Advent 12 The Christmas table cloth and 35 quick questions

Our eldest daughter surprised me with this present of a Christmas table cloth last year, of course the table was already laid so today is the first time it has been unwrapped.

 It looks lovely on the table - but maybe I should iron it first!

 I shall strangle the first person to spill gravy/wine/custard over it!

Thanks for all the lovely comments and good wishes yesterday, I didn't get round to replying to all so will just explain that Ipswich isn't a huge town compared to some, it has a population of about 135,000. I'm not sure we will save a lot of outgoings moving there because it's gas/electric for heating and Council tax is more in towns too but it will make life easier for the time being. Col has more appointments at hospital next week to try to track down what's wrong. Plus I forgot to say there is also an Asda within a mile of the bungalow and we hope to exchange contracts at the end of February or early March.


Dawn at Doing it for ourselves had a link to someone's list of questions, as they were short and I had 5 minutes I've joined in. Just highlight and copy them if you want to join in too.
 
1)  Do you like blue cheese?
      Yes please. any cheese. All cheese!

2)  Have you ever smoked?
      Yes, but not many a day . stopped 30+ years ago

3)  Do you own a gun?  
      No, I'm English!

4)  What flavor of Kool Aid is your favorite?
     What is Kool aid?
5)  Do you get nervous before dental appointments?
     Terrified

6)  What do you think of hot dogs?
     Yuck
7)  What's your favorite Christmas movie?
      Never watched any

8)  What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
      Coffee or drinking chocolate

9)  Can you do push-ups?
      No much too decrepit!

10)  What's your favorite piece of jewelry?
        I  wear 3 wedding rings - only 1 is mine!

11)  What's your favorite hobby?
        Reading

12)  Do you have A.D.D.?
        What is ADD?

13)  Do you wear glasses or contacts?
        Glasses for reading etc

14)  What's your middle name?
        Jane

15)  What are your thoughts at this moment?
        Must stop fiddling about in Blogland!

16)  Name 3 drinks you regularly consume.
        Coffee/drinking choc/water

17)  What is a current worry of yours?
        When Col will get diagnosed and get sorted

18)  What do you currently hate?
        Nothing

19)  Where is your favorite place to be?
        Home

20)  What do you plan on doing on New Year's Eve this year?
        Being at home probably in bed

21)  To where would you like to travel?
        Nowhere at the moment

22)  Name three people you think will do this questionnaire on their
        blog.
        No idea

23)  Do you own slippers?
        No, not furry things, I wear slip on sandals indoors

24)  What color shirt are you wearing?
        Navy Blue

25)  Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?
        Never tried but don't fancy them

26)  Can you whistle?
        Yes very loudly with 4 fingers and without any fingers! 

27)  What is your favorite color?
        Don't have one

28)  What songs do you sing in the shower?
        I don't

29)  Would you be a pirate?
        No

30)  What's in your pocket right now?
        No pockets

31)  What's the last thing that made you laugh?
        Have I got News for you is on TV
32)  What vehicle do you drive?
        Hyundai Tucson

33)  What's the worst injury you've ever had?
        Not an injury as such but I had a kidney removed 30 years ago

34)  Do you love where you live?
        I've enjoyed living here but now on the move

35)  Would you change your first name if you could?
        There are too many Sue's, so YES but to what??

There, 35 quick questions and even quicker answers.

Back Tomorrow
Sue  

 

Advent 11 Christmas Dresser + house news

All the things that are normally on my kitchen "dresser" ( it's really just shelves on a chest of drawers) have come off, been wrapped in newspaper and stored in a box or put in the kitchen cupboard.
The dresser has been decked, but looks a bit sparse in places, maybe I'll fish some tinsel out of the decorations box. I could add some greenery but it would all die before Christmas. Anyone remember two years ago when I took a picture of the dresser and had put the blocks as MERRY CHRITSMAS and even after Cro asked if I'd been on the cooking sherry, it still took me several minutes looking to see what was wrong- it was so funny- (I'm easily amused!) I left the blocks wrong all through Christmas just to see if any visitors noticed.

When the Christmas things are put away I won't bother to put the other stuff back, we'll lift the shelves off the chest of drawers and put them out of the way until we move.

