My town.

 Our town isn't known for its Christmas lights, but the shops always look good.. not quite dressed for Christmas yet. but still pretty. This is the flower shop with the lovely seasonal flowers and plants on view.

I was a Saturday girl in their other shop many, many  years ago!

I love this shop and buy a lot of plants from them. People have the opinion that they are expensive, but they are top quality plants and I've never had a failure from there. In this display there is a small artificial snowdrop plant that has silver sparkles on it and I want it!! It will look super in our front pots in all the greenery!

The Maple shops are lovely, here is the Children's shop, Love those little dolls displayed as though in windows. Maple is a firm and there are 6 shops all different. We like the kitchen shop too.

Bliss a gift shop and very nice too. and looking spectacular.

Even the charity shops look good!!

A lot of people here think town is not so good, but it is and there are some superb shops here. Someone started talking to me in one of the cafes a little while ago.( Well I might have said Hello to her first!' ) And she had bags full of things bought here and couldn't find enough good things to say, how nice our little town was. She was complaining that Swansea had lost a lot of shops and certainly didn't have gift shops there,  as we have here... anyway we love it and it fulfils our needs.. and altho I'm not a big advocate of Aldi, it suits me for walking on wet days!!

Chrisxx

Aches and pains, but it was worth it!

 I do have a lot of pots of spring bulbs,  but having seen Monty's  on Gardener's  World, and all his ready planted,  I wanted more! So a few evening ago with nothing of interest on TV, I looked for some bulbs I fancied.. 

I know some people don't like Grape Hyacinths but I love them and these white ones are so pretty..

I fancied these yellow crocus in my shallow bowl shaped pot..we have an assortment of colours planted in our front lawn, but they've all come up purple!

And who could resist these pale bell shaped narcissi, called 'White Petticoat Daffodils,' and so pretty and delicate/

Yesterday the sun shone, so after lunch we togged up to garden with the bulbs to plant first. As we stepped out of our French doors there was a light 'miserling' of rain! It's not heavy we thought. so we carried on. We work together rather than we do different tasks, because we get more done that way. The bulbs were done in no time and all topped with grit..

We cut down the single dahlias stalks and top dressed with spent tomato compost. I pruned the grape vine; we had the last bunches a few weeks ago. We had left 2 more bunches, as they get sweeter, but for the first time ever a big bird (magpie?) had eaten them! And then Dh cut down spent plants in the flower bed parallel to the bungalow wall and we were done...  but we were a bit soggy and my aches and pains were awful. I won't do that again. The other two flower beds will be done on a dry day!

The white patio is a bit muddy but a good rainfall or a couple of buckets of water will sort it! But we're very happy we've made a start to get our garden winter ready.

Chrisxx

Pam Ayres.

 FIFTY SHADES OF GREY BY PAM AYRES

The missus bought a paperback, down Shepton Mallet way, I had a look inside her bag;...T'was "Fifty Shades of Grey".

Well I just left her to it, and at ten I went to bed.

An hour later she appeared;

The sight filled me with dread, in her left hand she held a rope and in her right a whip!

She threw them down upon the floor, and then began to strip.

Well fifty years or so ago I might have had a peek, but Mabel hasn't weathered well, she's eighty four next week!!

Watching Mabel bump and grind could not have been much grimmer and things then went from bad to worse, she toppled off her Zimmer! She struggled back upon her feet a couple minutes later, she put her teeth back in and said

"I am dominator!!"

Now if you knew our Mabel, you'd see just why I spluttered, I'd spent two months in traction

for the last complaint I'd uttered.

She stood there nude and naked bent forward just a bit I went to hold her, sensual like and stood on her left tit!

Mabel screamed, her teeth shot out;

My God what had I done!

She moaned and groaned then shouted out:

"Step on the other one!!"

Well readers, I can tell no more, Of what occurred that day. Suffice to say my jet black hair,

Turned fifty shades of grey!!

Never read the book but love this daft poem!

Chrisxx

None so queer as folk!

 Yesterday afternoon was our end of year U3a Gardening group meeting.  Called a 'Celebration of a Successful Garden Club year' and took the form of a Bring and Share meal.

We always look forward to it as its always nice to share and chat gardens and more.

Yesterday was no exception.. and that odd man turned up again. We've noticed him at other events too. He doesn't come to regular monthly meetings, only when there's the food ones! Summer time he drank the wine that some members brought. Yesterday he sat near us. We had taken flasks of tea to drink along with the food and he asked me if the 'girls' made the tea and coffee as in other groups?? I asked him what 'girls' and he played deaf! Anyway he helped himself to a plate full of food several times. And as the members who brought along wine were sitting away from us, he got himself a glass of water.

He hardly spoke, fortunately some one came sand sat near to me so I was spared him sitting next to me. When we were giving out the Secret Santa presents, he took one even though he hadn't brought one? So I suppose one of the leaders went without. He left when we started to clear up, so strange.

