Chicken!

Yes, I played chicken today!  I didn’t go to the dentist!  Well, I call it being sensible rather than being scared!  I was just bothered that after only 2 days of taking antibiotics they may not have had time to kick in properly and I would end up in the same situation as on Monday, so I phoned the dental surgery and spoke to the receptionist.  She must have remembered me as she laughed when I explained and asked to make an appointment next week instead.  Not that I really want the tooth pulled at all, but I’d feel happier knowing that I’d taken the full course of antibiotics, and the infection should be gone!  So there we are!  I still have what remains of the tooth – and it’s not sore!  So I’ll forget about it till Wednesday!

Yesterday, the Lunch Group of the U3A met at the hotel just along the road for lunch.  I’m getting to know quite a number of the members now.  We had a lovely meal -  at very reasonable prices too - and lots of agreeable chatter!  Wynne’s off to Sicily for her holidays this year, and Alex and David are off to France to visit her son  soon, only the flight times between here and London have changed and they don’t know if they’ll be able to catch their connecting flight in time….

Jim kept us amused with photos on his i-phone of a public toilet in a garden centre in the south of England  where the urinals were in the form of brightly coloured flowers!  That set John off  on a tale about some extremely high rise building in Kowloon where the toilet walls are clear glass!  Was that the one that you could see out of but no-one could see in?  No I think that was a story from someone else!  Hmm!  and my most unusual loo was one in Australia years ago where the seats were  these resin ones with Smarties and glitter and  beads,etc. embedded in them!  They’re common place these days!  Amusing the first time I saw them!  The conversation did move to better things soon, and by the time lunch was over we had exhausted a good number of topics!

Later I drove Pat home and had a cup of tea with her, that lasted the whole afternoon as we talked and talked, about her books and paintings, and déja vu, and psychic encounters, then our family stories.  I loved the one about Pat’s great aunt from Wales, who wanted to vet her niece’s new boyfriend.  He was invited to afternoon tea,  a very “proper” affair for great–aunt, so her niece had to explain every little detail beforehand so that boyfriend could make the required impression!  Tea was served in a cup shaped bowl and poured into a deep saucer to be drunk, as was customary in days long gone by but by then not at all usual.  Jam for the scones was to be spooned first from the jam dish to the plate and then each little piece of scone spread individually before being consigned to the mouth …. Apparently despite BF being terrified of doing the wrong thing, all went well and great aunt gave her blessings to the relationship. 

Pat is now writing down all her reminiscences about her large extended Welsh and Irish families.  I’m sure they’ll keep her granddaughters amused for hours!  She has a great way with words, but I think her actions and her accents accompanying the stories enhance them tremendously!  Personally, I think everyone should have to write down their memories for the generations who follow.  I so relish my great great great grandfather’s journals and the “family narrative” manuscript written in the 1860s by a great great uncle whose own memories tell so much of the person he was and the times he was living in!

Reluctantly I left Pat’s around 6 o’clock and made for home via the DIY store. All in all, it had been a great day

….. and I didn’t think about the dentist once!

It’s just another day…..

Oh my lord!  I phoned my own dental surgery this morning about the capped tooth that came out – story in A day of Incidents – and got an appointment for the end of the afternoon at their brand new surgery right on the outskirts of town – I used to walk to the old surgery in 5 minutes. Now I have to take the car!  When I finally found the new place, I had a few minutes to wait before being called into one of the dentists’ room. 

She looked at the tooth that was left, inspected the cap that had come off and announced that she was certainly not going to try and fit the cap back on, and really the tooth would probably have to come out sometime soon.  An X-ray was taken, and as we waited to see how that turned out, she smoothed down the rough bits of the tooth so my tongue wouldn’t continue to rasp against it. 

Oh joy of joys!  The X-ray showed there was some infection in the gum below the tooth – can you bear all this? – so the tooth would have to come out – like, NOW!   She pumped my jaw full of anaesthetic, and we waited.  Some prodding and poking later – and I was still feeling the tooth.  Three lots of anaesthetics later I was still feeling the nerve as she tried to pull the tooth!  Aaaagh! Arms waving, feet in the air, the tears beginning to slide down the cheeks – me , that is - she finally stopped and said she couldn’t put any more anaesthetic in and that I would have to come back another day.  The infection, she decided, must be worse than it seemed and it was preventing the anaesthetic from taking hold!

