general chit chat – where the journey takes me 2

January 27, 2026January 26, 2026

feasting ~ and yet more partying

Another weekend of partying and party preparing.

This time it was Master Freddie’s 7th birthday party on Sunday afternoon with many of his friends. He has always been good at arithmetic and quite obsessed with number blocks from an early age, so it came as no surprise that he really wanted a number blocks party. It makes no difference to him that the other boys in his class may have already progressed onto Nerf battles or Pokemon parties – he was adamantly sticking to number blocks.

So we made some.

It took us most of the week to source the bits we needed to build seven number blocks. Not quite cubes, as we used mainly the empty wine boxes Sainsbury’s put out for customers to take, as they were free. Finding the plain coloured paper was not easy and a roll of orange was not to be had anywhere and too late for us to order any, so we had to improvise and join a few sheets of orange A4 card together that we had left over from Halloween (but it did the job…and here they are).

Master Freddie’s mum hired the local village hall and a wonderful party entertainer called Nellie B, who was happy to do a mix of traditional games, team games, dancing and the highlight at the end was the snow machine, which had all 23 partygoers screaming with excitement.

And now we are recovering from the two weekends of partying, and we both came down with a cold on Monday morning. I am not surprised as our diet for the past two weeks has not been wonderful, many quick to make meals and a few cans of soup to fill in when we haven’t been able to make our own. So we are paying the price of not looking after ourselves and the dental appointment for today has been cancelled so we don’t pass on any germs.

In all I am feeling rather weary, it has been quite a hectic time since well before Christmas and no doubt my body is telling me I need to rest. Mum is already pestering me about going up to see her as her party seems a long time ago now to her….increasingly she has no sense of time anymore. I will somehow have to dodge the question of ‘when will I be seeing you’.

January seems to be melting away now, just like the recent snowfall we had. In a weeks time we will be greeting February and all the month brings. I already have a joyful vase of daffodils on my kitchen windowsill and orange tulips on the table. I especially like them as they begin to droop and their stems wander and, had I the time, I would reach for my sketch book and watercolours.

As I eat my breakfast I have a direct sight out to the garden arch we erected in the garden last year. It was one of the non-negotionable possessions that we brought back from our cottage garden in Scotland. I have hung the fat ball feeder from the top and it is wonderful to see a host of garden birds everyday coming to feed. I am not organised enough to take part in the Big Garden Bird Watch, but I will get plenty of pleasure just watching them each day.

Apart from making number blocks I have been making headway with our finances, planning a new budget for this year against the final figures for last year and updating our savings accounts with any interest. This passive income is vital when you are on a pension, so it is important to find the highest earning tax fee ISA accounts that I can when any come to maturity.

All in all, even with the cost of living increasing, we are doing OK but I do worry about our long term future and possible care costs given that my mum has reached 100 now and the cost of her care over the last 2 years has now depleted her savings to the point that we need to apply to her local authority for assistance.

I expect after their assessment they will not want her to stay put in her own home as the cost of her care is over a £1,000 a week now and when you add her living costs onto that it will probably far exceed what the council will pay and they will obviously prefer to pay the all inclusive care home fees where they do a deal with certain homes for the smaller, cheaper rooms.

Of course there is no issue for the council if a relative wants to step in and offer to pay the difference in costs, but this has to be thought through carefully because we have no idea how long mum might live for…at the moment I am thinking possibly to 105 and five years of expenses will be required, and expenses that will increase as she gets less able and with more dementia; this will drain any savings that we have put aside for our long term needs.

Mum is so much better remaining in her own home with carers going in four times a day for almost an hour at a time. She would not get that amount of undivided attention from the carers in a care home. When she fell and had a brief spell in one a couple of years ago she was lucky to be helped to the toilet two or three times a day and that involved minimal ‘chatting’ as they would be dashing to help the next person pressing the buzzer. Her main contact was the support staff bringing a meal.

