WEEKLY HAPPENINGS - MONDAY 2/2/25 TO SUNDAY, 2-9-25

Hello Family and Friends,

Here is last week's daily journal and thanks so much for encouraging me to keep going with these. I will continue to do so as long as requested and enjoyed. 

Above you can see this week's forecast, from 2-10-25 to 2-17-25.

Monday, February 3rd, 2025 - 1:53 p.m: we just got back from a trip into Vienna. It's about ten miles away from our home. This was only for a ride out really but also a stop at our pasty shop. We bought two Cornish pasties for our car picnic outside. We both said it was one of the best we had ever had. There was another car a few spaces up, with two ladies having the same kind of car picnic. Gregg was behind them in the shop he said, and they bought the same as us. We also picked up British Bangers. Usually from there we head to Meadowlark Gardens, but that will be a while longer before I can do that. 

Later the man went off to get a haircut and decided to pop into Trader Joe's which is in the same shopping area. It is always a surprise to see what he brings home. This was an impulse trip.

                                

He bought canned pineapple juice which he prefers to any found in our other supermarkets. It is very good! One box of frozen Jasmine Rice (three packets to a box), 2 boxes of frozen Thai Red Curry (those come with flatbreads) and a bag of avocados. There is a loaf of sourdough that I forgot to add to the picture.

We had an incredible sunset tonight. 

Tuesday, February 4th, 2025: physiotherapy today. They are stepping it up a notch! I was glad to get home. Didn’t get back until later today. Two more weeks to go before I am finished, then doctor's appointments to see what the next step is. 

                             

I have a feeling Grumpy Bear will be replacing Genteel Bear for tea later today. 

                                                     

We have a weather watch coming in, rain and sleet. Nasty weather and it was such a gorgeous day, in the 50s and beautiful sunshine. 

Gregg and I have been talking and I am going to have to stop feeding the birds. This bird flu has arrived in Virginia. There have been cases in Richmond (200 miles south of here), and I don’t know how long it will be before it reaches our area. I am really sad about it, but it is for the best. I am concerned for all those around us, neighbors, pets, the birds and of course those who visit us, and us. I will be doing more research, and I will be paying particular attention, and hopefully we will get an all clear sometime down the road. Added note: the American Medical Association has a website where you can find out info on Bird Flu, click here. Scroll down to the relating articles.

Do you have any opinions on this, any information you know of? I would welcome any feedback. 

Wednesday, February 5th, 2025 at 8.24 p.m: more on this weather. I just took a look and there is freezing rain on its way, covering a lot of areas. It isn’t going to start until later in the morning tomorrow, and we should be home from my physiotherapy session by then, which starts at 8:00 a.m. Stay safe out there everyone.

This evening I had a lovely long chat with a dear friend who moved south a few years ago. Hello dear friend. I know you will be reading this later. We had a lovely chat didn’t we? Looking forward to the next one.  

Gregg is on his way home. He has been out since 11:00 a.m. Father and son time today. What’s the word of the day? “Pottered” and it went by quickly.

Nothing new in the pottering but I will put down what I ate today while I remember.

Breakfast: Sausage banger (British sausage from the place we went to on Monday), along with a 'fried' egg cooked with no oil, and put on a Ball Park Hamburger Bun. A few berries and a couple of dates an hour later. Do you know how bangers got their name? During World War I, meat was scarce and sausages were made with a high proportion of filler and water, which caused them to pop and hiss and sometimes explode when cooked over a high heat. People started calling them bangers and the name remained.

Lunch: Another British banger because it is hard to stop at one, along with a mix of leftover steamed broccoli and Brussels Sprouts from yesterday’s meal. 

Dinner: 1/2 cup container of sweet potato mash taken out of the freezer and microwaved for 2 minutes, 3 small Portobello mushroom caps roasted in the oven, with carrot and celery sticks on the side. 

Gregg walked in the door, we had a nice chat about what he had done over the day and then we were off to bed.

Thursday, February 6th, 2025 at 10:34 a.m: we’re back from my physiotherapy appointment, and she stepped it up a few notches today. Traveled there in rush hour which was okay but had to be careful because of the freezing rain.  It looked really beautiful but treacherous.  Three photos I took with several more I will be sharing sometime.

As for the therapy session, I did my usual warmup exercises, riding the bicycle, stepping up on a platform, stepping down off the platform, repeat, repeat, repeat. Tippy toes, repeat, heel to tippy toes, repeat, repeat, repeat, slow crab walk up the hallway, holding onto the wall when needed. No repeat of that thank goodness, and I did this with another lady on the other wall doing the same thing but coming from the opposite end. It was a relatively wide hallway so no risk of bumping into each other, unless we both lost balance at the same time. We chuckled as we passed each other. Next, ball behind the knee to press into the wall with bad knee, absolutely joyful, not, hold, umpteen times. I am thinking of joining a gym after this, no not really but I will stick to follow-up exercises at home.

I was able to look around while I was doing all this and the place was the busiest I have ever seen it, with mostly men this time. I'm figuring with all the bad weather, rife for slipping and sliding, business is booming. We were all waiting for our contraptions to free up before we could use them, at some point or other. Then it was time for me to get up on the bench waiting for my physiotherapist. 

First, young man told me to hang my legs over the side, lifting bad knee straight 10 times, hold each time. Next put bad knee on table and straighten out, other leg left hanging while stretching bad leg out and pressing knee down. Excruciating but don't be a wimp I told myself. Next, band around the knees, pull knees apart, do that 20 times. I have read that several of you out there have had or are getting your own workouts right now. Thanks for sharing that. 

My physiotherapist arrived. I was still feeling sleepy even after all the exercise. Gregg told her I was not a morning person! I may have given the man a side-eye. 