I had an exciting time yesterday - easily excited too! because I went shopping in Ipswich, hadn't been to the town centre for ages.Col had yet another hospital appointment (and this is the man who'd never been in hospital until he was 56) - this time a follow up echo-cardigraph after the 'hardly a heart attack'  in October '14. No restrictions on him driving so he was able to drop me off in town for a couple of hours and pick me up afterwards. I didn't have time to go far round the town but it's always interesting to see which shops have gone and what's arrived. I did more Christmas shopping and  found all sorts of things for around a £1 so we can have a lucky dip pressie thing when all 3 children and partners are here on Saturday for our get together. Poundland had some decent Christmas Crackers for £4. I usually make some but, thinking we might have moved before Christmas decided not to bother. Then I thought we can't have a family Christmas meal together without crackers and paper hats.
Best of all, in the second charity shop I went into I found a 'new' coat for £7. I had 2 coats both miles too big that went to car-boot sales in the summer, which left me with just a short thin old lady's fleece jacket and a couple of old fleeces that I wear round here. This new one is also just a fleece but it's a bit longer, with black and white checks, belt and a hoodie not so old lady-ish I think.

It's going to be much easier for me to find bargains in town next year because after all the indecision, looking round, changing plans and faffing about we have found a 2 bed detached bungalow in Ipswich. It's on an estate in one of the older parts of town so not so squashed  in as some of the newer estates. It's just got a small garden which if we later let the bungalow will be OK. With a garage for Col's workshop, a shed to store stuff, no work needed (hopefully) except updating carpets and paintwork sometime and plenty of room for the caravan and car AND  less than half the price of what we are selling this place for. Best thing is it's within quarter  of a mile from an Aldi and a few  other shops including 2 charity shops, the doctors is even nearer and half a mile to the library. Just 3 miles round the ring road to the hospital and frequent buses into the town centre. It will be so different to the last 23 years here but perhaps that's a good thing. A complete change. If after a year, when we've done a bit of caravan touring, we find we don't like being in town we'll let it out and find somewhere else. I was counting up where I've lived for my 60 years. I've spent 43 years in small hamlets, 5 years in a small town and 12 years in villages, time for big(ish) town life!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Advent 10 The once a year purchase

  This is our once a year purchase and it was £4 this year - Good Grief

Yesterday Col was at hospital for another part of the camera thing that he couldn't have done before. They found nothing, so more tests will need doing to find out why he is aneamic and therefore lacking in energy - more waiting. We seem to have got used to waiting over the last couple of months, with life just ticking along gently. Yesterday my waiting a couple of hours to drive him home was OK because I found  the Christmas Radio Times in  Smiths  to look at. I spotted a few special editions of regular quiz programmes which will be entertaining and the things I mentioned in yesterdays post, I'll be getting out the highlighter pen soon. After describing the Dickensian series to Col  we saw a trailer for it and he said it looks like a Victorian Soap and as it's written by one of the Eastenders writers he may well be right - maybe we won't be watching that after all.

Also yesterday I wrote about the 100th book I've read this year and some people have ordered it - Oh dear what a responsibility, what if they've bought it and then hate it, I shall be worrying for ages!

Welcome to new follower Sarah AKA Fishcake Random at The Frugal Handmade Home, have a look at her blog to see what the elves get up to every night!

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Advent photo 9 = 5ps for meat + the 100th book read.

All year round every 5p that comes into the house has gone in this tin, a few 10ps went in too and it has now been tipped out and counted, bagged up and taken to the bank. A Grand total of   £17.70p  towards the Christmas meat. Also in the tin was a dime, a quarter dollar and ½ a French Franc! Harumph - that means we were cheated out of 20p by people paying for things from the gate sales. I've added these coins to a whole lot of odd foreign money that we've collected over the years despite the fact we've not stepped outside our country.

Have you caught the BBC's Christmas programme trailer? I guess The Radio Times for Christmas is out any day now. I'm looking forward to Sherlock set in the 1890's, The Christmas Call the Midwife and a series that starts on Boxing Day where 25 of Dickens's characters are mixed up together- sounds curious. Oh, and the Strictly Christmas special of course - by the way, how the heck did Helen and Aljaz get into the bottom two and then chucked out.......who on earth is voting for Anton and Katie? Talking TV, I'll not be watching The Worlds Most Expensive Christmas on Channel 4 next week but have enjoyed seeing the lovely Josh Groban singing twice on different programmes, his album Awake is one of my favourites.


