MotherGoose
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My reports almost always contained a comment to the effect that I talked too much in class. The thing that really used to irritate me was that I would often get all A's along with the comment "not working to capacity". Seemed a bit contradictory as I couldn't get higher than an A!
Reply #3221. Aug 15 11, 9:32 AM
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flopsymopsy 
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Before she died my mother presented me with an envelope full of my school reports. On the whole I'd rather have had ten pound notes. ;)
Anyway, the teacher whom I loved and respected the most, and from whom I learned the most, said on my final report "she tends to rely too much on her natural ability". Miss Raybould, you were the wisest woman I ever knew - if only I'd paid attention to that comment!
Reply #3222. Aug 15 11, 10:12 AM
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bloodandsand
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Daymare, Mothergoose, flopsymopsy, we seem to be doing a lot of talking on Lesley's blog but where is Lesley!
Reply #3223. Aug 15 11, 1:59 PM
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daymare
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I know what you mean. I think we are trying to keep a warm place waiting for Lesley's return.
Hey, Lesley. We are wondering about your 20 (location) as you are not in FT land.
I hope all is well and she is enjoying herself.
:)
Reply #3224. Aug 15 11, 2:05 PM
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bloodandsand
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Of course! Her son has come back from France - family time :))
Reply #3225. Aug 15 11, 2:33 PM
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| lesley153
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Yoohoo - anyone here? Can I come in, please - it's lovely and warm in here.
The other day, I thought how good it would be if I did something I hadn't done for ages - made a cake. I made a carrot cake. And then I made a huge fruit cake mixture, with a kilogram of dried fruit and 250g of butter. The final mix made two cakes weighing nearly 4lb each.
I took one of them to the barbecue last night.
Jonathan and his girlfriend's parents set out at crack of dawn (about nine o'clock) to drive him home. They said they had to get back pretty quickly because it was her birthday yesterday, and Something Special (and Secret) was being delivered mid-afternoon. Would they like tea? a slice of fruit cake? "No time now if we're going to have lunch, but I could take some home for later!"
So we had lunch, and I sent them off with half the remaining fruit cake, but they'd have to cut it up themselves, and find their own birthday candle. Moral: if the little voice inside your head tells you to make a cake, listen and take notice. It's better than saying "I could have" and "I wish I had." And I've still got the carrot cake! Oh and a bit of bread pudding.
We've made enormous inroads into the piles of rubbish resulting from a decade of neglect. We have a lot of things to throw away and recycle, and not long to do it in if I don;t want to do it by myself - Jonathan's going to start moving into his new flat at the end of August.
Probably the most puzzling thing is a bag of paid cheques, retained by my husband, going back to 1969. |
Reply #3226. Aug 15 11, 4:16 PM
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| lesley153
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| PS I don't hear much from Merv now. He sent me a few topical jokes about the riots, none of which I can safely repeat here. Apart from that, he's being quite sedate! |
Reply #3227. Aug 15 11, 4:19 PM
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| lesley153
|
Jonathan went to a Prom concert and I had my time, and my head, to myself. Took him to the station, went to the cardiac exercise class (I've missed the last four weeks). Went into town, where I took some books to the cancer research shop, did a bit of shopping, and paid off my Debenhams store card.
Santander administer their store cards, and I have been told that you need to cancel your card if you don't intend to use it again. Just not using it isn't enough - after six months or thereabouts, Santander will charge you for inactivity.
Thence to Tesco, for food, wheeled my trolley back to the car, looked up and saw a rainbow. I've now got a picture of a rainbow over Tesco. |
Reply #3228. Aug 17 11, 6:10 PM
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bloodandsand
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Know what you mean re Santander. The old Debenhams's store card was so much better because it wasn't a credit card which the one with Santander. Nice to hear of a rainbow over Tesco, I think it deserves one! :)
Reply #3229. Aug 17 11, 6:18 PM
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bloodandsand
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That should have said the one from Santander "is". I'll have to stop going out drinking, it's having a detri.. detra... detre.. it's messing up my spelling and grammar.
Reply #3230. Aug 17 11, 6:22 PM
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flopsymopsy
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I had a Debenhams storecard, before it learned to speak Spanish, and it was a real pain. I only took the card out in order to get a discount on a toaster and paid the whole amount off when I got the first bill. Note the word "first". I got several bills after that, month in month out, charging me interest on a sum I'd already paid (as well as asking for the money again of course) and then interest on the interest on the... It went on for months, and of course eventually they threatened to put me on a credit blacklist, which is where the stress came in. It got to the point that every time I phoned to say I'd paid the stupid bill and would they please sort it out, I got put through to someone higher and higher up the chain and every time that person would send me a cheque, bigger than the one before, to compensate me for my time and trouble. At one point they even compensated me for £15 worth of phone bills which given that I get free calls with my broadband package was quite a good deal. Anyway, in the end (or what I thought was the end) they discovered they had credited my payment of the original debt to someone else's account, by which time the compensation I'd received was more than the toaster had cost in the first place. The bills stopped coming and I liked my free toaster so all was well.
