where the journey takes me 2

April 11, 2026April 11, 2026

dear diary ~ a long week of ups and downs…

Like the weather

As I write this post and we emerge from the Easter week, I am greeted with a snow shower falling outside my window. DH and I have just returned from our morning walk which was both brisk and cut short as the bright, but bitterly cold, spring day soon turned into a cold hailstone shower not long after we had walked down the road. There was little point heading upwards along the lane towards the moor and we circled round the block quickly and were glad to get back home.

Many of the tulips in the border at the front of the house are in full flower, such a cheery sight and the local neighbourhood’s children have not managed to land a football onto them…yet! Although I love the pink, purple and moody colours I find they don’t come again as easily as the Apeldoorn variety of vibrant reds and yellows that I have had for a few years now, and they do keep coming back. It means I do not have to keep planting and removing and replanting each year.

The tulip Sun Lover which is a vibrant orange with yellow streaks has also made another appearance and will be in full flower soon to add to the display. They all contrast well with the deep blue grape hyacinth and the forget-me-nots. I have yet to find out if any of the unopend buds are Queen of the Night, a rich velvety purple colour.

The ones in the picture below have still to open – if I remember rightly they are double early mixed that I planted before Christmas. I am eager to know what they look like.

The Amelanchier Canadensis (Snowy Mesipilus) has abundant delicate white blossoms and the whole tree will look like a cotton wool cloud as they all fully open (if this windy, wet weather doesn’t whip them off the branches).

My dicentra, as always, steals the show in the front garden, no matter what the weather it seems to survive our harsh temperatures and gives a good dispay.

The camelia that had one flower last year is flowering and has been moved to the front of the house.

And the primulas keep on giving…

How different is the weather again now to that one day last Wednesday when the temperatures soared and I had to rummage in my summer wardobe for some suitable attire. And today I am glad I decided not to pack away the three thick jumpers I have been wearing all winter, because I am once again wearing one of them right now. They are so old and bobbly I had thought I would put them in the charity rag sack, which will force me to buy some new ones next winter….but just in case I am hanging on to them.

If you asked me what I have done this week, I would have to search my brain to remember. We visited mum last Sunday, surprisingly the weather was sunny and not too cold, though only 5 minutes after leaving her apartment a large dark cloud went overhead and we were pelted for a few minutes with hailstones. It was quite unpleasant but in true style my mum braved it all and thankfully it was fine for the rest of the time in the park. She devoured her toasted teacake and cappuccino and then had an Magnum icecream.

We left her in good spirits with the mid-afternoon carer and went off down the road to Thirsk to call in at my younger daughter’s home and deliver Easter eggs to Little L and Sweetie. I always get a bear hug from Sweetie, apparently granny tops the list of her favourite people! We had a chat and a cup of tea and then got back on the road homewards.

It was an early night for us and I slept like a log.

Monday morning the washing marathon began. I had brought down 4 black bin bags of washing, all bedding and underwear, from my mum’s. What with her leaky rodent ulcer on her leg, that bleeds and issues a fluid continually onto her sheets, and a number of accidents in the past week, the carers had to strip the bed more than once. Everything needed soaking and stain removal and some of it took two washes. Luckily, I could get it all out on the line, dried, ironed and packed ready to get it all back up to my daughter in Thirsk on the Wednesday by means of a friend of hers who was going to see her. My daughter will then pass it on to my sister when she returns back home from holiday this weekend. My sister usually does all mum’s washing but in this instance there was no way I could have let my sister arrive back from her holiday to all that washing.

In between I did some weeding and pruning and set a few more annual seeds in the greenhouse. I usually grow a few cosmos, zinnias and calendula and all but the calendula are sprouting already. We have late frosts so I don’t sow too early as it is late May or beyond before I can plant out here and be reasonably safe from overnight frosts.

On Tuesday we reluctantly decided to do our weekly shop because we were expecting Master Freddie on Wednesday and Friday to play while mum and dad were at work. Baby Chocolate goes to nursery so Freddie had our undivided attention on both days.

He is seven now and loves to have some time on my computer (with a little supervision from me so he doesn’t accidentally delete or uninstall anything). He had a vision to make a puzzle book and we sat together like the contestants on the Apprentice when they are developing a new product with the help of a design agency. He told me exactly what he wanted and I helped to show him how he could achieve that using blank sheets in the Microsoft Word program.

