It was getting tough in 2006 and the workhouse still threatens us in 2011

redlady_1

mardatha wrote: »

I got glandular fever too, and then post-viral syndrome for 16 years. Then woke up one Thurs morning very tired and it never went away.Nevermind, soon we'll all be hitching up our knickers and getting started on xmas ...!

Hush your mouth woman!!!

"it's a new dawn, a new day, a new life for me...and I am feeling knackered! " Not sure the song quite went like that but hey ho. It is indeed a new day and I now have a plan and way forward. I wanted to pay for courses but for £1.1k per exam I thought better of it! So now I have a new plan and found a great site that should help.

Scottishminnie - I am liking your thinking!

Many thanks to all for your kind words. Time to pick myself up and get on the treadmill of life again. I think because I nearly didnt have a life I push myself to the limits. I live on Ibuprofen to try and keep my back in line. I know I will end up with osteoparosis (sp?) when I get older so until then I want to pack as much as I can in. To be honest the gym makes such a difference but sometimes it is difficult to cram it in these days. Not so sure this second career business at my age was the best move though! Still, I am alive and healthy, with a good family and my little cottage and for that am grateful.

Last night I made chocolate chip cookies and mince pies and so the OH is now happy. He went away this morning with armfuls of stuff!

I have lots of stuff to go to the CS and also loads to list on ebay.

GreyQueen

Thank you, lizzy, for your tip about how to handle the squash; I have copied-and-pasted it into Word so that I can get at it even when my interweb is off (4pm-2am). I feel that I want to hunker down and be as prepped for winter as possible.

It's not like I live in the back-of-beyond. I live in the centre of one of England's cities but people are soooooo pathetic if we get an inch of snow. One day t'other winter they took the buses away at 3 pm because there was an inch of snow and they were worried that they might get stuck. On a weekday. So, peeps who were in the outer suburbs or 8 miles out in a sort of satellite-town were very badly stranded and, if they couldn't call for a lift, had to take taxis home which is all you need to shell out for. The upshot it, I can easily see food deliveries into the city being disrupted on the grounds of general inability to drive in tiny amounts of snow.

Personally, I'd rather drive on packed snow than black ice, and have done quite a few times. What I do hate is that sudden moment when you hit black ice, lose all traction, and proceed down the road in a graceful waltz............:rotfl:

redlady, I'm glad that the office-trouts didn't rub your nose in the exam business. What shrivelled and miserable souls anyone must have to take pleasure in another's troubles. Rise above them like a helium balloon wafting above a stinking dungpile and off into the clear blue sky........(I am a visual person). If that doesn't work for you, may I recommend wine, chocolate and thumping the cushions whilst screaming with rage?

Ceridwen, I wouldn't fret about glandular fever (properly infectious mononucluosis) as well over 90% of us have antibodies in our bloodstream which reveal that we've been exposed to it. According to a lab in London to which The Famous Teaching Hospital sent my blood I also have "a mystery virus". They had been tasked with looking for Lyme Disease and neg for that but they found something else they couldn't recognise.

For a complicated set of circumstances which I won't disclose as too many real-world identifiers, I ended up in A & E last year. After the initial crisis had passed, I was feeling chipper and they didn't know what the heck to do with me so proceed to faddle around with a few more tests and decided to get me to lay flat (I'd been propped up on a couch) and take blood pressure, then get me to stand and take b.p. immediately afterwards.

:eek: I was watching the monitor with interest and the nurse nearly had a cow when the top reading plunged 50 points in one second. Funnily enough, I didn't feel the slightest bit dizzy, and I normally do when I stand up. By her reaction, I don't think that is supposed to happen.......;) She virtually begged me to lie down NOW!

Actually, because I have a very rare disorder, the medics are especially interested and I get v.good treatment from the NHS. Anyone other than my consultant does tend to treat me a bit like an unexploded bomb, tho!

Still, there is an old proverb which says that; "Many a creaking gate hangs long." I'm planning on cluttering up the planet long enough to collect my pension......probably around the middle of the twenty-first century at current rates.

Right, enough drivel for one morning. I am going to have more tea.

PS does anyone drive a Peugeot 107? It's what I shall be hiring in a fortnight. Any little foibles of this car which I should know about? The last Peugeot I drove was an elderly 406.

:j I'm gonna have a car, I'm gonna have a car (sings happily to herself, off-key as usual). OK, I'll only have it for a week, but I shall thoroughly enjoy it as can't afford my own. :j

ceridwen

GreyQueen

I'd sure miss your take on life if you werent here gal:rotfl::rotfl:....as a fellow/fellowess? "visual" - think helium balloon....more tuneless singing this time ("Up up and away in my beautiful my beautiful balloon....."). Better to be a "straightforward" <ahem> soul - than a "shrivelled and miserable soul"...

Your - very "unusual" medical ailments could at least give you the excuse to say "Everyone else thinks they are 'special' - I know I am" - as there arent many around with what you've got.:) Errrr...no...please dont share...I'd rather just settle for sharing a laugh..:)

jediteacher

I have a confession - I have already started my C*****mas shopping. Infact I started at the beginning of the year. We do celebrate it in a big way. Infact I have 2 C*****mas'. As I'm Polish we celebrate on Christmas Eve. We go down to my grandmothers and all my family are there. There are 16 of us now. The on Christmas Day we celebrate with my in-laws - they usually come to us and it is a much quieter affair. I love the whole time and am just as excited as I was when I was a child especially as I now have childen of my own.

What I do is pick things up in the sale or if someone wants something then I get it for them usually by using vouchers or discount codes. I have a 'stock pile' of presents to use for birthdays. My little girl has already been invited to four parties in September. The great thing is that non of the presents cost more than £5 but retail at much higher prices.

