-law for a couple of days stay.

It was an interesting weekend, glad I went, but NO .....not likely to do another. So much waiting around trying to find ways of killing time. Saturday, after such an early start - reason being is that I get on the coach at its start, over the next one and three quarter hours it picked more people at five different stops before finally getting on its way to Birmingham. Nearly full coach, but I was fortunate, no-one on seat next to me, so had double seat to myself. Interesting 'comfort' stop on motorway of place, not at normal type of service station, could only be described as a foodie store, like a farmers type store. The prices were unbelievable (well, to me). Then, finally we left the coach in Birmingham, and had a couple of hours to sort out lunch, (I had taken mine with me from home), so sat in a very pleasant area with a pot of tea and a cake and people watched (one of my favourite hobbies). Finally on the barge for our trip along a couple of the canals.

Then onto a very pleasant hotel - time to relax before an evening meal there (as usual I had to take the duvet out of the cover, duvet on floor, just the cover on the bed for me - The meal was far better than I expected and it was interesting chatting to people over the meal. Back in my room afterwards and my normal weekend long 'phone chat to my daughter in London, and time for bed.

Best part of staying at hotels are the breakfasts - always eat far too much with those buffet style ones and tell myself that eating two or three of those tiny little pastries whilst waiting for the toast to be done means they have no calories!!!!

On to train station and then 'choo choo' steam train to take us to Stratford on Avon. Coach collected us and then deposited us right in centre of that town with four hours to use (waste)!!! I did go on a very lovely boat trip along the Avon. then with a cup of coffee I people watched. Finally back to coach and got indoors (daughter collected me at coach stop), at 7 pm last night.

Everybody was very friendly - almost too much for me. I am happy in my own company on this sort of thing. Nothing went wrong, but not really my type of thing. Talking to others it appears that most of them are regulars, doing several of this type of outing each year. Some overnighters, some several days.

Good that I tried it, may do the very occasional one day trip, but definitely not any more overnighters.

We were fortunate in that the rain missed that area completely, although I understand there was quite a lot at home. Bright and sunny again this morning.

Ooh, I did love to read about your trip Franbern and welcome home

Franbern your trip sounds full . I love Stratford and when my husband was alive we started to take the children to the RSC 6 years before his death. In 2003 we had tickets but the children decided they didn't want to go any more so we where going to take friends. Unfortunately by the November he was to ill to go. But as it was our treat gave them the tickets so they could take a couple of friends. We saw wonderful William Shakespeare productions with all the top stars. Thanks for jogging my memory.

Last time I went into Birmingham was 2008 when my daughter went with me and her brother to get his 21st birthday gift . Couldn't get out quick enough it had changed so much. Funny all the years in the Midlands never went on a barge.

I love going on trains but would hate a coach journey..

Glad you got home safely. Enjoy your visit with your sister in law.

I had not been in Stratford on Avon since Easter 1969. It was interesting. Great market down by the Avon, very similar to the one we can see in Wells.

Birmingham I often went to for meetings, conferences and competitions. I suddenly realised that the NIA, at which I was officiated at competitions, is right next to the canal system - and yet, somehow I never knew that. Amazing how blinkered we can be.

Franbern your trip sounds great even if it was a lot of faffing around. I too am a great people watcher.
Your comment about being blinkered resonates with me. When I was showing dogs - for over 40 years - went to some great places- pretty much all we saw was the showgrounds. Such a shame really. I went to Birmingham in 2013 but as I went for Crufts all I saw was the NEC. I don't think I will ever forget the traffic jam we encountered coming out of the NEC, it took 4 hours to get to I think it was the M42 which was not very far away.

