Morning all, it’s a lovely start to the day.

We are popping to see an old friend whose birthday it is today, we’ve remained friends for 56 years in spite of the fact that he supports the team across the Trent. 

We met at college and have kept in touch through the years as we’ve both had our ups and downs, he’s on his own now after losing his wife a few years ago, it’ll be good to have a chat and catch up.

Nice morning here. It's warm with a small breeze. The weather people are expecting a lower pressure system to cross the British Isles tomorrow. Make the most of today.

Morning everyone, wet here this morning. I’ve got to go to the dentist again, she repaired a broken tooth a couple of weeks ago but the filling fell out a few days later so hopefully a more permanent repair today. I certainly do want her to take it out as I have only got a few left on the top now.

Have a lovely day and stay dry if you can.

Morning all, a rainy start here so no rush to get out of bed.

I love the new style for PoN no doubt there’s things that need tweeking but well done @Chris its looking good.

Have a great day everyone.

I'm enjoying posting on the new upgraded PON site. It is looking good. Well done to @Chris

We had some overnight rain here which is most welcome

Posted my Word games results. Managed to get my first perfect Strands, although I must admit it was an easy one this time.

52 minutes ago, Robbie said:

Posted my Word games results. Managed to get my first perfect Strands, although I must admit it was an easy one this time.

Well done @Robbie

It was very easy, although I thought I’d got the spanagram on the first go but I didn’t had to look again and got it on the second go.

I'm a little surprised I managed to wake up at 9am. With me working on PON earlier than I intended, it meant I could finish the main part in the early hours of this morning, roughly around 3am.

Yesterday, I managed to go see @super_ram. It was nice to catch up with him after my family break. I can't wait to return in October. Especially because he will be joining us. The break has done me a lot of good, but I won't go into that. My focus is to continue with the work now, which is required from the upgrade. I really do hope everyone sees the improvements and comes to like them.

Thank you, @Fan of Big Tone and @Robbie for helping with the early stages as I sought to gather feedback.

It's raining here now but fortunately I was able to do a couple of hours worth of gardening this morning. Mrs has ordered180 bedding plant seedlings.

So there will be plenty of work to do next week We will be filling half a dozed hanging baskets as well as planting the bedding plants.

We prefer to fill our own hanging baskets rather than buy the hanging baskets already made up.

The father of my brother's friend, who used to own my home. He was obsessed with hanging baskets, it caused quite a lot of damage to the brick walls. We still have two holders stuck to the front of our house, which refuses to move.

I had thought about sanding them back to the metal and repainting them. However, Cheeky isn't keen on hanging baskets.

I quite like them, and find it to be quite interesting to see someone start from the beginning, as mentioned by @Robbie. I sometimes wonder if Cheeky doesn't think they will grow if we did them ourselves, and that the ones she doesn't like are those already pre-arranged.

The back of my house must have had like six different hanging baskets at one point. After I cleared the jungle from the overgrown garden, those were one of the first things Cheeky wanted removing as it did damage the break work. I patched parts up, so it doesn't look that bad. At the bottom of our garden, Cheekt has some flowers at the side of our garage and a raspberry plant.

@Chris I know it's difficult when you have rusted brackets attached to the house wall it's the screws that rust & they are hard to remove.

A few months ago we had a new Aerial fitted to the side of the house just below the gable end. The guy fitting it removed the damaged old Aerial but couldn't get the bracket off. So he left it & fitted a new bracket because it needed to be higher.

I had to move a lock on my garden gate, but the screws had rusted and wouldn't turn. I managed to drill out the screws.

We've found it's better to make up our own hanging baskets. Buying baskets already made up doesn't take into account where the hanging basket may be hung, whether the flowers are full sun or partial sun.

Our back garden faces south, so the flowers have to be ok with partial sun. We hang out our baskets on our garden fence posts which gives a nice feature.

We used to put hanging baskets up and fill them ourselves rather than buy the basket ready made, however we found that because we are away a lot on holiday it was difficult to keep them watered.

We’ve been watching spring watch recently on tv and we were interested in the feature about wild gardens in Leeds which attract a whole range of wildlife, this suits us fine I would describe our garden as a wild one rather than a perfectly planted pretty garden. I like plants that attract bees, butterflies, birds, hedgehogs, foxes etc. all of which visit our garden, it may not look the prettiest but I’m happy with it and so is the wildlife.

@Fan of Big Tone we have Prairie flowers, (Rudbeckia) at the top of our garden. I have them in pots too. They flower toward the end of summer & they last for weeks. The Bees love them. You can let them grow wild, & they spread very quickly from year to year & need only small maintenance.

We also have an American lilac which is a massive Bee attractor when it flowers in late spring. We had to trim it down before the spring as it is such a fast growing bush

It would be nice to plant a few more flowers in my front garden. Cheeky has done well with the bedding area in front of the house. We have an Acer tree close to the corner of our front fence which is getting bigger. I have always been tempted to put flowers around it, and make it more of a feature.

2 hours ago, Robbie said:

@Chris I know it's difficult when you have rusted brackets attached to the house wall it's the screws that rust & they are hard to remove.

