Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

PasturesNew

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

If you don't get any joy from her, I'm only too happy to help, just let me know.

Well, we've had a letter today saying telecoms are down until next week on her part of her island, so I'll see how it goes as she's got no Internet until then... so I'll ask her next week and see what she replies

£1million house and no phone, such peasants.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

£1million house and no phone, such peasants.

sounds heavenly!

PasturesNew

Oooh look, it's a "me fest" of postings.

I've spent the day betwixt several sites/tasks. I'm trying to build my new site, based on my old site's content - trouble is, that turns out to be a HUUUGE task as it all wants rewriting, double-checking and then re-structuring (menu wise). And I'm using the new default Wordpress template called Twenty Ten, which has some new features, one of which is how it handles menus - so adding the odd page here and there and trying to think 2-3 years ahead to how the site's structure that I set now will impede progress in the future (which is what happened from Day 1 of my existing site).

I also found myself wandering off to write two new hubs... as you do.

LydiaJ

lemonjelly wrote: »

My grandparents courted for a while. One friday, in the pub, some friend asked what they were doing the next day. My grandad said he was off to the football. My nan told him he was taking her shopping. He said "I always go to the football". She said "You are taking me shopping. If you don't, you'll never see me again".

He went to the football.

She didn't speak to him for 3 years!

I don't know how, but he got her back. They had 1 child. During the pregnancy, grandad was diagnosed with cancer. His treatment meant he'd never have another child (indeed, no-one ever expected him to survive, & everyone was amazed at how long he survived for - 52 years!) So my dad was an only child.

Sometimes, it is a miracle we ever came to exist...

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'm often thinking of this. My mum was an abandoned wife with one child of 7-8 when she moved into a house and got friendly with a neighbour. They used to go out and the neighbour's husband would babysit, so it probably wasn't that often.

One night they went out and, for whatever reason, they chose a pub, they chose a bar in that pub. On the same night, my father, who doesn't like pubs, also chose that bar and that pub.

If they'd not met that night, they might never have met.

If they'd not managed to get speaking, maybe if somebody else had spoken to mum first, or her friend hadn't liked the look of my dad and dragged her away .... and what if he'd never called her? She didn't have a phone, so he must have had to arrange to meet her again - and them both actually turn up.

It's all so random isn't it.

My grandparents had two girls and decided to stop at that - my grandfather didn't approve of large families. A few years later, he was reading a magazine and came across an article about how to increase your chances of getting a boy. They gave it a whirl... hence my dad.

Meanwhile, both my daughter and I are only here because a previous baby was miscarried in each case.

Very strange really.

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

£1million house and no phone, such peasants.

Bet you didn't dare say that to Osama bin Laden.

vivatifosi

lemonjelly wrote: »

I think this is a pretty amazing story. Deserves more coverage than it is getting imo:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13664629

Thank you so much jelly. I had no idea he was doing that and it is a truly inspirational read.

John_Pierpoint

michaels wrote: »

Edit: not sure if this has been discussed but it seemed extremely true http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/6950390/negotiating-with-the-british.thtml

My favourite of the replies:
You say (to an Irishman): How very Irish!
You mean: Eccentric, amusing....but quite clever.
We think: You supercilious, patronising racist !!!!!!!s!

tomterm8 wrote: »

RANT WARNING:

Am stressed... am pretty sure our sewer / drain pipe has collapsed. Is pitch fiber, apparently. We have multiple redundancy on the insurance... we have our own building insurance cover, and we have a separate cover with homeserve that covers the same thing (but which provides much more cover for blockages - and trust me, the private drain is very long, probably over 1000 meters to the road through other peoples land, so we thought we might need the extra coverage).

Turns out the home insurance cover doesn't actually cover pitch pipe... it's an exception on page 28 out of a 40+ page booklet. The home serve cover DOES include pitch pipes - which is lucky because we didn't know anything about them - but we are worried that they will try lawyer things (wear and tear etc) to get out of it.

We didn't even know we had pitched pipe sewer drains.

Waiting around for people to put a camera down it to see if, as we suspect, it is FUBAR.

