What surprised me about my brother's shaver was that the charge on the rechargeable battery was still working for as long as when he bought it 16 years ago (and he does use it every day)

Evening all.    Sorry I've not been about today but I've been SO busy sorting things out.  The suitcases are finally unpacked but I've not made a start on the washing yet!!  No. 1 son (whose just come back from a week in Sweden) asked if it would be okay to bring some of his washing round and I said okay, as long as you don't expect to get it back before next weekend!!!

I think Hubby is going down to his boat tomorrow morning so I hope to pop in, in between loading and unloading the washing machine.  Thankfully the weather looks okay for getting things dry tomorrow.

One lovely thing which happened today is my hubby sent me the most wonderful bouquet of flowers as a thank you for organising the trip.  Bought a little tear to my eye I can tell you.

Love you all.  Hope to catch up tomorrow. 

Good to hear from you Joyron. I'm also up to my eyes in washing - and we were only away for four days.
Big  for your hubby, the bouquet sounds beautiful.

Good morning everyone on a cold but sunny day

You will be relieved to know, Joyron, that I am quite capable of washing, drying and ironing my clothes myself so I won't be ringing you asking you to wash my clothes

Good morning everyone, I am also up to my ears in washing but for a different reason, I have my grandson staying with me and the washing seems to have quadrupled overnight, I was heard to mutter yesterday that I seem to be working in a Chinese Laundry Its clear and cold here, have a great day everyone!

My local church is twinned with a church in Leksand in Sweden. Their youth choir was visiting us this weekend, and during the service this morning they sang this:



It's a traditional hymn from the USA, possibly deriving from music sung by slaves on the plantations. The version above was used in the film "Oh Brother, Where Arr Thou" and is sung by Alison Krause. The clip uses BBC stockage for the video.

It sounds like that could be the case. I love the accompanying video of the waterfalls.

Ooops, forgot to say Hello to everyone.
I have been banned from the living room while the Rangers V Celtic football match is on - apparently, I am a jinx.

You'll have to tell us more - like which of the Glasgow teams does hubby support (as a result of today he'll either be over the moon or sick as a parrot - hang on - I must protest on behalf of all parrots ), which do you support or not interested, in what way are you a jinx, can you rell the difference betwwen off-side and lbw (joke question only ) ?

Lovely to see you back Joyron.

Good morning to you all

It's a nice sunny day but at present it's below zero here, though will get warmer in a bit. Must have been the coldest night of the season so far.

Good morning everyone. It's absolutely freezing today, we had to scrape the ice from the cars.

El Loro, hubby and sons were very happy with yesterday's football result. Although, I am not very interested in football any more, I used to go to lots of games with my dad and brother when I was a teenager, so I am familiar with the offside rule.
However, I haven't got a clue about cricket.

Good morning to all my lovely Ben's Buddies; everyone of you.  I thought I would post this early this morning before I start on the enormous pile of ironing I have to do!!!

We had the most amazing time on our cruise.  We enjoyed all the places we visited and decided we liked Valencia the best.  The city was spotlessly clean and the people very friendly.  It is certainly a place I would recommend anyone to visit.  The biggest disappointment (I'm sad to say) was Rome.  I suppose I had a picture in my mind of when I was there aged about 13 years old.  Obviously nearly 50 years have passed since that first visit and everything has changed SO much.  There was so much traffic and so many people.  We didn't get to go into St Peters because the wait in the queue was 5 hours!!  We did walk to the Trevi Fountain and it was as I remembered it.  I did say a little prayer for you all standing in St Peters Square.  I thought about you all back home quite often.

Ventura is a very large ship but we didn't like her as much as some of the other ships we have sailed on.  The suite onboard was absolutely fantastic (it was the one shown on the website).  It was so spaciously and beautifully decorated.  We had a whirlpool bath as well as a shower.  We had several meals at the dining table.  The balcony was a great place to sit and the sun was always on it either in the morning or afternoon depending on which direction we were sailing in.  It was great having the services of the butler  and he did lots for us, such as arranging shore excursions and bringing us all those extra bottles of wine.  Bascially he did all the work for us.

The trip didn't get off to a very auspicious start as our departure was delayed from Friday evening until Saturday morning due to a very deep depression in the Bay of Biscay.  As it was the crossing was quite rough when we did get there.  I'm not sure I would have liked it if we had sailed earlier and met the depression head on!!  After that it was sunshine all the way.  Sometimes it was far too hot for me.  We were lucky as all of the places we visited either had a wet, miserable day the day before we visited, or the day after we left.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my little update and that I've not bored you to tears.  If there is anything else you would like to know please feel free to ask me.  I want to tell you a little bit about the ship's webcam but will do that later, after I've finished my ironing.  Hope to be back around lunchtime.  Love you all. 

