Thread 17 - TalkLair: "Okay, first of all, what's with the outfit? Live in the now, okay? You look like DeBarge."

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 16).

Spring is springing, daffodils blooming all over our LairGarden, which have not all been picked by a neighbour's kid...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, cosy rugs are down on the floors looking a bit stained by cat hairball regurgitation. 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 over there in the corner of the cave…

Oof, thinking of you and all your family @RasaSayangEh - it sounds very stressful all round.

Thinking about you @RasaSayangEh and hoping it all turns out better than it seems.

He's home from A&E and apparently "fine" now in terms of usual wobbly movement and speech back to usual levels of slurring, reckoned minor stroke/TIA, blood thinners administered and possibly some pills to take at home (I'm guessing aspirin). There may have been a scan carried out? My mother is unhelpfully unclear on any further details.

Oh, I hope he recovers as well as possible.

Gosh, your parents are giving you a good run for your money at the moment, Rasa.

The tree sounds lovely, fags! I do think most things in life would simply be better with more trees. I'd second Bint's point about the back up plan for science, though. There's very strict rules about the storage of bodies donated to science and often places just don't have capacity.

Met up with DH for coffee break (we're in the same building at work today) and he calmly informed me that he collided with a car on his bike ride into work this morning. It turned left across the bus/bike lane, he slammed on the brakes (and fortunately they are very good brakes) so the impact was not hard. But he came off his bike and has a grazed elbow and sore knee. The car drove off without stopping. A couple of passersby got the numberplate and came to check he was OK. DH has made a police report, they've said they'll contact him some time today.

If bad things come in threes, what is next, eh?

I wouldn't fancy cycling in London. Even if I was younger! My DS used to do it reguarly, and had a similar thing happen, likewise no serious injury. Your dad must be such a worry, Rasa. I wonder how bothered the police are about that sort of thing? Do you think the driver would be prosecuted?

Blimey so much drama! Oh dear! Well we had drama in the middle of the night too. For the second night in a row DH fell out of bed. Yesterday night it was just a shock and he thought I had rolled to the middle of the bed and he had rolled in his sleep. Last night I was well and truly on my side and when he fell he banged his nose on the side table and it bled a lot. Needless to say after we got things cleaned up he’s gone back to sleep but I’ve been awake now since 4:30. What on earth could be causing this we have no idea - first time in nearly 23 years of marriage and sleeping in the same bed.

Oh dear re DH and his being knocked off his bike. I'm glad that the driver's number was taken, the bastard.

Your poor bleeding DH @Britinme! I hope he's OK now.

He had a good sleep afterwards, and we've put the sheets etc in the wash. He's comfortable in his office chair on his computer. His nose has stopped bleeding unless he wipes it. I think he'll live, but given that he's 82 and has a very bad back (3 ruptured discs in his lower back and a bulging one in his neck, and he has a mild scoliosis he's had all his life which makes him more prone to back issues anyway) things like this are quite scary for both of us.

Crikey, there's a lot going on here today. I hope you can get to the bottom of falling out of the bed issue, @Britinme

A TIA is probably the best diagnosis for your father, @RasaSayangEh given it all sounded stroke, it's the mildest it could be but I guess a much closer eye needs to be kept on it. Thinners will help though. And thank goodness the bike crash was as okay as it could be. Third thing? A bit of a cold for one of you?

I had a visit from a couple of GU people today although one of those is someone I knew for years before GU. He was never a huge poster so you won't remember any of his user names but the other retained the same user name throughout his time on the site, Beaky, our cartoonest. It was lovely to see him because it's been a few years. He was over in Brighton to check up on his flat for a few days and is back in his lovely home in Spain - where he's lived for years, sort of more fifty/fifty in the past. He's decided he shall write me letters and I'm thrilled because I love letter writing.

Oh! Tell him I said he's a terrible old reprobate!

So glad passersby thought to get the car number plate @RasaSayangEh but I’m baffled by the idea of the car driver not stopping - what is wrong with people?! Also good to hear that your dad is safely home.

The falling out of bed thing sounds alarming @Britinme especially given your DH’s back issues. Hope it doesn’t happen again.

Will do, sinner. Because he is and also because he's a darling.

"We're experiencing unusally high call numbers at the moment..."

No you fucking aren't, you lying, dissembling, gas-lighting bastards! The call numbers are the same as they always are; busy. Grr!! 😡

Arf @moto748e ... let me guess: trying to sort out an NHS outpatients' clinic appointment? I was on the line for 25 minutes this morning. I started off "you are number 17 in the queue" and ended up still number 17! So went online, spent an age setting up an account for MrG on their "portal" - or "website", as normal people call it. It timed me out three times (for absolutely no reason), then locked me out for an hour. I finally got in - only to discover that you could only cancel or ask them to reschedule. As what I need is an appointment at the sodding local hospital he was referred to, rather than one about an hour away by cab or 2 hours by public transport, this will not work as they'll probably refer him to Timbuktu.

And breathe ...

Heh! No, that other perennial favourite, Virgin Media!

i hate to tell you all this but it’s the same over here very often.

@Britinme might it be a good idea to move any nearby cabinets for a bit and maybe put a coupe of cushions down against anything like a skirting board for a bit? Sounds like maybe he's just semi-waking and being a bit disoriented in the night.

it's a blight on the world. My router is dying, and I've been around the same lap of downloading the bloody app, logging on, talking to a bot, telling them what I need. Still waiting for a response. Started around 10 am, and this can be an all-day job on past form.

@weaselyeyes - I did that immediately, but in fact he was not at all disoriented. We think he's solved the problem (at least we hope so!) though. He took his spirit level upstairs, sat on the edge of the bed and determined that there was a three inch difference between the edge of the mattress with his weight on it and the centre of the bed (we have a new mattress which has a less firm edge than our old one). Accordingly, he cut a length of 2x4 wood the length of the mattress and put it between the mattress and box spring along his edge of the bed. That seems to jack the edge of the bed high enough that any slope is towards the middle rather than the exaggerated one towards the edge. Anyway, it was all OK last night.

@Britinme ... you have to love an intelligent, practical, problem-solving man!

I hope it works, sounds an excellent solution!