So, here we are.

[truth24]

Glad you managed time outdoors, LadyA, productive but not too much. How ironic that with so much waiting to be done and with the first truly lovely weekend of the year, I choose (!) to get laid low with a with a virus that's kept me bedridden for 2 days. Can't remember the last time that happened tho I've woken feeling hungry so think I must be on the mend. Have to be as have cakes to make for friend's coffee morning tomorrow. No doubt all will be OK in the long run! Please continue to take care of yourself. Have visions of you sweeping the drive in 5 ins heels and a slinky outfit!

 

[LadyA]

Glad you managed time outdoors, LadyA, productive but not too much. How ironic that with so much waiting to be done and with the first truly lovely weekend of the year, I choose (!) to get laid low with a with a virus that's kept me bedridden for 2 days. Can't remember the last time that happened tho I've woken feeling hungry so think I must be on the mend. Have to be as have cakes to make for friend's coffee morning tomorrow. No doubt all will be OK in the long run! Please continue to take care of yourself. Have visions of you sweeping the drive in 5 ins heels and a slinky outfit!

Oh dear - hope you are ok. There is so much sickness about at the moment. I think it must be the long, wet Winter.

Slinky outfit? Try track pants, my "outdoor work" jacket (i.e. filthy!), boots and work gloves -the heavy yard brush is murder on the hands, and weighs a ton!

 

[LadyA]

Well that's that, I suppose. I've just had, by email, all the final documents and the final bill from my Solicitor - everything, every last little thing, is now in my sole name. William, in his hopes of providing for me, had bought some Prize Bonds over the years. Always hoping that one of them would come up, and he would win a million, and then wouldn't have to worry about me living in poverty after he died! Of course, he never did win so much as a cent! There are investors who literally buy tens of thousands of those Bonds, because they are State Guaranteed. You don't get interest on them, but you can cash them in any time for what you paid for them. Now, even those have been transferred into my name. I'm keeping them, partly for sentiment's sake - because William wouldn't want me to cash them, he would still want me to hope of retiring in comfort! And partly, because the Solicitor advised me not to. She said she has come across more than one case where people cashed them in, only for their bonds to come up shortly after! So she reckons they are fine as they are, because they aren't worth a lot in cash terms - but on the off chance that one would come up.....!

It does seem very sad though that now, everything that William held so very dear is mine and not "ours" anymore - although I still think of it as "ours".

I could sit and get sad, but I'm not going to. I had a little migraine yesterday morning, so I dealt with it by taking my tablet, and it disappeared. The darn thing came back last evening! I ignored it because I can't take two of those pills in one day - it was there all night, and still there this morning, so I've taken another pill + 2 solpadeine for good measure this morning! And it's a lovely sunny, but cool, day. And before I do anything in the garden, I'm off to town to buy new bedroom curtains - and pay the Solicitor's bill. My bedroom curtains were fine all Winter, but my bedroom faces East - and as soon as it starts getting light, I'm waking up. I need something heavier than embroidered voile! I do have a blackout blind on the window as well, but so much light gets around the edges! And the head of my bed is to the window. And I think before next Winter, I will try and get a SAD lamp - because all Winter, I seem to be only half awake the whole time!!

 

[Scarlett123]

Aw Scarlett, you miss your John so much. This is how my Mum feels too. She has been 20 years without my Dad and she doesn't want to wait any longer.

I hope your day is a good one. Its lovely here in Stirlingshire today. It feels like spring.
XX
Quilty

My Grandpa live with us, and he mourned his wife, and longed to be with her for 22 years. My Mum would often get exasperated, because no matter what she did, he would rarely show ay enthusiasm.

Then when my Dad died, 30 years ago, and Mum was on her own for 10 years, she was exactly the same. But I would never show that I was exasperated, and I think it was good training for me, because just a few years after she died, John developed the first signs of AD.

My Grandpa proposed to my Grandma 2 months after they first met. My Dad proposed to my Mum 2 weeks after they first met and, you've guessed it, John proposed 2 days after we first met! And we all had long and very happy marriages, and we were all very lucky to meet people who we adored, and who adored us.

 

[LadyA]

William and I courted by letter. We met here, when he visited his daughter, but with the age difference, I hadn't really given him any particular attention - although we enjoyed him, because he was so enthusiastic and lively! After he went home, he wrote to me, and we wrote for about three months before he came for another visit in January, when we got engaged. We continued writing daily, but didn't see each other again until our wedding in June.

 

[Ash148]

My Grandpa live with us, and he mourned his wife, and longed to be with her for 22 years. My Mum would often get exasperated, because no matter what she did, he would rarely show ay enthusiasm.

Then when my Dad died, 30 years ago, and Mum was on her own for 10 years, she was exactly the same. But I would never show that I was exasperated, and I think it was good training for me, because just a few years after she died, John developed the first signs of AD.

My Grandpa proposed to my Grandma 2 months after they first met. My Dad proposed to my Mum 2 weeks after they first met and, you've guessed it, John proposed 2 days after we first met! And we all had long and very happy marriages, and we were all very lucky to meet people who we adored, and who adored us.

How wonderful

 

[Ash148]

William and I courted by letter. We met here, when he visited his daughter, but with the age difference, I hadn't really given him any particular attention - although we enjoyed him, because he was so enthusiastic and lively! After he went home, he wrote to me, and we wrote for about three months before he came for another visit in January, when we got engaged. We continued writing daily, but didn't see each other again until our wedding in June.

Also wonderful

 

[truth24]

We used to correspond too and how easy it was to pour out daily news and share our emotions. Must say that we did see each other a lot more frequently than you, LadyA. Scarlett, you must take the Gold Star surely for a courtship of 2 days!

