Welcome Rains, Friends for Dinner and Double Series

The Ridge

Saturday, Aug. 17^th was the perfect day to sleep in, so we did. It is not unusual that Bill is up past 11 but for me to stay up until 11 is very rare. After ‘To Sir with Love’, to which I did cry, I watched a couple of hours of the 3 ½ hour movie ‘Woodstock, Three Days of Peace, Love and Music’. What an eye opener!

Our loaded crabapple tree for the first time
Obviously, it is loving this weather

I was 14 and a good friend of mine (and a boyfriend for a period in my teens) invited me to go with him and some friends. I was shy, naïve and denied by Mom. That turned out to be a good thing although what an experience it would have been! It was a long movie so I had begun recording it on the get-go.  We’ll watch it together over the winter.

And speaking of apples, the one at the road has great ones
for applesauce
Don't ask me their name though!

So, we got up around 7:30 and made our hot drinks. Even though it wasn’t raining and a beautiful mild morning, I chose not to walk today. How nice it is to see that it had rained a few times overnight without any heavy stuff or storms. Our awnings were out all night. Bill hears them if they flap, he is such a light sleeper. I chatted with Donna by text and got an invite to go swimming at the Hanover pool next week again. Yay, that was fun last time.

My peach banana smoothie - yummy

At 9:30, I made our breakfast of peameal and eggs. We usually cook 3 eggs. Bill has 2. Today, I debated on having 2 on top of my peameal but stuck to my original order since I wasn’t overly hungry yet. When I cracked my egg shell, it was a double! Such strange little things make me chuckle. Guess, I’m having 2! It was good and I offered to do dishes while Bill got ready to go to Hanover. 

So, my dessert started out looking good

 He needed to drop a prescription off in Durham, go to Rona for a sheet of plywood and Zero Coke on sale before picking it up on the way back home. In his absence, I dusted the Suite and reorganized things off our hutch. We have invited company for supper and a later game so I like to have space beside the table available for serving dishes. Someone is going to get first hand instruction on how to cook a one pot meal! 😊

Looks like enough liquid

I/we weren’t expecting outdoor weather today, although more so than the London area according to last night’s forecast on CTV. Because of that, I thought an indoor meal would be nice. 
However, I still went out and wiped the chairs and patio table off and moved them to our mat area. Soon enough, around 11 am, the sun made an appearance. How lovely! The 5 – 10 mph breeze is quite nice coming in the windows too. I can feel humidity in the air.

I wanted to show you the difference from this year to 2016

With the dusting done and meal planning done in my head, I pulled out my last package of frozen rhubarb from the freezer. This has done us well from last summer. Who else to make a rhubarb dessert for if not for the people who provided us with the delicious fruit? By now, you’ve probably guessed who our company is. I puddled around inside and then outside for a quick walk down the lane.

That was the year of the drought and boy was it apparent early September
(ps - the tractors were the reason for the picture)

The sun didn’t last long but we may see it again. Yesterday, while I was inside during the showers, I put together my Word document tallying our 2018/19 winter expenses. I’m happy that I record every penny we spend when we are away. Each year we try to curb/kerb our spending but I record in U.S. dollars so it bounces off the document less than what it would be in Canadian funds. Depending on the exchange, of course. It is what it is.

We had beautiful skies at one point and it got very hot and humid

I want to sit down and put together my book of our travels. I wasn’t as impressed with last years and will revert back to my original format. I won’t do them every year from now on but because last year was special in so many ways, I will try and get one finished in the next month. The dessert was in the convection oven. This is Jo-Anne’s recipe for Rhubarb Custard Crumble. Seems our guests, no matter who they are, are guinea pigs for something!

The pond looked pretty with reflections

Bill had a snooze; he’d not stopped all morning and then a shower. I had a quick wash and changed into something cool and light. Another batch of shingles on my back, right at the waistline makes wearing shorts uncomfortable. Today will be the last day they bother me. I’m so glad that we’ve found a resource for getting the pills and cream. I used to skimp with the prescription, now I’ll just keep stocked up.  I’m taking them more regularly and breakout seems to vanish quicker because of it.

Rob and Pat arrived around 4 and we made short work of our visit immediately. It is such a comfortable feeling with these two, no pretenses, no concerns. The conversation and laughter never ceases in the company of our buddies. We sat outside in the shade of our little tree (the Happy Hour place) and shared a bottle of a delicious fruit wine. Did they make it? I forgot to ask, but we enjoyed it before Pat and I came inside to start supper.

It was a refreshing taste of dark fruits

It was a bit of tutorial for Pat as I related step-by-step how I cook a one-pot meal in Madame IP. We had chicken thighs, small potatoes, carrots and onions with gravy to top it off. For dessert, I’m ashamed to say that the rhubarb custard crumble did NOT turn out. Bless their hearts, when I said I wasn’t serving it to them, they insisted I give them a bit in the dishes so they could be the judges. It wasn’t as horrible as I thought but served it with ice cream – that helped a lot!

Supper is served!

I filled the dishwasher and had used our new dinner plates for the first time. Food tasted just as good! The thighs were perfect as well as everything else. I hope this helps Pat to get her IP into action easier. Sometimes being shown, first hand, is what we need. Kim helped me with mine. We cleared the table and got into a very challenging game of Double Series. We played best out of 10 and the guys came out on top by one game. That was fun!

