Amazon exiles discussion
Trackless wastes
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Today, I shall mostly be...
Collette wrote: "... and The Strangers: Chapter One on Prime."Google says ... "Psychological and Slasher Horror ... After their car breaks down in an eerie small town, a young couple is forced to spend the night in a remote cabin. Panic ensues as they are terrorized by three masked strangers who strike with no mercy and seemingly no motive."
Suzy says ... Ohhh no! ... you already lost me at "Psychological and Slasher Horror" ... ! ;oO
It was a good film, mind you. There are two more chapters to come set within 4 or 5 days of the first chapter. The Strangers and The Strangers: Prey At Night are good viewing as well.I'll defo be buying another bottle of that red either this week or next.
Collette wrote: "It was a good film, mind you. There are two more chapters to come set within 4 or 5 days of the first chapter. The Strangers and The Strangers: Prey At Night are good viewing as well."I can't bring myself to watch anything scarier than a Wallace & Gromit movie, Collette ;o>
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Collette wrote: "It was a good film, mind you. There are two more chapters to come set within 4 or 5 days of the first chapter. The Strangers and The Strangers: Prey At Night are good viewing as we..."I'm just like you, Suzy. I check the endings of books before I commit myself...
Today I shall mostly be ... hoping that everyone stays safe and well during the oncoming Storm. Please don't take any risks and take great care of yourselves ... x
Yay... our village got power cut overnight, but my Afery battery works and I got my coffee (was smart enough to grind yesterday) and vodafone wifi!! yay again.Day off of course.
Post Soviet wrote: "Yay... our village got power cut overnight, but my Afery battery works and I got my coffee (was smart enough to grind yesterday) and vodafone wifi!! yay again.Day off of course."
Really glad to hear you made sure you had your coffee, Post ;o>
We had two teams from the Fire Service in our little side road for several hours yesterday as a huge part of a dormer roof was lifted off a house in a neighbouring road and it had blown some way across to end up blocking the nearby main road which then had to be cordoned off. While they were in the road dealing with this there were 60 to 70 mile an hour winds causing a lot of tree damage and debris was blowing everywhere, hitting parked cars and smacking against house windows! I was so glad the lads were all working as a team in being very careful and all wearing safety googles and helmets!
And, in the middle of all of this ... a guy from a local family firm turned up (as was previously scheduled) and decided to actually go ahead with removing our old UPVC back door and replacing it with a lovely new one, frame and all! ;oO
Our doorway was in a quite sheltered area due to the close proximity of the garage and the wind continually blowing at gale force in a different direction ... but still ... I was utterly amazed that he had chosen to turn up to work all the same.
I was thinking that there does seem to be a lot of truth in the saying that folk are often made of much harder stuff oop North! Amber to Red Alerts and danger to life warnings ... Tornado force winds carrying off garden furniture and rocking and tipping over caravans on driveways ... knocking over small sheds and bringing down roofs, trees, brick walls and power lines ... and I'm sat in awe watching one little wiry guy just keeping on going with chipping and ripping out a door frame and fitting a new one?!!
I felt the very least I could do was make Bacon Butties for him and then sit on the floor in the Kitchen so I could assist with all of his tools in his toolbox to stop them from being put down on the patio and potentially swept by the wind down the garden! ;o>
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Post Soviet wrote: "Yay... our village got power cut overnight, but my Afery battery works and I got my coffee (was smart enough to grind yesterday) and vodafone wifi!! yay again.Day off of course..."
Gosh, Suzy, that was some spectacle! Sad for the owners but good that it wasn't your house. We were lucky here, not much wind and we're sheltered a bit by the hill but it's really cold today, so I shall mostly be looking for stuff to do indoors. I'm sorting out the path edging in the garden which isn't really very warm work, so today's a miss for that. Enjoy your new door, it sounds as if the fitter was a bit of a hero.
It's a huge relief to finally get a new back door installed. Our old one was fitted somewhere around 27 years ago and obviously was not anywhere near up-to-date on being of a high enough security standard in this day and age.The handle had become SO loose that it was literally on the verge of coming off in my hand and it would occasionally jam the door lock either open or shut and needed slamming hard to be able to release the key from the keyhole!
My parents were all for just replacing the door handle if they could manage to get away with it being enough of a fix and so I felt it necessary that I had to step up with insisting that absolutely nothing less than the full replacement of the whole door was needed.
I've been increasing feeling nervous for some time now about how incredibly advanced Burglars of today have become at breaking in using a variety of methods that were never even heard of just a few decades ago ... such as the use of a small and easily portable Chef Blow Torch to simply burn out the lock on a UPVC door.
