Thursday 16th April - What small DFW things will you do today?

Good morning Ziggy & all who follow
Had a good night's rest & feel happy about the day ahead.
Need to look around over the next few days for a decent 2nd hand bike as can't continue sharing my husbands now logistics have changed. I was going to see a nice Raleigh for £100 but missed the boat. I'm going to try the local forum again as it's quite good for bargains.
Husband is muttering about mowing the lawn today. It needs it. Amazing what a difference a tidy lawn makes to a garden. We have sweet peas & nasturtium seedlings coming along well in pots but I don't know how long to let them grow for before transferring to the garden beds?
Not sure what to make for dinner tonight. We have eaten chicken a lot this week as we bought a big bargain bag at the weekend. Did it with salad and potatoes last night. We've had pasta bake, a stirfry, can't remember one night's already. Ah well might go for a mixed veg, rice type thing. £47 big shop has stretched quite well.
Anyway no big things to worry about today so that's nice. Have a good day all.
bob

You will need to harden your seedlings off before they can go outside Bobarella. Stick them outside during the day, but bring back in at night if there is any danger of frost. Depends on where you are / whether your garden is a frost trap or not, but the end of April or beginning of May is generally ok except for the most tender things here (sheltered spot in the SW, tomatoes, cucumbers etc go out mid - late May).

A plastic mini greenhouse or a cold frame is useful at this time of the year, but I don't really have room for one.

Ooh, I have just read the late postings on yesterday's thread - hope all goes well for FVonD with the house!

Thanks, Dawn, and hello everyone!

I've had an email this morning from potential house owners saying they're pretty sure they can make it work and how excited they are, as are we!

Today I'm off to the huge open air market with my mum and then we're going to my favourite fish and chip shop in Hampton Court for lunch.

I missed a return call after I made a call the day before yesterday to a lawyer who is fighting a clinical negligence case for a woman who is a patient at the same surgery as my parents are/were. Basically the poor woman, who is only in her forties visited them about 20 times with symptoms of lung cancer and they kept fobbing her off (one time even suggesting she needed treatment for anxiety!) until it was finally diagnosed at A&E but not before it had spread extensively and the poor woman (who has children) now has only six months to live.

Anyhow, the same surgery also missed my dad's cancer. He went to them complaining of lack of appetite which is one of the main symptoms of stomach cancer and they gave him steroids to increase it. He needed to pee a lot (presumably when it has spread to his bladder) and they said there was nothing wrong with him. It had spread to his lungs and they were treating him for a chest infection. Even the day before he died they were called out to him and just said they thought there might be a problem with his liver and they would 'book him a scan'. He died the next morning and a post mortem revealed that what had started as stomach cancer had spread to other organs.

My mum didn't want to take any action at the time (and probably still wouldn't) but I called them to say that if we could help the other woman in any way by showing that they are repeatedly missing the signs then we would. I don't believe in taking compensation from the already cash strapped NHS but if this particular surgery are routinely making these huge mistakes then something needs to be done about it so I will help them if I can.

On the money saving front, I won't buy anything at the market so today will be just the spend for fish and chips. Dinner tonight will be the YS lasagne I picked up last night with fussy eater DH having a previously frozen YS chicken tikka.

I have boiled the potatoes I peeled 2 days ago and I'm going to freeze them for future roast dinners. They should be okay, shouldn't they, they have been standing in salted water?

Have a great day all!

Twiggy -thank you

Dawn - I think most little kids love water play. It's a lovely cheap activity as well.

FVD - I really sympathise. Last year my gran had a stroke in her care home. She was taken to hospital. They then called my mum at 5 am the following morning to say she'd died. My poor mother was then taken to a woman dead in a bed and told that was her mother. Mum was in shock and didn't realise it wasn't her mother. Old lady, sunken face, white hair you get the picture. At 3pm the hospital called back to say they'd got the wrong woman and gran wasn't dead. My mum went through hell with the guilt of not realising it wasn't her mother. Anyway long story short the hospital didn't accept any blame. We haven't had any compensation. The same hospital had the police called by an old man who had been left on the toilet for hours and had been ringing his bell and no one came. So he rang 999 on his mobile. It's disgusting the state of care for the elderly.

Bobarella wrote: »

It's disgusting the state of care for the elderly.

So sorry to hear that, Bob, your poor mum.

I do believe that on the whole the NHS do a fantastic job with ever dwindling resources, two teams of paramedics spent 2 hours working on my dad for instance, but other aspects of care are not so good.