It is such a worry but all I can do now is wait for the call from a social worker, when one is appointed, and they are struggling to do that until some time in February.

But not all is doom and gloom, there are little signs here and there that spring is on its way and that is always cheerful. On our walks we see the catkins growing longer and in the garden I have shoots forcing their way up through the ground – only to meet with this bitterly cold and wet weather.

I never mind January, in fact I quite like being able to hibernate (parties aside) and concentrate on staying home where it is cosy and warm; bringing the paperwork and filing up to date and if I exhaust that, turning out a few cupboards. And planning, lots of planning…maybe even dreaming a little of what I might do in the year ahead.

It was nice to clear the decorations from Christmas, they are neatly packed away again in the loft, and have a clean around but I never feel it is quite the time for a deep clean until I can get any soft furnishings washed and out to blow on the line. We had a trip to Ikea last Thursday, not for anything in particular just a look around. I like to look at their room sets for ideas, especially where they cleverly use some of the items in tiny spaces. I do want to fit out our built in wardrobe but it is quite shallow and definitely not walk in. The 35cm deep and 50cm wide Pax frame would be ideal to slot in at one side and would give me room to put 3 or 4 shelves above and 3 or 4 drawers below.

I have a yearning to create a capsule wardrobe of clothes that actually all fits into the wardrobe – underwear, scarves, bags, coats, the lot. I have already condensed the clothes in the 3 drawer chest down enough to be able to remove it from the bedroom all together soon as our main bedroom is not very big by today’s standards and space is at a premium. I am replacing it with the Ikea Nordiska dressing table, which will be painted a duck egg blue colour and is just a nice size to fit between the bed and the window wall. DH will have the Nordiska bedside table at his side.

So that is my few ramblings and now I am going to rest and read…quite a treat really if it wasn’t for this awful streaming cold.

Thank you for your previous comments, my mum had a lovely week with plenty of attention, but so far no card from King Charles, maybe he needs a nudge.

Back soon….I hope x

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January 3, 2026January 2, 2026

dear diary ~ dismantling Christmas

You will all have heard of the saying ‘it will get worse before it gets better‘ – well that is the state of my house at the moment…in the getting worse part.

So far, DH helped with removing the baubles from the Christmas tree, dismantling it and returning it to the box and bit by bit all the decorations were taken down and repacked in their boxes ready to go back into the loft. It is always a little sad….there are many memories in our decorations and we only see them for a few days a year.

I sorted through the unused rolls of wrapping paper, replaced them in the special long ‘wrapping paper box’ and this too will have to go in the loft as there isn’t another place to keep it in the house.

Why, I am wondering, did my mum never have such a box, nor my gran – were they able to estimate to the very last sheet the amount they would use so there was none left over to deal with? I am left with yards still on a roll…and there is more than one roll and it is difficult to store in a small house. I did have the bright idea this time to take a photo of what is in the box before it disappears away so I don’t buy more unecessarily next year – I can’t think why I didn’t think of this before. I took a photo of all the decorations as I repacked the boxes.

When that task was completed, I turned my attentions back to my new planner notebook – that is always a much more pleasing job. DH reckons my love for stationery and anything admin is due to having a post office set at a very early age.

I have ready made calendars and checklists for birthdays, household tasks and such like, stored on my computer that I print off and stick in the front of the book. Other lists are written in as I go along. Each month I start with a list of intentions, a note of appointments, events etc and then the list of tasks – some I have to do, others I would like to do. It is a catch-all for anything of interest or anything I need to remember as well as a place to plan for wekly menus, birthdays and parties, holidays and Christmas. I also make a note of anything I need to buy this month, gardening notes and tasks and to keep tabs on our monthly financial and administrative tasks.

Each month I try to do a review. It reminds me how much I have done and what is still to do and going forward this year I will also make a note of what worked and what didn’t. I am determined to only repeat things that enhance my life not make it more difficult.