                                        

In my defense I told her, I'm not exactly crabby I'm just quiet. She told me she gets up at 5.00 o'clock every morning to start her job at 6.00. She laughed and said, "Don't worry, I'm not a morning person either." Early morning workers deserve all the praise we can give them, and that goes for shift workers. 

She started massaging my knee with warm oil, heavenly! That lasted for almost 15 minutes. I was almost asleep by the end of it all, and feeling very relaxed but I knew it was a warm-up for things to come. The stretch exercises and pressing knee flat, not so heavenly and was it time to get on my trampoline and shoot through the roof? The session turned out to be longer than last time. Onto your right side she said (I always feel like I am going to roll right off the thing when I do that, and just continue rolling). Sideways stretch, hold bad leg up for how many seconds, can't remember? Was it an hour? Felt like it! Seconds actually and she said I was doing better. Big inward smile for the encouragement. After doing several other exercises, I would hear "Two more!" which was the signal for we are almost at the end of a maneuver. I was eagerly awaiting her usual, "That's all, you're done for today." 

Bless her cotton socks when I heard that I said thank you! She asked me if I needed help getting off the table and I said no thank you, as I slid off onto the floor with good leg. She was already moving on to her next client as I wobbled over to the exit as fast as I could go. 

The young man who usually starts me off with the pre-exercises, who looks like he is 18 but yes, he's older, called out to me with a big smile and a wave as he saw me 'flying' past doing those cartwheels once again in my head, and said, "Bye Denise!" I smiled at him, said bye-bye and I was out that door lickety-split, with Gregg telling me to slow down because I think he thought I was going to fall flat on my face, even though my cane and I are now finely synchronized. I certainly wasn't tired any more. Brain was racing, I could think of nothing else than to get out of there. 

Hasten to add, I like every person there. They are all that you would want in people who are helping all who need them, and you can see they really care. They do a great job and the staff in the waiting room are also very pleasant. 

We were driving through a shopping center later and we saw hundreds of crows flying in and landing on the roof of a department store. The photo above and the collage below shows a few of them sitting on the store sign. I have never in my life seen as many before that day. We both said the same thing. 

Gregg asked me to take a photo of this Vietnamese Restaurant as he wants to go sometime. 

By now we are not too far from home and saw an accident at our traffic light. It must have just happened, but there were two police cars with lights flashing, blocking the road where we needed to go. We had time to take a right at the previous traffic light and drove the long way around. This takes us into our neighborhood from the other side. It added three miles but when we saw all the lights in the distance as we finally reached our development, we knew we would still be waiting to get through. I hope no one was hurt. Even if they weren’t, it would certainly have ruined their day, and in this awful weather too. It was still raining very hard. 

Friday, February 7th, 2025 at 12:31 p.m: for a change today I made pancakes. We don't have them very often, can't even remember the last time and only on a weekend, but Gregg said he fancied them and did not want to trust himself to making, as he likes mine too much he said. No side-eye there! So, pancakes it was. They turned out not pretty. I felt a bit foggy today, and slow. Non-pretty pancakes went on our plates. Okay, so they may have looked a bit scrambled, but they were still pretty darned tasty.

It looks like a bright day, current temperature at 12:47 p.m. as I type this, is 46 degrees F., going up to 49. A heatwave! At least it's dry. The sun is shining. 

I just saw that we are under a winter weather watch again tomorrow. “A mixture of rain and snow in the morning changing to mainly rain and freezing rain in the afternoon. Temps nearly steady in the low to mid 30s. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation 80%. Snow and ice accumulations less than one inch.” Next Tuesday and Wednesday we might also have snow. 

Does anyone remember “As Time Goes By”, a fun British Show with Judi Dench and Lionel Hardcastle? It ran from February 1992 to December 2005, and we have watched more than our fair share of reruns. There was a character in the show, Mrs. Bale, who was the housekeeper of Lionel’s father. She listened to the radio and always announced very dramatically what the shipping weather forecast would be in the British Channel. She had never been there herself. Maybe I am becoming like Mrs. Bale as I love to find out about the weather and let my family know if there is any snow on the way. I usually send texts to son and daughter-in-law with the graphic of the forecast that I have at the top of this page.

We made chicken and dumplings for dinner, perfect comfort food for snow-on-the-way weather. We won’t have to cook this weekend as there is enough to last us through, and it only gets better. If you go to this link, it will take you to the recipe on my blog. Everyone seems to have their own favorite and this is ours. There are snow photos at the end of that recipe also (1-29-19) as it snowed the day I made it.

Saturday, February 8th, 2025: lost to my foggy mind. I didn't put anything down at the end of the day. Neither of us went out of the house. 

                           

I did another drawing, that I do remember. I still need to slow down before I start scribbling. Mousy looks a little scary.

                                          

Sunday, February 9th, 2025 - 2:11 p.m: son came over for an extra hour as daughter-in-law sang three masses today. His dad cooked eggs, bacon, bangers, mushrooms, and as we ran out of bread (shocking in this house), he added scallion pancakes from Trader Joe's. 

We talked about a lot of things and took our usual selfie before son left. This is one tradition we have had for quite a while and take on every visit. Poses don't change much but it was nice and sunny outside, and at least we have a bit of greenery at the back of us.

Gregg has had a hankering for baked apples lately, so he is in the kitchen making us one each. He tells me there is a secret ingredient and I'm going to have tell him what it is. I can't remember the last time we ate baked apples for dessert. 

They were delicious. The secret ingredient was a drop or two of Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry. It was supposed to be bourbon but we don’t buy that. We have definitely entered a new phase of our lives where Gregg is doing most of the cooking. 

And that's it for this week's ramblings. You are all good sports for hanging in there until the end, and I very much appreciate that.

Have a great week my friends.