Today I shall be Mainly...

[Stanley]

Thanks for that Liz! I am naturally a bit apprehensive about a bloke putting a knife in my eye and then pulverising the lens with ultra-sound and sucking it out! It doesn't make it any better if, like me, you actually read the stuff they give you. I know they have to tell the truth but there is a whole catalogue of things that can go wrong, not reassuring reading!
On the honest endeavour front, I freeze my stew in bowls then transfer them to plastic bags when set. I've just put seven bowls of stew into plastic bags and stowed them in the freezer, washed all the bowls and put them away and scrubbed my wooden chopping board. I've walked Jack and now I'm going to write another article.... Who said retirees are sedentary! (Oh, and I have put a load of washing on as well!)

[Tardis]

Recovering from staying with someone who believed that the TV was adequate consolation for social interaction

[Sue]

I went for purple! That shouldn't show many stains and it is an easy wash yarn.

[Stanley]

Wrote two articles as well yesterday. Will do another one today after shopping.

[Sue]

Number 2 daughter, is moving today into her new house with her new partner. New partner, new house, new baby , what more can you ask. Bye bye old house, old life, and old husband that left her.

[Stanley]

What you might call a clean start. I wish her all the best!
Didn't do any writing yesterday, long conversation with daughter Janet in Oz. Modern communications are wonderful! Will do better today.....

[Nolic]

Possible trip to Barlick to sample the market if Cath feels like a trip out. Nolic

[Stanley]

They're setting up now. A good number of stalls.

[David Whipp]

Trying to catch up after being drawn in to successive chats and 'mercy missions' yesterday and today...

Up town before 8am (and breakfast) today, Gus Brennand asked for a quick word... 75 minutes (and a good chat) later, help out with power for market, catch up with a few folk and land home hours later. (Alison may read the Saturday paper tomorrow...)

[Tardis]

Good luck to your daughter Sue

[Sue]

The lady she has bought the house from has moved to Barlick, would you believe. She has a dog, you may meet her out walking Stanley. She is moving to near the High school.

[Stanley]

Tell her to watch out for an old fart wearing a hat and being cared for by a black dog....
Good writing day yesterday, two done. Same target today.

[Sue]

In France for a weeks gardening, autumn clear up. It hasn't rained in weeks. the veggies ( excluding delicious tomatoes) have gone over , the sweet corn is all dried out. We can still see the stripes on the lawn from the lawn mower at the end of August. Would you believe the forecast is rain all week even if it is warm!

[Wendyf]

I'm heading for the garden this afternoon after a brisk & breezy walk up Weets this morning.

[Tizer]

I wonder if any OG members can offer advice from their experience on the following matter. Mrs Tiz now has power of attorney for her mum & dad and has gone through the process of informing their bank, Lloyds, who have added her signing authority to the parents' account. The idea of course is that she can now sign cheques to pay out of their account for their day to day needs as they are both incapable of doing this. But when the cheque book arrived in the post we were surprised that there was no mention of Mrs Tiz or the power of attorney on the cheques. So she will be signing her name to a cheque that bears the parent's name - which may be OK for situations were the person receiving the cheque is `in the know' (familiar with the parents, Mrs Tiz and the situation) but seems likely to cause problems when they aren't. We had expected the cheques to have something like `signed by xxxx on behalf of Mr and Mrs yyyyyy'. If somebody tried to pay you with a cheque where the signature name was totally different from the printed name you wouldn't accept it, would you? And she's not expecting to have to carry around power of attorney documents for her parents wherever she goes. Have any of you had experience of writing cheques under power of attorney and if so, are the cheques as I've described or do they have something more written on them. Of course we'll be contacting the bank to ask them but...well, you've probably gathered from my posts that I don't have much confidence in banks to get things right!

(Just to complicate it further the cheques only carry the printed name of her mother and not of her father, even though it's a joint account for the two parents. Which means it could be even more confusing when she tries to pay for something in her dad's name!)

[PanBiker]

Not sure about that Tizer. Sally holds POA for her mum but all our transactions are done via the Building Society with ISA's and other investment and BS accounts. She never has a problem there, having said that the BS did set up the POA for her when she requested it. No cheque books of course at the Building Society only counter issued cheques and cash.

[Sue]

I had power of attorney for my dad. The cheques had his name on. I signed mine. The bank knew when the cheques came in and there was no problem. I just gave a covering letter with the cheque to anyone who did not understand why my signature was there, but I don't recall there was ever a problem. indeed there wasn't

[Stanley]

Nothing to stop you writing something like "Under POA" after the signature. Most people don't look at the signature anyway!
Taking Jack for his annual jab. Writing two more articles. Putting dressing gown and slippers in a bag.....

[PanBiker]

Will you not be in and out on the same day Stanley? I'm sure Louise was when she had hers done. Although I think they might have kept her in once for anaesthetic monitoring. I suppose it depends which slot you get for the op. Good luck with it anyway, I'm sure you'll be fine.

[Sue]

Another day of thick mist, rain due this afternoon. Ah well the gardening must go on, only a week to cut everything back to a level to survive the winter, and get the veggie patch under plastic to retard the weeds.

[Tizer]

Thanks everyone for your advice on PoA cheques. It's especially useful to know from Sue that she managed OK.

[Tripps]

Another day of thick mist, rain due this afternoon. Ah well the gardening must go on, only a week to cut everything back to a level to survive the winter, and get the veggie patch under plastic to retard the weeds.

Sue - sometimes I'm quite envious of your lifestyle - at other times it seems more like an international Community Service Order.

[Sue]

Trips , it feels like it! But with a freezer full of produce that will last us a year over here, it's worth every minute. As it happens the sun has come out, no rain at all. Butternut squash picked, tomatoes picked and in the freezer to make soup etc later in the year. Bob picked more than another kilo of blackberries this morning. I have chopped back the herb patch and have sage and rosemary to freeze. Just the apples left to go and tidy the strawberry patch. I always add dried manure to the patch and the asparagus patch at this time of year then again in the spring.

Community service nearly finished for this trip.

[hartley353]

The vet sent me a reminder that Lucy's booster jab was imminent, so off to the surgery this morning, on the way I noted that the fuel gauge had dropped below half a tank only filled it up on the 18th August, dont know where it all goes these days maybe I have a leak. A tankfull used to last two months.

[LizG]

I have chopped back the herb patch and have sage and rosemary to freeze.

Sue, I also preserve our produce for use over the year. I bottle a lot of chutneys and pickles as well as fruit and I also make jam. But I am very interested in how you treat your herbs before you freeze them. It always annoys me when I have to buy herbs in the off season because I didn't know how to preserve them when they were abundent. I'd appreciate a lesson.