Quit..rest ..restart . Diary no.3

dreaming

Hi AC, and all. Thought I would drop by and see how you were doing and it all seems to be going well. Good on you for tackling the weight and fitness and keeping a positive attitude. Maybe the good workout by Mr PT affected your legs as well as med. reduction? Lunges and squats etc. can certainly work the muscles hard. I know what you mean about getting up though and feeling it in your knees. I have that problem too and have to stop myself from going "Ooof" when I am in public!
Everything here is ok - Alfie cat is still plodding on, and follows me round the house. I'm in the study now so he is sitting behind me snuffling and snoring but when I go and tidy the bedroom (which I am meant to be doing right now) he will follow me and sleep under then bed till I leave there. He also has knee and leg problems and is finding it harder to jump up onto the sofa etc. so I have a footstool there that he uses as a step. Anyway - lovely to see how well you are doing and what a long way you have come in your journey. I really should be cracking on with something useful now but another few minutes on the forums won't hurt, will it? Plus I might get some new tips as I need to seriously save money as everything seems to be going up in price (petrol/food especially). I also have smart meters, and have used it to identify wastage, but the other thing I like is that I no longer have to get the stepladder out to read the electric meter - which is situated in a cupboard over the front door - or lie on the floor to see the gas meter - which is under a shelf in a bottom kitchen cupboard. Definitely not easy with dodgy knees and eyesight! I did have to buy new tv last week as other one finally gave up the ghost. Went for a smart tv but so far all I can do is watch tv as I can't figure it out yet. Have also had to buy a new house phone (which I also can't work properly) to replace my very, very old one, and got the Amazon Echo (on advice of my kids) so I can declutter my dvds and cds as both dvd and cd player had died - and I haven't worked that out yet either. My gadgets are definitely smarter than me - where is a seven-year old when you need one? Those items were all approx. 15-20 years old so did ok, but I have been in my house over 8 years now and am always expecting to have to replace the white goods I bought then as nothing seems to have a long life these days - hence the visit to MSE today for some saving money tips and encouragement to save the pennies. Anyway, best wishes to you AC, and good luck to LL on her imminent move.

Gigervamp

Good luck with the move LL, I hope everything goes smoothly.


The reason a lot of people don't want smart meters, is that they're still installing the first generation ones, which stop being smart if you change your supplier. The 2nd gen ones have fixed that problem, but I guess the energy companies are trying to save money by using up all their old stock first.
There are also people who cannot have them fitted because they don't have a good mobile signal where they live, as the meters use the mobile network to send the info from the meter.


You don't need a smart meter to monitor your electricity usage, you can get devices that clip onto a cable on the meter which do the same job. Energy companies were giving them away several years ago.


Dreaming, one of our cats follows me to the bathroom every time I go up there, and then he demands cheek rubs, by sitting staring at me, then he raises his paw like he's doing a high five, until I rub his cheek! When I've finished in the bathroom, he trots off downstairs and goes back to his spot under the dining table. He's such a gentle thing.

another_casualty

Hi Dreaming
Good to hear from you again. Glad Alfie is still going strong .
I would imagine the smart tv would need to be plugged into your router. I've still got my toshiba flat screen with an Apple TV box and Netflix . It has a dvd built into the side . The tv is plugged into the stereo . I've always used toshiba ,and if TVs never had to be upgraded I would still have my very first one from the '80s:rotfl:
DVD players and CD players are cheap as chips these days , so if you want to stick with your collections you can . Having said that, if you have amazon prime or iTunes / Spotify , it's probably best to just offload the collection. The kids will steer you in the right direction :rotfl: Everything is deemed to be throwaway these days .

