Good morning Friday.

[TheOstrich]

Good afternoon - a bit mizzly out there today, some very dark clouds and light bursts of rain. All the blossom trees are out locally and we have a lovely display from our back windows - blackthorn and cherry especially. We have red and white tulips in flower now to compliment the yellow daffs and purple hyacinths in the back garden; our forsythia is turning deep yellow, and the red robinia next to it is turning, well, red . Spring has sprung!

To town this a.m., a rare foray these days. They are tarmacking the high street roadway, and the pavements as well, so fairly chaotic, but I park at the "bottom" of the town anyway so no problems. Around 75% of the shops are either empty or closed because of Covid, so little going on in town, and few people about. I started at the building society to bank my tax refund cheque following our PPI claim - it has only taken HMR&C six months to process it; I have submitted all the relevant figures to them twice and even given them a detailed calculation of what they owed me, despite which they still got the repayment amount wrong . So I'll cut my losses, sometimes it's simply not worth continuing to bang your head against a brick wall.....

Then to the Polish shop for more sauerkraut, fried beetroot, fried red cabbage and polony - I must say they are extremely well stocked and remarkably cheap. Then to the butchers to restock the freezer, but they had no boneless chicken breasts ("chicken supremes" they call them) which was a disappointment, and I'll have to go back next week, but I did get some lamb steaks (expensive!), pork loin steaks and diced beef, so not a wasted journey.

A quiet afternoon now for Ossie while Mrs O watched the geegees on the box!

Continuing thoughts for Jen and Mr E, and Cruiser, hope you are all coping OK.

Oh and next door's bungalow is "unexpectedly back on the market". Perhaps Andy and I did put the viewers off after all! But I do wonder if it is a case of over-enthusiastic estate agents trumpeting they've "Sold It" when really all they have received is a very tenuous offer ......

[Gal2]

Afternoon all - early start for me as I had to leave the house at 8.30 to drive to Newton Aycliffe for my second Pfizer jab at 9.10 this morning. All done and dusted within ten minutes (it's a 15 minute drive but I allowed longer in case the traffic was bad) but I'd arranged to go for a coffee with Anne (the lady Optom) afterwards as she'd also been for her second jab (as had most of us as the day wears on) so we drove off in our own cars about half a mile to Costa, where we parked so that our windows were close together, she'd brought some fruit cake which we had with the coffee - lovely. Afterwards when we left I had a look around the town but only actually went into Boyes (a hardware/housey/hobby store ooop North with several branches) and bought some little bits for the house....then home. So far I am absolutely fine after my jab

Weather however has been damp and dismal. We had to wind our car windows partway up to stop the very heavy drizzle coming inside the cars Anne is on a week's leave after tomorrow so I won't see her for a while. Home to houseyworky stuff, Tom's off as usual on Fridays but he did have a painty job to do for Amy but given the weather he's called it off, no good painting in the wet!

Enjoy those fish and chips Kaz!! xxx

[JoM]

Nah, Ossie...it was definitely you and Andy that’s made them have second thoughts

Gal, I’m jealous of Kaz having fish and chips Haven’t had them for ages!