Fiona's Quiet Life

i was ‘get­ting in a state’
hav­ing updated my out­look express or whatever it is i use to read emails, all my favour­ites dis­ap­peared, and i could not find a way to post on to this blog.….….….but as you see, here i am back again.
my neigh­bour across the road told me today that she asked her friend in Canada what was hap­pen­ing in our street. and Linda who used to read me on yahoo has been get­ting wor­ried. so i am back at it again.

the ducks have gone , just as i have lots of bar­ley to feed them but i am hop­ing they are look­ing after duck­lings in the local park. him upstairs spent 11 days with his delight­ful lady in her home , in her space and meet­ing her friends and fam­ily ..they are still as tight an item so i am hopeful .

so the people who had bought Nic­ola and Chris’s house then couldn’t move in because their buyer didn’t pay have resold their house and it is all on the move again.….…..but we are not house hunt­ing till cash is in their bank. have great hopes this time though.

there have been more women racing down the street.….…..17.000 of them Judy and harry next door, him upstairs and i handed out cups of water.…we all got a bit damp and a great time was had by us if not by the runners.

did i men­tion the guy tak­ing pho­tos of the house next door.….….…..he was tak­ing pho­tos from his car so him upstairs took his dogs for a walk past the car and i took pho­tos of him and his car then harry …hav­ing more sense than us actu­ally went and asked him why he was tak­ing pix or our houses.….….…he said he was loc­a­tion hunt­ing for a film com­pany in India look­ing for a.….…yes i have writ­ten this before haven’t i ah well a sign of aging all this repeat­ing ones stories.

i am fas­cin­ated by the signs of aging in myself, there is now an inch long white streak start­ing at my temple…it only shows when my hair is wet .blond hair is much darker when wet. and arth­ritis in one finger.……well i am sup­pos­ing it is arthritis…it is like watch­ing a story unfold. i feel quite pleased with myself that it is all hap­pen­ing on cue .

him upstairs has put up a wall moun­ted cloths line thing for me.….….…i don’t trust it for sheets or large tow­els but it is great for little items.

so it was dur­ing what i thought was a lull in the gale force winds that i thought i might nip out and plant some small plants i had got half price so i open the back door and.….……whoosh…hitting the pav­ing stones at enorm­ous speed was a tile from the roof sharp edge down.…one step more and.….…

i decided it would be safer stay­ing inside and using my elec­tric saw..so i did,

and the cup­board which had the worlds most ugly shelves now has half as many shelves and looks good.….….well it will if the paint ever dries.….……it hasn’t to date.

a state of high excite­ment is in me,i have ordered a bar­rel green house bar­rel­green­house.co.uk/ -.….….….it is made by coopers out of old bar­rels and is all recycled stuff it is small and cute …prob­ably only got room for six plants

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i admit it..i am lazy, and blog­ging might seem like home­work if i did it regularly.…i never did any home­work which is why i am where i am today.…oh. well actu­ally i am doing quite well.….…and dys­lexia and mild asper­gers didn’t help.

so, what is this about romance.….…not me, i am way too indol­ent for any­thing like that, though a gentle flir­ta­tion is not bey­ond me.

any­way,

first it was the ducks.….….three males chas­ing a female ‚fly­ing about two meters above the road at great speed.….…she would have triggered a speed cam­era. next day it was one female hid­ing up a syca­more tree while one male was going mad hunt­ing for her .….….then next day he and she floated in my tiny pond and they have reappeared at odd times, now it is either he or she so i am hop­ing there are eggs some­where and they are tak­ing it in turns to sit on them. mean­while the female eats out of my hand but the male keeps his dis­tance, all very enter­tain­ing for small grandsons.

Him upstairs is deep into what i hope is the per­fect romance, she was here for a week and they had a magical time.…so all you people of a cer­tain age , it can still hap­pen for you too.:-)

been back to Malta, this time we were enter­tained by one of Sheena’s mature stu­dents who is Maltese, he showed us bits that tours don’t go to and a most won­der­ful res­taur­ant, and we spent a lovely even­ing with his fam­ily in their home. there was a hot tub on the bal­cony of our hotel so Sheena and i spent the even­ings look­ing at the full moon and drink­ing bad wine.

cross with M&S today.…..they sent me a voucher for a free Per una small leather item , i.e. purse or belt .….….….but there were none at that price ‚in fact there were none at all so they said i could get any per una item with it.……but that meant i had to spend a lot more to use my ‘free’ £10.….….….not impressed.

