Thanks for posting that Tree Bee. We are heading into tree planting season and I keep forgetting that I want to plant a dark purple lilac. Every year when I see them in bloom I think of Mum who had a beautiful lilac - until cats kept sharpening their claws on it.
I'm pleased to see this year that our lilac has almost completely recovered from the rosette disease (which I consign to Hell) it had four years ago, and which forced us to do major and unsightly surgery on it. Most people would have yanked it, but my mother planted it when I was carrying my son, and I couldn't bring myself to take it out.
Our kids are always trying to hide the remote from each other (and therefore from us too) so that the other one can't choose what's on TV
If they haven't invented it yet, someone needs to invent a TV remote which has a bluetooth connection to your phone, so that you can press a button on the phone to make the remote beep in order to find it - or a similar connection with the TV.
My phone can act as a remote for my TV, if I can't find the actual remote. Does that help?
My co-workers at BurgerPalace would occasionally bring in food to share. One day I got a dose of hot sauce (spread liberally on a tortilla -- my own fault) that nearly brought me to my knees. Even the Mexican guys in the kitchen were crying over that one.
TICTH the bloating brought on by my chemo. My legs look like sausages, and the skin around my ankles keeps cracking - and I can't reach that far down on my left leg to apply lotion. (Fortunately, I have an aide and friends who help out with that.) It is all most tedious.
So sorry Rossweisse, that must be very uncomfortable. Would wrapping them help after applying gobs of lotion, or really thicker cream like stuff help? A friend indeed you have. Hope your doctor can come up with something to reduce the swelling. Gee enough with out side effects added into the mix. Prayers.
Washing powder formulation has changed? I hate "new improved" anything as it almost certainly means it isn't improved from my point of view.
(That used to be the cause when I was covered with eczema again having cleared it. I assume no fabric conditioner anywhere. I've got solutions to avoid eczema now.)
Our kids are always trying to hide the remote from each other (and therefore from us too) so that the other one can't choose what's on TV
If they haven't invented it yet, someone needs to invent a TV remote which has a bluetooth connection to your phone, so that you can press a button on the phone to make the remote beep in order to find it - or a similar connection with the TV.
My phone can act as a remote for my TV, if I can't find the actual remote. Does that help?
it's not actually the TV remotes that they hide. It's the controls for the Sky / cable TV boxes. Hence no buttons on the machine to change channels or -as they usually want to - access recordings or online/catchup content.
Eczema on the Intrepid Grandson, poor little sausage
All of it
How old is the intrepid grandson ?
our boy had horrible, horrible excema as a baby - nut/pulses allergies which were later confirmed may have contributed, my wife went dairy free in case that was a cause and it was coming through in her breastfeeding - but the skincare nurse we saw (and who thew all sorts of creams and lotions at us for "in the meantime") said it would die down after he finished teething: and douse me in dollops of Diprobase if it didn't all come true. He only occassionally needs some on the backs of his knees and his hands.
Skunks who come into the yard and spray for no reason I can see in the middle of the night. Smell is so bad it woke me up. Thankfully the dog was inside.
Eczema on Mr. S, who thought going milk-free had cured it
Eczema on the Intrepid Grandson, poor little sausage
Stress-induced eczema on my fingers
All of it
All of us are prone to the dreaded ec***a: no bio washing products, no fabric conditioner and a dessert spoon of white vinegar in the fabric conditioner compartment works for us. And to soothe we all slather on the old-fashioned acqueos cream which, for us, does better than the stuff the doctor prescribes.
[BTW E45 cream brings all 3 of us out in itchy spots ]
Eczema on the Intrepid Grandson, poor little sausage
All of it
How old is the intrepid grandson ?
our boy had horrible, horrible excema as a baby - nut/pulses allergies which were later confirmed may have contributed, my wife went dairy free in case that was a cause and it was coming through in her breastfeeding - but the skincare nurse we saw (and who thew all sorts of creams and lotions at us for "in the meantime") said it would die down after he finished teething: and douse me in dollops of Diprobase if it didn't all come true. He only occasionally needs some on the backs of his knees and his hands.
TIG is 3 and a bit. What we all find is that something will work for a while, and then the skin gets used to it and it stops working. If I'm allowed to say so, Child's Farm Baby Moisturiser still works for me as I only get the dreaded e-word when I'm stressed (it's how I know when I'm stressed!)
TICTH (probably again) robotic telephone cold-callers, specifically those who think our (non-existent) Google business listing is out of date. We've both told them several times (by the "press 2 to be removed" method and by speaking to an Actual Human) that we haven't got, and have never had, a Google business listing, and they tell us that our number has been removed from their list, but a day or two later, they're back.
It's not even as if we can block the number - it seems to be different numbers each time, some local, some not.
I've had my cell phone number for ten years and I still get people who want to talk to "Araceli".
