General Chat

I think much of that mindset was a hangover from wartime rationing.
My parents were the same - and therefore so am I, to some extent.

Why throw away something which is in good condition and can be reused?

And now it's trendy - "saving the planet" !

Exactly Gwen. Once the sellotape was off she would then fold and smooth the paper and only then would she look at the gift.

I think all gifts were recycled. I can still remember the mothball taste of chocolate the nuns brought on a visit to my poorly brother. Must have been nearly 70 years ago.

Was that so that the paper could be reused, Names?

My mother was a great one for reusing nice wrapping paper.
When we cleared the bungalow (I was a grandmother myself by then ) we found tucked away wrapping paper from my 21st birthday :-) :-0

When parcels came through the post tied up with string, that was carefully unknotted and stored in a special place and the paper smoothed over and also kept for future use.

I went to a Covent school and one nun used to drive us up the wall whilst she very slowly peeled each piece of sellotape off the wrapping paper around presents.

I think I used wallpaper because in the early 1970's, mum had wallpaper in every room and the hall so there was always bits left on a roll. Buying coloured paper like wrapping paper was far too expensive.

We then had to put a label on the front with the subject, class and teacher's name.

We were also given a rough note book but only 1 per term. You good write notes, draw/doodle what ever you wanted. But if you used up all the pages before the term ended you had to provide your own notebook.

I had used bacofoil on occasions to wrap a gift when i didnt have any wrapping paper and just put a bow on the front. It always got noticed how "different" it looked lol

My chicken, throw it all together is just about ready now so better see to it.

I can remember art classes at grammar school included potato printing on sugar paper to be used for covering a new set of hymn books for daily assembly.
We too covered text books with wall paper.
The book was numbered and issued at the beginning of the school year and we had to hand it back in perfect condition at the end of the year.
The number was checked against the issue list.

We had to cover all our text books too, but not with wallpaper - nobody had such a thing. Our were all done with brown paper. (I seem to remember DIY being invented in the early 60's, with the first B and Q nearby. It was a fascinating place.)

Memory is a funny thing, I don’t remember covering text books but our exercise books all had to have colour coded ( for subject) waxed paper ( which I expect we had to pay for).

Can’t get ready for Christmas yet. Poppy on tomorrow and then trying to get the kids to decide what they want for their November birthdays - then I can think about Christmas.

Just had to buy a new mobile. The free 4 g sim has fried my old 2g phone. Can’t wait for the ‘how did we do’ message. Can you do a minus on those.? The person on the other end of the help line was appalling.

AG, so did we have to cover our school books and wallpaper was brilliant. i also loved doing that too and btw, no we are not sad just creative lol

Hope you get on ok with your jags.

AnninGloucs, please can I have some of your sun to brighten up the day!

The flu jag is made of egg and i'm severely allergic to that so don't have it any more.

Currently recharging the batteries as the rechargeable ones from last year are near dead and tested in the xmas ornaments showed very dull lights. Can only do 4 at a time and takes hours!!! i still maintain the 20 Kodak i bought in the pound shop was better value but hey ho.

I think it depends on how fir we are physically, how susceptible to colds and various other things as, If it is the same jab that I had for covid it hits your immunity system. However, maybe it is the flu jab that causes some people problems, no idea what is in that (which is quite a concern really). I had mine last Saturday, had a sore arm on the side I sleep on (which is the covid side) but no other problems. My much younger neighbour had hers two days before me and the day after she felt exhausted and nauseous) but only for one day.

It is a beautiful day here, sunny with clear blue skies. Whic means I should be out in the garden. :-D

AG, OH and I had our jabs last week, covid in one arm and flu in the other, and neither of us had any side effects at all, not even sore arms. We were in and out in 10 minutes, so here's hoping yours goes as well. :-)

I like wrapping, too!
In my schooldays I used to love covering schoolbooks, as we were expected to do in those days. Wallpaper was good for that. I took pride in making a very neat cover - how sad am I ?!

Yes, Sylvia, your sniffle may well be an after-effect of your jabs.
Several people here have said they felt completely exhausted for a day or two after their most recent ones - apparently different stuff is being used this time.
I'm going for my jabs this afternoon, so hoping it doesn't affect me like that.

AG forgot to mention, i looked at flight radar and saw there was a lot of jets and Ryl Air Force about in the west of Scotland and yes, they are really loud.

This is the first time in 20 years, we didnt do a shoe box :-( But we have given very generously over the years and yes its amazing what you can fit in. Wrapping the lid & box was quite tricky even for me who actually likes wrapping lol

Morning all
Not a nice day here as windy & raining and now quite misty so indoors today!

ArgyllGran, I bought a xmas jumper 2 years ago and it is black with a lovely Robin on the front and a very cosy wear. Hope you enjoy wearing your too all through the winter.

What a nuisance with your electric meter :-( Gosh I so hope they sort it out for you and can they not revert the heaters to come back on at their normal time? The signal isnt probably strong enough. Here a few miles along the rd. there are plenty of blind spots where there is no coverage or signal for the internet or or mobile. The joys of living in a remote & very rural area.

You can't move the hills not even with all the modern technology!!

Sylvia, i am so sorry youre not feeling great. Maybe its the side effects of the jags? They say after about 10 days, you may feel groggy and have a cold and thats letting you know the meds are in your system I guess.

I so hope you feel better soon.

Being organised for xmas or any other event is ingrained in me from my banking days. We were trained to be organised from day 1 and keep your desk tidy, your filing 100 % accurate etc, use a desk diary too. All that training has remained with me throughout my life. So i have always been called " Mrs organiser" lol or Mrs fix it as i was trained to problem solve which has been a valuable asset too in life.

