General Chat

Morning all,

Here I am late on parade on this wonderful sunny day. Washing in the machine waiting to go out on the line and me sitting here talking to you lot. What a naughty girlI am?

Another interesting post from our resident writer this morning I see. Quite true too Ann about the miners being the cleanest people in those far off days.

My new fish arrived this moring, 15 new shubunkins in various colours which I am ver pleased with. Oh bought them for me to add to my pond as the otter took most of my fish killed some and left them dotted around the garden for me. If I had'nt seeen the otter with my own eyes I would'nt have known what had done it and would probably have blamed the stoat.

Hope Frank and Ros are having a nice well earned relax and lazing in the sun.

Well this won't get the washing on the line or the next lot in.

Afternoon all,

<3 Happy Birthday Kim <3 hope your enjoying your birthday today.

Not very nice here again you can feel a fine drizzle in the air ,roll on the weekend when it should be a bit warmer .

I bet Frank is laying in sun now ,hope Ros is feeling better so she can enjoy the holiday.
So your now stocked up with new fish Mel ,lets hope you don't lose any of this lot .

We went out for lunch today ,only to the weatherspoons but it will be nice not to have
to cook tonight.
It was very quiet in there we did wonder if it would be full of families as its half term week , if son takes his family out there's no way the children would be allowed to get down from the table and run around .

Right walkies time now for Max , hopefully it will tire him out for a while .

I live very near the coal mining community as was. Unless it's just a new innovation most of them have pit head baths and showers.

Afternoon All
The internet has been so slow today I gave up and got some jobs done including finishing off the ironing.

As a child when visiting friends of the family often on a Sunday afternoon,I would always inspect the toilets and then inform my Parents in front of everyone whether it was a nice a clean one (much to the embarrassment of Mum and Dad).

Yes the Japanese have some amazing loos.When we stayed in a Hotel in Tokyo the toilet was something like out of Starteck .So many buttons and instructions.I was quite scared to sit on it at first as I had no idea what would happen when I tried out the buttons. But once I got the hang of it it was brilliant.The seat was heated,you could have a wash front and back and then dried too !!! I can't remember if music played too or not.But in some of the public loos there would be the sound of water running.Apparenty this was to cover up the sound of ladies tinkling . The other toilets were the squat ones..Not so good :-S :-S

How big are your new fish Mel.I don't know what Shubunkins are.Lets hope these will be safe from the Otter and any other predators.
I have just seen a White Heron fly over !!!!..Bet it has been visiting some local fishponds.I have not seen a white one around here before.

Mandy do you have set times for walkies? I did with Chester and in the mornings if I was a bit behind he would pester and whine until we went.

I don't think there can be many bunnies or mice about today as Thomas has had 2 whole pouches of cat food.That is almost unheard of !

It has been another dreary day here but thankfully no more rain.

Must get dinner started

No Jane no set time i just take Max when ever ,i swear that when we had Bonnie she would know the time as i use to take her about half one every day and she would get up and sit by the door ready to go.


Talking toilets made me think about the bidet we had on one of the greek island holidays, i pressed the button to try it out and usually it's a gentle squirt of water but the water shot out like a bullet and hit the bathroom door !! LOL thank goodness i wasn't perched over it ...... i might have hit the ceiling LOL :-D

Wasn't there a knob to adjust the temperature and pressure?

Have e-mailed my plumber who is going to revise / tweak his estimate.

Yes David but i think someond had had a go at it , probably thought it would be funny to leave it like that.

David is the plumber supplying all the bathroom fittings ? Might work out a lot cheaper if you bought them and got him to just fit them, there are so many places to buy from now and so many to choose from in lots of price ranges.

Have you tried a price from B&Q ? They fit bathrooms out as well as kitchens .

David what changes are you having done to your bathroom? I am guessing that it will be something easier for you to shower or bath.I am sure because of your problems that you might be able to get some help towards having to change things .

Ha Ha Mandy that was a shock LOL I think we should all have a Bidet.Like they do in countries abroad which is the norm.I have found them very handy for soaking my feet in at times when on holiday after a long day of tramping around :-D
Dogs are so funny when they just know the time for walks etc.Chester would go and look at his lead then come and look at me and go back to his lead again.Whining all the time.Then once his lead was on we were OFF!!!.It was a job to hold him back.

