Happy Thanksgiving

To All my American Friends & Followers I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving.

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

No not the American election although according to the headlines it just might be!

Yes it is Bonfire Night here in the UK.  In fact for some little B…..d at 2.00am it was Bonfire Night then and woke me up letting several fireworks off!!!  Especially as I had to be up at 4.00am with DH!

Today is also the first day of the new Lockdown so I suspect there will be a lot of fireworks going off.  We haven’t over the last few years done anything but decided as it is another lockdown we will get a few garden fireworks and let them off on Saturday night.  Fortunately Treacle is not bothered by them at all and in fact just barks at the noisy ones!!!

The Boys at the moment are still going to be working unless the work drops right off then they will both be furloughed again but DH and I will be working through again as our work is important for other things which need to be completed.  Of course we are hoping it will only be for the month but who knows yet.  I do know that when we are all released again the shops will be manic with everyone getting ready for Christmas!!!!!

I am still trying to sort our home and me out since I stepped down as the Covid Officer for swimming.  It has been quite a relief and I think I have had a bit of a reaction to it as I have been so tired since making the decision and quite lethargic in some ways, although I am very busy with work and everything else!!!!  I just need to spend some time and write some more of my lists and get things done!!!!  I also need to catch up on all the Blogs I read as they have been neglected over the last few months too!  As well as catching up with friends via email of course and our family too!  Which reminds me I will need to start writing our Christmas cards soon!!!!

As it is #TBT I would show you this picture of the Boys on Bonfire night.  I am sure you ahve seen it before as Eldest is pretending to be Harry Potter and Youngest is looking at him scared stiff!!!! It was November 5th 2007 and Eldest was twelve and Youngest was eight.

I hope you are having a Thrilling Thursday, Friday tomorrow yeah!!!

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

Happy Hallowe’en!

Although, as with everything this year, Hallowe’en can only be celebrated at home with just the family, I am sure everyone will have a great Ghostly, Spooky time!

Everyone in our home is out and about today doing various things, so we are having a spooky dinner tonight and then settling down to watch a movie!  It is due to rain all day today and tomorrow here in Derbyshire, so it will definitely be indoor jobs!  We still have quite a bit to do outside but I am hoping that next weekend will be better weather and we can get them done and then the garden will be ready for Winter.  The driveway at the front will be done soon as well with new tarmac again in time before Winter starts.

I have not been at swimming for the past week and I have spent everyday and evening trying to catch up on things that I have put off for the past three months!  It has been so nice though!

Whatever you are up to today, please have fun and stay safe.

Spooky Hugs & Love,

Susie, DH, Eldest, Youngest, Girlfriend & Treacle xxxxx

We stayed at The Goring again in London which is a lovely small hotel and a favourite of her Majesty!  The staff are wonderful and make you feel very welcome and nothig is too much trouble. Our room was overlooking the garden at the back of the hotel.

The Mascot of the Hotel is the Goring Sheep, Ba Bar Ra, and these wonderful sheep are in the rooms.

They are special commissions for the Hotel!

As it was not busy we got to each breakfast in the conservatory every morning.

It was a lovely break even though it was only three days!!  We left mid morning and got home around 3.00pm.

We had a lovely meal last night with the Boys and Girlfriend for DH’s Birthday and lots of laughs.  Girlfriend had baked DH a wonderful cake.

It, too, was very yummy!

It is obviously Halloween on Saturday but everyone is being told not to go out trick or treating because of the situation but celebrate indoors, so for the first time in years we won’t have pumpkins outside or treats for the children.  We are going to have a fun supper though and have a night in watching a movie!!  It is due to be raining anyway!!!!  It is a very strange year!

Have a wonderful Friday and great weekend whatever you are up to and stay safe.

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

DH and I had a lovely weekend away from it all in London. This was the trip which was cancelled from July when we should have been going to the Hampton Court flower show which they decided might happen in September but then cancelled it to next year (as with everything in this weird year!). As we had already paid for the hotel etc they said we could move it to whenever we liked and so we moved it to this weekend. We decided to drive down, as we normally go by train, but I did not fancy sitting on the train for almost three hours with a face mask on. In fact we actually got to London quicker than that as the traffic was light. London was not really that busy at all.

We got a slow start to Friday because of trying to tie up loose ends with the Swimming issues and DH had some work to finish so we did not get down to London until the afternoon but we got checked in and got ready to go out for the evening.

