Carnival is over for another year and it was a very busy week. Below is the Carnival Queen for this year presenting the winning prize for the Dog Show.
Some of the Competitors in the Treasure Hunt on Tuesday.
Thursday was Wild, Wet & Wacky for the Teenagers, a lot of foam and water!
Friday was The Cake-Off (!) and here is DH talking to the two Judges regarding the various bakes.
The winning cake.
Saturday, in true British fashion, it was raining in the morning, cleared up a little bit and then rained again just before the parade came down the main road through the village. There were a lot of floats and due to the Elvaston Steam Fair being cancelled due to their ground being flooded, some of the smaller Traction Engines joined our Parade.
They really added to the Parade. Youngest was stopping the Traffic with his truck, at the end of the main road for the Parade to get out and then DH was in his truck, at the back to help out and stop traffic as it turned onto the road for the village park. The day went off very well and it ended a little earlier than normal as a lot of people wanted to go and watch the England football team play in the Euros. So all in all DH was home earlier than normal having packed all the equipment up and brought it home.
Yesterday we were with Eldest, Partner and Little Man as they were having a new bed delivered today and the old one had to be dismantled and taken away. This is how they spent the night on blow up beds and of course Little Man was in the middle. The new one arrived today and has been put up so hopefully they will have a good evening. Eldest could not help on Saturday as he normally does, as he was re-newing his training on breathing apparatus for the Fire Service.
DH and I got back around 5.00pm and got some little jobs done, had dinner and went to bed as we were all shattered after that busy week. This week is quieter with work, I was at the garage today getting things finished and did the cleaning there and then tomorrow I have our work to do and some home jobs to get done as well, including washing and ironing!
I hope you lovely lot had a great weekend and a good week to come.
Thought I would show you how the flowers are doing in the garden, which is very well especially with all the rain we are having!
My Hydrangea (above) and the Pansies (below)
The other Hydrangea and Pansies
My Lavender it its pot is doing well.
This is my hardy Geranium, I put this in last year and it flowered a little bit but this year it has done really well.
The Fox Glove just coming out.
This is my Birthday Present from our good friends, Pat & Alan, we also go out for a meal for our Birthdays as well.
This lovely blue Agapanthus is from Jayne as part of my Birthday present. James (her son and Eldest’s Best Friend from school) is a Plantsman and got it for me and I am going to put it in a pot as our soil seems to kill a lot of things.
This is our Pond and I wanted to show you how full it is after all the rain we have had!
This is my Clematis which I thought had died last year and as you can see it now has gone mad with all the rain! It flowers in the Autumn with small bell like flowers and I will try and get a picture of them.
Jayne and I had a lovely lunch at a pub called The Grouse & Claret out in Derbyshire and a lovely drive there and back, although it was not sunny! So much for Summer. I think our summer is going to be like this the whole way through with rain and cooler temperatures, although it is supposed to be warmer towards the end of this week and the weekend. It will be, of course, because we are at a swimming pool for our swimming club Open all day Saturday and DH is at another pool all day Sunday! Just when the weather will be good to get some gardening done! The following weekend we have Saturday available and then Sunday will be the start of the Village Carnival so nothing will be done that week or the following weekend! Hey ho!!!
Well after a bit of a wrangle and a lot of finger pointing WordPress did eventually sort out the issue with my Blog, which was of their doing not mine!!!! I like how whenever you are dealing with Help Desks that the first thing they say is well it is your equipment/software/how you are using the thing! It happens often here when you ring British Telecom the first thing they say is that it could be your telephone and if so then you have to pay! Like not being able to make calls is anything to do with a handset I have in our home!!!! Give me strength!
Anyhoo it looks like it is back to normal for the moment!
We managed to get some more jobs done in the garden and here are quite a few pictures from the weekend. We look as if we are going to have one of those summers where we get a few nice days amid lots of rain again! It helps the garden because as you will see the plants are loving it and are very green, not so good for us who want to sit outside and enjoy some sunshine. We did sit out on Sunday for a while which was nice. Eldest, Partner, The Girls and Little Man came for Sunday Lunch and then Youngest got back too. It was lovely afternoon and Coco played ball with her two Boys which she loved and did not have a sleep at all during the day, so by Sunday evening she was absolutely wacked!!! Here are the garden pictures.
My Lavender in its pot.
This is my Clematis which flowers during the Autumn/Winter. I thought it had died last year but left it and it has gone mad this year and now looks very healthy!
My Tomato Plants
This is Coco’s Viewing Point!
