Amazing surprise and busy times

I had an amazing surprise last Friday, I heard a noise in my hallway I went to investigate and it was my son Ben and his mate Martin come to visit from Birmingham. After some lunch...made by Ben, and a quick catch up, my son got me to go out to their van with him. I was gobsmacked, sitting in there was a mobility scooter !! For the last 18 months my mobility has got so bad I can't even walk 25 yards without being in unbearable pain, which has meant I've been housebound apart from on my daughters days off work. I've always been a pretty independent person, so losing this over the last 18 months has been a hard thing to come to terms with. But now, thanks to my son I can get to the shops in the village on my own, such a little thing for most people, but such a huge thing for me it's hard to convey in words what a difference it'll make to my life. So a huge thank you to my son Ben.

Also a big thank you to Martin, who while he was here got high jacked into doing a few jobs around the house that me and my daughter couldn't do. He also made me a lead that will reach the scooter from my outhouse to recharge it, without having the hassle of using extension leads etc. Mart is a very methodical person and I got quite a lot of pleasure watching him do these jobs, and also picked up a couple of tips that will stay with me for a long time.

On Sunday there was an added treat ...a trip to the car boot !! I so enjoyed it, it's a year since I last went there and even then I couldn't enjoy it because the pain was too much for me. But this time I went up and down the rows of booters like a thing possessed lol. Sadly there wasn't as many booters as I would have liked, due mainly I think to the freezing cold wind that was whipping across the field. But I still got a few bargains so I was a very happy bunny.

Sunday was my sons last day and as a final treat we got taken out for dinner to the Breeze Hill Hotel in Benllech. If you're ever visiting Anglesey be sure to go for a meal here, their food is amazing, and very reasonably priced too.

I've been asked to make some mosaics for a shop on the island, so I've been busy doing that lately. I also thought that for a change I would turn my hand to making some bracelets. These will be made completely from recycled materials, I've made 3 so far and they just need some tweaking to get them how I want. I'll share all these things with you as soon as they're finished of course, but in the meantime a couple of photo's we took of my daughter using a laser light that Mart brought down for her, we were really pleased with the results and thought the 2nd photo would make a brilliant album cover for a band. Also I've included a pic of my lovely new great grandson Tyler, with his daddy my oldest grandson Martin. On my pc I can see white bands on the bottom of the two first photo's, so apologies if anyone else can see them too.

Quiet times and off again soon

It's been pretty quiet in my world since the last post. But I've been busy none the less, the good weather meant we spent quite a lot of time in the garden, and I've managed to sow some veggie seeds, albeit in pots rather than the actual garden, which is too small. So hopefully some time soon I should see a couple of courgette plants rear their heads, some french beans ( which might be planted against the new fence ) some carrots and finally some spring onions. I also did 5 small pots of flowers, but I'm dammed if I can remember what kind they were now lol. Outside my kitchen window there's a long ago redundant coal bunker, but the bunker itself has become a storage spot for things that don't mind getting damp, and the top of it has become my nursery garden. It's packed with pots and seed trays of all different sorts of flowers, ready to be planted out when they get big enough.

Last Saturday we went off to Benllech car boot, still a bit early in the season for it to be packed with car booters, but I got 3 books and 4 vest tops for the summer anyway. Sunday saw us at Mona car boot, and this was pretty quiet too considering it was bank holiday, the only thing I bought there was a pile of big pots for the garden for £3.

We're off on our travels again on Thurs, down to my daughters in Bromsgrove again. Her hubby wants my other daughter to give him a hand doing a couple of driving jobs. While we're there, it'll off to see my son Ben and our friends Martin and Mandy. Martins going to put some more memory in our pc's and do something else with them ( which I can't remember lol ) and is also going to reformat them both, as they are both running at a snails pace !! Saturday I'm going off to spend some time with my friend on his barge again, as luckily he's still in the area. Also they'll probably be some visits to other friends in our old home town of Leamington Spa, I think one of them wants my daughter to do a tattoo for them. Talking of tattoo's I've been trying to design a tattoo for my hand, I've drawn two so far and they'll probably be lots more drawings yet before I'm finally satisfied with it lol.

