The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

milasavesmoney

I had two rooms worth of concrete floor taken up along where the plumber was following the drain. He finally finished and I am trying to get everything back to clean again but that stuff is in rooms that are not even near where he worked plus all the adjacent rooms that didn't have doors I could shut. We covered stuff up but that dust is wicked!

Softstuff

Mila I bow in awe to you that you survived so much and raise a virtual glass of whisky to you. I found dust you could write in in a sealed cupboard nowhere near what is happening.

I'm going for a massage later. And to buy a few more plants. And wine, need wine.

Hubby says this is the first and last full house we do...... I make no promises.

milasavesmoney

Love whiskey and it's evening here so I'm drinking that glass neat!

moneyistooshorttomention

Softstuff wrote: »

I'm fairly sure that the deepest pit of hell has a deafening concrete saw, a constant supply of dust and a workman screaming over the top of it "you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs". The last time one of them said that to me I replied "no, but if I make an omelette I don't smash the eggs up the side of the bowl and throw the shells on the floor".

What a morning. Is 11am too early for a stiff one?

That was remarkably restrained of you Softstuff to make a polite reply to that workmans omelette comment:rotfl:

I do know what you mean about workmen damaging things - unfortunately:(. Then there's doing things in an illogical way - ie not the most attractive/useful/etc way.

I've been known to swear at one before now - mind you that was under severe provocation (ie never mind my house/possessions - they darn nearly damaged me:eek:).

ivyleaf

Softstuff wrote: »

I'm fairly sure that the deepest pit of hell has a deafening concrete saw, a constant supply of dust and a workman screaming over the top of it "you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs". The last time one of them said that to me I replied "no, but if I make an omelette I don't smash the eggs up the side of the bowl and throw the shells on the floor".

What a morning. Is 11am too early for a stiff one?

I beg your pardon? :eek: :eek: You'll have to ask Hester. So sorry about the dust

grandma 247 and nursemaggie Thank you for The Gas man....have just listened to it and had a chuckle. Those two must have been huge fun to see live

We went to DD1's yesterday. She's having her appendix out today and says she wasn't worried about it in the least until people started sending her cards or texting to say they'd be thinking of her I pointed out that everyone who cares about her knows how long she's been waiting.

FairyPrincessk

Morning all,

I've done my best to read back for seven days worth. Welcome to Tips and Treats and a big hug. That is the main thing I remember...that and something about shrink wrap knickers that I think I'd prefer to forget.

OH and I returned from our holiday late last night/early this morning. We're a little tired but feeling refreshed after a week of sitting on the beach and not doing any cooking, washing up, laundry or the other day to day sundries. I'm looking forward to getting back to life, cooking and my garden and walks now. Some lads behind us on the plane were sorely lamenting their return to the 'real world' and it was a nice reminder that while I empathize with not wanting to leave a holiday behind I do really truly love my life. I got through four novels and have gone from the colour of casper to the colour of an undercooked scone. I'll take it, as it did not involve the strawberry stage and might require less effort with the hairdryer in the coming years.:rotfl:

The garden appears to be doing well, there are two thumb sized courgettes on one plant and lots of blooms on both. I haven't inspected more closely yet, so I may find that their soft underbellies have been munched by slugs without me to oversee things. I will go forth and conquer that task this afternoon and see how things stand. The flowers all look lush. It is very wet here so I'm sure there will be plenty of slugicidal thoughts this afternoon.

We'll be doing a shop today--we froze a pint of milk and put a pizza away in case we came in famished, but otherwise we need provisions and soon! I've just had some porridge which is sitting a bit uneasily. We both ate something not quite right yesterday and although I think I'm over it, I'm still not quite certain. OH has been fine after a short bout, eating two dinners and a bag of nuts labelled 'tasty' which were decidedly un-tasty but all that looked even remotely appetizing to me in the airport. They had a 'surprise' flavoured coating on them that would probably be more appropriate to crisps than almonds. OH has volunteered to make homemade pizza for tea (we didn't need the frozen one in the end so will save it for a quick meal some time). I suspect he may be feeling a bit tired, so that may change when we do the meal plan.

I've never used a refurbished laptop personally, but I know many have had good luck with them. I'm a bit like Mar, in that I depend on my laptop so much--both for work and for communicating with family so when it breaks I'm in trouble. I bought my last one from John Lewis and the service for the one minor issue I had (just under the two year mark mind!) was very efficient. I don't have top of the range or anything, and the price was comparable to what was available elsewhere, but the warranty was an extra year so I went for that. I'll do it again when it is time to replace this one. OH bought one from one of the other retailers awhile ago-he hasn't had any trouble but did regret not paying a bit extra (probably £40-£60 more) for a similar machine at JL when I had my trouble as he thought it would be worth it. His is less 'crucial' to his work though so it isn't an emergency if it breaks.

