Not Locked Down but may need to be locked up

Oh Cherry how funny. I wondered what made you go to Plymouth as you hadn’t mentioned a holiday 😊
I successfully got to my cousins and back. Very pleased with myself. Made sure I was home before dark though.
Going to see DS2 tomorrow but he’s only 10 minutes away and I know the way there 🤣
Kaimoana that must have been troubling with your eyes. I’m glad you’re back with us. How did you manage? Sorry your Gubbins visit has been postponed hope you see her again soon
My goodness how come you’re having such trouble with your pension and rent. Is there anyone (was there someone who helped you with the Sallies last time) who could negotiate something better?
Hope you get to go to your meeting and the quiche I’m sure will be well received
Notspaghetti of course you can sit in the quiet corner. I do hope your DH’s operation goes well and your son improves .
No wonder you’re stressed. We’ll be here thinking of you whenever you want a chat. Much love x
Jan hope you don’t get any side effects from your jab. We don’t ever stop worrying about our children do we? DS1 is in Canada and I couldn’t settle till I knew his flight had arrived safely.
Hope your daughter gets on ok. I have heard of these clinics but not sure what treatment is provided
Ixion good to hear Mr I is enclosed in bubble wrap. I will get Jeeves to keep an eye on him too
I was pleased with myself for making the trip to my cousins and back
i love the sound of your sewing room and the view from the window. Do you have a window seat?

That's true Kaimoana 👍 . You can enjoy your own contributions.

Sorry to hear about your shrinking pension and growing expenses
Here is much the same.

Ixion, I love the sound of your sewing room in the canopy of the trees. Fingers crossed for Mr I. 🤞

Well done Doodle for driving to your cousin's! Brave soul that you are.

Is your cousin someone close?

I'm not close as in a close friend to any of my cousins as we didn't grow up together. Mine are either in NZ or ones I have discovered through the family history.

I am reading a children's adventure story. My lodgers bought it for me as a lovely surprise after I told them how, as a child in NZ I had read all these books set in the North of Scotland. I tracked them down on Google.
The Alison adventures by Sheila Stuart.

I was vaguely wondering about your being in Plymouth 🍒 Cherry 🤣😅
Thanks for explaining. Although nothing wrong with Plymouth....

Oh Jan and NotSpag what worries you are having. We never stop worrying do we.

Today I managed a good walk with the group and finished some pottery in the afternoon. Then just me and my helper for dinner. he cooked
His beloved has gone home. She lives in Edinburgh but is a student.
He is moving there soon.

I am enjoying Naughtyneine's posts. Please keep writing.
There was a labrador swimming in the swollen river today.

I hope I sleep better tonight but it doesn't look like it. Elusive sleep. Didn't Keats write about insomnia?

Alas, nothing can be don't about my pesnion, this is a Directive frrom On High - they are cutting everything. You may remember our police are instructed not to respond to domestic violence calls, however dire.
Funding has been axed totally from many welfare groups, mental health particularly.

Isn't the mark of a bully an inadequate who pick on the most vulnerable?

Add to that a desire to bring back work houses and you can imagine I shall end my days picking oakum.

I'm not going to bore you but I've had a few really difficult days. The tears flowed so I now look like Miss Piggy. Hey ho. Off to work I go.. I'm working away from home until the weekend. I made a last minute decision to go by train as I didn't fancy driving the 200 miles home late on Friday. I'm still finding out who is who in class so bear with me.
Not spaghetti... Lots of good wishes that all goes well with your husband's op.
Ixion...Good news that your husband is feeling better now.
Jan... Fingers crossed that all will go well for your daughter and that answers can be found.
Kaimoana... That all sounds way to much to deal with in one go couple with the disappointment of not seeing Gubbins not sure who that is but they are much loved by the sound of it.
Grammaretto... You seem to be having the most fun just now...long may it continue. You get the gold star for English ( reading) and PE ( Scottish Dancing....I used to love that at school).
Cherry...big cwtch for a fellow Welsh girl or in my case girl until I'm cross and then it's a dragon. Behave in class until I get back.

We Lobstars were putting the world to rights even before social meeja.

