Morning all.
Another lovely day here. Frosty this morning but it's all gone now.
Sorry to hear about Pereg again Malka Hope she is alright later & it's only a one off.
There's always something with cars isn't there Lynn just think though this time last year you would have been panicking about his to pay for it. Enjoy Gordens long weekend.
Hope you get the van finished today Helena I don't think I would fancy being in one at this time of year though.
I hope you don't need to buy a new printer Rosebud Nothing is built to last nowadays
Enjoy your weekend with Charly Bev it will do you good having a couple of days away.
Same old here today. I've given Taff a good brushing & cleaned up a bit but that's all.

Morning all

Malka, so sorry to hear about Pereg. I've no suggestions regarding your duvet I'm afraid cause I would hang it up outside too but if you can't there's not much you can do.

Lynn, my car is booked in for Monday for her brakes getting done, they are so bad that I am slowing down waaaaay before a junction or behind traffic. I think there's either a leak in the pipes or a blockage cause there's plenty brake fluid in the tank but none getting to the actual brakes. So it's into kwikfit to get sorted out on Monday morning. Dropping her off in the morning and hopefully picking her up again in the afternoon.

Helena, hope you have a nice time at the van (if that is possible).

MM, hope Lyla behaves herself at the cattery

I'm planning not an awful lot today. I'm about to go hang out my washing since it's a lovely day here. Lovely and sunny and hopefully it will dry somewhat. Then off up to the shops to get some naafi stock for the shooting tomorrow, off to visit Mum then tonight well, see what happens. Need to print out the RAM and WHT list, that's about it.

First though, usual crack, getting a coffee and feeding the scalies. Dougal has had his breakfast.

Morning to all those I missed earlier

Dave took Zena out for me so I drove his old Jag bus estate up to the park, that was an experience up those steep little roads on the park lol.

Got the van all finished in 2 hours, had to go to Dunelms yet again for 2 pillows which I forgot to get yesterday when I was in there getting the staple gun for the pelmets to finish those off. It's not hard work doing the change overs in the vans, but it sure is hard work setting it all up again after a shut down when it's been all stripped out and packed away. Anyway, phew finished that one now, on to the next.

Came home and the fencing man was here. Never had such a good workman here since we moved, and he's a gardener not a fencer, but he's made a darn good job of doing some concrete spiking for us, then he moved a big tree and put it in another flower bed, then trimmed it all up for me, all for £90 we couldn't believe that Materials alone were £50!!! I shall keep him close to hand cos I want lots of heavy gardening jobs done and Dave refuses to get his hands dirty in the garden, if he had his way, he'd concrete the lot. He's going to give me a price for returfing our two little lawns and I will keep Zena off them for pee'ing, we'll just use them for a bit of ball play when it's dry and we can't ruin in. I did it myself last year, but I'm not going to lug topsoil and turf up the back here anymore, what with my back, it'll make me bedridden - time to put my sensible hat on methinks.

Dave's been doing the finalising in the bathroom, done the electrics for the mirror, done the plastic around the window, and the last thing to do will be to fit the rad, so it's still ongoing in there.

We've finally got an appointment with the rheumatologist at the hospital for Dave's neck. That could be due to a letter I sent the appointments desk a week ago stating 5 months is a long time to hear nothing, and voila, he's got an appointment for Monday evening 8 pm, so he's not going back to work on Monday now, cos he doesn't want to miss it, so he'll work Tuesday thru Friday next week.

Some more good news is, this new gardener chap was chatting to Dave and he said his daughter is thinking about renting a caravan on another park close by, but owned by the same company as our park, so he said he'll get her to ring me and see if she might want to rent out my little van on a permanent basis. I didn't take on that other woman who kept pestering me cos she was bartering with me, trying to knock me down to rock bottom, but I'm not desperate, so I told her to look elsewhere, but in a nice way(ish).

I just took Zena up the road to the woods cos of course, she had no garden since her morning walk and she did 4 wee's and one poop I'm wondering whether Dave just sat up there in the car park with her this morning, soaking up those glorious views and came back home Can't trust these men sometimes can ya! No offence Gordon! Reminds me of when my friend used to tell me her husband had walked the dogs for her. Well, I used to see him doing this *walk* with them, he'd let them come flying out of the car, run around on the field next to the car park for 10 mins whilst he stood there smoking a big, fat cigar Then he'd load them back in and go off to the pub with them, and when he got home, he'd say they'd had *a good long walk* I never did tell her, but you can't can you!