Our upcoming project is to photograph and list a number of things on ebay. We've never done it before so it will probably take ages but we've agreed we'll tackle it together and do a big lot. If the experience is terrible we won't bother in future, but the money might help fund another small excursion at the end of summer which would be nice.

Hugs to all who need them.x

Islandmaid

My dearest hubby is a joiner, but we run a building firm, he is completely OCD about being a clean worker, he has invested quite heavily in extraction units for his and his teams tools, and they always clean down and pack away each day. There are some good builders around.

A colleague of mine had her bathroom refurbished, they quoted 3 days max (no way!!) - well long story short, builder went on holiday for a week after the 3 days, leaving them with no shower, and more importantly no loo in the house - it was finished after 3 week.... Nightmare..

FairyPrincessk

Ivy I hope all goes well for your daughter.


As for those of you on dust etc... don't get me started. A few years ago we were living in a house that had an obvious leak in the bathroom which was above the dining room. We reported it numerous times to our landlady who brought in a trail of people she found from who knows where, none of whom were able to correct the issue. A few of them insisted we must be spraying the walls with the shower for extended periods of time (I can assure you we both have better things to do with our time). After a few months of this the ceiling in the dining room came crashing down at one in the morning the night before OH had an interview. The water had finally become too much for it and it turns out, it was coming from a leaky pipe and nothing to do with us standing and hosing down the walls (as if). It took around six weeks with an unusable bathroom to repair it. On the advice of my father, who was once an architect, we cleared as much stuff as we could into rooms that didn't need to be accessed for the work, sealed over the doors with tape and plastic dust sheets and escaped for part of the time to stay at a friend's house while she was away and later to say with in laws. Never mind the sealed off rooms, all of the doors had been opened (some of them were well out of the way), my best mugs which I'd been given as a birthday present were found on the floor coated in some sort of plaster drips having been used to mix something, and I still find the odd thing with bits of dust peeking out of the corners. The mugs were rescued and we exhausted a vacuum cleaner on the dust on our possessions. The dining room was still under repair when we moved back into the house with around three months on the lease. We decided we were moving out post haste and only having received a discount of two weeks rent (the landlady insisted the place was habitable in spite of the fact that no one could assure us it was safe to use the toilet since one of the support beams had to be replaced so we'd moved out for six weeks) so we were well cheesed off and didn't bother cleaning the dining room since the mess was not ours. We started looking immediately and high tailed it out of there, paying an extra month's rent just to escape before anything else went wrong and one of us was injured. A tiny part of me felt a twinge of sympathy when I found out the insurance paid for nothing, but given how many times we'd tried to get her to address the leak I got over it.

There were other issues with the house--one wall was persistently wet (dripping in winter--alas we'd viewed the house freshly painted in summer) and we tried to get that addressed. One man thought it was a leaky disused skylight, another installed a very expensive damp proof course (even though it was plain to see the water wasn't coming UP) and never did the landlady take our hint that she might want to have the pointing and brickwork checked given the large damp patch visible from the road.

I don't think she was malicious, just in over her head. She'd recently discovered (through us) that the letting agency were ripping her off and decided to have a go herself but wouldn't entertain advice or suggestions from friends, family or even tenants who could tell her more about the property than she knew.

Floss

When we had our bathroom gutted & redone in 2011, DH managed to be abroad with work so missed the period of no bath before the new shower & bath were usable. I showered at the local leisure centre and went swimming a lot! The loo was taken out, resited & refitted within 1 day while I was at work, which was a blessing as we only have one

Coincidentally DH managed to rip out the kitchen in 2006, the weekend that I moved in, and then disappeared away with work for the week, leaving me in a house with no kitchen, cooker in the hall, fridge in the lounge, washing up in the bath! And all in a town where I knew 5 people & was starting a new job. AND I still married him 4 years later!

mardatha

I buy all laptops from John Lewis too FPK, that 2 year guarantee is well worth it. Cold and grey up here today, last few days we've had a cold wind, think our weather is coming from either Iceland or Scandinavia. Makes me wonder just how cold Norway is.
Am knitting shawlettes now instead of socks, and ignoring the garden.