I have for many years made notes about Christmas so that I don’t repeat mistakes the following year – so below is a review of what worked well for us and what didn’t.

I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to Mrs Gaskell’s house and this will certainly be on the do again list, it may not be this same house but something similar.

I also enjoyed the lino cutting workshop, the result of which I turned into our Christmas card. I would certainly enroll on one again, but next time even earlier in November would be better. I have yet to overview my Christmas card list and revise it ready for next year.

Even though I made it myself, I have loved my Advent calendar and will be sad to take it down. I have a couple of sheets of black card already cut out with the windows so I might make them up ready to send as a little gift next year with a card.

The tiny outdoor flower lights that I bought, reduced at Argos, have looked so pretty at night in the wooden planters, the batteries are still working and they were very little trouble being on a timer. I am undecided whether to keep them out for a while or remove them and pack them away.

The little desk calendars that I made as gifts for my friends took a large part of my time so if I do them again another year I must start them earlier so I am not burning the midnight oil.

The gingerbread stars were well received and I am told were very good, though I would add even more ginger to the mixture next time. They were a bit fiddly with the different chocolates, but they did look Christmassy and quite effective. I would make them again and I will add the recipe to the menu below the header.

The children loved the session we had decorating the gingerbread too and this will certainly be something we will do again, and I would buy the ready roll again for them, and maybe, I will ask them if they want to make a gingerbread house.

The Santa visit to Portland Basin at Ashton-under-Lyne (our second year there) was good too because the venue is geared up for children; it was a really lovely family day out, but whether the children might want a change next year we shall see. They do like repeating things they get to know, like our yearly holiday to Scarborough. I shall have to make a diary note though to check for the booking form early as there are very few slots available and they sell out quickly.

The gift from Santa’s Elves that we put on the doorstep on Christmas Eve is still a magical mystery to the grandchildren, so I will probably keep that going next year, the difficulty is thinking of some game they can all join in with across the age range.

I think (touch wood) I managed to bake my cake for the right length of time this year in the oven – it turned out perfect for once …not under or overcooked. So I have made a note of the times and temperatures for next year.

There are always things that don’t go well or to plan, I was disappointed to miss both the Carol singing events and the Christingle service. Every weekend was taken in December and so conflicted with the Carols and there was so much Christmas ‘stuff’ to pack into the car on Christmas Eve for our trip up north that we set off later than intended and it meant something had to give…. and it was the Christingle service.

Having to pack cookware and food to make a dinner for mum and ourselves on Boxing Day in her apartment was a big hassle, partly because we had to keep a lot of the food in a coolbag or my daughter’s fridge over two nights. It worked OK last year but we went to mum’s straight from home on Boxing Day morning. This time we were staying the two nights before in a hotel and didn’t have access to a fridge.

Luckily, the temperatures outside in our car boot were freezing which helped to keep the coolbag cool. We had to go into Yarm to Sainsbury’s on Boxing Day for vegetarian gravy granules. DH had made the gravy at home and I accidentally forgot to take it out of the fridge and put it in the coolbag! I wasn’t sure Sainsbury’s would be open on Boxing Day, but it was and looking back it would have been far easier to have bought some ready meals or something which would have been a lot less trouble.

Blogging everyday leading up to Christmas was another challenge which I may not do again, I might only be repeating myself anyway. Taking the pictures when the light is at its’ worst during December is also a trial. It was fun, but quite time consuming and I admire those bloggers that ran the course.

Tomorrow, we will put the decorations back into our loft for another year and then maybe tackle the overflowing box of Christmas items I have for crafting – ribbons, cracker parts, and embellishments and hope I get some ideas for creating a few bits and pieces for gifts next year. I doubt I will get to do anything with them immediately as we really need to make plans for the mammoth decorating bonanza…long overdue.

So if I haven’t bored you to death with my random thoughts, I will be back soon with even more random thoughts!