I have a SIM card from Roam Mobility for travel in the USA, and I can't get them to change the original identity of the number. So if you get a call from a fish merchant in Philadelphia, please pick it up - it's me.
A friend said she got one to hang up on her when she said, "I didn't realize the IRS had moved to Mumbai."
I like to waste their time if I'm at a loose end. That reduces the number of vulnerable people they can scam.
If I'm short of time I insist they talk to me in Welsh.
My late Auntie Ethel used to deal with cold callers by expressing an interest in their product (double-glazing, or whatever), and asking numerous silly questions. She would then tell the caller that she'd have to go and have a quick word with my Uncle Tom, so she left them hanging on......
.....but Uncle Tom had been in his grave for some years.
By the time Auntie had finished walking the dog/watering the garden etc., the cold caller had got even colder.
TICTH Derby Cathedral for getting rid of their bookshop. The one thing Derby has too many of is mediocre cafes and the one thing it now has none of is serious bookshops. I go abroad for a couple of months and when I get back all is gone! Oh well, Amazon can have my money now.
Nooo, don't do it Bob Two Owls. Amazon is pretty Hellish. Might you consider Hive? It's an online book seller which supports high street shops and actually pays its taxes or Foyles?
Commiserations on the loss of your bookshop though. Derby is a very large place not to have a good book shop.
There's also The Book People, Waterstones - and, of course, good old Church House Books for the Christian stuff. Amazon IMV ought not to be encouraged.
I eschew - nay, reject outright, with Episcopal Curses - Amazon, and was greatly discombobulated to learn recently that my good friend Mr Abe Boox is a pal of theirs.
Useful suggestions, BT, and the Church House Bookshop is highly recommended (I'm not saying that just because I'm CofE!).
I've not tried Waterstones online, but our local branch now lies under the Episcopal Curse, simply because their interesting (to me) first floor is not accessible to someone who can no longer climb lots of stairs......for there is no Lift.
I'll give Foyles a go, we have a Waterstones but it has nothing of interest for me just the usual popular stuff. If only the Blackwells at Nottingham Uni was open at weekends...
Hospital staff who announce to a patient that they will be going "home" that day without checking with the householder if that is possible. This has been done twice in different places, and seems to be the normal practice. They decide in the morning that it's that day, and initiate arrangements without making contact. And then complain that it hasn't happened when they have just left voicemail because the householder was out. And express surprise that the householder finds the practice unreasonable.
The consequences of falling ill on a Bank Holiday Sunday. I hoped it was getting better, but woke up to eyes which would look fantastic in a horror movie, after a second night of continual coughing.
1. Having to travel, by taxi, to the hospital to see an out of hours doctor. (He was fine and saw me earlier than appointed.)
2. Having to travel by bus to the nearest open pharmacy (the hospital one wasn't open) only to find that they didn't have the eyedrops and couldn't fulfil the antibiotics for my chest without hanging on to the form.
3. Having to travel by taxi (£5) to the next nearest open pharmacy, even further from home, only to find that they also were out of stock of eye drops.
4. Having to pay for the eyedrops over the counter at that second pharmacy. (Some stupid NHS funding set up, I assume.)
5. Finding that I have no signal on my mobile.
5. Havng to pay £18 for the taxi home.
Eczema on Mr. S, who thought going milk-free had cured it
Eczema on the Intrepid Grandson, poor little sausage
Stress-induced eczema on my fingers
All of it
All of us are prone to the dreaded ec***a: no bio washing products, no fabric conditioner and a dessert spoon of white vinegar in the fabric conditioner compartment works for us. And to soothe we all slather on the old-fashioned acqueos cream which, for us, does better than the stuff the doctor prescribes.
[BTW E45 cream brings all 3 of us out in itchy spots ]
Aqueous cream is intended as an emollient for washing, not as a cream - it contains sodium laurel sulfate, a foaming agent. The Child's Farm baby moisturiser is indeed very good and what I was going to suggest. I personally have found that pure solid coconut oil (it melts in your hands quickly) shifts eczema and dry patches nothing else will.
I get dyshidrotic eczema which causes little blisters on my hands - heavy lotions don't help but coconut oil works very well. Aldi does a tub of the extra virgin stuff for less than £2 in their cooking oil section.
@Penny S , I do sympathise, and can only contrast your experience with that of Mrs BF whilst we were on holiday in Crete many years ago (1994, IIRC).
