I Love Scarborough!

 An old school friend of mine, who is in our WhatsApp group went to Scarborough yesterday for work. He used to be a top end chauffer but sadly his business hasn't survived the pandemic and as he has had to take a job as a delivery driver for him and his family to survive. He never moans and looks on the bright side of every day telling us all the places around the country he is visiting he has never been to before and posting photos of where he is today. He is a Londoner through and through, a pie and mash, jellied eels sort of guy, who is a bit suspicious of anywhere up North! I think yesterday was an eye opener for him "It's not half bad here!" he said, in fact he was full of it all day. I was so envious.

I absolutely used to love Scarborough! I'm almost too scared to go back as in my mind, I have such wonderful memories of being there, it has become a sort of paradise. There is a list of the 10 most Heavenly places on earth, well I think Scarborough should be added! So many of our childhood holidays were spent there. We would take our caravan and all I can remember is fun and sea and sand. Often when we lived up there we would just go for the day and I can quite clearly remember the main reason I loved it. The donkeys! I decided when this photo was taken, at three years old I want a donkey and all my life I have said I would get one.

I'm sure the beaches are much more crowded now than those wonderful days when we would picnic on them, I am so lucky to have these happy memories.

I can't tell you how ridiculously pleased I was yesterday that my friend liked Scarborough. I would have been so sad if he had been bad mouthing it and saying it was a dump. We won't be able to go this year but it's somewhere definitely on my top ten list of places to go. 

It's raining at the moment but I think it's just a small hiccup in what is set to be a nice spell. We are going to see my Dad today and do a few last minute checks on the caravan. I have a busy day ahead so better get on. I hope everyone has a lovely day what ever your plans. xx

A Bird Of Prey

 Although it was lovely and warm yesterday, it wasn't as sunny as the day before. I spent a lot of the afternoon, replanting seedlings and the free plug plants that were delivered a while ago. I mentioned that I had been sent an offer for twenty free Geranium plug plants, I only had to pay postage. Well they arrived and they were so tiny I'm not sure if they will ever grow enough this year to flower. I have re potted them all so only time will tell. I also potted a tiny little azalea that has grown from a seed I collected from my Dad's beautiful orange azalea last year. I really want this to survive so will be giving it extra special care.

When I was out in the garden I was talking to my next door neighbour. Strangely after writing yesterday about wildlife declining, he was telling me a bird of prey landed in his garden a few days earlier. I had seen a bird hovering in the air a few weeks ago and it crossed my mind it looked like a bird of prey but I dismissed it as not possible. He wasn't sure what it was and hadn't been able to get a photo but from his description we decided it may have been a sparrow hawk. Although I'm a bit worried for our small birds, it is something quite exciting to look out for. This beautiful photo of a Sparrow Hawk with it's prey was taken by Pierre Dalous and shared on Wikipedia.

Tom finished his shift yesterday and is now off for 17 days. He is so excited to not be going out every morning and crawling through traffic all day. Although we will be driving backwards and forwards to the caravan quite a bit at least we can mostly choose the times we travel to avoid the traffic. I have a feeling it may be quite busy everywhere but if needs be we'll just sit by the caravan and admire the view! Scarlett is coming this morning and we will be out and about in this lovely sunshine. I hope everyone has a really nice day what ever you are doing. xx

The Ups And Downs Of Houses

 Youngest daughter came with us yesterday to visit my Dad as it  is half term and she is off work. It was nice for my sister and I to have an extra pair of hands as there is always a lot to sort out and also nice for my Dad, as youngest daughter is so interested in traveling, she loves to hear the tales of all his travels around the world. He has a story of something that happened in nearly every single country in the world! My Dad also had an appointment with a young man who had come from the company that supplies his Medicare alarm, so that is all sorted out for a year, although there will be a repeat service in six months. I did feel sorry for the young man having to do the servicing, and all the paperwork in yesterday's heat wearing a mask. 

When youngest daughter and I got off the train and were walking the few minute walk back to our house, we stopped to look at the new house that is being built behind us. When we moved to this house seventeen years ago we were so thrilled with how quiet it was in the back garden. Although on quite a busy road the back garden was not overlooked at all. There are lots of large Edwardian houses at the back of us that have really enormous gardens. Many of them were quite overgrown and I think that is one of the reasons we had so much wildlife visiting the garden which we were so pleased about. Sadly over the last few years three houses have been built on land at the back and the builder tells us he is trying to buy the land adjacent to our garden to put two houses on. There is not a road down to the houses, just a narrow driveway so I am amazed he keeps getting planning permission. It has really changed the feel of the area and hedges and trees have been ripped out which is affecting the wildlife. It is hardly surprising the foxes have moved into our garden, it is almost the only little area left for them. I know we need houses but it feels as if every little empty space is being built on in this corner of the country.