Scot­land has been HOT.….….….so pleased to see some rain today. even though it rained on me when i went to vote.….some of the parties are down­right silly.….….…..there were approx 16 on my slip, one was a pir­ate party.

watched the royal wed­ding all day last Fri­day, excel­lent entertainment.…i am sure they don’t cost any more than a pres­id­ent , and there is con­tinu­ity instead of every two years the run up to an elec­tion starts so little gets done.….……

even i can appre­ci­ate what people are say­ing about the pleas­ant­ness of the rear end of the sis­ter of the bride, and i have never heard a les­son being read so well as was done by the brother of the bride.…..way bet­ter that ‘four wed­dings and a funeral’

so .….……the Eng­lish way of house selling is still as stu­pid as ever.….….……wouldn’t hap­pen in Scotland.….….…the House in chip­pen­ham was sup­posed to be handed over to its buy­ers on a Wed­nes­day, the buy­ers had taken their chil­dren out of the school they were at and star­ted them at the chip­pen­ham school, but… the per­son who had bought that house pulled out of the deal on the Fri­day before so the whole chain ground to a halt and all the houses are back on the market.….….…when will Eng­lish law catch up with Scotland.…it is a good thing Nic and Chris hadn’t bought any­thing up here…they were right to be dis­trust­ful of the sale.

so house hunt­ing is on hold.….….…..well still looking, .

last cam­era club night of the sea­son tonight, present­a­tion of sil­ver cups etc.…..i didn’t come any­where near win­ning one, partly because i don’t enter enough images, but mainly because the club mem­bers include some superb photographers.i am not one of those members.

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been say­ing to people “it’s going on me blog” for weeks but when it comes to it i have for­got­ten what ever it was that was so inter­est­ing , and i am too lazy anyway.….….……but him upstairs was hav­ing lim­ited con­nectiv­ity on his inter­net access , so i tried his on mine and it was fine, so he is either unplug­ging everything upstairs or he is access­ing the inter­net via my connection.….….symbiotic or what?.…so to test the con­nec­tion i had to go onto a site so here i am.

the upstairs ‚down­stairs sym­bi­ot­ics are so good.….a couple of days ago i had to send him a text from the garden …he had the build­ers in and i didn t want to dis­turb negotiations.….….…..my text reading.…damson and dam­sel in distress.…..why? because
free­share again.…somebody had offered a dam­son tree to be col­lec­ted, about two meters tall, no prob­lem i have had things that big in the car before. but of course it was in a large pot of damp heavy soil.
well the nice lady and i got it in the car,i tied the hatch closed and come home.….….….…..could I get it out again.….…..could I hell.….……i pulled, i pushed, i tied rope to the bucket thing, no use it just got fur­ther wedged.….….I swore…then i texted…down came him upstairs and two burly builders.….….….them as did my extension.….….…they hadn’t got the text yet and i heard them say­ing ” there is a tree in her car shall we get it out, maybe she wants it in , “ please please out “ says i .and within seconds it was out of the car and car­ried about the garden till the per­fect place was found for it.

and i gave the nice tree lady sev­eral boxes and lots of bubble wrap for her house move so the freeshere thing felt very good.

also he has men­ded my door­bell so peace is over.

it does go both ways,he had a hungry guest a couple of days ago and i was able to provide sustenance.…mind you that was only because the super­mar­ket with its clever strategy of giv­ing you a money off voucher provided you spend £50, they suck you in with it which is why i usu­ally stay away from them, any­way i determ­ined to spend £50 so actu­ally spent £90 which is why i had spare food.….i did buy house­hold items as well and pic­ture frames which i needed due to all this photography.

i have been photo editing…going to enter this one for the annual competition.

i sur­vived hav­ing a house­ful of boys over the half term holiday.….in fact it was quite fun.….….…..cameron was here first and we drove all over Fife tak­ing pho­to­graphs of streetlamps.…..its an asper­gers thing.….……then younger daugh­ter Nic and hus­band Chris brought the wee boys to stay.…things were lively .they are now into Harry Pot­ter so were rushing­about on broom­sticks shout­ing “expelli­am­ous”. we all went to cinema to see megamind…good fun and inter­est­ing.and we had an orgy of bubble wrap popping.…..and bubble bathing.

but also great fun was had play­ing a card game called Scabby Aggy and sev­eral other games i can’t remem­ber the names of.

once the wee ones were in bed Cameron , N icola and i took apart a couple of old laptops that was huge fun.….…we spent hours play­ing with the bits.….like mak­ing the fans work with wire and bat­ter­ies…or mak­ing faces behind bits of the screen.….….…..i have my ‘memory’ in a pic­ture frame with the legend ‘in case of alzheimer’s break glass’ on it.……this is so weird…i went off just now to pho­to­graph it for the blog and i can’t find it.…feeling freaked now.

spring is in the air, bulbs are up in the garden and there is the prom­ise of pies to come in the rhubarb.….…not in the rhu­barb.…...you know very well what i meant.

