Nice People 12: Nice in Nice

zagubov

LydiaJ wrote: »

I have cheapy reading glasses for reading small print in dim light. Otherwise I don't need glasses. Not sure how long this will last, though.

It starts like that, but I'm afraid it doesn't stay like that. Long-sightedness can only really get worse with time while short-sightedness can improve.
I remember an optician on a radio show pointing out that the off-the shelf reading glasses can damage your eyes because people often find they quickly need stronger lenses.

He explained most people see their visual problems as a sign orf aging so they go into denial and put up with it and put up with it until finally they give in and buy the weakest lenses. After a while reality sets in that they're too weak and they go and buy a pair the right strength.

It wasn't the eyes deteriorating it's just that the person underestimated how bad they were, and for vanity chose the weakest lenses, which would be totally unsuitable.

Dark glasses or better a blindfold would be ideal for some of the curtains I've seen today! :eek:

chewmylegoff

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Probably cheaper to keep the sofa and re-paint the living room?

It's not the colour that's the problem. It's a corner sofa and it is the wrong 'handedness' for the room - because of the layout there is only one place the tv can possibly go which in turn impacts on where the sofa can be so we can't move everything around the other way to compensate. OH wants a three piece suite instead. It would work better but I'd rather have whatever sum it will cost offset against the mortgage and the minor inconvenience of the sofa not being perfect.

Mine and OH's graduation at UCL was inside, then a party outdoors in a garden square afterwards. The ceremony wasn't until Sept / Oct, though, not at this time of year.

I had the same UCL graduation ritual as you. I think mine was in Sept/Oct as well. I started my first job on 1 September that year and I'm almost certain it was after that as I think I had to take the day off for it and I was a bit peeved as I only had 5 days holiday until the new year!

SingleSue

lostinrates wrote: »

Do you like sofa? Can you recover more cheaply than replace?

We've never bought a new sofa, one day we will though. The day bed needs some tlc in the form of springs and reupholstering and we have a little chair under a window, a mini sofa, that is in a fright ful state that also needs it, and a big sofa that needs new cushions AND , I hate the cover on the sofa currently in the kitchen one day to be in the room that's to me the music room/ reading room but is ATM dining room.

I've only ever bought new sofas once (we have two in the front room), a buy one get one free deal from Argos for £300...they lasted about 2 years.

At the moment, I have a given to me beige sofa in not great condition and a broken got from a charity blue sofa, with a green carpet and terracotta curtains :rotfl:...the curtains did at one point match our sofas.

In a bid to improve the carpet, I was down on my hands and knees trying to scrub it last week, now I have a patch of slightly cleaner carpet adjoining a patch of slightly eeky looking carpet where I pushed the dirt out in a bigger circle adjoining a threadbare bit covered up with gorilla tape to stop the cat 'playing' with the hole.

My bedroom carpet is gorgeous though, we've had it 16 years, my ex mother in law and husband had it ages and they got it secondhand from his brother. To look at it, you would think it was brand new, it's still very plush feeling under the feet, no loss of colour and no holes....but it cost an arm and a leg when new unlike the cheapy ones we bought when we moved in and which soon showed their age.

SingleSue

I wear glasses, initially for short sight and astigmitism, now for a bouncy optic nerve in my right eye (the EDS has made the nerve tighten and loosen all the time which makes it very difficult to get the right reading), astigmitism, short sighted in one eye and slightly long sighted in the other!

I've varifocals now to deal with all the issues (coloured lense for the Irlens, I've stopped tripping down stairs on a regular basis and my headaches have reduced! Yay) and apart from the initial eekness and ickiness of wearing them, I get on with them just fine.

Cost me an arm and a leg though despite the vouchers received for being on benefits...blooming worth it for the reduction in headaches and the stopping of words swimming and jumping about which was making the already bad headaches worse. I can enjoy reading again, I am tripping up fewer times and I can also see again to thread a needle.

PasturesNew

chewmylegoff wrote: »

It's not the colour that's the problem. It's a corner sofa and it is the wrong 'handedness' for the room - because of the layout there is only one place the tv can possibly go which in turn impacts on where the sofa can be so we can't move everything around the other way to compensate.

This is the main problem with "smallish rooms".... you can't get stuff where you want it and your furniture/layout is dictated to you so things end up being awkward and not how you want them.

I'd like a corner sofa.... I am sitting here now looking at the corner it would be great in, but a corner sofa would swamp the entire room ...

My last place layout was dictated by the odd structural uprights and the location of the TV aerial socket. I'd have liked to have had the sofa by the patio door, but there was only one side it could have gone and then the telly would have been behind the sofa

In a big room of, say, 15'x15', you are at the size where you can probably start to position stuff where you'd actually like it.

PasturesNew

I did go to sleep, then woke up ... and now I just can't get back to sleep again. Seagulls are being very noisy outside all night. Their noise is so piercing it's as if the windows were open! I even just double-checked.

neverdespairgirl

We can't have a corner sofa - because there's no real corner! Open-plan one end, towards kitchen / studies / staircase, so no corners, and the two by the window mean the window (wall to wall) gets in the way.

OTOH, my parents' bedroom in Kent is huge - the second biggest room in the house, after the kitchen. I estimate it's 20 x 25, something like that.

There's almost nowhere to put furniture - one wall has a low window, the next has the door to the main upstairs hall and stairs, the third has a door to a boiler cupboard, and the fourth wall has no room at all for anything, a door to a loo, a large fireplace, and a door through to the L-shaped room that can only be reached by going through other bedrooms.

So although very large, it's pretty empty.

hjd

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

Mine and OH's graduation at UCL was inside, then a party outdoors in a garden square afterwards. The ceremony wasn't until Sept / Oct, though, not at this time of year.

What did DS take his degree in? Is he going to do further degrees now?

DD's graduation was in September too.
His degree was in Economics. Now, he informs us, his priorities are job, flat, car in that order. Good to be optimistic! Any number of recruiters ringing him for jobs in sales or recruitment consultancy, neither of which he wants to do. He is keen on finance/possibly accountancy.

hjd

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I had the same UCL graduation ritual as you. I think mine was in Sept/Oct as well. I started my first job on 1 September that year and I'm almost certain it was after that as I think I had to take the day off for it and I was a bit peeved as I only had 5 days holiday until the new year!

DD was doing a paid internship in Finland at the time of her graduation. Since she won't fly, she had to take best part of a week off to come back - it's 2 to 3 days each way by train. As of this September, the ferry Esbjerg/Harwich will no longer run, so that's another route blocked.

Nikkster

I'm not sure whether I could fit a corner sofa in my living room, but it doesn't matter as I don't really like them the corner seat is wasted as no one ever wants to sit there. I also like curling up against the sofa arm and there are more of those available if there are separate pieces in the suite.