Thread 16 - TalkLair: "Well, I'm not exactly quaking in my stylish-yet-affordable boots, but there's definitely something unnatural going on here."

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 15).

Another year over, a new one just begun...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls festooned with tinsel, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors, the tree is twinkling with fairy lights (and possibly being clambered on by cats). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey Christmas roast beast over there in the corner of the cave…

It could be that, though it smells like perfume for women and the newish postie is a bloke. There are all the other deliveries too - we get a lot of stuff delivered here for our work so a lot of boxes turn up and they all smell of perfume.

NoBinturongsHereMate · 06/03/2025 10:55

<mutters about remembering when a pack of crisps was 8p>

I remember the summer of 76, when they went up from 2p to 5p and my mother being outraged. The drought was devastating for the tattie crop. My dad had use of a bit of farmland, under half an acre, which he grew them on and he had to put them up from a penny ha'penny to tuppence ha'penny.

He sold them round the doors.

Vegemiteandhoneyontoast · Today 17:16

I was going to suggest someone in the sorting office, but if they're coming from different sources, I'm stumped!

Maybe there's something about the male postie you haven't spotted yet?

Maybe there was a perfume spillage (smashed parcel or something) in the delivery van, and it's soaked into the post bags/upholstery/lining?

Thing is it's been going on for months, plus things are sent by different couriers and most packages, but not all, smell of perfume. I wondered if it was just me but Mr Veg can smell it too. I don't get it.

We binged our way through Buffy Season 4 (verdict: actually way better than I remembered, apart from the really stupid Big Bad) and are early into Season 5. DDs are quite upset at Joyce's mysterious illness and think that Riley is an arse. They're not wrong about that!

We were thinking we would stop at the end of Season 5 because it all goes downhill afterwards. IIRC S6 is so damn depressing and S7 is a load of utter nonsense. (Also I'm not sure I can sit there with DDs, watching all the rampant shagging in S6)

If they insist they want to watch it anyway you'd better say brightly 'actually that's probably a good idea, it will give me a chance to give you a more detailed version of 'the talk''. Watch them suddenly decide they need to do more exam prep.

We've been watching Amandaland and I was a bit awkward with the bouncing Land Rover at the end of episode 3... I was hoping my daughter wouldn't cotton on, but she went "Euw!"

We've also been watching Superstore, which I can recommend.

I'm having a weird problem with Mumsnet and hoping one of you lot can enlighten me. I have no problem getting in on the website - that's where I am now, on my desktop. Also no problem getting in on the website on my iPad. No problem getting in on the app on my iPhone. However, when I try to get in on the app on my iPad I can't post anywhere. It knows who I am - has the right threads in "I'm on", and says I'm logged in. I can read all the threads, but I can't reply to them. The whole thing at the bottom with the posting box has gone, and although there is a "reply" link at the top on the page next to the "I'm on" link, it doesn't do anything. Right now I can't find how to write to Mumsnet central to raise this with them.

I may have a weird problem in the future. Yesterday it asked me to disable my ad blocker, so I sighed and complied.

Today it asked me to disable my ad blocker so I went down the list and the only one that opened was duckduckgo, that I had already disabled. So I clicked on it, which reactivated it, and MN let me in. Which I'm pretty sure was not what was meant to happen.

I suppose I ought to go over to site stuff, I'm unlikely to be alone.

I'm not having that problem; I switched from Chrome to Firefox cos Chrome stopped allowing ublock, but reinstalled ublock in Firefox with no issues on MN. But one thing I have noticed is that sometimes I click on threads, and it's as if the thread is one long page, that goes on forever, instead of 'pages'. And eventually, at the bottom, a pop-up says "Show later posts?" or some such.

