Hello !
Just a few piccies as promised. I have to find the better ones as yet.
No.1 Jim and home with Hannah
No.2 from left, Kerry,me Danny and girlfriend Salina
No.3 Kerry and Danny in St. Petersburg, Russia
No.4 Kerry with hubby Slava in St.Petersburg
No.5 Jim, in the middle with his prized fishing trophy
SANDRA
Oh Dear,
Now what have I done to deserve THIS? This has been a year for things going wrong. Some serious, like our poor pooch Hannah having a major op. for cancer, but is was very successful and all that is hopefully behind us. But the majority have been what some might term trivial problems. Its the amount of them that is the main problem. Its getting to the point that every time an electrical appliance in the house makes an unusual noise, however breifly, I just start to think "Here we go again!"
Lets see, we had the probs with the PC from the beginning of January. Jim is into writing all his pics to disk and hes becone a bit of an expert at it, so when the burner failed to do just that he started to get a bit hacked off to say the least! After many phone calls and journeys to PC World clutching our rather expensive warranty in our hands. We were told that they couldnt do anything until we had stripped in back to its virgin state, their words , not ours ! So after trying to save what files we could, as the burner didnt work most of the time, we finally had it ready for the engineer. Then we had to wait till one was free from his busy schedule to come out and fit a new one for us. Eureka ! It worked. But the time it took to put all the stuff back in and get it sorted. Well it was worth it in the end, but if they hads changed it when we first said something was wrong we wouldnt have had to wait 4months to have it all sorted out.
In the meantime Kerry and Slava, though already married in Russia, more of that another time, were due to have a church wedding blessing here in the UK. Well 1`d like to report that although weddings are always supposed to have something go wrong on the day. In this case it didnt,not a thing, it was the most perfect day , even the weather, which was glorious! This was the most successful time of the year to date.
My washing machine packed up on me then my ironing board broke whilst I was using it, which was ok because I needed a new one. But then so did my iron give up the ghost. Then the damned Dyson started playing me up and one after the other the appliances starteddropping like flies. Well we got everything sorted and everything seemed fine for a while. When this happens you do seem to be lulled into a false sense of security Then it all happened again, only bigger this time The dratted bathroom! We had our beautiful new bathroom suite on order for only 2 wks when it arrived. We put it in the spare bedroom until it could be fitted by our nephew who is a heating engineer and very good he is too. Well we had to wait for over a month for the fitting but that wasnt the problem. Jim was helping to chisel the wall out for the shower pipes when "BANG" he went through the wall into another room, my office as I call it now has a view straight into the half finished bathroom. The bathroom is half finished because when the bath was fitted and secure I found it had a split in it, just a tiny one, but one that was going to get a lot bigger if left. So once again we are waiting for a new bath. It should be here tomorrow and this one had better be perfect!
Now today we get up to find after a night of heavy rain that water has come in through the outside wall of the spare bedroom. We think that because the bricks are old that they must have become porous so all it needs now is a few days without rain so that Jim can get up a ladder to paint that water repellent stuff for brickwork! Jim is not a happy bunny. He been up and down that ladder so may times this year and hes reckons hes getting too old for it. He has already sealed all the windows with silicone, painted the outside of the house soffit boards, steps and all. So hes hoping this will do the trick or we may have to consult a builder which will probably cost an arm and a leg. Roll on the end of 2004 I say, mind you before that happens we have Christmas first. I`m off now but I`ll be back another time to tell the story of our girls wedding to her Russian! Bye everyone
SANDRA
GOOD AFTERNOON
PEOPLE !
How are you all this fine Sunday? I`m having a bit of trouble with changing the font back to normal after my initial `good afternoon` so I shall carry on regardless. Maybe the size of the type reflects my mood! Jim is still very uplifted with his fishing win yesterday. The trophy is very heavy but not bad to look at. So its sitting in pride of place on the TV. He should have had a second trophy because he landed the biggest fish, but the organisors thought it unfair to award him 2 so they gave the other one to the chap with the second biggest (2lbs lighter than the one Jim caught , his was 14and a half lbs!)
Still he doesnt care as he is the overall winner. I`m having quite a bit of trouble with the PC again and AOL, but its nothing that I cant sort out methinks. Anyway I`m off now to watch the olympics, I`m sure we have more gold medals to come. Didnt we do well yesterday! Well I shall away and hope next time I`m back with a more sensible text and also to post some piccies of me and the family. Bye for now.
Hello I`m back!
Today is a lovely day. Both weatherwise and and peaceful too. Hubby Jim has gone to his first fishing competion today and believe it or not he has won not one, but two trophies! The first for winning the entire competition and the second for catching the biggest fish. I`m really proud of him too. He was on the phone just a little while ago and was really over the moon. He will be presented with the trophies after dinner tonight. Now , considering that after six years of fishing (he was a late starter) and boring me to death with his "one that broke the line/got away" stories, he really does have something to sing about.
