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

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

You're a better driver than me Pastures. I have before now been so petrified of the road conditions that I've stopped, got out and told DH to drive. I hate sheer drops. Thankfully there aren't a lot of those in Hertfordshire.

I'd show it to you on google, but I had a look myself and the google car bottled it there .... they've come at the 25 yard stretch from both directions, then reversed away from it. The Google car's quite small too, so I'm surprised at that.

SingleSue

I have a sat nav...not for any directional purpose (I get a bit OCD about knowing where I am going before I set out and even go on street view so I know what the roads look like!) but for youngest. Before sat nav, he would get so stressed on unfamiliar roads that he would either try to climb out of the window, or throw up massively. Now, he quite happily sits with the sat nav on his lap listening to where we are going and can see the route all the way to the destination....certainly beats spending a fortune on umpteem local maps!

Youngest also does lego animations but has the same problem in finding something that looks ultra professional, what he does now is do hundreds of shots with his digital camera, uploads them to some kind of movie maker thing, edits and hey presto, a half decent animation.

Takes him weeks though to do even a 5 minute segment.....

PasturesNew

I would say, I never get myself into situations I can't get myself out of.... because there's nobody, ever, that can bail me out. I guess I figured the worse that could happen is it'd take me at most 20 minutes to reverse to somewhere safe enough to turn round; I could have reversed along the lane using my mirrors without hesitation, even with a sheer drop - in fact I think reversing, using mirrors, can be easier.

I can't turn to somebody else ever and say "OK, you take over now" ... on anything.

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

yes. I'd really like to buy a teenage boy. (LJ, thats a weird question.)

If you can get your hands on some twins, I'll go halves with you.

Doozergirl

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Dunno. At the moment I'm just being a typical male commitment-phobe. I think I do want to have kids eventually and obviously will buy a house again at some stage. However my current focus is on career and financial security rather than worrying about having children. It would mean a complete change of lifestyle and moving away from all our friends in the fairly near future in order to be somewhere where we could reasonably bring up children.

Basically I want to wait about 5 years but since she is about to turn 33 it is easy to see why that probably isnt going to happen. One of the most important things to try to sort out is that at the moment she expects to be able to take the kids to australia to see her family twice a year for two weeks at a time. So basically our whole life would be going to work, saving money and accruing holiday in order to fly to Australia twice a year.

I am not doing that...

Hagley

I'd agree with the ladies on everything they've nagged you about, but also the Australia thing. Aside from the whole financial thing, I wouldn't be particularly keen to endure that journey twice a year with a child. Financially, decisions like that get made for you anyway. Once you have made decisions on the house and children, whether you can afford the holidays too is already decided by your pay packet.

Doozergirl

We had a lovely day yesterday, just the four of us. Not having to sit our (well behaved) children still all day for people who don't have them and can't tolerate them, no eating tasteless, soggy food, no watching stuff on TV I don't want to see or pretending not to be bored. The children thought it was the best Christmas ever because they had their own space and got to play.

I made very slow roasted lamb with dauphinoise potatoes, spiced red cabbage and other bits. It was special for us and very well received,which makes me happy. We ate late, I like time to enjoy the children in the morning instead of cooking, not have H asleep all afternoon with a stuffed belly and I like the dark and a romantic table with candlelight.

Selfish but happy

michaels

I thought LIRs question might have been enoough to change the subject so congratulations on posting.

And of course I 100% agree with everything the ladies have advised...but would just add may be it is time to start leak testing the condoms in case of pin damage...

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Dunno. At the moment I'm just being a typical male commitment-phobe. I think I do want to have kids eventually and obviously will buy a house again at some stage. However my current focus is on career and financial security rather than worrying about having children. It would mean a complete change of lifestyle and moving away from all our friends in the fairly near future in order to be somewhere where we could reasonably bring up children.