I either needed more food or smaller plates!
We broke the carb rule tonight with no regrets at all

It sure doesn't look or taste like Jo-Anne's did
LOL
But our guests were gracious

After they left around 9:30 (we’re such night hawks, aren’t we?) Bill and I sat up with our books. Mine is King and Maxwell by David Baldacci and it has caught me right from the start. Bill is reading a Stuart Woods called Dead Eyes. Summer is not his time for reading so he has quite a few to catch up on. I was in bed by 10 and dropped right off to sleep. Work tomorrow so I’m glad I sleep well.

A friendly game among friends

This was a great day, some time to ourselves and then one on one time with our buddies. I hope you enjoyed your Saturday as well.

And a lovely day it was from beginning to end
Toodle-ooh from the Ridge

Thank you for your visit today!

Overnight and Early Rain, Clouds Clear Out, Clemson Back on Track, Shopping, Games Night

I woke up at 5:30 on Friday, Dec. 7^th and dozed off again until 6:30 when I got up to greet the day. I thought I would resume my walks around this area, the ones I used to take when we were here last. No sooner did I get situated at the table to wait for daylight when the rain began. Crap! I guess I won’t be walking this morning at least. Bill joined me downstairs soon after and we made our hot brews and read blog posts.

Pretty morning sky on the lake

The rain wasn’t persistent but at the same time, the clouds were pretty heavy and I didn’t totally trust that they held no more showers. When Clemson got up, I walked him on his leash down the lane to drop a couple of recyclables in the bin for today’s pickup and I was pleased that his bowel movements seem to be on track again. We’ve had a few mishaps outside and he’s needed a couple of ‘bum baths’ over the last 2 days. Maybe that is why he has been up through the night, something just wasn’t right in his tiny system.

This should be a post card
Look at those beautiful mountains in the clouds

I saw Rob outside so we chatted briefly and I snapped a couple of pictures of the low clouds over the mountains. That was when I noticed that blue skies were coming our way. Whoop whoop! I’m not sure what we’ll get up to today but we’re in need of some dairy items at some point. We will likely make a trip to Walmart before too long. Bill had his shower while I took Clem out once more for  piddles and then he went back to bed.

Scrambled eggs and salsa with bacon and summer sausage

Pat, Rose and I have tentative plans to nip into a Thrift Store that Rose knows about. Apparently, on Friday, they have a bag sale. Fill a bag for $7. Now I’ve been to these sales back home and they are a hoot. When more than one of you goes, and you each only want a couple of things, you share the cost of one bag. Cheap, I know but effective at the same time. We’ll see what time our sleeping beauty, Rose, gets up. Little did we know that she was up and waiting for us!

this was one of the nicest thrift stores I've been in

 At 11:30, us 3 ladies drove into the city. Rose took us to a Thrift Store, don’t ask me where it was, and signs indicated that any store sales benefited the L.H. Humane Society. That is nice right there! The sale today was a bag full for $8 so we decided to share the bag. We took our time, tried things on and managed to walk out of there with 10 articles of clothing. That’s crazy for that kind of money! I also bought 3 cool hangers for the closet. I’m sure I’ll find a good use for them.

Racks and racks of clothes - each rack individually marked for sizes
Small - Medium - Large

From there Rose drove us to another ReSale Store which this time benefited Hospice of Lake Havasu. Pat and my mouths dropped when we walked into this place. It was huge and very impressive. It’s true that this place would cost us more than the last one but who can complain about a beautiful top for a minimum of $4 or maximum of $7.50? We all found some nice things and that was just in the clothing section. It went on and on with each room holding more product, kitchenware, Christmas, furniture etc.

It was 2:30 when, back in the car, Rose said, “Well, where to now?” In perfect harmony, Pat and I said “Home!”. We were tired and hungry and I knew I’d spent enough $ today. The guys were all in their respective ‘homes’ when we returned and the first thing on my agenda was food. I toasted a piece of rye bread and made myself a cheese and summer sausage sandwich. Just enough to bring me through until supper.

3 unique clothes hangers, however you want to use them

Pat invited us over for Happy Hour so at 3:30 I took my diet gingerale on ice and Bill made himself a cup of tea. Chilling back a bit on the alcohol or at least taking a break today. Rose joined us but it was George’s time to nap and by the time Bill and I left at 4:45 he hadn’t shown up yet. I began making meatloaf and took a break shortly after 5:00 to call Bridgette and Chris for a personal chat on Facetime. We want to start touching base with the kids more often, to see what they’re all up to.

And it was great speaking to
Bridgette and Chris
face to face today

It takes an hour for the meatloaf to cook so we just relaxed after I captured a wee piece of the sunset. Bill found a program on television that we haven’t seen for over a year. Pitbulls and Paroles intrigued us from the first episode we ever watched so it was interesting to see it on again with episodes that were new to us. After supper, we cleaned up dishes and Rob popped over to invite us to a game of Wizard. Bill has never played but was willing to give it a shot tonight and see how it goes. He’s a trooper. 😊

Yum, meatloaf!

At 7:45 we went in to Rose and George’s as they have the biggest table. We played one game and it was good fun for a couple of hours and I can even say that, being the loser of the night. At 9:45 we returned home to our Suite, saying goodnight for the evening. The air is mild out there at 59f/15C and with no wind, it feels very comfortable. 

George asked if anyone was up for a hot tub but after my cooler, I have one place I want to be right now and that is in my recliner. I would like to get in before we leave so have to keep it in my head so I don’t forget. We watched some Live PD and laughed at the idiocy of some drivers who think they can pull one over on the Sheriffs or PD. This has been yet another fun day with lots of shopping and good times with the girls. Tomorrow will bring even more enjoyment with this group. Stay tuned. 

and good night from Kibbey Drive

Thank you for stopping by today.