Grammaretto we’re a funny family of mixed generations. My cousin was 15 when I was born and we didn’t live near to each other then. She was however very close to my older brother and she and her husband used to go on holiday with my brother and sister in law. It’s only really in the last 15 years or so that we have seen more of each other. Now we are the only ones our side of the family left. It was nice to see her and I’m glad I made the effort.
Kaimoana that doesn’t sound a good place to be in. Hope you can still manage your rent but it would be nice if the Sallies re thought the increase. Certainly don’t want to see you in the workhouse. What is oakum? Not heard of that
Naughty I’m so sorry you’ve been so upset. Sending you a hug if that helps at all.
You’ve done a sterling job of keeping track so far. Lovely to have you with us
im sure Kaimoana will fill you in on the lovely Gubbins soon
We will hopefully hear from the missing Mamissimo soon who will have to tell you about dear Spud too
Ixion 🤣🤣 so pleased I managed to cover up my curlers with a headscarf before the photo was taken

Evening All

It's disgusting, Kaimoana, that the government have actually CUT your income. And for the Sallie Ann to raise your rent at the same time is just not what they're about.

Oakum Doodle, is old hemp rope which, when unpicked (a horrible job) was used to jam into the seams of wooden boats to keep the sea out.

I hope those DHs with looming operations can hold their health together and come through with flying colours. And all those offspring worrying the pants off their mums sort themselves out, look after themselves properly! We're all getting too old to cope with high levels of worry. We'll be needing Jeeves to bring highly alcoholic hot chocolate night caps, and that's not good for us either.

It's been a lovely sunny autumn day here in the north bit of Norfolk and I decided this morning to leave everything and go for a lovely sunny walk in the park at the local stately pile. All was well until Kira dropped back to inspect something - and decided to go into the field - which was some distance away - through the electric fence. She now knows! And I walked too far and have blisters! But, this week is a good week. I've decided.

You're absolutely right Grammaretto, Keats did write about insomnia, in his poem To Sleep.
"^Oh soothest sleep! if so it please thee, close
In the midst of thine hymn my willing eyes^".
I hope you sleep well tonight.

Heck Kaimoana, you're losing as much on your pension & allowances as your rent is going up by 😡. That's quite an increase the Sallies expect you to cover. I'm wondering along the same lines as Doodle, I do remember someone helping you before - can they not help this time? Personally, I think it's extortion.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you 🤞 that the visit of Gubbins doesn't get postponed this time round.

Doodle your mixed generation family sounds a bit like mine. I have a second cousin one year older than me and another that is 17 years older. I haven't seen either of them for many years. I'm pleased that you are in contact with your cousin and had a good time when you met up 😊.

😂 *ixion, who took that photo of some of us.*🤣

*NotSpaghetti, Jan and NaughtyNeine 💐💐💐 for you all.

Do any other lobStars have days when you notice that the every day mundane things around seem, ahem, curious? I had one of those days today. On a mundane trip to a well known store beginning with S all the traffic had to stop to allow 🦆s, walking in single file, cross the road 😆. Further along I spied a group of four mature women together, all sporting bright scarlet hair 🤔 😄, further along still I saw a man on a moped riding on the pavement whilst walking a dog 😡. On the way back home, on the other side of the road, along came three unmarked police cars, sirens flashy ... then I saw the entire top of an evergreen tree in the middle of the road as if it were growing out of a pothole 🤯. Nothing curious at all?

I think I'll have something soothing tonight please Jeeves 😁.
Night night all.

https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202410/medium-202364-1-baby-in-a-box.jpg%3C/span%3E https://signal-corridor.live/uploads/talk/202410/medium-963664-babyme.jpg%3C/span%3E

Naughtyneine I am so very sorry you too are going through unhappy times. I hope life brings you to a good place soon.

Gubbins is my almost-4 year old granddaughter. Real name Mila.

I often forget and call her my moko. It's short for mokopuna - the Maori word for grandchild because most days I speak Maori and my elderly brain forgets to jump languages!

Mamisimo nicknamed her and it sounded so appropriate.

Miss Piggy, as we all know, is very beautiful.

If you are interested, 'puna' means a well, spring, but also to 'spring from' or 'spring up. Maori words always have deep spiritual and emotional meanings. 'Moko' is an image, a copy, a sign etc.
So 'mokopuna' is, roughly translated, a living image of the person they sprang from.

Do you have to hand, Kaimoana, that wonderful photo of Gubbins to show NaughtyN, where she was stood on a chair at the table with a knitted hat (a fruit?), very little else and tucking into the contents of a mixing bowl?
I loved that one❤️

Sorry Doodle I forgot to answer your question.

Oakum is tarred rope and still used today by plumber and pipe layers.

It's rope in which every fibre is tarred then twisted together, the finished product being re-tarred, then hammered into the gaps between timbers in ships, or any wooden structure, and caulked over to keep water out.

In the workhouse, everyone, even children and very elderly had to spend time each day unpicking this stuff so it could be re-twisted, re-tarred and sold. Recycling gone mad.