Yay, @duc748 - so glad it worked! It has been the Week of All the Ads here, as I noticed MrG's computer was infested with the things, with endless pop-ups, including videos intruding everywhere. I suspect that in a fit of whatever he had somehow uninstalled his adblocker but No! He Had Not and he Did Not Want Me to Fix It, it was All FINE! Until yesterday he forgot it was All Fine and had a tantrum but wouldn't let me near it, so I waited for him to go for a pee and nipped in and fixed it. He is convinced it righted itself. Dementia is a real bugger, as I didn't get the credit for it let alone any thanks. 🙄 It does seem to require a lot of low cunning to deal with, though, which I suppose I should make the most of as I quite enjoy that sort of stuff?

@Gonners I didn't know MrG had dementia - that must be difficult to deal with. Applause for your low cunning.

Brit, if you make a thread in site stuff they are moderately helpful with tech problems.

The adblocker thing is odd. I had an unshiftable 'turn off your blocker' message last week. I made MN an exempt site rather than.turning it off completely - and since then I've had no popups, but I'm also not seeing ads. Which suits me fine, but it's puzzling.

Well done on the sneaky fix, Gonners.

Sometimes nothing but low cunning will do.

I had a bit of a mare of a week which culminated in a Saturday of "This is too much pain I may have to go to A&E and demand the strongest drugs known to man." but I feared that I'd get there, they'd find a way to make me have a massive fart and then everything would be okay and I'd be ashamed that I'd gone to A&E with wind. I don't think it was just wind but wind had something to do with it for sure. At some point on Saturday night/Sunday morning the pain turned round to my back and that I could deal with with two strong painkillers, one weak one and some diazepam. The week leading up to the Saturday of doom was all do to with shortness of breath issue. I was eventually, after much "come on, we know this is the only thing that currently works!" given steroids. I'm calling the surgery again tomorrow because today is day five - last day - of them and I'll be a wheezing mess again soon but I do now have an appointment with the lung people. I'm going to have a PET scan within the next fortnight as well because my last CT scan was not quite right which is a bit of a worry but after getting scared and tearful because I didn't have the energy to find my inner Pollyanna, but I've found her again now so I'm dealing with stuff the Polly way.

Like many I'm doing my best to avoid too much news because frankly it makes me feel like I'm going mental and nothing makes sense.

Anyway! I hope everyone's doing as well as possible in this crazy mixed up world. I saw this earlier and it fair warmed the cockles of my cold black heart!

Er, my link didn't post. I'll try again.

Oh, sympathetic and not-too-squeezy hugs @FagsMagsandBags This all sounds deeply unpleasant and a bit worrying. I'm glad you've found your inner Pollyanna, I will keep my fingers crossed for better health news!

Oh dear Fags, sorry to hear of your continuing, painful woes. I hope the quacks finally find out what's going on and fix you!

Hugs and sympathies @FagsMagsandBags . I hope your scan doesn’t turn up anything worrisome.

Oh @FagsMagsandBags it does seem unreasonable that you have so much to cope with. Fingers firmly crossed for some good health outcomes very soon.

Thank you all! I got a call for the PET scan this morning and it's happening on Monday. Apparently I've had a PET scan before so there's that.

But I bring absolutely lovely news. I'm 60 next month and on the 10th April - not my birthday but close enough and what I wanted to do wasn't available on my birthday - I shall be at some strange farm/zoo type place which has farm animals and then camels, meerkats and I think lemurs. But they also have another animal which is up there with my favourite animals. Possibly second favourite and on the 10th I shall be feeding them. Capybaras!!!!! Later in the year, because people are booked up until September, how very dare they, I shall be going to Drusillas and feeding sloths. My guess is that both activities will include videos of me crying because I'm so overwhelmed with happiness. In less than a month I'm going to feed capybaras! I'm so happy!

Oh, how lovely! I adore capybaras.

Glad they've got you in for the PET quickly.

Oh that sounds wonderful! My mate back in the West Country used to have capybaras. I liked them much more than the African Green parrot he got later.

Capybaras! They're so adorable and you're going to meet some, how delightful. It will be wonderful and I hope you'll tell us how it all goes.