So now I have a course of antibiotics to take and an appointment for Thursday afternoon to hopefully finish the job!

Oh deep joy! – as my sister would say!  The anaesthetics are wearing off  now, and I think I  must find the pain killers!  My jaw is swollen and pretty sore, and I can feel the nerve in the tooth!

Oh well, on to better things now!  I put some pictures on the walls in the new living room this morning!  Suddenly the room feels homely!  I also brought a clock down from the attic, one that I bought some years ago at a craft fair.  It is meant to represent St Giles Cathedral up in Edinburgh, but the tower with its crown top is more like the Peebles Parish Church tower!  I meant to buy a battery for it today but forgot!  I’m sure there must be one somewhere about  the house though, so I’ll maybe get it ticking later!   It has a tea-light in the front of it which is rather nice! 

Another picture of the living room with Joe’s painting of Tweed Bridge and the Parish Kirk .  The light is better in this one!

Well, the anaesthetic has worn off completely now, and my tooth is throbbing.  I didn’t take the pain killers earlier, but I must look for them now!   Oh how I am not looking forward to going back to the dentist on Thursday.  Wish me luck!

Talk again soon.

A wee jaunt

Linda and I had lunch out today at the Peacock Inn in Newhaven, established in 1797,  before heading off over the Forth road bridge to Fife to do some shopping – for my room mainly!! We have this favourite store in Kirkcaldy, you see, and are always game for a trip over there!  They sell all sorts of things, furniture and furnishings, rugs, cushions and curtains, lighting, artwork, kitchenware, haberdashery, materials for craft-workers (plenty for scrapbookers and card makers), sewing and dressmaking fabric and accessories…… anything really for the home decorator, and beyond.  They also have a vast selection of very realistic artificial trees and flowers, that can be made up into beautiful arrangements, bouquets, posies and table decorations to be hired for weddings or special occasions, or sold to the likes of me who is hopeless keeping the real thing alive!  Houseplants and I just don’t do well together.  However, when I decided to open up the balcony by putting in the French doors I decided a bit of greenery wouldn’t go amiss and would make it look more attractive both from the balcony itself or from the Green looking up.  No-one below could really tell if the plants are the real thing or not, and I think they look pretty good from close up too.   So, to go with the artificial bamboo, the artificial ivy and the tub of a selection of artificial greenery, today I bought an artificial variegated ficus plant, which I will keep indoors till the weather is warmer (to fool folk into believing I know what I’m doing, and thinking it’s real!!!).  Looks pretty good, eh?  In fact I might just keep it where it is Oh I WILL put it in a bigger pot! !

I also bought a curtain pole,  and a piece of artwork for the wall beside the stove. The black background board is very sympathetic with the slate hearth and black cast-iron with the design, on a second layer, kind of poppy-like, with a raspberry red circle attached, dec-orated with wire and a flat backed glass bead in its centre.  The rest of the design is “dribbled” trails and blobs of paint with some more glass beads.  I love it, and the colours are perfect for my new room’s colour scheme.  They have loads of 3D artworks in the store, all of which were wonderful and seemingly very simple.  Another I liked had waves of a light green going across the short width of the picture, taking up the bottom third, with strips of the same green going straight up from the waves to the top of the picture covering the canvas altogether.  On the stripes, like grasses I guess, there was the occasional mottled green and clear flat backed bead, about five in all, giving the impression of uncurled fern fronds or flower buds still to open into bloom. I’d have loved to take some photos, but for one thing I probably shouldn’t, and for another, I had left my camera at home!  Bummer!

Actually that reminds me of the incredible sight we saw on route  to Kirkcaldy driving along the A92. I had to pull into a parking area to take a good look at something we don’t see often – a flock of about 1000 to 2000 birds flying in clouds, swirls and lines, crisscrossing each other and changing directions, sometimes stretching out in lines and shapes veering away from the main flock or all spreading out  to form almost pictorial patterns in the sky, then curling round into a dense cloud again before once again separating into small shapes and lines, yet always keeping contact with the flock.  It was wonderful to watch and we sat for ages just following their flight.  Why oh why did I leave my camera behind? – Because we were just going shopping!!!!!  Rats!

Talk again soon.

