The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Pyxis

silvercar wrote: »

Yes all is fine.

Just a precaution, given family history.

:T :T :T

Still, at least you've had a good clear-out!

LydiaJ

silvercar wrote: »

Yes all is fine.

silvercar wrote: »

That's so nice. On the family board you see constant arguments between siblings claiming that someone isn't pulling their weight.

It is very nice. I often think how lucky I am in this respect. We each do what we can. We vary a lot both in our skills and in the extent to which our circumstances permit helping him, but between us we've got most things covered.

I am the one who (a) only lives an hour away from him, and (b) only works part time and (c) gets school holidays, so I've been taking the lead on the whole "moving into the flat" thing. DB1, however, is a wills and probate solicitor, and has been doing lots of legal and financial stuff for them for years, while DB3 is the most practically minded one, so he's been doing all the DIY for decades. DB2 took extended leave from work a few years ago and lived with them for a couple of months to be my mum's carer while my dad was having his knee replaced. There's no way to calculate any kind of equivalence between those contributions, so we don't try.

It's a very different pattern from how my parents' generation managed their parents' old age. When my maternal grandmother died, my mum's brother wrote to her to thank her and my dad for all that they'd done for her - which was basically everything because he was living on the other side of the world. He, meanwhile, was busy supporting his wife's care of her elderly parents, and he expressed gratitude that my dad had a sister who had put in all the effort to look after my paternal grandmother with the help of her husband. When I was young I thought that when my parents got old it would be me and my hypothetical husband caring for my parents while my brothers would be too busy with their hypothetical in-laws.

Pyxis wrote: »

just wondering whether you could let it for 6months or a year, and that way, it will be earning its keep while your father is settling to the thought of selling it.
It would also be occupied.

:rotfl:

If you could see the place, you'd understand why that's so funny.

The difficulty with selling it is not an emotional attachment to the place on Aged P's part, but the quantity of his belongings that are still in it, having not made the cut for being taken to the flat.

There's also the state of it. It was modernised to be bang up to date in about 1952, and has had almost nothing done to it since. There's a half size central heating system that has radiators downstairs only. There's no insulation of any kind anywhere, no double glazing, only half a fitted kitchen, ancient scratched enamel baths and mould on various walls. The electrics appear to be the original ones that were presumably put in in theh 1920s or so, with various later additions. They pre-date the invention of the ring main, and have a mixture of 13A square pin sockets, 13A round pin sockets, and 5A miniature round pin sockets. The fuse box is of the kind where you have to unreel a bit of fuse wire and put it in the holder yourself. There are also several cracks where an internal wall has slipped downwards an inch and a half because the joists underneath are rotten and those two colossal bookcases were sitting being very heavy either side of it.

It does have broadband, though.

Getting it into a fit state to let out would be a mammoth undertaking. OTOH we can sell it as it is. There is a functioning sink and cooker, and there are two toilets and two baths, so it can be sold as a habitable home, even though whoever buys it is unlikely to live in it without doing a lot of work to it first. It will be marketed as a rare development opportunity, and some aspiring property developer who fancies making a fortune doing up a total wreck will maybe come along and overpay for it before sinking far more money than they foresee into dragging it kicking and screaming into this century.

Pyxis

LydiaJ wrote: »

There's also the state of it. It was modernised to be bang up to date in about 1952, and has had almost nothing done to it since. There's a half size central heating system that has radiators downstairs only. There's no insulation of any kind anywhere, no double glazing, only half a fitted kitchen, ancient scratched enamel baths and mould on various walls. The electrics appear to be the original ones that were presumably put in in theh 1920s or so, with various later additions. They pre-date the invention of the ring main, and have a mixture of 13A square pin sockets, 13A round pin sockets, and 5A miniature round pin sockets. The fuse box is of the kind where you have to unreel a bit of fuse wire and put it in the holder yourself. There are also several cracks where an internal wall has slipped downwards an inch and a half because the joists underneath are rotten and those two colossal bookcases were sitting being very heavy either side of it.