My third Rhododendron in flower
This varigated tree, above and below, started off as a little stick which I planted and it has now grown into this lovely tree. It is not very big but provides a lovely dappled shade on our patio during the summer.
The Squirrel always tries his luck on the bird feeders but they are squirrel proof so he ends up sitting on top of the feeder hanger. Treacle used to hate him so much and yet Coco does not bother about him in the garden, she just watches him running around!!!!
My fox glove. Love the pink but I did have a lemon coloured one but it did not seed itself!
I love Hydrangeas but they do not like our soil, so we decided to put one in each pot and I am hoping they will do well in them.
This week our weather is a bit of sunshine but still lots of rain. Saturday is the same and it is Eldest’s Partner’s Birthday so they are coming to us and we are having a Takeaway! We were hoping to sit outside but that does not look like it is going to happen! It is my Birthday next week so we are combining the two events and Sunday is Father’s Day, so celebrations all round. My Mom thought it was great when my Birthday was June because she thought I would have all my Birthday parties outside. Well over the years I had parties I think I made two or three outside the rest were inside because, you guessed it, it rained!! They call it “Flaming June” but for us it is the annoying kind not the hot kind!!!!
Latest picture of Little Man, the one above I love. He has started to roll. The one below is when he rolled in his sleep!! When I put him in his Moses Basket on Saturday he was starting to roll!!! Won’t be long before he is up on his knees and crawling. Eldest was walking properly well before his first Birthday and I think Little Man will be taking after him!
I have done really well with home and work jobs this week; got them all done and am keeping up to date with them too. It always stresses me out when I get behind with things so at the moment everything is a-okay!!!
I will show you pictures of Saturday next week. Still have some jobs left in the garden to do but of course it is an ongoing job!! I hope you lovely lot had a good weekend and a good week to come.
Here in the UK we have long weekends a few times a year called Bank Holidays. This came about because of Banker & Politician John Lubbock, first Baron of Avebury, in 1871 put a Bill forward to make a set number of Mondays as Bank Holidays. These were changed again in 1971 but they constitute the first Monday of May, the last Monday of May and the last Monday of August. Also included in the holiday dates are Christmas Day and Boxing Day, January 1st, Good Friday and Easter Monday. Today is what was originally called Whitsun Bank Holiday and is also half term for all school children, one week off.
It is also known that when we have these long weekends especially the May and August ones, that it always rains! As we are in Derbyshire everyone always thinks how lucky we are to go out in Derbyshire on Bank Holidays but we never do, because everyone else comes to Derbyshire for their Bank Holiday day out. Of course some people go away on holiday for the week and so the roads can be quite full! We, as a family, usually stay in and use it to get jobs done!!!
As you know one of our jobs is to tidy the garden as we did not get much done in it last year, except mowing the grass!
This was DH’s job on Saturday, to get the Laurel under control. I love it but boy does it go mad! Anyway DH decided that it was going down to the bottom and then of course had to get rid of all the clippings which he did today! Coco helped by running around with branches!
Eldest was busy at their home getting their shed tidy and getting all the rubbish out of it. Here it is all clean and tidy. We need to do ours now! The race is on!!!!!
We were going to get the painting done but that got sidelined due to the wall in the bathroom we think now needs re-plastering, so he will be coming this week to have a look.
Tomorrow we have a business meeting with our Accountant and Eldest and then another busy week with business and next weekend we are hoping to get more done in the garden.
I hope you lovely lot have a wonderful week and the weather is kind to you. We are forecast to have more rain this week with some sunshine but next weekend at the moment is supposed to be nice and warm, fingers crossed.
Since my Post last Monday the week was extremely busy. I had a spa day on the Tuesday which was lovely, I also had my hair cut on Thursday and then in the evening had to go back to the hospital for an x-ray. Miss Floof also had a visit to her Doctors for a check up and annual injections. That was a long with working and home jobs etc!!!
The weekend the weather was amazing, very warm which gave DH and I the opportunity to make a start on our garden. DH mowed the lawn and did some more tidying and my job was to pressure wash the path to our front door, our patio and steps up to the garden. We did not get chance to do them last year and after all the rain this year it really needed a clean.
This was Coco last week having her lunchtime biscuit last week. You can see how the patio looks, alot of moss on it.
This Is what it looks like now! It took five hours to get it to look like this though!
Here is the rest of the garden. Everything is looking very green after all the rain we have had over the winter and into spring.
The bluebells have just about finished now but the Geum is flowering now.