He designed the front cover using a clip art from the internet.

He was so definite he wanted a bar code on the back cover but I couldn’t figure out how to do thin and thick lines in Word, but happily settled for this – a seven year olds world is very simple!

He had a tagline selling point saying ‘over 10 puzzles’. He also wanted the price sticker to say 30p or 50p depending on people’s means to pay, which I thought was very sweet and thoughtful!!

Inside, he created 10 pages of different puzzles by himself, including this simple ‘word search’ and this colour puzzle as well as a couple of mathematical puzzles.

It was impossible in Word to find a way to draw a maze or a dot to dot picture so we had to cut and paste something from the internet. When all the puzzles were finished he wanted to put all the answers on the back page just like a real puzzle book.

We had great fun with it and once printed out and bound together with a bit of sparkly cord he was so proud of it and couldn’t wait to show mum and dad.

So today both DH and I are recovering and would have ventured into the garden if the weather had been better. Our garden furniture is still under wraps; keeping dry so we can paint it and the projects we had started are waiting for the better weather. It has been hard work trying to sort the garden out in very limited fine weather – it must have been the worst year for rain here.

I decided as it is one of those stay at home and inside all day, days I would dust, tidy and hoover, the house certainly needed it. I have packed away the few Easter decorations I had out on display – although I have kept the odd one out for a bit longer, it sems a shame not to as Easter was over so quickly. I am just debating whether it is worth swapping my winter wardrobe for the summer one just yet.

After an early tea we are going to a local theatre production of a play called ‘A Bunch of Amateurs’. We enjoyed their last production which was a murder mystery; we do like to support the people who are willing to put their time and energy into these productions so they don’t die away like a lot of things are due to the coming of Netflix and takeaway suppers.

I took advantage recently of the Gardeners’ World offer of 6 issues for £12 plus the 2 for 1 entry card into many gardens. With the first issue I also got a free packet of cosmos seeds which I will sow this week. I note from the cover it is a special subscribers issue so maybe there is some content left out or fewer pages than the full price version.

I need a new mini wooden greenhouse. DH has in the past managed to repair the one I got in 2014 for £42.49 from Homebase, but now he is repairing the repairs. We saw that Aldi had some in their March gardening event but we were too late to the party and they had all gone. So we are looking to find one elsewhere. Although I have my ordinary, small (6×4′) wooden greenhouse, the mini one is great for hardening off the trays of plants and holding the plant pots over winter.

Whilst in Aldi though I noticed one of those picture frames that will display and contain many pictures – great for the children’s drawings they leave and only £3.99. I am sure they were more like £12 on the internet.

I had to return a book to the library this week and whilst I was there picked up an interesting one about the history of the village I live in from before the dark ages to recent times. I am engrossed – I love a bit of history.

Our village is really a town as we have a town hall and a market place – though no market these days. It grew to quite a size with the industrial revolution and the valley is littered with old mills, some demolished now but others have become housing. I was keen to know what kind of place it was before it was taken over.

Looking at the 1677 Court Roll there were a few scoundrels back then and no changes today.

I seem to be mentioning my mum a lot these days and that is probably because she takes up a lot of my week and sometimes her actions make me laugh, but sometimes they make me want to scream.

This week has been an absolute nightmare.

One afternoon something was not right with her phone when I rang. It started off OK but then suddenly the volume went and I could hardly hear her. She is not able to rectify this kind of problem anymore so I told her to wait for the carer who was due in half an hour so they could look at it, but suspected it was running out of charge. Within that half hour she called me 14 times – each time just to check the phone and each time it was no different and I told her she was running the charge down further.

As well, for some reason she had decided she wasn’t going to eat or drink at breakfast and lunch at all – she told the carers she had no appetite because she was not getting any fresh air. I could see where this was going because she has no problem eating the chip butty, chocolate brownie with cream and drinking her large cappuccino across at the deli cafe on a Wednesday and Friday, and knowing my mum she was probably hoping the carers would take her across to the cafe every day if she wouldn’t eat what they made for her. The carers were very concerened for her and tried to coax her to eat as you would a child, but were met with some unpleasant reactions and words from mum. The care agency manager had to have words with mum about her behaviour towards the carers. I am sure they are used to it, but it is not pleasant. My mum denied all charges and dismissed the concern over her not eating and drinking saying they had all lied about her. Then mum left a few nasty words for me on my voicemail!

