'supporting each other through really tough times'

2tonsils

Crikey the weather sounds scary over there...glad you were all pre warned and ready for it. I don't like the sound of the pink/red sky in the morning that doesn't sound good either. Stay warm and safe everyone.

We seem to be in a weather pattern still, three or four days of horrendous storms then eight days with sunshine and blue sky. We are currently on the blue sky bit and it was 28 degrees in town. That is not normal for this time of year.

Went to pick up my weekly basics shopping and decided to get a few luxury bits and pieces while they were on offer. I checked all the labels for gluten....they put it in the strangest things! I guess its used as a cheap filler in most foods.

A Greek lady pushed in front of me in the queue and when I asked what she was doing she said she should go first as she only had bananas.....so I pointed out the three carrier bags stuffed full on her arm and made her get into the queue behind me. As I got to the front a very polite Nigerian guy asked if he could go in front of me as he only had two items....and it was only two items so I said yes and he beamed a smile at me and thanked me. But the rest of the queue were muttering at me and tutting LOL.... but in my eyes there is a huge difference between being crafty and jumping the queue or asking nicely and being genuine.

The lady in front of me had a pack of 16 toilet rolls (obviously a prepper lol) but when the till rang up 3 euros she protested and took them back to the shelf.......she put them down under a 1.99 price ticket for a couple of minutes then brought them back to the till and was horrified they were still 3 euros LOL....nice try, but if that worked we would all be doing it. My OH was laughing his head off....

I was horrified to find I had lost my last twenty euros (that lasts through the week) when I put my purse back in my bag...but then my OH told me that he had picked it up from the car floor when I got out of the car and had put it in the ashtray for me (neither of us smoke)...... I was So relieved!

Just cooked a joint of pork I got for 7 euros at the local butchers and it smells lovely. I will cut it into portions later. I asked the butcher to weigh me a small rabbit and he wanted 14.99 euros!!!!!!!! I told him he could keep it at that price, its dearer than fillet steak ......... They are only 7 euros at the freezer shop!

I treated myself to an orchid plant at Lidl.....I love them.....only 7 euros and it looks like a stalk of bamboo with white orchid flowers all growing from the stalk and it has another flower spike starting at the bottom of the plant. I love orchids and bonsai...they are sensitive and temperamental like me LOL

Off to a birthday party tonight and they have a singer on who sings Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin type songs.....looking forward to it. I have no idea if there will be any food on but will eat dinner before I go anyway, just in case there is food and its all sandwiches and pies which I cannot indulge in anyway. I will be drinking soda water with a slice of lemon as diet coke has started making me feel iffy.

VJsmum

So there I was, in foreign parts, reading about terrible weather here - floods and storms (which I believe as there are parts of my town flooded as I've never seen them before) but I fly over the south east coast and across to the midlands in the clearest skies i have seen in many a year.

T'was magical, like a lit up map. if anyone has been to Disneyland then you'll understand as flying over London was like being on the Peter Pan ride. i could almost pick out my dad#s house - certainly could see the "clump" of streets that it is in, saw the 02 and, I think the Olympic stadium, Milton keynes with it's roundabouts. Uhmayzing.

So what do we get today? Clouds, dankness, rain and wind.

Hmmph

fuddle

Red sky at night, shepherds delight, red sky at morn, shepherds warn.

The wind is so bad. I've walked up the hill from work (protecting my precious - a plate of shepherds pie ) and it was frightening. It's took hold even more so these last 20 minutes. It's going to be really worrisome on the school walk. No rain though.

Good news - DH sold our tent and camping stuff for £80 monnagran x

Bad news - I'm waddling. My back really has given way now. I don't know what to do.

Even more bad news - That run in I had yesterday? I was eyeballed by her at school this morning. The stubborn me eyeballed her right back and shook my head at her silliness. The scared me is twitchy and worried now that I've brought a whole load of worry to my door. Thank goodness I'm moving and I will never, ever stand up for any body again.

D&DD

*waves at MrsL* yep seems ok now thanks a bit glitchy but at least I can focus most of the time now...enough to shop yippee!! :j

Amazon's sale can be such a timewaster..I really must do some cleaning
:rotfl:

PipneyJane

I can't read fast enough to catch up!

Lisakay - so sorry for your loss. Grief will hit at odd moments for a long time to come, so don't be hard on yourself/OH when that happens.

Fuddle - congratulations on the house, the credit check and the girls' new school. My first thought when you talked about walking them to school 1.8 miles away was "bicycles". Would cycling be a possibility? Don't know if the girls already have bikes or helmets but keep an eye on Freecycle, Ebay and some charity shops after Christmas - the manager of our local Oxfam told me that January is a very good time to pick up sporting goods as people clear out their wardrobes/cupboards/garages in a fit of New Year's Resolutions. (I was admiring ice-skates at the time. Sadly, two sizes to small for me.)

Katie Glad you didn't break your hip. And good on you for getting it checked out. A friend's mum slipped in a well known restaurant, landed badly on her hip and walked around on it for two days before discovering she'd broken it. She was a very young and fit 48, so it can happen at any age.

Everyone-else Hugs to you.

Molly41 wrote: »

So sorry you felt stressed and poorly but with my nurses cap on - you do know that you should never take more than 2 paracetamol every 4 hours and no more than 8 in any 24 hour period. Paracetamol for adults come in 500mg so only 1 g. Sorry to be pedantic but paracetamol appears so innocuous but is very dangerous if taken over the limit. Even odd doses here and there add up as the liver finds it very hard to process.

