Moaning thread

Having been brought up on Oor Wullies, The Broons and many holidays in Rothesay, I am a firm fan of Caledonia and its accents.

I love Inspect McLevy and the authentic accents of the actors from BBC Scotland.

No disasters from me today but then it's still only 2pm.

I was asked, quite unexpectedly, to get up and address a hall full of people this morning but kei te pai, got through that all right.

Podiatrist in the morning; who knows what havoc he'll wreak on my onychocryptosis?

humpty, the cat and the drip are going strong.

Maw..sorry but i too find the Scottish accents difficult on the phone
Once I was asked a question whilst visiting rosemary verey’s garden over 10 times by a Scottish couple...in the end I had to say how sorry I was but I couldn’t understand them and walked away!!! Still don’t have a clue what they wanted.

I wasn’t hard of hearing then either!!

Who was it with the non laying hens??
Any luck yet?

Spent all last evening (if you can call 2.39am evening) deleting unwanted emails from my account.....15.000 of them!
And I had to check each one before I pressed the dustbin in case I deleted important ones!

Someone is going to tell me there is a quicker way (Bradfordlass? Your a wizz at these things!) but a) I don’t trust technology and b) I don’t trust me!!

You’ve got to give it to me...I know how to live!

Lessismore.....sorry to hear about your sensitive problem!!!
(The cheerful chappy with the nauseating tee shirt I mean!!).

lessismore great post! havenm't got time to read it all, but did your cat re-appear?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Lk7qivXbw

Might I recommend this for those who find Scottish accents “impenetrable”
(I have not lived in Scotland for 49 years and love hearing the Scottish accent, whether Glesca, Embro or the soft Lowland tongue of the Borders)

Maw I was born in Glasgow as were my parents and some cousins . My Mum was awfuly polite as were her sisters .
We moved after the War and I now have a horrible polite Northern Ireland accent , my cousins are so hard to understand on the phone , I have been accused of dropping my NI accent to make myself understood I come off the phone with a headache and a personality problem !

And they all had impenetrable scottish accents
.
Oh dear Eazybee - this was Scottish power was it not?
And “impenetrable” ! hmm
Perhaps you need to brush up on your regional language skills! ?????????????????????.

BradfordLass, next time you use baking beans cover the pastry with baking paper first!

Took my poor cat to the vet yesterday with an eye infection. Whilst inserting a thermometer in his rear end he discovered a burst abscess on his rump. Poor Bugsie is very sorry for himself but already improving. The next worry will be whether he was bitten by the FIV positive local cat.

Forgot: Went to Communicare where they play, at the end of the session, the most boring game in the world - Bingo.

I won a Mars bar.

Today's moan (although it's sunny after what seems like 104 years of rain so I'll include the good bits too)

Ordered and paid for something (much needed) online July 31st. The company is about 6 km away.

Four days later email says, 'If you don't pay soon, we'll cancel the order.' I sent details of payment and waited.

Nothing arrived. On 8th I sent a, 'What's happening?' email. Ignored.

Yesterday, received a very polite letter from a girl who clearly hadn't seen my previous missives, asking, 'Just checking Mrs Bradford, have you received your goods yet?'

Me: No, and to tell the truth I'm quite pipped off with your company. But thanks for asking, I was beginning to thinks it was all done by dim computers.'

The young lady said she would refund my money but if the goods were to arrive I could keep them.

They arrived this morning.

Fingers crossed that the refund pops up as compensation for the massive amount of stress and trauma this put me through .

It didn't of course, in case anyone took that bit seriously.

Rewired!

Lovely moaning thread, I can’t sleep, home being retired in 3 weeks, not my choice of date. Holiday planned the week before - cancel? To facilitate moving stuff around? Or go one the holiday to take my mind off the chaos to come?

I broke a finger nail, it continues to rain, problems in the underneath department back and front.....

Well, somebody liked my 3 piece suite on eBay, bid on it, and paid for it.
I looked at where they came from - beyond Manchester (!) then messaged them after 2 days.
"Oh no" they said "I can't come and pick it up, its too far away and I don't drive. Can I have a refund?"

