My favourite visitor is back

My favourite visitor

Poor Brodie arrived back home about a week ago after being missing for a few hours, minus his collar, and with some scratches on his poor nose. The scratches look to be healing up nicely, so I've been giving him lots of pampering so he doesn't miss his slaves too much while they are away visiting Sarah in London.

My amaryllis is finally in bud - well, the bud has opened today but I haven't taken a photo yet. Maybe later today, though the light isn't very good at present. I'm not keen on using flash if I can avoid it - colours seem much truer with natural light.



Amaryllis in bud

Sunday excursion

Felt really rough on Saturday, so just vegged in bed all day. Sunday it was so gorgeous out that we both felt we had to get out of the house. So wonderful to see so much sunshine.



Liverpool really is a city of cranes at present. I find them interesting - the angles they make against the sky and other buildings. And I love their colour against blue skies! Especially the red ones!



Baltic Fleet and cranes

Went to Gordale Nurseries first, where I was tempted by several plants (especially some of the euphorbias, but I worry about their nasty sap) but decided that I didn't really have the energy to look after any new plants right now. It was good fun to have a look at what is available at this time of year though, and it's so great to even begin to think about gardening again.

John trundled me as far as the kids' playground, when we heard some strange bird calls. We headed off towards them and found these strange birds:



What on earth are they? John made a guess at quail, but I didn't think quail had bald heads!

On to the flat afterwards, brought some more stuff home. Cooking notes Mum made at night school in the 1939-40 session. First recipe is lentil soup, followed by kidney soup. Not had time to read further yet. John went for a walk round the marine lake while I went through more bits and pieces.

It was very still, though very cold despite the sunshine. We watched a couple of kayackers paddling round the lake. Rather them than me!!! And then we watched the sun sink over the hills of Wales. Here's the last glimmer before it disappeared:



Today I went for my regular Monday evening counselling session. Been going for a few weeks now, was lucky enough to be able to contact the Counsellor I saw when I was fairly newly disabled with ME. She helped me a lot back then, and now I am seeing her for bereavement counselling. Today we began work on my Life Line. This is going to be painful I think, but I am convinced it will all help in the long term.



Sunday Traffic jam outside St Luke's Church. We think there must have been something on at the new stadium. Obvously this is something we are going to have to take account of when planning on driving through Liverpool!

Pancakes

Sunday Sunset at West Kirby

We missed pancake day last week, so we had pancakes for breakfast this morning to make up for it. We both enjoyed them so much we are thinking we might make it a regular Tuesday morning breakfast.

Car Wash

Urm, meant to post more often - life just keeps happening. May get to update better soon, but in the meantime here's what we did on Sunday afternoon:



Been over to the flat in West Kirby both Saturday and Sunday and am knackered after all the car travel. We did manage to visit a couple of charity shops, John got a new to him shirt and some vinyl albums, I got two books, blue dragon china (that matches some bowls we already have), and a sparkly over blouse (can't resist a few sequins!).

But on the decluttering front we took a big black bin bag of stuff to Oxfam, and have started the next bag. And I am making plans for boxes at the top of the stairs to drop books in as I go through the book cases in our bedroom.

Sleep time now I think.

Day Trip to Abersoch

January has been quite a difficult month so far, but I think things are improving now.

Saturday morning we got a phone call from Harold, our landlord for the caravan pitch. He's found us a second hand caravan and wanted us to go and see it. Phone calls round all the family, and arranged to visit Sunday morning. Sunday morning Helen got here around 8am and we set off.

The new (to us) van is nice - much paler "wood" furniture than the old one, so seems much brighter inside. Nice big windows across the front, similar to how they were in the old van. (we had been put off many of the more modern vans by their small windows at the front)



One double, two twin bedrooms, the twin beds can be pushed together to make double beds. The cooker looks as if it's never been used, as does the gas fire.



The curtains and bedhead fabric in the bedrooms is not really what we'd have chosen, but we'll only be sleeping in there so that shouldn't be too much bother! The living room curtains are thankfully plain, a sort of burgundy colour. Upholstery in the living room is patterned and not really to our taste, but it's livable with.



It's double glazed and fully insulated (that'll be a big improvement on the old van!), but hasn't got central heating. Harold will arrange for the manufacturers to install that for us.



Only downside is that the loo, washbasin and shower are all in the same room. In the old van we had separate toilet with washbasin and shower room with another washbasin. But we'll fettle up the loo in the shed for emergency use, so we can live with that.

Harold gave us lunch, so we didn't get to the old van till about 2.30. Helen and John packed the kitchen stuff up and took it to Harold's shed in the next field for storage, and I packed up all the clothes and stripped the beds etc.

We left the caravan around 6pm. It was clear, and the sky was full of stars. Seemed strange to see the constellations so different to Summer nights! Cassiopea and Orion were clear, and Mars was bright above. Could make out 5 of the Pleiades (Seven Sisters). It's just fabulous to be somewhere where the night skies are dark. Can only see the occasional star from Liverpool - too much light pollution.

We still have more stuff to pack up and bring home, so John has taken a day of work on Friday, and we'll do another day trip. We can't stop over as it's the time when the caravan site is closed, and besides Sarah is coming up for the weekend and we want to see her.



Primroses growing in the bank by our caravan