It's true when you say everything is going up . One of the things that really annoys me , is how much we should be paid these days.
For example, when I was made redundant from my great job back in 2006 I was getting temp work for £10-12 per hour .
Fast forward to now, and if I was in London it would be £9-10 for the work I do. Imho , it should be £18 ph or thereabouts . This is one of the reasons why there will always be a debt problem . I'm too old to be a rocket scientist now :rotfl:
I have a home phone ,but never answer it . I was going to get an answerphone but my reckoning is if somebody wants me they have my Mobile and email address.
Take care for now

dreaming

Gigervamp wrote: »

Dreaming, one of our cats follows me to the bathroom every time I go up there, and then he demands cheek rubs, by sitting staring at me, then he raises his paw like he's doing a high five, until I rub his cheek! When I've finished in the bathroom, he trots off downstairs and goes back to his spot under the dining table. He's such a gentle thing.

Ha-ha - my Alfie literally follows me everywhere - in the garden, in the kitchen, bedroom, living room, and yes into the bathroom if I don't shut the door (I live alone and do shut it if I have company BTW). When I sit on the sofa he sits next to me with his front paws over my leg and his head on his paws as if to say "Right you're not going anywhere now", but as soon as the doorbell rings (even sometimes if it is on the tv) he will hide behind the sofa. He will stay there until they have gone unless it is one of my adult kids when he will act as if he hasn't had human company for days and drool all over them (apart from dodgy legs he has hardly any teeth!). This cat has cost me a fortune in vets bills - leg ops, teeth ops/cleaning, general sickness - but he also looks set to go on for years (he's 14-15 yrs now). He's a rather large ginger tom who also goes by the name of Mr Grumpy but with me (and kids) he is the soppiest thing ever - far more affectionate and amusing than some people I know. I just wish he wouldn't still try to climb up me like he did when he was a kitten - ouch!
By the way - I have actually made the bed and tidied bedroom since my last post, and brought in the bins from the road, and topped the car up with oil - just in case the housework/activity police are monitoring this.

Gigervamp

Aww, he sounds lovely! Pixel is not far behind him in age, he's 12. We've had him since he was 8 weeks old. Luckily no vet bills so far, because one of our young cats has recently cost us thousands, after getting under my husband's feet at the top of the stairs and she was trapped under him as he went down. She shattered the ball joint in one rear leg, so now doesn't have one, and snapped a bone in her other back leg. She's made an amazing recovery and to see her walk and jump up onto the bed, you'd never realise what she's been through. It does mean that she now has to have laxatives every day, as the passage is smaller due to the injury to her pelvis, but she's quite good at eating her food which we mix it in.


Anyway, don't want to derail AC's thread with talk of cats, or I could chat all day!

dreaming

another_casualty wrote: »

Hi Dreaming
Good to hear from you again. Glad Alfie is still going strong .
I would imagine the smart tv would need to be plugged into your router. I've still got my toshiba flat screen with an Apple TV box and Netflix . It has a dvd built into the side . The tv is plugged into the stereo . I've always used toshiba ,and if TVs never had to be upgraded I would still have my very first one from the '80s:rotfl:
DVD players and CD players are cheap as chips these days , so if you want to stick with your collections you can . Having said that, if you have amazon prime or iTunes / Spotify , it's probably best to just offload the collection. The kids will steer you in the right direction :rotfl: Everything is deemed to be throwaway these days .

It's true when you say everything is going up . One of the things that really annoys me , is how much we should be paid these days.
For example, when I was made redundant from my great job back in 2006 I was getting temp work for £10-12 per hour .
Fast forward to now, and if I was in London it would be £9-10 for the work I do. Imho , it should be £18 ph or thereabouts . This is one of the reasons why there will always be a debt problem . I'm too old to be a rocket scientist now :rotfl:
I have a home phone ,but never answer it . I was going to get an answerphone but my reckoning is if somebody wants me they have my Mobile and email address.
Take care for now

