General Chat

Oh my Linda, what a saga!!!! I hope you are having a large glass of something strong as you certainly deserved it.

I sometimes wonder how these people get jobs as engineers or technicians as clearly when they turn up, they don't seem to have a clue about anything.

I mean, once when the electric went off years ago in a bad storm, I tel on the landline to report the power loss. The woman said, are you sure its off? have you tried turning the switch on ?It beggared belief. i said well, if we had power, would i have sat in the queue for 45 minutes then???

We are all ready and packed up for the Fayre tomorrow leaving at 8.45 am so up early at 7am. Sandwiches to make etc. It was a good turn out at xmas with over 500 people filtering through the hall so heres hoping it will be as good or better tomorrow.

Not sure where everyone is today, probably enjoying good weather and if so, please send it up here as cold, wet & Foggy all day :-(

I thought that I had better post my rant in case I lost it all.
This morning, I got a phone call from the Talk Talk escalation team to check how moving my master socket had gone on Wednesday. Grr, I explained in no uncertain terms about the mess they had made. She looked up their notes and said that the Open Reach appointment clearly said that it was to move the master socket and that they were paying for it. So now I have two more Open Reach appointments, one next Tuesday to sort the phone line out and one get following Tuesday to move the master socket. What could possibly go wrong?
I now have my own allocated escalation lady who is going to phone me and check how everything goes.
I do feel a bit guilty because I told her about the technician telling me that she wanted me to give her a nine or ten. Apparently that is totally forbidden, so she was going to escalate that. I have visions of getting poor technician losing her job, oh dear.

It has been really warm here this afternoon, people were walking round in T shirts, it still managed to rain though.
We went out to a garden centre and had lunch. We bought two large pots and shrubs to do on the decking. I also got some herbs as I left all of mine in the old garden.

Wednesday was an absolutely head banging day. :-(
Open Reach were coming, to move the master socket from the downstairs hall to the upstairs study, or so we thought. I even had a phone call from the Talk Talk complaints department the previous day to confirm it. I also hoped that they would actually connect the line as we haven’t had a dialling tone since the broadband went live. When the Open Reach engineer turned up, he said that moving the socket wasn’t on his job sheet, he had only come to connect the line. He was an African gentleman and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying!
Oh well at least if he connected the line, that would be a step forward. So off he went to the cabinet, he came back saying that the line was working, but I pointed out that he had actually cut off our broadband. He then listened to the line and declared that it wasn’t connected to our number :-S. I think that he said that we could either have the phone line connected or the broadband, but not both. I told him that he had to reconnect the broadband and leave the phone line. So he went back to the cabinet and the broadband came back on again.
He then said that he would go back to the exchange and try and sort the line out, but he had my number, so would phone me. Of course, that was the last we saw or heard of him.
I decided to plug the phone in and realised that there was a dialling tone , so assumed he had fixed it . So I used my mobile to ring our new number, but it didn’t ring here, a man answered it instead. I assumed that I must have misdialled, so apologised to him. I then dialled our new number very carefully and the same man answered. He was very nice and gave me his number, so I could try and sort it out as we obviously had a crossed line. I wondered what number the land line was on, so I used it to dial my mobile. That rang and showed a completely different number. When I rang that number from my mobile, the house phone rang. So we have a working phone, but the number it is using isn’t the one which is allocated to our Talk Talk account.

In the afternoon, I bit the bullet and phoned Talk Talk. You get one of those automated bots, but if you are careful, you can manage to get through to a real person. The first time I tried I didn’t manage to get a person, instead the bot started a test on the line which would take about half an hour.
So I tried again and this time managed to get through to India. After having explained all about the line, the problem was passed upwards to their technical team, so I had to try and explain it again to another Indian lady, who kept laughing as I went through it. She thought the Talk Talk engineer didn’t know what he was doing. As I was talking to her, I got a text from the line test which said the line was fine, but as it came in, my broadband cut off. Some I told the technician and that is when it all started to go downhill :-(
We haven’t used the talk talk router for at least two years as it is rubbish and kept having to be restarted all the time. Instead we have use a mesh system using Deco routers which give a really strong signal all over the house. That was especially important in our old house which was an L shape, so had dead spots with the Talk Talk router. At first, she said it was fine to be using a different router, but then when she tried to look the settings up on her system she couldn’t find them, so she insisted that I put the Talk Talk router in as that was the only way I could get the broadband back. She was insisting that I use the new router which I had been given on March 12 th when our broadband went live. I couldn’t get her to understand that we hadn’t been given a new router, but only had the old broken one. She insisted that I use that, so it took an hour and a half to get it working. We could hear her all the time talking to her supervisor as they tried to get it working.
In the end, we had a very weak signal and after she rang off we realised that we couldn’t connect any of our devices to it if we moved more than a foot from the router.
Before she finished the call, she said that the next day, I would receive an email asking how she did on a scale from 1-10 and it was very important that I give her a nine or ten because anything less than that wasn’t good for her!

