In Between Days.

Wednesday.

Up fairly early as it was wash day. Just a normal ho hum day, chores, exercises, pages and then we watched Twister ( a long time since we watched that) I do remember the ride at Universal Studios in 1998, and the fact that my sunglasses got tangled in my hair... That was the last time we went to Florida. Out of the four times we went that was my favourite one. 

Thursday.

We got up and got ready to head to Arnold to go to Boyes. Kev needed new braces and Boyes was a good bet that they'd have some. Which they did, I got a few bits too, we had Maccy's for lunch and I won a fiver on the new promotion they've got on at the moment and a free coffee, not bad for our first attempt. 

It was a mixed bag weather wise a combination of sunshine and showers. One minute you regret wearing a jumper the next minute it was the best idea you made... 

In Between Days

Tuesday.

We went into town for lunch and a meet up with Sue and Pete. 

We went to O'Neils, and although the food was good, it was bloody cold in there, like they hadn't got the heating on and it was a quite chilly day as well as damp with sporadically patchy rain. So even though we were having a good catch up it didn't make you want to hang around in there, which can't be good for business. I even dropped them a message on their Facebook page when we got home to tell them, no response as yet however... 

We got some shopping Kev needed some new jeans and coat, so he went to Primark. He won't pay expensive for his stuff and like most men he hangs on to stuff until they fall apart. 

I had to get to Superdrug and Holland and Barrett. Once we'd done we came home as it really wasn't pleasant out there. 

In Between Days

Monday. 

Disaster day, as in we watched lots of tornado stuff following the storm chasing lives from Reed Timmer. I used to love watching them on Discovery channel. When news of the Mississippi tornado came on YouTube we watched his footage and that set the tone for the days viewing. 

As most of my friends know I'm scared of storms, but from the safety of the sofa I find them fascinating. I can watch endless documentary programmes on extreme weather and volcanoes erupting, earthquakes and Tsunamis. If I was brave enough I'd certainly have a go at storm chasing ( maybe in another life, as in this one I'd be a wreck!) Our visits to Florida in the late 80s and early 90s were punctuated by hurricanes and daily thunderstorms. Kev would drag me into a show or ride as soon as he spotted the signs of an approaching storm, because I would go to pieces if I was outside. I'm better than I was, but I'm still not keen, it's a bizarre thing, being scared of something yet fascinated by it at the same time. I've had plenty of people take the mick out of me for being scared of storms, but they perhaps haven't stood next to someone get struck by lightning like I have. I never ridicule anyone for being scared of something, because fear is never a nice place to be in and everyone has something they can't cope with. 

In Between Days

Sunday.

Losing an hour had a huge impact on me today. We went to bed early after watching The Black Phone. Good movie. But 6.45 am came round before we knew it. 

We got into town and headed to work, when we were waiting at the bus stop, there were three ducks waddling towards us on Parliment Street, they went up to the chicken shop, saw it was closed and then turned round and waddled back! It was so funny everyone at the bus stop was laughing. I wish we had took pictures as it was so comical. At work it was a decent day, busy and some large orders. 

We got home and eat and chilled out watching TV. 

In Between Days

Friday.

I was supposed to go for an eye test. But they rang the day before asking if I could change the time. I said no, as I booked the time I did to suit me. I cancelled and said I book again at a time that suited me not them... They'll charge me an arm and leg for both glasses and lenses so they can bloody well see me when it's convenient for me. 

So instead of going into the city and having lunch after my eye test we decided to go to the pub we spotted the day before. Charlotte came with and we had a little adventure with her for a change. It was easy to get to, and the bus back was just opposite the pub. 

Lovely food, and service, and a friendly atmosphere. Definitely a go to place when we fancy a change. 

In Between Days

Wednesday.

Sue's Birthday. Wash day, so we got up early despite a patchy nights sleep. We had a quiet day in and watched the movie version of Luther. It was very good, and another story involving red rooms on the dark web... Scary stuff... 

