Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

LydiaJ

GDB2222 wrote: »

I like the bag on wheels you bought DD. I would have thought a lot depends on how big the wheels are and how easy it is to pull. How do you choose that sort of thing online?

Dunno. She chose it. It arrived. She likes it. Afraid that's all the information I have about the choosing of it.

Doozergirl wrote: »

Lydia, I have similar PT problem. It would be 1hr 40mins using buses, or about 1hr 15 if I drive to the station and she catches train then the bus from the city centre. She's not big enough yet.

What I think I will do is a 15-20 drive to a bus stop where she goes straight to school in another 20 mins. It isn't that far on to school from there but the traffic is dire.

Based on mileage and average speed, I've already calculated that I've spent 24 solid days in my car since last April. Not including traffic jams.

Now DS is almost certainly moving to sixth form college in Worcester. We planned to leave him where he is, but he has been offered a very special rugby opportunity that cannot be turned down.

My kids are going to be schooling 30 miles away from each other!

That does sound complicated. DD's bus stop is only half a mile away. I drive her in the morning - makes me go into work to get a parking space - but she walks home in the afternoon, unless it's guitar lesson day, in which case she staggers round the corner to the library and I pick her up from there with her guitar, her rucksack of books, and her PE kit.

Meanwhile, DS walks about 1/3 mile across the park to his school. He's staying there for 6th form, so that's straightforward.

SingleSue wrote: »

Had a very interesting and rare conversation with youngest last night regarding his autism.

It's rare as he hates the fact he has autism and tries to deny it all the time plus because of his autism, the issue of feelings has always been a bit of a trigger point for him.

Apparently he still feels very overwhelmed in social situations, the world still confuses and scares him and although his lack of empathy protects him at times, it also worries him as he just doesn't 'feel' things like his friends do and as a consequence if a friend is going through a worrying time, he can sometimes upset them by his no nonsense or non understanding replies.

He also gets annoyed that his brain never switches off, he can't just take an overview of things like his friends do, his brain is constantly observing, taking in information, noting every little thing around him and analysing which can overwhelm him at times...almost like an information/sensory overload. Yet at the same time, he recognises it is this which gives him the ability to learn so well and so quickly.

Socially his life is one big pretence, he has observed how others react or behave and mimics that so that he doesn't appear odd but at the same time, his responses to social interaction (i.e someone telling him something in confidence but without actually telling him it is in confidence) or his one track focus on education over everything else, does mark him out as different and it is frustrating him.

As I said, a very rare discussion with him but at least he has opened up a little bit (even if some of it has concerned me!)

Sounds like a very productive conversation Sue. I've made mistakes in the past guessing incorrectly which things had been told me in confidence and which were OK to talk about. I find what works for me is to be upfront when I start getting to know somebody. The first time a new person tells me something potentially sensitive, I tell them I believe in the importance of keeping confidences, and I promise to keep confidential anything they ask me to, but I admit I have history of not realising something was confidential, and recommend that any time it's really important to them that I keep something quiet, their best bet is to tell me so. People tend to be a bit surprised but completely accepting when I say this to them. One of the things that causes me anxiety is feeling I'm supposed to guess what people want and will be criticised if I guess incorrectly, so saying that kind of thing at the beginning of the friendship relieves that particular anxiety.

silvercar

Pyxis wrote: »

Yes, I do wish it were compulsory to carry P-plates here.

A speed restriction would be good, too.


What does the R stand for?

P-plates can be a problem, I've seen idiots hoot at P-plate drivers when they are the slightest bit hesitant at junctions. Also dangerously overtake, just because they think they can get away with intimidating P-plates. We didn't use them.

LydiaJ

silvercar wrote: »

P-plates can be a problem, I've seen idiots hoot at P-plate drivers when they are the slightest bit hesitant at junctions. Also dangerously overtake, just because they think they can get away with intimidating P-plates. We didn't use them.

I'm also not sure a lower speed limit for inexperienced drivers is a good idea. If everyone else is going at 60mph along a single carriageway A-road, to have a new driver restricted to 45mph just causes an obstruction.

Legislative thinking about this is going in the opposite direction. My driving instructor friend tells me that they are bringing in rules about learner drivers having to complete some lessons on motorways before taking their tests, or something of that sort, although I am not clear what the details are.

