Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 40

I can finally say that I am more or less back to normal, so this week I have  managed a couple of trips into town. In fact last Friday evening I walked the furthest I have been in over a month. Back at the start of the summer I saw an advert about a new choir that was going to start in Oswestry  come the Autumn. It sounded a bit like the one I was a part of in Spain, singing mostly music from the shows and films. It sounded very laid back - no  need to read music, no auditions etc - and the deciding factor for me was that rehearsals would be at the Memorial Hall; just five minutes walk from home. So I signed up for the two free sessions they were offering for anyone who wanted to learn more, and the first of these was last Friday evening. Unfortunately on Thursday I received a message to say that the response had far outdone their expectations so they had moved to a larger premises which are a half hour walk from here. This is not ideal for walking home at 9.00 at night but I decided to go along anyway, so Chris walked with me and came back to walk me home.

The choir tuned out to be great fun and I am definitely going again, and already I have sorted out a lift each way which makes it possible. A young woman called Amy is leading us and she says there were 80 of us at the first meeting. She took this photo of us to go on our Facebook page.

I also went back to church this week as I thought I could get through a service without coughing too much, and as I walked through the park on my way there I saw some big brown clumps on the ground. I wondered whether the strong winds the night before had blown down a squirrel's drey but when i got closer i could see it was fungi. There were three of these, two just emerging from the ground and one at the base of a newly planted young tree. According to google lens they are Meripilus giganteus and there have been several sightings of them this year with people remarking on their huge size.

We have also had some lovely sunny days this week so as I was walking to choir I had to stop to take photos of this glorious sunset.

I mentioned to Chris that I wanted to have some practice at using a touch pad on a lap-top. I have never mastered this, being far more at home on a PC and using a mouse. But he has lent me his Chrome book and I have been using it this week and managing quite well. He has set it up as a Windows remote desktop so it is synced to my computer and I can do everything down here without going up to the top floor - unless I want to use one of my cutters or the printer of course. I do keep trying to use it like a touch screen but  I am getting there.

And  that is it for this week.  It is October now and getting cooler so I am happy to be able to work down here. Hopefuly I will find it easier to visit you all now.

Friday Smiles 2026 # Week 39

Firstly I apologise for my lack of comments last week. Friday we were out early as I had an appointment at the clinic. It was my first venture out of the house for almost a month and the surgery is a good twenty minute walk each way, so by the time I made it home again, I was exhausted. But since then I have gradually improved. The second course of antibiotics did help. I still have a cough but it is easing, and other than that I am just about back to normal. (I will look at two weeks of posts when I visit you this week).

Apart from that, it has been another quiet week. Each morning, when I open the curtains downstairs I see a long strand of spider's web stretching from the hedge across to a shrub in the centre of the bed. It never seemed to change until this week when it suddenly became a full web - such wonderful bits of craft I think. Then right in the middle came a fat garden spider, who was getting blown around in the breeze. I don't care for spider's close up, but as long as he remembers that he belongs in the garden, he is welcome to stay. What struck me most was his bright orange colour, and the amazingly intricate pattern on his body and legs. A marvellous creation really.

I have also been watching the sky. We have had some really lovely intervals of sun and one evening we just about managed a sunset. It was not a dramatic red and yellow one, but folds of soft pink and grey, and quite pretty for the few minutes that it is was visible.

Another day I popped out into the garden when I first got up, and the sky looked like this. I just love it! They are called altocumulus clouds, but I call them cottom wool clouds! When I showed the picture to my friend she said "Oh. cotton wool clouds". So I am not the only one.

On Tuesday we had an unexpected pleasant time as some old friends of ours who we knew for years in Spain, and who now live in Shrewsbury, were in Oswestry for an appointment at the orthopaedic hospital. So when they were through with that, they met us for a coffee and catch-up at a café just across the park. They have a few indoor seats upstairs and a good area of out door seating on the plaza. Chris is in a wheelchair so it was an ideal venue as it was a warm sunny day, and sitting outside was a pleasure. It was good to have a proper chat, as we normally keep in touch with messages, and just as we were leaving we took a quick selfie as Chris (my friend, not my husband!) wanted to send it to some other friends from Spain that she keeps in touch with.

The rest of the week I have been busy making Christmas cards etc as I am still way behind schedule, and I know once October is here, Christmas will rush towards us. So I had better get back to it now.