Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

Spirit_2

I had a letter yesterday saying my ill health retirement had been granted. this is very good news financilly as it was at the highest level. which mean I recive my pension as if I had worked to normal retirement age.

I am going to commute some to give a bigger lump sum. I would not usually think this a good deal but feel my health justifies it.
We don't need a bigger lump sum but it means we no longer need to save for a deposit for DD .

ivyleaf

That's excellent news, Spirit :j

Spirit_2

Generali wrote: »

Crivens Spirit. Glad you're okay.

Has it set back the rest of your progress? Hope not.

I have stiffened up. but my Physio is coming intomorrow to assess what we can safely do. Brain is slow which I have been putting down to all the sedation on Thursday. I am sleeping a lot.

In true spirit style I have not lost my appetite.

How are you doing? Mrs Gen's job started and OK, and how is mil doing.

ukmaggie45

Spirit wrote: »

my lovely husband has cared brilliantly for me over the last year and due to recent events it will continue a tad longer. We have got a good balance between carer, friend , lover and continue to be very much in love. His caring , and our Daughter's care bring home to me how much they love me.As for me I do less care but it is always sobering when you sign a consent form which includes death as a risk, and focuses the mind on what really matters, in my case my darling husband and daughter

I'm so glad to hear that your husband is such a brilliant carer. :T :j

Scary stuff about consent form! :eek: So very glad you are still here with us and still have your fighting Spirit!

Caring isn't just about the cooking and cleaning and other practicalities, which I can't do any more at home. Or not much - usually clean bathroom basin when have a bath, and also shower room basin. Not a lot! My job is to do the searching when it comes to Birthday and Christmas presents, and I pay for them too. DD1 says "that's not fair on Dad as you have the fun job" but he's only too happy for us to work that way. :rotfl: He's notoriously useless when it comes to getting presents. I've been the one to do it ever since we got married. I don't get it right all of the time, but at least it (mostly) gets done.

I am so lucky that OH has stuck by me over the 23 years I've been ill. While very grateful I think it's an indication that he's suffering from madness! Early on I wasn't as disabled as am now, even tried to do a part time Applied Psychology BSc. Overoptimistic! :rotfl: But the education I had from it has been useful even though I only just got a bit over half way through before not well enough to continue. I've seen some of my friends on online support groups lose their partners who walked away. Also have seen some absolutely fantastic tales of help from partners too.

Just my experience.

vivatifosi

Maggie, have you thought of dipping in and out of Coursera or edX courses? You can do as much or as little as you like. I've taken courses on stuff as varied as economics, terrorism and the history of rock music. It's a great way of learning without an ongoing commitment, plus best of all, it's free.

https://www.coursera.org/
https://www.edx.org/

ukmaggie45

vivatifosi wrote: »

Maggie, have you thought of dipping in and out of Coursera or edX courses? You can do as much or as little as you like. I've taken courses on stuff as varied as economics, terrorism and the history of rock music. It's a great way of learning without an ongoing commitment, plus best of all, it's free.

https://www.coursera.org/
https://www.edx.org/

I've seen some of NPs doing this stuff, and it looks fab! But just now we're in the midst of trying to find out when/if we have completion date for old home, finish clearing it, keeping lottie watered, and we'd hoped to head for caravan on monday but that ain't going to happen!

Live is just a bit complicated and :eek: just now!

But when it calms down I'll be looking at that kind of stuff. Remind me after Christmas!

Thanks Viva!

michaels

We are charging our electric car with our solar electricity I am such an environmentalist :rotfl:

GDB2222

Interesting economic experiment the Greeks are doing, closing their banks. If you were a farmer with a bunch of olives to deliver to the supermarket chain, would you just hang onto them instead? Or insist on a barter, maybe? Or the owner of a garage with petrol in your tanks, would you sell it? If so, for cash only?

Would you trust Greek Euro notes? Although I assume those are backed by the ECB?

Such interesting times.

vivatifosi

I think that the ECB has previously said that they couldn't single out Greek euros as there are too many in circulation in other parts of Europe. So in this respect they are safer than anything else. This reinforces all the stories about Greece becoming a cash economy.

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

Interesting economic experiment the Greeks are doing, closing their banks. If you were a farmer with a bunch of olives to deliver to the supermarket chain, would you just hang onto them instead? Or insist on a barter, maybe? Or the owner of a garage with petrol in your tanks, would you sell it? If so, for cash only?

Would you trust Greek Euro notes? Although I assume those are backed by the ECB?

Such interesting times.

I guess it depends to a large extent on the sort of business you are and your size.

Smaller is better if you need to resort to barter. The pubs around Smithfield Market used to accept meat to settle bar bills in the mid-2000s and if you are a one-off then that's pretty simple.

A petrol station owner could accept a carton of cigarettes or a case of wine for some petrol. However, it's hard to see how Shell Hellenic or whatever they're called could operate on that basis.

Even if you're a one man band it can be tough. The petrol station owner may end up with a load of valuable cigarettes and drink but how does he hang on to it?

If you're a farmer then you are really a forced seller. If you are of a size where you can go to market to sell direct then again you can barter or accept cash. If you are producing fruit or veg or milk on the sort of scale that you are supplying supermarket chains then I guess you just have to carry on supplying them. I mean what else are you going to do with the stuff? Then you invoice them and hope you get paid at some point in the future.

One way or another this is going to come to a head pretty quickly.