Photo's today are of some lovely macro shots my daughter took in the garden.

First a pretty odd looking wasp which had a beak like a duck lol.



Next a poppy past it's best, but which I found very attractive still.



A pretty but rather tatty moth lol, I seem to enjoy things that aren't picture perfect don't I lol.



Finally one of many bee's that are enjoying our bluebells.

Yet another busy week

Yet another busy week again !! A week today my friend Bee and her son came down from Liverpool again, bringing with her another friend Ricky and his son. Bee is convinced that she's lived on Anglesey in a previous life, as she feels so drawn to here.

Sunday I had a rare treat, my daughter and I went off to Mona car boot. Considering how lovely and sunny it was, I was surprised how few car booters there were. But I still managed to get a couple of bargains, from there it was off to Tregarth to pick up some much needed flower pots off a Freecycler. Everything was looking good, and we headed back home to carry on starting to sort out our new garden.

Then disaster struck !!! The front of my daughters exhaust fell apart, we managed to get the car into a quiet side road, the exhaust dragging noisily on the road. We knew that somehow we'd have to get the back end of the exhaust up off floor to get home, otherwise it might have pulled the whole thing off. Realising we had nothing suitable to hold it up, my daughter headed off to see a friend of ours Mike, who was working close by. Thank god for men who've got bits of wire handy !! Mike gamely got under the car and with a little help from us, he got the exhaust up off the road, so we could get home, albeit sounding like a tank !!

We knew another friend Coral was due to visit in her van in the next day or so, we hoped that she'd be able to tow the car to the garage we use. Coral arrived on the Monday and we decided that maybe it would be safer all round if my daughter drove her car to garage, with me and Coral following closely behind incase the wire broke or any other disaster happened. It didn't thank god !!

Early Tuesday morning, saw Coral and I heading up the A55 towards Valley to do a car boot with the last remaining things from Corals cottage she'd just given up, to live in her van. Once there we were shown where to park up, it must have been the coldest spot in the whole car boot. While all the other booters were bathed in the warm sun, our van and a guy next next to us sat in the freezing cold, with no hope of the sun moving round to warm our chilly bones. But we soldiered on and by the end of it pretty much most of Corals stuff was gone. The rest we intended to drop off at the tip on the way home.

Once we got back and we'd managed to thaw out, (which took some doing I can tell you ) I got a nice vegetarian stew and dumplings on the go. While that bubbled gently away, I started working on doing a blog for Coral, to showcase her greenwood carving workshops etc, which is part of her action plan to become self employed.

Wednesday dawned and knowing that Coral had to leave that night, to get home for an important appointment, we knew that this would be the last day we'd have a lift to get to the somewhat remote garage my daughters car was in. So we decided to go and check and see if any progress had been made on it, just as we pulled into the garage my daughters phone rang, it was the mechanic to say her car was ready ...good timing or what lol !! As always we were short of cash so were dreading how much it was going to cost, so we were delighted when we were told it'd only be £10, how many mechanics would weld an exhaust back together for that much ...not many I can tell you !!!

Next on the agenda was to drop my daughters car back home, and for us to go and pick up things needed to start getting Corals van sorted out for her to live in it. As we needed some wood, we thought it was worth going to the local tip and see if we could get any there. Our luck was in and we managed to get some, we also got the last post we'd need to put our fence up in the garden, a new set of car mats for my daughters car and a glass topped garden table to replace the plastic monstrosity we had. We'd have got loads more stuff, but the guy at the tip was getting a bit jittery saying that we were being watched by cctv !! In this day and age when most councils are trying to keep as much stuff out of the landfills as possible, it seems ridiculous to me that we can't recycle some of the very useful stuff people throw away ...bureaucracy gone mad I call it !!! Anyway ... the next thing to do was get everything out of Corals van so we could lay some carpet on the floor and believe it or not some on the roof too, hopefully this will insulate the van a bit on cold nights. Once we'd done as much as we could, it was off to the beach for sunset as Coral wanted some decent photo's of herself for her blog and also some fun poi pictures. I was quite pleased with the end results, what do you think ? All bar the 4th photo down are of my daughter though lol.