What have you been doing today?

[Mottie]

Cream crackered already and it’s only 8.15! Just fitted the complete contents of three bedrooms into one but the hardest job bar none was moving the mattress. It’s got over 3,500 springs in it and it weighs a ton. I wasn’t here when it was originally delivered but feck knows how two delivery drivers got that up the stairs and into our bedroom. It took all our strength just to stand the bàstard up on its side and then I looped a tow rope through one of the side handles and dragged it a bit at a time into the next bedroom with Mrs Mottie just keeping it upright. Once on the landing it tipped and trapped her against the bannisters. Anyway, all done now, I’ve just got to take up the old carpet and it’s ready for the carpet fitters. Our back bedroom looks like Steptoes front room - all it needs is a skeleton and a stuffed bear!

View attachment 412386

Carpet fitters been and gone, now the long process of fitting everything back up in the bedrooms begins. Going to leave the heavy b'stard mattress for the spare room and put the spare bedroom mattress on our bed. The bed frame is dated 2013 so the mattress will be the same age. We'll see how we get on with that spare mattress, if no good we'll think about getting another. Wouldn’t mind one of those two different sided mattresses. I think I’ll just worry about the main bedroom today and then I’ve got to go out to the tip and call in the barbers on the way back for a 'senior cut' . Going to have to get my mate round with his circular saw or plane or whatever is needed as we had to take all the doors off and they all need about 8-10mm taking off the bottom.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I am just waiting now, for the transport to take us down for my two appointment today.

The banter between us (Ev and I), had the staff nurse in stitches, in the kidney department, then moving to my second appointment in the cardio department, for the ultrasound heart scan, we had that department in stitches too.

 

[Mottie]

I feel like the Donald today - all my objectives have been achieved! Up early, dismantled the bed, took up the old carpet and cleared the main bedroom. Went and did the weekly shop. Carpet fitters arrived and laid the carpet in bedrooms 1 and 3, took the old carpet and 4 bags of trimmings to the tip. Went and got my 'oliday 'aircut. Came back, built up and refitted the beds and sorted out two bedrooms, cooked the dinner (usual Friday night salmon stir-fry), had a drink, cried over the loss of our Susie (Mrs Mottie says it’s the Friday night booze that does it) - always worse on a Friday night when she would sit and watch us yak over dinner but it was much, much worse tonight as it was exactly a year to the day that we did the kindest thing and said goodbye to her. Decided we are almost certainly going to get another dog this year. If our friend isn’t breeding one of hers this year, we might look to get a rescue Spaniel. Gotta be a working Spaniel though.

My very last photo of Susie.

Oh, I’ve just started myself off again!

 

[Highway Man]

I feel like the Donald today - all my objectives have been achieved! Up early, dismantled the bed, took up the old carpet and cleared the main bedroom. Went and did the weekly shop. Carpet fitters arrived and laid the carpet in bedrooms 1 and 3, took the old carpet and 4 bags of trimmings to the tip. Went and got my 'oliday 'aircut. Came back, built up and refitted the beds and sorted out two bedrooms, cooked the dinner (usual Friday night salmon stir-fry), had a drink, cried over the loss of our Susie (Mrs Mottie says it’s the Friday night booze that does it) - always worse on a Friday night when she would sit and watch us yak over dinner but it was much, much worse tonight as it was exactly a year to the day that we did the kindest thing and said goodbye to her. Decided we are almost certainly going to get another dog this year. If our friend isn’t breeding one of hers this year, we might look to get a rescue Spaniel. Gotta be a working Spaniel though.

My very last photo of Susie.

View attachment 412423

Oh, I’ve just started myself off again!

Get a rescue dog mate, give a dog a home that needs one. A pedigree will always get a home where a poor rescue dog just needs one and some love in its life.

 

[securespark]

I've always had rescue animals, they've been brilliant. All very different creatures, but brilliant all the same.

 

[securespark]

We're in Lille at the moment.

Took the concrete tube under the sea.

Here's the car taking a breather in Ypres.