Our old door was more (ageing and brittle) plastic in construction than it was metal and I suspect that the huge lower panel could probably have easily been kicked in to gain access.
Now I feel I have much greater peace of mind about keeping the house secure ... even if it is only for long enough to be able call the Police to report that I can hear someone trying to break in. With our old door, I often thought it would probably take little more than just the breath of a Magpie's early morning cough to knock it open ;o>
Today, i will be back to work after a lovely holiday in the Phillipines. 32ºC and white sand, back to 3ºC and grey concrete. Lovely.
Today I shall mostly be ... SO jealous of Sera69 for having a lovely holiday in the Phillipines ;o>Back to work ... still wearing your Flip Flops and carrying your bucket and spade! ... LOL!!!
Tonight got power & internet back (water yesterday). Huh, four days/nights filled with candle light and meals made on fireplace are over I guess... '0)
Awww, so happy for you, Post ... x ... what a huge relief to have mains power again! ;o>
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Awww, so happy for you, Post ... x ... what a huge relief to have mains power again! ;o>"Well... could be worse! Very glad our polytunnel survived.
(check couple photos I put)
Thank goodness you still had the ability to be able to cook in the traditional way in the fireplace. Is that a stove top using bottled gas?
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Thank goodness you still had the ability to be able to cook in the traditional way in the fireplace. Is that a stove top using bottled gas?"Yes, it's a gas bottle bought some... 22 years ago for traveling & picnics use. Was lucky still got some gas left! People now buying like mad stuff like that, generators. Sonasty storm was never before in Ireland, still there thousands homes with no electricity.
I must admit I've always had a fear of ever needing to use bottled gas even in an emergency. A neighbour two doors down from our house somehow managed to blow up his entire Garage and part of the side of his house by storing several bottles of gas that he used to keep to use whenever they went caravanning. I have no idea why but he also used his Garage to store several huge filing cabinets that were full of all kinds of paperwork and so all the neighbours spent the best part of a week collecting the remains of pieces of paper that had been caught up in the explosion followed by the fire and blown all over our side road.
I was already unsure of bottled gas before that happened but afterwards ... !
I know that millions of people all around the world use bottled gas and find it perfectly safe to do so but I am now far too easily scared by even the thought of it ;o>
Today I shall mostly be ... still pretty much bedbound with extreme Hip pain ... but while I am currently still stuck like this I have had a clear view of the roof being replaced on the house whose back garden adjoins our next door neighbour's back garden. And it has proved to be quite fascinating so far watching all of the various layers being carefully stripped back and removed although I am aware of having to do this surreptitiously in case the roofers may become aware that they are being watched as I would not ever want them to think that I was spying on them because I am a nosy neighbour! ;o>
It is pretty much an unavoidable view from my Bedroom window and I genuinely find it really interesting in getting to see exactly how a house roof is constructed layer by layer.
Looking forward to some Supernatural and Walking Dead, and a nice cold bottle of wine. Hope you're feeling better Suzy. 🤒
Hiyah Collette, sadly not yet but I still remain hopeful that it's only just another bad episode and there will eventually be a reasonable recovery of sorts once everything has stabilised and settled down again.Meanwhile Pixie is absolutely loving all the time that I have to spend lying on my bed as we have developed a daily routine of crazy playtime followed by lovely afternoons of watching murder mystery films together ;o>
And I get to watch the roof being replaced and am now coming to the conclusion that the Roofers may be intentionally working really slowly to try to build up their number of hours working on it as barely anything at all seems to have been done since last Wednesday. I've seen entire houses being built up from the foundations in less time than it has taken to get this far with this roof! Three weeks now and counting and there is still no sign of a single new tile as yet?
So did Madam decide on the red or the white wine this evening? ;o>
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Hiyah Collette, sadly not yet but I still remain hopeful that it's only just another bad episode and there will eventually be a reasonable recovery of sorts once everything has stabilised and settl..."On the slowness of builders, Suzy, the plot next door to us has been in a state for the three and a half years since we moved in. First they demolished the old workshop, then they sold the plot to a developer. Then he started clearing the ground and did a lot of redistribution of soil at the top of the slope and built a bit of blockwork wall. By Christmas 2023 he'd started putting in the foundations. He kindly(?) cut back and abandoned some of our laurel so that they could put up some scaffolding to work on the side of the new house. He skated over the fact that no one had asked and the scaffolding is on our side of the boundary. The house still isn't finished, Openreach cut back and left more of our laurel to put up a new telephone pole for the new house, though to be fair, Brad did take it away when I complained. Some days, or even weeks, nothing happens at all. The garden is a total mess and the old fence is a wreck, where it still exists. None of this is all that much of a nuisance to us because of the layout of the plots but the neighbours further up have had issues over access. I haven't said much about the laurel, I really don't like it but we can't dig it out for fear of destabilising the slope. It's going to be drastically cut back next month and I hope that the new house can be finished by the summer but I'm not holding my breath!