I hope anyone reading this who has some brilliant ideas for making Christmas an easier and super simple time, will share them in the comments!

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January 1, 2026January 1, 2026

dear diary ~ a new year, a new day, a new start

Wishing all my readers and blog friends a Wonderful and Happy New Year.

Thank you to everyone who reads my little blog and to those who leave a comment. I always find such pleasure reading them; hearing snippets of your own lives, little words of encouragement and advice – I welcome it all, it builds connection and we certainly need more of that in today’s world.

Many of you, both bloggers and readers, will no doubt be thinking of the year stretching ahead and what it might bring, what you wish for, what changes you would like to make, places you want to go and people you want to see and not forgetting those dear to us, but sadly, not with us anymore.

I love this day, more than any other.

That marvellous feeling of ‘the blank page’ with an air of excitement and an expectation that perhaps a dream you have had for so long might come true. Or perhaps, like me, you are hoping for a year where you can get to grips with your life and if you feel like you are just bobbing about like a boat on the water, going nowhere fast, set yourself on a new course and break free from any accumulated bad habits and that feeling of being in a rut.

Of course, just as bad habits accumulate over time, inching their way into your life unintentionally, it takes time to establish new ones and often slow and steady wins the race; not being one to rush into anything, this will certainly be a year of slow change.

And hopefully change that will last.

Did you all have a good New Year’s Eve? – whether celebrating with family, friends or even your own company; staying up or going to bed at the usual time.

We spend Christmas with our family and always New Year’s Eve with friends. For us it is a good balance and another of those ‘it works for me’ moments, so this is one thing in my life that will continue.

We had a different take on our get together this year which would normally be during the evening and well past midnight, always tuning into Jools Holland for the countdown. This year our hosts decided their year had been hard and they were tired, so they hosted an afternoon get together until just after 6pm.

On the morning I asked if I could bring something and the reply came… ‘something sweet’. I hurriedly checked in the fridge and found fresh raspberries, we had nuts too from making the nutroast and cake and DH dashed down to our friendly Co-op for a tub of cream.

So out of nowhere, and after a seriously long phone call with my Sis-in -law that delayed production of my hasty effort, I managed to produce this Raspberry and Hazelnut Roulade within the hour. It is a recipe I have done so many times before, basically a swiss roll mix with ground hazelnuts and you crush a heap of raspberries into the cream (or you can use creme fraiche) then spread it onto the cake base and roll – I threw on a few festive sprinkles this time for good measure and just to glam it up a bit.

It was well received and vanished within minutes. I will put the recipe in the Menu section on my header strip and I can vouch for the fact it is relatively quick and easy – and quite an impressive dessert, though mine did crack a bit in places – nothing that a little piped cream didn’t cover and hide any flaws!

After a lovely time chatting with friends we hadn’t seen for ages and sampling the bits and pieces layed out on the table we left for home just before 7pm. It was a brisk walk with our empty cake tin in the freezing cold and we were glad to get inside and warm up. The preprepared curry DH had made yesterday may also have helped!

We started to nod off during Vera (we had seen it before) so switched over to watch Ken Dodd, the unseen footage – there is nothing like a good laugh for that well being feeling – and ended up going to bed later than intended and we were still awake at midnight listening to the local fireworks going off outside and the constant tune alerts on my phone as the Happy New Year messages started to come in from our family.

We have a very strange new year message, known only to a few in the family, which is Shimme Hips Wob. It is a standing joke from when I had my first mobile phone for Christmas a long time ago. It had predictive text, of a sort, but not very sophiticated and of course, as with most of these things, it learns over time what you want to say. I am 100% certain I typed in happy new year, however, the message was ‘predictively’ changed as the phone didn’t recognise these words I had typed and substituted some of its own. I had no idea how to change it back to what I wanted and in trying the message got sent. It read ‘Shimme Hips Wob love Mummy Nonmo and Daddy Faddidy!!

