General Chat

At the moment all the car parks in town are free ,some just have limited parking but later this year the biggest car park is going to be pay and display ,what annoyed everyone was the council were asking what people opinion about it going to pay and display ,but at that time the payment machines had already been put up so they were going to do it nomatter what people thought about it.
I can see a lot of people parking round here on the estate ,and for some it will be all day as they park and go to Norwich on the bus to work .
Our homebase is closing and everyone is hoping it will be The Range going in as they have bought a lot òf the homebase shoes ,iour nearest Range is Norwich ,don't know how this will effect Roys as will be close together although Roys sells clothes and I don't think the Range does .

Suns been nice but the car is still white as its in the shade .

Just seen on the news that schools in Wales are bringing in a policy that parents with children in nappies in school will have to come in to change their child the schools will no longer do it , what will someone do if they work, I know dil has to change several nappies in nursery class ,children seem to be wearing nappies a lot longer ,and potty training isn't being done at home as much ,perhaps they think schools will do it instead

0 degree here but doesn't feel any warmer. I did go out into the garden to feed the birds and because there is no wind it didn't seem too cold.

Mandy the Range does sell some outdoor type clothing. Our homebase is now the Range and in Workington the range are taking over dixons, a large department store that has closed.

It seems all the councils are doing the same to save money with the parking charges, but it doesn't help businesses and if they close the council loses the council tax which won't help them either.

I remember my teacher friend saying about the nappy changing and reading that some can't hold a pencil or spoon either. We shouldn't be paying teachers to do it. It must be more difficult these days when children go to nurseries as soon as their mothers go back to work, but it seems to be becoming a bigger problem. I suspect some parents are glued to their phones and not spending the time to do it. There does seem to be an expectation growing that children are everyone else's responsibility, even to feed. I don't mind a free hot meal being provided to all schoolchildren to be sure they get one, but they should then reduce the child benefit that's provided and not being used for it. I remember it being 'mother's pocket money' in some cases.

There's a Homebase and The Range here, both the same side of the city so I don't know who will take over the Homebase. It seems unlikely it will be another Range. They might use the old Homebase for The Range instead though as it is bigger and has a bigger carpark that's easier to access.

The road is still white over and I can only see that one neighbour has been out. OH is expecting few matches to be on tomorrow and isn't sure whether he wants to stand out in this cold anyway!

I was wondering whether Ros might move nearer family and find a home near there where she could visit him. The poor chap, it's something none of us want as we get older.

There was already a Range in Cheltenham but they took over the Home base building and closed the old one.

A balmy 3 degrees here tonight and no frost at the moment but that could soon change. Done a little bit of painting today and not much else. I can't seem to settle into anything. I was expecting BIL today but he did'nt turn up.

Its the same with the shops in Holsworthy there is a few parking spaces in the square and a paying carpark within walking distance of the shops but when I moved down here we had 2 chemists four banks, a supermarket dress shopp and smaller dres shop two shoe shops a postoffice and books shop a hat shop 4 pubs2 butchersa mens wear shop (still there) two greengrocers a chippy and resturant co-op a gift shop jewelers (still there) and 2 electrical shops. Two chinese places and one did fish and chip as well an opticians, a curry house a cheap shop for alsorts of things a sweet shopp (still there) a pet shop and hardware shop and a couple of antique shops o and a florist and two funeral directors plus there must have been some I have forgotten about. It was always a busy little town with a market on a Wednesday but when you go in now its quite dead and most of the shops are closed by 4.30pm to 5pm. They call this progress!!! I don't think so. There was even a builder merchant which is still there and Mole Valley just down the road and it used to be Smerfields but is now Waitrose.

Ham egg peas and hash browns tonight.

I’m coming to live with you Mel. It’s already -2 here and will go down more yet and for tomorrow we are promised similar temperatures and freezing fog to add to the fun.

I think most small towns are the same nowadays. We’ve lost our only department store and nearly all of our independent shops. The dept store is still empty but most of the other places have opened up as charity shops, nail bars and coffee shops. We have dozens of those!! We do still have a market on Thursday and Saturday. I do understand the need for the Council to manage their finances. The problem for us with paying for parking is that you can’t, for instance, go in once a week and do everything in one go, at least not if you want to take advantage of discounts and offers. I normally get my script on a Wednesday, Iceland have their discount for oldies on a Tuesday, Waitrose have their 20% off fish on a Friday and doctor’s appointments can be any day. Oh well, I shall just have to get a bit better organised and do as much as I can when I have to go to town.

Our Homebase has closed but the Range don’t want it so we don’t know what will happen there. B&Q also closed but we know that B&M are taking over at least part of the building and opening in a couple of weeks.