We were going to the Duchess Theatre on Friday evening to see the play “The Play That Goes Wrong”. Well it did go wrong, because of all the new cases of Covid they decided they could not open and have now pushed it back to end of November possibly! We had already booked dinner at Gilray’s Steakhouse & Bar for 5.00pm but decided not to change the booking, especially as all the restaurants now have to close by 10.00pm!

Here are some pictures of our Friday Evening:

We got back to our hotel by 8.00pm unpacked, had a cup of tea and that was it!!! We were exhausted after the last several weeks!!! Party animals we were not! I will show you tomorrow our Saturday which was very busy!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend whatever you were up to and have a great week.

Hugs & Love, Susie xx

We are back. Well we have been back actually a week (it seems like months already!) but it has taken me that week to get up to date with business work, home jobs and all the laundry!!!

To add insult to injury WordPress, in their infinte wisdom, have changed how we write our posts AGAIN!  And I really don’t have the time or energy to sort it out at the moment.  I really do wish they would leave things alone.  When I complained they came up with “well we can’t run all the browsers everyone wants, and we have to do it blah blah blah”!!!!  Hmm just an excuse as far as I am concerned!!!

We had a lovely time on our vacation although it flew by.  Youngest and Girlfriend came up for a few days and we did some of the tourist bits with them but it was so not the same as we were all social distancing and wearing face masks everywhere, which I know is for our and everyone else’s safety but oh I am so over it!!!!!

Anyway here are some pictures of our trip:

Our view from the cottage and the cows came to visit us, with the babies of this year who were extremely nosy!!!!

The deer also came for a visit one day.

We took Girlfriend on the Loch Ness Cruise although the weather was not as good that day.

It was quite a mild day but the mist was down. Glen Urquhart Castle The Boys always loved to visit the Moray Motor Museum which is run by some fantastic volunteers and all the cars are actually brought out and used in events, unfortunately of course not this year.  Anyway we went to visit.

Old delivery bicycles.  DH’s family had one very similar for delivering meat! DH, Youngest and Girlfriend taking pictures. An old garage set up, although not much different to today really. A Jaguar which Youngest was very interested in as he works for Jaguar Land Rover.  When the gentelman on duty found out where he worked, he said he had a few jobs for him to do!

We also had lots of days in at the cottage as it is out of the way of everywhere and everyone so it was great.  The silence there is actually defeaning and I sat outside quite a few days reading my book.

The sunset the night before we left.

I know I missed our monthly Book Club for August, I was not organised this year, but will be back next week for our September one.

I did get a bit of quilting done whilst we were away and now need to actually do the quilting.  I made a few and got some tops completed so now need to get them quilted.  I am trying to finish one or two things at home so am trying to spread my time out.

We have just had our last long weekend until Christmas here in the UK and DH and the Boys spent the days outside playing with the cars!!!  Eldest was fitting a new system to his car so the other two were helping!!!!!  I was still getting our home sorted and all the laundry done!!!!

The second week we were away the swimmers got back into the pools.  So DH and I also spent all of last week in the evenings at swimming.  They are do really well with the social distancing, although they do forget occasionally but soon distance again and they are so pleased to be back in the water and the parents are very grateful for all the paperwork we have done to get them back in.  I just wonder how long we will have to put up with all the restrictions before we go back to normal?

Anyway I will be back to posting every day now, and I will have to try and get my head around this new post writer and try and work out how I add images to it and also get the font this colour and not be shaded!!!

I hope you lovely lot are all well and had a great summer, I cannot believe it is September already.

Hugs & Love Susie xx

We Are Heading On Vacation.

Back in Two Weeks!

Hugs & Love, Susie, DH, Eldest, Youngest, & Treacle xxxxx

#TBT As it is the start of the summer holidays for the children, here are a few of the pictures from previous summer holidays!

Start of the summer holidays 2005!

Sports Day at school always in the last week.  Youngest who came first in his race!

Eldest helping out on sports day on work experience from Senior School at the Primary School.

On Vacation in Scotland, the Boys always loved the climbing walls.  Youngest being strapped in.

Eldest off to the top, and Youngest just starting up.

Summer holidays are always the best!

Happy Thursday You Lovely Lot.

Hugs & Love, Susie xx