The Garden Fence - help and support in tough times

Knit_Witch

Floss wrote: »

Eight & a half flipping hours to do a journey that the sat-nag reckoned would be four & a half. Queues to get onto M3, M25, M40. Queues to get off & into services. Queues on M6. Only nice bit was the fairy lights on the M6 roadwork gantries!

Now chilling with a bottle of pinot grigio, having made & eaten carbonara within 25 minutes of arriving home! Cat has almost forgiven us for abandoning her and is curled up on DH while he watched the recorded footie we should have been home to watch live!

Cpming back from my Dad's last year a four hour journey took 13 with a half hour break for a brew :eek:

Floss

Knit_Witch wrote: »

Cpming back from my Dad's last year a four hour journey took 13 with a half hour break for a brew :eek:

One 10-minute toilet / M&S Simply Food stop, with butties eaten in the M40 queue.

Still I guess that's the payback for Saturday, a wonderfully clear run when we did the M25 at 70mph, never done before!

Hard_Up_Hester

We just heard that someone offered the full asking price on the property we looked at a while ago, we knew our offer hadn't been accepted along with a few others. Hey ho, we offered what we thought it was worth as there were quite a few problems. Something else will turn up I'm sure.

ivyleaf

Knit Witch and Floss That makes our seven hours for a four-hour journey sound positively speedy :eek:

I was expecting to wake up to dense freezing fog, but it's only a little bit misty, and the sun is making brave efforts to burn that off.

Even so, I wish BG weren't coming today to change our meters! They are going to put in smartmeters - of course OH is delighted at the thought of no longer needing to get into the cupboard under the stairs to read them, especially the gas meter which is tucked right underneath at the bottom.

silvasava

Oh Hester - are you very disappointed? I must admit if events are out of your control I always think something better is in the offing, fingers crossed for you.

Softstuff

Hester, I hope something much better comes up for you.

monnagran

Hester: You know that saying, "What's for you, won't pass you." Well, I could sometimes throw bricks at the head of anyone who says that to me and I bet you feel the same.
However, Silvasava is quite right. Often when you look back you can see how much better things have turned out than you would have expected.

While I'm at it, the other thing that has been thrown at me recently is.........

"Sometimes, not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck."

Yeah! Right!

Possibly very true but hardly comforting.
x

Hard_Up_Hester

SS no not really that disappointed, it wasn't worth the asking price. Someone had already withdrawn after a dodgy survey. My L&M could sort the problems out but it would have cost money. We made the decision on how much the repairs would cost and so we were happy with that.

Hard_Up_Hester

Oh monna, yes I'd like to throw bricks too. My pet hate is people who tell me that leaving g my ex was a good idea. I know that's why I left. Still grieves my that he is warm and c comfortable in my 6 bed, 4 recp room despite retiring early and I'm still strugging and having to downsize.

Caterina

How about when people tell you "In Chinese, the characters for problem and opportunity are the same".

All these platitudes make me want to throw bricks too! Often people don't know what to say when presented with somebody else's pain or discomfort and they take refuge in these ready packaged sentences to avoid engaging emotionally.

Which is all and well, I can understand, but how about, as a compassionate alternative, something like:

"I am sorry" "I don't know what to say" "I wish I could help" if they have to say anything at all.