Thursday.

We went on another bus adventure to Morrisons at Gamston to do the shopping. Now I can walk further it's nice to go somewhere different under our own steam. We had lunch out at The Goose while we were there. On our way back we spotted another place we fancy trying out for lunch so that might be another trip out.

It gets us out, keeps me moving and after being stuck in so much last year it made us realise how much we can do via bus once the weather gets a bit better. I'm OK during the winter staying home, but once the nights start getting lighter I want to go out while we can. 

In Between Days

Monday.

A quiet relaxed day, when we recharged our batteries. We did all our usual stuff and then chose a movie and watched that. 

As fans of The Traitors we started watching the new one called Rise and Fall on Channel 4. It is a mix of a few reality shows and you can tell its been written by the same team as The Traitors. I'm really enjoying it. 

Tuesday.

We decided to have another day of bus adventures and went to Bingham. We got there but wasn't sure where to get off the bus, as this one dropped you off on the outskirts of the town centre. I'm sure the last time we went it took us into the centre. After a bit of a Google maps session we worked out where we needed to walk to and got into the main square. We got a few bits and bobs from Boyes ( always reminds me of Whitby and the Boyes there!) And Boots, then a pootle round some of the charity shops. After which we had lunch at The Butter Cross. Although it's a 'Spoons it's a very nice one and the food was lovely. I'm convinced the portions were better and the steak I had was really delicious. 

We headed back to the bus and got off in West Bridgeford to nip to M&S. 

We got home just before the rain came down. All in all a good day's exploring yet another place on our doorstep. I did say to Kev we have so many lovely places nearby, we should be very grateful they moved us out here. 

In Between Days

Friday.

We went to M&S for the food shopping for the weekend. We only went to West Bridgeford, a quick in and out. Used my last voucher and then came home. 

Saturday. 

Busy day at work, mainly because of Mother's day on Sunday, and Aldi is shutting until Thursday and we got a lot of their customers too... Big orders too. 

Sunday.

Lots of people coming in for flowers, a huge queue and lots of people asking where stuff is because they don't normally shop there. Rude comments too, about our prices and you just have to sit there and smile, take it and realise they are being loud and brash because that's how they think they'll change things. 

I even had a woman tell me I should wear lipstick! Because with my weird haircut it would look better if I made more of an effort. Unbelievably rude! I just said, what waste good make up on work? No thanks. Another woman, who said, oh what a shame having to work on Mother's day, why do people always assume you have kids? I just said makes no odds, I have none, ( I have my adopted goth daughter Cherry) Sadie, my living dead doll and Willow my cat!) She even had the nerve to say, that's a shame could you not have them? I felt like saying none of your effing business, but I just said, I chose not to. There is enough unwanted kids in the world. As a woman that isn't my only function to add to population. I get sick of it, I've had that shite for years. You'll regret not having kids when you're old and got noone to look after you.

Well, what if you have kids and grow old in a nursing home because they dump you in there. Or like some of them here. Whose family show up rarely if at all, until they get notified  you've kicked the bucket. It's a generalised outlook, but isn't their's too? 

In Between Days

Thursday.

Today we went on a bit of an adventure. I needed to get out the house and we didn't need any shopping, so we just decided to go for lunch. We chose to see if we could get to Riverside Farm for a carvery. We got the bus into the city then the tram, got off the stop after Queens Drive. After a fifteen minute walk we got there. But on the walk there we spotted a couple of nearby bus stops. So on the way back, we got on the 48 and got off at the train station. It was definitely different as I had no clue where we were until I saw the railway station. Luckily Kev did. 

The carvery was very good, and quite reasonably priced. Next time now we know that the bus is easier we will get the bus from near the station if we fancy going again. Even for a Thursday it was busy, I bet you couldn't get in at the weekend without booking. 

In Between Days.

Wednesday.