Blimey! It's a fossil!
Gosh, I remember those round pin plugs! And the wirey fuses. I taught myself how to change a plug when the colours were still red, black and green!
I can actually remember when the house I was growing up in was rewired to the square pin ring main system.
Then I had to relearn the wires when they changed to brown, blue and green/yellow, as all the appliances' plugs had to be changed.
My mum couldn't do it, so it was down to me.

I can't even remember the last time I fitted a plug, now.

Just a thought! English Heritage might be interested in it!
Or one of those programmes like Back in Time for Tea, or that other series about going back in time and how we lived, etc.

I wonder how safe those electrics are? :think:

But yes, I see your point, that you couldn't let it like that.

It does have broadband, though.

That's all right then!

vivatifosi

There's an interesting article in this month's Good Housekeeping about diminishing skills. Changing a plug is definitely on the list, but doesn't score as poorly as darning and repairing. So much so that my tablet doesn't even recognise the word darning. I certainly can't remember the last time I typed it, but did darn a pair of socks last time i was travelling.

SingleSue

All of mine are very proficient at darning and repairing clothes (they saw me doing it enough as they were growing up as I had to repair rather than replace) and all have their own sewing kits and use them.

Josh finds it quite funny that if anyone is ever looking for a needle and thread, they are directed to him..those being referred to him admit to being quite surprised too and generally have to check with the referrer that they have the right person.

Pyxis

I must admit, I've never been very good at sewing.

We did have some lessons at school, when about 11 or 12, and I do remember being taught to darn.

However, my darning, both then and since, produces results that look worse than the hole! :rotfl:

I do have a darning mushroom, though!

The only sewing I've ever enjoyed was when I made stuffed animal toys from fur fabric, etc.

My dreadful stitching was all hidden by the fur!
Actually, I've still got the teddy-bear and a couple of other toys I made. I made loads more and gave them away to friends.
(This was as an adult in my 20s!)

Although I've tried using a machine a few times in the past, it just never worked out.

Ok, I do do repairs if I absolutely have to, but there has to be a real pressing need.

SingleSue

I fail miserably with a sewing machine, me and them just do not get on so everything has always been hand sewn.

I had a slight advantage growing up as mum's trade before she had us was as a seamstress and she made lots of our clothes, hemmed curtains, my show clothes etc and as a young teenager she showed me how to make my normal jeans into skin tight ones.

I've been altering my clothes ever since, back in the day I would buy cheap off the market and adapt them to match London fashion at a fraction of the cost. I also made fluffy toys for a few years.

Weirdly my needlework teacher didn't rate me at all...probably because I broke several of her machines in the year she taught me :rotfl:

LydiaJ

vivatifosi wrote: »

There's an interesting article in this month's Good Housekeeping about diminishing skills. Changing a plug is definitely on the list, but doesn't score as poorly as darning and repairing. So much so that my tablet doesn't even recognise the word darning. I certainly can't remember the last time I typed it, but did darn a pair of socks last time i was travelling.

We teach changing a plug as part of physics. We do it in Y8, and again as part of the GCSE. We have a set of specially doctored plugs for them to practise on that can't actually be put into sockets, so they can't plug them in while they've got the backs off them and all the wires showing.

I can darn, but I can't remember the last time I did. Darning is the only kind of sewing that Aged P knows how to do. He learnt in the navy in 1944, when he was 18. Early in their marriage, Mum knitted him a jumper, for which she bought too much wool, so he kept it for darning it, because of course it was precious to him because she'd knitted it. It became eventually his gardening jumper, and ended up more darn than knitting.

chris_m

Pyxis wrote: »

Ok, I do do repairs if I absolutely have to, but there has to be a real pressing need.

I'm the same - and the same with ironing, too :rotfl:

Pyxis

chris_m wrote: »

I'm the same - and the same with ironing, too :rotfl:

Nope, never iron.