It was the very divil on the fingers as you can imagine and workshouses were never generously heated, or at all, so the indigent inmates were probably hastened to their graves - which was no doubt the idea.
plus ça change

ixion I've asked my son to locate that photo. Watch this space.

That is certainly a lot of strange happenings in one day Cherry
Thanks for the poem I'm sure it helped me sleep.

Where do you find these pictures of the workhouse and the oakum Kaimoana!! Doesn't it look grim.

My gt grandfather wrote about how his first job on warships in the Mediterranean was filling in holes with oakum. This was before he arrived in NZ about 1850.

It was sunny again yesterday so I showed my helper our local stately home ruin . I had to sit down a few times. It must be fun to be 6ft 4. and 20 something.

Thanks, Kaomoana. That picture really brings a smile to my face!
I wish your finances could be so readily sorted☹️. Thinking of you.

I had my first Christmas card yesterday, but one, it transpired, with an ulterior motive. It came from one of our early au pairs, who happened to be in Newcastle visiting her niece at university there, suggesting a meet up.
Said au pair was a rehoming via the agency we used to use. A lovely girl from Istanbul, she had spent six months as what seemed to be in servitude, her main role was to prepare mountains of vegetables for the freezer everyday. No children, no shared mealtimes, adults out with their business all day, endless cleaning of the (big) house ...
I was initially a bit apprehensive about coping with cultural differences, but she was delightful. Very bright and westernised in her outlook, she happily cooked bacon sandwiches for the children and asked if she could be the one to deliver the church magazines. Tinier than all her charges, they loved her to bits.
Despite open offers of 'come and visit' in Istanbul, only DD, in transit, managed to meet up and communications faltered.
Mind you, I did have issues with the address, or rather the display, never being sure where one line ended and the next began.
She went on to work for Honeywell with international travel and her son is now doing a Master's at Cranfield.
I will try to arrange a meet in Newcastle London pdq.

The next couple of weeks are heavily booked in our Health schedule, so hoping we can arrange something!

We used to have a Social schedule in the olden days.

ixion what a great story - I do hope you get to meet up.
I have given myself a talking to today and am clearing the kitchen table (well really I'm just taking a break before I get started 🤔) ... but I WILL start!
I have a huge table which was made for us when we regularly had 14 for dinner so now the two of us can have dinner on just a corner of it.
It's had my sewing machine on one end (full of good intentions) for nearly a month and the middle section is paperwork, kilos of apples queuing for bottling or freezing and our granddaughter's painted stones

I'll be "on it" shortly

Does that mean the two of you could have seven days of rotating round the table for meals without clearing up?

Ooh😁

It's 4:30 am and I've been awake hours so decided to pop in here.

Yes, Cherry Ruth did accompany me as advocate to get my rent reduced a while ago. It tells you all you need to know about my Landlords that they had known they were charging me double since 2017 and didn't tell me.
Then changed their rules so any other tenants requesting reductions based on income, would be asked to leave. (I came within a gnat's crotchet of being "rehoused" into a multi-story.)

We all felt this wouldn't stand up at a Rents Tribunal but who of us had the $$$ to test that? These houses were supposed to be for elderly who couldn't afford market rent.

No refund for me either. Ruth lost her job as Chaplain, or rather was 'promted sideways' into harmless admin.

BUT I have a nice wee home, insulated, modern and access-abled, so I've learned to take de rough wid de smoooove.

ixion and Naughty the photo to make you smile.
Gubbins visit is all on for today.

My appontment at the doctor is at 10am for a Cardio Assessment.
I've made a black cherry cheesecake for the staff. This may sound unusual but not in Maori society.
It's not expected but it's what we do.

Hope you get to meet up with your Istanbul friend ixion. I could tell similar stories about my days as a nanny in London.
Glad she was rehomed and appreciated.

Cherry what ever it was you'd been smoking, snorting or smoking on your jaunt amongst The Unusual, I'll have some please


Hope everyone has a good sleep tonight.
I always settle down with a book, currently a Lillian Jackson Braun, an American author. It has a Scottish theme.

Qwill, enquiring about Scottish national dress, is told,
"And that little dagger in the top of the sock is called a dubh, it's Gaelic and pronouced 'foob' "

Couldn't sleep for laughing at that one.

Ha ha ixion - Yes! Once it's cleared!

It used to live in our dining room but since we had a wall out in the kitchen to make a bigger space we moved it in there
It's a "family table" - just oiled, not French polished. It's beautiful though, English field maple with sycamore legs (as sycamore was SO much cheaper!)

However I've now been scuppered by 🐙 Energy. I've spent five hours sorting a switch TO them.. grrr
For some reason they don't have my meter readings for Electric and are in dispute now with my old supplier.