I have decided to do something about a cc, due entirely to the fraud talk. I have one with smile but only use that bank account for cc these days. It used to be a good bank but not so good these days, online glitches etc and really quite old fashioned. I asked them to raise my cc limit by 1k, having banked with a positive balance on all the various accounts since the 70s when it was coop. Nah, they said I would have to go through the whole identity process and provide documentation of all sorts

So I clicked on cc info on halifax, with whom I bank and got my answer within minutes, a nice check first without affecting my credit score (whatever that is) then a couple of clicks and my new cc is on its way with the limit that I had requested from smile

So this new card will be easier for me to maintain anyway and now I will only use smile once in a while, just to keep that account going in order not to be cancelled

Just saying, I could keep this to myself but cc is the only way to avoid most frauds and scams due to purchases. Now I am going to raid savings again and load a bit more into halifax savings as I want that nice safety net to be easily accessible purely as a safety net

Time to unearth my jewellery boxes, I have two, with assorted jewellery lola rose etc. I tried on a couple of rings this morning, they fit me now and I have to try not to think of all those lovely smaller rings that I gave away, to family fortunately.

I never realised that losing weight would make my fingers more slender and maybe that is also the reason why my shoes feel bigger

Honestly, those boxes have been tucked away for an awfully long time. I blame the 18ct gold studs that sit happily in my ears 24/7. The boxes are called stackers and are nice so they have come out of hiding. Must now unearth my lipsticks and start using them. Eyeshadow is a no for me as it irritates my eyes but I wear glasses so they frame my eyes anyway. Time to perk up my appearance

Spice Date and walnut loaf sounds really yummy!

Just finishing a lovely book Karmalady called the Kalahari, having lived in Africa I can really picture it all and strangely the couple writing the book were in Joburg the same year and month as myself and my hubby.

Shame about your lovely plumbs Razz maybe a fox or badger? or even a cat. I saw a fox once with a big leather glove in its mouth, it turned and looked at me, if only I could have taken a picture, I could have sent it up to Countryfile for their calendar!

Lovely to hear about your trip Fran sounds like you had a really good time.

Yes funny Karmalady if you lose weight your hands & feet become smaller too. I have some lovely jewellery from when we lived in Africa. Unfortunately, I had some stollen along with a ring my dear m&d bought me for my 21st and also a ring my sister bought me for my 18th.

Oh no, yogi, try not to think about it. That was gut wrenching

My last plants arrived, 16 of them and they have been put in. I now believe that this is my last plant order and the perennials are complete

A bit of a loose end today, I finished my second throw yesterday and they are both folded and ready for use in my living room. They do look nice, shades of sheeps wool and rustic and have used every bit of my early spinning. I just ribbed one of a sock as that is what I am taking to my first knit/natter this week. I am using stash yarn and this pair will be for dd birthday. I need to slow my knitting down now and will probably transfer to spinning soon.

Now I need to unearth a jigsaw, ready for autumn

Karmalady the throw you have just finished sounds lovely. Is there a possibility of a photo, please?

I don`t do photos aldom. They are just roughly spun and plied sheeps wool in different shades of creams to greys to black crocheted in a half double stitch and then finished all the way around and again using a half double stitch. Crochet hook was size 6. Both are big enough to go fully over my knees or around my back. I am very happy I made them

Aldom if you want to see people's knitting and crochet etc go onto the arts and craft forum lots of very talented people there. And full of helpful advice. Karmalady started threads there with ideas etc. She is to modest to say how talented she is so I will do it.

Well done Karmalady on your lovely sounding sheepskin throws.

ooh I came back very happy from the first knit and chat meeting. There were 9 of us and it was really lovely. Honestly I never thought it would be so good and interesting, it was especially nice to chat with the oldest lady there, she had a very sharp mind. I loved it

So I came back to a printer that did not want to connect to my laptop and that took me 2 hours to sort. One day, I expect, it will just be a push button on the wall which will easily connect everything

Love my knit and gossip group which meets weekly on Monday afternoons. There is also one in the local library that meets Monday mornings. So, I could spend all that day at these. Very tempting!!

Afternoon all, great to catch up with all your news.

Cherry tree went this afternoon, logs to neighbour, I've just bagged up all the branches in a builder's bag. I'll be keeping the leaves once they've fallen off for the hedgehog.

I'm at the table in front of the gas boiler, and twice I think I've smelt gas. Just off to email my plumber, have a good evening