We have been so lucky with our weather and the sunshine that has been out to date. We have had heavy rains and winds over the last few days, but, the sun has been up there still. The mornings and evenings are getting a little on the chilly side, although not cold as yet.

Out and about on my walk this morning it rained leaves. All those trees that lose their leaves are finally dropping them. I love that crunchy feeling under foot as you walk on them.

I always remember as a kid, when we were in the park, there used to be so many and I just loved walking through them and kicking them around. I wasn’t the only one doing it, even adults joined in. I didn’t do it if the greenkeeper has raked them up, but just the amount of trees in the park and therefore the sheer number of leaves made it impossible to keep them all in a pile.

Blue skies and spots of rain again at the moment and the sun trying to strike a pose up there. White clouds mixed with ominous grey and some black ones hanging over us.

Autumn has finally arrived.

Smile and have a great day 🙂

No matter what bin you have, there will be someone out there who will empty it for you., so you don’t have to take it all to the tip.

We have three bins here at the moment. One is for green waste that is collected every month for a fee. It is not a council bin but one we hire from a local company. The second is a general household rubbish bin and the third is a bin for all the recyclables. The last two are our council bins and the rubbish bin is collected every week and the recyclables every fortnight.

Throughout all of the pandemic these bins have been collected without fail, although sometimes late, but, always emptied.

It is a thankless job sometimes and they probably do not get the thanks they deserve! Every week there is a rubbish bin doing the rounds and when I am out and about on a walk, I always try to wave and say thanks. Not always easy as they focus on hooking the bin on for emptying.

There are a lot of jobs that people do every day that not appreciated as much as they could be, especially in this day and age. A lot of people seem angry and frustrated at the world, but everyone is still trying to do their best, no matter what.

Thank you to all of you, we really appreciate all that you do!

Smile and have a great day 🙂

I know most people are never really away from their devices and I know that we seem to rely on them so much. We cannot switch off from them and therefore cannot truly unwind and relax but maybe that can be a blog for another day.

No-one can really miss anything can they? Well they can and I did. Why is it that as soon as you go somewhere like the bathroom (I don’t take my phone in there), you miss a call. It could be important but you have missed it nevertheless. Not the first time I have missed calls whilst otherwise occupied.

I missed a call on Monday and when I checked the screen it showed ‘private number’. Now I know that people have private numbers, blocked numbers and number unknown for many reasons, that I won’t get into. It was frustrating because as I say, I didn’t know who it was or what they wanted. I couldn’t call them back and they never called me back either.

About fifteen or so minutes later I received an e-mail from the bank with some information they needed me to confirm.

So was it the bank? Probably, but I will never know for sure. I can only assume it was as the e-mail came through some time afterwards.

Smile and have a great day 🙂

The end of last year we started feeding the birds, to attract them into the garden. We brought a food block for birds and hung it up. It was eaten within a week. The second block we brought a couple of weeks later was eaten in a couple of days! It was surprising to see just how many birds could hang of the food block at one time, We counted at one point, ten to twelve small birds.

Rather than hanging a block up I decided to buy a tray and put the seed in it. I also found out that you have give them hard boiled eggs, complete with shells. They ate them all up.

We have a large number of birds in the garden, small and large and it is really therapeutic to watch them eating the food. I am amazed just how feisty the smaller birds are to the bigger birds to get to the food.

Boy, oh boy, do those birds eat a lot. I only feed them roughly once a week, but they come into the garden and look around for the tray and then take off, almost in disappointment that ‘Mrs’ has not left them anything to eat!

Those birds are great to see, although the poop, not so much!

Smile and gave a great day 🙂

During the Easter long weekend I did manage to get some painting done. The fence out the front needed a re-stain, not desperately, but, just to keep it looking tidy. We try to keep on top of it every couple of years to prolong the life of the fence too.

The weather has been kind to us too and so the last weekend hubby power washed the driveway and I finished the fence. It is looking smart now and once we have a couple of warm dry days hubby and I will seal the driveway.

Yesterday I re-stained the pathway in our garden. It was very cathartic kneeling on the deck, the warmth on my back as I stained all the panels to the end. Standing up and looking over it, it looked really impressive.

I have one more job in the garden to do before winter really sets in and that is to stain the fencing around our property. There are a lot of fence panels and not a job I can do in a day. The panels have to be dry and no sign of rains before I am able to do them.