I was so fed up on Wednesday night because we had no broadband or phone. On Thursday my son in law came over and sorted the mess out and reinstalled our Deco system, so now we have the broadband back.

I did have a nice day yesterday because my old neighbour came and we had a nice catch up. We then went and collected Eve and went out for a nice lunch. Eve used to do lots of crafting with her, so if very fond of her.

Good afternoon to you all.
A beautiful day here, a really lovely sunny day, so nice I have been outside & managed a bit of tidying up of some old branches that have lain all winter, however I am not as fit as I was, lol, I had to take a few breaks in between shifting them.

Lots of plants are showing new growth, the Daffies are looking nice considering they got a battering the other day. The Snowdrops are fading, I so enjoyed seeing them & I do miss them when they start to die off, we had a lot of Crocus this year, I was hoping for a good show after planting a lot of new ones last Autumn & they didn't disappoint.

Our youngest daughter was here last Saturday, she went back home on the Monday, it was lovely to have her here, I didn't want her to go home but of course she had to, she has her own family to care for & her work, she will be back again, probably during the school summer holidays.

I have stopped what I was doing in the garden now & concentrating on todays meal, I am making Fish & Chips, the usual Friday meal.

The shps are open here as usual & there was post this morning which always happens on Good friday, the banks are closed of course & the Health Centre, otherwise it's very much like any "normal" day.

Well the kitchen & my stomach are telling me it's time to start cooking so I am off to tackle the potato & turn it into chips, not very good at peeling spuds so there won't be many chips by the time I have peeled of more than just the skin, lol.

I hope everyone is well & your weather is as nice as it is here, talk agian soon.

Joan.

Shops are all open here. I can remember when I was young everywhere shut on good Friday. As it is everything will be shut on Easter sunday here but I think shops open in Scotland.

Morning all

Cloudy overcast day here but no sure if its rain or.....snow that's coming eeeek!

I managed to get on ok but MTG on the London board seemed to have a problem earlier on so maybe the problem is with Genes in general?

Still coughing here but its more wheezy so have doubled on my inhalers and that's helping. daughter started coughing but isn't too bad thankfully.

We have the Spring Fayre tomorrow and I am going whatever but as long as I don't don't talk too much, I will be fine. keeping quiet means less coughing. Everything is priced up anyway.

Its a BH in the UK but schools here are open and only the Banks are shut!

Right better get productive and do some chores now.

Have a good day all

Florence in the hebrides

Hello Florence.
It's the LOCAL branch i need to speak to, they are based in Aberdeen..
Soo frustrating that they are not answering the phone or returning the calls when a message is left.

Horrible weather here today, very wet day & soo cold.

Joan.

Afternoon all.

The weather has turned nasty here and is raining, windy and very cold! Was going to poke my head out for some fresh air but quickly knocked that idea on its head.

Joan, I'm not sure if this is the number you have for the Union.
It said the Postal Workers Union was changed to; Communication & Works Union based in Wimbledon , London
Tel 0208 9717200 or [email protected]

Apologies if you have this already, was just trying to be helpful.

well when I went to bed at 11pm , i somehow knew I wasn't going to have a good night as within minutes of settling down, the coughing started and carried on and on. In the end, I had to get up and get a drink, take several puffs of my inhaler and sit awhile in the lounge before returning to bed with propped up pillows.

I really thought yesterday I had made a huge improvement! As I stopped being sick, I made my honey, lemon & glycerine drink and slowly sipped that so hoping it will help. its so annoying when you cant stop coughing and daughter was kept awake too!