And sunset over the 13 Century Cloth Hall.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The banter between us (Ev and I), had the staff nurse in stitches, in the kidney department, then moving to my second appointment in the cardio department, for the ultrasound heart scan, we had that department in stitches too.

This morning, yet another appointment. I already had a phone call appointment, for 'pre-assessment', but now they also want to add a F2F pre-assessment, in hospital. I got the same appointment, 3x over, via the post, sms, and email all at the same time. Phone call Tuesday, F2F Wednesday.

 

[Mottie]

Appointed a new estate agent to sell my mums house this week. Had 4 viewings booked for this morning so went round to basically clean the windows and dust the furniture. Both my sister and I reckoned that previous agent deliberately overvalued it to get the business and although they got the viewings, no serious offers were forthcoming. We've decided what we think it’s worth and put it back on for £50k less that they all valued it at so hopefully something will come of it. We'll still come out of it with a tidy sum if it sells for what we have it up for but the housing market seems to have stalled at the moment with the uncertainty of the current conflicts and interest rates looking set to rise or at least not go down any time soon.

Finished moving all the furniture back in to the respective bedrooms so the plastering, redecorating and re carpeting in all 3 beds as well as stairs and landing is all done other than waiting for my mate to come round and shave a bit off of the bottom of all the doors so that we can fit them back on. Swapped mattresses on both queen beds but one bed was a high one with a normal thickness mattress and the other was a low bed with a very thick mattress. Now we have one bed that’s more like a futon and another bed that you need a ladder to get into - there’s a good ten inches difference between the finished height of both beds!

 

[securespark]

This is a "I saw this and thought of you" moment, Mottie...

We're in Lille and saw this place and I know you've been to the Stratford one...

But the difference is, you pay to have a pee in this one. One euro!

And there were no hand towels and the queue for the ladies was huge.

I went and a French bloke in there was moaning. He asked if I had found any paper towels, I said no and he said we're paying a euro for this crappy service and there's no paper towels and the women are queuing out of the toilets and down the mall. He went to find the attendant, who came back with enough paper towels for him and me, but nothing to fill up the dispensers. Meanwhile, literally thousands are paying a euro each day to have a pee.

I wouldn't mind paying something if the facilities were well kept and well stocked, but they were, pardon the pun, taking the ****!

 

[Elsa TLC]

Our Girls had a double header away game.
Top of the table clash with the leaders Watford Ladies Under 14's.

They where unbeaten and only dropped points once.

Two games of 50 minutes each 25 minutes each half.


First game we won 4-3 scoring the winner in the last two minutes.

Second game drew 1-1 scoring the equaliser in the last 2 minutes.

Two great games and its now in our hands to finish top two and get promoted.

So much better than watching the premiership.

 

[Mottie]

We're in Lille…

We went to Lille years ago. They had snails and frogs legs on the menu in a restaurant in the main square so I asked for them. I got a massive bowl of them - probably 30 snails and 10 frogs legs. Filled me up for the rest of the day….

 

[securespark]

I ordered a cheese board for 1 (or 2) last night in Lille.

It came with shed loads of Chèvre, Brie, Comté, Tomme de Savoie and, oddly, but very tastily, Shropshire Blue!

There was also salad and cornichons, 6 slices of garlic bread, 6 bread rolls and butter. £13. We shared the board and a tomato salad and Mrs S had onion soup and we were sorted. Left some bread, though.

You think of a cheese plate in the UK and what you get and this just blew me away by comparison.

 

[Mottie]

We had this lot to choose from when I was on a motorcycling trip 10 years ago. If I had that now, I wouldn’t be able to sleep! You can’t beat a French cheeseboard.

 

[Mottie]

Up early and over the allotment to water my plants in the greenhouse as we are off to Brighton this morning to cheer our daughter on in the Brighton Marathon. When I got there, I found that some bastid squirrel had got in and helped himself to my courgettes seeds - the bugger had dug every one of them up and sat there on another seed tray eating them!

While I was there, I picked some asparagus for my breakfast.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I ordered a cheese board for 1 (or 2) last night in Lille.

One night, heading towards home in the early hours from Germany, I somehow managed to get off the main road, and ended up in Lille, completely and totally lost.