I know it was bad.I was ill from the stress.I havent been back to Uganda.I needed to give it a bit of time to recover and to settle things here; organise school for my son and my daughter had just started work properly.Going too soon would not be good for my Mum,she has now lost 3 of 4 children and has high blood pressure.I am hoping end of Feb.

My situation is awkward because my daughter is 22 yrs and my son 12 yrs.I cant even socialise as much because my son is still a dependant on me.He is at the pulling away stage without going.It is even worse because I cant go with him places now.It is not cool lol.

I started enjoying things more when I forced to retire.Writing is demanding but I can organise my own time.

You must look after yourself ucra. Trauma is a horrible thing to go through and losing children is horrific! I am so sorry to hear you have been through such a tough time. Doubly difficult as you are in a different country.

You never get over death, but you learn to cope with it. I really hope things get easier for you. Hopefully every day you will get stronger.

Morning all.

How are we all?

Hope you enjoyed Tosca Lindy.

I know what you mean about nakedness augusta. I used to take life drawing in a nearby comprehensive school during the day and the kids would try and peek in and snigger. Don't know why it bothered them.

Anyway, must get on so I will say adieu.

Greetings everyone....


well its wet and miserable...but I have a life drawing class tonight. which should be interesting....



have we heard anything else about John? or is everything gearing up for Im a celebrity? As My OH said , what a contrast....Downton one week and Im a celebrity the next...

And has everyone seen the latest John Lewis advert? And are you all as bemused as me? Its cute, but doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with shopping.....John Lewis......or really Christmas.......cos the essence of Christmas isn't really to do with decorating? or is it?

Helllllllllllllllllooooooooo i,m back

Cardiff is a lovely City
but i really need to get some sleep
The Rugby was great, well not the match itself
rather unattractive game if i,m honest
with a few good moments, the ref ..... was shocking
but the pre show singing
was fantastic , we even had a little bit of Delilah

now need to get something to eat and bed
before this hangover head of mine, falls off

will catch up and chat tomorrow
hope all are well
xxxx

Good evening, been MIA with a dodgy internet connection AGAIN!!
It's seriously driving us all nuts here. Either the router turns orange and you lose the connection or else it takes forever and a day to load a page.
Just keeps going round and round and round and round:yawn: ........ you get the idea.
My laptop got fed up in the end and decided to disconnect the auto connection () so had to log on manually. Even my techie son scratched his head over that one.

Lots to catch up on and a mountain of emails to get through and we've turned a page, I need to read back.

Back shortly. (I hope)

Haha, well I've always lived by the motto "If in doubt give it a whack."

My Dad worked for a rather large electrical firm (they're still going today). I have a picture of him at his lathe, blowing glass making the valves that the old tv's used to work on back in the day. He used to make all kinds of glass components used for all kinds of things.
He made a rather nice little set of glass cocktail sticks which we never found when we cleared out his flat. I wonder where they went.

Morning all.

My dad used to paint in what little spare time he had.

My husband has a lathe, milling machine etc and is making a static steam engine. Unless it is freezing cold, he can be found there every weekend and also in the early evening.

Glad to see you Lena and georgy. Missed you both.

Sorry to hear about the internet connection. I can speak from experience that it does drive you nuts when things go wrong.

Got an appointment with the osteopath for Tuesday - back on painkillers and heat. Really am slow in everything I am doing.

Supposed to go to London on Thursday but think I will cancel.

Hopefully see you all later.

Hello everyone, miserably grey here but at least it's finally stopped raining.

I've just spent over an hour doing MiL's internet shopping and I'm ready to tear my hair out.
The wretched supermarket site logged me out twice whilst shopping.

Wondering if this is just ongoing problem with our internet as I couldn't log into my email either. Had to sign in to Sky, then sign out and then in again before it would even load the password page.

I need another cup of tea.

How did your art class go augusta? Hope you enjoyed it.

That's exactly what I thought as Downton ended too.
Christmas special to look forward to next. I'm wondering if we were given a hint at the end of the episode as to what the special will be about....I understand it's not set at Christmas so are we going to jump forward to Lady Rose's debutante ball?

Being bombarded with Christmas adverts, will keep an eye out for the John Lewis one.....must be the ONLY one I haven't seen.

Welcome back georgy is BIB a sign of a rather good time?

Oh nyannie, I'm so sorry you're not feeling well.
You're having a really rough time at the moment, sending you a virtual hug { } and wishing you well.
Please rest up and take good care of yourself.

Ucra, I'm so sorry to hear of your lose. Such a stressful time for everyone, please take care of yourself.
Sending best wishes to you and your family.

One more thing before I sign off and get some lunch....
I believe there was a discussion about tattoos.