Chris and James have eaten ,but I am not feeling that hungry yet.I will have mine when I feel ready.I have felt a bit 'off' today.All my joints have been hurting.It must be the weather :-S

I think its definitely the weather affecting our joints Jane my thumb joints have been really painful the last couple of days , i think i heard them say on our local news that the temperature today was colder than christmas day !!

Essentially every thing Jane. It was a choice between converting to a wet room or a large shower cubicle with tiled floor and walls. He's changing to sink pedestal and WC. The WC will be a higher one to do away with the need of the frame around it. There will be folding adjacent wall brackets so I can push up. The floor needs attention. Altogether a comprehensive list of materials plus his labour plus the X factor :-\

To Jane, Jane, you were a nurse, you know how they act and react. Would a consultant orthopaedic surgeon on seeing my grossly swollen over heated left leg admit me immediately to a trauma ward and within 24 hours be drawing large quantities of fluid from my knee with hypodermic needles, then with 48 hours from that the same surgeon put my knee through a biopsy after which I'm put on an IV drip for six weeks along with double dosages of antibiotics, after which I was regularly seen by the head of the infectious and contagious diseases department of the same hospital.......would he find something in my knee he ought to have removed with the second fixator.... and not enter the fact on computer ? Would he ?
I was informed of the metal in the knee not by him but by a staff nurse applying the drip. I know how I wrecked my knee and tibia, but how did I come by the disease?
When I attempted to sue, unsuccessfully, this was allegedly down to a urinary infection !! In the bones of one leg ? I don't understand. :-S :-S

Apart from being seriously damaged I was seriously ill :-| :-| :-| :-|

Regular references to ‘Ironing’ on this thread got me thinking. 'Ironing' is an alien word not to be uttered in the presence of young innocent children or old fumbling male fogies like me.

As you all should know by now, Co Mayo is one of the nicer Irish mid-western counties. Lovely as it may be, we rarely had the weather in my young days there for a clothesline. But proving that we were ever optimists even in those pre-Ebola days, there wasn't a home in the neighbourhood without one of these ingenious contraptions.

Now, modern technology has offered us the chance to dry our clothes in a mini-furnace (that's a clothes dryer/tumbler to you & me) while at the same time allowing the infernal machine do its bit to destroy what's left of the ozone layer. Dot Cotton’s launderette with wall-to-wall washers & dryers has a lot to answer for.

Back in the old days though, the nearest we had to any sort of weather-proofing was the indoor clothesline, perhaps over the open fireplace or, in our case, the length of the kitchen. Our country house kitchen actually didn't have a kitchen in it at all – the sparse & well used cooking equipment was in what might euphemistically be called a scullery adjoining the dining room. In the same vicinity, the small square black & white television was located, our Formica-chipped table and our two precious armchairs. Small but cosy.

And at eye line level in this compact living space, we had a nylon line that came into its own when the rains ruined the chances of drying outside in mother's well-stocked garden. Add to that the fact that my dad smoked Woodbines like it was a single-handed Commonwealth Game, the clothes were therefore destroyed with nicotine smells before they even had a chance to drip-dry.

But every home – except the very posh ones – had an indoor clothes line, sometimes over the range but more frequently the length of the house, in addition to an outdoor one. As we became more sophisticated, we acquired those rotating lines on an aluminium pole that gave the full benefit of the wind and only took up a corner of our precious garden instead of blocking the entire view of Croagh Patrick & the vast horizon to the west of the house.

There was also the fold-up clothes drying rack – still popular in town apartments in particular, where invariably they are in permanent show out on the balcony of city high-rise blocks. And there was a guy on a TV Show a good few years back who came up with a rotating clothes line that also had a huge plastic cover over it – so that you got the benefit of the wind but not the inconvenience of the rain. And rain is always inconvenient. The plastic cover acted like a coat for the clean drip-drying non-iron clothes.

The last I heard of that chap was that he, his concubines & his millions moved permanently to the tax-free Bahamas. Look what a piece of plastic & a smidgen of ingenuity did for that inventor‘s bank balance. Mind you, the sales of the same item in his new adopted country never went above zero. But I doubt if he’s worried unduly!

Have a nice pre-Brexit drip-dry ironing-free day!

