Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 17: Calmly through the day

[MissConductUS]

I've started a new one. Please join us and share the boring and mundane things happening in your world. It will be calming for all.

Here is the link to the prior thread:

Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 16: Calmly through the day

Good luck to all those with long journeys ahead of you, my thoughts are with you

DH has a big birthday in September which I booked a few days off for. Originally we should have been in Morocco (again) but that has been cancelled, so I thought about trying to book somewhere in the UK. According to Booking. com, 95% of accommodation in Devon and Cornwall is already booked and what is left is in excess of £200 a night (room only)

DH had to harvest 39 tomatoes before they burst (because of the weather)

Crikey Champagne. That was close. How's the smell in your kitchen today? All cleared I hope?

Ginger I have finished Night Waking by Sarah Moss. I enjoyed it, and thought it well written, just like Summerwater. I think she's quite skilled at getting inside diverse character's heads. That said, the delicate subject matter probably wasn't the best thing for me to be reading at the moment. I'll be keeping an eye out for anything else by her.

All gone phlox, the up side of a draughty old cottage

I've struggled to buy bird seed recently and have therefore speculated on a 12kg bag of my regular brand.

Naturally the birds have given up on eating seed

Thanks Phlox, I will try her. Still on Rebus at the moment...
DD in a panic because she thinks her pierced ears have closed up. (They haven't).
Going for swim this evening which I will record in my proper swimmer's log book.

Campagne, the birds here are still ravenous for sunflower seeds. Our last purchase was a 40 pound bag and we're going through it really quickly.

I am officially an empty nester. I don't think the cats have figured out that one of their hoomans is missing. I've put together a box of things DS forgot to pack and DH is taking it to UPS to ship up there. He's on his way to the vet with both cats for their six-month geriatric checkups. One was fairly easy to corner and cage, but the other one deduced that there was a catnapping in progress and hid under our bed. DH gently pushed her out from under the bed with a broom and I scooped her up and put her in the carrier. We all managed to escape injury somehow.

I picked up a souvenir in Boston yesterday, a gastrointestinal virus. I'm fairly sure it's norovirus and I'm feeling rather sick poorly. I'll spare you the symptoms if you're unfamiliar with them.

Tropical storm Henri is intensifying into a hurricane and it's headed toward Boston, with landfall predicted for Sunday night. We'll probably get the edge of it in NY. We've asked DS to move his car to somewhere a tree can't fall on it, preferably a covered parking garage they have on campus. He's promised to do so tonight rather than leave it to Sunday when everyone else will be trying to do the same thing. If the car is totaled it will be really hard to replace as there's a severe shortage of new and used cars here at the moment. People are selling three year old cars for more than they paid to buy them brand new.

I'm sorry to be a bit of misery.

Goodness miss, you must be feeling pretty ropey

Our birds are a somewhat ragtag collection of sparrows who live in the jasmine bush that climbs the front of the house. The feeder is right next to the pavement and they are always on high alert for passers by. Pleasingly, they've started to recognise DH and I and will not fly away if we are about.

They are however exceptionally spoilt and are rather contrary as a result.

Hope you feel better soon MissC

Hope you arrived safely SJane and enjoy your holiday.

Doing more banking and packing today. Journey down has stop over hotels this year to break it up and have avoided Fri and Sat as that seems to be silly season for driving down to Devon.

What Rebus are you reading @Gingerwarthog? I’m lying in bed reading ‘a song for dark times’ right now. DH has a big Rankin collection, never read any but my kindle is battery dead I’ve pinched one of his holiday reads. Enjoying it so far.. but when kindle comes to life I better get on with two (not appealing to me) book club books. As I set the book club up years ago.. i do feel rather morally obliged to read all the bloody books! Sometimes a pleasant surprise but no one should be obligated to read ‘Eat, Pray, Love’!

Good luck on the travels and rounding up menagerie @Silkiescatz! Traffic on the roads seems a bit of a nightmare this year with everyone staycationing. Got on the road late yesterday (at one point DH declared we couldn’t go as he’d forgotten to re-order his medication last week, forgotten it hadn’t arrived and couldn’t find any spare packets. I chucked everything out of the medicine cabinet and hurrah! spare packet & crisis averted!). Cottage is v pretty (if wee), view is nice, bed cozy and I really ought to be thinking about how we are going to spend a rainy day in Derbyshire!

@MissConductUS, hope it isn’t noro and try not to get bogged down with ‘whatiffery’ re cars etc. Anxiety is not a blessing on us middle aged women is it? I personally spent way to much time going through all the permeatations of things that could go wrong!

Enjoy the holiday @SJaneS49 we were in the North York Moors earlier this month. We wouldn’t normally go North for the holidays but had a brilliant time.

@MissConductUS sounds miserable! The sickness of body and heart and the approaching storm. Prayers for a swift recovery from all three.

Glad you got there OK SJane, sorry its raining and traffic jams. Hopefully weather will improve soon.

