22 Foxhole East 12 August 2016 at 12:55PM edited 30 November -1 at 12:00AM in Mortgage-Free Wannabe 3K replies 354.8K views

f0xh0les

The comb must have gone into witness protection.

Well! All uni lectures were cancelled yesterday at lunchtime - the strike was due to end on Monday morning.  All seminars were cancelled at 4pm yesterday (obv someone forgot not all courses run lectures).  The kids came home from big school saying their teachers reckon they will be there for another week, but then term will probably end, so when I had an ex-head teacher at the school gates picking up after football at small school, she thought they would prob  do everything to keep them open until the Easter hols, and then tag on an extra week or two on the end.    So will  wait and see what happens.

Step-gran is in a total flap, she wants me to send her face masks. I said no. The only people coming in are her carers, they have been given the advice, now she is accusing me of trying to bump her off again.  Mad old bat. It is also my fault she has dry hands as I sent her the hand gel, which she is now  no longer using.  Maybe she should wear a mask on each hand.  Anyway, she has now decided she is in the main risk category - I told her that last month but she was having none of it - and Boris is wonderful and doing a good job.   

There was no flour in Mr M's shopping emporium last night - I could not get into a parking space where I live for love nor money last night, so after circling the blocks 8 times, I thought s0d it, and went on a ys raid instead, when I got back 25 minutes later, there were parking spaces, and I have pittas.  Still, people must be stockpiling bread flour and the other two flours now.  I suppose if you are going to be stuck at home, at least they will have cake.  Anyway, my mass stockpiling ys shop last night cost the princely sum of £1.50. 

My fridge looks amazing right now - I snagged 2 Herr Leedle  ys boxes yesterday morning (and got dirty looks off other shoppers who were not buying any - what was that about??) so the fridge is full of cherries, strawberries, blackberries, lettuces and orange peppers. My fruitbowl has 20 small oranges, 5 apples and 5 bananas.   I have baby potatoes in the pantry that I can bake in the oven and have on the side of salad - they microwave up in 30 seconds - bite size fun!, and we had a donation of about a million red peppers to the f/b, after the session there were still so many left, I mean crates of them, I took 10 before they went off to the community fridge -my boys will eat fried garlic red peppers and sundried tomatoes in wraps or pittas with houmous all day long - I am a bit obsessive at the minute at making sure they are packed full of vegetables at every opportunity.  - Today's offerings are burgers and salads and naked coleslaw,  and spinach fatayers and salad and baked baby potatoes tonight.  I am having problems getting rid of this current lb, it is sticky. So breakfast was 2 tablespoons of yogurt, a handful of blackberries,  two handfuls of strawberries, an apple, and 2 lovely coffees. If I keep on, this weight will shift.

Went to the rude furniture hospice shop yesterday and caught the manager, who said she is getting more beds in this morning, so will pop in before 10am, and see if I can sort out DS1 and 2, and possibly even me. This needs sorting now.

I have come to the conclusion my kids are just plain lazy - I have been accused ( by DS2 - who else! ) of controlling behaviour (wait for it, it is a proper doozy) so, apparently, my having made a home cooked meal at 6pm every night for them is controlling behaviour, as he is being made to eat when he is not hungry and we are forcing him.  I did suggest if he did not eat his own bodyweight in biscuits, bagels, toast, sandwiches or cake when he came home from school, and actually just had a snack, he would be hungry. He said it was controlling him via the medium of food,  and so I told him I would defer to his superior knowledge and I would no longer call him for meals. He could make his own.  I also would stop controlling him by pacifying him with his xbox. I offered to allow him more choice by paying his share of the electricity bill.   That is controlling behaviour as well. 

I am just all round a bad person in his world.  I mean, who objects to being fed regularly? It is not even as if they do the washing up (they run away - honestly, they physically bolt out of the room if helping out is mentioned) the smallest 2 are happy to help out and are so funny, chuntering away about their older brothers unwillingness to help out, just like little old men. I do hope I will not be guilty of sending helpless young men out into the world, but then I remind myself they are perfectly capable, they did help out before they got taller than me.