Morning All
Just a quick one from me just now as I'm on my way out.Way out to town not the other kind of way out :-D.Well I hope not :-S

David,I believe that the surgeon would have done everything possible to save your leg.BUT a Urinary Tract Infection affecting your bones.I don't think so !!!.That dreadful infection was most likely due to the forgein object(the metal) being left behind.There has obviously been a deliberate decision by 'someone' to omit this from your notes.
Any chance of finding the Staff Nurse who told you that the end bit of the fixator was left behind and flushed out.They would surely remember that.I think this would be your only chance of possibly being able to make a claim.You would just need that Staff Nurse to be honest and say exactly what was found.It may just be worth a try to see if she/he is still working there. I feel you have been let down so badly by this cover up.They just want to cover their backsides ,never mind you :-| :-|

No ironing for me today Dermot :-D :-D.But there will be a load of washing on the whirly washing line later when I get back.

See you all later

Morning Dermot and all and evening Kim,

Dermot you forgot the drying cabinets run by electric. A big metal box with a lid you lifted off and inside was two lines of wooden rails, one about half way up and the other at the top. My grandmother bought me one of these when I got married and lived in a flat so I could dry my babies nappies. Yes REAL NAPPIES in lovely soft terry toweling. Boiled everyday and either dried outside or in the airer. It could also be used as an airing cupboard with just the middle set of rails in it.

Another wonderful day here today and I am going to go out in the garden and do a bit.

Thank you Jane, your reply confirms what I had been thinking for a long time, and some times these matters are better if discussed. Cannot remember the nurses name, I recall she was Scottish. The three year time limit for making a claim against damages passed in March. You know Jane, because of the complete avoidability of the injury and my age I some times feel as though the medical profession must regard me as daft, possibly a has been. A busy doctor just has to tick the right box and you're
officially demented :(

Good morning everyone

Mel when the boys were babies I also used terry towelling nappies, boiled in a baby burco boiler and put in a spin dryer which if you didn't load it evenly would nearly take off, then out on the line to dry or on a wooden clothes airer in the kitchen.

I went down to the Arts Centre yesterday and into the finance Office to have a COT with my old colleagues ,I do miss not working there as it was part of my life for a long time, I started in 1978 when Richard was 10 years old, nothing much has changed in the 3 years since I left work but I do visit every few months or so. Over the weekend they are having a food festival with free entry, apart from free tastings there will be music and entertainment for the children so I might pop down there.

It's still very cold here today but the sun is attempting to come out.

You should all be down here with Dermot and I as we have glorious weather today. Too hot for some I think.

I have just fed mum pheasent and she still has 4 chicks so we were both pleased wioth that. Oh was mowing outside the wall and saw her coming along so came down to the house to tell me she was on the way for breakfast with only two chicks. Then he cme back and said she had the 4 so that was good. They had wild bird food first as there is a lot of kibbled maize in the one I bought the other day and then live mealworms which they gorged themselves on tilthey could hardly walk. Mum then had a little mixed corn which is too big for the chicks at the mo and off they all went up the garden. I made coffee and oh was watching them go up the long box hedge, he looked sown at his pc and then lost sight of them.

Afternoon all,

Send some of your nice weather this way will you Mel, it's another murky old day here just when you think it's looking brighter it drizzles.

Called into the vets this morning and they had the results back for Max ,he does have a parasite so we now have some powder to sprinkle on his food for the next three days and that should clear it up.
Nothing else showed up in the test so that was good .

Toad in the hole for us tonight with lots of veg .


Oh dear Mel the little ones are getting a few less each day ,i hope she doesn't lose any more.

Anne it must have been nice to have a catch up with your work colleagues, the food festival sounds good and free tasting too carn't be bad , bet yiu come home with a few nice goodies.

Time for a cuppa and then walkies for Max.

Poor Gill must be having real trouble with her router ,i miss reading her posts .

Oh Mandy that's good about Max. Cas gets diarrhoea if she gets over excited!! It can be a worry, but is usually nothing of concern. It's a beautiful day here too!! We're sitting in the garden (sorry!) with Cas asleep under OH's chair! She's taken to getting into Merlin's water tank in his field and lying down in it to cool herself off!! She looks so funny splashing about, it's very shallow so not dangerous. I'll try and get a pic.
OH has just about finished planting out our veg, so at last the garden is not being so time consuming. We're growing dwarf runners this year, so no bamboos to set up. Wonder what they'll be like? We shall.see.