Anyway, since then she has been a bit better the last day or two and has eaten again and been pleasant with the carers. How long that will last is anyone’s guess.

The OT went to see her yesterday as she has been struggling to get out of her chair and doesn’t leave it until a carer is there, not even for the toilet. The OT offered her a reclining chair and different walker and a few other aids to make her mobility better – she refused everything. I did say to the carers that she would. I think she actually likes having everyone think she cannot do anything for herself or get up out of her chair without their help.

She can do things when she wants though because during the not eating episode and betwen carer visits she did manage to get up from her chair herself and walk with her walker over to the bin to deposit her sandwich and then told the next carer she had eaten it. Unfortunately for mum, the evidence had partly fallen outside the bin and lay on the floor. She still said she had eaten it and denied putting it in the bin!!!!

I wake up every morning now and wonder what the issue is going to be today. Who needs Coronation Street… my mum is enough of a drama for me.

Well I will stop rambling now – I have a play to go to.

Have a good weekend, back soon x

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April 5, 2026April 4, 2026

dear diary ~ a quiet Easter

What disappointing weather for Good Friday, it started off fine and I planned to go into the garden, but my plans had to change with the weather and I caught up with some ironing instead whilst watching YouTube.

DH made the tomato soup and stewed the plums, I had emails to answer, things that couldn’t wait and a couple of discounted items I wanted to buy online using the Easter offers that had dropped into my inbox.

I was also disappointed that I didn’t find the time to make any Easter cards this year. I had in mind to do another lino cut like at Christmas, but I couldn’t really carve out enough time.

After our family get together last weekend it has been unusually quiet here, a funny kind of Easter and in fact, I haven’t done many of the things I would normally have done this year at all – so much time has been taken up with the car and my mum, both are getting old and cranky now and each day I brace myself wondering what the issue will be today.

Mum seems to be sliding down hill at the moment, not so much in her health but in refusing to co-operate fully with the carers. Last night she decided she wouldn’t change into her pyjama top and went to bed in her jumper. I think she may have just been too tired. She is also reluctant to change her clothes too often or have the bed linen changed (partly because her cataracts don’t allow her to see all the stains that we can see and partly that she doesn’t want to generate more washing for my sister). Some days she is eating very little other than the chip sandwich on a Wednesday and Friday from the deli cafe across the road, even worse she is not drinking very much so that she doesn’t have to walk down the hallway to the bathroom. I am not sure what can be done. If we say anything she becomes even more stubborn…it is frustrating. I think she just gets too tired to be bothered much now. When she isn’t on the phone calling me, she is sleeping a lot in the day but not through the night. I expect anyone would get drowsy from the boredom of sitting in the same room day after day with nothing to do. My heart goes out to all the elderly people who are at a similar stage in their lives as my mum. We all try to do what we can to help but we cannot make her well and young again.

By the time you read this, we will be on our way to visit mum and I am hoping the weather is fine enough this afternoon to take her to the park; she lives to go out now. I have no plans for the rest of Easter, I find it too busy now to contemplate going anywhere and I would welcome a nice relaxing day in the garden, but that will be weather dependant.

At last the car is working again…just in time for the petrol shortage. Sainsbury’s had closed their petrol station completely on Tuesday – I was shocked to see the cones across the entry and the shutters down on the little shop where you pay. It seemed at odds with the government’s message that there are no shortages! Luckily, we will have enough to do the 180 mile round trip to see my mum.

We haven’t unpacked the garden furniture yet, we need to keep it dry so that we can sand and paint the wooden bench with a fresh coat, and spray the metal furniture, after giving it a good brush down to remove any rust patches. I managed to order a can of spray paint online from Dunelm, taking advantage of their special offer and using the free click and collect service. We can pick it up next time we pass through town. It is yet another job that is waiting for a run of good weather.

Thursday was a lovely dry and sunny day and we went for a longer walk than usual – I needed the fresh air and time to reset myself and being in nature does that so well. We took in a few steep hills for a good cardio workout!!

The pretty celandines along the roadside….

….and everywhere the trees have little buds about to burst open.

