Countdown to Christmas 2021 (thread 2): the end of winter can't come soon enough!

[NoWordForFluffy]

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We stayed up watching Sherlock and now I'm wide awake. I'm unimpressed! 😂

At least we finally made it to thread 2...I doubt we will do as many this year!

DH was 28.

I feel really sad for the Queen. Losing somebody who's been in your life that long must be utterly devastating. 😢

Morning!

I feel a bit icky knowing the Queen and Prince Phillip were 13 and 18 when they started writing to each other etc. I can't imagine having anything in common with a 13yo when I was 18.

DH and I met at 17 - took us 10 years to feel ready to get married though!

The work on the garden started yesterday and phase 1 will be finished today (knocking down a wall and digging. DH is doing phase 2 (preparing the ground for the patio) in the week and we're hoping phase 3 (laying the patio) will he done over the weekend.
Then there are 2 phases to go - phase 4 is putting down concrete bases at the bottom of the garden for 2 sheds and phase 5 - make it all pretty!

I've been up, showered, changed my bedding, put a load of washing on and cleaned the bathroom. Have also used my new skincare which I'm hoping will sort my dry sore skin.
DH has just come back from Sainsbury's so we'll unpack then have breakfast.
Exciting things happening here!

Ah yes Crazy , I'm not mad keen on the Royal Family ( I can see why we have them but they don't add to my life IYSWIM)
Years ago though I had a book (All The Queen's Horses or something )
She wasn't a typical 13yo . She was never a trypical 'anything' TBH .
She knew from the begininning that she was (unless her parents had a son ) to be Queen.

She was an expert horsewoman (though her non hat wearing pisses me off . Bad example to set there to thers )
Was in the forces as some role (photos of her driving a Jeep , doing mechanics )
So as a 13yo she'd have been very mature but very protected .

The Charles/Diana age gap was worse and she was very immature !

I was 18 when I met DH, 19 when we got together and 21 when we got married. He's only a couple of years older than me. We've been married for 32 years this year.

I'm up, dressed and breakfasted and I'm now supervising DS's karate class on zoom. He was told last week he will be grading in the autumn so he's quite pleased. It will fit in nicely with the start of his GCSE courses too.

Your garden plans sound good Crazy. How did the weekly pepper hunt go Fluffy? Glad to hear you are feeling better why

70 I actually quite like the royals, in spite of knowing they cost a fortune and are more a political 'company' than a family. The Queen is an impressive woman I think, but no matter how mature she was, being 13 and 18 is a bit 🤢

I dislike Charles for a lot of reasons and his age gap with Diana is one of them.
I felt sorry for Diana in the same way I feel sorry for MM - being thrown in the deep end with that family without the help needed to learn how to deal with it all.

Have had breakfast now. I'm considering going to Sainsbury's - DH bought some colour changing solar lights for the garden but I think we need more and they're on sale...

I really wanted to do Karate as a kid woolly but I wasn't allowed ☹️

Morning all.
I'm the same as you fluffy and met DH at 31, he was 41.
I can't really imagine being married to someone for over 70yrs, although my Mum and Dad got to 55yrs - Dad would often joke he'd have done less time for murder.😂
I get the feeling about the 13/18 age gap, but don't forget Lord Mountbatten kind of pushed Prince Philip towards the then Princess Elizabeth. Mountbatten was the biggest social climber and was desperate to get them married to get his family higher up the social order.
I think in a more "normal" life she would have been a racehorse trainer/breeder - and a successful one at that.

I'm pretty neutral about the royals really. The Charles / Diana saga was always going to be a disaster, unfortunately.

My parents will have their 49th anniversary in September.

I've made muffins for DS. We also have a sloping oven, like Puss(?). They always come out looking like smurf hats! 😂

I have chocolate brownie in the oven too. It smells divine!

I don't think my last comment posted so I try again.

It'll be no surprise that I'm not a monarchist. I feel bad that someone died but I think the tributes have been over the top. And the back to back coverage don't get me started.

I met Dh when I was 21. Got engaged the day after my 22nd birthday and married when I was 24 and Dh was 29. We'll be 9 years married on Monday.

It's been snowing since 11 this morning but I still need my sunglasses.

Oh, I forgot to say that I found peppers this week. I got 2 packs of mixed sweet peppers. They're from Israel, rather than Europe, so hopefully they've sorted a new supplier out.