I think it’s horrifying that children are starting school in nappies. I realise that many parents have to work but pre-school their child is in someone’s care so they should discuss potty training with their childminder or discuss their policy with the nursery their child attends. As Annx said so many parents seem to think bringing up their children is someone else’s responsibility, usually the school’s. I think I am just turning into a grumpy old woman

Mandy, I am pleased you are feeling better. Just eat what you feel your tum can take but keep up the fluids.

It’s surprising the difference a few hours sleep can make. After sleeping for about 6 hours last night I’ve had a lot more energy and got on with some overdue cleaning. Let’s hope I sleep as well tonight, then I might be able to get some more jobs done. I’m on the iPad and it’s low on charge so I had better get it plugged in to charge up.
Stay warm and sleep well everyone.

I saw that on the news about children going to school in nappies. Its disgusting. I did hear that next doors child of 2 and a half is'nt yet potty trained and she goes to a nursary school as Beccy is a music teacher at Shebbear colledge. They said some 8 year olds still were'nt trained and going to school.

Good morning all, hoping today will be a bit brighter and warmer but I don't think it will. Yesterday the sun came out in the afternoon more or less in time for it to start to set and there was a lovely sunset.

I have a man coming to look at the garage door today. It is a local firm who we have dealt with before and in fact they fitted the current door 10 years or so ago.

I feel very strongly about this nappy business. My youngest great granddaughter is 3 and is still in nappies. to the point she actually will say that her nappy needs changing. Her Mum is not out at work, home all day and just says she can't train her The older one was mainly trained by my daughter as she had her while her Mum worked. Mum suffers from some sort of anxiety/depression, thinks she is autistic. (You can tell I am not impressed).

Morning Anng and all,

Dark and dingy here this mroning but no frost its 2 degrees and pc says afternoon rain so thats something to look forward to for a change.

Just the usual to do on a Saturday morning, go and get my paper from the shop and anything else I fancy in the way of bits.
I shall get in touch with BIL today as its not like him to not turn up on a Friday so I hope he's ok.

My son went to a playschool at the age of two and he was clean by then. It seems mothers just can't be bothered to do it these days and just bung another nappy on. Have you seen the price of nappies now? I used terry ones and woulkd boil them up every day. I used to time my son to see when he was likely to go and it worked a treat.

Very hard frost here this morning and it is still -5. so I will not be going anywhere.

Morning all,
Very sharp frost here again too and early it was quite foggy but that soon cleared and now the sun is shining ,temperatures should come up next week .

Not doing much today certainly not going out that's for sure ,we thought we would have a roast today ,don't think we've had one since Christmas day so looking forward to that .

Thats sounds nice Mandy can I come please?

Very hard frost here again this morning and that horrible white freezing fog which is only clearing very slowly. I was outside for about 2 minutes wearing a coat and gloves and came in frozen. I only went to get something from the freezer in the garage and to put a pan of hot water on one of the birdbaths to melt the ice a bit for the birds. I might have to go out again to fill a bird feeder as it’s getting emptied so quickly at the moment.

I’ve been promising myself to clear out the hall cupboard for ages so I got going on that this morning. It houses all the valves and gubbins necessary for our underfloor heating but in there I also have a clothes airer, a steam cleaner, a big upright vacuum cleaner, a squeegee mop and a mop thingy for our wooden floor in the lounge, plus all my shopping bags and a coat for the garden. By the time I’d got everything out, swept down all the cobwebs from ceiling and walls and used my little vac on the floor, sorted everything out and put it all back I was exhausted! Why on earth did I have so many plastic shopping bags? I mostly use hessian ones anyway. Most of the plastic ones are in the garage now waiting to be filled with stuff to go to the tip.

Re. the nappy debate, most children can be toilet trained with persistence and lots of praise but a lot of modern mothers seem to think that it happens by magic. One young mother of my acquaintance said “he’ll ask for the potty when he’s ready”. I felt like screaming “No, he won’t if you haven’t taught him what the potty is for”.

I’ve had quite a long sit down so I’d better get on with another job. Enjoy the rest of the day, keep warm and, if you have to go out, be very careful.

Mel I could post you a dinner lol :-D I wonder if anyone has posted food like that through the post ,I bet someone's tried it .

Vera when I have to go trotting off to the shed to get anything out of the freeze I wrap up well to go down there ,I try to get things out in the morning even if it says cook from frozen can't be doing with going out later when it's dark .

Now its nearly lunch time, Colin wants cream cheese and cucumber sandwich don't know what I fancy .

I'll have the same as Colin please Mandy.

BIL just gone and he took the chain saw to see if he's little man can get it running properly.