I had a bit more sleep but it was still broken. Kev got up at one point, but I stayed where I was just rested. 

Wash day with all that entails. Kev was done by lunchtime. The day was dull and grey and I was pleased to be inside. 

We tried to watch that movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. We gave it half an hour, but we couldn't understand what was going on, so we switched it off... It might have won loads of Oscars but it made no sense to us, had a smattering of subtitles which didn't help matters.

In Between Days

Tuesday.

We got picked up by Sue and Pete and taken to The Goose at Gamston for lunch to celebrate Sue's birthday a week early as we won't see her next week. I had the salmon and it was lovely. 

Afterwards they took us to Morrisons so we could get a bit of shopping. It was nice to be able to go and have a look round as we haven't been there for ages, since the last time Charlotte took us. 

Sue gave Kev a load of baking stuff that she used to do with Abigail when she was younger. So, he had a bit of a sort out finding homes for it all and throwing what he didn't need. 

 

In Between Days

Monday. 

As you read in my Sunday blog, I was up early. I'm dropping off quite easily, but waking up either earlier or overnight at some point. I'm not sure if it is my body clock or the medication. 

Anyway. We had a nice chilled out day Charlotte came round for coffee and stayed for lunch, which was lovely we chatted, played a game and watched a couple of Interview episodes. 

Later we watched the highlights of the Oscars. I just like to see who's won what and you get to see see older actors and actresses you don't see much now. I thought the John Travolta tribute to Olivia Newton John was very moving. 

In Between Days

Sunday.

What a day! Really busy from the off. We didn't stop. There wasn't a minute to spare, which is a good thing as time flew by. 

Pottery Throw Down was good and it was Lois who took the title much as expected, and to be honest deserved. All three were great potters to be fair, but she had that decorative flair above the other two if you look at it. 

We had a reasonably early night and I slept well until about 6 am, a hangover from the weekend getting up for work no doubt. I no longer fight it now, I get up if I'm awake, go and do my pages or, this blog something more productive than tossing and turning trying to get back off. Thing is I can always have a doze this afternoon if it catches up with me. 

In Between Days

Saturday.

At least it was just wet underfoot, no snow, just the tenacious bits clinging onto the edges of the car park and lawn at the back of the bungalow. That is how I like snow, here then gone... So we got to the bus stop easily. It was also considerably lighter too, which meant nicer to sit waiting for the bus, even it was still damn cold. 

Work was OK apart from the smart shop went down at one point. Most people were alright about it. I did have one miserable bitch but I dealt with her cheerfully as I could, and even her husband said "get over it" to her. I do wonder when they are that anti about coming through a till if they aren't trying to smuggling something they don't want to pay for. But I'm a suspicious type, years of sering people who you wouldn't think capable of theft doing so... 

In Between Days

Friday.

Snow, snow, quick quick, snow... Yesterday's blanket was added to overnight and the wind had picked up too. 

I had my hair appointment to go to, so both of us headed for the bus stop. It was starting to turn to slush underfoot and it was wet and slippy. Scary to walk through the jetty, we took our time going out early for the bus to give me that extra time to walk there without rushing. I got to Blu, and Amanda started the bleaching process. Kev did the shopping and then came back and sat in the waiting room for me. It was a long wait. She's put red and copper in this time. And it looks great, even if I say soy self, no false modesty here, I'm too old for that shit, spent most of my adult life being self deprecating, time to blow my own trumpet. The more modest you are the more people think it doesn't hurt to be undervalued. 

It's a year today since I fell at Durham, a year tomorrow by the date. I have never felt so alone, scared and sad as I did that day. I only slept because they pumped me full of morphine, the consultant I saw first didn't help because he just said, that it might need amputation. When that's the only leg you can rely on, it was torture waiting to see what they did.

Luckily the consultant the next day, had read my notes, realised it was the only "good" leg I had, and pulled out all the stops to save it. Which he did, and a damn good job he made of it too. 

In Between Days

Wednesday.

