Today I have been mainly Vol. 6

Had lunch with sister and BIL today and it was very nice, lovely restaurant in Durham. I was away for my birthday so we had a belated celebration. She has very good taste, bought me a blouse and cardigan and Estee Lauder skincare products

Happy Birthday number

Thank you.
Gagagran, I feel the same, where the hell did the 70 come from?

number Many Happy Returns! Glad you've had a lovely Birthday.

Happy birthday Number

Happy Birthday number - hope you have a lovely day. I'll be joining you as a septuagenarian at the end of August - how can that have happened? Last time I looked I was only 39!

Been opening my birthday cards today, blimey, the big 70! So far, have been given £80 altogether, and a lovely voucher for my favourite shop, Bonmarche, from a lovely friend.

Forgot to say: the conservatory chairs are now clean - whopee!

Could see you on the way back Petra, will give you a wave. Have a great time. Please polish up the sunshine over France for us as we will soon be setting off in our motorhome.

Have a lovely holiday petra, fingers crossed for good weather

Packing Motohome for the 2nd trip to This year to France and Spain.
Ferry from Dover tomorrow evening.

Doubt if you'll see me if it wins. It's common knowledge that, if I get the 100/1 winner I'll spontaneously combust .....

12th June on you, then, Tegan?

Going to granson's third birthday party but will be sneaking upstairs to watch the telly to see if my 100/1 horse can win the Derby....

Today those chairs WILL get cleaned , the house sale went through smoothly . Kittylester I do hope you have found a suitable place.

Aka hope you are feeling better

Tegan it was really good and did use growing and shrinking puppets which they managed to change with great speed.

Have you seen any of the Blunderbus Theatre Company productions. They put them on in the little theatre (I have, predictably, forgotten it's name) around Christmas. Last year we went to see the 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark' - they are huge fun and involve the children (and their grandparents)

Today, I have mainly been looking for a Nursing Home for Mum and I think I've found one!! One of my brothers and I looked at about 6 which were so dingy, dirty and disheartening that I was really fed up. Then, in desperation, we went to one that we had discounted as it was a bit further for us all to travel. It seemed so lovely that I am almost scared to look at the CQC report - just in case.

Looking at the runners and riders ....

Sounds a perfect day Hannoona. Today I am cleaning some conservatory furniture which has come from my mother in law's house. Hopefully the sale of the property will be completed today; the fourth time lucky!

Today I am having a sit on the bed and watch tv and read magazines day. I have French Kiss lined up for about the 10th time and a selection of magazines of the kind I would never normally buy.

later on it will be menu planning and getting things sorted for all of the children coming for their dinner tomorrow. That's a Scottish dinner, the one at lunchtime. :D

Aka Hope you're feeling brighter this morning.

Jennycockerspaniel, I`m honoured to share my name with one of your dogs! Honest!

Sook I have a Philips HR2304/1. a one litre version. This is a few years old. there are more modern equivalents. It uses a pre frozen disc (like a cool box ice block.) You put that in the mixer bowl and attatch the churner blades to the motor and it mixes and churns the ice cream whiles it freezes.
Then you can just scoop it out into smaller pots and stick in in the freezer.

This is the current version.

www.philips.co.uk/c/kitchen-appliances/20-w-1.0-l-powerful-cooling-system-hr2304_70/prd/

It does make a fantastic ice cream, the like of which you cannot get in the shops. Just a plain vanilla flavoured custard with cream added is gorgeous. Or just whizz up strawberries with a sugar syrup and 300mlof whipping cream. There are a lot of inexpensive ice cream recipe books in the shops as well. The ginger wine one is lovely, even without the wine. Try that with mango puree, or with soaked dried apricots, figs or/and fresh banana. The flavours just work together.

Taxing my car and having my eyebrows tinted.... not a great success! (They are still sparse BUT a shade darker ) and ironing and hoovering and dodging heavy showers....AGAIN!

Weather foggy ear plugs in so never heard DH get up so had a snoozy morning with Penny and Lois cockerspaniels

Oh I kept looking at that and wondering about taking my grandson, kittylester. Last time we took him to the theatre was to the pantomime the year before last. I assume it used a lot of puppets; we saw The BFG at Derby Theatre the other year and it was brilliant the way people were big and then small. Just got back from seeing the 'premiere' of Shane Meadow's documentary about the Stone Roses. I've never quite 'got' the Stone Roses and the adulation they still command and was hoping the film would explain it to me, but it didn't. However, Shane is a local lad and we like to support him. I think the film was showed to 200 cinemas throughout the country and me and the S.O. were probably the only none Stone Roses fans at any of them. I felt a bit like I did when I went to St James Park and sat in the Newcastle seats but was secretly supporting The Baggies who they were playing .