Come and tell me your dull and unexciting news 14: Calmly through the day

[MissConductUS]

I've started a new one. Please join us and share the boring and mundane things happening in your world. It will be calming for all.

Weather on the west coast of Ireland is wild today...

I am an organised but not tidy person, if that makes sense. I usually, pre-pandemic, always had a weekly cleaner, so was motivated to keep things tidy enough, even in non-"public" areas, for her to be able to clean properly. Plus we would of course have people visiting. Without a cleaner or visitors things have gone rather awry...

I had ordered a giant rug for living room as between DS and his rabbit the carpet is not looking great. Ds was happy but dd has vetoed saying rugs kill rabbits so now we are not getting a rug. Dd did suggest an emergency rug for visitors but dh said no we do not have space for emergency rugs.

Hope your DD is ok Dudes must be hard not being able to come home or for you to see her, hope you can be reunited soon. DHs family are all in France and so not able to see them for over a year now but at least they can reach each other or some of the others by region.

I have two daughters, each at university, each in a different country. We have not seen them and they have not seen each other for over a year...

Hope you can meet up soon, sorry you have been split. 💐

We are having a delayed Sunday roast which DH has renamed the Bank Holiday Monday roast. Cat is happy, its a big chicken. I don't like eating chicken now we have our own silkie chickens but there was no other roasts.

Think there is an announcement about travel here on 7th though doubt it will help us as kids aren't vaccinated and DS is asd and just runs if anyone mentions word test. Though maybe dh can go alone.

I feel your pain re DD's, theDudesmummy, we took DD to uni in January and may or may not see her this summer, depending on her schedule and covid rules.

Math, I'm pretty used to seeing snakes as we are pretty much out in the woods here. I'm glad DH was around to get the second planter for me. DH used a metal pole to flip the planter off of him and he slithered away a minute or two later. I filled up the planters with potting soil and have put in some wildflower seeds to start.

We had a nice Zoom call with DD and my MIL. DD has accepted a 10 hour per week job with the university admissions office to do campus tours to prospective students over the summer. This will be in addition to her internship in the neurobiology lab. She gets her second Pfizer jab next Saturday. That means everyone in the family will be fully vaccinated.

In other employment news, DS has accepted the offer of full time employment upon graduation next year from the accounting firm he did his internship with. It was about 20 pages long and had lots of legal stuff in it so he had DH look it over before agreeing to it. He will be an "at-will" employee so he can quit at any time and they can eliminate his job at any time. The starting salary is quite good, but he will be living in Boston, which is a fairly expensive area. If it lasts another year, he'll have a car and no student loans to pay, so it should be doable.

Silkie, how do rugs kill rabbits? Do they chew them up and eat the bits?

Hope everyone who has been separated from family can get back together soon. It’s been tough.

Feeling a bit crummy now, we went for a short bike round around the woods and the bumps did make my stabbed and twinge a bit. Just mainly feeling tired though. DS and I are watching his tractors dvd (well he is, I’m not) and DH has taken Spuddog for a walk. Spuddog is in disgrace as DS had saved half of his massive cookie from the coffee shop, and Spuddog ate it 🙈 My fault really as I forgot it was in reach and went to the loo quickly... blimmin’ dog 😑

That's brilliant news about your DS's job MissC and a nice job for your DD, we never got paid for that when I was at university but having said that university was free then and accomodation was £200 a term.

I think DD is worried that the rabbit will eat food off the rug (as both the kids just throw food at rabbit rather than put in his bowls ) and then injest a few hairs from the rug and its a bit like long haired cats with fur balls. Though it was a short-haired rug I was buying but DD just turned over the last rug and I don't want to pay £95 for a turned over rug so will leave it. I will invest that money towards a carpet cleaning machine but not sure which one. DH thinks we should just hire a rug doctor and he may be right but our cottage is full of nooks and crannies and they are good but clunky and big.

Still awaiting lunch. I asked DH how long and he said gosh the girls in this house - DD asked me 2 minutes ago, Silkiecat howls and now you have asked. Though Silkiecat has been very quiet recently, I was worried but DH thinks she is happy with the sun and he also says she will never die.

Anyone else cursed with awful weather for the bank holiday? It’s cold, wet and the wind has picked up here. It feels more like October than May. I’m thinking about putting the heating on.

Sodding spent Saturday night in the veterinary hospital on IV fluids after falling ill on Saturday afternoon. We took him to be checked over because his symptoms could have been from ingesting poison. The vet thinks he had a gastric bug as he was quite dehydrated, although he hadn’t vomited in the house. He’s much brighter now, but still quite traumatised by his stay and startling at every noise and sudden movement. It was his first night ever away from home. The overnight vet said she had to give him anti-anxiety meds and mildly sedate him to settle him because he was so distressed on Saturday night. 🙁

Silkie If you don’t have room for a large carpet cleaner and only need to do certain areas, we have an older model of this: www.lakeland.co.uk/24093/Bissell-SpotClean-Emergency-Stain-Remover-36981 It is useful for house parties if you have light carpets, as well as animal stains.

Strong winds, heavy rain and 12C here today.

Sorry about Sodding hope he is better soon.

Thanks Sodding for the recommendation. I want something like that though DH points out its more than spots and he wants the biggest machine you can get so no tank emptying but I don't think it will go in our cottage and its only the living room that's bad. Though as its me who buys these things I get the final say. He can always hire his giant machine if he wants to as well then mutter about how it won't go over beams.