The hidden resevoir down the track was like a mirror…..

….with the ducks gliding across to see if we had food.

In the garden the primroses are still covered in flowers creeping over my broken pot. The white camelia is about to flower and everything is starting to grow in the borders. We just need some sunshine and warmth.

Have a lovely day today, whatever you are doing.

Back soon x

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April 3, 2026April 3, 2026

dear diary ~ an unexpected adventure

I am all for an adventure, unexpected or planned.

On Wednesday, I found myself unexpectedly on a bus to Burnley 45 miles away from home.

DH has had many issues with his car recently, he is trying to keep it going longer, one repair after another. He will grieve for this car when it finally has to go, but as long as it keeps moving it will have a reprieve.

Recently, it had a major breakdown when the clutch went. (with a bang). Considering it is 12 years old and has done 175,000 miles he is, we are told by those that know, very light on the clutch and it should have normally required replacing around the 100,000 mark.

The clutch was replaced and this week it went back to the same garage for a service and MOT (passed, thankfully) and all should have been well.

Well, not really….’well’ is not how I would describe the car after having been ‘worked on’ now since the February half term school holidays, when it broke down. The issue now was with the suspension (as it usually is). It is a Citroen that has the special suspension quite similar to a Rolls Royce without the price tag. Not all Citroen cars have this – I don’t think they make new ones in the same way, but it is an older model and rather than shock absorbers it has spheres.

These spheres are quite a mystery to anyone other than a Citroen specialist and one that knows these older cars. The suspension had not been adjusted by the garage who fitted the clutch, and it had left the car completely unbalanced and going clunk over the slightest bump and with the front end up in the air. Citroens rest when you turn the engine off and look like they are deflating, a bit like a rise and fall lamp.

So you may have guessed already that our trusty Citroen sphere specialist is away over the hill in Hapton, near Burnley, but he is an absolute magician and sorts it all out for us and once again we are able to glide over speed bumps, manholes and potholes.

Whilst the mechanic attended to our car, we went off to explore. Hapton is no more than a village with only a corner shop and a chinese takeaway, so we decided to go into Burnley about 2 miles away as the crow flies. We tried the local train station first, but the ticket machine and timetable on the platform were in some strange language that we could not master and being an unmanned station, we gave up on that idea.

‘Let’s try the bus’ I suggested.

We popped into the only local shop and asked about a bus. They directed us to the bus stop and luckily there were a few people waiting who couldn’t have been more helpful about the journey and the ticket price. It was the journey from hell though for me, I get very travel sick on buses and often have to get off, wait awhile, then get on the next one. Thankfully, I managed to complete the 30 minute journey in one go. For most of it, the bus route was trundling around local outlying estates en route to Burnley, which felt like we were in a bit of a maze.

I sent my daughter’s a picture of us on the bus and a message saying ‘we are on a bus to Burnley’….they thought it was an hilarious April Fool’s day joke!

Burnley is a lovely clean town and although the population is only 94,000 against Huddersfield’s 162,000 it has far more shops in the town centre. They still have a Marks and Sparks – so we dived in there for a much needed drink and a slice of toast. I wandered around the clothes for a while. DH bought himself one of those flexible woven belts and a lovely eau-de-nil tee-shirt. I need trousers, but I am not overkeen on these new look wide leg ones – all that fabric flapping about my legs. I am not convinced they are a style that suits everyone, I have long legs but even I would find some of them over the top, and I don’t think they would make good gardening trousers afterwards. The fashion world like to change things about to generate more sales and by changing a shape from slim to wide, long to short, frilly to plain and tailored is the best way to do it.

We had a mooch around the centre and then before we knew it the car was done and we had to catch the bus back to collect it.

We had packed up a flask of soup and looked on Google maps for somewhere nearby to eat our picnic lunch and found that Gawthorpe Hall was only in Padiham, in fact we had passed it on the bus. It is run by both the National Trust and the local council and is well worth a visit. I have one or two photos of interest below. The history for anyone wanting more information can be found on Wikepedia. Being developed from a former tower around 1600 in the Elizabethan era, it is very old but well cared for with beautifully ornate ceilings and wooden panelling. The guides in the rooms are well worth talking to for their knowledge of both the house and its contents.