I emailed my sol again as its now 2 weeks since he rang me! It may be he has been off sick or something but surely his secretary can email any updates? So far no reply and on Fri its a Bank holiday so he will be shut until next week probably. Brother is away Friday for family holiday and he thought we would have it sorted before then but obviously not. Here's hoping he will be in touch soon with news to cheer us.

just been slowly pottering and tidying up, putting things away as the table looked cluttered with papers and i hate that. Everything has its place as they say.

Well I have put on the heating so it will be warm by the time daughter comes home as she will be cold.

Hope everyone ok today

Florence in the hebrides

Florence..... the cheque from the tax man stated DR as my status, instead of MRS, & so it has to be re-issued.
I wouldn't be able to put it into my account under DR, & they will re-issue,but have been told it will take much longer for them to re issue than it took to send me the incorrect cheque in the first place.

Linda....... as for the R Mail pension, they had already OVER paid me 4 weeks pension money even though they were told of hubbys death immediately !
I got a letter yesterday asking for me to RE PAY it.
I hadn't touched any of it & put it into a different account to be sure it was available to pay back,however what does annoy me is that "they" are willing to accept the money back via my bank account, & of course that is in the name of JOAN !!!!

edited to add......
I am still trying to get in touch with the Post Office Union of which hubby was a long time member, all his working days & sice he had retired.

We have phoned several times a day for the past 10 days, but no-one is answering the phone & no-one has returned the call when we have left messages.
They owe me money as they continued to take several weeks of union dues, but I can't get in touch with anyone so as to be able to get the money back.
The whole thing has really stressed me

Joan.

Afternoon everyone

Well as the day goes on, i'm feeling stronger and my appetite has returned. managed 2 crumpets and marmite today. I weighed my self out of curiosity this morning and was shocked to see I had actually 6lbs!! having said that, i'm glad I did but wished it hadn't been in the way I did. Temp is now just under the 100 which is reassuring.

I had gone to the bingo 2 weeks before but on Tuesday last week, daughters friend popped over, (think it was Tues?) and we took a spin to a local community place just for 1/2 hour. The place was deserted of customers and we were hardly in the place that long. Wed & Thursday I started sneezing, then the coughing started on Fri. So if fresh air gives me an infection, then I really don't know!

Linda, you & your OH are something else! All the work and buying furniture etc made me tired reading all your posts. But at the same time, it is all very exciting for you both. It sounds like it is all coming together.

Anng. that consultant didn't sound pleasant at all grr. They should be taught bedside manners as part of their training! I hope it wont be too long before you get a date for your op.

ArgyllGran, its a nuisance being without a car. many a time mine went to the garage and i was stuck without it for a few days or use the bus, not very convenient doing lots of shopping and having to carry it on the bus! Hope it comes back soon with a small bill!.


JustGinnie, glad to hear your OH has now been discharged, that's fab news. Hope your washing is as dry as mine will be.

It is a lovely bright and breezy day and daughter put out lots of washing but oh my its is very very chilly in the wind.

Poor you Joan, it never rains does it. I mean Mr?? poor human error that and so upsetting. One thing I do know is that because of the fraud in replicating certificates, many companies when dealing with a partners estate have to provide original copies of birth, marriage etc. When I worked in the bank and I dealt with peoples estates, to help the family cut costs, I use to photocopy the death cert then get it stamped" this copy is a true copy of the original" and then it was stamped by the bank and signed by a manager. We did maybe 5 copies for the family as it meant, they could send the stamped copy away instead of the original incase it got lost.

Extra copies at the registry office were several pounds each so we found a way round this. Yes the price for special delivery has really gone up but at least you know it will be tracked until received and then hopefully, it will all be sorted out very soon.

I have today ordered some Ronseal for my square planters as over the winter, the wood looks rather shabby so on a dry day will be sanding them and then painting this stuff on to smarten them up.

My plants inside on the window ledge are doing very well and by end of April will be ready to be hardened off before transferring to bigger pots outside.

Well that's enough screen time for me today and I need more water to drink.

Florence in the hebrides

Oh dear Ann that really doesn't instil confidence does It?. I really do think that people in professions like Drs etc. should have a good command of English. Hope this time as well you will not need radiotherapy. Hopefully you won't have to wait too long for your next appointment.