I have just been sorting final things for holiday, putting the itinerary in a document and getting everything to print out and finalising the packing etc. Its all going very smoothly at the moment. Just got the jet boat transfer organised. DH is off collecting 2 parcels of clothes to take with us, mainly new things for DS I ordered. Sorted the banking, and will take silkies and rabbit tonight to pet hotel, got it moved forward. Tomorrow take cat to cattery and then we are ready to go. I asked DH what time we can leave and he said 11.30am Would imagine it will be much later but would be good if can get off by 12pm. Hoping traffic won't be too bad and only going to Bristol for a stopover at a hotel with pool and includes tickets to wildlife park, DH seemed very excited about the wildlife park.

My friend I was going to the Isle of Wight festival with has had to pull out, I don’t want to go on my own so I’m going to have to try and sell both our tickets and find myself a little solo break somewhere instead

That's a shame Sunbird Hope you can find yourself a nice break somewhere else.

Decathlon seem to have sent 1 of my orders back, can work round it.

Slightly warmer today and there is sun!
When we booked DD's sonography appointment we clicked "join waiting list". So yesterday she got a notification for a possible move up. Now her appointment is Monday morning.

DH stopped me from a senseless cleaning effort. He thinks women are culturally conditioned to do a lot of work that no longer makes sense.

We are due thunder here today but every day on our holiday is predicted no rain which is great and quite unexpected though a bit sceptical will get that. I have found out that dh cancelled the decathlon order, he heard me say I wanted two out of three and which ones but chose a different two, can work round it.

Having mussels in white wine sauce with bread and butter for lunch and dh got jam doughnuts. 💛

SJane
I am reading Song for the dark times too!

Happy Caturday, lovely people of the thread.

Sunbird, that's a shame about the festival. Hopefully, the tickets won't be hard to resell.

I'm perhaps a bit better today, but still a bit ropey (thanks for that word Champagne). DH has gone out to get some bland foods for me to eat. I have no desire to eat but probably should try to get something down.

I think I"m going to go lie down.

A lie-down sounds like a good idea, MissC. I'm sorry you're feeling rough.

I've managed to do something to my shoulder/neck, which I injured a few years ago and which never quite went back to normal. If I overdo it in the garden it flares up again and here I am with a horribly stiff neck and very painful arm. Not feeling massively chipper today as a result. It's also raining, which doesn't help.

Feeling quite envious of all you holidaymakers - we won't be going anywhere. Ho hum.

Miss I hope you feel better soon.

We have not heard back from our LL with regards to our list of things to do. I am starting to get impatient.

What are the Book Club books SJane?
We've had some horrors and some unexpected gems at our club...
The gems were The Trauma Cleaner and the other was Pachinko.

Sorry you have hurt your neck Hilda

We are now playing catch the silkies and the rabbit, fun for all the family. Rabbit is very easy just requires food. The white silkie is easy, the brown one argh.

Also assembled the small bed, made a couple of bags of rubbish, moved the rowing machine and beanbag and cleaned the floors with the carpet cleaner and flash wipes.

Done 2 loads of washing and all things collected. Now onto taking silkies and rabbit, its an hour each way.

It was DD who caught both silkies and she is sitting with them in the car and with the rabbit.

Having dispatched DC 1&2 to scout camp yesterday, DH and DCs 3&4 are going to the village camp out this evening. DH bought me a ticket (ever the optimist) but with my house/comfortable bed/private ablutions within spitting distance, there is no way on God’s green earth I will be spending the night under canvas instead.

He didn’t want to camp as the forecast is poor to say the least but having gone down to the field, the DCs have been fired with enthusiasm and so he is being forced to go too.

I’m trying to keep a lid on my excitement but am secretly positively giddy at the thought of the house to myself for the evening/night!

Sounds great and hell no to camping out in the rain. In fact, hell no to camping period. Any experience that has you dancing around your house, delighted to see your bathroom & kitchen is not a good one!

@Gingerwarthog, made the classic stupid mistake of reading the Goodreads reviews before the books ..and while I often disagree with the Goodreads reviewers, they’ve made me less enthused about making a start on them. One’s The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah) .. ‘clueless author’ ...’demeaning refugees’ says review no 1 on Goodreads. The other one (think I’ll start first) is There is no such thing as an easy job (Kikuko Tsumura). The words ‘boring’ come up in reviews and even more personally damning as it’s a genre that often annoys the heck out of me..’magical realism’.

If it makes you feel any better @HildaTablet, walking around Matlock in weather we wouldn’t usually step outside in wasn’t holi-fun. Still, very grateful to be away after this last year which has been very shitty and hopefully after tomorrow, we’ll see some sunshine.

Wishing you swift moving traffic and few complications tomorrow @Silkiescatz!

Dog barking outside cottage sounds remarkably similar to DDog. For a second pondered on the possibility of DDog breaking out of Puplins and hitchhiking her way up the M1 like the Littlest Hobo to come and find us.
Have obviously started on the wine too early methinks!