There were loads of peppers in Tesco but no Whiskas pouches !
The cats are fumming I tell you , they're going to send a Strongly Worded Email to the CEO of Tesco when they can be bothered .
Luckily we always have a weeks worth of food in reserve for them so they won't starve

Chocolate Brownies Fluffy are delish .

I made a loaf yesterday (just plain white bread ) it was ok but not really worth the effort . I don't eat a lot of bread so it has to be right .
I might try doing a flavoured one (sundried tomato + olives or roasted onion ) next time .

I don't know what Tesco's pepper stocks are like as we've boycotted them over one of their charitable donations which we fundamentally disagree with! I only know about Sainsbury's, Aldi and M&S (the latter being my shop of desperate measure!).

I've heard about the Whiskas issue, 70. That's not good!

We're going to dig out a chilli and cheese bread recipe, 70. The hot cross buns we had were amazing! We mostly make white or seeded loaves or pizza dough in our bread maker, however.

I'm not usually a Tesco shopper but I had to take DD (my DS was doing some course work) and she didn't want to go to the Sainsbury in the town centre .
I cannot find things when I go to a new store though

IIRC the Tesco donations was 'Mermaids' wasn't it ( or associated with )

I ave thought about a breadmaker , I could do pizza dough for DS , a nice flavoured loaf for soup . Cinnamon bun dough ... the list is endless
But I've read reviews that unless its a Panasonic then step away .
There was a QVC one but I thought "Hell I might be just throwing away £x that I could put towards a Panasonic "

Yes, Panasonic or don't bother! We had a 20% discount voucher for Lakeland, so our new one (to replace the £7.99 secondhand one which died) wasn't as dear as it should have been.

And yes, it was Mermaids.

I can't find things in my regular stores, let alone strange ones! 🙈😂

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Morning!

It's another allotment day. Woooo! More digging to do. It's never ending!

At least the weather is nice. If cold.

Ooohhh into the Two Hundred and Fifties

It's bright here , I have two loads of washing to go out , just mainlining some coffee first !

I've worked out and am going to walk whilst ds plays football, dh can watch him. So much housework to do when we get back.

I did the cleaning yesterday, thankfully (well, the kitchen and all the bits I do alongside, the bathroom was done on Friday). DH has vacuumed. I could do with dusting, but will do that at some later point!

Morning.

Dh had his 2nd vaccine this morning so is bringing back a McDonald's breakfast.

I plan on doing f.a. for all day.

I'm just back from Sainsbury's - I couldn't be bothered to go yesterday. Bought 2 more packs of the solar lights for the garden and a few bits DH forgot yesterday.

Big plans of cooking a roast and being lazy today - the house is sparkling after yesterday's blitz.
I have 2 last photo frames I want to get sorted for the wall on the landing but the photos I had printed have disappeared 🙄 but we've put up the Highland Coo photos we took Christmas 2019 - I love them. I showed dm on FaceTime - she thinks we're nuts 😂

70 We couldn't get litter from Tesco on Thurs, so DH went yesterday at still in bed o'clock and got some. They've stopped stocking the 80 pouch boxes of fishy whiskas, but I managed to get the last 2x40 pouch ones. Sains haven't had any in for weeks now, and Morrisons only have boxes of 12 which really won't last long
B&M and Farmfoods sometimes have big boxes or good offers on Whiskas.

My Tesco delivery came last night and I'd ordered a chocolate bar as a treat. Been looking forward to it all day and they didn't have it! No substitute either no broccoli and no sub. My peppers had seen better days and the chicken has a use by date of the 10th. I wasn't impressed.

I walked 3.5 miles whilst ds played football. It was really warm in the sun but the wind was bitter.

Similar weather here, Wreck. It's lovely in the sun when the wind drops especially when you are digging, but it's picked up for my walk home, so it's actually quite cold!

I'm tired. Lots of digging / weeding was done. I got some beetroot seeds in too, so hopefully they'll grow!

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Morning!

Back to school for the kids and work for me (boooo!) today. I'm anticipating a battle to get into uniforms in 20 minutes time. Sigh.

Why is it snowing??? I want sun! Not that we were planning on doing anything today.

Morning (just)!
Wreck I wish I knew what the weather is doing. This morning we've had sunshine, hail, snow and grey clouds.
Currently blue sky and sunshine but really cold.

DH & I are going out for tea this evening and I'm so excited about it. Outside table though so I'm prepared to be freezing.

I also decided yesterday that I should make some lap blankets ready for hopefully being able to have people over for BBQs this summer so I've added some patterns to my Pinterest blankets board 😊