I see everyone is fine today, hope Pereg is now over the worst for you Malka, sorry to hear about those brake pads with your car Lynn, glad yours is ok though Jen. Norma I don't know how you do the work you do, cos 2 days was enough for me of cleaning and bed making.

Off for some lunch now, gloriously sunny darn sarf, spring is springing, the birds are singing and I can't keep up with all the food they're eating from my bird table They have a currant bun, sunflower hearts, digestive biscuits and live mealworms, and they polish off the lot by lunchtime. I think I'm being taken advantage of here, word's got around about my little café up the top methinks.

Enjoy this lovely day everyone, let's hope this sunny weather lasts now.

Just watched an old film on youtube, my comfortzone time,, sewing up hats etc,

Doggy so thought you might enjoy it even with the ending

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCcLTUaFvnY

Drenched the innards of the printer with DW 40 on the premise it cannot now do any harm but will see tomorrow, argos have one for E39... I think the same cartridges.. I have aload of copying and letters etc for the court case I am helping someone with so must have the printer. H eis dyslexic so cannot do this alone.

Bedwards now soon.....needs must . Dratted flu is all I need but there we are.

Have a lovely day and evening.. all sounds grand Helena re the vans etc...

Blessings and peace

Hello all well we went to look for locking keys for the wheel nuts Gorden isn't sure if he meant the key had broken or one of the nuts anyway in Halfords nearly £40.
We are going to see if the little motor factor shop in March is open tomorrow and see what he has got. The other option is to buy a new set of non locking wheel nuts must be cheaper. To say I am not amused is an understatement.

We popped into Tesco Gorden left his shoes at work last week and put his trainers on for the tube journey back to the boat when he went to get them from under his desk they had gone new pair too. We think the cleaners who were sacked that very same week may of nabbed them. So he got some new shoes in the sale £12 I got some little ankle boots £7 and a new pair of slippers. We then popped into Dobbies for coffee and cake and he was telling me not only is his contract being renewed but he could well be offered permanent and a managerial position one of the women who was off ill when he started won't be returning and the woman he works for is so impressed with him she wants to offer him one of the positions that will be going.
Its not set in stone yet but is sounding good. So we chatted about it and the move that I then felt we hadn't needed to do but talking it over realised we did because if we hadn't we would still be digging ourselves out of the financial hole we had fallen into this time next year.
We can help Mark and Tracey who are struggling and do this house up and save to move in the not too distant future.
Didn't I tell you would this happen though.

Helena hot soak for you and feet up I reckon all that hard work you have done so far.

Hi Lynn, in my dreams for that, cos I don't have a bath......yet!!! Oh I can't wait, the candles will be coming out, the glass of red wine, bit of bubbly, mmmmm, heaven!

Now, I've just read your post out to Dave. He said, even if you went for the non locking variety, you're gonna be paying £5 or more a nut from Crysler and you will have to get them from Crysler. He said locking wheel nuts are the bain of his life, you can never find the locking key, they're a pita, and with a car like yours nobody is gonna want to nick your wheels, so you'd be better off changing all of them over to the non locking type for future emergencies, cos if that one's like it, then guaranteed the rest of them are. He said you could try e-Bay and get a set of 4 probably for a tenner. He also said, if there are 5 nuts including your current locking one, then it's not the end of the world to have got your car back and driven it like that until they got the right parts in. 4 nuts is ok he said. He also thinks they're planks, cos on a busy day like Saturday they should have got both sets of brake pads in for your car and returned the ones that didn't fit! You should have gone to Dave's then Lynn lol! He said go to a small independent next time, never a fast fit centre, they always rip you off. Good news there from Gorden then, but I agree, it was still the right thing to do at the time.

Had a lovely nanny nap, must have been so tired and Dave had shut me in so that he could carry on with the bathroom, and boy oh boy, does it look goooood, now that the big white window is staring you in the face when you open the door, instead of a shappy old thing with no frame. It's all coming togevver in there and it looks beautiful I can't take a pic yet, cos the bath panels aren't on, the rad isn't up, the light isn't in the ceiling and it won't look the part yet,but for me it looks gorgeous, loving my blingy chrome tiles.