Ginnie

Oh dear Ann, that didn’t sound like a very good appointment. It is a good job that you know so much about it, or you could have been very scared.
Esme had a orthopaedic appointment this morning as well, but the consultant decided that she wanted a hip X-ray, so they had to wait one hour forty minutes for that. They only got it in the end when my daughter said she was leaving because she had to get back to work. It was fine, just a routine check.

We went back to Thirsk this morning because we both had dental checkups. No prob,ems for either of us. We took some things to one of the charity shops because it is easy to park and free. We then went to Tesco’s. It was great to be able to whizz round picking things up because I knew where everything was.

The TV aerial man was supposed to be here quite a while ago. He phoned to say he would be here in forty minutes, but no sign of him. This was after he didn’t turn up yesterday, so I have no faith in him turning up today.

Poor Florence, I am glad that you are on the mend , you do seem to be catching a lot of bugs.

It was really nice to hear from you Joan. Good that you will be getting some money back even if they have messed it up. The pension is silly, but you know you are entitled boy half, so as long as you don’t go on a mc spending spree, you can leave the rest in the bank in case you need to pay it back

Poor you Florence, that is a nasty bug, hope your daughter didn't catch it. I thought you actually went to town or somewhere with a friend some days ago if that was up to 5 days before you sneezed on Wednesday that could have been where you caught it. Was that also when you went to bingo. Sounds like your immunity is very low as you do catch these bugs. Hopefully you are now on the mend and will soon be back to yourself again.

Argylgran I don't think I knew that you had a car problem. Being used to it to get around will be hard for you when it is not there so I hope that you get it back soon.

Trip to hospital is out of the way now. I was not terribly impressed. Went in only 10 minutes late. Consultant is Asian looking and his lovely assistant is African looking. But his 'bedside manner was almost non existent. He was very blunt not at all empathetic, Didn't take into account the fact that I have had at least 15 of these BCCs before and I seemed to know more about them than he did He is not, of course a dermatologist so that would be understandable. He actually told me bluntly it is skin cancer and that I would probably need radiotherapy. It is a Basal Cell carcinoma, OK he is correct in that it is skin cancer but it most usually benign and I have never needed RT. Still we shall see. I guess he must be a competent surgeon, his English was very bad as well. Just have to wait now for an appointment for the op. He also bluntly told me it would change the shape of my nose and probably wouldn't look very nice. His assistant on the other hand, she was lovely, friendly, sympathetic and chatty. I also completed the pre op questionaire. It is with a local anaesthetic.

Hello to everyone.

Joan , I really don't understand why the pension people need your original certs either, I thought things were supposed to be easier now things are mostly done on line. Like you say it isn't going to change anything.
When I was dealing with my late sisters estate I had 4 refund cheques sent to me by 3
different suppliers , BT. B/Gas and TV licence all which had to be returned because they had spelt my surname wrong in various ways . When I was on the phone to these people I spell my surname out because there are different ways of spelling it . Dr. and Mrs shouldn't be mistaken though .

Linda you and your OH are so busy I feel tired just reading about it .Lol. It will look amazing when finished I'm sure.

Pleased you are feeling better Florence sounds like a really nasty time you had there.

Argyllgran I know what you mean about losing the hair shape when you use a different hairdresser, My hairdresser moved away and I had to find another after a couple didn't work out I found one that did my hair how I wanted . Hope she doesn't go anywhere now.

Well washer has finished so must go and hang the washing out .


Bye for now all and take care
Ginnie.

So glad that you're starting to feel better, Florence.
There seem to be a lot of strange bugs around at the moment.

It's good to know you have some money on the way, Joan - even if delayed. Something to look forward to!

I hope you got on OK yesterday, Ann.

Today is a beautiful bright sunny day with lots of blue sky - but also a chilly breeze.
I must get out in the garden, as there's plenty to do there.

I still don't have the car back, and no clue as to how much longer it might be.
It does make me walk more, and friends and family are very good about offering lifts and/or shopping, but I hate not being independent, and unable to plan ahead.