A few months ago we had a new Aerial fitted to the side of the house just below the gable end. The guy fitting it removed the damaged old Aerial but couldn't get the bracket off. So he left it & fitted a new bracket because it needed to be higher.

They are a real nightmare, I think Cheeky tends to put off them due to this too.

It's a headache when they won't come off, it's why we ended up leaving the ones in the front. Though from time to time, Cheeky does say she wishes they were gone. Her dad once tried to remove them, and gave up due to how awkward they are. That's rust and years of being set in place for us, I think in some cases they are best left because of the damage they can do when trying to remove them.

If we ever used ours, they would need to like the sun a lot because we face it from early morning until around 5pm. Doing any gardening in the summer can be a real drain, when the sun is at its highest heat. Though, I do wish we could do something with them.

On another point, I have wanted to install lights to the front of the house for some time. We had to make our gardens really private, due to issues with the neighbours, but I do go for the occasional late-night walk and think the house would look better lit up. Flowers and plants make a massive difference. I don't like how hedges are being removed simply because people can't be bothered to maintain them.

Likewise with trees, many tall and old trees have been cut down in recent years, and I can't understand why anyone would want their property to be so open.

Morning all, it’s a drizzly start here, we are up super early because we are off on holiday, a taxi is coming at 8.30 to take us to Trowell services where we’ll board the coach to Southampton where the cruise ship Britannia is waiting to take us on a two week cruise around the British Isles.

It’s Britannia’s 10th anniversary and she’ll be stopping at Invergorden in Scotland, Kirkwall in Orkney, Stornaway in the Hebrides, Liverpool, Belfast and Cobh in Southern Ireland.

Hopefully I’ll be popping in here when I can to see if we’ve got a new manager and players.

It's about time @Fan of Big Tone, that you fit me into your suitcase. 😉

I hope you and Mrs T have a wonderful time on the cruise. The Ireland part sounds like a nice way to finish the cruise, not so sure about Liverpool despite all the culture and music scene. I suppose if you haven't been, seeing the connections to The Beatles would be nice. I trust you brought your ear defenders along!!

@Fan of Big Tone, Have a nice time on your cruise around the British Isles. Lots of interesting places to see.

Hope you and Mrs FoBT have a lovely time.Please share your holiday with us (If you get the time)

It's been sunshine and showers most of the day here. I had planned to do more gardening work today but it was just one of those days where your about to go out and it begins raining again.

Watched a film on itv x this afternoon. Gold Finger with Sean Connery. Seen the film several times but it's a classic isn't it. Great signature tune.

@super_ram tried my luck on the spelling Bee again this evening. Finished up getting over half the words which for me as a novice I'm chuffed with.

15 minutes ago, Robbie said:

It's been sunshine and showers most of the day here. I had planned to do more gardening work today but it was just one of those days where your about to go out and it begins raining again.

Watched a film on itv x this afternoon. Gold Finger with Sean Connery. Seen the film several times but it's a classic isn't it. Great signature tune.

@super_ram tried my luck on the spelling Bee again this evening. Finished up getting over half the words which for me as a novice I'm chuffed with.

I had a go but the site changed to where I had to subscribe to continue.I'm not certain but I think I'd got about 10 words.Iwas just getting into it.-Glow,aglow,glowing

@super_ram I've been using worldly.org/UK for the spelling B. It accepts English English words as default. It's a clone of Wordle and has similar word games but you don't have to subscribe. I didn't download the App.Just use the website.

I had an issue with my laptop, so I decided to reinstall the latest update to Windows 11. It made no difference, so I undid the update. Same issue, I had already checked online for any fixes, and had roamed the Microsoft support forums.

It turns out my antivirus, Kaspersky, had some weird issue, and uninstalling it resolved the issue.

Never before have I had issues with an app randomly preventing Windows from operating correctly. I only troubleshooted it because I had turned my internet off. If I hadn't done that, I probably would have had to freshly install Windows 11.

Whilst that was going on, I watched a couple of boxing matches on Channel 5. There's something wrong with modern boxing based on what I witnessed.

Sunshine and showers today here, so we had a quiet day in. Helped the Mrs around the house with the house maintenance.

Watched a couple of films on ITV X . "From Russia with Love" with Sean Connery as James Bond, being one of them. The 2nd Film was High Fidelity with John Cusack

It's been overcast but has remained dry all day here.

@super_ram

I've been playing the squares word game on Wordy. Got 32 of the 46 words. Not bad for a novice.

today i have been running errands for my mum most of the day, i usually fetch her shopping from asda in west Bridgford but she wanted to and look. so i took her to sainsburys in casle mania and then to some smaller shops like iceland before they closed early with it being a sunday. the afternoon i was still running her around, but its made a nice change. evening i have been catching up on studying for the managerial courses i have coming up. reading through policies and stuff, most i do know so i am confident of passing.

night everyone 😊

@Fan of Big Tone https://www.stagecoachbus.com/regionaltickets/north-scotland/orkney/dayrider Can recommend the Orkney Bus Pass..... No need to buy expensive tour excursions...

Take the bus to Skara Brae!

The bus may even go via Twatt