h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Garibaldi in GB.Me ,i prefer fig rolls ,or marshmellows on chocolate coverd in whipped cream sprinkles,+plus liquir base

GL. I've been stripping wall paper too, which has also been painted over. No1 son and I managed half a wall .

Cassie gave us one of her looks when she discovered us making a mess in ~her~ room. But when I pointed out that she will have No1 son's room with a good view of the three Westies that get taken for a walk on the green twice day, she deigned to be stroked.

Haven't been to Bath for ages, I have a good friend who lives there and it is high time we got together.

Well, let me know if you come down this end of the M4, Caer. Boots may be coming down at Easter: perhaps we could do a Surrey/Kent Girls Night Out Away Day!

B

*wakes up, looks around, wonders what's been going on for the last couple of weeks while she's been asleep*

IIEM, a black coffee to wake me up properly please.

Right,a s I said yesterday, i got meself a couple of DVDs out the video shop, and thought I'sd post to say what i thought of them:

"The man Who Sued God" is righteously funny- Billy Connolly plays a lawyer turned fisherman in Australia whose boat is destoryed in his storm, and the insurance company won't pay out on acts of God. So he sues God, in the form of his most prominent representatives. And it has some hilarious lines, including, in the insurance office:

"Just one thing top ask, and this may seem an obvious question, but if I were try to stand up, and somehow slip, and my crutch were to slip so far down your throat it shoved your epiglottis out your arse, would that be an Act of God too?"

"It's a grey area"


I also watched the first half hour of Withnail and I- I like it so far! I've just got up to the bit where they've gone to stay with Richard Griffiths, and Paul mcGann;'s just referred to him as "a raving homosexual!".

and "I demand to have some booze" is a great line.

Just stopping in and then rushing back out.

IIEM, I need a Mog's Ususal this morning.
I don't like Mondays.

*sips and fidgets*

IIEM, the usual.

Garius, we'd say "to go" instead of a fly cup...

I'm feeling all jumpy today. The STBX has been snippy all day because he hurt his back at work, and now I'm all snippy. The lawyer I met with suggested that I wait to file until I have more time, but I don't know that I can do that. He's simply making me crazy. Even without the back issue that's just happened, he won't clean, and with two classes, teaching, work, and being the primary parent, I don't have time. Mind you, he's only working 3 days a week at most.

The straw that broke the camel's back tonight was him saying that he didn't want me to pay my car payment out of the joint account, because it was HIS money. I paid the rent out of my account (I have to have a separate account for school funding reasons), so if I'm paying for him to live here, why can't he help me pay for my car?

Oh, I am just livid!

Why does it all sound so familiar to me...
The best you can do atm is to let the out here.

MR, you should at least push your solicitor to draw up a financial agreement whilst you are both under the same roof, which can then be the basis for the financial settlement once you are divorced.

Or withdraw your share from the joint account and stop paying anything into it before he takes the lot. H's ex-wife cleaned their joint account out the day she left saying it was 'her' money.

A Girls' Day Out in Bath would be , Ben. Summer would be best of that perhaps.

IIEM a for me. Then I'm off to the gym

"We've gone on holiday by mistake."

IIEM, a va- thank you... So what's with the French mood again, GD?

A cup of tea, please, IIEM.

The summer it shall be then, Caer.

MR - get the financial arrangements agreed as early as you can. My ex and I agreed them in the very first conversation we had about divorcing, and luckily we were both mature enough to stick to them. But I have seen so many situations where one or other partner renages on an earlier verbal agreement, and the proverbial hits the fan.

Ben

*Z flops down on a Bean bag in a tired manner*

Just got in from sorting out my grandparetns, who are in their late 80s, and somehow managed to both fall over at the same time. One is in hospital, and the other is currently bedbound. The local nursing team is coming round to sort her out three times a day, and do what a family would do if we didn't all live so far away and weren't more concerned with our own lives..

I spent the night their and are started to sort things out.

Odd my Dad has plenty of spare time but guess who's doing all this...

Probably because you are one who is familiar with hospitals, Z, those sort of things tend to get referred to me to deal with. Although No2 brother does his fair share of ferrying Dad to his appointments. No1 brother would if it was easier for him to get away from w*rk.

There are also loads of other reasons why immediate family hold back, feelings of guilt, insecurity, lack of confidence, dislike of dealing with illness. The list is pretty long.

In our family my mom has always been the one to deal with this kind of stuff. She has a medical education, too. I can't even imagine what'll happen if she is the one who needs the help.

Yup I suppose that's true, I was so embarrassed I just rung up and spoke to a nurse who said that she'd put some laudry on, and someone get it out this evening. I had to explain that no one will be visiting for a few days.. She must have been thinking we were a really uncaring family.

Still I know it sounds harsh but she would much rather that a proffessional helped her, (and they are excellent) than a family member saw her like this. This way she can still maintain her pride.

Trouble is most of those "professional carers" are seconded to other priorities (there funds comeing out of gov budgets).(i wontstart)

As for being a uncareing family you dont have to be liveing on top of oneanother to seen/percieved to be "that" I stoped liveing as a "family group within walking distence 5miles" when i was ten but as we all grow into adults just a phone call can be far more importent than washing ect.

Dont be embaresed when speaking to a nurse,as they to have family,ok
they might not be so cantankerous and honery as "mum" but there's only one each.

I've met them, and they are doing a much better job than any member of the family could do. They're trained nurses(or sometimes one trained nurse and one student) working for the NHS rather than some agency, which is always useful. It's good to know that even if she'd been on her own she'd have had the same help as caring family that lived within a 200 mile radius (unlike us!) would have provided.

They know exactly how to help her do things on her own, which makes her feel much less helpless. When I called they'd seen that she was in pain and called the doctor, and let him in (They have a door key as she can't answer the door). I suggested the same thing, but she insisted she was ok and wouldn't let me call the doctor. I am truely grateful, and any one who wants to critise s for the time being, will have me to deal with .

Caer, by the seventh room, we have found some tricks to removing wallpaper. First, get a "paper tiger". It's a thing that you roll over the wall and it cuts little nicks in the wallpaper. Then, rent or buy a garden sprayer - the type that you use to spray insecticides, etc. on fruit trees. We borrowed one from a neighbour (who had removed all the wallpaper from the house next door, then moved across the street to start again on the wallpaper there). Use the paper tiger first, then mist the wall. Wait 5 minutes, then mist again. Repeat until you have misted the paper 4 times. Then start pulling it off.

In our case, this resulted in the top layer of paper coming off, leaving the backing. Another soaking or two wetted the backing paper enough to get off, with the aid of a putty knife. This then left lots of glue still on the wall.

To remove the glue, mist the wall again, then scrape with a putty knife. This gets most of the glue off. Then, to remove the rest, we used a sponge that is sold for "sanding" drywall mud. It has a regular sponge on one side, and a rough mesh stuff on the other.