I need a haircut, but can't plan to go to my usual hairdresser until I have the car.
There is a hairdresser within walking distance, but I went to her a few times several years ago, and it never turned out right. I may be forced to go to her again, and at least my hair would be shorter, but it would have lost its shape!

Well, I must have patience!
Other people have much worse problems.

Good morning all!

Oh my I have never felt so ill. My temp went up to 39.2 and daughter in the early hours of Sunday was ready to call an ambulance butIi said, they cant really do anything except intravenous antibiotics. I cant take para, aspirin or Ibruprofen as i'm extremely allergic to them as asthmatic.

I was being sick on a empty stomach as couldn't keep any fluids down and that was just dreadful.

It was Upper respiratory infection so every time I sneezed it make me cough which was awful. Anyway last night temp started coming down and this morning i turned a corner. I slept from 11-7am( a miracle) but was exhausted. i managed to shower and finally wash hair. took me quite a while but at least now I feel and smell clean and fresh and have washed the bugs away.

I'm still coughing so not speaking much but there is an improvement thank goodness. I'm still none the wiser as to how I got this which started with a sneeze last Wednesday so nothing I picked up whilst away. :-S

I haven't read all the last few days posts yet but will catch up with all of you The screen is making my eyes sore as does any bright light so cant stay on the PC very long.

Hope everyone has been keeping well

Florence in the Hebrides

Hello to you all.
I hope those of you who have not been very well recently are now feeling much better.

Linda, what a busy pair you & hubby are, take care, slow down a wee bit, LOL.

Well still no further forward re hubbys Pr pension, I had to send my original Birth certificate to R Mail the other day, sent it by special delivery ata cost of nearly £8, I am not sure what they will get from actually seeing & handling it, it will only tell them that my 1st birth name is shown as Evelyn & my 2nd name of Joan.

They have actually seen it before & also seen my Marriage cert via the on-line claim forms, actually seeing & handling it doesn't change anything !!
Such a hassle.
I was told it could take another 3 months before it is all sorted !

I got a very nice surprise at the weekend when a cheque from the Tax office arrived re money that hubby had overpaid, the grin on my face didn't last long however when I noticed they had got my STATUS wrong on the letter AND the cheque !!
Instead of MRS they had written DR, unbelievable.

Daughter telephoned them yesterday & was on hold for an hour, after explaining the situation & answering varous questions we were told the re-issued cheque "should" be with me by the 17th of APRIL but could take a further 3 weeks after that !!
........................................................................................

Changing the subject, the weather has been changable for several days now, with some rain most days whether it be showers or downpours, & a very coldwind, so I have not been able to get outside to do anything in the garden.
I have 10 Primrose plants waiting to be planted into my new flower bed that I started last Autumn, I hope I can get them into the ground soon !

Our youngest daughter was here at the weekend with her youngest little boy, it was lovely having them here, really enjoyed her company.
It was such a wrench when she went back home to Lanark yesterday.

Well now, the sun has come out but everywhere is soaking after the rain through the night & it's still a bit chilly, hope it warms up soon.I hope you all have got some nice weather & will have a nice day, take care.

Joan.

I think I will have to do that Andy’s mum :-D
It is very difficult trying to coordinate the various bits of the meal. Yesterday the chicken was ready when I hadn’t even turned the veg on. Luckily the chicken was fine, but when I tried some beef the previous week, it was overcooked on the outside and extra rare in the middle.

Linda, you'll have to take a leaf out of our Ghanaian cookboy's book. Many years ago OH was attached to the Ghana Navy and we had a houseboy, while I did my own cooking. When my second son was born we had a cookboy for a few weeks to give me a break. We had an oven with a thermostat which worked fine, but I discovered that the cookboy "regulated" the oven temperature by opening the door!! I might add that his cooking was very good. :-) :-)

No Florence? That is worrying, I hope that she isn’t very ill.

I am waiting for the TV aerial man to arrive, more expense no doubt. Of course the TV is working fine today, but some days the signal is breaking up and it won’t show the HD channels because the signal is too weak.

We went to sign up for the kitchen this morning, sadly it will be the middle of June before they can install it :-(. In the meantime I am trying to cope with an incredibly old oven. All of the numbers have worn off the dial, not that it seems to make any difference if I turn it down. It is only cooking on one temperature and that is —- incinerate