Only freedom will do

Karmacat

Argh, Ed! Your daughter's only a year old, of course she needs naps! Sorry the in-laws are struggling with that

And the £50 ... I suppose you could regard it as paying for insurance, even though you didn't need it for that size skip. Peace of mind, sort of thing.

Love the concept of your daughter's village

edinburgher

earthgirl wrote: »

I have issues with the care provided by grandparents, so I feel your pain! I try to provide solutions or compromise if I can, which works sometimes. I have hardened myself to their critisism of me and my 'requests' as they are my children and I don't care what they think of me. However, I am not paying them, so I understand the kids have to fit around them. This year they are only having the kids for a hour or so at a time, maybe once a week. Good luck with yours!

The thing is, it's the only request we've made of MIL, she does a ton of things that we think are a bit !!!!, but we let it slide as she does a wonderful job for the most part (and DD loves her to bits).

The one exception being that we said we were concerned with her having B&B guests on days where DD was sleeping at her house (which was a non event anyway, MIL too lazy to pursue this plan )

earthgirl

Hope the childcare kinks work themselves out. My boys napped till they were two I think.

AlexLK

Re. Nursery: the one my son went to had a 'nap hour' (one in the morning, one in the afternoon, IIRC), my son only went there for 2/3 afternoons per week and was almost three when he started going but they took children from a much younger age (c. 6 months IIRC). The nursery also made rather nice lunch and dinner for the children too.

gallygirl wrote: »

Actually it tends to be 'Bodge it & live in it' so I am definitely the one who suffers :rotfl:

Going back to an earlier convo re Latin, I had the chance for 121 lessons but chose to do chemistry instead......... Because I didn't want 121 lessons......... "smacks younger self hard round head". Mr GG did a few years of it and it definitely has helped him with Spanish - with the structure of language as much as anything. I can honestly say O level chemistry has not helped me with language learning, or anything else for that matter. Apart from answering a question on University Challenge on the Bessemer process in steel making. Which I knew the answer to as I got sent to the same corner every lesson for talking in class and there was a large poster about steel making on the wall. I learnt it by heart and answered a question in the exam on it, complete with diagrams . Still only got a C grade so fairly confident talking in class got me a pass :rotfl:.

:rotfl:

Absolutely agree re. Latin teaching the structure of language.

:rotfl: re. Chemistry, I wish I'd taken more an interest. In a very former life, my father trained and worked as a Metallurgist. He and my wife have some conversations I purposely excuse myself from in order to not make myself look like a complete imbecile.

edinburgher wrote: »

The thing is, it's the only request we've made of MIL, she does a ton of things that we think are a bit !!!!, but we let it slide as she does a wonderful job for the most part (and DD loves her to bits).

The one exception being that we said we were concerned with her having B&B guests on days where DD was sleeping at her house (which was a non event anyway, MIL too lazy to pursue this plan )

As I've found it's very difficult with grandparents. Ultimately, if they cannot respect and implement your rules, it's perhaps better to not have the grandparents looking after the child for long periods of time.

edinburgher

Knackered! Emptied the garage from 10:30 this morning and didn't finish until 19:20 this evening. 16,000 steps, a full skip and 3 trips to the tip with our admittedly tiny car.

Swallowed my pride and borrowed a circular saw from FIL, saved £30 vs. buying a cheap one, my pride doesn't have a financial value last I checked

Super unhealthy dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, kale, ice cream and beer :beer: Normally I'd feel guilty, but I chopped, smashed, hefted and slung my way towards a heck of a lot of exercise today.

Garage is creepy now that it's empty, very Blair Witch.

Edit: and spiders - !!!!ing massive spiders!!!

AlexLK

All sounds good. Nothing wrong with borrowing tools you will only use every now and then.

Not really sure what's unhealthy about that dinner, though?!

:rotfl: re. garage and spiders. There are lots in our garaging / outbuildings and quite a few in the house and cars. They don't bother us, if we lived in the tropics I'd likely think differently, though.

edinburgher

Spiders will be getting pressure washed out before I start waterproofing the inside of the garage!

Fitted a heavy duty tarp today, KC would have been proud of me (a great MacGuyver moment when I secured an awkward bit with some paracord from my zombie apocalypse box)

AlexLK

edinburgher wrote: »

Spiders will be getting pressure washed out before I start waterproofing the inside of the garage!

Fitted a heavy duty tarp today, KC would have been proud of me (a great MacGuyver moment when I secured an awkward bit with some paracord from my zombie apocalypse box)

What have they ever done to you? :rotfl:

You remind me I ought properly waterproof our garaging; it's a job I've been meaning to do for years. A couple of months ago, my wife decided we were going to do the job but the weather has been so awful that we've (yet again) not got around to it.

I read "tarp" as "tap" twice and was extremely confused. Mind, can't say I know who 'Macguyver' is either, so it still doesn't really make sense. Some kind of strongman or film star for a guess.

Karmacat

Woo hoo! An actual use for paracord - you star people pretend to use it as substitute shoelaces and all sorts of things, but one guy nailed it - he said that all these paracord bracelets were just for mutual recognition :rotfl:

I do agree with jetwashing in your situation :beer: excellent use of kit :beer: I have a spray of essential oils plus chestnuts that does great.

Explaining McGyver ... I only ever saw one episode, but I lurve the concept. I saw Burn Notice compared to it the other day, which I sort of agree with. Except McGyver did it first :rotfl: He can make a nucler reactor with a brick and a piece of chewing gum, basically, Alex.

edinburgher

AlexLK wrote: »

You remind me I ought properly waterproof our garaging; it's a job I've been meaning to do for years. A couple of months ago, my wife decided we were going to do the job but the weather has been so awful that we've (yet again) not got around to it.

I've only just started! Long term, I think we need a replacement roof, or possibly a replacement garage. I hope to get 2-3 years out of the tarp, it's a two layer, exceptionally thick sheet that looks like it can take a fair bit of abuse. Theres a wee bit of pooling on top this morning (water weight pressing it onto the tiles), but gravity and evaporation will take care of that soon enough.

In the short term, I'll need to seal the gaps between the concrete sections as these have slipped slightly over time. My initial thoughts had been to use builder's mastic inside and out, with a thick bead of silicone at the join between the walls and slab floor, followed by sealing the floor and using a tanking kit or similar for the walls....

Karmacat wrote: »

Woo hoo! An actual use for paracord - you star people pretend to use it as substitute shoelaces and all sorts of things, but one guy nailed it - he said that all these paracord bracelets were just for mutual recognition :rotfl:

Any idea what I can use the offcuts for? I have 6 pieces of about 18" long left.

• Whisky went for just over £1,000 after fees were deducted! Not enough to retire on, but a gain of something like 30% annualised, not even currency devaluation provided that sort of a boost to my investments!
• I have paid a £250 chunk of 'my' proceeds from the whisky sale into some small and diversified P2P loans. 'our' money remains simplified and in ISAs, pensions etc., but I enjoy the fun of a few wee speculative investments. The rest will go into my savings or back to the household budget
• £0.75 OPed
• Spreadsheets updated

This week's DIY will consist of odds and sods in DD's room, removing all the masking tape from last week and glossing our living room window surround (shutters getting fitted next week).