I went for a Toshiba this time - having usually had Samsung I do have Spotify (free one which won't stream on Echo - grr!), plus i-Tunes (which I think I am locked out of now but still have my iPod), as well as Amazon Prime. I actually can't remember the last time I watched a dvd or played a cd so to be honest they may as well al go and give me more room for books. I have actually offloaded a boxed set of The Watermargin to my ex-H. It was something we used to watch in the 70's when we were first married so thought he might as well have it. The only one I am a bit sentimental about is Millennium - a sci-fi series written by the same bloke who did X-Files, and which I loved (although no-one I knew seemed to watch it). My daughter says I can watch and listen to "anything and everything" with Echo and Amazon Prime, but so far all it has done is tell me the weather and play some country and western from Amazon Music but doesn't recognise 60's and 70's pop music as a genre. And I am going to have to wean myself off from saying thankyou to it.
You still could be a rocket scientist I bet if you put your mind to it. I'm still waiting to discover what I want to do with my life (and I'm 63 now). When I was working someone asked me if I had a Plan B career-wise and I replied that this (the job I was doing at the time) was it! Retirement is a much better option although money is always a bit of a concern when considering major purchases (and genera cost of living just lately). Mind you, I was never particularly well off when I worked as I was still paying mortgage. Luckily most of my hobbies don't cost a fortune and I now have time to enjoy them, and friends and family.

another_casualty

There was a raid in my home yesterday . A tin I have in the cupboard incase if insects etc . So, yesterday about 9.30 am I noticed a fly in the living room. I managed to stun it and it disappeared. When I come home from shopping , I found it in the bathroom and managed to kill and flush it . However, this morning I found another one half dead on the living room window . I killed that also. What's annoying me now , is I've just found another in the bathroom. I killed that .
So, where are they coming from? Are there any more ??:eek:
Last week , there was a lot of dust in the bathroom extractor.
I have mesh which keeps spiders out . On the same day as the dust removal , the fire brigade were at my block as there was a pigeon stuck on the roof area. I'm on the ground floor . I can't see anymore flies , so no idea how they came into my home . I'm wondering now if it's the dust that the pigeon knocked down which went through my air vent in the bathroom . I just sprayed raid up there through the mesh
Tbh, I can't see where else they could've come from. My windows have mesh on them to keep spiders out. Confused . Com

I still have pain in legs , and difficulty getting up and down etc
What I need to remember is that it is 19 days since I reduced the prednisolone dosage , so should be patient for a while longer.
On the plus side , I've reduced the dosage quite a lot from a year ago
Gotta stay positive .

another_casualty

Flies gone . Only 3 in total . Must have been the dust :rotfl:
Strange goings on on Saturday evening . Power cut again .
Scottish power tried a few times to get it going . One minute it's off, a few mins later it's on again etc.
In the end they took out the temporary traffic lights , cordoned off the area outside my door and were hard at it until the early hours of Sunday morning . All seems to be ok for now .

Mr .Trainer asked for today's session to be put back until weds. I of course agreed . No problem . However , in spite of the continuing joint pain , I went and did a session myself anyway . I was walking slowly to the gym , with cartliage and leg pain but have to keep going
and am glad I did . Seeing him on weds , means that it's twice this week that I excercise . Not a bad thing .

Received bill for service charges today . An increase of just under £10
There is an AGM where we are all invited to attend . I believe that to be feb next year. Three of my neighbours attended. I may go along to the next one . I will raise the window cleaning issue with them , plus a couple of other suggestions regarding the communal door and the mail.

I notice that the flat opposite mine has not sold after all,and is put back on the market . The flat upstairs is also still for sale with no interest as yet . A friend of mine was telling me that brexit ( again) may have an influence . He has noted a slow market where he lives .
Who knows?

anna_1977

well done on the extra exercise AC! I'm starting running again on Thursday after a break of nearly a year - dreading it but know if I don't go I'll never get fitter again!
I think the market is so slow at the moment, I live in a town in Hampshire just south of Guildford, properties are normally sold within a couple of weeks here but some are taking months and months!
Thankfully I'm not selling

another_casualty

Hello Anna:)
Hope all is well with you . Hope the running works out well for you .
Once you've got back into it after 2-3 sessions , you'll be back in the swing of things I'm sure . If your busy life allows you room to keep it up regularly , you'll be where you want to be in next to no time.

Seems that there is a slowdown on the housing front then .
I do feel for those selling .