PS  The pictures of the Peacock Inn and Newhaven (up top) were taken on a previous visit!  Don’t you just love the fireplace in the restaurant with its peacock decoration?

PPS    Forgot to put this picture in for Mary! The carpet in my living room is the same as the one I got for the old living room several years ago!  Keeping it as the new bedroom carpet!

It’s official!

Today’s the day!  It’s official!  My new living room is official!  There are still jobs to be done to get it finished, but today the furniture was moved in!  I managed to pull the sideboard through from the old living room by myself – boy is it heavy – and carry the table – it’s only small and round – and the two folding chairs to their corner.  In the afternoon Mike came along with his battery operated screwdriver and removed the two doors to enable us to move the sofa easily from one room to the other.  Then we manhandled (personhandled?) the sofa out into the hall and on to its new home, before Mike replaced the doors.  He was just finishing that job when Morag turned up, thinking she and I were going to be moving the sofa!  All done!  Sit down and have a cup of tea.  So we did!  Mike said he’d send his invoice in tomorrow, so I suggested I treat him to lunch at one of his and Morag’s favourite eateries instead.  Yes, he’d settle for lunch, he   said.

Then the gas fitter turned up and once again said he could find nothing wrong with the gas supply.  There were no leaks, pressure was constant…. However he decided to fit a valve so that if I smelt gas again from the fire I could isolate it and still have central heating and hot water, as well as my cooker!  He was really nice, agreeing that it was best I did call him if I was worried, but then we both decided that, in the nicest possible way, we really didn’t want to see each other again soon!

So now I am sitting on the sofa in my new living room, in front of my leak-free fire, looking out from a cosy warm room, watching it snow!  Well, it looks like rain, but is definitely snow, and the Green is white again!  Just great (she said sarcastically)!  Actually in a perverse way, it actually IS great to be able to see the Green covered in snow!  Before I got the French doors I wouldn’t have been able to see the Green, white or any other colour!  Now I have a fabulous view down over the Green and the river, through the bare winter trees to the other side of Peebles and the hills beyond.  I’m going to enjoy the differences of the seasons through the French doors or even from the balcony itself when the weather is a lot warmer!

I brought out some of my pictures to think about where they would go on the walls.  I had hoped to get one or two up tonight, but I haven’t!  Still got more to seek out so maybe I’ll have a bit of a change.

Talk again soon!

A day of incidents

The carpet fitters arrived this afternoon with my new carpet for the new living room.  They took an hour and a half to put down the swanky new underlay they use these days and the carpet I chose, during which time I had to go to the dentist  to have a refit of a capped tooth that fell out the other day!  My own dentist is relocating to a new surgery – further away on the other side of the river -  and is closed till Monday, so emergency appointments are being covered by another local dentist.  Well, he refitted the cap to the tooth – back to front as it turned out, but I didn’t realise that till I got home, though I did think it uncomfortable at the time.  I was inspecting it in the mirror when I got home, when it wobbled and promptly fell out again!!!  Not going back!  I’ll wait till my own dentist re-opens on Monday!

Anyway the carpet guys were still at work when I got back, just finishing off the edges.  It looks great!  So tonight I carried on with – and finished the painting.  It looks OK, and the black stove and flue look fabulous against the vanilla white background as opposed to the primrose yellow that was there before.  Tomorrow Morag is going to help me move some of the furniture, so apart from a few odds and ends to do later, the room will be finished!!!  Photos will follow when the furniture is in!!!

Did I tell you there seemed to be a gas leak from the stove last week?  I kept smelling gas when I went into the room and eventually it got quite strong so I turned the supply off and called the emergency gas number.  The guy arrived quite promptly and confirmed that there was a leak from the joint between pipe and fire.  The gas-fitter who installed it came back to fix it but couldn’t detect a leak at all!  Of course, no smell by this time as the supply had been off for a while!  So he reckoned it was OK and I could use the gas again!  However, a few days later the smell was back, and it got worse, especially near the stove itself.  Again I turned the supply off at the meter and phoned the gas-fitter again who is quite baffled!  Anyway he’s coming to test it again tomorrow.  I wonder if I should get the emergency gas chappie back as well.  He doesn’t fix things just tests the supply and then pronounces it OK or otherwise!  If it’s otherwise then he just caps off  the supply at the meter, issues a “danger” certificate with info for the gas-fitter, and leaves you to it!  (They do contact you in a day or two to check that you did something about it!)