Hoping we can make a temporary repair... the drains outside out land becomes someone Else's problem on 1 October when they do the private drain transfer.

BTW - anyone with NFU buildings insurance, check your drains are not pitch fibre pipe.

Pitch Fibre = Tar paper. Some wag in the States realised that underground cables wrapped in tar paper tended to last a long time and jumped to the conclusion that the centre of a toilet role soaked in enough creosote would last for ever - well I exaggerate a bit - but the British Authorities thought it was the answer to the maiden's prayer in the 1950/1960's before it was realised that PVC plastic piped with flexible joints laid ON TOP of pea shingle were the replacement for vitreous clay and salt glazed. I've got pitch fibre running down to my "chamber" but it is all mine, so all my responsibility.
Should not be more than a weekend's or so of hard graft when it collapses; as long as the local authority don't want to get their oar in and demand the whole thing is brought up to modern standards; by a 19 year old with a certificate of some sort.;

There is a thread running on here somewhere about the transfer to the sewage authority, complete with sniping from the Local Authorities, who know that a leaking/blocked sewer will still mean their switchboard going into melt down.

Personally running my own "sewage farm" for the last 45 years has saved me a packed in charges (Water meter in - 10% = sewage charges out). Makes watering the garden with fresh water very expensive when you are connected to the public sewer.

Relax I don't grow bean sprouts;)

silvercar wrote: »

Redesigned the kitchen this weekend. We used to eat at the kitchen island on bar stools, unless we were entertaining when we would eat in the dining room. The kitchen is L shaped and the "L" had been occupied by 2 small settees and a small TV. Now we have instead a dining table that we can eat at. Positioned it just in front of the patio doors, so we can eat looking out onto the garden. So much nicer to eat at a table.

Only problem is I am meeting resistance in moving the last settee. "They" seem to think that it would be nice to still be able to flop on the settee in the kitchen. I don't see why, given that there are other rooms with bigger TVs to flop in; but he is used to flopping in the kitchen, so I'm meeting resistance. There is the room for a small settee, but I'm not sure I want it - my plan was to get other rooms used more, but they think the kitchen being the hub of all activity, should have one.

In have the same problem but the other way round - our dining room table has been replaced by a table in the kitchen or a table squashed into the sitting room, so that a sofa can look through the patio doors for a view out over the hills [Looking that way one can enjoy a fantasy about being deep in the country not 25 miles from central London]. In my experience the woman is master of the nest and if the male wants to argue, he is likely to be relegated to the shed.:D

I will have to build on a conservatory, if I am to get the dining room back.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

When I was growing up most dogs had kennels in the garden, very few dogs were allowed inside houses. I wonder when/why that changed.

It changed when the kennels got turned into holiday accommodation for the grockles.

GDB2222

lostinrates wrote: »

My parents were set up by mutual ''friends'', who either weren't very nice people or really didn't know my parents well enough to meddle.:D

A friend of my kids got married about 3 or 4 years ago, and is now getting divorced. Unfortunately, there are now two children.

The thing is that, some time before he got married, he borrowed a computer from me, and when he returned it it was obvious that he'd got rather a keen interest in homosexual images. That's not too serious, as he was young, and maybe he was experimenting. But there were no female images at all. My wife and I counselled him to follow his natural inclinations and not feel that he ought to do the conventional thing, but he took advice from his priest (he is quite religious) and went ahead and married. Such a nice, decent guy, and such a disaster!

GDB2222

STing wrote: »

Sjay, the suggested trackers seem like good options and have low fees. The tracker will need to be held in a Stocks and Shares isa (a tax efficient wrapper), this can add to the costs.

Can anyone on here recommend an inexpensive S&S ISA wrapper?

M&G do that for free. You just apply for the ISA and specify the Index Tracker Fund. M&G don't charge any fees apart from the unit charges, so it's a bit of a bargain if you get the whole lot for 0.3%.

Here's a link to the application form for the ISA and key features, so you can double-check. http://www.mandg.co.uk/Consumer/Images/App-ISA-Consumer-KFDs_tcm1481-36235.pdf

I don't know whether Fidelity are the same, but probably.