The attic floor was a surprise as it is given over to a permanent exhibition of textiles, all collected by one of the previous owners, Rachel Beatrice Kay-Shuttleworth 1886-1967. She is a fascinating person and what a wonderful collection. If you get the chance to go, it is well worth a visit.

Everything is catalogued with these simple little tickets.

We were very tired by the time we came away at teatime and managed to get caught up in the M62 crush on the way home so it was a quick meal of baked potatoes, cheese and beans for our evening meal, and an early night after our adventurous day.

Have a lovely day, thank you for reading. x

March 31, 2026March 31, 2026

dear diary ~ an eventful weekend

We celebrated our family Easter get together early, because on Easter Sunday we will be going further north to see my mum, so this last weekend was our opportunity to see our daughters and the grandchildren. On Saturday they all descended on me, I had only a few hours notice and needed to find activities for them quickly, as well as some lunch.

DH did most of the washing and chopping of the salad items for the cold buffet lunch and we had boiled eggs, cheese and cold sliced chicken. Sweetie had persuaded her mum to buy some bunny paper plates, cups and serviettes in Aldi for the table. It is a squeeze now seating everyone as we have grown over time to ten of us. My younger daughter had to sit on the small folding steps as we are a stool short at the moment having lent it to goodness knows who.

After lunch I didn’t have time to make any biscuit dough but I did have a slab of plain cake in the freezer that I had made a while ago to use up some eggs. I found the Easter cutters (bunnies, chickens etc), made up some white icing and got the tray of sprinkles and pastel coloured tubes of icing that I had bought in readiness back in January for such an occasion.

I cut the cake into four pieces (one each) and the children had great fun cutting out shapes and icing and decorating them – even the off cuts were decorated…or eaten…mainly eaten, but nothing was wasted.

I displayed their ‘efforts’ in the cardboard trays I keep from the tomato packs, they do come in handy.

Whilst I was clearing the table the children had free reign to officially draw on my windows (which always excites them) with those white chalk paints. I had printed off some bunny pictures from the internet and DH went outside and stuck them to the window for them to use as a template.

Master Freddie decided his bunny was going to be hidden in long grass!!

The table was covered with the paper cloth and out came the felt tips so that they could decorate the Easter bunny cards I had found (from the Range or maybe the Works).

Sweetie decided she was going to turn hers into bunting.

Baby Chocolate drew a spaghetti bunny!

Master Freddie made some 5/8th bunnies as he is all into fractions at the moment.

We also covered kitchen rolls with pastel paper and decorated them to look like bunnies.

All bunnied out the children went home for their teas and DH and I had a lie down!

On Sunday it was throwing it down here, wet, wet, wet.

Of course it is the school holidays, it is bound to rain. Many an Easter Egg trail was hit hard by the weather this weekend. We met the grandchildren and their mums and took cover indoors in a local museum. The lady on reception gave the children a clipboard and a sheet of Easter egg shapes to hunt for and copy the pictures of eggs hidden throughout the museum to claim a prize.

The other exhibition event, advertised for last Saturday and Sunday and through the week in the Kirklees Museums brochure, and on their website and on social media was

‘Moving Pictures – From Magic Lanterns to Cinema’, a chance for the children to learn about how moving images became films with optical toys and making their own moving pictures‘ –

Sounded good…. but it turned out to be a non-starter because no-one at the museum knew anything about it!! There was no exhibition or optical toys or crafts available to make their own moving pictures. How can that be? How can they publicise something that they then forget to do. I have never known that happen before.

The museum is very much about the Huddersfield district and how it grew with the coming of the textile mills and they had displays with old weaving looms and factory looms.

I hadn’t realised that the women of Huddersfield had played such a large part in the women’s suffrage movement.

The journal of Florence Lockwood on display is especially noteable at the moment – she heads the page Signs of the Times and part way down is the entry on August 4th 1914 ‘England declares war on Germany’.

In our troubled times I might well be writing something similar soon in my journal.

This made me smile – how true back then.

The other noteable item on display was this rather beautiful patchwork quilt made up of varying pieces of scrap fabrics, probably cut from old garments and painstakingly embroidered. I will definitely be going back without the children for a good look around.

So now the playroom is deathly silent, the toys and crafts have been tidied away and all will be waiting for when the grandchildren descend on us again. Very soon I hope.