 

[LadyA]

Got my new curtains up in the bedroom, and it did help. They are still cream, but heavier and lined too, so it kept the room that bit darker, and I slept a bit later this morning. Just as well - because that sodding migraine is still there!! I can't even remember when I last had a three-day migraine. I'm assuming the new medication for the acid reflux is the cause - the "possible side effects" listed does say "headaches, may be severe".

Also yesterday, I happened on the perfect birthday present for dau, who has a birthday in late April. Wandering toward the exit in the Department Store where I bought the curtains - which is a sort of variety store, really, they sell all sorts of stuff, very reasonably - and I spotted a large plastic bucket with a lid. A cider making kit - it has all she needs, including hydrometer, bottle capper, and all the other bits & pieces. She will be absolutely thrilled! It also contains a cider concentrate for doing a batch - I'm sure she will have a go with that, but she really wants to try making cider from the apples here in the Autumn. We generally have an abundance of apples, and so many just end up rotting on the ground.

And headache or no, I got the relic of a lawnmower out and mowed the front & side lawn. I will have to get SIL to put a new blade on the mower I think, or sharpen the old one. Grass looks like I cut it with a knife and fork - but at least it's shorter, which is all I care about! Going to do the back today, hopefully, if the weather holds up. Was lovely to spend time outside, although it was a bit chilly. We have a spiteful little East wind blowing here, although it is bright and sunny.

 

[chick1962]

No photos of curtains ladyA? Xx


Sent from my iPhone using Talking Point

 

[LadyA]

No photos of curtains ladyA? Xx


Sent from my iPhone using Talking Point

They are just plain cream, with a sort of leaf pattern woven into the fabric. Nothing exciting! My bed linen is floral, and my wardrobe doors are covered in floral wallpaper, so I didn't want to add another pattern!

 

[chick1962]

Sounds lovely xx


Sent from my iPhone using Talking Point

 

[truth24]

Great gift for your dau. Pity you can't sample the results!

 

[LadyA]

Great gift for your dau. Pity you can't sample the results!

Indeed. Now on day three of a whopping migraine, and no sign of a let up. Think it has to be a side effect of the new tablets I was put on on Friday - replacing ones I stopped taking because they were causing headaches! I started the new ones Friday night, woke up with this migraine Monday morning and it's got steadily worse since.
Not taking any more of those!

 

[truth24]

That must be horrendous. Hope it goes soon.

 

[Scarlett123]

We used to correspond too and how easy it was to pour out daily news and share our emotions. Must say that we did see each other a lot more frequently than you, LadyA. Scarlett, you must take the Gold Star surely for a courtship of 2 days!

If I could have done so, I would have married him on Day 3. We met Carol Singing, on the night of 21st December, had our first date the next day, went out the day after that, and then it was Christmas Eve, and John proposed - and I said yes.

And he asked my Dad "for my hand" (as you did in those days!) a few days later.

 

[truth24]

How old were you both?

 

[LadyA]

Migraine, day four!! Still there - not as bad this morning and I have pins & needles in my fingertips on the side of the migraine, so I hope it's easing off. The thing about these migraines (apart from the pain obviously) is that I have the most vivid dreams with them! I woke up at 5.30 this morning, having dreamed a whole book! As in, I dreamed I had read an entire book - but it's not a book I've read, if you follow me. Unfortunately, I did not leap straight out of bed and start writing - and as dreams do, most of it has floated off into the ether! But I can tell you the gist of the plot, in case any of you get inspired to write your best-seller!

So - the book in my dream started with a man having a dream of being in a cage, and hearing a woman calling him. And although he was in a cage, and couldn't get out, still he was afraid of the woman finding his cage. And right through the book, the man keeps having dreams and flashbacks of the cage, and the woman calling him - but the same fear that she mustn't find his cage. The rest of the book deals with a search for a 5 year old boy that is missing in a coastal town (now that bit is loosely tied to a book I actually did read recently, in which a teenage girl went missing from a caravan park) . The book flashed back and forth to the man's dreams and the search for the child, but it never gives any details of who the man is, where he is etc. Anyway - it turns out in the end that.........the man having the dream is the child that went missing 30 years previously!! He has been in a coma all that time, because (I'm not clear on that bit! - something to do with not being found in time). The woman that he was so terrified would find him was actually his mother, who had a severe drink problem and was abusive, and he had done something she would consider worthy of some horrendous punishment, so the child had run away. He had gotten caught , in some sort of bunker or storage place, that had a heavy grille on it and he couldn't get out - but in his mind, he was safe, because his mother couldn't get in either. So he didn't call for help. In the dream, it was vividly describing at one stage, the child peeping out through the bars at the searchers looking for him, but he could see his mother's legs and shoes, and even though he was so hungry and desperate to get out, all he could hear in his head was "she musn't find me, she mustn't find me."

Weird! Hate these migraines! Any budding writers out there want to take that storyline and run with it - feel free!

 

[Scarlett123]

How old were you both?

I was 19 and John was 28 on that Christmas Day. But in those far-off innocent days, I'd already had so many boyfriends - who thought they'd done well if they got a kiss! - that my Dad called me "Heinz". Cos he said I'd had 57 different boyfriends.

John had been in the army for 9 years, had been engaged 3 times (he said it was so he had somewhere to go on leave!), and was, in my Mum and Dad's eyes "A Real Man". They were always thrilled that we married and adored John.

My brother was a selfish s*d, and it was always John who would help my Dad with jobs, like putting up fences etc, and, as they got older, John did all their gardening and decorating.

 

[Scarlett123]

LadyA - can I just clarify this please. You had a dream about a book, which featured a man having a dream, about a child who went missing from a caravan park.

But it transpired that the man in your dream, who was having the dream, was the child? Is that right? I'm sure this must all mean something, but I don't know what.

Hope your migraine has gone xxx