Oh well, I’ve raked an electric heater out of the attic so I’m not quite as cold as I might have been.  It’s pretty frosty these nights, so it will be good to have my fire back!

Talk again soon.

PS on Chinese New Year

If you read my last blog entry you'll have noticed I couldn't remember the words for Happy New Year in Chinese - well...... here they are: "Gong Xi Fa Cai" pronounced Gong Hey Fat Choy! Translated literally the words mean "wishing you enlarge your wealth". I remember Connie telling us it was something about wealth. So there we are!

A belated Gong Xi Fa Cai to you all!

Busy painting today! Carpet arriving tomorrow afternoon! Nearly there though! I ran out of paint last night so will get more today when I go to Galashiels. Looking forward to tomorrow afternoon! It will be a day or two before I can get the sofa moved - I need a few helping hands, but I'll start to get the other stuff in as soon as the carpet-layers have gone!!!

Talk again soon!

My weekend

Well, I don’t seem to achieved very much on my own since Colin went home!  My get-up-and-go very definitely got up and went – where I don’t know.

I have sanded down the old yellowing woodwork and painted it, so the skirting boards and door look nice and fresh again in Pure Brilliant White.  Then I started to take the border round the top of the walls off, and found it stuck fast!  It was Vina who helped me put that up after I first moved here, and she did insist on strong glue!  Anyway, going up and down ladders is not easy for me these days so I decided just to peel off the top, the patterned part, and  leave the backing where it is.  I am sure it won’t be noticed after I’ve painted the walls, and anyway I might find another really nice border to put up.  It may be considered old-fashioned, but who cares!  I like a bit of colour up along the top of my walls, breaking up the plain colours  of wall and ceiling.  I was rather fond of the border I have now peeled off, and plan on doing something with the strips!  Heeheehee!  Not telling you what I have in mind yet, but I am going to use the same colours in my new bedroom so it will be something for there!

So having exhausted my right arm stretching from the ladder I had barely managed to climb to sponge the border off, then scrape the little I did, I am taking a break!   I will have to get a coat of Vanilla White on the walls tonight, as I have a full day tomorrow – charity shop and meeting friends – and I have to be prepared for the carpet to arrive soon!  I can’t wait to get furniture moved in there and see how it looks!

I went to a fancy dress party on Saturday night, having been up in Edinburgh during the day, having lunch with my sister in town, and then going out to the suburbs to have a cuppie with Linda.  I’d been intending just travelling up from Peebles by bus (free, using my bus pass), but managed to miss one, so not being prepared to wait for another half hour, I took the car after all.  BUT, I left it in the new-ish “Park and Ride” on the edge of the city, and caught a bus from there.

OK getting INTO  town, but later, when I got to the bus stop where I used to be able to catch the bus to Linda’s, I found that it didn’t go that way any more, and nor did the one that used to take me home when I lived in Edinburgh!  Why do they have to keep moving things?  Having my bus pass I figured I would just take the next bus that came, and get off a few stops further on where I was SURE the bus I wanted would stop!    The bus I wanted probably DID stop there but the bus I caught DIDN’T and the next stop was way round the corner outside the old Royal Infirmary.  It was a bit of a walk back, and then I wasn’t really sure if my bus did stop there any more so I thought I’d just walk through the Meadows and SURELY I would meet the bus I needed at the other end.  Luckily it WAS the right route and the bus wasn’t long in arriving, so soon I was at Linda’s.  Of course I had a moan at how Edinburgh drove me round the twist  (after years of not living there) and she confirmed that since Princes Street had been closed (for a YEAR) for the laying of tramlines for the new system, the buses had started going in all directions.  I don’t mean that literally by the way, but some routes were changed to avoid the tram-workings, and it seems they are staying that way now that Princes Street has been opened up again!  (The tram works continue elsewhere now!)