But we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, lovely food and lots of laughter. And it was a good gardening club year. 

The group has been asked to give help and ideas for the Eastern Prom, garden strips. Redone, when the whole area has been re-built  to reinforce the sea wall. The firm that did it has had total failure, as the plants chosen and trees, all died in the salt air.  So an interesting project to plan next year.

That's the lovely thing about gardening, there's always next year!

Chrisxx

Old recipes.

 I felt a bit foolish yesterday, as Dh wanted a recipe for a cake and I knew I had it in my folder of loose recipes.

So as I started to go through it,  all sorts of recipes came to the fro.. some written by my Aunty Glad. Ginger Beer, Sticky Jaw Toffee, A Boiled cake, Welsh cakes! Her writing was very rounded and clear, but now faded and the papers stained and creased, where I had used them.

I could hear her voice telling me what to do and I was a bit weepy, she died 1990 so many years ago, but her voice sounded clear in my ear. 

How come our minds can do that after so many years have passed? 

Chrisxx

Last Christmas

We were all ready to go for a walk yesterday afternoon when the heavens opened and we were stuck in on a Sunday afternoon.

And so we watched this lovely little film and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sometimes you need a bit of of a 'cheesy' film.. it was fun and light and sad too.

And 'Wham' sang all the way through and that was lovely too.

Try it and see for yourselves, it chased away the rain and now we're in an early Christmas mode.

Chrisxx

Old Friends!

 Yesterday morning a friend came for coffee, we were in school together when we were 7 and altho her family moved away for a few years we kept in touch. 

We came from vastly different back grounds. Her father had two shops in the town, news agents, one was in the village just outside of town which she managed. I used to call in to see her with my children, when we lived there in the sixties and she used to spoil my children  allowing them to chose a book or a small toy as well as giving them sweets.

We laughed and laughed yesterday., when I used to threaten her with the dentistry bills I might have to pay out with all the sweets they ate from her.

I do have some lovely photo graphs of my two children and her outside the shop in the brilliant sunshine, I must look it up and others.

I always said my second child's labour and delivery was easy, because she had driven me in her little mini at top speed to the hospital over every bump there was on the road!

It was lovely chatting yesterday and remembering those sunny days when we were young. We've known each other for 75 years!

Chrisxx

You have to laugh!

 It was -1C when we were getting in the car to go to SW yesterday morning, although I didn't feel cold as I was wearing winter weight clothes, instead of my thin cotton dress.. I was expecting the scales to show a gain with the extra weight from my clothes, but no, I maintained my weight. I was very pleased, as I knew my extra clothes weighed 1.5lbs, yes I had weighed them! So now a new week and a downward trend to get below a certain weight before the big 'day.

And this is so laughable I had to write about it. It seems that in an area in UK, a council has asked gardeners, who use the garden refuse bins, to place them in a sunny spot in this cold weather, because the bins are freezing to the ground and the operatives are unable to lift them to empty then! Would you believe it?? It was even suggested to put them in a shed, till it was close to collection time to keep them warm! We don't know what time our garden waste is emptied as it varies from fortnight to fortnight, we actually pay £45 for 20 weeks and there's no room in our shed, is there room in yours? 

Laugh and keep laughing, it will keep us warm!

Chrisxx

Book Group

 Our monthly book group in the library has been moved to 12:00 md, so no hanging around yesterday, as we had to get into town, park and then walk to the library.  Altho of late we've been showering fairly early, well I say early, but before 10 am, so probably late for a lot of people.  Its because if I'm awake in the night, when I do get back to sleep, I sleep on past our usual get up time. 

We spent the first few minutes discussing our Christmas meal booked in December at the Italian  restaurant, where we went to for Dh's birthday. He and I have already decided what we'll have! Once we did get round to discussing the book, the general opinion was it was a 'nice' read, nothing to write home about.. so 'The Keeper of Lost Things' was shelved.... but then we were joined by a young man, who had come to join our group and had read the book. 

He had delved deeply into the book and had formed opinions on the characters, their emotional relationships, their inner feelings and compared it to another book and film. He never stopped talking, I had to jump in when he took a breath, to say 'Moving on,'  what did one of the other members think about it. So that's going to be interesting in the future if he comes back. He had come on the bus from Maesteg, so why to our little library?

Our next read is Josephine Tey's,  'The Daughter of Time' so an easy read. I read it years ago. but can't remember it!

Bitterly cold today only 2.4 C and we've had a frost. I'm going to be pounds heavier at SW tomorrow with all the extra clothes I'll be wearing! 

Hope you're keeping toasty warm where you are.

Chrisxx

How I made the collage, step by step.

 I did this on my phone, but I must take better photographs!

On your phone select Gallery  

1.Select 'create'

2.Select pics you want.

3. Under the pics looking at your phone, select configuration you want.

4 Click save

5. I then emailed it to myself, so it was in a folder on my laptop

I can't see another way to be able to use it on my laptop at the moment.

Hope this helps

Chrisxx