Hope you're feeling better.
Yeah, something is not quite right about these Roofers and I am feeling sure that they are in no hurry at all to complete the job. They actually worked quite fast at first to strip down all the layers of the old roof and then started work on replacing each layer but once they got to the wooden batten replacement stage they just seem to have reached a complete stop and nothing has changed in well over a week and a half despite them still being there ... mostly sat on the scaffolding or aimlessly walking around the roof every day except for at the weekends.
It seems odd that all of the four lads are definitely coming to work on it for at least 7 hours a day but the roof nevertheless still remains looking exactly the same now, day after day?
Isabella wrote: "... He skated over the fact that no one had asked and the scaffolding is on our side of the boundary ..."Unfortunately we live next door to someone who, very sadly and for some bizarre reason we have never been able to fathom, has a really deep and intense jealousy and dislike of my parents. She constantly makes huge issues over the boundary between our two houses and keeps on insisting that the large long flowerbed that separates our driveways is also partly hers ... although in reality, according to our House Deeds, it is well over onto our side of the boundary.
She steathily enjoys hacking away at whatever my Mum plants in what she believes to be her half side, severely cutting back plants, bushes, and even trees until they start to suffer and die as she pretty much hates everything that my Mum plants.
We mostly prefer to stay calm and polite and to ignore all of her daily hysterical rants and extremely obsessive behaviour but we had to make a stand and put our foot down 10 years ago when she put up fencing and tried to anchor two of the fenceposts up against our Garage wall. We just stopped the workmen in time before they were about to be installed over 2 metres onto our property and it was obvious to us that she was planning on going to use this attempt at encroachment to try to claim even more of our flowerbeds including two stunningly beautiful small trees that she has been fixated on wanting us to cut down for over 20 years.
And we would consider and maybe concede to cutting them down if they were actually creating any kinds of issues for her, but they aren't, they are just very old and beautiful trees that apparently don't visually appeal to her compulsive need to have nothing else but concrete to look out upon.
It really is awful living alongside a neighbour who has no respect at all for boundaries, kindness, community spirit and common decency. Every time she hires someone to do anything on her property we always find we have to speak to them to politely ask them not to remove, build upon, or damage anything that is on our property and belongs to us ;o<
There are some very strange people about, Suzy. It’s a shame you have one so near.
Isabella wrote: "There are some very strange people about, Suzy. It’s a shame you have one so near."It is a great shame. I know I would say this about our own family but we really are very quiet and respectful and considerate neighbours. I have racked my brains for years as to why my parents seem to be the main focus of this awful woman's unhappiness and anger issues but, in all honesty, there really is no reason at all. It just is how it is.
Today I shall mostly be ... thinking "WOW! ... it only seems like just yesterday it was Christmas and now it's already midway through February? Where does the time go?!!"
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Today I shall mostly be ... thinking "WOW! ... it only seems like just yesterday it was Christmas and now it's already midway through February? Where does the time go?!!""It's behind you!
Miss Snowdrop has the vet at 11am to get her nails trimmed. Looking forward to that being over and done with. Just hope we don't have to chase her all over the house to get her into her pet carrier.
Brass Neck wrote: "It's behind you!"LOL!!! ;o> ... ;o> ... ;o>
Collette wrote: "Miss Snowdrop has the vet at 11am to get her nails trimmed. Looking forward to that being over and done with. Just hope we don't have to chase her all over the house to get her into her pet carrier."Oooooooh?!! ... I've been wondering whether it is necessary to book Pixie in at the Vets to have her nails trimmed. We never did this with our only other cat ... but I'm going back over 40 years to a time when Vets only dealt with illness prevention and treatment.
Is this now considered an essential part of cat maintenance or is it more of an optional choice, Collette?
Today I shall mostly be ... STILL watching the now unbelievably slow Roofers in their usual state of inaction. It seems it takes one to fix each individual tile in place ... one to sit next to him on the Roof chain-smoking cigarettes ... one to sit on the scaffolding platform swinging his legs while playing with his phone ... and one to appear from seemingly nowhere every couple of hours with drinks and snacks for everyone.The Roof side that is in my eyeline facing the bottom of our garden has resolutely remained at the yellow wooden batten stage for 4 weeks now through so many days of sunshine and snow, gale-force winds and heavy rainfall.
I think the house owners have given up on expecting the completion of the job any time soon and have gone away on holiday!
