Huggers

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, relentless violence and human misery.

I'm just back from a month away and can't go through all the pages of this thread, so sorry if this is a repeat quesiton, but where are the questionaires to be found? I hate it when questionaires are put out by stealth when everyone is away! They did that with the parking.

Brilliant!

is it open yet?

First Mate you are an absolute hero. I'm glad there are people like you in the world.

I use the milkman and have had the occasional theft but now he leaves it more discreetly inside the wall. It is delivered very early and I suspected the thefts were made by late night small hours revellers.

Moved here from Pimlico in 1999 full of dread but like living here very much. The new East London Line is an added bonus.

sounds familiar, FJ, but still no idea how it works! no funds appeared in my sons account and had no idea what to expect, just the promise of untold riches if he lent his card. The boy who recruited him has now been caught, but maybe he was an equal but more proactive idiot.

My experience is the targetting comes from an older child in the school - But I believe it's a pyramid type scam where there is a chain all the way up to the conning theiving adult who has basically scammed everyone. Skegness may be able to explain it more clearly-as we are still working it out!possibly like the Nigerian internet scams.

thanks Skegness, have sent you pm. Teenage years are such an anxiety, I feel every year there is a crisis of ultra stupidity.

To parents of teens with bankcards: they are being invited to hand over card and pin in a 'risk-free'/'victmless' enterprise where they get card back after a week/report it missing and some extra dosh. The naive are targetted/coerced/persuaded. Please warn them never ever to do this-never to reveal a pin or hand over a card- as it is money-laundering and accounts are hijacked. This is an imprisonable offence of fraud even at grassroots level. Child may not realize this, even though knowing it's a bit dodgy. Luckily ours was flagged up immediately by a suspcious bank manager as cctv picked up my son being accompanied to bank by some 'unlikely' friends. You cannot emphasise this enough to your children, especially if they are extremely naive airheads like ours...

We have family membership of Jags - all classes are free. My husband has a badminton court once or twice a week, I do zumba, pilates and swim. We can use the gym. The pool is great, does get busy at times but timetable gives a good idea of when it will be busy. Weekends and holidays full availability, school term is outside school hours availablity...I think it's good value and we use it a lot. Tennis courts, climbing wall...

hello Sailor, I had a narcissistic mother who played her children against eachother and practised favouritism and bullying, so my relationships with both my sisters and brothers was awful! I had some counselling many years ago and once I recognised the dynamic was not of us children's making, was able to move on. I too expected a girl as my second child, and was amazed to have a boy. They are just under 2 years apart and have had their spats, but i, unlike my own mother, manage any rivalries or conflicts with fairness and common sense.(i hope!) They were great friends as small children, had some fall outs in early teens, argue quite a lot but love eachother a lot. The small gap in age means older daughter has always tried to be bossy, but basically it's been fine. I found childhood memories became specially painful for me as each child got to the age I had been- but really because I couldn't imagine how anyone could go out to deliberately psychologically toy with such precious creatures! At the same time it became healing to know I hadn't made the same mistakes.

Report it to the police and they should track them down.

yes it was brilliant but episode 5 was the end...that was it, 5 episodes. Open ended or another series after a long wait?

our space under the eaves is only about two or two and a half feet in depth but goes the full length of the eaves. We have one access hatch so you have to be a bit of a potholer to use the far reaches.

Rebecca

We put a bath in the loft! We squeezed our bathroom under the eaves, not over the stairs as is the usual thing and it gave us enough room for a bath with shower overhead, but a shower would have done just as well. Our clothes cupboards are over the stairs. The loft is now our bedroom- and I am very glad we don't have to go down a floor to use the family bathroom. It makes it extremely flexible for future uses. We also have a loo on the ground floor. We have storage in the eaves and also under the staircase that goes up to the loft. We also have storage in the roof space of the original back addition. Think ahead, how long will you stay in your house? A shower means greater flexibility. One day you may want to let out the top bit when the birds have flown the nest. Or if you sell, it will be something a buyer will prefer. With a loo you are already doing the plumbing. However many bathrooms you have, they are not going to be used all at once.

The Ivy HOuse was a popular pub. It wasnt lack of business that undermined it but the demands of Enterprise Inns who seek to bankrupt their own leaseholders. I for one am delighted in the idea of the Ivy House springing back to life. Enterprise Inns were not on the same side as the pub they owned. Now the Ivy House is free of them it's a whole different story.

Hi Marmora Man, our extended family owns a Grade 2 listed house in Bognor Regis and you have to be very very careful of everything you do. We replaced our rotted wooden sash windows with custom made wooden sash windows- four bays, which was extortionate- only to find the council on our doorstep because we had used strengthened glass. I mean strengthened, not double glazed or anything. We had to remove two of the completed windows and do them again and then apply for planning permission to get the strengthened glass accepted on the upper storey (to prevent anyone falling through them!) We eventually got it. It added about four grand to the works on the house. We were in total ignorance of the grade 2 status after 30 years of ownership as the Grade 2 status was somehow forgotten/not known about/unaknowledged during the purchase in the eightees. The roof had to be repaired according to strict guidelines- it has a lead roof which most builders now replace with silicone or something for longetivity and to prevent theft. But we had to have lead. Also it had a valley roof which meant the original gutter runs through the roof space itself. A recent rainstorm flooded it, brought down a ceiling and was not covered by insurance as it is 'escape of water from a gutter.' It's a historic gutter, we can't change it. At least you have foreknowledge. But remember you may have to seek permission for everything you do, from painting the outside to repairing a gutter. The Listed Property Owners Club is a very useful source of information, with lists of suppliers of specialist things, advice on planning etc. Re extensions it is not just a question of the council's approval! It's English Heritage or whoever! hope that helps!

no Burbage, you've read me wrong. it wasn't late and there were no diversions. I wasn't waiting for a bus, I was on it.There was no extra traffic. The bus which usually takes 25 minutes to go from south bank to east dulwich station took an hour. The only thing that made the bus late was the driver driving in a really wierd slow way and hanging around stops where people weren't getting on or off. Really, I get this bus loads. It took twice as long for no reason whatsoever. Because it was wierd, I mentioned it. Maybe I thought someone would say , yes, Ive had that driver.It was only the strangeness that led me to mention it. oh and the grabbing of the rail, sorry I wasn't clear, was referring to the violent and hard braking- we had seats.

I can remember it, so maybe I should have had some of what he was having.

you had to be there really.

We have just returned from South Bank on the 176 with normal-ish traffic,and it took one hour- a journey that usually takes about half an hour. We progressed completely averagely until we got to the Nags Head in Camberwell for driver changeover.Today there was a ten minute wait for this. Then once we had the new driver everything slowed right down- for no apparent reason we stopped for another ten minutes at the stop just past Camberwell Green. The driver was extremely slow until he got to stops, when he was extremely fast on the brakes, leaving us hanging on for dear life as we descended the steps. Could our driver have been stoned?

Awful for you Delainie. I think there is already a bylaw for dogs to be on lead except in parks- it's a question of implementing it. There is a bloke goes round with a staffie off lead and I have called out at him when his dog pooed on the pavement in our street and he walked on and he gave me all kinds of abuse. If his dog had been on the lead he would have at least been next to it when it did it's poo instead of blindly walking on. also my own dog who is on lead would def kick off if hassled by an offlead dog in the street, which is another worry.