And so that sticks even today and I still get cards written by my daughters to mummy nonmo – quite an affectionate term I think.

So, today is that day when the festivities are truly at an end, well for us anyway, we have the day ahead to rest, chat, make a new batch of soup, maybe watch some TV and grab an early night. I might look to do a review tomorrow – taking stock.

Until then, this is mummy nonmo signing off and Shimme Hips Wob to you all x

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November 24, 2025

dear diary ~ if it’s not one thing….

….it’s my mother, as DH and I often say when things happen.

And things are happening almost daily now with mum. She gets an idea in her head and can’t let go of it; we tell her the real version and within a few minutes she is telling us again of her rather skewed account.

Mum has not been eating much of her evening meals lately that my sister makes and puts in her freezer for her. The carer always ask her in the morning what she would like for tea and takes it out of the freezer to reheat at the 3 o’clock visit. She has been wasting quite a few meals recently having them heated up but then not eating them but opting to eat more cake and sandwiches instead and like last weekend asking for a Weetabix once the meal had been cooked which is quite wasteful. Needless to say my sister is not impressed after spending time cooking and providing meals for her. Anyway the long and short of this was a week of phone calls to me with mum accusing a carer of telling my sister she was eating Weetabix instead of her meal to cause trouble, which was not the case.

That was last week, and now she seems to have let go of that and developed a new, equally bizarre story this week with mum telling me she hopes she doesn’t have a Christmas like last year…it was the worst Christmas she has ever had! She sobs every time she tells me as she thinks, again mistakenly, that when she went to my sister’s on Christmas day last year (as she does every year), that my sister was ill in bed and her husband ‘had to do the best he could’ to feed and entertain her. She then reckons that no-one went to see her on Boxing day and she was left on her own. Well actually, my sister was not ill at all on Christmas day – it was a normal Christmas and we went up to see my mum on Boxing Day and spent the whole day with her until about 6pm when the carer came to help her to bed. So where she has got these ideas from I do not know.

There has been a noticeable decline in her mental state recently and for the last two weeks she has just begun to ring me at night after the last carer leaves at 7 o’clock after helping her to bed. She keeps ringing mainly to test her phone is working over and over like someone checking their door is locked. The most comical is when she rings me to help her over the phone to try and get a program on the TV. I tell her over and over the number of the channel and the time of the program until she finally brings it up on the telly (I can hear down the phone if she has got the correct one). Then everyday she will say to me I couldn’t get Vera on last night there must be something wrong with my TV! Sometimes you just lose the will….

It is hard to appreciate just how much her brain and thinking is so muddled now and full of absurd things, mixed with anxiety and paranoia. Dementia is a terrible affliction and difficult for those around her dealing with it, she often leaves us all exasperated.

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In between I have been busy though; both helping elder daughter with her epic move of the century and crafting for the Crisis coffee morning at church which helps to raise money for the homeless, we also spent an enjoyable morning at a lino cutting workshop I had booked for DH and I, carving out a lino cut design for my Christmas card this year.

It felt good to do something just for ourselves.

I had little time to produce something for the craft stall; I had been making some pomanders in the evening and using the transfers I got from The Works I decorated some small candles. So it was a start.

I also printed out and hand coloured the original snowdrop design I had made for the lino cutting session to make some new cards.

My idea was to assemble a few Christmassy items together and pop them into a box that could then be given as a gift to a friend. Each box to contain a homemade pomander, 2 small decorated candles, a pack of 4 handmade cards, 4 gift tags, 2 Christmas chocolates and a tiny Angel, (well everyone needs an Angel at Christmas) from a garland I happened to have.

Many long time readers might remember the little boxes I made for a previous Crisis event in 2023. If you want to see more of these click here.

….and I decided to carry on the theme again this time but not having any suitable boxes I used some rather lovely little handmade Indian paper bags I found in Homesense.