Just a moan I have to get it out my system. I received a letter from DWP re my state pension which I very recently received after waiting an extra 5.5 years however that's another story. The letter totally confused me, the dates were wrong about when I was getting pension the amounts were wrong as I had previously been told, they said they owed me money one sum of over £70 but at the end of the confusing letter in big bold letters WE NOW OWE YOU £12.74 and money would be put in my bank. I was totally confused and did not understand said letter. The only thing which was correct was my name and address. I phoned first thing this morning the number which was on the letter, eventually got an answer to say 'oh I shall have to put you through to another number' hold on again and eventually got some, went through the whole security process, explained the whole letter to her again and my answer was oh yes I have the letter in front of me and tbh I am appalled that one of my colleagues sent this letter out. All the dates wrong, all the amounts of money they owe me wrong, no money put in bank. She said she was so disgusted that she was going to report the person who had sent the letter in the first place. Forgive me but I thought people working in the civil service had to have a bit of saffy about them but obviously not. I was furious. It is now sorted thanks to the helpful girl on the other end of the phone eventually. What a fiasco. Rant over.

Yesterday I decided to make a Gin & Tonic cake for GS birthday.
So far so good
Got all ingredients assembled, but when I took 2 cans of tonic out of the box, one was definitely lighter than the other.
So. I weighed them all, (as you do).
All cans, except the suspect one, weighed just over 125 gms,
the rogue one, weighed in at just under 100 gms.
How does a can lose weight? or was it not filled properly at time of manufacture?
Anyway, cake made, and awaiting collection by DD and SIL this afternoon.
Hope it tastes alright after all the faffing around.

At the end of May, the ceiling in our hall started dripping. After various visits from experts, sent by the insurance company, a fault was diagnosed in the shower, which is about 20 years old.

The insurance people seemed to have forgotten our case, and it was quite a while before the go-ahead was given for work to start. This involved removing the tiles in the shower and replacing the fittings. At the same time, dryers were set up in the bathroom, hall and landing, to dry out the brickwork and joists. The drying took over 2 weeks, but this was during the hot ,dry weather, so I suppose it could have been worse.

The people who did the drying said they'd send their tilers round to re-tile the shower. We had one call from them, but were out, and they left a message to say they'd call again. They still haven't.

The plumber is now on holiday so even if the tiles do get done, the new taps etc won't be fitted till the end of August.

That means we have been without a shower for 4 months, and having to crouch in the bath and wash with one hand.

I have been to my mother's house twice in that time, where one of the helpers had accidentally broken the shower curtain rail, so I've even had to crouch in the shower when I've stayed there, too.

(I'll definitely have a go at mending it next week when I'm over)

Ready for today's moan?

I wanted to make a small open spinach and cheese pie. The recipe, the one in my head, said it needed a pastry bottom (not unlike my own I suppose).


So I rolled it out, covered it with baking beans and popped it into the oven to par-bake.

Meanwhile I squeezed the spinach, made the cheese and onion sauce and sliced the (previously baked) potato which would go on the pastry and the top.

Then I made my favourite mixed, crispy salad to go with it.

But when I got the base out of the oven, the pastry had snuggled around and cuddled up to the bottom layer of baking beans, meaning I had to try and pick about 15 hot beans from the now cutely dimpled pastry.
Are they supposed to do this?

I had to unhygienically pat the pastry with my hand to make sure I'd got all the beans out, otherwise I may well have been reporting a broken tooth as well.

Be very careful with Scottish Power, EllenVannin.
I was billed for an account with them by someone using my address, bill addressed to the Occupier, and I was contacted by a debt collection agency, who actually were extremely polite when I phoned them back. But it took a whole day of my life to sort out with Scottish Power what had happened and get an apology.

My big moan: no one will give you their full name on the telephone; they had all my details on the screen in front of them but refused to give me more than their first name, for their protection, so almost impossible to identify. And they all had impenetrable scottish accents.

High winds and rain here - and that leylandii in our neighbour's garden is still standing
The dead bits from it have blown into our garden which now looks as if it's covered in brown snow.

Sounds just like mine BradfordLass . The over the door trick is brilliant. Towels and sheets are dry within hours.

I was going to moan about all my laundry getting wet, yet again but I caught it in time, so I don't suppose I've anything to moan about.

Except it wasn't quite dry, so now the house looks like a Chinese laundry with knickers draped over the backs of chairs and sheets hanging from the tops of doors.

Marydoll, get a mobile beautician round to help out?

The weather....need I say more.

When the electric went off yesterday and thinking I'd had a fuse I started to blame that article who phoned me about my electric bill because I swore at him so much !!