I caught DS1 in T3sc0 yesterday morning, I popped in for a few bits after dropping them off at school,  and he was there with his £1 coffee, huge pack of curls, and a bar of chocolate - all the major food groups then. Wonder why I bothered getting up at 6 to bake his pasties if he is supplementing on that scale, the boy must be eating the equivalent of 5 meals a day, does no exercise whatsoever, and is slim as a pick.  Rotten  fast-metabolism child. Terrible to think I was already dieting at his age, and I ate a good deal less than he does.  I suppose coming from a house that did not have much food in it, I have a different relationship to food than he does.  My parents bought two loaves of bread a week, on a Saturday morning, -  lunch was a sandwich on Saturdays, they shopped once a month for tins, and frozen that me and my mum brought home on the bus between us,  and the only other food bought was fruit and veg on a Saturday from the market -one wicker basket for 4 people and my dad bought meat once a month from the butchers (shopping for meat was manly - the only shopping he did). The food in the fridge was for suppertime, they ate one slice of toast for breakfast. There was no snacking.  They were just plain odd.  Luckily, I left the house at 6.30am, and they did not get back until 6.30 or 7.00pm and I had to go to bed at 8pm (until I was 16).  So sometimes we were fed, sometimes not, if they were too tired or had eaten on the way home - 'just have a piece of toast' was the default position.  So when I am told off for making a meal, by my kids, with vegetables in it, and actually caring what they have done or what they think, and making sure they have food to eat when they come home from school, then to be honest, I do not know what to do with that, they have never gone to bed hungry,  or stood looking into empty cupboards, or been told that me and dh have already eaten so have one piece of toast and go to bed.   I am constantly surprised us children of the 1970s with working parents and were pretty much left on our own until 6-7pm and only seeing our parents for an average of 2 hours a day, how on earth we survived.  We are the Gen X or the latchkey generation - it is true, if we parented our kids the way we were parented, child services would arrest us.  But making them food, well, that is just controlling innit?

So there.  Saturday morning rant over.

DH has just got up, with his persistent cough he just can't shake, and is now feeling tight chested,  I have one of those blue inhalers in the house somewhere (or in the boot of my car) that I might insist he uses. I only have it for my hayfever that sometimes mimics asthma - pollen asthma they call it- although they are quite insistent not to worry as I absolutely do not have asthma, I am just allergic to breathing.  Anyway, as far as I can discern, the only treatment they give you is the inhaler and paracetamol, and in the very worst cases, oxygen.   So I am as prepared as I can be. 

apple_muncher

Cor! What a cheeky numpty!

f0xh0les

Urgh, dh has got up and lost another 2lb. I have stayed the same.  Must be all this coughing he is doing.

apple_muncher

So not fair!

f0xh0les

I have just bought home and contents insurance.  Whistles and bells and legals, and accidental damage,  £500 emergency cover and all sorts, if the cashback comes through, it will be just  under £280, plus I will get m&s vouchers on the credit card.  Still, a truly rubbish way to spend all of a Saturday aftenoon.  I deserve a chocolate coated cherry now. At least my fridge loves me.  Just realised I am going to have to ring old insurers to make sure I do not auto-renew as their renewal letter is ambiguous in the extreme as to whether I am free of them, or if I need to contact them. Best to be on the safe side.

  I'm going in........

f0xh0les

urgh, they are closed, will ring on Monday instead. 

One to put on the list......

kerri_gt

Teens like to have an opinion on something largely backed by some delightful snippet they have read and a huge dose of hormones. I was relatively mild as a teenager until a-levels and still cringe at some of the things i said (example being i was going to get married in black jeans and dresses were stupid)
My DM was telling me how when she was a child they got three meals a day but no snacks or treats and clothes were via charity...one pair of pants and socks per child only. 
Honestly people out panic buying this week wouldn't know what had hit them if they were sent back in time, or perhaps for some the fear of knowing that has led fo panic buying.

Well done on the fruit and veg. I must get some this week. Picked up some YS vegan burgers from Coop today, the quarter pounder style ones are lovely so if nothing else we're good for those for the foreseeable. 

Your youngest two sound a delight (at times) perhaps suggest to DS2 you don't wish to control him by doing his food shopping or washing either, or running him about...thus he can manage himself from now on. I'm sure i got that as a threat once...soon brought me off my hormonal high horse!
Don't mention house insurance to me...still battling ours for an event last July which our neighbours insurers paid out on in two weeks. 

XSpender

I was accused of trying to control my son's life yesterday.  He's 9.  I said yes I am, I'm your Mum, it's my job  Don't think the same argument will work when he's a teenager!

badmemory

Once they get into their 20s they do grow out of it & realise which side their bread is buttered.  At 8.45 bad mother here hasn't got off her backside & cooked tea yet.  DS just laughed & said never mind you'll get round to it!  My excuse was that I am reading on here & getting annoyed about being told I am elderly!!!!!!!  Grrrrrrrr! 

I was 74 yesterday, I am not elderly, I may no longer be young, but elderly!!  And when it comes to some little Hilter telling me I have to self isolate for 4 months or they will fine me & send me to jail (they actually mean commit me) frankly I would rather it was over my dead body because otherwise what would be the point?

Chrystal

The point is that they don't want to have to make our Doctors make the decisions that the Italian Doctors have had to make.  
We 'oldies' are more likely to catch it apparently so could clog up the hospitals.... then when the crisis actually hits they'll have to decide who to put on the ventilator and who to take off!