The Weigela is flowering and the bees love it.
Coco on patrol!
Our shed needs tidying and I need to sort out the veg bed and my growhouse.
We still have a lot to do; several of the bushes need trimming, because it has been so wet they have loved it and grown a lot and we are hoping to get this done in two weekends time and we are keeping everything crossed that it will be nice weather again. We have another long weekend coming up when we are hoping to get this done and painting our room too!
Of course here in the UK we get two or three days of nice warm weather and then we get the thunder storms. Last night we had about an hour of thunder and lightening and then heavy rain. It did cool things down and today it has been cooler but still nice. The rest of the week we are back to normal with rain!
This is Miss Floof on the day she visited her Doctors. DH had to visit Eldest at the garage and she was busy looking out!
When the back door is open she loves sitting in the doorway looking out on her domain, keeping an eye on things!
This is Eldest and Little Man yesterday, it was hot and they had had a busy day so both of them were having a snooze!
Little Man and The Girls!
This week is a little quieter with just work and home jobs to do and DH is out all weekend at a swimming event so I have the weekend to get some more jobs done and hopefully a little quilting.
I cannot believe that next month is June and we are half way through the year! Where on earth did the first six months go to? I know we have been really busy when I look back in the diary and see what has been happening but the weeks have flown by. I did see the other day on Instagram that someone had put that there are only 36 Mondays until Christmas!!!! I did ignore it!!!!
Have a wonderful week, I will try and ensure I post every day this week and not leave it for another week!!!!
Finally it is all done, well a few things left that I need DH to help with, mainly the light fittings. Being 5’4″ tall I cannot reach them but DH at 6’2″ who also has long arms can get them down without a step ladder!!! Also the pictures we have on the wall up our staircase even DH needs a ladder for that, they still need cleaning but everything else is done. It has been polished, dusted and washed to an inch of its life, here are a few pictures of our home and although you can’t really tell it is very clean!!!!!
Our Dressing Room, the bag on the stool is waiting for the winter dressing gowns to go in to store for the summer. The weather over the last few days has been nice and warm so time to swap over.
My hanging rail which looks so much tidier now. The pink hangers are new and fit the rail so much better.
Our Room and the tail of Miss Floof!
Youngest’s Room with Miss Floof’s bed.
Eldest’s Room, now my sewing space which I have had a tidy up of but still need to do quite a bit.
This is what Coco does, when I am cleaning she follows me round from room to room!
This is the airing cupboard which, like the room, needs painting which we will hopefully get done this year.
Our Den, which is our office, and in particular my desk with Miss Floof’s basket next to it.
DH’s desk which is not as big as mine, but he does not spend all day here like I do.
I spent quite a while in here decluttering things and tidying things up especially these shelves. I did do the filing cabinet but need to get all the papers from the business year out to store so will have a second go at tidying those then.
It is a nice day today so Miss Floof had her lunchtime biscuit outside.
Our Dining Room. Everything has been polished and all the glasses and pots in the dresser have been washed.
Our Sitting Room, again everything polished, dusted and washed. As it is nice I have the windows open to let in some fresh air, something we have not done for a long while due to it being cold and very rainy.
DH and I went through the books and donated quite a few to the Charity Shop and the above shelf is my TBR!!! I know, I need to get reading!
This is looking into our Laundry and those are my quilts which I have on display which are going to be washed and the winter dressing gowns.
Our Breakfast bar and one side of the kitchen.
The cooking side of the kitchen and the door into the garden is open so Miss Floof can run in and out!
This is my spice rack and where I cut vegetables and things. I bought the new spice jars which fit better on the shelves and they can hold one jar of herbs and spices. I saw them on Instagram and liked them but the while labels they did not have all the names, so I used Eldest’s label maker. DH is going to take the white labels off and I will replace them with the black labels so they are all the same.
You will notice that the kitchen, laundry, den and downstairs bathroom are very white! This is the painting we did over Easter and it now looks very bright and clean!
We did do quite a lot of decluttering and must have taken over fifteen bags to the charity shop and still have quite a bit to do espcially the attic things. Our Garage is the next big project and we do have a few weekends to get that, the garden shed and of course our garden done and sorted. All four of us went through clothes that we had stored in the attic in the vacuum bags and got rid of quite a lot and now only have things that we are definitely going to wear in there. Still there is quite a bit still to do. During our Village Carnival week when DH is out every evening, I will be sorting boxes and things out. My plan is to move our sofas back in the sitting room, one to the window and one to the bookshelves and create a large area to have the boxes stacked and plan to go through them all then.
