What a kerfuffle............

 

Hubby, I and our two children were all born in the UK and despite us being Canadian citizens, we are also British citizens so we hold dual nationality.  Imagine our surprise when we found out over the weekend that as of today, February 25th, 2026 we were no longer eligible to travel to the UK on our Canadian passports, that we had to have a UK Passport 😕😠

These past few days have been interesting to say the least trying to sort all this out.  We have family in the UK and my mother is getting up there in years, so the ability to travel to the UK is paramount.  We have no intention of going this year, but I will be probably going next year to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday.  Our daughter and family were there last year and we were all over in 2024 for a funeral.

We have ran into numerous issues sorting all this out but are slowly getting through the issues.  Our last UK passports ran out in 2000, and the kids were on my passport at the time.  Both kids are applying for their own passports, so they need my birth certificate to include with their paperwork.  I need my birth certificate for my passport.  No photocopies are allowed.  Luckily the UK government were very prompt to our son's email enquiry about this and we are all sending our applications in together as a family group.

Because our UK passports had expired, we all need our parents dates of birth and places of birth, plus the info on whether they were married or not.  Hubby is in his late 60's, his dad died 43 years ago, so he has no idea of their dates of birth etc.  So when we put unknown he had to supply names, dates of birth etc of his grandparents, didn't know that either 😕All to prove he was born in the UK.

All these changes have been in the works for a while now, but were done very quietly.  I hadn't heard of this happening.  To my mind it's a total waste of time and a money grab, but what do I know???  It cost us just under 130 British Pounds which included 20 British pounds for courier costs from them to mail them back to us.  I am praying and hoping it's for a 10 year passport, as that wasn't made clear?

Overall no one is impressed with this, especially as we have never ever had an issue entering or leaving the UK.

So if you hold a dual citizenship with the UK, don't even think of traveling to the UK without have a UK passport.

Full English..........

I have been meaning to check out a local British Tea Room for ages.  I have followed them on Facebook for a while, and I saw they had a buy one get one free for their breakfasts before 12 noon through the end of February.

At the end of last week, we decided to give it a go.

I will say ahead of time a "fry-up/full English breakfast" is not a favourite meal of mine.  I can live without them.

This was called a standard breakfast and was I think around $17 or $18 each.  However we got one for free.  The coffee was I think around $3.25 or $3.50 a mug, and honestly it was the best part of the meal.  They made it with fresh ground beans, and I would go back to there just to have their coffee, it was that good!

Hubby had a hash brown with his meal, it's under the toast.  You could have fried bread or regular toast, we both chose the regular toast.

I chose the potato scone with mine instead of the hash brown.

My taste buds have changed over the years it seems, and I prefer a Canadian style breakfast.  They serve "back bacon," I prefer regular bacon done extra crispy.  The potato scone was as flat as a pancake, I am no expert on potato scones but I thought they were fluffy inside?

There was a slice of black pudding on our plates.  I ate around a third of it, as I found the consistency of it odd.  It was more cake like and quite dry and full of grains, but not oats?  There are generally globules of fat in black pudding?  However it's been donkey's years since I ate black pudding, and it's not something I would rush out to eat normally.

Loved the toast, sausage (and I am not usually a fan of breakfast sausage), eggs and beans.

There are plenty of other breakfast places around which do better meals and a lot cheaper.

BUT, these guys do afternoon tea, so we booked to go there next month for my birthday.  It's $42.50 each so I have high hopes.  However, nothing will compare to the Afternoon Tea we had in the Lake District, but I am looking forward to it.

Laundry room progress.............

First my apologies; I did not take any before photos.....feel free to yell at me!!

Suffice to say it's come a long way since we moved in.  There was drywall on the window wall and on the wall where the washer and dryer is.  There was no ceiling, nor flooring down.  The rest of the walls were bare and hubby framed in more walls; amongst other things.

I have said this before and will say it again; people who think/or have a little bit of knowledge make more of a mess than folk with no knowledge!  So thanks to that hubby had more work than he intended to do, as many things had to be corrected.  Including a gale force wind coming in from outside 😟 The electrics were dodgy, and on and on it went!

The room size is around 16 feet 9 inches long, by 12 feet wide at the widest point (in the alcove) but around 9 feet without adding in the alcove.

So this is the entrance to the laundry room.  All new trim had to go in, as there wasn't any.  New drop ceiling.

This is looking towards one end of the room.  Although you can't see it in this photo, the ceiling had to be angled so we can "escape" in the case of fire through that window.  It's a requirement by law.  The flooring is a vinyl planking and has made a huge difference in that room.  We went with a mid-price one from Home Depot and that extra cost was well worth it. 

This is the other end of the room, where the washer and dryer is.  There is a sink unit to go in on the left hand side by the washer.  The washer and dryer needs to be pushed back into place.  We are going to add an upper cabinet on the wall above the washer and dryer.

This is the alcove part of the room.  The chest freezer will more or less stay in the exact place.  The door frame has still to be installed.  Through the door way to the left is where the furnace and water heater are.  It can be accessed by another door in the main room in the basement as well.