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I am savour­ing the silence of my house before all hell breaks loose, mid term hol­i­day approaches and the 14 yr old is com­ing to stay fol­lowed rap­idly by his small cousins.

since the trip to centre Parks there have been a lot of changes.

firstly i had a dose of the com­mon cold which knocked me for six for ages.…fine now though.
the house was won­der­fully quiet as him upstairs set off for Aus­tralia and new Zea­l­and on the first of Janu­ary for three weeks. he went to keep basil’s cousin Ros com­pany on the long jour­ney as she was a bit trepidatious.….….….….ooh long word alert.….….….about the whole thing but wanted to visit her daugh­ter who lives there.
he seems to have enjoyed the trip but was burst­ing to get back to see his …can’t think of a suit­able word .….….….but i have heard…at length.…many nice things about her, and he is going about like a puppy with two tails.…his lady i suppose.

that was january.…the snow even­tu­ally went, the roads are in bits with big holes.

mean­while Nic­ola, hav­ing been made redund­ant, took the oppor­tun­ity to move back to Glas­gow , it being as easy for Chris to com­mute to Cov­entry from here as for Chip­pen­ham, so a house hunt is in pro­gress, they are liv­ing with her father.….…poor man is not used to chil­dren, i feel sorry for him but find it hugely funny as well.….….…..he likes to be tidy and quiet.…i think it will do him good espe­cially if they fat­ten him up a bit.

and the quiet­ness will be inter­rup­ted again because him upstairs, impressed with the qual­ity of my exten­sion has asked the builder to put in a couple of rooms in the attic.….….…i am excited to see the plans, it would make a won­der­ful artists studio.

Oh yes ‘the caution’.….….….…i got my rights read to me by a very nice , very large police­man some­where north of loch lomond last week.….….……and sur­pris­ingly for me it was not for speed but for my illeg­ally spaced num­ber plate.….….….i have to admit to know­ing it was a bit wrongly spaced.……if you squint at it, it looks like my name.….……it is now legal. you have the right to remain silent he said…the whole thing , just like on telly.

but it did not spoil the won­der­full three days i spent with Amanda and Donna , pho­to­graphy enthusiasts.….….…Amanda Hemphill pho­to­graphy , is her page on face book ‚she will have her own web site soon, she is good.….….……i was just hav­ing fun but she was ded­ic­ated and it was great to watch.……anyway we stayed at the Drovers by Ardlui.…a 300 yr old pub.….basic but clean accom­mod­a­tion and won­der­ful food.….….….….we did a lot if gig­gling and drink­ing a mix­ture of Dram­buie and Glayva, play­ing daft card games called things like fish.

i have been play­ing with shut­ter speeds.…..a lot of people like water to look milky in photographs,i like it to look like water

here are two pic­tures of the falls at Falloch.….….….the those deer were soaked with the rain as were we.….….……i have never been so wet through in my life as in thse three

days but we didnt feel it we were hav­ing such fun.

and lastly.….……on Monday this week it was 4 years since him­self died.….….……i vis­ited the cemetery by moon­light, almost wished i had taken a cam­era, a sliver if new moon and Jupiter…i think…directly below ‚ i left him some stones from my trip to Glen Coe.

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So, last time I wrote I had been walk­ing on water.….…..for which I got a lec­ture on the dangers of thin ice from a grand­son and a stern look from younger daughter.….….….…it was only 30cms deep said I , and the ice was 10cms thick.….….….it is not drown­ing that kills you says daugh­ter it is the icy cold.….……I grace­fully agreed, espe­cially as I was hav­ing chest ache from the -10 air I had been breath­ing. so no more walk­ing on water.…might skate on it though.

Well, they have given me a taste for it hav­ing booked me into a roller blad­ing ses­sion at centre parcs.….I was the only one to stay on my wheels not my bum.

It was beau­ti­ful at centre parcs in the lake dis­trict, we had the same chalet as in the sum­mer but it had been totally refur­bished and was done to a high stand­ard, and I needn’t have taken the extra heater and duvet it was lovely and toasty des­pite the snow and very low tem­per­at­ures. Half way through the week I nipped back to Glas­gow and took deliv­ery of bits of a corner bed settee from Ikea, and drove straight back down…only 2 and a quarter hours. Then on the 23^rd came back and put most of it together but gave up after a lot of swear­ing as it needed two people to lift a bit onto another bit.….……him upstairs to the rescue.

he.…him upstairs that is, is all smiles and in the grip of a new romance.…I can tell these things.….…this one sounds very right…I hope all goes well.

Mean­while I still haven’t had my Christ­mas din­ner because I woke on Christ­mas eve with a stinker of a com­mon cold.….….…..I hid behind a mask in the hope of not infect­ing my vis­it­ors ( Basil’s daugh­ter Abby ‚Ian and Jonathan) three of them were stay­ing at my house and two at her moth­ers. Any­way, hav­ing no appet­ite I didn’t eat much , yes­ter­day I cooked it all as it needed to be either cooked or thrown out, but still not hungry.….….….….visitors were spend­ing all their time with her mother so not much food was eaten here.

Have just real­ised tomor­row is new year’s eve ….….…I must clean up and change the beds.….….….it would never do to start a year in a dirty house, I have memor­ies of my mother clean­ing the bath at five minutes to midnight.

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