Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Pyxis

That's so sad.

He must have been in torment.

Those Greek words are so poignant..... he was fearful of his children hating him for what he'd done.
Poor man.

I'm welling up now.

LydiaJ

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'd do it now, minding "older kids", so, say aged 8-16, except everything's all about "child checked this... insurerd that ... qualified the other ... experience ... " back then you just needed to be aged 14-16 and willing/available

You won't find anyone willing to pay you to babysit a 16-year-old!

I too babysat from about 14 onwards. In an emergency I would have phoned my mother and she would have told me what to do. Most of the babysitting I did was for the children next door - so if anything had gone wrong my mum would have come round and sorted it out.

Doozergirl wrote: »

Insurance won't cover it. So that's fun.

Looked at the petrol station, not there.

Is it too early for wine? I really would, but have to drive later.

Doozer has offered to sell his wedding ring (never worn) to pay for a new diamond. I will have the setting you highlighted, silvercar, thank you. I have another diamond in a necklace that he bought me when DD was born. I don't really want to use that one. He's back at the weekend.

In the meantime, I will look. But where do I look apart from everywhere?:(

Still hoping you will find it, but... if you do need to replace it, would you consider a created diamond? They're real diamonds, exactly the same as the mined kind; they've just been made in a lab in a matter of weeks instead of underground over billions of years - so as well as being apparently 20-40% cheaper they carry no risk that anyone's been exploited in their production. Several years ago one of my friends had to replace the emerald in her engagement ring and got a lovely created emerald. She was very happy with it for several years ... until the husband who'd given it to her swanned off and shacked up with someone else, but that wasn't the fault of the emerald!

ETA Hmmm... a bit of googling suggests that the created gem route is better for sapphires and emeralds etc than diamonds. Apparently there are unscrupulous people out there passing off cubic zirconia as created diamond. Sorry, I assumed that since my friend had such a positive experience with her emerald, the situation would be similar with diamonds, but apparently it's more difficult to make sure you're getting the real thing.

GDB2222

If you can't tell cubic zirconia from diamond, why not wear cubic zirconia? That's assuming it's much cheaper.

Just checked, and it's much, much, much cheaper. So, put your diamonds in the safe, and walk around with a piece of cubic zirconia on.

vivatifosi

Cubic zirconia can be had for a few quid. It doesn't have the sparkle of a diamond. The closest lab manufactured stone (other than lab diamond) is moissanite. That's very twinkly, but not exactly the same... Well nothing is I guess. Clear natural alternatives include white sapphire and topaz, though again these are significantly cheaper.

If I lost mine again I'd probably replace it with a coloured stone. This is my favourite:

http://www.thejewelleryeditor.com/jewellery/article/the-story-of-the-paraiba-tourmaline-is-as-fascinating-as-its-incomparable-colour/

This is moissanite:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite

Doozergirl

LydiaJ wrote: »

You won't find anyone willing to pay you to babysit a 16-year-old!

I too babysat from about 14 onwards. In an emergency I would have phoned my mother and she would have told me what to do. Most of the babysitting I did was for the children next door - so if anything had gone wrong my mum would have come round and sorted it out.



Still hoping you will find it, but... if you do need to replace it, would you consider a created diamond? They're real diamonds, exactly the same as the mined kind; they've just been made in a lab in a matter of weeks instead of underground over billions of years - so as well as being apparently 20-40% cheaper they carry no risk that anyone's been exploited in their production. Several years ago one of my friends had to replace the emerald in her engagement ring and got a lovely created emerald. She was very happy with it for several years ... until the husband who'd given it to her swanned off and shacked up with someone else, but that wasn't the fault of the emerald!

ETA Hmmm... a bit of googling suggests that the created gem route is better for sapphires and emeralds etc than diamonds. Apparently there are unscrupulous people out there passing off cubic zirconia as created diamond. Sorry, I assumed that since my friend had such a positive experience with her emerald, the situation would be similar with diamonds, but apparently it's more difficult to make sure you're getting the real thing.

After looking for the diamond earlier, I have been looking at diamonds this evening. I didn't understand what a synthetic diamond was. It sounds awful but the name is just wrong. I was looking for conflict-free ones.

I will dfinitely look into this. Found a couple of companies and I do have the benefit of DD going to school by the jewellery quarter to go and ask questions etc. I'll also look to read about the unscrupulous people. The first company I found are assay office registered. That can only be a good thing, right?

Doozergirl

GDB2222 wrote: »

DW lost a diamond from her engagement ring. We asked around, and we got the name of a very nice man who replaced it (around £200, but it wasn't a very big diamond). Do you want the details?

Thank you. One of my best friends is my accountant and she's given me details for a diamond dealer very locally. I will also have a chat with the original jeweller and have a look at Lydia's science diamonds 🙂

PasturesNew

Meh ... if you can't afford proper diamonds I don't know why I bother with this thread.

Peasants ....

zagubov

A fellow science teacher had a jar labelled "uncut diamonds" he used to pass out to the students. When they asked if they were valuable he'd say, "don't try anything, they've all been counted".

They were just mica chips of course!

PasturesNew

zagubov wrote: »

They were just mica chips of course!

Yeah, of course .... gotta google that now, never heard of mica chips.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

Going back .... I never .... unsurprisingly.

You definitely win

My "big event" was at the same shabby house I mentioned.

Knock at the door and there's a big fella there.... says he's the brother of the woman whose house I was in.... so I let him in.

He'd broken out of prison and was on the run.