I had to cook a whole leg of lamb with lunch this morning, cos the date was today and I don't like to risk it cos I've had campylo bacter in the past and don't want it again. Soooo, I cooked it and now I've chopped it up and frozen all the bits so Zena can have a bit of lamb here and there on her diet. Quality not quantity

Tonight we're having pancakes cos Dave won't be here on Wednesday when it's pancake day. I'm also going to make a dessert that I saw James Martin make on the telly the other afternoon, it's his version of bonaffee with hot banana in sugar syrup with peanuts in the mix, it looked fab and I can't get it out of my mind, so it's going on a plate soon I never, ever had a sweet tooth until I moved here, I can't quite make it out, no wonder I'm getting a porky belly.

I've now got big plans for my garden now that I've found this new gardener, so I'm going to make a to do list for him.....could take a while

Enjoy your evening everyone and Hi to Sally for when you pop in later, hope you've had a good day and haven't spent half of it tending to Jimmi's paws. I'm sure he's good atm though, and so is Zena's ear now.

Thank Dave for that Helena.
We will come to yours next time and stay in the van while Dave does the job.
We had found a nice young independent mechanic back in Harlow reasonable too he was mobile and very good. Oh well we will have to do some research into the garage up the road for future work.
Enjoy your pancakes.

Morning all... late start for me today, lie in and now I can't seem to get my big fat ar*se off the sofa... I will have some more coffee and see if that helps!

Sorry about the car trouble Lynn, brakes and me don't go well together, Mr M always says I ruin brakes - silly man!

Well the last 3 days have been glorious and springlike and this morning it is snowing

Love to read your posts Helena you are always so busy, and you always have plans afoot for something, pleased the birds are enjoying your table, I love to watch them on mine, although I think my food offerings are a bit substandard compared to yours!!!

happy March everyone xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Afternoon all,

A busy day with a pleasurable morning walking the dogs and seeing my friend and an afternoon of hard graft cleaning up silt etc etc. I let the dogs loose in the river garden today for the first time and they went loopy. Its still so boggy but I figured with more rain due they probably won't get a chance to have a real race around again for some time. Needless to say I had to shampoo their legs and feet when we came in. When I opened the fencing for them to go down the steps they refused to go and kept looking down and then at each other I ended up going down first and running off at which they raced after me. Its been such a long time since they've been allowed down there I think they thought something horrible would happent to them The lawn looks even worse for going on it but they had so much fun it was worth it

LS what a lovely thoughtful present for your Dad ... I bet he'll be tickled pink with it
Malka As your duvet seems to take quite a hammering on a regular basis with bodily fluids I think your only answer would be to permanently have a waterproof sheet on the top of it for Pereg to sleep on rather than directly on the duvet. I hope Pereg is OK and hasn't had any further fits.
Lynn What a pain in the neck about your car and the wheel nut Hopefully you'll be able to source one ... or maybe it was a whole set of nuts .... I'm confused ... nothing new there then Also what a pain about your brakes
Rosebud I hope you feel better soon and manage to get your printer to work.
Helena Well done super-woman Your posts exhaust me ..... but then you've always raced around doing lotsa stuff haven't you Good luck with van 2 If you have any lamb left over you know where I am ... my favourite meat .... mmmmm ... mint sauce, lamb and roasties
Lynne I bet Taffy is looking lovely. After my two have been racing around in the 'silty' garden they now need a good brush ... especially poor old Rucksack who spends his live being rugby tackled to the ground by Flash
Nippy .... mint Feast are ice cream are they not
Norma I hope you had an entertaining dog walk 'cos the rest of your day's agenda didn't sound too thrilling
Moyra and Gordon I hope you both had a good day ... not together, of course Hopefully you too have both had an unusually lovely sunny day
June I hope all is OK with you ... its unusual for you not to be on before this I'll pop back in later and check you are OK.

Hi Daisy you snuck in. Did that coffee help you Isn't the world weather crazy at the moment and especially for you being lulled in to an early spring and then suddenly snow Keep warm and happy to March to you too