Today, we are doing something which some may say NOOOOOO but it has to be done when we are both here and daughter is going to be busy with volunteering from next week soooo. Yep shes going up to the loft to get the xmas tree and decs down and before anyone thinks we are putting it up were not! It will go in her room as she has more space until the time we decide to put it up.

My big responsibility is to hold the ladder steady and catch her if she fell :-D :-D :-D
Heaven help me if that happened as I would fall with her!!

Anyway, that's the plan in a bit. For now just usual housework and then some lunch.

Looking out my lounge window and I can see just how wild it is as the top of the Rhododendron is being moved about and that takes some doing as its huge and a heavy plant. Thank goodness I wasn't going to town today.

Well better crack on just now.

I may look in later

Have a good day all

Florence in the hebrides

I hope your sniffles clear up soon, Sylvia.
How is your husband coping with not seeing you for several days?

You say you don't think there will be a Christmas tree - is that because it's a multi-faith community and they don't want to either favour or offend anybody?

Well, I've been "in isolation" since Thursday last week!

Nothing much has happened, so I didn't post.

I came down with a very runny nose over Wednesday /Thursday night, although it had cleared up somewhat by the time I got up in the morning, but I really felt "cold-y". So I put in a call for one of the nurses to come and check me. Immediate "isolation", with meals brought to my room (apart from breakfast which I always have here, from my own supplies of cereals).

Since Sunday, it has gone day by day as to whether I should stop or not ............. with the fact that one of my table mates at meals is 101 years old being a large part of the equation!

I seem to go from sniffly one day, to coughing, to blocked up .......... and repeat! The weather hasn't helped either! We had our Covid and Flu shots on October 9, just 2 weeks before I came down with this cold ....... it isn't Covid!

I'm getting a lot of reading done!

Florence ......... you amaze me with your early Christmas preparations! I haven't even given a thought to it. I doubt we will have a Christmas tree or dinner here, but there is OH and family to think about cards, along with money gifts for grandson and great- nieces and -nephews.

Keep safe everyone

Enjoy your outing on Friday, Florence!
I hope you find al the Christmas things you're looking for.

I really haven't thought about Christmas yet, apart from having put together a shoebox of things for the annual Blythswood Shoebox Appeal.
You can get a surprising amount of stuff into a shoebox!
Covering the lid and main part of the box separately in Christmas paper is the tricky part.
And then finding a big enough elastic band to go round the filled box.

Oh yes, I've also bought myself a Christmas jumper!
It was an absolute impulse buy from Home Bargains - a lovely warm jumper.
The warmth was the main appeal, but it's also colourful, cheerful, and not too naff.


No particular progress with the supposedly smart meter. Scottish Power have raised the matter as a complaint, which they say is the quickest way to get a resolution. The man I spoke to a couple of days ago says he thinks the new meter will have to be replaced, as it's clearly not working as it should.
In the meantime - a week on from the installation - the storage heaters still come on during the day instead of at night, and Scottish Power haven't managed to connect the meter to "the network".
Personally, I think the signal here just isn't strong enough and they should never have installed the useless thing.
However, we'll see!

It was a calm , dry, and mainly sunny day here, and the RAF were taking advantage of it for exercises.
Four jets zooming down the loch, so loudly that my friend and I had to stop talking until they'd passed, as we couldn't hear each other.
Also two very low, very slow cargo-type planes. So slow that they seemed to be hardly moving, at about treetop level.

Afternoon all.
Not a bad day but getting windy and the clouds looking darker. I think tomorrow the forecast is awful with heavy rain!

But We managed 2 loads of washing and bedding and got it mostly dry outside so less work for the tumble!

Making a list for my trip to town on Friday with my pal for the day. I'm finalising the xmas pressie shopping but made a couple of changes too. I decided to buy a basic toolkit in a carry case for my 13 year old nephew as he is doing woodwork etc now and very into making things so thought this would be a better idea for him.

He wont have to borrow his dads tools then!

Im also planning my after xmas buffet for my friend & her family and that will take awhile. They will be 8 or poss 9 of us so a lot of mouths to feed but Im quite used to that so no more work to feed 4 than 8 really as long as its planned well.

I hope everyone is ok as we seem a bit thin on the ground on here?

I'm sure we are all just busy busy in our own lives.

Florence in the hebrides

Afternoon all
Had a busy productive day today and was quite nice earlier. The fog/mist has crept in so very damp now.

i managed to put together the cart I bought for the garden. It has 4 wheels and a tipper tray. The front wheels turn so you can go in any direction. i had tried to put his together some time ago but couldnt work out how to tighten the nuts.

So today, decided it cant be that difficult and finally i managed. So was able to transport several plants and 4 large bags of compost round to the back garden and into the poly tunnel. Was so easy rather than having to carry it all as we did before!

I then spent the afternoon wrapping and parcelling some more gifts as my xmas paper I ordered arrived. So thats another 2 jobs off my list.

I always find it so satisfying when you have a list of jobs to do and you manage to tick them all off :-D :-D

Hope everyone else is doing ok

Shetland is coming back on soon for those that watch it. Gonna be on a Wed eve which will be great as Tues is also good viewing too.

Better see to my eve meal and tbh, nothing sorted yet as been too busy so something quick tonight.

Florence in the hebrides

It is a nice sunny day here, we just popped to Aldi because when I got back from Aldi yesterday, I realised that there were a few things which I needed and hadn’t been on the shopping list

I haven’t been on the thread for a few days because my daughter was in working in London for a couple of days. That meant going to their house and entertaining Esme after she got back from school, cooking dinner for them and getting her to bed before coming home. I let Esme help to make dinner on both nights, she is getting good at chopping things up and really enjoys helping.

It is half term next week, so no doubt we will be out and about.