Long story follows - if TL, DR:
We hired a mini-moke car (a sort of Mini made to look like a Jeep) to tour the interior of the island. The roads were very dusty. Mrs BF got dust in her eyes, which became Very Sore. We stopped in a small town at about 7pm on a Sunday, and the shop (which included a pharmacy) was still open. The kind lady explained that she couldn't sell us any eye-drops without a prescription, but that, if we went out of town to the nearby health centre, the doctor would see Mrs BF, and prescribe accordingly. Meanwhile, Kind Lady would duly run up the street to fetch Maria the pharmacist, who would dispense the eye-drops. We drove back to the health centre, Mrs BF was seen immediately (by a young Greek god, she said), the prescription issued, and, on arrival back in town, the eye-drops duly handed over by Maria - for a trifling cost of about 5 drachmas, or something silly.
I usually witter on about the splendid quality of the NHS, but this quick sorting-out of a minor problem, in a small, remote, Cretan town, on a Sunday evening, was impressive. Something similar happened a few years earlier in what was then Jugoslavia, but that's another story.......
Isn't that brilliant! And just the sort of thing that reminds one how good people are.
Meanwhile, just commenting how having green irises makes conjunctivitis look really dramatic! Glow in the dark stuff!
TICTH the US immigration service, which has the fucking nerve to post the following on its website. The tl;dr version is "If you ask for a discount on our ginormous fees for paperwork filing, we may DEPORT you. Wanna risk it?"
How requesting a fee waiver affects your current immigration status
Relying primarily on public cash assistance for income maintenance can affect your eligibility for some immigration benefits, depending on the totality of the circumstances. You may be inadmissible to the United States (and therefore ineligible for certain immigration benefits like a Green Card) because you are more likely than not to become a public charge. You may also be deportable for already having become a public charge within 5 years of entering the United States for reasons that arose before you entered the country....
When deciding your fee waiver request, we will not consider the possibility that you might be inadmissible or deportable as a public charge. We decide your fee waiver request separately from making a decision about your eligibility for the immigration benefit. However, being inadmissible as a public charge may make you ineligible for the benefit you seek.
I have a double amputee who needs to replace a green card. He can either pay 550$ out of his non-existent income or face deportation for doing an Oliver Twist: "Please, sir, may I have another copy?"
And sending a double amputee back to Vietnam on his own means he'll be out on a roadside with a begging bowl ASAP. And probably dead in a few years.
Did I mention his father was an American serviceman? (Not that they'd ever give him citizenship on those grounds either)
My stepdaughter who has just called after a 4 month silence to announce she, husband and children will be in the vicinity tomorrow and they thought they'd drop by for lunch. No question of Is it convenient or Apologies I only ever get in touch if there is a crisis, no, just an assumption that we'll all three of us be here with the red carpet ready.
Sadly had to inform her I have an engagement tomorrow and the young gentlemen are off at crack of dawn to see if they can catch a wave or two, so we won't be here. Cue tirade about how they've planned to see us, etc. How about you get in touch when you're planning and see if it fits in with our lives for a change?
Comments
My phone can act as a remote for my TV, if I can't find the actual remote. Does that help?
Eczema on Mr. S, who thought going milk-free had cured it
Eczema on the Intrepid Grandson, poor little sausage
Stress-induced eczema on my fingers
All of it
(That used to be the cause when I was covered with eczema again having cleared it. I assume no fabric conditioner anywhere. I've got solutions to avoid eczema now.)
it's not actually the TV remotes that they hide. It's the controls for the Sky / cable TV boxes. Hence no buttons on the machine to change channels or -as they usually want to - access recordings or online/catchup content.
How old is the intrepid grandson ?
our boy had horrible, horrible excema as a baby - nut/pulses allergies which were later confirmed may have contributed, my wife went dairy free in case that was a cause and it was coming through in her breastfeeding - but the skincare nurse we saw (and who thew all sorts of creams and lotions at us for "in the meantime") said it would die down after he finished teething: and douse me in dollops of Diprobase if it didn't all come true. He only occassionally needs some on the backs of his knees and his hands.
But - if the dog were outside, would s/he deter the skunks from their Vile Practice?
Dogs are as magnets to skunks. Don't even think about it.
TBTG, we don't have Skunks in Ukland (outside 'Parliament', that is. Hellish satire being gently applied here, as I'm sure you appreciate.)
Re eczema, we did that with LL until he hit puberty. It's my theory that the hormones and general teen oiliness finally got rid of it.
All of us are prone to the dreaded ec***a: no bio washing products, no fabric conditioner and a dessert spoon of white vinegar in the fabric conditioner compartment works for us. And to soothe we all slather on the old-fashioned acqueos cream which, for us, does better than the stuff the doctor prescribes.
[BTW E45 cream brings all 3 of us out in itchy spots
TIG is 3 and a bit. What we all find is that something will work for a while, and then the skin gets used to it and it stops working. If I'm allowed to say so, Child's Farm Baby Moisturiser still works for me as I only get the dreaded e-word when I'm stressed (it's how I know when I'm stressed!)