I also have other things to sort out like old pictures from both sides of our families. They are currently stored in a clip box to keep them safe but I am thinking about getting some albums or scrap books to put them into, but that will be a job for winter I think. As the weather is getting better the garden will be our priority.
I still have curtains and cushion covers to wash but want to dry them outside and am waiting for a nice warm, sunny day so they can go out on the line to dry. Also waiting for a lovely sunny, warm day will be all the baskets and bins and Coco’s baskets which I wash outside and again let them dry in the sun.
I need to clean and tidy my car and give it a wash too and our driveway and front garden need a little bit of attention but again I am hoping that the weather getting better I will be able to get a lot done. I hate doing the Spring Cleaning but love it when it is done!!!
Last week passed in a flurry of work and hopsital/doctor appointments. You get there early because of parking issues, then early for your appointment but then they are over an hour late! So it takes up almost half a day! Today is a Bank Holiday here in the UK and DH is still at the swimming event (!) and I am just doing little bits and pieces at home. DH also has a few weekends coming up for other swimming events so they are being set aside to do some more quilting. I have a spa and hair appointment this week as well as work here and at Eldests and the usual home jobs and grocery shopping to do. DH is at home all next weekend so I am keeping everything crossed that the weather is going to be good and we can start the garden.
Yesterday was St. George’s Day, Patron Saint of England! I missed it!!
Here is Miss Floof, defloofed!!! She looks so much better and smells alot better too! She was very good at her Spa and when she got home, after being out for necessary duties, got a Bonio biscuit!
I am busy trying to catch up with home jobs as I am so far behind. In fact I have cancelled my haircut tomorrow to try and get on top of things. One thing that does wind me up is when our home is in chaos, The old saying of “Tidy House, Tidy Mind” certainly applies to me!
Off to get some more washing done and then down to the basket of ironing! Have a Wonderful Wednesday, half way through the week.
I blink and I miss a week! I don’t know where last week went but I do know it was chaos (Warning Picture Heavy Post!)
DH and I had a lovely time in London. We went down on Thursday November 9th and met a friend for lunch and then had dinner in Covent Garden, which was all decked out for Christmas.
An old bus transformed into a Gin Bar outside the Transport Museum at Covent Garden. I am reliably informed by DH that this is the sort of bus he and his friends went to school on!
The decorations inside one of the halls in Covent Garden, they are different every year.
There were some musicians playing classical music when we arrived and we thought it would be great whilst we got a coffee, until the woman arrived to sing Opera, she was not very good!
This is a display window of an old fashioned toy store which actually covers up the fire fighting equipment!
This was above where we sat with our coffee, it reminded me of a Christmas Minion! We sent it to the Boys!
Thursday evening we ate dinner in Covent Garden at Brown’s.
Which is next door to the Noel Coward Theatre.
This is one of hundred’s of pubs across London but just in Covent Garden.
Friday we had a nice relaxing day. We did pop out to do a bit if Christmas shopping and went to my favourite store, Fortnum & Mason who were also ready for Christmas.
It was busy but not as busy as it will be nearer to the big day! Sometimes you cannot move in the store for people!
Saturday was the day we were going to see the Harry Potter Play, which starts where the last film ended. However there was going to be a huge demonstration in the capital on the Saturday, part of which was going pass the end of the road that our hotel is on. We decided to leave at 11.30am to get to the theatre for the performance at 2.00pm just in case. Good job we did as we were not far from where we were going when three police vans pulled up along side the taxi and lots of Police came pouring out heading in the direction we were going! It did not last long and the road opened again but well it always happens to DH and I.
There as this little pub just across the road from the theatre so we had a drink and snack in there until it was time to queue to get in.
It was a typical London pub!
Because of the Stop Oil people invading the stage at one of the other theatres, we had to have our bags searched thoroughly, we were then wanded and our tickets checked before we even got in the theatre! The Play is split into two parts so we went to the afternoon performance, went round the corner to a lovely Italian restaurant for dinner and then back to the theatre for the evening performance!
Was it worth it? Yes we liked the play although DH thought it was a bit long winded. What was very good were the special effects to create the “magic”. Very hard to do live but so easy to do on film with CGI. It was a long day and we didn’t get back to the hotel until 10.00pm.
We had tea by the fire.
Sunday was of course Rememberance Sunday and we watched on TV but could here the Guns and band from the hotel which was great. We left the hotel afterwards when the roads had re-opened.