This weekend hubby and I will be pruning all the bushes and trees and tidying up before we have to order a skip to get rid of all the cuttings. Hopefully we will be able to seal the driveway.

That has been our last couple of weeks and we feel proud of what we have achieved. Just another few days work and everything will be ready for Summer flowering and fruiting.

Smile and have a great day 🙂

Hope you all had a good blessed and peaceful Easter.

Thought we would go to the shops over Easter as haven’t really spent that much time shopping. We do grocery shopping, but, other than that, we only shop when we need something.

Saturday we headed out to a local mall and the car park was not that busy. Once inside the shops were filling up with people. After a couple of hours shopping it felt like Christmas out there. Quite a few people were buying big electrical items and others just small things,

It was great to see the shops filling up with customers, but quite a surprise, as I thought a lot of people would have gone away for the holidays.

The roads were crazy busy when we headed home with drivers doing all sorts and everything that you least expect. Still, I guess it keeps you on your toes.

Smile and have a great day 🙂

Before all this pandemic started our train network seem to run well. Occasionally there would be times when they needed to do maintenance, usually over the Christmas holidays.

With the pandemic easing the trains work okay during the week, but seem to have the weekends off, again for maintenance!

Everyone seems to want us to use public transport and to ease up on the use of cars, to help the climate, which I have no problem with at all. My question is, why do they not make public transport more readily available and at a reasonable price?

Foe the next three months we can travel half price on the buses and the trains, but we want to use them at the weekends, so why are they always stationery?

Maintenance needs to be done, I understand that, but what are they doing that it takes every weekend to do it? We have rail buses to compensate, but, in all honesty, who wants to spend over and hour plus an a bus journey when you can use the car for twenty – twenty-five minutes?

Easter is coming and we will be driving here, there and everywhere, even thought the fuel prices have gone up because that is the only way to get from one place to another. We walk a lot and enjoy the fresh air, but cannot walk to next town, too far!

Have a great Easter everyone.

Smile and have a great day 🙂

In my last blog I wrote about the bonnet on my car having sunburn.

I had a few quotes to have the bonnet sorted. I made my choice and duly dropped the car off last Wednesday morning. It was going to take a couple of days to do depending on the weather.

When you have a car you get used to just being able to take a drive when you need to, I didn’t realise how lost I would be without it, The garage looked so vast without it parked in there.

I had done what I needed to do before it went into the garage, so that was okay.

I had to give the garage a call on Friday morning to check that it was ready. It would be ready for me to collect from lunchtime.

When I got there I had a look at it before I paid the garage. The bonnet looked new, as it should do with the work that they told me they did. The shine put the rest of the car to shame (it was a little dusty). At least the colour now seemed to match the rest of the car. For some reason it always looked a little darker than the rest of it. Maybe it had be resprayed before I purchased it. It was a hire car in its previous life, so that could have been the case.

Smile and have a great day 🙂

So after a recent service I noticed a small circle on my car bonnet that was a flat colour.

The next day I looked at it and saw it lacked shine and that the lacquer had actually come off. It is about the size of a thumb nail, so not that big at all. As I was not sure exactly what it was, I took it to a body shop locally.

I didn’t know whether to laugh when they told me it was sunburn and the lacquer had actually blistered and started to peel off. The body shop was really good and gave me a quote to strip, prime and repaint the bonnet.

I shopped around and found a body shop that felt right for me and soon it will go in for a new paint job on the bonnet.

I didn’t realise car paint suffered from sunburn, which I am amazed at really, because most of the time it in undercover, in the garage or in the shade.

Truth be told, it could have been a stone that hit it and then water has somehow gotten underneath and pushed the lacquer up to burst. I don’t know and hence why I took it to the body shop in the first place.

It just sounds so sweet to say, “My car has sunburn.”

Smile and have a great day 🙂

For ages we have been wanting some rain. The weather has been so dry for such a long time.

On Sunday we had some strong winds and drizzle. In the evening the winds picked up and the rains came, which was so good to hear it tapping against the windows.

The rain was needed as the ground was beginning to crack, but ,now it is a little wetter, it seems to be resettling. We finally have some water in the water buts too, to use on our vegetables..

Yesterday (Monday), we have the lot, thunder and lightening and a months rain in an hour or so. It was amazing watching the lightening, although the claps of thunder were extremely loud. The sky turned black and I needed to put on a couple of lights.

The rains were predicted today too, although they have not yet materialised. It is back to the heat and humidity, at least for the time being.

Smile and have a great day 🙂