A new 'tougher' thread... and so it continues

Byatt

kidcat wrote: »

Byatt - I am hearing this more and more from families who have an autistic child. The group we are involved with had a query last week and as a result we now have six other cases of older teenagers who are struggling to leave the house due to anxiety. Its very worrying, it is good to hear though that you have been able to access help for her.

I'm sorry to hear so many are anxious. DD is on a mild anti anxiety med which also helps her seizures. She never used to be so anxious, quite the opposite, and it would be nice if there was happy medium. It's really hard to see it in your child though, even when they are adults. Auty's have so much to cope with however, the world is so uncertain that it's understandable anxiety arises.

SpikyHedgehog

When elder son & I lived on our own, millions of slugs came through the back door, but over it, not under it - I went down 1 night & screamed like a teenage girl in a horror film, there were so many round the door. I did pour a whole bag of salt down...

mcculloch29

Went down to see the Torch on Sunday and was so glad that I did, I found a place to stand with very few problems.
We have very wide pavements and grass verges in my town so there was plenty of space for people lining the route.
I was prepared to ride down the route and on to the local Trading Estate, away from residential areas if need be, but arriving 30 minutes before the start I found a spot for my trike quite easily, alongside 2 mobility scooters.

It was highly commercialised, I now own a C*ca-C*la hand drum and could have had a S*msung 'waver'. However it was good fun, great atmosphere, and I'm glad I saw it, though a silly man walking parallel to the lady in a wheelchair carrying the torch and blocking her rather spoiled what would have been a good photo. I did get quite a good rear-view shot though.
I also threatened physical violence on the chavs who strolled along two minutes before the torch was due and threatened to block my view...:rotfl::rotfl: They moved. :rotfl:

paidinchickens

Morning

Woke up this morning and remembered we were having de identified muesli can't remember the last time we bought it due to cut backs.

Little pleasures

PIC x

Byatt

Good morning!

This item from AF is really lovely, a cereal bar if you happen to be ordering. http://www.approvedfood.co.uk/?pid=46295

(although de-identified they are A$da I believe)

I'm off to see my job coach, at the job centre who is a very nice woman, but not sure I can be helped, other than trying to be self employed, well I am self employed but it's not exactly a money maker, sad to say, so need to up my game.

Weather seems good so far, I don't usually function in the morning as it takes a while to get me going, I need a bump start!

Car loaded yesterday with stuff for the tip, from the garden. I'm decluttering big time!

mardatha

Bupster thanks for your input, very interesting. Not nice reading, but interesting! And what this thread is all about really. The fight back begins here ... learning to live on less as our grannies did, they managed on far less money than we have. I had some years of horrible struggle, really bad. OH worked in the docks in the 70s and they were always on strike. And you didnt get any money for a strike. I can remember we got £11 a week from the SS. And one strike lasted 5 bloody months. Put me off unions for life
But we lived, we coped, we stayed strong and we stayed together. So when you have come through that once, you know you can do it again. And you want to help other people going through the same. Hence this thread eh!
:T:T:T kick a$$ us!

prepareathome

Morning all, well its sunny out there again, maybe today I might just get out to check my vegetable beds - so far no slug damage in back.

This year I started using the blue slug pellets ( organic, safe for children, pets and wildlife but expensive from greenfingers - cannot find anywhere else selling them cheaper) way back in March as soon as I put anything out and have kept it up since - this is the back of course, side garden beds only dug in April and nothing put in them till May including the pellets. Snag is I noticed yesterday am on my last bottle of the pellets, just hadn't checked so hope they will do till can order more.

Last four or five between the heavy rain and the slugs I ended up harvesting zilch, what the slugs didn't eat the constant downpours caused to rot so the fact this year I am now eating my own home grown lettuce is wonderful. They ate every flower I had as well.

No sign of any tomatoes yet, and only one strawberry plant so far has 4 green strawberry's on it, but others are in flower ( we usually get strawberries around August here).

I cannot get over the lack of slugs - usually with all this rain they are everywhere but not seen many at all, they must have moved to where you all live.:rotfl:

I think we have not had the right weather for them, they usually flourish when it wet but warm but so far when its wet its cold and when its warm its dry.

