Renovations and Repayments.

AlexLK

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

Manchester has the Whitworth gallery too, which has had a lot of investment really and is great. There are tons of great museums and attractions in the city, more than enough to fill a weekend.

The People's History Museum might be an interesting one for you Alex!

Haven't been to Manchester in a long time and never really visited the galleries / museums. Will discuss with Mrs. K..

Thanks.

newgirly

How terribly sad for your parents that they feel the need to do that, my fil has been pointlessly critical of my lot once or twice (asking questions they wouldn't know the answers to when they were little - thus they are "not very bright" , ironic from a man who passed no exams :mad:) he got a telling off from me, but long term that feeling clearly stays with the kids, as although they are polite to him, they are going through the motions and visit as a favour to us. In contrast they are always keen to go to my parents who are affectionate and have never said a negative comment to them....

AlexLK

Going through my spreadsheets / journal for the week and it's looking more positive than I thought.

Son of the farmer next door has asked if I can bring a garden table and six chairs back to life. Basic strip down and paint job. I told him he could do that easily himself but he apparently doesn't have the time, so I'm going to be £100 better off for doing a easy task for him. :beer:

LadyGnome wrote: »

Alex, you remind me a bit of someone I used to work with. When she watched how her parents interacted with her young daughter it helped her understand her own childhood. They were quite stiff and formal, expecting a toddler to sit quietly with them. They never sat on the floor to play with her. That made her realise how reserved her parents had been with her. It helped her see that the distance she had felt in her childhood had come from her parents rather than being something to do with her as a person.

Yes, I realise why I much preferred being at school. :rotfl:

newgirly wrote: »

How terribly sad for your parents that they feel the need to do that, my fil has been pointlessly critical of my lot once or twice (asking questions they wouldn't know the answers to when they were little - thus they are "not very bright" , ironic from a man who passed no exams :mad:) he got a telling off from me, but long term that feeling clearly stays with the kids, as although they are polite to him, they are going through the motions and visit as a favour to us. In contrast they are always keen to go to my parents who are affectionate and have never said a negative comment to them....

My parents love my son very much and despite having a lot of regrets over how they have treated others in the past they still behave in a similar way. I've sat through hours of my father becoming extremely distressed over the way he has treated others but a day later he'll pretend nothing has happened. Mother will defend him and tell me I have misinterpreted my father. He does the same for her.

AlexLK

April Targets:

OSPREYS - CHECK.
Make a decision re. bathroom / holiday / potential debt.
Total Grocery Spend: £280/ £400.
Surplus Money: £100 / £800.
Bed before 11.30pm: 7 / 31. Definitely going to be in bed before 11.30pm this evening. I'm tired at a normal time for once and have been active for the majority of the day. Again! This is going well at the moment.
Meditation: 12 / 31.
De-clutter and sell 2 / 5 items.
New Recipes: 1 / 4.
Books (to read for pleasure): / 3. Have got back into a reading routine so this should start to go up.

Just looked up the I, Daniel Blake film. It sounds horrendous and I don't think I'll be watching it, HiddenShadow. I think I'd find it terribly sad as I did just from the synopsis. As I get older and more involved with teaching I find I hear / see things that make me question some of my own ideologies. The world isn't what I thought it was for the first 30 or so years of my life. I got ill through my own selfish problems without seeing I did not have a difficult life. I still don't, though living with depression, anxiety and things I've done have changed who I am. For the better. Sad it took trying to end my life and starting to rebuild it for me to realise despite everything I am fortunate.

I'm starting to trust my wife a little more and believe we are through many of the difficulties we have faced together. We're having one more month of counselling and I hope that will be for the last time. We've not done as much as we usually do when my wife has leave from work but have had the chance to spend time together at home as a family. My parents have been away so we've not had to see them which has been refreshing. Probably sounds terrible but time away from them is needed sometimes. My wife has made such an effort to be a part of our son's life and not see red over things that make her angry. She told me tonight that she's looking forward to our long weekend even though we've nothing planned. Before if we'd nothing planned she'd go to her friends. We've become interested in working on our house again after a long time not really caring much about it. On Monday we're all back to work / school or working in a school ... and Mrs. K. remarks that whilst she is ready to do some work she's really enjoyed this week with my son and I.

kelpie35

That is a very positive post Alex.

I am so happy for you, as a family, that you have all enjoyed your break.

I hope the renovations will go well for you.

You are also doing so well on the food budget, well done you.

Take care

hiddenshadow

That sounds so promising, Alex. Glad to hear you and MrsK are doing well together.

