I'm Home - Thank you

I got home yesterday around six in the evening.  I have a lot of Exeter photos to blog at some future stage so I’ll be making a number of ‘virtual visits’ back there.  But for the moment we will look at what was awaiting me at home.

My immediate reaction was that I had a lot of people to thank for things.

Son-in-law-and-friend-who-loves-otters drove me up to Pensby yesterday despite him having a busy few days ahead so my first thank you is to him.  And again to him and to Daughter-who-takes-photos for their hospitality which was as excellent as it always is.  I really do feel at home in their house.  Then there are thanks due to the latter for the plants she gave me and the use of the greenhouse while they were away – the Nasturtium seeds and Sweet Pea seeds I planted are already growing well.  Cars never travel between Exeter and Pensby without having some of the back seat or boot occupied by plants!

And then I must thank Misty for her company while the honeymooners were away.  And there aren’t many girls I’ve said that to after they’ve been sick on the carpet at my feet!

Daughter-who loves-food sent me a long letter while I was in Exeter but most of my other mail was waiting for me back home.  Ignoring the bills, which had been put to one side, I had a big pile of parcels (some from Amazon), a lot of postcards and a couple of mailcrossing envelopes.

One of the parcels was from Friend-über-special.  I had recently asked her what exactly a hanging bag was (as opposed to a hanging basket).  Her response at the time was that they were “ long rectangular bags made of extremely heavy green plastic, with five pairs of "x" shaped holes cut in one side, from top to bottom.  There's a loop at the top for hanging.  You buy very small impatiens or petunias or anything you think might cascade properly, stick them through the holes and fill the rest of the bag with potting soil, and then hang the bags on fenceposts or from hooks on a wall.  Thus you get bouquets of color as high as you'd like them, wherever you'd like them, regardless of whether you live in a tiny apartment with a concrete balcony or have a shady garden where the sun only reaches the tops of the fenceposts.”  But, typical of her, she didn’t content herself with that description – she sent me some as well.

I want to rush out and get some compost and annuals to plant in them.  (In fact I did before I even finished writing this post.  Planting will have to wait a day or so until the rain has stopped.)  

Partner-who-loves-tea had e-mailed the postcrossing registration numbers of all the postcards so I could ensure they were registered as soon as they arrived. But I had no idea what they said or what the picture was.  Some of the postcards were from friends rather than postcrossers.  They are all super but two in particular caught my eye – an Irish letterbox and a German one.

I love postboxes. So postcards of foreign ones are a delight.  If you are interested to see all the other cards I got I suggest you wait a couple of weeks and visit my postcrossing blog.  

Thank you to Partner-who-drinks-tea for taking me down to Exeter and then coming back North and working away while I relaxed.   Thank you to Son-who-watches-films for making his Mum meals when she came home from work last week and thereby making life a little bit easier for her.

There were two mailcrossing envelopes waiting for me – my first ever.  The idea behind mailcrossing is that you join a group with options as to its size – in my case a group of five. You then create an original design of envelope and send it to the other members of the group enclosing some inexpensive little item.  I shall post about the envelopes at some stage but suffice it to say I am delighted with the ones I got.   So many posts to write – so little time!  Ah well, it makes a change from me complaining that I have so many books to read and so little time.  Which reminds me …

Thank you to the Oxfam charity shop in Exeter for all the excellent books I bought there.  After you’ve bought nine you get a tenth for free.  Somehow I managed to reach that number (and over!).  A few book tokens spent in Waterstones increased the weight of books in the car home. In theory I should now find the same number of books to give away to charity shops to clear space on my shelves.  That’s going to be a major task.  So I’d better make a start and stop this blogging lark…