Not a fan myself, nearly cried when my son came in with one on his upper arm when he was nineteen.
Think it was a fad at the time, it's never on show and I suspect he wishes he hadn't bothered now.

Incidentally, I've just seen that David Dimbleby has had his first tattoo done at the age of 75!
Well at least he's wrinkly already....unlike Cheryl Cole's b*m....I dread to think what that might look like in forty years time.

I think these internet connections are just extremely delicate at times.. I know they are just machines, but I end up thinking of them as some kind of delicate and fragile creature that needs looking after and nurturing....

I do the same kind of thing with my car as well.... Mad I know.....

I wonder if some of the storms have disturbed some of the connections? We are wireless within the house itself, but the telephone cable outside was half broken in the stormy weather...so maybe this is partially the problem?

I am so tired today.......I just couldn't sleep properly last night....I kept waking up and looking at the clock to find I had only been asleep for 2o minutes or so.....most peculiar....

Sorry to hear this nyannie
joint pain is just horrible
hope the heat and pain killers work and that the osteopath can work some magic

really hope you feel better soon


Morning jjat
still got a house full of guests, they all go up to Scotland on
sunday for the match,

trying really hard to get tickets for the all blacks match up with England, like gold dust, last price quoted £400 for one,
well i,m not paying that, looks like thats one match i will be watching on tv

i can hear movement from upstairs
sounds like someone is up,
better get to work on my hostess duties

Thanks Lena
very good time,
think my body , went and put in a protest
lager and fast food, very rarely hit my system
but thats all you get on these Rugby Weekends

Not sure how i feel about them really
been very lucky my oldest has never shown a interest in getting tattooed or pierced.

don,t mind them so much on boys, but that depends on where they put them, hate hand and neck tattoos

but i really don,t like them on girls and as for Cheryl Coles backside she going to regret that when it doubles in size

Morning Augusta
hope you had a better nights sleep

didn't they say we had more trees down in this storm, due to the underground work on cables as well as the telephone lines, something to do with weakening the root structures, that can't help things. Our problem here, is when water gets into the box down the road, or when the neighbour runs its over, with her 4x4

well i now have guests down waiting for coffee, so i better run

speak soon
sending good wishes to all xxxxx

Welcome back georgy - we missed you.

I am SO JEALOUS!!!!! About the All Black rugby tickets. Last time I saw them - at Twickenham - was almost 40 years ago with my Aussie boyfriend. They were terrific, very disciplined. It is amazing that such a small country can produce such a consistently good team.

I have cancelled my outing to London tomorrow but am going with a friend to the Dulwich picture gallery to see the Whistler exhibition. We go by car and don't stay too long. Will go into the local town tomorrow to try and finish my Xmas shopping.

Just cleaned the loo downstairs and have taken a pain killer so I am all set for the morning. Need to wash my hair and tidy upstairs.

We planted some of my tulip bulbs in pots in the ground with chicken wire and cayenne pepper. Hope this deters squirrels and foxes. Only sad news is that all the daffodil bulbs I bought were wet and had to be thrown out. They were in a jiffy bag.

Well, best get on.

Hope everyone's internet connection is OK and see you all later.

oh hope your tulips grow ...........its a good time to start to plan ideas for next spring...


why do tickets end up being quite so expensive? It must detract an awful lot of people and potential fans? Ok so watching on TV is probably better if you just want to watch the action, but sometimes you are really missing out on the atmosphere......

Hi all

Sorry I haven't been here much but life is just so busy - or 'manikin' as our occasional cleaning lady puts it!

Loved Tosca, had a great time with daughters and boyfriend, have been looking at houses as well as keeping ours up to scratch for viewings. Felt I was losing myself a bit so have accepted two offers of sessional work - just delivering nine training sessions in all, before you all get on my back!

Mum getting a bit 'more confused' .....as she says, "Don't mind me, I'm in fairyland" Nothing to be done about it but go with the flow.....

Anyway I have been skimming the thread, some great posts, thanks

All the best to everyone, I'll be back asap

Hello again

Did I scare everyone away?!?

Anyway have just popped in to say goodnight to all on the JJAT

Sleep tight :sleep: :sleep: :sleep:

Lindy xx

PS Will be at mum's most of tomorrow, so no Internet connection . Then friends arriving as soon as I get back.

Love and best wishes to all xx

Hello Lindy,

hows the house hunting going
have you seen anything you like, and have you decided what area you would like to moved to.

have a great time with your mum

morning all,
we have managed to get hold of 4 tickets, still hunting for 4 more, but we still have a few days to go, and a few more people, we can perhaps call on.

very busy here,
with my guests, but its lovely to catchup with everyone
but the week in flying by