Good morning everyone.  Like everywhere else it is cold but clear with blue skies here but I wouldn't like to be outdoors for too long. Thank you for the update Joyron, it sounds a lovely trip, shame Rome was disappointing, look forward to hearing more.  Good luck with the ironing.

Joyron, your trip sounds wonderful and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
It's a shame that Rome did not live up to your expectations, but otherwise you seem to have had a fabulous time.

Joyron, I'm glad you had a good time for the most part

Afternoon everyone.    Thankfully the ironing is out of the way.  It seemed an enormous amount to do but as I watched some of the programmes I had recorded on Sky+ while I was doing it the time went fairly quickly.

I'm glad you enjoyed reading about my adventures.  One thing I forgot to tell you was that I nearly had a heart attack in Gibralter!!  The tour we went on took us up really, really high (I know I should have expected that on the "Rock") in a rather small minicoach.  Looking over the side at the drop made me feel really ill, although the view from up high was absolutely wonderful.  We encountered the apes (really monkeys with no tails) close up.  They clambered all over the roof of the coach and made quite a lot of noise.

I mentioned earlier about the webcam and just wanted to say that the best time to look at that on the website is about an hour before arrival at a port or for about 20-30 minutes just as the ship is leaving a port.  Ventura normally arrives at a port around 7.30 to 8.00 am and departs normally around 6.00 pm, although there can be variations.  Ventura is on her way to the Carribean for the winter right now.  She will be in Tenerife tomorrow, Tortola on 1st Nov and various other islands each day after that until she arrives in Barbados on 5th Nov.  Bearing in mind the time difference (I'm sure El Loro will be able to help with that) there is a chance of seeing some good shots as Ventura arrives at Barbados as it will be afternoon time here.

I just thought I would mention the webcam in case anyone was interested in having a look at some proper sights rather than just seeing the sea when the ship is sailing, or a constant picture of some uninviting port during a shore day.  For almost an hour before arriving at Gibralter the pictures were spectacular .  We sailed in from the west and saw the more rugged side of the rock; then the typical face on shot one always sees, followed by the very interesting west side where the ship came into port.  I'm planning on checking out Venturas progress until she reaches Barbados and thought some of you might like to do the same.

Well that's the last I'm going to write about my trip away.  I hope I've not bored you silly.

I hope you are all doing well.  The weather is rather cold here today, but least the sun is shining.  Does anyone have any news to pass on as I feel rather out of the loop at the moment.  Love you all. 

I found that very interesting Joyron and I will be most interested to hear more details as you think of them.  It sounds a lovely trip and I think its a good idea to 'tune in' to the webcam again.  I'm sorry that I have no interesting news apart from the fact that I have taken my grandson in to live with me as he and his mum had a row and she threw him out.  That's about as interesting as it gets, which is why I like to hear of all your foreign adventures

Squiggle, I'm sorry to here that your grandson and his mum have been having problems.  I'm sure they will sort everything out in due course.  In the meantime I bet your grandson is enjoying his stay with you. 

Joyron, I agree with Squiggle ^^^^^ and am happy to hear more about your trip.
I haven't got anything newsworthy to tell you, except middle son and his girlfriend are talking about moving in together, next Spring. The only problem is his job is not as secure as he would like, so they might have to wait a while longer. His GF is a lovely person and they do seem really well suited, so I am hoping it works out for them.
Squiggle, I'm sorry your grandson isn't getting on with his mum ATM. At least he is lucky to have you to turn to. Do you think they will be able to resolve things quite quickly, or might you have him staying for a while? Don't answer, if you'd rather not.

I hear my name being shouted through the ether

I suggest that anyone who wants to see what the time is elsewhere have a look at this link

The front page gives a rough idea of the various time zones around the world. There is also a tab for North & Central America which shows the time in Barbados and Virgin Islands (UK) for Tortola. If you go to one of the tab pages, you can do a search for places which are not listed such as Tenerife, though they can't cover every place).

I am not going to attempt to give time differences here for one very simple reason. The clocks change in the UK this coming weekend, and may or may not change in other countries at around the same time. So what is valid today won't necessarily be so by this time next week. Hopefully the above link will be kept upto date.

Not a lot of news on the El Loro side. I popped into John's office this morning to try to help one of the staff get to grips with John's accounting software (highly specialised - nothing like Sage etc). I had only ever had a cursory look at it some months ago so am not at all familiar with it. But betwwen us we have managed to make some progress such as working out the password to get into it.