Ta dah! Book number 100 has been added to my separate page. It was the 16th in the Hawkenlye series by Alys Clare. These are historical crime and mystery set around an abbey in Medieval Kent on the edge of The Great forest, where there are people who are still pagan and there is always a little bit of the weird thrown in. I love them. She has also written a series set in the fens in the 11th century.

Thanks for comments yesterday
Back Tomorrow
Sue

Advent 8

 We don't bother with many Christmas decorations anymore, mainly because when the house was extended and altered, quite a lot was re-plastered and I didn't want drawing pins stuck in everywhere, also a lot of our decorations were 30 years old, extremely tatty and only suitable for the dustbin.
We still have a tree, it used to be  a real one until all the ones we had got eaten by deer or grew too big, now a cheap thing from B&Q. Normally this goes up on the weekend before Christmas and comes down well  before Jan1st.(Bah Humbug!).
  This year our family are here mid month so we've put the tree up already.I've gone silver and red for 2015 because I felt sorry for the silver bits that hadn't been out of the box for years!

And - gasps in astonishment - I bought a new star for the top for £1.50! (The old one was a willow thing free from a Christmas magazine about 15 years ago and bits had snapped and unraveled). Everything else on the tree is several years old and quite a few secondhand - I've not contributed much to the Chinese economy this year!

Son and future daughter in law are really into Christmas decorations so will think this is a really poor show!

Here's another link back to an old post written in January when I made a list of things to remember for this years festivities. I said I would be looking for another dessert recipe - something that could be made and frozen well in advance - well, that never happened so today I'll be making the Chocolate Meringue Gateau again. As it's deliciously wicked I don't think it matters.

Thanks for comments yesterday and also welcome to Barbara, a new follower from Dorset I think.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Joining in with Julie's Scrapbook where you can see other advent photos

Advent 7 Christmas stamps

The 7th  picture on my special advent calendar is the Christmas stamps

I like to send Christmas cards with Christmas stamps, so these are now attached to yesterdays cards and off in the post around the country.

Sorry it's such a short post today, there is absolutely Nothing happening here to mention at the moment.

Thanks for comments yesterday
Back Tomorrow
Sue

Advent 6 Christmas cards and a good book

Picture number 6 on Sue's specially for you Advent calendar, is the most boring of the whole 24!

Envelopes full of cards waiting to be sealed and sent. I left them un-sealed in case I could add our new address. But now I'll get them in the post and sent and drop the ones for relatives in the Ipswich area into one of the Scout Post boxes in town. Several of the Scout groups do this now covering quite a wide area, they charge 25p each, so less than half the Royal Mail.

Because the weather yesterday was so windy I stayed in and got a whole book read. It was this one and probably not a good one to read if you are trying decide where to move to, I felt even more unsettled than I was before!

I didn't know anything about Margaret Forster before reading this as I'd never read any of her other writing, I didn't even know her husband is Hunter Davies although I have read some of his books about walking and countryside. My Life In Houses is about all the homes she has lived in and how they affected her life.The ending is quite poignant as she has a cancer with no cure. A review of this book in The Guardian would have put me off, so it's a good thing I didn't see it before I read the book. They seem to say that as a person wealthy enough to own two houses and spending a year avoiding tax in Portugal she shouldn't have whinged about builders and sitting tenants - which she does, but I enjoyed a peep into a lifestyle so different to our own.

I added the last book I read ( before the one above)- a short Christmas Novella by Anne Perry - to my List of Books Read 2015 and counted up- 98 books read so far this year with 3 weeks left - Blimey! So with this one it's now 99. I'd never before  counted up how many books I read in a year and am astonished, imagine if I had bought everything I read, we'd be bankrupt!

I do feel for the people who have been flooded out of their homes in Cumbria etc. What a shock just 3 weeks before Christmas. The weather here has been windy but otherwise not too bad and my only inconvenience has been having to peg the washing on the line with extra pegs on everything.

Welcome to another new follower - number 329, another Sue. - "Hello - good name!" and thanks for comments yesterday. ( No I hadn't posted about Christmas Tree festival last year and thank you everyone who hopes we can sort the house thing soon, I hope so too)

Back Tomorrow
Sue