Until about a year later I got another bill... saying they owed me some interest. And then they sent me another cheque!
Reply #3231. Aug 17 11, 6:44 PM
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Professer
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ooh i like that story Floppsy, Glad things are going well Lesley, things here not changed much pain and stress. But while i am breathing i am alive.
Reply #3232. Aug 17 11, 11:56 PM
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| lesley153
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The Debenhams card wasn't that bad while it still spoke English. If you missed a payment date to GE, you would get a gentle reminder, with the suggestion that they'd really rather you made the payment, rather than "risk embarrassment" when you tried to use your card. One day late for Santander, and you get a £12 late payment fee, and a premium rate number you can phone if you need it to be explained to you. Of course you wouldn't hear a peep out of either of them if you paid early.
I checked the reverse of my current account statement, and it lists five default charges. It's £12 for late payment, or for exceeding your credit limit (how on earth can that happen?) or for rubber cheques: £25 if you disappear and they have to trace you.
All fair enough, but the fifth is a belter:
"Credit balance fee - up to £10 (applied if you have a credit balance on your Account for three consecutive months)."
Nasty! I tend not to bother with small print, and I wouldn't have noticed this if I hadn't been told about it. I have occasionally rounded my payment up to the higher pound. I could have had tuppence credit for a few months, and then found I had a £9.98 debit.
I phoned Santander and cancelled the card. Apart from the fact that they've put wrong numbers on their website, that new business is on a local rate number in the middle of England, and service and enquiries are on a premium rate number in a call centre in India, it was relatively straightforward! I am liberated!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Today we took about ten bags of clothes and handbags to a charity shop, and then went shopping. Jonathan needs a mattress for his new flat, and he spent half an hour in a bed shop lying on all the mattresses. Of course the ones he lied best were the most expensive ones. "We'll think about it."
Then to an electrical shop, where he looked at televisions (Why? you won't have *time* to watch telly!) and I bought a fridge, to be delivered, and, at last, a microwave, which we brought home. The fridge I have is pretty old and we bought the microwave in 1986. Spent the evening scrubbing the corner where the new one will go. Looks nice and with a bit of luck won't keep cutting out! |
Reply #3233. Aug 18 11, 5:57 PM
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Professer
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wow your a lost busier then last year Lesley which is so good to hear
Reply #3234. Aug 20 11, 2:35 AM
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| lesley153
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You're right, Gary - I really wasn't doing very much at all last year!
I was out all day today, in Leighton Buzzard, about 25 miles from home. Sprog and girlfriend were playing in a Haydn/Mozart concert. While they were rehearsing, I wandered round the shops, spent a few pounds and chatted to a bookshop owner who has written a history of Leighton Buzzard.
The concert was better than we expected. The Haydn was the Farewell Symphony. The musicians, including the conductor, peeled off till only Jonathan and his gf were left. The Mozart was his 20th, written when he was 16, and the only piece of his work I've ever enjoyed. There had to be one! Shame it took me so long to discover it. |
Reply #3235. Aug 20 11, 5:00 PM
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| lesley153
|
Got a few things done today, had more jobs planned for the rest of the day, took Jonathan to the station for a rehearsal in London, did some shopping on the way back, got home and found a cry for help from a friend who's arranging his mother's funeral tomorrow.
Seems he can't move for people phoning, morning noon and night, how sorry they are about his mother... The family has a million things to do, that don't include spending twelve hours a day listening to how sorry people are. He says come to the funeral, they go quiet. Very odd.
So we went to the church hall in the evening and put out tables, chairs, glasses, food, drink. We got back to Bedford in time for me to pick Jonathan up at 10.45. Tired now. |
Reply #3236. Aug 25 11, 6:28 PM
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| lesley153
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| Went out for a meal this evening. There were about ten people, but it was centred on a man whose wife died a few weeks ago, and his two adult children. One of them is returning to her family tomorrow, and I thought the meal was a celebration before she went home. No, it would have been their 53rd wedding anniversary today, and the man who's lost his wife took a picture of her and put it on the table in front of him. |
Reply #3237. Aug 30 11, 6:59 PM
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daymare
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What did you have to eat, Lesley?
Reply #3238. Aug 30 11, 7:50 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
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Was that at all odd? It would be for me, but...And yes, I'd also like to know what you had to eat! :)
Reply #3239. Aug 30 11, 8:18 PM
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Jazmee27
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Same here
Reply #3240. Aug 30 11, 8:34 PM
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