Moan, Moan, Moan - 2012

[Michael J Campbell]

Have I been blacklisted???  My last two orders have not been delivered, one for Labels and one for Alpine plants. Two months have passed and not a word from either firm from which I have had orders before. The Bank says my credit is ok and my Credit cards functioning normally. Strange 

[angie]

Hi Angie,
I seem to remember reading that woodpeckers are after wood-boring grubs such as beetle larvae so they might be helping the tree - unless it's so infested with grubs that they kill the tree in the process!
cheers
fermi

Fermi you wouldn't believe the damage that they have caused in my garden. The woods behind me are full of trees with big holes in them. I presume this is where the grubs are and I have seen these horrible white things, oh they give me the creeps. They just seem to break the bark up and eventually the shrub or tree suffers. I have had to put tree protectors and wire on the acres as these are their favourites.

Since I am on the moan thread can I moan about the rain, forecast tomorrow is heavy rain with thunder. WILL WE GET A SUMMER THIS YEAR. I blame David N. for this. He did say it would rain once he put the shading on his greenhouse 

Angie 

[David Nicholson]

It happens every year Angie, I think I'm a rain God!

[angie]

It happens every year Angie, I think I'm a rain God!

I think so  has it not washed off 

Angie 

[Maren]

Would a grease band help

[fredg]

It happens every year Angie, I think I'm a rain God!

Would a grease band help

Worn like a sweat band?

[David Nicholson]

 

[Anthony Darby]

I'm beginning to think a career change. I reckon I could make a fortune here selling double glazing or central heating boilers. We rent our house. It is 8 years old but it has no heating, no insulation and no double glazing. We've bought a gas heater that runs off the mains gas, but it heats one room. We have oil filled electric radiators in other rooms, but these probably make our electricity meter over heat! Reminds me of my parents house of 35 years ago. My mum sat in the living room and with a coal fire and my dad sat in the warm kitchen, where the water boiler was. To this day I don't like a warm bedroom, but with -18^oC a central heating radiator takes off the chill. There, rant over. No it's not. Went into Whitcoull's to buy a birthday card today and Vivienne spotted an OK magazine which would be ideal reading (not for me) on a flight. A big £1 sign on the front. NZ price £12.90 (i.e. more than six times the UK price) and the date: 9th May. We could (we won't) have one posted out cheaper and a more recent one too...............why am I moaning about that? OK magazine best left where it is.

[angie]

Anthony you speaking about your parents house I remember when our bathroom window had ice in the inside, you got out your bed quickly did what you had to do and got back under that covers quickly  . No central heating then. I remember curling up to the hot water bottle for ages. I don't like a warm bedroom either but couldn't do without the central heating now and to think it was on the other week when it was so cold.

See your rant brought back some nice memories for me 

Angie 

[David Nicholson]

Soft southerner

[Anthony Darby]

My parents' house was built at the time of the British expedition to Tibet and was originally called Lhasa (subsequently changed to "The Brae" as the then occupants thought Lhasa was a disease) and its twin next door called Ladysmith, as that was in the news too (~1900), so there was an excuse for draughts etc.

[Lesley Cox]

Our house isn't centrally heated either. We have a woodburner which heats living- room/kitchen but that's it really. An electric heater goes on first thing (I usually get up around 7am to a temp of about 7C at this time of year in the living room) and Roger lights the burner about 5pm. I don't like a warm bedroom either and when I came out of hospital Roger had kindly put an electric heater in my room but before I went to bed I had to turn it off. Ice on the inside of my bedroom window is not unusual, my room being on the cold side of the house and with no sun through June and July.

In the 70s before oil prices went through the roof new houses were being built with oil-fired central heating but many people abandoned it after that. Most people just can't afford electric central heating now. We certainly can't. Put on another jersey! Be grateful you live in Auckland Anthony. I drove through Milton at about 11.30am today. Temperature on their temp sign said 0degC!

[TC]

I think we are getting to be a bunch of softies.  This probably sounds a bit like a Monty Python sketch.  "We lived in a cardboard box, worked 25 hours a day at t' mill, clothes made of newspapers and thought we were bloody lucky and living in luxury !"

My recollections of early childhood living in a Glasgow tenement, in Winter, were of beds with 3 wool blankets and a padded quilt.  Scared to get out of bed to get dressed because of the cold and rushing through to the kitchen where your clothes were hanging over the fire to get warm.  Dressed in a cotton vest, shirt, pullover, gaberdine trench coat, jaggy serge shorts, long wool socks and proper leather shoes.  Then wool mitts and a balaclava.  Although the school had priority for coal, often it did not arrive, so there was no heating..
There was no question of the school closing, we just kept on all our outdoor clothes and got on with it.    At home, we sometimes had no coal delivery as it was still on ration, power cuts were normal and gas supplies were variable as they were produced locally from coal.  I can still remember chilblains and chapped legs.
This was common until the end of the 1940's.

Looking back now, my mother's generation were heroines trying to bring up a family in those conditions.  No modern household gadgets.  Washing and cleaning were all done by hand.  They worked from morning to night, 7 days a week.  No woman's lib. in those days.  At meal times there was an option - eat it or go hungry.
I watch my grandchildren at meal times," I don't like this ".   My reply is, "that's OK , you don't have to like it, all you have to do is eat it !

Having lived through this time, I appreciate central heating all the more.

[angie]

Never us Scots are a hardy bunch. Do you here us complain about a little snow or things like that  Hey but like you say I wouldn't like to manage without my washing machine or things like that. Yes our parents had it hard, we certinally did, not much money when I was little but I think it did me good. I don't like wasting things but I couldn't do without my central heating I try and keep a bit of insulation around my body to keep warm in the winter, don't like wearing jumpers, well thats my excuse for my insulation 

Yes, we are lucky nowadays.

Angie 

[jomowi]

In 1962-3, I lived in an old coachman's cottage above what had been the stables.  The front half of the stables had been converted into offices which were heated, but the back half was still as the horses had left them, complete with door split in half for the horses to look out, except that the top half was missing.  The wind used to whistle up through the floorboards.  I had no running water, bathroom or loo and had to go across the yard to another building for same.  I would bring drinking and cooking water back with me in a container. In the winter of '63 (a notoriously bad one) the water would freeze over night, and the only way to get a hot drink in the morning was to remember to fill the kettle the night before and then switch on.  There was an open fire place in the living room, but it was 2 feet off the floor which meant no heat below this level.  The place was riddled with woodworm, and when the beetles were emerging in May, I used to find little piles of sawdust on my pillow in the morning when I got up! Despite all the privations, it was a delightful place and overlooked a overgrown garden full of ancient diseased apple trees and a large walnut tree.