I was supposed to be going to a Jubilee tea with WI today but I wasn't sure I would make it and as I knew there were some others who wanted to go but had not managed to get tickets ( £11 each) I thought best to cancel yesterday, its one thing when I end up paying for something I don't get to but wouldn't want anyone missing out when they could take my place, so this time for a change I will actually get my money back as ticket has been sold on to another member. Its another group was doing it to raise funds for charity, they have hired a hall in a stately home for the function so would have been so nice to see round it........

ah well my aim today is to get out to the side garden and check those vegetable plants, if I achieve that I will feel I have done well.

GreyQueen

bupster wrote: »

This is another really good piece on in-work poverty among white collar professionals:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/18/hidden-poor-years-without-pay-rises

Grim, isn't it? My workplace has people are going to work with holes in their shoes in the rain and wearing other people's cast-off clothing, and these are professional types. Running out of salary 3 weeks into the month is the norm not the exception. I wouldn't describe myself as a professional. I have a degree but not one I can use in my job; I work in a call centre like a lot of graduates who were [STRIKE]stupid [/STRIKE] have brains which incline them to excel in the arts and be rubbish at hard science/ mathematics etc and other things which command a premium salary.

Mind you, I know computer whizzes so accomplished that their employers headhunted them from t'other side of the planet and they still struggle to fund a very modest life. It's a crazy world where years of study and effort to have a "career" sees you operating at about the same net income level as someone who is out of work. I think this is the reason why the Daily Wail et al finds a ready audience for benefit-bashing articles. Lots of people I know are so disheartened with the constant struggle that they feel like throwing in the towel and going to bum around on a beach in south east Asia for a year or two.

Never mind, worse things happen at sea.

My day started with an early-morning phone-call from SuperGran to tell me about the drama on her side of the Towers. Shoebox Towers isn't a single structure, but a group of them, and her side and my side have a different electricity supply. So, whilst I was pootling around up here last night, and then ironing for 15 mins, I had no idea that SG and her neighbours were without power and the streetlights were all out across there. Their power was down from 8 pm-5 am and she's mopping her kitchen floor from the puddle where the fridge defrosted and having to sling some meat from the icebox which defrosted. I wish I'd known as I'm sure I could have squeezed a pack or two into my mini freezer to save her the waste.:(

SG is a trooper, though. She's nursed overseas for the Red Cross in combat zones as a volunteer on top of her NHS career, so she'd seen stuff I can barely imagine, which contributes to her backbone of steel. She was very annoyed with another of her neighbours, that blasted junkie woman, who was whining that she wanted a cup of tea and the power was out, as if someone had done it with the express intent of inconveniencing her.

Junkies often make me want to smack them; the world revolves around them and their petty little wants and they have no thought of anyone else. Those leccy engineers were on site for 9 hours digging up the road to get our power back on as fast as they could. They particularly needed to get the traffic lights working before rush hour here in the city centre........... I bet they'd've rather been at home in a warm bed at the time.

Ho-kay, time for some more tea. I have breadflour and yeast, and more tinned tommies that you can shake a stick at. It's all good. However, what I need is a LASAGNE RECIPE.

Ladies, can anyone tell a rookie who's never cooked a lasagne a nice idiot-proof recipe? Carnivourous, please, and I have dried lasagne sheets which I bought at 15p a pack as part of the Stockpile and really ought to use.

Have a good day, ladies. GQ x

Bobbykins

GQ - Re Lasagne -need to establish your "skill" level first:-
Can you make spag bol? Can you make white sauce?
If so, you are sorted!

1 layer spag bol sauce
1 layer lasagne sheets
1 layer white sauce
repeat, repeat, end with a layer of white sauce, top with grated cheese, whack in oven for about 45 mins and scoff!

GreyQueen

Bobbykins wrote: »

GQ - Re Lasagne -need to establish your "skill" level first:-
Can you make spag bol? Can you make white sauce?
If so, you are sorted!

I can make spag bol. I'm sure I could make a white sauce if someone told me how. I think it's quite amazing that I'm heading towards 50 and have never made a sauce, but there you go.:o:p I can stir things, I've been told..................:rotfl: