Dusty's Frugal Fortnights Return!

pollyanna_26

About six years ago I had to pay for a green wheelie bin for garden waste and a brown for recycling. The bins had been damaged by the bin men hurling them at the back of the lorry and damaging them. According to the woman at the council I was responsable for those bins and would need f to look after them..;.I did washing out the black bin with disifectant befoe we had to bag general waste.; I'd turn the hose on the garden bin. The recycling bin never got dirty  because we were only supposed to put paper, glass and tin in there and i'd wash tins and bottles and jars.

The same thibg has happened to many people in our area and I found myself wondering if we were supposed to escort our bins to the back of the lorry and make sure it didn't get battered or broken. .

A few people tried swapping their bins for someone elses.  I went on Amazon and found stickers for wheelie bins that could be personalised with an address  After putting one on a bin I tried to take it off  but it was stuck fast so both the  bins I paid for haven't been a problem. No one seems to take a black bin.but my brown anf green are left alone now and the bin men don't seem to bash them about now.

pollyx

pollyanna_26

I've just read your post about your shopping trip and glad you found what you were hoping to in Heron.

We haven't it ourselves at our Drs but some of the staff in surgeries are run ragged and do spesk quite shortly at times or be quite rude. I would hate to be anyone on the frontline nowadays. Rules keep changing then those making the rules break them it must be very frustrating for someone trying to get on with their job. Our practice manager has hung on always helpful and  polite but has told me there are times she feels like screaming when things are being mishandled changed or ignored.

Have you ever tried using a walker when out shopping? It can carry your shopping amd one with a seat will allow you to sit down for a  while between shops.

Our surgery has always arranged appts with Occupational Therapy who can help in many ways.

I'd be careful with a paraffin heater we had a big iron made in ironbridge coal range when Iwas growing up it had an oven where mum could cook or make bread. We were never cold.

There was parrafin heater in a middle room. Mumh had a gas boiler no washing machine yet she would wash the clothes put them through the mangle outside and hope for good weather.

She already had Arthritis and was feeling the cold so bought a big paraffin heater for the room she did the washing in. It threw out a lot of heat but my dad had served in  the Royal Navy during WW2  escorting and protecting the merchant ships heading for America  Canada  and other counries helping Britains war effort with food , many things that were impossible to find in the UK and tools , weapons lots of things

Sometimes they'd go all the way to Siberia to help the Russians who were being starved out of existence.  It left him with a very weak chest and some time each winter he'd be off work ill with Bronchitis and otten pleurisy.

Where we lived had a lot if dirty smogs in winter rolling in across the sea.

We seldom visited the Dr but one bad winter he came to see dad and myself.both struggling for breath.

He looked around and spotted the paraffin heater and told my mum that needs to go it's choking them both. The middle room had a blocked up fireplace and one of my older cousins opened that up. he was a builder dad still got his winter illnesses but never as bad as when the oil heater was there.

I keep trying to think of a solution to Mr Dusty and his phone. and the football pools.

I know you've been concerned that someone  with a very sharp mind and skilled with figures is struggling.so much.

Does he recognise  the mames of those football teams or are you reading out the names so he can do his pools?

I'm not being nosy but not sure if he still has his his reading skills. I've been wondering if he still can read it would be worth putting the instructions for his phone and other things that confuse him on big sheets of paper somewhere obvious and see if that helps.

You have to look after yourself too Dusty and you need rest and some time to recover yourself after being out and about.When it comes to Christmas I have visions of many huddled round a candle like Bob Cratchit.

pollyx

dustydigger

so.updates

 +yesterday afternoon I began to have an upset stomach,and nausea,probably picked up something on that crowded bus   Plus that ear infection is still plaguing me,but not so itchy,so perhaps is getting better. Knee still bad,but thats been normal for 40years

+browsing through Martin's info on Scottish Power customer service last night,very discouraging. They are awful,one of the worst companies out there. Cant get them on the phone,the so called live chat is just frequently asked standard Q&A,you get passed from pillar to post,they promise to phone back and dont,emails are ignored........ouch. I tried to find out about credit balance,but the live chat only has info on the £400 grant and the new caps There used to be a way to tap in an independent question,but I couldnt see it anywhere. In the community section,loads of angry people frustrated at the poor service,asking for help etc,and no sign whatsoever of an SP person answering.They are a disgrace.

I looked back over earlier SP bills,and their emails,to see if I could find a review mentioning my credit balance. Nothing,just in April I was told I would continue with my usual fixed tariff price. No mention of the credit balance situation.

They have informed me that my £66 has been awarded - but will take 5 working days to land in my account. Seems a long time in this day and age. Its like them claiming cheques need 5 days to process,surely should be like that in modern click and things take a millionth of a second to activate.

Wish they had applied it straight to my SP account,as some companies are doing...........

 

sheilavw

Dusty my bin lid blew off and away last February when I was away. I logged a repair, thinking they would come and put a new lid on. I got an email saying they couldn't repair so I got a free replacement. They then arranged a day to collect the old one, I 'could just leave it out, didn't need to be at home

dustydigger

sheilavw said:

Dusty my bin lid blew off and away last February when I was away. I logged a repair, thinking they would come and put a new lid on. I got an email saying they couldn't repair so I got a free replacement. They then arranged a day to collect the old one, I 'could just leave it out, didn't need to be at home

Hope that happens for me,Sheila. Probably varies from council to council. We'll see next week

dustydigger

Morning all. been a bit poorly,just upset stomach,and small pains,nothing excessive,but I was not up to sitting at computer. Also Mr Dusty has been very demanding of my time helping with his football. Then on Wed I was expecting a phone consult with a NHS person,and wasted all day waiting for a call that never came. Same yesterday,no call,and I have no details to get in touch.So its been a few distracted days with lots of irritating little things,a bit brain fog,and queasy insides. Oh joy.

But very little football today,stomach is improving, I will battle the brain fog (takes a while for new B12 jab to show improvements) so I will try to do a few posts.

dustydigger

@pollyanna_26

sorry not to have answered your queries,I'll try to answer a few now I am halfway human. You know very well how it goes.

Mr Dusty and I met at college in Newcastle ,he was studying accountancy,me librarianship. His company back home in Uganda who were sponsering him and giving his mother a tiny stipend were unhappy when the accountancy body rearranged the course from 4 years to five,moved some of the modules already passed in his 4th year course up to year five,put things he had not yet done into the part 4 he had completed,just mayhem. It would take 2 more years to complete the course,so they put an end to it,saying they would no longer finance him - but worse,would remove the mother for his mother. He had to go back home,got us a house etc,and for 4 months he was alone there till I could come in a few months.

Of course,with my usual spectacular luck I travelled the very weekend Idin Amin staged a coup and overthrew Obote. My flight was diverted to Cairo,I spent 3 days stuck in the airport with a 4 month old baby,and only 4 terry nappies since most of our stuff was in the cases in the hold. Oh boy,not much fun!

 We saw some fraught times under Amin,witnessed sad loss of friends and  relatives to  the brutal regime,total economic collapse,then a war to remove Amin,and finally we came back to UK as pretty much refugees,since the old leader Obote came back,more corrution etc,and Museveni started a guerilla war. We'd had enough.

Of course we came back at the time Thatcher was destroying the northeast,Mr D,once top accountant to a big co-op,with dozens of employees couldnt get a job here. At the time even bank managers were ending up sweeping factory floors. It was a terrible time.

Our area was in a depression rather than recession,and has never really recovered up to today.At the time it was terrible. I had 4 children we were on income support,and we still had to support Mr Dusty's mother and my stepdaughters back in Africa. Life was really really hard. Children dressed in clothes from the charity shops,couldnt afford enough coal to heat the house. We'd put the last shovelful of coal on the fire at 7 pm,and as it burned away,pull the couch up to about 3 feet away from the fire for the kids,who covered up with a big thick blanket,and went to bed when the fire went out by 9 pm..

.......sigh........here's Mr Dusty wanting my help with his pools,and then I will be doing the spuds for dinner (roasties and salmon) so I'll see you later.

pollyanna_26

Thank you for post Dusty. I was aware MrD had been born in Africa still supporting family there but now in what seems to be NE England.

I remember the evil Idi Amin it was always in the news as he became increasingly brutal and power mad and I felt for all those suffering or dying under his regime.

I will never forget "The Iron Lady who tore the uk apart . Unless you were very rich you never forgot those years. When she was hoping to become PM she showed a shopping basket and claimed that was how she shopped and would support housewives doing the same.

Well I didn't come over on the cattle boat and  was aware her husband was a millionaire. and decided if she got power she would be out to wreck things she had no idea how many were already struggling and when she became PM slashed her way through working communities  putting breadwinners out of work in the traditional industries that always put food on the table.

She didn;t care about anyone just her need for domination and so many had fallen for her shopping basket she got power pretending to be a normal hardworking housewife.

She ruined many peoples lives here in the NW and the NE and many other parts of Britain but made sure she kept her blue vote in the wealthy heartlands that ensured her place in Parliament.

In the pandemic she's often come to mind as we all stuggled to follow the rules but saw many in power ignoring the rules they'd set..

We weren;t cold when the lights went out. We had a toddler and a new born tiny baby born too early and very weak but we also had a coalman kept us in coal although the Iron Lady despised the miners and pits were closing down, I could dry my washing

on the big nursery fireguard after letting it go low putting a spark guard in front and the nursery fireguard and the washin on it a distance away and the washing would be dry in the morning.

We had recwntly moved in to a 2 bed very modern council flat . We'd been saving to buy a house but a good firend had found us a large ground floor flat with big rooms in a converted victiorian house she herself had a flat in.The rent was very low for such big accomadation but we discovered damp, mildew , mould and silverfish . There wasn;t any outdoor space to dry  washing  outside and although mty husband had a good  job I didn't  yet have a washing machine

My favourite cousin lived in the next road and we;d go shopping together in the neaby shops with our babiies in their prams

One day we noticed a lauderette had opened and that became our weekly treat. We;d be in there in the warm with both babies in their prams the owner was lovely and sometimes made us a cup of tea when it wasn't busy.

We did have a tiny fireplace we;d light a fire in but everything was dripping on airers

We were still saving to buy a house when the  couple of months old baby became ill. My childhood Dr had kept me among his patients though he was miles away where I used to live, He very kindly would drive over to see the baby and often sat late at night.

He contacted the council over the damp mould and other problems and were surpried to recieve a letter from the council offering us a 2 bed recently built ground floor flat in the area I'd lived in round the corner from my mums house.

We moved in and loved it the only fly in the ointment was a nasty neibhour living in the other ground floor with her front door  facing mine if I put my nose out of the front door I wasn;t to hang washing in the garden or go in the garden although she did both. I used to dread going shopping because she be there as I left the flat with some other musn't she'd dreamt up .

We had a tiny prem daughter a year and a week after son was born and she objected to that.although the flat had two very large bedrooms.

I was beginning to feel depressed and our GP sent a supporting  letter to Housing to back up the one I'd written. Shortly after we were moving in to a modern large 3 bed  house very big round the corner a few doors away from mums.With big gardens and a huge kitchen plus a coal fire we loved it but when my husband died far too young we needed a fresh start while trying to come to terms with our loss;

I bought this then new build a long way away he is never forgottten but it did help us move on.

I read when the Lights went out again recently I still had my paperback copy . and it seems we're back in those times again. I hope the bug you thought you'd picked up is on it's way out. Times you aren;t up to posting you don't need to apologise many on the forums post when they are able but not when they aren't up to it.

pollyxx

beanielou

Sending love polly   xx

pollyanna_26

beanielou said:

Sending love polly   xx

Thanks beanie any luck yet finding somewhere you can have your jab with onsite parking for your mobility car and disability friendly access. I'm surprised how difficult it is with Wee Nicola in charge. DD1 had many arguments with her on the phone when she was constantly opening then closing all her stores from the top of Scotland to Preston in Lancaashire. I did tell dd1 them's the rules during lockdowns but she wouldn't see sense . Two forceful red heads and the wee one  won.

Shortly afterwards dd handed her notice in to the company she'd worked for most of her life living in both the uk and europe at times.

When she wouldn't stay they gave a big payoff and she considered her future. She'd never been keen on gardening but one night she sent me an email. Unusual as she usually phoned for a long chat. I didn't want you crying on the phone after all your efforts to get me through Uni and follow my heart.

I've resigned been considering options and have started a study course at RHS Harlow Carr. Don't worry I'm fine I'm all ready practising on other peoples gardens in the village masked of course. .There's an awful lot of weeding involved when you join this course but I plan to work there once I'm trained then maybe become a garden designer.

I was speechless the girl who used to moan if we went to a garden centres and returned home surrounded by big clematis and other plants jammed in the car as well as the boot. I had to cut down on the hollies which weren't very passenger friendly.

She's found her perfect in a way that surprised me. She sent me a picture a couple of years ago the pale green wicker arch outside her front door dripping with rosemary. red baubles and tiny white fairy lights and I thought you've taken a long time but you now understand my love of plants and gardening.

I'm wondering iif you've contacted your GP for advice Beanie.even if they don't have easy access they may have a carpark  outside ,Ours is on the same site as a fish and chip shop , a pharmacy and the Coop pretty quiet not crowded together and our surgery have been doing jabs for those unable to access the vaccination hub or a pharmacy. They're doing some in the car park with timed appts and others in the surgery for those too ill or frail to travel. or wait outside.

I hope you manage to find somewhere so many are ignoring the flu and booster jabs while the virus figures are rising again and flu can and has led to the death of some people.

Take care

pollyx