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Collette wrote: "Miss Snowdrop has the vet at 11am to get her nails trimmed. Looking forward to that being over and done with. Just hope we don't have to chase her all over the house to get her int..."Don't take this as an expert opinion, Suzy! I have the impression that outdoor cats aren't likely to need their nails trimming as they get wear from their outdoor activity, so possibly an indoor cat like Pixie might need her nails doing.
Those roofers sound as if they need a good talking to!
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Collette wrote: "Miss Snowdrop has the vet at 11am to get her nails trimmed. Looking forward to that being over and done with. Just hope we don't have to chase her all over the house to get her int..."As Isabella said Suzy, indoor cats will need their nails trimmed, even if they have the best scratch post in the world. We take Snowdrop every 3 or 4 months. If you don't get them trimmed there's a possibility of them actually curling. Happened to wee Ebony. I thought she'd stood on a tac and it was her nail.
Snowdrop did her squirmy baby impersonation this morning trying to hide her tootsies. Thank god that's it over for another while.
Today I've did the rest of Mum's housework, caught up with my soaps and enjoyed a very pleasant whisky or 3. River City time now.
Forgot to say, my baby girl turned 4 today. At Mum's, so we shall celebrate tomorrow when I get back home again. Happy Birthday my beautiful Snowdrop. Can't imagine life without you. xxx 😽🎂😽
Awww ... x x x ! Happy Belated Birthday Little Miss Snowdrop ! ... x x x
Thanks for all the advice on nail trimming. I will mention it to our Vet and see if I can book an appointment. There is no way I am even going to try to attempt to do it myself even though Pixie really loves being brushed and having her little toe beans massaged ;o>
Today I shall mostly be ... watching the four Roofers finally start fixing Roof tiles for a couple of hours until they seemingly got bored and decided to go home at lunchtime and not come back? ;oOThen I watched a Squirrel climb up and wander across the extension roof as though he was also feeling amazed at how long it was taking to finish the job and was just checking up on the progress so far! ;o>
I shall mostly be drinking beer, eating and chilling in Alkmaar. Light relief after watching Tottenham's abysmal capitulation here in the Europa League last night. Hey, it's 19 degrees here in the square outside the Cheese Museum this afternoon, so who's complaining?
Beer? - Yuck! - so definitely not for me, thanks ... eating and chilling in Alkmaar sounds really exciting and interesting ... Football? - I do watch it but I'm not an ardent fan ... 19 degrees in the square outside the Cheese Museum sounds very pleasant ... WAIT! WHAT?!! ... did you really say "Cheese Museum" ... ? ! ! ! ... WoW!!! ... I ABSOLUTELY LOVE CHEESE!!! ... tell me more!!! ;o>
suzysunshine7 wrote: "Thanks for all the advice on nail trimming. I will mention it to our Vet and see if I can book an appointment. There is no way I am even going to try to attempt to do it myself even though Pixie re..."We've never tried doing Snowdrop's nails ourselves. Too scared we cut where we shouldn't. Twenty four quid our vet charges. Could get myself an outfit from Shein and change back for that!
Re spoiled cat's Birthday, she wasn't very impressed. Maybe it was my singing or something!
Collette wrote: "Re spoiled cat's Birthday, she wasn't very impressed. Maybe it was my singing or something!"It seems it takes a lot of skill and hard work to fully impress a Cat! ... LOL!!! ;o>
Pixie is turning out to be part Tabby and part MeerKat. She likes to sit upright and sometimes use her front paws to hold onto my leg or to pull my hand down to her face level if I allow her to see whatever I am holding.
Luckily for me, she has already figured out what "Paws not Claws!" means so I don't get the accidental scratches that I often used to. However I do think that an occasional nail trim would be a very good idea ;o>
How long have you had your wee darling for now, Suzy? Looking forward to a nice bottle of red later and a couple of hours with my gorgeous boys.
Going to open champagne from Christmas to try and cheer ourselves up. We got some grapes and nice ripe brie when we were out, so that will do nicely.
I hope your champers did the trick, Isabella.
Collette wrote: "I hope your champers did the trick, Isabella."A definite improvement, thanks, Collette! 🥂
Lovely day today, garden works began! (barbecue later, yay)
Amazon exiles
Books mentioned in this topic
Time of the Child (other topics)This Is Happiness (other topics)
Time of the Child (other topics)
Mog's Christmas (other topics)
We're Going on a Bear Hunt (other topics)
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The mellow reds, crisp whites and fruity rosés are full of character having been nurtured in the tranquil surroundings of Table Mountain in South Africa. You can virtually feel the love for this land and the passion for winemaking in every sip.
So, just as they make time to give the quality wines time to develop and soak up the warm South African sunshine, make time for Kumala. Make time for you."
... WoW! - it really does sound nice - even to someone like me who hates wine! ;o>