Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

silvercar

I'm

hoping the whole DS changing name thing will blow over. For now I'm sticking to what I said last night - that I'm not altogether ruling it out but I'm not going to let him do it in a hurry.

Just remembered, the one time that a relative who had lost his father at a young age said he felt really glad to have kept his name, was when he had kids of his own.

Davesnave

Children cope with other children's name changes OK.

One morning a parent dropped in and announced, "In view of his family's Polish heritage, from today, my son wishes to be known as Olek."

I was somewhat taken aback, as I'd no knowledge of a Polish connection, but I just nodded and replied along the lines of, "Fine, but he may have to accept that some children will forget and call him Alex for a while."

I needn't have worried. By the end of the school day, Alex was Olek, and by the end of the week, we'd more or less forgotten he was ever anything else.

Davesnave

I have just reminded myself of another not-so-successful name change involving a girl of North African descent. Her father had chosen the name 'Margaret Jones,' thanks to of an alleged family connection and, "....because the other children will not be able to say her proper first name."

Dad was wrong. As soon as Margaret told someone, they started using her real first name, which she preferred. Nobody cared about the Jones bit.

As for 'Mr Jones,' he is still in business under another name of convenience, cobbled together from a place name in the locality. In his case, the traditional English-sounding name seems to have worked pretty well.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

Looking at NDG's bed.... didn't expect that.

Looking at the "before" pics, it's my dream to live in a place as posh and everything as the before pics

I am still in awe of this place I am in at the moment ... and it's nowhere near as nice as NDG's before. Shower here's !!!! though.... if I owned this place that'd have to come out in a few years as it's a dribbler not a waker-upper.

Nothing posh about the "before" bits, honest. The kitchen and bathrooms were 20 years old, and cheap to start with. The tiles leaked. The floors were squeaky in the good bits and spongy in the bad. The walls looked as if they'd been plastered by me. the downstairs hall was tiled with cracked and scratched concrete slabs.

Road_Hog

Generali wrote: »

I've never been to the US

You have to go, It's a great place. I love the open spaces. I've been to America four times separately (once was a business trip/customer incentive trip) and twice more on trip to Canada where I've crossed over the border and had a couple of days in America.

The cities like LA and NY are what you'd expect, but in the sticks people are great. Detroit, if you've never been there you just can't understand the place, but, WOW. Chicago is cold, Florida Keys is nice ans Seattle is just different.

My abiding memory of the last time I went was the hire car woman at the desk. I'd bought all the options/upgrades (when you book a hire car it comes with nothing, so your cheap hire car costs you a fortune when you finally pick it up) before we'd flown out.

The woman hands me the keys to the car and paperwork (I'd booked a run of the mill soft top car) and then says, if the boot isn't big enough for your luggage, you can come back and get a Mustang for an extra £5 a day (2007, £1=$2), she actually said in in Pounds not Dollars.

!!!! me, I was almost out the door, but managed to swivel an about turn and thrust my credit card in her face as I started dribbling at the thought of a Mustang.

Generali

Road_Hog wrote: »

You have to go, It's a great place. I love the open spaces. I've been to America four times separately (once was a business trip/customer incentive trip) and twice more on trip to Canada where I've crossed over the border and had a couple of days in America.

The cities like LA and NY are what you'd expect, but in the sticks people are great. Detroit, if you've never been there you just can't understand the place, but, WOW. Chicago is cold, Florida Keys is nice ans Seattle is just different.

My abiding memory of the last time I went was the hire car woman at the desk. I'd bought all the options/upgrades (when you book a hire car it comes with nothing, so your cheap hire car costs you a fortune when you finally pick it up) before we'd flown out.

The woman hands me the keys to the car and paperwork (I'd booked a run of the mill soft top car) and then says, if the boot isn't big enough for your luggage, you can come back and get a Mustang for an extra £5 a day (2007, £1=$2), she actually said in in Pounds not Dollars.

!!!! me, I was almost out the door, but managed to swivel an about turn and thrust my credit card in her face as I started dribbling at the thought of a Mustang.

I'd love to go and I want to stay there for a year or 2. As I have no desire to work in the US it'll have to wait for a while. I want to cycle across the country.

Generali

It is absolutely chucking it down. I ran 300m to the pub and I'm so wet my shirt is see through. And I'm not wearing a bra.

Thankfully Mrs G picked me up.

Sydney gets twice as much rain as London.

PasturesNew

Generali wrote: »

It is absolutely chucking it down. I ran 300m to the pub and I'm so wet my shirt is see through. And I'm not wearing a bra.

But at least your drinks were bought for you until your shirt dried out.

Generali wrote: »

Sydney gets twice as much rain as London.

I didn't know that it was wet there.

Where I am it's warmer than most of the UK .... and that sounds great at first, until you discover that it's a lot, lot wetter. Instead of getting ice/snow it's rain for starters. And the wind ...., never-ending wind. Wind problems are what all the locals talk about, that it's lovely here except the wind. It's always windy.... and the wind makes things less enjoyable as you're buffetted. You can't dress for the wind. I hate it.

I want somewhere warm and dry and windless.

Davesnave

PasturesNew wrote: »

Where I am it's warmer than most of the UK .... and that sounds great at first, until you discover that it's a lot, lot wetter. ....... And the wind ...., never-ending wind. Wind problems are what all the locals talk about, that it's lovely here except the wind. It's always windy.... and the wind makes things less enjoyable as you're buffetted. You can't dress for the wind. I hate it.

I want somewhere warm and dry and windless.

You're coastal, so you can't have windless, as the tides and the wind will always be linked. South coast would be less windy though.

It has been more windy in the last 5 or 6 years, and 2011 was particularly bad, I think, so maybe you are remembering that. The somewhat exposed nature of this place is one of the things I don't like about it, but on winter days we have whatever light there is, so that's the up-side compared with living in a valley and/or the shelter of trees. There are houses near here that don't see direct sun for about 4 months of the year.....horrible.

On the coast, you also know that the weather forecast relates to you, even if it's wrong. Here, I can have the forecasts for Exeter, Barnstaple, Plymouth etc, but although they pretend, there's no real forecast or measurements for people in the middle, between Exmoor & Dartmoor. We often escape what the coastal & moorland folk get, but there's no official way of telling. Perhaps someone doesn't want that to be generally known; after all, we almost escape the annual grockle plague as well! :rotfl:

Generali

PasturesNew wrote: »

But at least your drinks were bought for you until your shirt dried out.

Nah. I got laughed at a lot though:D

PasturesNew wrote: »

I didn't know that it was wet there.

Where I am it's warmer than most of the UK .... and that sounds great at first, until you discover that it's a lot, lot wetter. Instead of getting ice/snow it's rain for starters. And the wind ...., never-ending wind. Wind problems are what all the locals talk about, that it's lovely here except the wind. It's always windy.... and the wind makes things less enjoyable as you're buffetted. You can't dress for the wind. I hate it.

I want somewhere warm and dry and windless.

It doesn't rain all that much but when it rains it rains.

You should live no the Nullabor Plain. Its hot in the winter and bloody boiling in the summer. It rains about once a fortnight and AFAIK it's pretty wind free.