Wash day... Snow... little flurries, not heavy, but constant little swirls of lace dusting the floor like icing sugar. 

It was not a day for me to venture out anywhere. 

So I continued with a couple of pages on my large journals that I had started. I often start pages and go back to them similar to my dyalog. Gives the glue chance to dry and saves killing paint pens. 

We started watching something on Netflix called Red Rose. A horror based in Bolton Lancashire. It's about a bunch of teens, one of them gets sent an app called Red Rose, it takes over her life and causes her to cut herself off from her friends and family. Eventually, she kills herself. It then passes on to another of her friends. Scary stuff... I said to Kev it is quite the modern day parable really. Look how easily we download stuff onto our phones and get addicted... 

In Between Days

Monday.

After my first full weekend back at work after almost a month, I had a pj's day at home. I woke early at around 5.30 am. I got up, and sat with Willow , wrote my blog, played word games, read then went to my desk and prepped my dyalog for the coming week. Playing with both stamped images and collage sheets and magazine cuttings. I love dumping the box out of all three on the table and randomly putting images together. I tend to have a rule of thumb that one , it doesn't need to make sense to anyone else but me, two, it has to make me laugh, or evoke something I'm feeling at that moment in time. More often than not its the former. I got quite a few pages ready  before Kev got up. 

Later on we settled downand watched a few things we had recorded on Sky etc. The Last of Us, and La Brea. The latter is getting more and more like Lost, and if it carries on in that vein I'll lose interest. 

I also watched the documentary about how the press "outed" George Michael, the press were and still are disgusting, and the way they hounded him for being gay is horrible. I know it was a different time, and even though I was around living through all of that at the time, it never really hit home just how badly he and others were treated, throughout the 80's and 90's, I'm proud of how he stood up to the tabloid "bullies" by stealing their thunder and going on various TV talk shows to say he was gay and proud about it. 

I loved him and his music, no matter if he was gay, straight or whatever, I've never understood why someone's sex life or private life is anybody else's business.  In this documentary, the "journalists" responsible for the outing of George and other pop icons were sitting there proudly showing off the crap they wrote and the hateful headlines they came up with. It shouldn't have been something to be proud of, hiding and rifling through rubbish bins or thrusting cameras in people's faces like they did and still do. They can't leave him alone now he is dead bless him. Or Freddie, or Diana, they still drag all three back out on a whim to try and sell papers when they are desperate for "news". 

Tuesday.

Up fairly early again but not as early as Monday, a more respectable 8 am. We got up and went into the city in order to have breakfast. We quite like doing it this way round on our days out on our own. So Maccy's it was for pancakes, and muffins, then shopping. We got back home around 1.30pm. I'd ordered some green cola, made with stevia ( doesn't make your blood sugar spike like aspartame does) so we needed to be back for that coming from the smiley box peeps as well as a hand mixer that Kev ordered. 

I'd bought some new brush pens from Ryman so I set too and had a reorganisation of my pen storage and then a play with said pens. Kev filled my water brushes with Dyan's inks ( what I have at the moment anyway!) So I will have those too to colour in with as well. I still use my Faber polycromos, but more for shading and accents rather than for all the image. 

We had sushi for tea, as the breakfasts had left us not needing much to eat for the rest of the day, and I had some watermelon. 

The Amazon deliveries had all come by 7ish, so Kev put the chain on the door and we watched the TV all in all a lovely Tuesday. 

In Between Days.

Sunday. 

Another busy day, which is good as it flew past. It took a minute to figure out why it was so busy first but then the penny dropped, football and the grand prix were on in the afternoon so it went a lot quieter around 2pm. Still the usual scramble by 4, but not as bad as normal. 