Talking of houses, what on earth is happening with house buying at the moment! Eldest daughter and her partner are trying to move from their flat to a house and it is a total free for all! Every house they look at has about another 15 people viewing it on the same day, and they are all sold within a week. They have offered the full asking price on a couple of houses only to lose out to people who have offered way above them. She says house buying etiquette and good manners, if there ever was any, has gone completely out of the window. People are gazumping all over the place! They are on the verge of giving up and leaving it a few months to see if it settles down a bit as it all seems so stressful, but are worried if they do that and house prices continue to rise, they will regret it. I can't help but wonder if there may be a big crash on the way once the Stamp Duty holiday ends. There was an estate agent on the TV saying that wouldn't happen, but I thought he would say that! Only time will tell. 

Poor Tom was back at work after two days off yesterday and has been feeling quite unwell after his second coronavirus vaccination. He has a sore throat and feels very achy. Only one more day though and then he is off for 17 days! He can't wait and he is definitely going a little demob-crazy I think! One other wonderful piece of news is there were no coronavirus deaths in this country in the last 24 hours, which is the first time since the pandemic started. Maybe one day we will get to no new cases reported in the day too, I hope so.

It is another lovely day today, I'm going to get walking the dogs out of the way early before it gets too hot and then am going to enjoy this lovely weather as much as I can. Our first roses have finally come out. It feels like it as been a long time coming this year but it feels all the nicer because of that. Have a lovely day everyone what ever you are doing. xx

Putting On Weight And How To Lose It

 I think I may have to give our Too Good To Go bags a miss for a while. They have been so good and saved us so much money but Tom and I have put on weight. There are always pastries and doughnuts that I don't eat but Tom loves and always crusty bread which is so hard not to eat slices and slices of. The other sort of food I have been eating a lot of is prepared salads like coleslaw and potato salad. I hate waste and as they are at their sell by date when we get the bag we find ourselves piling more on our plates. I'm also eating more processed food than I would normally buy. In the last few weeks I have put on a few pounds, not too much in itself but if it carries on every few weeks goodness knows where it could end up! I have tried to convince myself that it's the weight of my brain growing with all these new Welsh language skills! Sadly I know this is not the case so these bags will have to be a bit more infrequent I think. 

There is one way I find of eating that always makes me lose some weight and I discovered it when I had to go on a special diet before my treatment for thyroid cancer. As I had to have an iodine free diet there was a lot of foods I couldn't eat but one group of foods I had to cut out completely was any pre prepared foods and I'm sure this was the reason that I lost weight. I felt so well while I was on this diet I promised myself I would never eat processed food again. Of course they have crept back into my diet a bit as it is hard to avoid them totally but after watching a TV show the other night about how these foods alter our brain I think I will have another go at cutting them out an hopefully lose the few pounds I have put on. In one way is is so simple, if you look at a food label and it has more than five ingredients or ones you can't even pronounce don't eat them, but that is very hard in this day and age I'm afraid. If you look online there are some people who take a 100 day challenge of the 5 ingredients or less rule in pre prepared  food and I really admire them but I'm not sure if I would be able to do this. 

I've been trying to persuade the rest of the family to join in too as it would be so much easier if we were all doing it, but it's been falling on deaf ears I'm afraid. Youngest son was happily munching on a doughnut out of our Too Good To Go bag while I was explaining it to him. "You're looking at this all wrong Mum" he said "There are only two ingredients in this, a doughnut and sugar!" Now you see what I'm up against!  I will allow myself the odd lapse, especially when we are at the caravan, but I'll let you know how I get on. 

One of last years cubs seemed to have returned to the garden again as there is another young fox, but not as young as our cub, hanging around. Yesterday afternoon was so lovely and sunny youngest daughter fell asleep on the sun lounger in the garden and when she woke up the male fox was happily sitting in the sun too, just a few feet away from her, not a care in the world. I have bought a toy for our only fox cub with our Pets At Home delivery and thought I better buy a new one for Tess and Layla to play with too. I don't want them feeling left out! The trouble is as breeds they play in such different ways. Tess wants to play with the toy and tug it and chew it, but Layla just wants us to throw it for her, then she brings it back and carries it around all day. I think I better buy another one as Layla is certainly not giving it up!

I'm going to my Dad's house today to do his shopping and I'll be checking some of  the curtains I have made for the caravan too. Today is going to be very warm, which is lovely after all the rain we had in May. So it looks like it's onwards and upwards into June! Have a lovely day everyone what ever you are doing. xx

Getting Ready To Travel

 We went to B&Q yesterday morning and it was packed. It was very different to last time we went and made me realise how things are getting back to normal. Although coronavirus numbers are going up in lots of the country, in our area they are very low now and I suppose if it doesn't turn into hospitalisations then there is no problem. I spoke to eldest son last night and he is going back to work today as it is 10 days since his first symptoms. He says he feels fine, just tired but he has his own business and says he can't be a way from it for too long. Tom has his second coronavirus vaccination today and eldest daughter had her first one yesterday so it is nice to think we are all getting protected and am really grateful that we live in a country where we are so lucky to have this opportunity. I know there are many countries not so lucky.

