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

katieowl_2

Gigervamp wrote: »

But an orange wasn't an everyday fruit in those days, hence why it was so special.

No they were really special. My gran had a friend when I was growing up, who if you did something good or nice, she would say "You shall have an orange for Christmas my dear!"

Kate

smileyt_2

Mardatha!

If you are getting bored with knitting socks, I have found the perfect something you can knit for your RV as a Christmas present! Here it is:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/santa-helmet

I know it's off-topic, but I was browsing ravelry and I couldn't resist posting it!

mardatha

If I start up in business now that could be my deposit for the house in Galway.
Erm.......................................right! :rotfl:

shegar

mardatha wrote: »

If I start up in business now that could be my deposit for the house in Galway.
Erm.......................................right! :rotfl:

Yea ok, but how you going to pay your high mortgage payments for the next 20 yr.!!??...................................:)

Rainy-Days

Well it's looking like George Soros is going to be right - the Euro will be disbanded and everyone will go back to their own currency. Thank goodness we didn't go into it. I know so many people who have said that when the Euro came into being everything costed so much more.

On a slightly different note, the world economy is going down the toilet again. Wonder what they are going to come up with this time to fix it!

bluebag

Rainy-Days wrote: »

Well it's looking like George Soros is going to be right - the Euro will be disbanded and everyone will go back to their own currency. Thank goodness we didn't go into it. I know so many people who have said that when the Euro came into being everything costed so much more.

On a slightly different note, the world economy is going down the toilet again. Wonder what they are going to come up with this time to fix it!

Two squares of brown paper, a bit of string, three owl feathers, some tree bark and dab of glue...... well! they've got no idea so it might as well be.

They don't even know the extent of the problem and no one knows for sure which bank owes/has default insurance on who and for how much.

This is the 'talent' that gets all the cracking bonuses while we get bubble wrap and b*g roll stashes.

Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

mardatha

I think some bubble wrap and a good stash of bogroll is a hell of a lot more use that that lot are! :D

bluebag

mardatha wrote: »

I think some bubble wrap and a good stash of bogroll is a hell of a lot more use that that lot are! :D

Yer got that right. Shame some of the girlies on here couldn't advise them on how to budget. Would have the place straiightened out in no time flat!

Mind you that would involve a balanced account, not something any government seems to like.

I have no doubt that the fix for this latest debacle will involve the tax payer again. Time to buckle up for a bumpy ride, not that it's smooth at the moment.

greenbee

My job involves helping people to make good commercial decisions. Time and again when speaking to government departments all over the world, my colleagues and I are amazed at the way waste that would be totally unacceptable in the business world (of whatever size) is considered ok (often because it's always been done like that...). However, it is reassuring to note that some of them are managing to make some fantastic savings by actually making the effort to understand what they are buying and why. They're not buying the stuff they don't need and are buying the stuff they do in better ways. Right now they are able to make massive savings with little effort or impact (well, it might take them some effort to do proper financial analysis seeing as they don't appear to have done it before). Those savings may not be repeatable but the waste should be gone for good. Let's hope more of them wake up and start behaving responsibly.

maryb

mardatha wrote: »

Me too, and its the history of Scotland and Ireland, god knows how they must've felt, knowing that they'd never see their family again.

But a lot of people only went as far as England so that they could go home each year. My grandfather was in the RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary) and after the treaty establishing the Irish Free State in 1921, the British government had to evacuate RIC men and their families. He was offered passage to any Commonwealth country or the US or the mainland, together with a gratuity. It would have been enough to set him up in Australia or Canada but my grandmother couldn't bear the idea of never seeing her family again so he chose England where he had to take a job as a night watchman to make ends meet. He managed to find the money to send his wife and my mother and her sister back to Ireland every summer until the War but he never went back himself, having had the IRA take a pot shot at him while he was on his way back from mass one Sunday. But they lived in east London where there was a large Irish community which helped to ease the homesickness