Pyxis

LydiaJ wrote: »

I'm also not sure a lower speed limit for inexperienced drivers is a good idea. If everyone else is going at 60mph along a single carriageway A-road, to have a new driver restricted to 45mph just causes an obstruction.

Legislative thinking about this is going in the opposite direction. My driving instructor friend tells me that they are bringing in rules about learner drivers having to complete some lessons on motorways before taking their tests, or something of that sort, although I am not clear what the details are.

You see, that could be the sort of thing that could be done during a probationary year. Ok, I know it would mean a second 'test' of a sort, but I don't think putting learner drivers onto motorways is a good idea. Better after a few months' experience, IMO.

michaels

I was on the treadmill this evening when the iron tripped the circuit breaker and it stopped dead, I didn't fall over but it was somewhat of a surprise, luckily I just power walk rather than run.

Pyxis

Part of the storyline of last night's Call The Midwife was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Although I was only a young child, some of the fear and severity of the situation that adults were experiencing must have percolated down to us little'uns, because I can remember feeling scared, though I didn't know what I was scared of, exactly, just some sort of Armageddon.

When it peaked, I was at school, and I distinctly remember saying to a friend that if I was going to die, I wanted to die at home, not at school!

Anyway, I went home at the normal time, and it all 'fizzled out'.

It was a great many years later that I realised just how serious the situation had been.

13 days of fear: October 16-28, 1962.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis




Edit... as it turned out, there was only one combatant fatality of the crisis, (when there could have been millions).

Major Rudolph Anderson, who was shot down while flying a Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance mission over Cuba on October 27th 1962.

ivyleaf

Pyxis I don't remember the Crisis itself, though I did buy myself an atlas a few years later, the one whose cover had looked most attractive in the bookshop! and it was a "Topical Atlas" and it mentioned "before the Cuban crisis" and "after the Cuban crisis" beside a pair of maps. I asked my dad what the Cuban crisis was, and he was very vague, obviously not wanting to frighten me.
When the news of JFK's assassination came on TV I was at home on my own and didn't really know who he was, though it was obvious that something momentous had happened. When my parents came home I greeted them at the door with "President Kennedy's been shot! He's dead!"
They were very upset, and when I asked my mother why, she said "He was the only one Mr Kruschchev would listen to, and now he's gone!"

Sue Poor youngest, it must be so hard xx

I'm off a bit later, to help with the singing at a funeral. (I'm in my church choir, but most of the others have to work today.) It's a lovely elderly lady who'd died, but I did the same thing last Friday, so not a very happy end to last week or a happy start to this one.

LydiaJ

Pyxis wrote: »

You see, that could be the sort of thing that could be done during a probationary year. Ok, I know it would mean a second 'test' of a sort, but I don't think putting learner drivers onto motorways is a good idea. Better after a few months' experience, IMO.

I suspect the idea of two tests would be prohibitively expensive and require more examiners than are available. It does seem good to me that drivers' first experience of motorway should be under supervision rather than alone.

Pyxis

I was wondering if there were any herbivorous snakes, so I googled.

It would appear that there aren't any, despite there being herbivorous lizards and one or two other herbivorous reptiles.

The main reason seems to be the lack of cellulose-digesting enzymes in their gut. These enzymes are most likely transferred among members of social reptile groups, and snakes aren't social.

Although some snakes have found to have vegetation in their gut, it is thought that this has been ingested along with an animal, or by mistake because it smells of the animal.

Experiments with fish and seaweed have shown that a snake will ingest seaweed if it has had fish on it, but not plain seaweed without a fishy smell.

Other reasons for the lack of herbivorous snakes have been put forward. See the link below.....

http://snakesarelong.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/why-are-there-no-herbivorous-snakes.html

PasturesNew

You only need a license if you get stopped.... if you're never stopped in your life nobody'd ever know - and, in the most part, it's possible to never be stopped.

When we're stopped it's because we're out late and they're "just checking" or a light's out, or they suspect we might've been speeding so want to see documents.

Drive carefully, at regular hours, in a car where the lights work ...and I bet most people'd never be asked to produce documents ever.

Oh ...and don't get in any accidents I guess.