I wouldn't recommend watching I, Daniel Blake for you, Alex, for all the reasons you outlined. I thought it was a great film, but as I said, super depressing. It really highlights how trapped people can be by the system through no fault of their own.

AlexLK

April Targets:

OSPREYS - CHECK.
Make a decision re. bathroom / holiday / potential debt.
Total Grocery Spend: £330/ £400. Should not go up too much more before May's budget kicks in. Hoping to have a spare £50 to put into the surplus money pot.
Surplus Money: £100 / £800.
Bed before 11.30pm: 8 / 31. Very tired tonight, woke up before the alarm this morning and have a busy day. Done a lot of work to the grounds and cars between my wife and I.
Meditation: 13 / 31.
De-clutter and sell 2 / 5 items. Hope to get onto this as a part of returning to work this coming week.
New Recipes: 1 / 4.
Books (to read for pleasure): / 3. Whilst I'm in a reading routine I'm managing about 10 pages before falling to sleep at the moment.

Today has been busy. It's been drive it day so Mrs K and I took the sports cars out before having a run out in the Daimler. That was our morning. Didn't see many classics, though. I personally think it's a pity there's a drive it day set out in the classic car calendar but drive it day is most days here. After the relaxing morning we had lunch then got to work on our grounds and cars until dark. Grounds are looking better and cars are all clean.

I need to plan my diary for tomorrow but the week is looking like it's going to be a busy one. Looking forward to seeing my pupils again and the summer term ahead. Son is surprisingly excited to be returning to school, which both my wife and I are pleased about. We need to make a decision whether we will be keeping him at our village school or whether he will be going to my old prep school for the academic year 2018-19. At the moment I'm very reluctant to move him from the current school as he's finally settled and is starting to enjoy being there. One option is to keep him where he is until 11 and do the final two years at prep school before moving to senior school at 13, another is to seriously consider him going to the state senior at 11. Bakewell isn't a rough town and the school has a good reputation. Why is this so difficult?

kelpie35 wrote: »

That is a very positive post Alex.

I am so happy for you, as a family, that you have all enjoyed your break.

I hope the renovations will go well for you.

You are also doing so well on the food budget, well done you.

Take care

Thank you, kelpie.

Hoping to come in £50 under budget for food this month.

Renovations will be fine ... it's just paying for them. :eek: :rotfl:

hiddenshadow wrote: »

That sounds so promising, Alex. Glad to hear you and MrsK are doing well together.

I wouldn't recommend watching I, Daniel Blake for you, Alex, for all the reasons you outlined. I thought it was a great film, but as I said, super depressing. It really highlights how trapped people can be by the system through no fault of their own.

Thank you, HiddenShadow.

I can't say I really know how to feel about it. I used to subscribe to my parents' view of it being their fault and not the government's responsibility to help. Now I'm not so sure. Things I've heard and seen in my volunteer positions have made me reassess what I perceived as "the problems". There have been children turning up to school who aren't eating well yet are expected to get on with the school day. The girl in Rich House,
Poor House who said the diet she was eating during her week in the "poor" house was making it more difficult to study. I can see that, I have seen that. Some parents lack skills to help their children and cannot afford to pay a tutor to make up for not being able to help, no wonder those children are behind academically. Some just don't care about education as they are both personally disenfranchised and cannot see what anything beyond the most basic of education can do for their children. Having seen this, I have started to see how the government and media have manipulated such situations into demonising "the poor". There are people who manipulate the system but that's true of all spectra of society.

Cannot quite believe I'm saying this but having always voted Tory, I am looking at other parties policies with some interest rather than just to dismiss. From a personal point of view I think the best outcomes for my family and I lie with a Conservative government so I will most likely vote in my best interest but I'm not convinced a high majority Conservative government is good for large numbers of the population. My father-in-law said to me last week that there's more people living in poverty than there are in my position. I told him I was unsure of that and he told me to think about how many council estates with many houses built upon them there are vs. the amount of places the size of my parents'. He's right and I am a bit deluded, mainly because I don't want to think about the alternative.

Tropically

You might like playing around with this calculator: https://www.ifs.org.uk/wheredoyoufitin/

IFS is a Tory think-tank.

edinburgher

You are unsure as to whether there are more people in poverty than incredibly rich? I have never seen a Daimler, never mind driven one. A few Bentleys in our neck of the woods, but you probably think that's a chav car :rotfl:

Oh Alex...

Suffolk_lass

I like your statement that you're not convinced a high majority Conservative government is good for large numbers of the population.

After less than a week of watching the emerging campaigns, press coverage and floating (and testing) of potential manifesto ideas, I am convinced people need to recognise that a general election is for 5 years and not just for Brexit (rather like a puppy - it's not just for Christmas!)