And at church yesterday I saw someone who had moved away a few years ago. She and her husband are coming back to the area at the beginning of December. This is good news for our church as she is the sort of person who could well become a church warden in the future or a leader of some organisation.

.

Yogi, I was hoping that my grandson and my daughter would heal the breach but I think that I have to prepare for long-term.  He is being very well-behaved (so far) and his girlfriend stays throughout the week (she works Fridays and Saturdays) so the expense does mount up, which is obviously worrying.  As I get a 'living alone' supplement from Council Tax I have had to inform them and I am just waiting to see what difference that will make.  I do as I always do, place my hand in God's and keep trusting.

My dearest Squiggle, you must make sure you don't get yourself into financial strife because of your change in circumstances.  Your grandson and his girlfriend must be prepared to pay their way or else they should not continue to stay with you.  Harsh though that sounds we have to be realistic in this day and age and those "high and mighty" councils will not listen to reason when it comes to the whys and wherefores.

Yogi, life is really hard for our children nowadays.  Getting any amount of money together to set up home is really difficult at anytime, but at the moment it's almost impossible.  At least you like your son's choice of GF and she appears to be a very nice person.  I never liked my No. 1 son's choice of partner and now they are divorced!!

El Loro, I knew you would have a link for the time differences.  I understand what you say about the time change this weekend.  I must admit I hadn't given that any thought at all but hopefully we will between us be able to work out the correct time in Barbados before 5th November comes round!! 

squiggle, have you had a look at the Direct Gov pages on discounts for council tax? Link to this

There are several links there which may be of relevance so it is worth looking sround. There is also a link to various councils as to what discounts they offer as these can vary.

I know that the basic discount for a single occupant house is 25%, so if that is lost the current bill goes up by one third, but there are some classes of people who are ignored for this purpose such as university students.

Thank you for the link EL.  I will just have to leave it up the council and hope that any raise will be manageable.  Joyron there is no element of choice in this matter, I have to be there for him (and his girlfriend is lovely and very good for him).  I know you will agree that's that what families do.

She really is a lovely person. She has a sunny disposition and is very easy-going. I will be delighted if it works out for them, as my middle son has never been happier.

Squiggle, I totally understand your need to help your grandson - I'm sure I would do exactly the same, if I were in your position.
I hope you manage to get things sorted out with the Council Tax people, and hope your grandson is able to help you out financially, while he is staying with you.

 That's a good start.

Good morning everyone

It's a gloriously non-sunny day here without no clouds in the sky. There's no chance of no rain today throughout the day, and it is a bit warmer than it has been recently.

Good morning El Loro, good morning everyone.
It's raining here today. Never mind, I can stay in and catch up on my ironing.

Good morning everyone, I can assure you you would not wish to be here in North Devon this morning.  Blowing a gale, grey clouds scudding across the sky and rain being tossed about, only one thing for it

It's days like this which make be glad I did my shopping yesterday

That's a nice friendly tortoise, squiggle

My shopping is due to be delivered tomorrow, its a horrible day outside today, all's well you say, but no!  My grandson and his girlfriend (who don't normally drink tea) have had a change of mind and left me 2 teabags short Murphy's law!  I suppose I am going to have to wait for the rain to ease off and venture out, the best laid plans etc.

Oh dear Squiggle, as a real Tea-Jenny, a lack of teabags would be a cause for panic in my house.

Afternoon everyone.  It's really, cold here today.  Not quite what I've been used to.  No more sitting on the balcony in the lovely warm sunshine!!  I've donned an extra layer of clothing but will need to turn the heating on soon or else I will freeze.

Sorry to hear about the lack of teabags Squiggle.  I wouldn't want to be without my cup of tea.  Hope to catch up later. 

squiggle, what a catastrophe !

And to rub salt into the wound, when I did my shopping yesterday I saw a special offer Co-op own 240 freetrade teabags for £3-07, so bought a box. For that quantity, not a bad price.

Sorted EL, now just have a quick look to see if there is a teabag slot in your router and address them to me, thanks   (Lack of tea to my one remaining brain cell could be causing a short-circuit )

Evening all.  What an awful day; so dull, wet and dismal.    Hope you are all keeping wrapped up warm.  I hope you have managed to get a new supply of teabags Squiggle.  I won't sleep easy in my bed tonight not knowing if you have enough teabags to keep you going until the shopping arrives tomorrow. 

  Press Transmit to

squiggle, hopefully this will work, otherwise I suggest you instruct your grandson to brave the elements and get you an emergency supply

I will second that.  I CANNOT think about Squiggle surviving the night without her teabags.  Please, please, please, grandson go and get Squiggle some teabags. 

Teabags sorted thank you all for worrying about me.  EL yours haven't arrived yet but I just know they will!