As The Workhouse Approaches....How To Do Everything To Avoid It, the Old Style Way

grandma247

GQ could you take ours please? We needed the rain but enough is enough. I want to share it.

cat_smith

mardatha wrote: »

Quite glad that I live in a house with no stairs.

Yeah. You don't have to hoover them either:p

How's your weather today? We've got downpours again.

GreyQueen

grandma247 wrote: »

GQ could you take ours please? We needed the rain but enough is enough. I want to share it.

If only I could, hun, you're tormenting me with all this talk of rainy weather. Cloudless blue sky AGAIN. Still, the Evil Bank Holiday Fairy may cause it to rain over the weekend, here's hoping it's on my patch and not yours this time.

modern_millie_2

Memory girl, I have an hour or two to spare today - should I mow the lawns or practice the Hollywood Walkdown? What a dilemma! I'm sitting here sniggering at the pooter - good thing I'm on my own.
I think the thing about having learned the skills we've got, however we have learned them, is that it makes us able to adapt to circumstances. For example, I was making a savoury oat slice and a sweet jam pastry thing (Bero book c. 1950) yesterday - got distracted and stirred the veg into the pastry mix. Moments panic, then realised there was nosugar in the mixture, so just added in the oats, cheese, herbs and eggs and cooked one very large....thing. Tasted fine, had it with salad and OH has taken some cold as packed lunch today. Can imagine though, if I'd been new to cooking or only ever followed a recipe to the letter, the whole lot might have been binned.
I was a grammar school girl too, but luckily we were allowed a mix of academic and practical - as long as we didn't want to do woodwork!-and the domestic science and needlework have been invaluable. Can't say I've ever made another pork pie though.

maryb

Funny thing is Sister Pauline (the nun who taught me how to make a very simple fashionable dress) was a real terror during term time who unpicked everyone's sewing. So much so that I never got as far as learning how to insert a placket into my obligatory dirndl skirt so she must have been quite surprised when at 16 I suddenly wanted to learn how to make a dress. I think she was probably quite glad herself not to have to do things by the book that half term when there were about three of us left behind to rattle round the school. I have very happy memories of that weekend and of wearing the dress afterwards, yet when I mention it most people think they have to feel sorry for the poor little orphan

Hippeechiq

***Rant Alert***

Please forgive me in advance, but I'm fuming.

I live next door to a family whose only form of conversing is by shouting at the top of their voices. If one is indoors and another outside, they just shout to hold their conversation. They argue constantly and call each other and their children, c**ts every other sentence - including the children, approx 9,11 & 17. The children also call their parents the same.

We recently had a rat problem caused by the state of their garden, only the council didn't get to see it because they sent out a letter forewarning of their intended visit giving them 5 days notice, during which time they frantically cleaned up/out all the rubbish....the only time I've seen them clear the garden in 6 years of living next to them.......so you have some idea of the kind of people they are.

Recently, they have bought a cat. Said cat, has now worked out how to get into our garden. Monday night it was in our garden, they were calling it, and it didn't respond, so they ripped an 18" square hole in the fence panel so that they could better call it and try to persuade it to come home!! The same panel that my OH had managed to repair following wind damage the previous day!

I was on the other side of the house at the time, so didn't know they were ripping this hole in the fence until I looked out of my bedroom window. I was incensed! And when I went into the garden and asked them what the hell they thought they were doing, they said "we want our cat". When I argued that their was no need to rip a bl00dy hole in the fence, I was told "we put this fence up long before you moved in. Our cat is in your garden and we want it back". I said "well why don't you knock on the bl00dy door and ask for it like any normal person?" They responded with, it was their effin fence so they could do what they wanted.

You can't reason with people like that. The husband has been charged with 3 counts of assault & battery against women (the most recent 18 months ago when he headbutted a barmaid) which gives you an indication of what I'm up against.

I have no problem arguing and standing my ground. but if I'm going to get beaten up for my trouble and still have a hole in the fence where they can gawp through, and still have the cat coming through at will, there is nothing to be gained from it.

Yesterday, the cat was using the hole in the fence to come through and attempt to c.rap in the garden, but so far I've always seen it and shooed it back into the neighbours.

The fence is very old and dilapidated, and we have repaired it over and over, even though it's not our fence, for the simple reason that they don't, because they couldn't care less whether or not there's a hole in the fence.
If we could, we would, but we can't afford to put up a fence of our own, so I'm now faced with the cat coming and going at will, and the kids gawping through the fence at will. They actually put their face through the fence last night to call it. I have 12' patio doors leading into my garden, which means when they do this, they can also look straight into my lounge.

We have no spare timber to repair the fence, and even if we had, they're so ignorant, they would just pull it off again to call the cat like they did Monday night.

We can't enjoy our garden in the summer. They scream and shout at each other, and the kids are exceptionally noisy but are never told to quieten down and respect the fact that they have neighbours that want to sit quietly in their gardens like mine were when they were young if ever they got too noisy. They have no respect for anything, people OR property.

It's bad enough having to live next door to them with some kind of privacy, but without

I can now neither sit in my lounge or be in my garden without them looking in as and when they feel like it....and they will

The thing is, I know there are much worse neighbours out there. I lived next to several when growing up as a child, which is why I promised myself I'd never live in a council house when I grew up, and I didn't. I worked hard and owned my own home, but life has a way of slapping you in the face, and a failed marriage and messy divorce has me back in council accommodation, so I'm loathe to complain about them, as I could end up with worse.

If I could just stop the cat coming into the garden, it would be something, because cat c.rap everywhere is going to be the last straw, and it will be no use complaining to the neighbour about it.

So does anyone know of an inexpensive, sure fire way of keeping the cat out at all?

maryb

Can you plant some holly in front of the hole in the fence? It grows really quickly and would stop the cat coming through there as well as stopping the neighbours shoving their stupid faces through

RAS

Buy a water pistol and shoot it every time it comes through the hole.

Also, consider a bit of green netyting from the pound shop to put up inside your garden over the hole?

Molly41

EstherH wrote: »

I had 'Domestic Science' lessons in the 70's and did it to CSE level which was the lower level than GCE O'level. I remember learning to do all the pastries and different cake making methods and for the CSE exam I think we had to make a meal.

Yes I planned and cooked a meal for my Gcse and remember making pineapple upside down for the pudding - its still my piece d'resistance !

smileyt_2

Could you put a bit of netting over the gap? Or fix some netting all round your flower/veg beds?

I don't know what you've got in your garden, but when I had cat problems in my yard, I covered the whole thing in plastic and cardboard. This broke the cat(s) of the habit of going to the toilet there and they cleared off. Of course, the yard was completely overgrown then so this is not an option if you have a nice garden.

The best thing is to try and stop it getting into the habit of using your garden in the first place, so it might be worth investing in some deterrent stuff you can buy in garden centres or diy stores (or maybe some supermarkets?) to put it off using your garden before it develops the habit.

A large water pistol to shoot at it every time you see it? A motion activated sprinkler?

Poor you, having such horrible neighbours. You should keep a diary (no-one need know) and then if things get worse you have some evidence.