Talking of the tram lines, I had a very definite moment of  déja vu when crossing Princes street and seeing the lines there! I was born into an Edinburgh that had trams trundling all over the city, and frequently travelled in them as a youngster.  However it was decided to do away with them in the 1950s, and they disappeared towards the end of 1956, though it took some time for all the old lines to be lifted, so I remember the tram lines very clearly. So now Edinburgh is reinstating them, though only along a route I think from Leith, through the city to the airport.  This reinstatement has caused quite a lot of controversy since the idea was first mooted, so it is to be hoped the citizens of Edinburgh decide to like the new trams after all.  I’m sure a spur off the west-bound railway line would have been as useful to get people to the airport without all this palaver but we’ll see how it goes in due course!  Enormous and white elephant are words that spring to mind at the moment, though just now I read some blurb from the council about the development of Leith and how the new Leithers will be needing the tram system, which is to be more of a light railway.

So – the fancy dress party, for the Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day at Julia’s, had the theme “An animal you love”!  I was sure there would be plenty of  cat costumes, so my other favourite animals being mice or rats – yes, I’m weird, I know! – I went as a white mouse (mistaken for a rat when I got there)!  I fastened paper mouse ears to a hair band, an Alice band as someone reminded me we used to call them, and made a long card cone mouse nose with a pink tip, two long front teeth and black whiskers made from drinking straws split into thin lengths and glued to my mask!  White tee-shirt and white pyjama bottoms completed the costume, with a tail of nylon washing rope attached to the trousers!  I was quite pleased with my outfit! As I suspected there were a couple of cats, a bunny rabbit, a leopard, an ox, Julia was a mixture of animals, and most of the others weren’t dressed up at all!   Anyway, there were no prizes, just a lot of fun, with plentiful supplies of food and wine.  Goodness knows what the Chinese girl thought of the party but she seemed to laugh a lot, and taught us how to say happy new year – something like Pak Choi! I can’t remember it all!   This is how “happy new year” looks according to the online Chinese translator  - 新年快乐. 

Some guests recited poems they had prepared for Chinese new year.  (an example, or at least a bit of one - Tiger, tiger, burning bright,  Chinese New Year is tonight……)

 

 

 

We sang and danced and played some very silly games>>>>>

then at midnight all sang that very famous, if not Chinese, song – Ying tong tiddle–I-poo!  How stupid, but we all had had enough wine to not really care!  People started drifting off home around 2.00 a.m. so I drifted off too, and was home and in bed, sound asleep I should think, by 2.30!  Thank goodness I didn’t have to be anywhere on Sunday!

Talk again soon.

The work continues……

Colin was visiting this weekend….. and when Colin is visiting jobs get done…. and how!!!!!   He arrived on Friday afternoon and was half way through chiselling out the old living room hearth by the time I got home from the Gardening Group meeting I was at that afternoon.   Since then he has removed the rest of the hearth, which wasn’t easy as it was pretty much all concrete, blocked up the old fireplace, built up shelf units for the kitchen and hung them on the walls – they didn’t quite work out the way I wanted them but they are fine – and lifted the old carpet from the bedroom that is becoming the living room!  I helped with that!!!  Oh, and of course we moved all the furniture out of that room before we  took out the carpet. 

These are the kitchen shelves, half loaded!

 

Today we did some work in the garden to tidy up some of the plants and things I didn’t get done in the autumn.  Colin cut back a load of ivy from the high wall between me and my neighbour, then we packed as much as we could into bags and loaded it into his van with the rubble from the hearth and some other bags of rubbish and drove down to the tip a couple of miles down the road to dump it all!

So, I just need the carpet laid in the new living room (hopefully next week – not this week, though that would be good) and the furniture moved in, and stage one of my alterations is done!!  I have loads of pictures to put up on the walls too, so I will enjoy arranging them and deciding where they are all going to go.  I don’t want to put too many ornaments up as they are just dust collectors, but I have a few favourite pieces to find places for.

Friday was a full day, with some shopping in the morning – food shopping - and a visit to the sale at the local department store where I  had my eye on some cushions for the living room – not that I haven’t already got masses of cushions but these are beautiful and in the raspberry colour I have chosen for a contrast colour (accent colour I think is the expression these days!) in my blue and white living room.

I met Linda at lunch time, when we went to the Peebles Hydro Hotel bistro. I love the entrance to the hotel, through that columned portico.  There’s a grand staircase up to the main reception on the first floor.  However we took the entrance to the left of the portico, that you can just see on the left of the photo, and took the quick route to the bistro.