This room is big enough it could have been made into two rooms.  We just decided to keep it as one big room.  Between the two windows we are going to add a double door base cabinet and probably and upper cabinet for more storage.

So our next plan of action in this room is to add the sink unit and get that plumbed in; and yes the guy screwed up the plumbing as well {{{SIGH}}}  We'll then add the cabinets.  I have started to move things back into the room.

Then we'll tackle to room through the alcove.  That needs beadboard adding to the walls.  The flooring installed and the trim.  All trim to be painted in that room as well as the door in the laundry room.  I figured I would do the door when I did the other trim.  

The goal for all this is by mid-April, before golf season starts!!!  Overall very pleased with how it looks.

How to Get to Heaven from Belfast

As the Olympics are on we are watching a bit of tv for a change......hubby normally watches the hockey.  I saw this advertised on Netflix, and as I thoroughly enjoyed The Derry Girls, and as this series was also made by the same writers, figured we would give it a go..........

I have come to the conclusion I spent my time watching this series in a state of confusion .  It took me until around the 6th episode to figure out what on earth was going on.  I mean seriously; what is going through these writers heads when writing these shows?  Saoirse-Monica Jackson's character Feeney looks as though a unicorn/rainbow sprinkles/my little pony had all vomited all over her. How they came up with her character boggles my mind, they had to be on something to imagine that?😂

Anyhow, feel free to watch the series if you want.  The way it ended there will be a second series........I'll pass............Derry Girls was way better.

28 Days, 28 Items, Part 3

 Another week, and more things collected.  I can safely say I have found way more than 28 things to donate, as I cleaned out the kids books and the games and puzzles cupboards this week.

Bit of a heads up here.  I couldn't be bothered to show you things individually.  Suffice to say there are way more than 7 things there.  However, all things we haven't used in a long time, so someone else may as well get the use of them.

The things I am donating are things on the seat of the sofa, not on the back of the sofa.

I already have an idea what I am clearing out next.

Have you managed to clean out a couple of drawers or cupboards this week?

Fashion for a vacation...........

Never thought much about what clothes I did or did not need on a vacation to the Caribbean.  I just figured some shorts and t-shirts.  A bathing suit, a cover up and a couple of dresses.  However after being there and I learned such a lot.

First a two piece bathing suit is the way to go.  Bottoms and a tankini/long top.  Have you ever tried to wrestle taking off a wet bathing suit to go pee?  I thought I was going to do myself a mischief trying to get it off.  Then it wasn't much better trying to put it back on!!

As things seem to take forever to dry, despite the heat, a couple of bathing suit options is the way to go, so you don't have to put on a damp suit in the morning.  Same goes with cover ups.  I actually used a shorter t-shirt type dress as a cover up and it worked a charm.

I will say it obviously doesn't matter what size you are and I saw all sorts of shapes of people wearing the skimpiest of bathing suits.  The amount of old guys with HUGE beer bellies wearing speedo's was mind boggling.....LOL

The amount of young ladies wearing the skimpiest of bikini's taking 7,000 selfies of themselves by the pool while trying not to get wet was also mind boggling!!  Just between me and you; I may or may not have encouraged youngest grandson to splash as much as he wanted to with his toys while they were doing that!! 😜

I had a pair of croc sandals that I used for pool shoes, but wasn't keen on them.  I did end up using my birkenstocks but didn't like getting the footbed wet.  I have a couple more pairs of croc sandals so need to see if they will work.

I was told to pack light and I did and it worked a charm.  Daughter-in-law had some lovely vacation dresses, so I may have to invest in a couple more.  Overall though, other than some shorts I think I may just use what I have..........

Do you have clothes that you use exclusively for vacation?

Swimming pools on vacation.......

There were numerous swimming pools where we were on vacation.  There was an adults only pool, but you had to have booked the adults only package to use and had to have a special wrist band to access it.

There were two of these pools below.  One was for the people who paid extra.........obviously not us! That one was below where we were staying and the one below was opposite it.  Both of the pools were very quiet with very few children using them as they were more lap pools and had no shallow end.

I actually spent most of one day reading by one of the pools, as there was quite a bit of shade.

This was the main pool, it was pretty large.  There was a shallow pool below it where you could do a spin cycle class, and aquatics.  Also the foam parties were held in the shallow pool.  I did participate in the aquatics class with daughter-in-law, though we were in the upper pool doing it as it was probably less than four feet at the deep end. Oh and we couldn't be bothered to go to the other pool....LOL

I took this photo from one of the upper floor restaurants.  You can see the separate shallow pool there.  When we did plan on a day by the pool, we did get there to deposit our towels on the chairs to save them.  We were always on the second row back which suited me just fine, as that was we weren't bothered by the guys selling trips and trying to get you to participate in things!!

Here is another view.  I will say none of the pools were heated, and I ended up getting out of the pool on the last day as it was a tad on the cool side........I know third world problems 🙄

There were also two water parks.  One was for smaller children and funnily enough had hardly any shade.  It was flipping stinking hot there.  The other one was a larger water park for all ages.

All in all something for everyone.......and I wish I could be there now!!  Sick of this flipping snow!