We got the bus into town OK and then the tram, the Cotgrave was about 15 minutes late ( I presume due to the football traffic, but as usual the driver said nothing as though he was on time) 

Which of course meant you had to hang on for dear life on the roads where he put his foot down trying to catch up some time. While you don't want them to crawl along, you do feel that you take your life in their hands when they bomb along like that. Going those speeds with a lot of folk on board is risky. But, it will be who would have thought it if and when there's an accident

 I had a very happy Kev because of the football, 7-0 they beat the Manc Scum. Even I could bear to watch after the first three. I don't usually, but as most of the game was on during the bus journey home it gave me something to do, in snatches as I can't look at a phone long when travelling as I get motion sickness if I stop looking around while we are moving. I can't read either, I'd love to while the time away on a coach with a book, but I'd lose the contents of my stomach more than once if I did. 

Once home, Kev watched the rest of the match, making the most of it, and then it was Pottery Throw Down time. Tiles and Sinks this week, it still blows me away at the potters skills, but I think you can see when the contestants are getting out of their depths. I think James will be first out, and odds on for Lois to win. She's come good in the last few weeks and is now turning out great stuff consistently.

In Between Days

Friday.

Kev was at work in the morning, so I got up and took the shopping off Ian as he'd been to Aldi and picked up some stuff for us, which he does every week. It's so good of him. Not many friends do that for you. 

After Ian had gone I did my exercises and got dressed. I did all my usual stuff like dyalog and showered, cleaning and dusting the bathroom. 

Before I knew it Kev was home and we settled down to watching Wolf Pack and then prepping stuff ready for work. 

Charlotte nipped round for a natter, and then it was an early night for us as we both had to be up for 5.30 am. 

Saturday.

Well, I had a reasonable day. It was nice to be back in some ways, even if the staff seemed to be a little thin on the ground. 

We managed to get both buses despite there being quite a backlog of buses, and a huge police and ambulance presence in the Huntingdon street area. God knows what was cracking off, road traffic accident or something more sinister... Guess we won't know until it hits West Bridgeford news tomorrow. 

In Between Days

Wednesday

Wash day crept around again. Second week of no dramas. I have a theory, but it's a bit unkind so I'd best keep it to myself. 

I finished prepping my new dyalog for this new month... 

It was a grey nasty day, thankfully we got everything we needed yesterday shopping, so neither of us needed to go out. Kev put the new starter motor in the light fitting in the kitchen. Its an old florescent strip light and it was taking an age to come on. Luckily they still sell them and he was able to change it. We keep hoping that's the one room they'll do, the kitchen. As the rents going up again they should do really. We've been here 7 years this month, so it's about time it was looked at. They were quick doing the bathroom but that was because I fell, and the DWP pressed for a walk in shower. The guy came in the afternoon and checked our heating and insulation, looks like everything is good and we can't really save anymore money as there are three radiators that never go on, the bedroom, the kitchen and the hall. It would be like an oven if we did. When we first moved in they were all on, it just about killed us. When we had the first boiler check we asked the guy how to turn some off safely and he showed us. We've never really had central heating before, the pub ones downstairs were antique and worked albeit inefficiently, we never had the upstairs on much at all because we weren't up there much. At Grafton and Gedling Road we only had storage heaters, so proper central heating was new to us. It's maybe why we don't like places too warm. The one thing we could have fitted ( and seeing as the summers are getting hotter) is air con. We have those portable ones, and they are good, but we could do with fitted air conditioning. 

Thursday.

I had some chores that needed doing, so I did those and then washed my duster after, and cleaned the air ram filter, all exciting stuff. 

I had some stamping to do, and a parcel to put together. I had a card I wanted to do so I got that done and lined the ones I had made already. I try to line them in batches. An essential job as far as I'm concerned a card isn't finished without lining, it looks half done, but it's not the most enjoyable bit of making a card, so rather than leave it until needed I do them and then I can just pick them out the box ready to written and sent. My Tim Holtz  deckle edge trimmer came so at least I can cut the lining with a pretty edge now. Such a bargain at £15, second hand, still looks new. Compared with £42 brand new. I do love a barging me...