Well said, Molly. Can I borrow your nurses cap, please? (I'm an nurse by trade, accountant by profession.) People abuse paracetamol and aspirin, thinking that because they are readily available, they are harmless. They are not! Both will kill. As you said, it doesn't take much paracetamol to damage the liver. An overdose of 15g can cause serious, permanent liver damage. And if you know someone who does it deliberately, in a suicide attempt, there is a very short window (hours) in which an antidote will work. I looked it up when I was a student nurse (back in the 1980's). A teenage boy attempted suicide by paracetamol, got taken to a neighbouring hospital by family/friends then discharged himself from Casualty before they'd given him the antidote, saying he felt fine. A few days later, he was readmitted with liver failure and died. There was an inquiry because the hospital hadn't given him the antidote immediately upon admission and hadn't prevented him leaving before it could be administered.

NEVER EVER TAKE LEMSIP AND THEN TAKE PARACETAMOL. Lemsip contains paracetamol.

While paracetamol damages the liver, long term, high dose, use of aspirin damages the kidneys. In the 1950's and 1960's, there were wards full of women who'd wiped out their kidneys with their Beecham powders habit.:eek:

OK, I'll stop ranting now.

I've resolved to end my posts with some good news, instead of bad, so can I share something nice? Well, better than expected, anyway. My little car (aka "The Toy") has had starter motor problems since the summer. When I got him serviced in September, I told the mechanic that he was getting slow to start and was advised to wait until it got really bad, once winter started, and then get a new starter motor fitted: "No point doing it now. Might not get worse for months. Might as well save your money until then." (This is a local garage not a dealership.) On Monday morning, I switched on the engine and all Toy could manage was a single, asthmatic wheeze. Waited a few seconds and tried again: the coil light for the glow plugs came on followed by a bit more wheezing. On the third attempt, he started. (Toy is a diesel. Once the fuel is warm enough to ignite, he'll run forever. I bought him new, 12 years and 263,000 miles ago.)

I drove into work, phoned the garage and booked him in for his new starter motor, which was done yesterday. He also got two new tyres (they needed replacing) and a set of new wipers (the old ones squeaked even in yesterday's heavy downpour). The last time he had his starter motor replaced, 6 years ago, was back when I regularly him to a dealership for servicing and repars so I was expecting a bill for at least £600 plus the cost of the tyres (say £750 in total). I was pleasantly surprised when I got the bill last night - £287.17 for everything, including VAT.

My bank balance was much relieved.

GreyQueen

Glad The Toy (love the nickname) is mended and the wallet didn't take too much of a hit.

My parents' drive a diesel and it had it's major service a few weeks ago and it cost much less than expected. SuperGran has also reported a car repair being very much less than feared.

I suspect that garages are having to compete for the trade as so many of us are counting the pennies. If you feel ripped off, you're likely to shop around next time. If you are ripped off, you may be hastened into the corner where you have to decide to give up the car.

I know a fair few people (all working people) who are hanging onto car ownership by the skin of their teeth, as bills for everything rise so much faster than their incomes.

I'm cooling my heels between tradesmen at the moment; second one of the day just left and prolly a third incoming but whether that is in a minute or an hour, I have no clue.

Was laughing to my family on the phone last night about the time they had the builders in about 15 years ago and were both at work and I was between jobs and was [STRIKE]supervising[/STRIKE] err tea-making for their builders. It was 5 weeks but it seemed like 5 months.

One of the classic sitcom moments during their work was when they tried to get some custom-made internal door framing thru the house from the outside and it wouldn't fit. The carpenter wasn't on hand to modify it because he was down at the courts for sentencing, possibly custodial sentencing, and we were all waiting with bated breath to see if we'd get him back again (we did).:rotfl:At another point they asked if we had an outside tap so they could fill the water barrel for their cement making.

We will have when you install it, was my deadpan reply. It's on the plans.

I have to say that people who live in houses which are undergoing extensive works deserve hugs and lots of sympathy. I can't wait to have this job over so that I can get everything back in place and chase the blasted dust which seems to creep all over away with damp dusters.

Stange weather outside; jolts of sunshine alternating with fastmoving clouds which make it almost dark indoors.........

Laters, me lovelies. laters.

[Deleted User]

FUDDLE - He who knows always says 'Red sky at night, Thatched Cottage on fire at the other end of the village!!!! He's a bad lad yes? Cheers Lyn xxx.

fuddle

Both girls have bikes and helmets, it's just whether I am brave enough to let them near a main road. We'll see how it goes.

A bit peeved that there's no rain today though. I wanted to test out my coat. Lidl didn't have any waterproofs left. Going to ebay now.

Weather is cold but sunny/cloudy tomorrow.

Pork chops, peppercorn sauce, chips and sweetcorn for tea - a bit of a cheats meal but yummy all the same.

Thought this may be relevant to some of us

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/nov/20/households-miss-help-boilers-fuel-bills

Lyn he is a bad lad You feeling better today? On the mend?

katieowl_2

OH NO! My neighbour called and she's flooding (in the house) Dispatched OH and DS down there with bags to fill with sand. She called me back and asked if I'd call and summons her OH home from work, which I've done, sounds like it's all hands on deck :eek:

OH reckons his workshop is about 1 1/2 inches off flooding too!

Limping around like a headless chicken now!

Kate

[Deleted User]

Yes thanks pet, fighting fit again and just as annoying as ever, wonderful stuff these antibiotics, I rarely take anything and usually find they work pretty quickly when I do. Hope your weather has quietened down by now, our double glazing was making a heck of a lot of noise last night going whizz buzzz ooohhhhhhh!! at regular intervals, still windy here but not wet at the moment. Hope your back is feeling a bit less painful, take as much time off your feet as you can ( I know that isn't easy with a family to tend) and stay in the warm, have an early night and take some pain killers/ anti inflamatories and look after you, Cheers Lyn xxx.