Mrs. S, stressed
I have vivid memories of our dog sitting very disconsolately in the bathtub while we poured tomato juice over her to get rid of the skunk smell.
It's not even as if we can block the number - it seems to be different numbers each time, some local, some not.
Grrrrr!
A friend said she got one to hang up on her when she said, "I didn't realize the IRS had moved to Mumbai."
I like to waste their time if I'm at a loose end. That reduces the number of vulnerable people they can scam.
If I'm short of time I insist they talk to me in Welsh.
I have a SIM card from Roam Mobility for travel in the USA, and I can't get them to change the original identity of the number. So if you get a call from a fish merchant in Philadelphia, please pick it up - it's me.
My late Auntie Ethel used to deal with cold callers by expressing an interest in their product (double-glazing, or whatever), and asking numerous silly questions. She would then tell the caller that she'd have to go and have a quick word with my Uncle Tom, so she left them hanging on......
.....but Uncle Tom had been in his grave for some years.
By the time Auntie had finished walking the dog/watering the garden etc., the cold caller had got even colder.
Commiserations on the loss of your bookshop though. Derby is a very large place not to have a good book shop.
I've not tried Hive, but eBay often comes up with bargains (I refrain from recommending a particular seller with whom I sometimes deal!).
I eschew - nay, reject outright, with Episcopal Curses - Amazon, and was greatly discombobulated to learn recently that my good friend Mr Abe Boox is a pal of theirs.
Useful suggestions, BT, and the Church House Bookshop is highly recommended (I'm not saying that just because I'm CofE!).
I've not tried Waterstones online, but our local branch now lies under the Episcopal Curse, simply because their interesting (to me) first floor is not accessible to someone who can no longer climb lots of stairs......for there is no Lift.
1. Having to travel, by taxi, to the hospital to see an out of hours doctor. (He was fine and saw me earlier than appointed.)
2. Having to travel by bus to the nearest open pharmacy (the hospital one wasn't open) only to find that they didn't have the eyedrops and couldn't fulfil the antibiotics for my chest without hanging on to the form.
3. Having to travel by taxi (£5) to the next nearest open pharmacy, even further from home, only to find that they also were out of stock of eye drops.
4. Having to pay for the eyedrops over the counter at that second pharmacy. (Some stupid NHS funding set up, I assume.)
5. Finding that I have no signal on my mobile.
5. Havng to pay £18 for the taxi home.
Aqueous cream is intended as an emollient for washing, not as a cream - it contains sodium laurel sulfate, a foaming agent. The Child's Farm baby moisturiser is indeed very good and what I was going to suggest. I personally have found that pure solid coconut oil (it melts in your hands quickly) shifts eczema and dry patches nothing else will.
I get dyshidrotic eczema which causes little blisters on my hands - heavy lotions don't help but coconut oil works very well. Aldi does a tub of the extra virgin stuff for less than £2 in their cooking oil section.
Long story follows - if TL, DR:
We hired a mini-moke car (a sort of Mini made to look like a Jeep) to tour the interior of the island. The roads were very dusty. Mrs BF got dust in her eyes, which became Very Sore. We stopped in a small town at about 7pm on a Sunday, and the shop (which included a pharmacy) was still open. The kind lady explained that she couldn't sell us any eye-drops without a prescription, but that, if we went out of town to the nearby health centre, the doctor would see Mrs BF, and prescribe accordingly. Meanwhile, Kind Lady would duly run up the street to fetch Maria the pharmacist, who would dispense the eye-drops. We drove back to the health centre, Mrs BF was seen immediately (by a young Greek god, she said), the prescription issued, and, on arrival back in town, the eye-drops duly handed over by Maria - for a trifling cost of about 5 drachmas, or something silly.
I usually witter on about the splendid quality of the NHS, but this quick sorting-out of a minor problem, in a small, remote, Cretan town, on a Sunday evening, was impressive. Something similar happened a few years earlier in what was then Jugoslavia, but that's another story.......
Meanwhile, just commenting how having green irises makes conjunctivitis look really dramatic! Glow in the dark stuff!
Isn’t old age fun.
I have a double amputee who needs to replace a green card. He can either pay 550$ out of his non-existent income or face deportation for doing an Oliver Twist: "Please, sir, may I have another copy?"
And sending a double amputee back to Vietnam on his own means he'll be out on a roadside with a begging bowl ASAP. And probably dead in a few years.
Did I mention his father was an American serviceman? (Not that they'd ever give him citizenship on those grounds either)
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
And the language makes our friends at HMRC the model of clarity and ease of comprehension.
Sadly had to inform her I have an engagement tomorrow and the young gentlemen are off at crack of dawn to see if they can catch a wave or two, so we won't be here. Cue tirade about how they've planned to see us, etc. How about you get in touch when you're planning and see if it fits in with our lives for a change?
I'm feeling less than gruntled.