It as lovely and hot and sunny at my Dad's house yesterday when we were working on the caravan. Tom and I worked away while my Dad sat on his bench giving instructions! The waste pipe from the shower room fits perfectly and the new jockey wheel was put in place and looks very smart. We managed to connect the water heater to the water pipes but need someone to connect the gas and then we hopefully will have running hot water, which will be a real luxury as last year we had to boil water all the time. We're nearly ready to use the caravan this year now and it's a lovely feeling. 

I have been working really hard on my Welsh lessons on the Duolingo app and today have been promoted to the Gold League. I have realised the leagues are really to show how hard you have been working, not how well you are doing as I'm sure I don't speak Welsh well enough yet to be so high up. Youngest daughter is so impressed with my progress she is learning Japanese, which seems even harder. She has travelled to Japan so is not a total novice but has still come on in leaps and bounds since she started on the app. I am determined not to lose the momentum whilst away in the caravan and may not have very good internet connection so have bought a second hand children's Welsh/English dictionary on ebay. I imagined it would be one of those little picture books similar to the sort I used to read with my children and Scarlett but it's much harder. 

However it has explained some very simple rules of the language that are not covered in the app. Much of youngest daughters knowledge of Japanese has come from watching Japanese TV programmes with English sub titles. I wonder if I could do the same with Welsh! It would probably have to be a children's programme though, I'm not sure "Do you eat bread and sausages?" or "I like drinking good tea." would get me very far with much else.

I'm going to try and do lots of gardening today as there is always so much to do. I have lost lots of my seedlings to slugs and snails sadly but I'm still hoping that some will survive after all my hard work .It's strange all my collected seeds seem to be doing quite well but shop bought ones not so much. This autumn I think I may not bother buying any, just start planning my collecting whilst all the flowers are coming out now, I hope everyone has a really lovely Bank Holiday Monday and is able enjoy this lovely weather. xx

Cassie Goes Visiting Neighbours

 It was another nice warm day yesterday. I worked on my websites in the morning and then in the afternoon set to tidying up in the garden. It was so nice youngest daughter lay on the sun lounger with Cassie our Yorkshire Terrier sitting with her. Cassie is an absolute sun worshipper. If there is one patch of sun in a little crack anywhere she will find it and be asleep in it. I had to smile as I was working away to see them both stretched out in the sun. Two sun lovers together! Youngest daughter took this photo of Cassie, face up to the sun, one of her favourite positions to be in.

We had to be very careful though as the foxes have dug a tunnel under our fence into next door's garden and it is perfect for Cassie to crawl through if we don't keep an eye on her. The day before while youngest daughter and I were up in London, Tom was out getting the washing in and obviously not keeping the close eye on her I always do, as she got through into next door. She turned a deaf ear and ran about refusing to come back through the hole while Tom was calling her, much to his annoyance. Then there was a lot of drama for a long time as next door were all too scared to pick her up and pass her back over the fence! In the end, one of them braved picking her up and she was unceremoniously dumped into the laundry basket and taken back inside in disgrace. It was pointed out to Cassie that this is why yesterday, she had to wear her harness and be tied to the sun lounger while she was out there. Not that she looks particularly bothered! 

It doesn't seem quite so sunny today but I think it may brighten up later. Tom and I are off to B&Q again to buy some waste pipe and screws (how exciting!) and then we are going over to my Dad's house to work on the caravan. I hope everyone has a lovely Sunday what ever you are doing. xx

An Afternoon Out On The South Bank London

 It felt almost like normal yesterday as youngest daughter and I went on the train to London Bridge. Apart from having to wear masks on the train, underground and the stations it seemed almost as if none of the past 14 months had happened. We walked to the London Eye and just sat there enjoying the atmosphere and being out in the sunshine. There was a very nice feel, as although it was quite busy it was not crowded, sadly though most of the food stalls that usually line the Thames were not there. I hope the people who run them have survived financially and will be able to set up their businesses again. 

We walked along and had a lunch at Wagamama which is a Japanese restaurant. It was so perfectly and safely run, we sat outside enjoying our meal and commenting how things had changed so much in the past year. To pay our bill, we just had to scan a code on the menu that had been given to us that takes you to the Wagamama website, then give the number the waitress had given to us and your itemised bill appears on your phone and you can pay directly. You don't have to pay like this if you don't want to but the pandemic has certainly made businesses adapt in a clever way and lots of good ideas will carry on after it is all over.

After our meal we walked down to all the second hand book stalls and browsed for ages. Some of the books were really expensive but I wanted to try and support the people who own the stalls, who must have had such a bad year and bought an old ladybird book for my collection of old children's books.

Even though the sun had gone in and it was quite breezy sitting by the river we sat for a long time just chatting and planning more days out this summer. It feels as if we need to take advantage of everything just in case it all goes wrong again. There are some positives to the last year and the pandemic in that we seem to appreciate times spent with friends and family so much more. I made a short video of the afternoon there and the busker at the end of the video is worth watching, he was wonderful and really added to the atmosphere while walking along the river.

The weather stayed fine until we got home and I phoned eldest son who was much brighter and said he is definitely on the mend, which for me was the perfect end to a really nice day. I hope everyone has a lovely Saturday what ever your plans are. xx