Eldest was on parade with the Fire Service in Ashbourne where he is an on-call fire fighter. We said when we saw this that he looks about twelve with the hat on!!!
It was back down to earth with a bump on Monday morning with work and everything else that needed doing. It is always the same when you have a holiday! Last week flew by work. Jayne and I got to have lunch on Tuesday which was very nice but the rest of the week was busy with work. The weekend DH was at Matlock swimming pool for a swimming open both days. I got quite a bit done but still need to finish some jobs off. As DH told everyone at the Open yesterday it is only five weeks to Christmas! OMG!!!!
Have a wonderful week you lovely lot!
Hugs & Love, Susie xx
PS Coco is not here for the next two weeks, she is on her holidays too, as the plumbers started today doing the new bathroom! I cannot wait although I think it is going to be a long two weeks!!!
I think the Universe has it in for us at the moment! You know how you go along and everything is fine and then suddenly you get weeks of things just not being right, well last week was one of those! The week started off well enough when Jayne and I went out for a very nice lunch and a lovely catch up. Then I was with Eldest at his work to get his jobs done and then Thursday I was having a much needed haircut!
We are still having to cope with the bathroom only having our bath, shower and sink in it as the Plumbers cannot start the work until the end of November. We are still waiting for the Plasterer to come and fix the ceiling and Friday the Roofer should have been here to do the roof. However all last week they were warning us of the Storm Babet (silly name) which could affect us over the weekend.
Thursday evening it started to rain and never stopped until midday on Saturday! The laugh is that our water authority had been sending out emails saying we needed to conserve water still as the stocks were only 75% full! Well after last week we don’t need anymore water! We are very fortunate as we live on a hill and I am so glad we do because here is what happened.
This is the River Derwent which runs to the south of our village. This is where it runs through the centre of Derby. By the end of Friday you could not see the steps.
This is the road leading into the city centre which they closed at 2.00pm as it was completely flooded.
This is in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.
The above picture and below are our village. Above the curly bit with the trees around it is the river and you can seen how it has burst and taken over the fields. It is meant to do this as it is the floodplain.
The big green area is the village park where the Carnival is held and the road in front of it so the water did not quite get there.
This is where Youngest used to work in Derby and as you can see the water is very high here and it is still like that today!
In the midst of all this I get a phone call from Eldest to say that he is on his way in a police car to the Hospital as he managed to fall over going to a fire call and dislocated his other shoulder! With all the flooding I had not been intending on going out but went to the hospital and after waiting for an hour to try and park found him in A&E. Yes he had dislocated it! They got it put back and then I took him home! DH came over as his event on Friday evening had been cancelled and so had the Saturday evening one as well because of all the chaos! I didn’t get all my home jobs done because of spending three hours at the hospital and then helping him and Suzie sort out at home. Saturday was chaos as well and Sunday we did manage to go out with our friends for Sunday lunch which was great after all of this!
I am now running to catch up with everything this week! Friday we are out with another set of friends and Saturday we are having a family dinner as it is DH’s Birthday on Sunday but he is out then at another swimming event (!). I think it is going to be like this from now until Christmas!
It topped out at 104°F yesterday and it was just dreadful! I did the least amount I could and Coco just lay on the cool tiles all day! As I say I know there are places which are far hotter but in the UK we are not geared up for it. We had fans going and all it seemed to do was move the hot air around!!
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Coco’s Corner
Yesterday was so hot I just was asleep most of the day with Mom!!!
The other day Mom said I was looking a bit scuffy mut so she brushed me!!! I am not very happy with the brush but Mom still keeps brushing me anyway. She took these pictures because she knew that within five minutes I would look a scruffy mut again!!!
Mom also keeps mentioning this spa day I will be going to eventually and that she wishes good luck to the ladies, it is so nice of her! I am sure I will be really good when I go!!!!!
I have not been on any walks since the heat hit and just been in the garden but Mom won’t let me stay out either because it is too warm! I also got ice cubes in my water bowl but they did not last very long in the heat!!!
Today is a little cooler but still warm but it is going to cool down over the next few days!
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I have abandoned getting jobs done because of the heat and just doing the minimum, it is going to be cooler next week so will get things done then. Tomorrow is home jobs and shopping and then Friday I am out running errands and I am going with DH in the evening as he sets things up for the weekend to have a look at the new pool. Over the weekend I am going to be doing some quilting; Christmas in July!!!! Even though it is hot I will be dreaming of snow and hot chocolate!!!
Stay Cool in this weather. Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx
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