Nice people thread part 5 - nicely does it

LydiaJ

lostinrates wrote: »

I've lost all mine too. A Few years ago now. The thing is of course, mine were old enough to be great gaprand parents really, because my parents were older. Grandparents can be so terribly important in families. I already know if i had a child my mothers relationship with it would be, for exame, different to her relationship with her granddaughters who are now, young women. . When i wasa kid and people talked about the things they did with grandparents i felt keenly aware those were things my own parents had barely enough energy to do. All my paternal grandparents...to whom i was closer, did, was have a cup of tea and cake. Going over the road for lunch at the pub was a huge effort. My maternal family were more energetic, but then.....the devil makes work for idle hands, and chances were they new the devil rather well:p. Fwiw, i also knew and was taught to waltz by my my great, great, great (i think) uncle when i was about eight opr nine and he was 104 or five. He lived a bit longer too. He outlived four children and was cared for by two of his, who had outlived their spuses and in one case their children too.

My family have the generations pretty spread out too. When I was born, my grandmothers were 74 and 83 and both my grandfathers were already dead. Both LNE and I had lost all our grandparents by the time we got married, when I was 22 and he was 21.

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

My family have the generations pretty spread out too. When I was born, my grandmothers were 74 and 83 and both my grandfathers were already dead. Both LNE and I had lost all our grandparents by the time we got married, when I was 22 and he was 21.

Your children are very lucky to have your wonderful dad in their lives. . As i think you must be, the number of times my sister turned to family for help and advice from things like teething and potty training through things like bullying and school choice.....having someone who loves you and can balance your needs as their baby alongside needs of grandbabies is invalable i think. Even if you disregard their advice!

Conservatory
Ooks amazing lydia. Atm aldi have some inexpensive citrus plants that might thrive in there.....lemons, kumquats. They have calamondins...which i don't see the point of and also a tuscan citrus fruit...someone here will know the word i have forgotten..famous marmaladey itlaian soft drink...like bitter orange....

lostinrates

I am really excited about making the gnocchi fritti now....i am having to resist the urge to get kneading my dough now...it would be too early. I have got out a very italian white heavy lace table cloth for the table and bought some grown up fizzy drink...schloer or whatever its called, because we are on the wagon atm.

I think i might make a lemon soufflee too!

LydiaJ

lostinrates wrote: »

Your children are very lucky to have your wonderful dad in their lives. . As i think you must be, the number of times my sister turned to family for help and advice from things like teething and potty training through things like bullying and school choice.....having someone who loves you and can balance your needs as their baby alongside needs of grandbabies is invalable i think. Even if you disregard their advice!

Conservatory
Ooks amazing lydia. Atm aldi have some inexpensive citrus plants that might thrive in there.....lemons, kumquats. They have calamondins...which i don't see the point of and also a tuscan citrus fruit...someone here will know the word i have forgotten..famous marmaladey itlaian soft drink...like bitter orange....

Yes, my dad is wonderful. I am a bit worried about him ATM. Did I mention he had a fall recently? They now think he may have cracked his skull and will be doing a scan some time soon. Although apparently they think even if he has cracked it, it's only a little crack and not very threatening. He certainly seemed to make a very good recovery from the concussion at the time.

Glad you like the conservatory. You are the only NP that knows what a tip it was before I emptied it!

About plants... I'm terribly ignorant about them. I like plants that are difficult to kill even if I periodically forget to look after them for a bit, and that are either interesting colours or nice scents, or preferably both. Could you post some links to pics of suggestions, please? (Not just lir, but anyone, natch.)

lostinrates

Geraniums...or as davesnave will come a long soon and say correctly...pelagoniums. Easy, easy easy. Cheap from garden centres as summer bedding, but they make great house plants inwinter, and can go out in summer. You can forget to water them for weeks.

i really really like scented leaf geraniums, but they are ime a little less tolerant. I would get some pelagoniums, see if you get in the habit and if you do get a few scented leaf ones. Better still, i plan to buy some scented ones this year and if i do i will take cuttings...also easy...and share them with you.

lostinrates

Also some ordinary pelagoniums, as opposed to scented leaf ones, also have superb scent. More usually the red ones i find. They smell like a non sickly version of turkish delight....



This is a picture of my most ordinary ones...coral pink, nice bright green leafs. I have ones with spiky coral red flowers and dark leafs, a huge red one which smells like heaven, and ones with almost yellowy green leaves and......


They really are tremendous liy forgiving, and because they are so easy ro reproduce could form a good biology lesson for the kids too!

silvercar

My grandfather's dad married my grandmother's aunt.

It was his second wife and not the mother of my grandfather, so no in-breeding.

Then the great grandfather died leaving the second wife with 5 children. Stories diverge at this point. My lot understood that the second wife was horrible to the GGF's first brood and so they all left home and had no more to do with the 2W, the other lot think that the eldest of the first brood moved in with 2W+5 to provide moral and financial support. We only found out these differing recollections in the last year and as all my grandparents have since died, we'll never know.

I lost my first grandparent when I was 4 and the last when I was 36. I missed out on having any great grandparents by only a year. My children had 3 great grandparents, the last one died when my eldest was nearly 10.

vivatifosi

Doozergirl wrote: »

Just finished Rules of Civility by Amor Towles though. Good book. Trying not to fall asleep now, it's a bit early, sigh.

Is that one of the reading group books? I know I've seen it lately and not sure if it was one of the reading group selection or whether it just came in at the same time.

Incidentally, the two books that people are going absolutely mad over from the collection are The Sisters Brothers and Girl Reading. I hope you enjoy those as well. Hope you're sleeping better with no more weird dreams too!

silvercar

I seem to remember that a couple of you know Bristol well.

Coming from the M4 west (severn bridge) I need to get to Bristol University before 10am on a week day morning.

3 options:

1. M4, M49, A4

2. M4, M5, A4018

3. M4, M32

The difference between them is only a mile or so, but I'm guessing that Bristol city centre traffic is the deciding factor. Anyone help?

silvercar

vivatifosi wrote: »

Is that one of the reading group books? I know I've seen it lately and not sure if it was one of the reading group selection or whether it just came in at the same time.

I just read "The empty nesters by Nina Bell, good book but I was really annoyed. I thought there were about 50 pages left and planned on finishing the book when I had an hour caught out with nothing to fill the time. I actually only had 5 pages left and the remaining pages were filled with "points for discussion in a reading group" and the first chapter of another book by the same author.