What are you all up to

I received a text this afternoom from our medical centre inviting me to book my covid jab. I have an appt for wednesday morning, all done by text. Very efficient. Our medical centre has 2 surgeries,  one large one in the city centre where we usually go and a smaller one in the outskirts (which used to be a village ) which they have made their covid hub.

No walking for us at the moment as everywhere is either flooded or so muddy and slippery that it is unsafe. A friend who lives in a nearby very small village emailed me today to say that weekends in particular are a nightmare at the moment as hoards of people are descending and parking their cars everywhere and all the local footpaths and grass verges are a mud bath.

😅😅😅 Having spent quite a bit of time at the vets recently (for our cat not us!) this certainly rings a bell!

Takethedogalong if you're reading this we may need a new boiler. I'm googling but wondering what scheme you had help from on costs?

I've looked back and it appears this 'new' boiler is about 20 years old 😱😱. How does that happen, it feels like a few years but not that many..............

A dry day here, but I was uninspired! Little sun, so most unlike cornersteady's beautiful sky in his lovely photos 😢

Milliehull I know exactly where you're coming from, Dora and I are fed up with street walks. It certainly doesn't lift your spirits in the same way as open spaces and trees 😢. By the look of the forecast it seems it's going to get much worse! We have very full rivers and the meads have been flooded, first time in many a long year as they altered, with flood gates, for it to happen elsewhere - should have paid more attention at the time! Our grass is a mess with absolute minimum walking on, only a few steps to the bird feeders and Dora goes a trot round ocassionally. Our stepping stones seem to be mini ponds most of the time.

Great news to hear folks getting dates for their jabs. OH should be in the next group, I'll scrape into the following group after my birthday in a couple of weeks so dont want them to be too fast!. However I'm not sure it's going to be the 'cure all' panacea folks are claiming for some considerable time. Our local BBC news programme has q&a with Chris Smith, the naked scientist, fully clothed everytime he appears 🤣🤣, and it seems that the vaccinated can catch and pass on the virus 😢

Little else to report here, it's getting very ground hog day 

Edit I forgot we did have an event Sunday evening 😱. We had a power cut, only lasted moments but was grateful we knew exactly where to put our hands on torches! Had barely turned them on when power was restored. It's only about the 3rd I can recall in 35 years of living here. We used to be/still are on the now gone maternity and children's hospital so our power was always restored quickly. It knocked out Virgin for an hour. Apparently one street was without power for several hours whilst fault located and part replaced. They must have been fast on the part replacement cos that was why all power went to ensure it was safe for the engineers. Brilliant work by more unsung heroes 👏

Edit: I didnt expect to get the call so quickly as I am in the 75 - 80 age group. We are hoping our eldest son who is clinically vulnerable and shielding will be called soon.

Bakers2 I hope you can get your boiler replaced without too much hassle and expense. When our 'fairly new' boiler died last spring when we checked we discovered it was over 20 years old. Where does the time go?! Our heating has been on all day - it shouldn't have been. OH obviously didn't do such a good job at re programming the timer as he thought. I am not complaining but OH is!!

Things happen in threes?

Misplaced over the last few weeks

• kitchen timer,
• duplicate TV remote control, 
• cable for my camera

 I had searched high and low

Found all three today!

I’m here Bakers, will get our paperwork out tomorrow and have a look for you. Our boiler was 25 years old, old house, and one resident with an underlying health issue🤨 did it for us. Heck of a saving, although we didn’t get to choose our make of boiler. But I did some research, and what they provided was in top recommended so we are happy. Paid a bit ourselves to get an extended 10 year guarantee. We got new valves for radiators, under floor insulation as well. All for free.

I will be in touch👍

I didn't expect to get the call either MillieH.  I'm at the upper end of the  75 -- 80 age group but I do have Type 2 Diabetes, but I will have to check with the surgery when next in contact with them, to find out just how serious they rate it { and Me  } 'cos the guide inside the Vax Centre said I was one of the youngest they had seen  and that was on 13th Jan. It could just  be that the Crewe Unit is progressing more rapidly than expected though.  Not that I am, or indeed will,  complain ~~they certainly ain't getting the vaccine back, so there  !!

Good news for all of you getting the vaccine, it's much slower in our part of the south west. Our elderly neighbours had their letter today but Taunton race course was too far for them. Even further than the first offer one of them received so they're going to wait till they can go locally and they've been assured this will happen.

Motorhome off for it's MOT tomorrow so I'll "follow the van" to get OH home. They're replacing a front light unit too. Our big outing of the week! With the weather looking grim I hope the roads aren't flooded.

B2 we used British Gas to install our new boiler, they had an offer on at the time and the work was done without any problems. Depends how quickly you need to get things done?

I suspect we might need a new boiler soon ☹️