 

I remember when the area occupied by the bistro was the hotel swimming pool!   It is still reminiscent  of the pool building  with that roof and the windows at the far end.  I wonder if the pool till exists under-floor!  I doubt it really, but I wonder how the area is used today! 

We had a very nice lunch and a good blether into the bargain before it was time for me to get to the Gardening Group’s meeting about composting!  Interesting!  Now I know that the composting box Heather has in her garden next door – that the rest of us in our close use too – is called a New Zealand box and is one of the best kinds !  There are other types too, even for small flats with no gardens!  I think I like the idea of a wormery personally!  I must look into the idea!

Talk again soon.

The family 1999

Just a quick picture this time – a collage I made from the photos I took on my last but one visit out to Australia!  The last time was in April/May 2008.  You can look back in the archives of this blog to see photos from then.

In the last photo there is a young girl sitting on her mother’s knee.  Have a look at the bottom left photo in this collage.  That’s mum, and the toddler on her dad’s knee is the girl!  I think you can also work out which of the littlies in the 2010 photo is the little sister.  Their brother – the baby here – looks more like their mum now.  Bottom right, the two blonde boys are also in yesterday’s photo,  as is the wee one in the photo above them.

Unfortunately though, we’ve lost a few members of the family since ‘99.  There are a few faces in this collage that are greatly missed.

Even I’m in the collage too!  Wonder if you’ll recognise me!

Talk again soon.

Family

I got this great photo from Ian, my cousin in Australia the other day.  These are all relations of mine!  Hard to take in when you were brought up with no aunts and uncles, immediate cousins or even grandparents!  These are actually my third cousins, and a lot of the once and twice removeds,  but they are the  closest rellies I have on my dad’s side of the family, apart from my sister.

I have met  all the adults and know most of them quite well , but those littlies along the front I’ve never met, and I can scarcely believe they are the children of my young cousins, and that we are now the oldies!!!  When I first met them all over there in 1979, we were the youngsters, and the great great grandmother of those wee ones was still alive.  Gran - she was Gran to all the ones our ages so we called her that too -  was a leap year baby so had only celebrated 21 official birthdays before she died.  I have a photo of the get-together in ‘79, when Clare – with the corsage – was only a baby.  Alycia, somewhere at the back was only a tiny baby then too.  Scott wasn’t even born, and nor were Rachel and Emma or Holly and Jesse.  My sister and I helped Trudy to celebrate her 11th birthday – I remember there was much flour being thrown about and I have a photo of Trudy and her pals covered in white!  I should get all those photos scanned onto the computer, as I know one or two are already fading in the album.  Shame I can’t share some of those photo memories with you now but my scanner isn’t working at the moment and I have to go to the library which is a bit of a hassle!

I first met some of the Aussie cousins when I was just a wee tot!  Win, in the centre, in white, was travelling with her girl-friend, and came to stay.  I have photos going back to that time too – tea at the Old Mill, Win.  Do you remember?  When I was 7, her brother Allan, with the white beard, aged about 20 something, visited.  I thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread, my big handsome cousin all the way from Australia – by boat – and I gained quite a bit of street cred  at school too!  After all it wasn’t everyone who had a cousin from Australia  in those days!!   Gran and Pop, my dad’s second cuz, came over around the same time I think, and brought me a cute little china plate with Aussie  birds on it.  I loved that plate!  Wonder whatever happened to it?  Much later on, the next generation started to visit, and it was Bruce who put the idea into my head to travel over there!   I’ve been there three times now!  Maybe I’ll have a fourth trip before too long.  We’ll see!

In the meantime the next generation are now doing the travelling, and I have had visits from some of them!  In fact Sally and her husband are in Scotland right now!  They are almost at the end of a two year stay in Glasgow where Sally has been working and researching into heart disease.  Ian – that’s him in the Panama hat -  and Berny – with the red hat – are coming over again this summer.  Usually they make the trip in their summer break which of course is winter over here.  I bet you’re glad you weren’t over here this Christmas and New Year, guys!!!   I am really looking forward to seeing them again. 

I wonder if I’ll still be around when those little folk are old enough to make the journey over to their ancestral homeland?  I’ll be such an  old old lady then that I daresay they won’t want to come and see me!  I’ll have to go and see them first, I think!!!

Talk again soon.