Well, this weekend is the my nieces birthday and we're off to a farm. OH is unhappy as he says it'll cost a lot of money which it would do. However, I have a money off voucher and we'll be bringing our own picnic. I recently had to have a word with my sister about her children's parties as we just cannot afford to go to them. The children are only 3 years old and 5 years old. The 3 year old has the farm visit but the 5 year old is having her birthday at the London Aquarium and the The London Eye - which we have to pay for ourselves! :eek: Even with money off vouchers this is still really expensive and she has no taken into account train and bus fares. I've had to say to her we just cannot keep doing these expensive parties. Last year she organised us all to go on a sight seeing tour and the Tower of London which we all had to pay for ourselves. What is wrong with just having a little party at home or hire a hall. I just think it is wrong to ask people to pay so much for a child's birthday party.

My daughter has never had a birthday party - she's 5 this year because I've always had to cancel either due to snow or she's been in hospital. This year I am hiring the village hall for the grand sum of £25 and doing my own catering. I will not expect people to pay for coming (although they will pay their own petrol cost;)) and she'll love it.

Maybe I'm just being a miserable moo.

Sorry rant over.

GreyQueen

Hello jedi, I don't think you're a miserable moo at all; sounds to me like you're a commonsensical Mum with her head screwed on right - and commonsense is one of the highest virtues on the GQ scale.

When I was a nipper (shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs, otherwise known as the early 1970s) a little kid's party was jam sarnies and squash, h.m. cake with sprinkles, jelly and ice-cream and around the birthday child's own home. There'd be Musical Chairs and various other OS-type games like Pass the Parcel. We had a riot.

Yup, no party bags, or trips out to play facilities, never mind to national-grade tourist facilities. I'm horrified at what some people I know (who don't have much money) spend on their kids' parties. One woman hired the municipal swimming pool out for her 10 y.o and their friends. Some rellies of mine, who are always struggling to pay the mortgage each month, and who are "just-folks", hired a pro childrens' entertainer, fer crying out loud.

:eek: Anyway, about 10 days ago, I walked thru a shop door was rocked back on my heels having come face-to-carton with boxes of C*ristm*s cr*ack*rs. Didn't like to mention it on the forum. And calenders and diaries, too. In blimming August.

I do like Xmas (esp the lights ) but I just cannot sustain the enthusiasm for a 4 month build-up to the event.

Have decided that after I'm back from my wee break in September I shall knuckle down and complete the Xmas preps so that I can lay on my sofa reading vampire novels and eating bon-bons whilst the less-foresightful are thrashing around the city centre in the cold and the rain.:rotfl: Gawd, anything not to be pummelled around in crowds.

redlady_1

:DSTOOOOOPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!! It is August! You can't mention that word yet! :eek::eek::eek::D

castleton

Two things:
1) My children had all sorts of parties when they were young ranging from parties at home to hiring a private swimming pool. We paid for it all each time and would not dream of asking others to fund themselves at a party we had decided on. If we could not afford it we did not do it.(Sorry I do not mean to sound harsh )
2) I love Xmas and start getting ready by buying things when I see them. I too then snuggle up in December lovely and warm inside and watch Christmas DVDs.

GreyQueen

redlady_1 wrote: »

:DSTOOOOOPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!! It is August! You can't mention that word yet! :eek::eek::eek::D

Wanna bet ?!

OK, I'll behave.:silenced:. Beggar it, the heavens have just opened and thrown down half a lake and I shall have to get off my rear end and go to w*rk before I'm very much older.

Hmm, where did I leave my waterwings and waders? Were they with my gimp suit under the bed........? wanders off absentmindedly.....

Hobsons_Choice

I HATE X**s. It was OK when the kids were small, but other than that...............
Maybe because I come from a broken home and that time of year was always a sad time in our house. Dad was struggling to bring me up and there wasn't much money left over for prezzies. (I'm going for the sympathy vote here) - or maybe it's just that I don't enjoy the (mostly false) jollity.
I'm probably just a miserable b*gger.
Nuff about X*as....can we get back to the joys of August please? There ARE some aren't there....aren't there?

jediteacher

GreyQueen wrote: »

Have decided that after I'm back from my wee break in September I shall knuckle down and complete the Xmas preps so that I can lay on my sofa reading vampire novels and eating bon-bons whilst the less-foresightful are thrashing around the city centre in the cold and the rain.:rotfl: Gawd, anything not to be pummelled around in crowds.

Another vampire book fan. :j The crowds and expense is why by December I will have finished all my shopping for the C word and that includes food which I have delivered!

redlady_1 wrote: »

:DSTOOOOOPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!! It is August! You can't mention that word yet! :eek::eek::eek::D

You wouldn't want to look at the specific thread on here that starts in January.

castleton wrote: »

Two things:
1) My children had all sorts of parties when they were young ranging from parties at home to hiring a private swimming pool. We paid for it all each time and would not dream of asking others to fund themselves at a party we had decided on. If we could not afford it we did not do it.(Sorry I do not mean to sound harsh ).

You do not sound harsh at all. I totally agree with you. To be honest I think it's quite rude of my sister to expect us all to pay out for the children's birthday parties - plus a present. I have worked it out that this year for my elder nieces birthday it would cost us £171.14:eek::eek::eek::eek: and that's with discounts.

I have told my sister that there is no way we are going as we just cannot afford it. I'm not even planning to spend that on my own daughters birthday party!

Well, need to pop out in a bit as we've run out of fruit again! My daughter eats it like it's going out of fashion. Shouldn't complain really as it's very good for you and rather she eats fruit than junk but it's just soooo expensive.