Sue

What do you feed it with? Just a general all purpose feed? Clearly I am doing something wrong with mine! They flower every year, but they don't have anything like that amount of flowers!

Steve the spin doctor is highly recommended on here. https://londonspindoctor.com His phone number is at the top right of the website- I tried to copy it here but it just kept trying to phone him!

That's amazing!

Congratulations on getting it to flower!

ChatGPT agrees! Well, sort of. Yes I have too much time on my hands 🤣

Crikey, seems like GMs haven't improved in the over twelve years since this thread was started 😮 Is there some professional body where you could report this awful experience? Sounds like a trainee who hadn't even begun their training (and should probably be considering a different career). Was there no supervision? Did you ask for somebody else to rectify it? At the very very least they should refund you and give you free sessions until it is back to looking like what you asked for. I have twice had this happen (years ago), once at a branch of Charles Worthington and once at some long forgotten place, and in both cases it was rectified free by someone else (once it had grown back a bit). I highly recommend Kuki in Bellenden Road. It isn't cheap, but I have been going there since it opened and I have never had a bad experience there. I have only ever had Shingo, who is excellent (but on holiday at the moment) but to the best of my knowledge the others are good too. https://kukihair.com/

Malumbu, that's great that you are so helpful and honest, but sadly not everybody around is. And some of us are crap at DIY and would be better off not attempting most of it. I can wire a plug, unblock a u-bend and paint a wall, but that's about it. Mind you some of the people I have paid didn't seem to be much better, unfortunately. Can you say more about the LETS scheme? Who regulates it, and how?

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/waste-and-recycling/christmas-tips-reduce-reuse-and-recycle

And they started long before midnight!

Do you know who organised and ran it? Because it must have been quite a lot of work. Who kept track of the credits? What safeguards were they? Was there a lower age limit eg over 18? Was insurance needed? ID? Who checked it? What was the situation if somebody was injured while working in your house or garden? What if someone broke or stole something? What if someone in your house was molested or attacked? What if you weren't happy with the standard of work? Sorry to be gloomy, but whilst this sounds a great idea in theory, in common with many people I know I've had several bad experiences with supposedly professional tradespeople, let alone someone who wasn't doing it for a living.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/31/coughs-hiccups-accident-and-emergency-hospitals-nhs-england?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Surely you are still covered under these circumstances even if you don't have the physical licence? I can't believe you would be prevented from driving? That would be a ridiculous system. I don't recall any delays when mine was renewed. Why would their medical department be involved if you have no medical issues? Could someone have made some admin mistake somewhere along the line?

Crikey, £4 plus does seem excessive for one card, let alone twelve at that price! Did he explain why he wanted to spend so much? There could be many reasons. Did the recipients also send expensive cards? If so, rather than putting them in the recycling bin, you could just cut the handwritten bit off and send them to a different relative the following Christmas!

It's not very important in the great scheme of things, just a tiny piece of ED history! My OH remembers this too! Give her my regards, if she remembers me!

Ah, thanks, it all comes flooding back. I've actually been to the Hastings shop, I'd forgotten all about it, along with her name! Didn't she (in between?) take over what was then The Magnolia, previously The Magdala, now The Lordship, with her then partner? Or is that some figment of my imagination? In fact, didn't they transform it from The Magdala (much missed) to The Magnolia? With flowery wallpaper covering the front of the bar? Which reminds me of the pub's brief period after The Magnolia as the ill-conceived and ill-fated The Patch.

Oh yes, it could have been about there, I can't remember exactly. At one point there seemed to be a load of pizza places opening on NCR. I vaguely remember the one we used to use was put out of business by another one which opened. Wasn't Grace and Favour's food offering more of a tea shop at the back of the actual shop? If memory serves the owner, whose name escapes me now, was one of the earliest people I know to move to Hastings. Which must now be crammed with South East Londoners 🤣

That Neal Street veggie cafe was great. Food For Thought ❤️

https://www.letslinkuk.net/ I'm interested to know why the OP didn't find this sort of scheme to work, as I would have thought it was much harder to find someone to do a direct exchange with? Does anybody else have experience of a scheme like this? Happy to be persuaded!

But when was it posted?! I haven't posted any this year. I can't bring myself to pay the exorbitant cost of the stamps, and at least I can sort of honestly blame it on illness. If I can't hand deliver them, I send e-cards. I know it's not the same, but it's very much easier. And as for the people who still send pages of closely handwritten letters .... very admirable in terms of the hours it must have taken them to write them, but they remind me of those spoofs eg x has just passed all their many important exams with the highest marks possible, y has just walked round the world in a week, z has just become the first person ever to be knighted twice, we are about to fly off for our fifteenth exotic holiday this year ....... Or else (or sometimes and) they are full of who has had what illnesses and accidents and other catastrophes. Is this just my relatives and distant friends? Am I somehow attracting these reams of handwritten paper?

Oh, I didn't know that! I didn't move here till 1991 (I think) but the NCR incarnation must have been around that time? Unless my failing memory is even worse than I thought it was, sob.

I just googled, and apparently there's another branch of the Soho Street Govinda's in Theobald's Road. I had no idea.

Off topic (ish) but does anyone else remember when Blue Mountain opened? They had chocolate coated coffee beans and a range of coffee beans sold loose, and I can't remember whether it was freshly baked bread or rolls or croissants or something else, but my then partner used to go and buy it/them in the morning. And behind the part with the counter, it was divided into several little rooms, all different colours and styles. There was another room upstairs, though I can't remember if that was open from the beginning It was great. It went through many incarnations after that, before eventually sadly closing, but I liked the first one best. Also off topic (ish) there was a Greek? Turkish? deli opposite. My then partner bought some yoghurt there once, and when he got it home he found it was months (I think) past its sell by date. He took it back. The guy in the shop opened it up, looked at it, sniffed it and said "There's nothing wrong with that." 😂

Was that the Hare Krishna place? I can't remember exactly where it was (or maybe still is) but it was somewhere around Oxford Street.

The "for sale" section on this forum lets people offer things for free or cheaply. And the "wanted" section let's people ask for things they want or need, for free or cheaply. There are also existing schemes like Freecycle, and also local food banks. And there is (or was) a local scheme where you can bring things to be repaired free. I think it is/was based in Nunhead. Isn't that simpler than having a barter system? You might have something to give away, but the person who wants it might not have anything you want. Or have I misunderstood how it works? I can see that offering services free might not fit into existing schemes, but depending on what they were, what would happen if things went horribly wrong eg someone wrecked your house? Sorry if the above sounds very negative.