Very long story but in future I will always take photos of my meters. It's just a fluke that I have them this time!

NotSpaghetti you've been scuppered by a pink octopus?

I bet that table, with its big cloth over gave hours of fun to little campers beneath.

Ha ha Kaimoana2 -maybe I've been on CherryCezzy's magic juice!"
Octopus is a utility company here and has great reviews .... but not from me now!

Kaimoana, thanks for reposting the gorgeous photo of Gubbins 😍. I also love the b&w one and I wonder who the other b&w is of 🤔😉. I think the Maori word, mokopuna is spot on.

That's the trouble with 🐙 NotSpaghetti, they're naturally inclined to get their arms into everything within their reach - and their reach is long sorry couldn't resist 😉. Glad you got your switch sorted in the end even if that has caused a delay to clearing your table. Your table sounds gorgeous, by the way.

What a wonderful story ixion, it sounds like your once au pair was quite take with your family and your family quite taken with her. You have a lot going on, especially with Mr I at the moment but I hope you do manage to meet up if you can. If you can't now maybe there'll be another opportunity in the future.

Whilst yesterday there did seem to be quite a few unusual goings on around my way, and I didn't even mention the fact that I also saw a women wearing a pair of fleecy Christmassy pyjamas get out of a taxi outside Sainsbugs and straight into another car 🤔, today has been a normal sunny autumn day. My WP tackled the pair tree, we had coffee in the village, I bought a bag, my WP picked up a rare LP in charity shop and we had slow cooked ham for dinner. I love a normal day 😆.

Beautiful photo of your local stately home Grammaretto.

Nfk, glad you’re having a good week. Oh poor Kira hope she wasn’t too frightened. I’ve been out walking too. Does you good to get some Sun if there’s any around.
Thanks to you and Kaimoana for the oakum description. I can see why it was done in the workhouse, awful job.
Cherry I love to see cars waiting for ducks to cross the road. It happens here quite a lot. We have a couple of geese that sit on the grass verges by the river and every now and them they decide to cross the road to see if the grass is greener on the other side. Traffic always grinds to a halt.
when walking along by the river with a friend the other day I saw a solar panel in the middle of the water (it was actually on a boat but the boat wasn’t visible at that angle) on the return trip my friend thought she saw a tree growing out of the chimney on a barge. That was an optical illusion too but it kept us amused.
Grammaretto that’s a big chap you’ve got as a helper. I bet he could paint the ceiling without a ladder. Lovely photo thank you
Ixion what a fascinating story about your au pair. It would be lovely for you to meet up. Ah I know only to well what it’s like when hospital visits become the only form of going out,
Notspaghetti that’s a massive table. I must admit my slightly smaller one is pretty much the same. Jigsaw at one end paperwork in the middle and the laptop at the other end.
Hope you get your supply sorted out. I’m with Octopus too
Kaimoana I love those photos of Gubbins. That hat is a treasure 🤣
Do hope you get your visit today, that would be lovely
What a lovely idea to take a treat for the hospital staff.
Hope all goes well

Flying visit as just ( at friends) after a 13 hour day. I think all baking henceforth should be done a la Gubbins.... I'm going to try it out when I get back home....wish me luck for when I bend down to put the cake in the oven..
Hopefully a shorter day tomorrow and I'll be able to post more. By the way...what is a WP? 🤔

WP = Wonderful Partner (I think)

Of course it could be
Wobbly Posterior (me)
Wonderfully Plump (me again)
Washing Powder
Word Perfect
Working Parts (if you have any left)
Wonky Peepers (me yet again)

Until we have corroboration from Cherry please feel free to add to the list.

Doctor's visit Went Perfectly today and Gubbins, my Wee Precious, was cheeky and happy, which made me happy too.

We had Watery Porridge and Whimsy Pudding for lunch.

And I just told you a Wopping Porky.

😂 Kaimoana, WP definitely doesn't = Washing Powder 🤣.
It also isn't:
Western Power
Word Processing
Wild Parsley
Weather Permitting
or, as someone once suggested .... Welsh Prince 😂, which is impossible because my Wonderful Partner isn't Welsh.

Kaimoana is right Naughtyneine, WP = Wonderful Partner. I think I'm the only one on GN that uses it, because it's something I came up with myself as I don't like either OH or SO and me and my WP are not married.

Oh, btw Kaimoana, what is the whopping porky you've told ... is it that you didn't have Watery Porridge for lunch 🤣, but did you have Whimsy Pudding?
I'm really pleased you saw Gubbins 😊 and that the Dr's appointment well.