We had nice granary rolls with sausages in and brown sauce, scrummy and fresh orange juice. That filled him up. I did think I may get two eggs today but instead I had none.

Afternoon All,

Like AnnG, a very hard frost here too, it was still -5 according to the PC at lunch time and we have fog that still hasn't cleared so I can't see over the field at the back. We decided we had enough food, can do without my paper and OH decided it's too cold for footie, (even if any were playing on artificial pitches!) so we have stayed in. It has saved scraping car windscreens as well. OH offered to go to our freezer in the garage to get out the lamb shanks we are having for lunch tomorrow and was glad to be back indoors in the warm.
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Mum soon had me and my siblings potty trained. I remember my brother and sister on their potties as there were big age gaps between us! She couldn't wait to be rid of the extra washing with terry nappies so I think the easiness with the disposables is partly to blame as well as laziness. At work we would get the disposables left on seats in the waiting room, even though there were toilets. I feel sorry for a lot of little ones I see nowadays. Those tiny little pram cum pushchairs they can hardly move in compared with the old prams and mums on their phones ignoring them.

I no longer accept, except in a few cases, that parents can't afford to feed their children either when so many, even at primary school, are overweight or obese. I think some prioritise and spend on the wrong things and will pay more rather than learn to cook even easy things. Healthy food like a jacket potato with some filling isn't expensive, but feeding children on prepacked easy junk food the parents eat and the children have become used to is. If I go to our Co-op in the morning before school time, it is full of childen buying sweets, fizzy drinks and crisps. When I wait in Morrison's carpark for OH when he has a hospital appointment, and it's at lunch time there is a steady stream of students from the college going to the supermarket and they come back laden with cans, heated pastries, sweets etc. The parents aren't short of a bob if they can afford all these snacks. Children can have foods they are picky about, as we all do, but do some parents even try these days? The brussel sprouts mum and dad grew needed coaxing with 'mash only just a small one with your mashed potato then and you won't know it's there and will grow big and strong' would eventually persuade my little brother and then we all used to get reminded about the starving children in Africa didn't we!

Vera you have been busy and got your cupboard sorted and cleaned. By the way, the dishwasher tablets didn't work very well for me with the oven racks, so I've found some adjustable ones on line that will fit instead. I accidentally left my old racks in the oven while I set it to do a 'self clean' at a high temperature and I think it ruined the surface of them.

I must get some cream cheese Mandy. I like it on a sandwich with celery cut fine, but cucumber sounds nice too and I need to start using this whopping whole cucumber Asda sent as a sub! I hope both of you feeling ok again now?

I saw recently to not keep cucumbers in the fridge as it shortens their life and they can grow some sort of spores which is why they go mushy in the fridge. I have to say I have always put mine in the fridge so I was surprised to read that.

With the youngsters buying stuff for lunch. My daughter tells me that when she was in the 6th form and I gave her money for school dinners, she used to spend it on other things from the shops. so that is maybe what some of them are doing now. I worked in a large comprehensive part time and part of my pay was a free meal. I actually liked the school dinners then (1970s.

I do think it is the fact that it is easy to take off a disposable nappy and bin it that makes these young mums lazy about potty training. If they had to shake 'poo' down the loo and then put the nappy to soak and then (as I had to) boil/hand wash them and hang them on the line in all weathers they would soon get the children trained.

Ann I had three packs of cream cheese because I was going to make a cheese cake at Christmas but changed my mind so now they need eating up I might give son one tomorrow when he comes .

I don't know about others schools but the secondary schools here have cards the children use for school lunches the parents load money on the card and then they just swipe the card ,that way the school doesn't handle cash ,but after school there's no end of youngsters buying sweets snacks etc in the food places so the parents must be giving them money .

Anng I've always put my cucumbers in the fridge ,might try leaving it out and see if it keeps OK, I do sometimes leave tomatoes out as I think they don't taste as good when they are cold ,I also leave my eggs in a cupboard and not in the fridge .

As to nappies again its the throw away society, so easy to change a nappy and just throw it away .

I actually ruin my first cooker by boiling nappies in a preserves pan on the top element. The underneath part melted and dipped in the end. I did'nt know you shoud keep cues out of the fridge and yes mine so go soggy sometimes but the chickens get them so they are not wasted. Its much cheaper to buy a whole one than a half which is a few pence more. I like ham and cue sandwishes and cheese and cue salmon and cue or tuna and cue. If I have some sandwiches I have slices of cue and perhaps little toms with it too. I also like cue sandwiches or tomato sandwiches. I also like celery sitcks with bousin plastered up the middle, thats delish.

Not done a thing since BIL left, just sat and played on the pc. |May do a jigsaw on it now.

O I meant to ask if anyone knows if a log burner fan would work on a double radiator?