Kerry (daughter) and hubby Slava have moved to a new flat just 2mins walk from here. I did think she would be on the doorstep all the time but so far so good (we love her really!). Tomorrow whilst walking Hannah(labrador) I will be popping in for coffee. It really is a nice little flat with lots of light coming in. It has a communal garden, the flats look like houses from the outside and the windows overlook the fields. So it is really nice,quiet and private. They have security cameras at night and the secrectary of the neighbourhood watch lives downstairs. He introduced himself while we were moving them in. He is rather like a retired major and seems a very nice man. I think they will be happy living there.
I would like to report something about No1 and only son Danny. But as hes temporarily not speaking to me( for reasons unknown to me! It happens a lot) theres not much to tell !
Am I the only one thinking how the nights seem to be drawing in? The air is feeling slightly damp at night, which to me always signals the end of summer. Mind you, I quite like autumn, ita a very pretty season and you still get some lovely warn, even hot days. We nearly always get good weather for our jolly in Dorset in the second week of September so I`m hoping for the same this year. Which reminds me , I must get Jim to get a case down from the loft so I can start sorting out what I need to pack. Going away in England you do have to make sure you have the right sort of clothes for all weathers and temperatures. I have promised to cut back on my clothes this year and I really have been ordered to take no more than four pairs of shoes as the usual six is far to many for a week says my lord and master. Huh what does he know anyway!!!
I shall be off now to sort out some piccies that I will post on my next entry. Jim puts them all on disk and I cant find them anywhere. So for now, Bye, but I`ll be back.
SANDRA
I`m back! This is about crazy cows , more of which in a moment. I rather like this piccie that was sent to me, however, I have what I call my Fun File in which I save all my funny emails. I really do love many of these because they do cheer me up. So if anyone out there has any funnies that they would like to share please feel free send any my way!
The weather looks threatening again. Sometimes I wonder why we dont all sell up and move to sunnier climes. But being British I suppose many would find something else to complain about,the weather, the food, the language, mosquitos, the list would go on for ever. So we all just have to put up with it, and we probably like it this way really. Anyway perhaps hot,sunny places are better for holidays.
Holidays, now thats just what I`m looking forward to. Our yearly jaunt to Dorset at the beginning of Sept. The weather is usually good. The cottage we stay in is very pretty with a sea view and the food is fantastic. The only drawback is the field next to our cottage is full of crazy cows. A bit like the one pictured. In fact cows and me have a bit of a history. I like to think that I`m a calm, rational person, but put me in a field with a herd of bloodthirsty freesian heifers then I am reduced to a jibbering wreck.. They just terrify me, if I`m faced with one, what do I do run. Now what does a cow do if someone runs away? Well they chase them , thats what. Now out of the field I`m totally aware of this and think to myself if I`m ever confronted again, what will I do. Walk calmly away. But there I am enjoying my early morning walk with the dog, and there they are. Now the thing is they were not in the field when I left the cottage. But now I`m on my way back, they have been milked and let out into the meadow. Now there is only one way back home and that is through the field. What can I do but be brave and take the bull by the horns , so to speak. Any way I decided that is the only course of action so off I go. Every couple of steps I look over my shoulder to see if they are following me. No so I carry on, just 20 yards or so to go, looking round again, there they are coming over, moving a little too quickly for my liking. All at once they start to get up a little trot and scenes from Rawhide start running through my mind ! Off I run dragging my poor pooch behind me and I get to the stile just in time to see they are.......not gaining on me but have stopped to eat the grass!
So I am just paranoid about cows, but it makes me wonder just who is really the crazy cow !
Thats it for now. Does anyway else have a particular aversion to something that they can share? Pet hates please, on a postcard...........Bye for now
Well, what a summer we`ve had! has`nt it been dreadful. We`ve not known what to expect from one week to the next. We were hoping to have a big barbeque and to have loads of family and friends round. But its not been stable enough weather wise to plan ahead. So we have decided to put it off till next year when hopefully it will be lots better than this. We have spent much of this summer doing DIY both inside and out. Our garden is looking really good as Jim has put a lot of back-breaking work into it . Hes repaired all the fence panels we already have, bought new ones and put them up, then painted the lot, all 26 of them. But they do look really great, what with the new trellis`s and plants we now have. He has also repaired my beloved garden bench. The seat was rotten and collapsed when he sat on it! and he also painted the bird table....bless!
Anyway I will divulge more about the DIY another day as I have to be getting ready for work......ugh...so off I go for now.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to all who may stumble across my scribbles. I just hope they may be of interest to you . They are really just the outpourings of my busy little brain. They will be day to day opinions of life and the way we all live it. They will be seen from many different points of view and I will welcome comments from anyone else with anything to say. I have started all this before and was just getting into my stride when I had PC problems and I lost all of the journal grrrrr ! So now I will begin again and see what it leads......