Strong wind, intermittent rain and 10 degrees max on the Atlantic coast here! I amm working in my study and I have had my feet heater on for part of the day. In Ireland May is classed as summer. Doesn't feel like it!

@soddingkitten

Anyone else cursed with awful weather for the bank holiday? It’s cold, wet and the wind has picked up here. It feels more like October than May. I’m thinking about putting the heating on.

Sodding spent Saturday night in the veterinary hospital on IV fluids after falling ill on Saturday afternoon. We took him to be checked over because his symptoms could have been from ingesting poison. The vet thinks he had a gastric bug as he was quite dehydrated, although he hadn’t vomited in the house. He’s much brighter now, but still quite traumatised by his stay and startling at every noise and sudden movement. It was his first night ever away from home. The overnight vet said she had to give him anti-anxiety meds and mildly sedate him to settle him because he was so distressed on Saturday night. 🙁

There wasn't any bleach or similar in the toilet when he drank from it, was there?

sodding, I'm so sorry to hear about soddingcat's trip to the vet. How did you pick up on the fact that he was sick? An overnight stay at the vet likely wasn't cheap.

I've just googled UK bank holidays. "Early May Day Holiday"? Really? And another one at the end of the month, just because? We have national holidays here too, but they're all tied to something, like Independence Day (Goodbye Mad King George!), Thanksgiving, etc. It's a nice spring day here today.

I'm a bit envious of bank holidays.

Glad sodding is feeling a little better. DDog1 required stitches in his front leg last month, utterly straightforward and possibly suitable to be left without treatment but we opted to go ahead as recovery would have been quicker. My eyes nearly fell out of my head when the invoice arrived at a shade under £300

The weather is filthy here today, thankfully I slept through most of it. It will hopefully mean a peaceful shift tonight, but is so disappointing for hospitality businesses who would have been hoping for a nice day to claw back a little lost revenue.

silkie I recently had your dilemma and bought a Vax pet carpet washer which is currently my new favourite toy. We're would have struggled with a Rug Doctor as we also have a small cotage, but this has been ideal for us. It was also only about twice the price of the cost of hiring the Rug Doctor and means we can use it as and when needed rather than waiting till the carpets are at critical level!

@MissConductUS We have bank holidays due to a Victorian parliamentarian called Sir John Lubbock. He was a very interesting guy all round, who also was friends with Darwin, kept a pet wasp (which now is preserved at the Natural History Museum) and was one of the main driving forces behind the first Ancient Monuments Act of 1882, which helped to preserve our cultural heritage. Before that, the landowner of somewhere like Stonehenge could have knocked it down, ploughed it up, sold it to someone overseas or anything.

I’ve done the lunchboxes for tomorrow and 2/3 planned dull tasks. DH very kindly did the third (ironing school uniforms). I took DC1&2 with me to do the first two tasks, we parked at Task A and walked 2.6 miles to Task B. I bought them a doughnut each so that they would do the 2.6 miles back to the car with no moaning, this was a successful strategy!

In Ireland we have May Bank Holiday (today) and June Bank Holiday which is first Monday in June, rather than early and late May. We also have St Patrick's Day. And call Boxing Day St Stephen's Day.

No school tomorrow as it is half-term (called mid-term here)

There wasn't any bleach or similar in the toilet when he drank from it, was there?

Fortunately no, as I’d not long flushed it.

MissC He suddenly started drooling very heavily and after an hour or so (it started when I was out) I rang the out of hours vet for advice. They advised us to take him in to be checked over, which I was more than happy to do. He is very curious, in to everything and will give most things a nibble if it looks interesting. 🙄 Many of our neighbours have sheds & garages, so there was a risk he could have found antifreeze or something else grim. His bloods showed low potassium as well as dehydration. And, yes, not cheap ~£650 though about 1/4 of that was the out of hours consultation/charge. He is insured so we’ll only have to cover the £100 excess ourselves.

Traditional bank holiday weather here too. Luckily it was ok when I went for my walk this morning but wet and pretty blowy now.

@Spudlet, I just googled Sir John Lubbock, and he was indeed a fascinating character. And a banker, as well as a scientist and all the rest. Isn't it interesting how a unique individual like that can have a lasting impact in so many different areas of society? I'm trying to think of an American counterpart and all I can come up with is either Mark Twain (Samuel Clemments) and Thomas Edison.

Sodding, good job catching that he was that poorly and getting him to the vet. I can get pet insurance here but the coverage stops when the pet is about 10 years old and seems to have a lot of exclusions. Does he have an insurance card that says "Sodding" on it?

I lost a really beloved cat named Autumn a couple of years ago at age 8. We wound up taking her to the emergency vet at 4:00 AM and discovered that she had a heart defect that was untreatable. She was such a sweet girl. She and Dboycat, who is still with us, were littermates. I still miss her.

Anyway, your days with Sodding are precious, so well done for taking such good care of him.

I hope soddingkitten is alright again?

We are strongly advised against 'Ekelputzen' (disgust cleaning?) by HCPs and water suppliers and told to use soap, vingar, soda, very hot water and our muscles to clean, but Sev never tried to dive into toilet bowls anyway.

Rainy here but I saw two lovely rainbows!

Berlin has fewer holidays than other areas, but in May we have Labour day (1st) and Liberation (8th) and Pentecost Monday. Both days fall on Saturdays this year, so no extra days off for me.