Basically I want to wait about 5 years but since she is about to turn 33 it is easy to see why that probably isnt going to happen. One of the most important things to try to sort out is that at the moment she expects to be able to take the kids to australia to see her family twice a year for two weeks at a time. So basically our whole life would be going to work, saving money and accruing holiday in order to fly to Australia twice a year.

I am not doing that...

fc123

Happy Boxing Day NP's.

Sorry to read about your mum Tomterm. She should recover OK but they'll keep an eye and do checks to see if there is memory loss etc.
We have had them with my stepfather this year and it's been very difficult.

One of the bonuses about living back in London is being 10 mins away from everyone again so I am around if there is a problem. Some of my assorted parents (both are re-married) are nearly 80 now + fit but you never know what will crop up @ that age.........however I so miss being a 5 minute walk from the beach so envy you PN:)

+ to all the nice peeps who have lost loved ones this year and taken the time to write about it here..... you writing about it does help remind me not to be so self-absorbed and bogged down in my own day to day sometimes. My NY plan is to do more inviting over and popping in......it doesn't create too much hassle as if we are going to cook a dinner anyway, may as well invite one set over sometimes. All are a 10 minute journey away so there is no excuse for me to be more daughterly.

We had OH's crew around Xmas day for drinks/pressies/sundry foods etc (there is a lot of them) but I didn't do their dinner this year as they moved on to his sisters afterwards so it was nice and calm from 3 pm and just my dad ate with us.

Today was over at my sisters with loads of small children and all sets of parents......I won't list my culinary successes from this Xmas but am so pleased with myself this year I did 4 new things and all came out delish.
I will confess I just can't handle the drinking champagne in the daytime though so good job it's just 2 days a year.

fc123

silvercar wrote: »

The holiday was our silver wedding anniversary treat, so justified -ish.

Congrats on the silver anniversary....we have one on Feb 3rd and had been dithering about what to do....if anything.

We didn't do pressies for each other (though OH did cheat and got me my fave Cowshed body cream and I chose him a new novel during an Amazon shopping fest) and pulled back on a some on OH's side as we have paid for his mother to go to NZ in Jan for a month to see his sister and another new grandchild. The flight was seriously pricey compared to 3 years ago when we did it for her. Plus our big pressie to ourselves next year is the extension...... hopefully, if it all goes to plan.


Apart from our anniversary, my Dad will be 80 in April, DD will be 18 so we had a chat about it yesterday and we are going to do a joint 'do' with a hog roast in mid April at a local medieaval place. So there will be all ages there


Chewy....Babies? As Miss Kool said, there is never a right time to have them. I am kind if glad I never had to decide when to do it.....

1st came along when I was just 24 and we had absolutely nothing, just a van and an irregular income from our market stall. Fortunately, we got a grim council flat in a block which did us for the 1st 3 years and I sometimes wish we hadn't had such a big gap between the 2 (7 years) but we couldn't have planned it differently as I had a ruptured ectopic @ age 28 and was told I couldn't have anymore as the tube that was left was very damaged.

DD came along as a surprise when I was 31 but I found it far harder to cope and fit it (work and stuff) all in despite having a nice, if small, house, reasonable income and knowing what I was doing 2nd time around.

Talking about it now is a good idea but I do recall my dad saying something similar .....that it was kind of easier when the babies just turned up as contraception wasn't as efficient in the 60's so it partly took away the decision process.

neverdespairgirl

PasturesNew wrote: »

Proper dinner time varies, depending on how you were brought up/who you know.

To me, dinner's at dinner time.... middle of the day. Else, why do school have dinner ladies if it's not dinner? And 5-7pm meals are tea.

As far as I'm concerned, lunch is in the middle of the day, tea is either a hot drink / possibly a biscuit at about 4pm, or a children's meal at about 5 - 6pm. Dinner is about 8pm or later.

Christmas Dinner is an exception. It's the main meal of the day, and eaten starting at about 3pm or 4pm.