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…

In something of a coincidence, I helped a lady on the plane to Newcastle, just got home. She was telling me that one of her grandsons is doing GCSEs and has more than 40 exams!

Apparently, he's great at English, does EngLit, writes reports for the local football club and does a bit if analysis on a loc radio station. FFTMC was mentioned in less than happy terms...

I would like to go to Scandinavia properly. I have been to Helsinki but only for a few days and no time to travel outside the city. I liked it a lot though.

@SinnerBoy I'm convinced it's a comedy now. There are scenes with farm labourers and the like that had me laughing out loud. If I'm wrong and it's not at least partly comedic then I don't apologise to Mr Hardy, but I also still give him props for The Mayor of Casterbridge which is a real page turner when you give it a second chance, although life is very short and there are better Victorian novels of a similar subject.

Had a look it is partly comedic, especially "the rustics". Or AI is gaslighting me again.

I'll have to trawl the charity shops, looking to see if my formerly brand new Madding Crowd is available for 50p...

I really fancy a cruise-type holiday to Norway. I've never been on a cruise and they sort of sound like hell to me, but somehow I think I'd love a Norwegian cruise.

We did a Hurtigruten cruise in Norway a while back, and it was just great. So relaxing!

I'd like to try the Norwegian national dish fårikål, lamb and cabbage stew. A part Norwegian friend cooked it for us and it's really tasty.

Ooh, tell me more! What's a good time of year to go, what's it like on board, what are the highlights you saw, etc?

My mum and final/best stepdad did the Norweigan coast with Hurtigruten for their honeymoon. A sort of cruise-light. They had a cabin on the same boat for the whole distance, but it was a working ferry rather than a dedicated cruise ship. They loved it.

It's on my list, but will have to wait until funds have recovered a bit from the current works on the house. Replacing windows, driveway and shed in the same.year has rather wiped out the cash reserves.

As far as I remember, their route was Oslo.to Stavanger by train, then about a week on the ferry working their way up and down the coast, and another train back from Trondheim to Oslo.

June, so the wrong time.of year for seeing Aurora - not much darkness at all at the top end of the route. But wonderful for seeing wildlife - all sorts of birds, seals, dolphins, porpoises, and couple of glimpses of whales.

One thing that surprised MaBint was that instead of the trains having smoking/non-smoking or quiet/noisy carriages, they had animals/no animals. Sadly, no herds of reindeer boarded the ones she was on.

That sounds wonderful @NoBinturongsHereMate and now I'm daydreaming about just such a cruise. With animals.

I'd definitely be getting onto the 'animals' carriage!

Unfortunately a Norwegian cruise will remain a daydream for now. Like Bint, there is a lot of house updating and repair that will claim all our spare money this year. We're finally going to replace the shitty kitchen as so many parts of it have broken down or are making alarming noises that we can't hold off any more, much debate about layout and where to get it from*. And really we need a new roof - but DH seems weirdly triggered every time I point this out - as there is no point forking out for boarding the loft if all our stuff is just going to get rained on. And really I can't complain about lack of holidays, seeing as we are off to visit my family in the summer.

*I started a thread a while ago, asking for recs for a kitchen designer, but now realise that was too ambitious in terms of where we are, in what we even want to have in our new kitchen, i.e. we're not even ready to talk to a designer! I might start another thread...

We have an IKEA kitchen. I'm not sure they have a design service as such, but they have a good design tool.for playing with all options. And once you've narrowed down your ideas you can sit with a staff member to finesse it and make sure you're actually ordering the right things. And they can sort fitters & electricians etc.

It has a 25 year guarantee. We've had ours neqrly 10 years and it's still looking new (at least if we wipe the cupboard fronts). Only problem we've had was with the dishwasher breaking a stabilising leg - it's not on a good surface - and they came out and fixed that fast with no quibbles.

I was planning to change the kitchen about 7 years ago and got a designer from a nearby independent kitchen shop to come and have a look at it. She was either Czech or Slovakian, I forget which, and quite astonishingly rude ... so much so that it was hard not to laugh. She was enraged by the shape of the room (long and narrow) the fact that the sink is under one of the windows, the location of the washing machine and dishwasher (conveniently near the water supply and drain, and causing no bother) and so much more! The promised suggestions never appeared and we never heard from her again. The shop has since closed down.

I've tried a few IKEA designs, and while they're a massive improvement on my current kitchen, they lack some of the useful intermediate cabinet sizes that I seem to need. The other company that gets great recommendations is DIY Kitchens - we've been to their showroom and the product looks fantastic quality. But, I'm veering towards a full service local company if I can find one that I like, just so they'll project manage everything. I've had enough nightmares with organising trades.

FWIW, I've done the kitchen layout thing here if anybody is interested (don't feel obliged!) :
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/property/5291875-kitchen-designer-on-mn?reply=144602163

I am not going to intervene on that thread @RasaSayangEh but just want to say that you should probably pay no attention to the girls' Strong Opinions on Needing to eat in the kitchen! Because in a couple of years they will be off to do their own thing.

Oh thank you ❤️ I was feeling quite bad because that was what I was secretly thinking too and fearing I was being mean!

We organised our own Scandi trip the year we had friends working in Stavanger as well as my nephew (lives in Sweden, has Swedish wife and children) living in Stockholm plus chance to reconnect with old Danish friends, so we joined the dots and stayed with them all. We got the ferry to Esbjerg and drove to Copenhagen, stayed there a few days then drove to Stockholm, stayed a few days, then to Stavanger. We got back to the UK by driving north to Bergen and getting the ferry (doesn’t run now, sadly) to Newcastle (stayed with friends in Gateshead). We loved it and would go back in a heartbeat, even paying for accommodation.

years ago when my kids were little we did a home exchange holiday with a Danish family and loved that too.

Teen drama last night.

DC are in the right in the middle of GCSEs and it's been a massive struggle getting them to revise... especially DD1 (as I previously mentioned, the angry one). The biggest problem is, of course, screens and the world of internet attractions therein.

We've always had parental controls on DC's devices managed via DH's account, but I've noticed that they seemed to be getting around the limits somehow... especially DD1, who has changed all sorts of settings on hers and is clearly accessing apps we don't want her to. For many months, DH hasn't seemed inclined to properly investigate how to fix this 😒 This is despite me pointing out this problem repeatedly and he himself agreeing that this behaviour is not OK.

A couple of days ago, DH suddenly came to me and said "Since my latest iOS update, it sends me an alert every time the parental control password is entered, and DD1 has done this several times today!" so that explains it - she must have seen him entering it and remembered. DH's response was, obviously, to change the password. Then, he went off for a week of conference in London.

But DH was clearly pissed off, because what we discovered last night is that he also whacked on a bunch more time restrictions on DD1's devices. So at what should have been bedtime, I had several hours of crying, shouting teenager, flinging all manner of accusations at the parental units. We don't trust her when she's nearly an adult, we don't let her have social media, we're making her the weirdo in her school, we think she's grown up wrong, we didn't let her go on a sleepover until she was 14, she's never been on a date...

That sounds like a massive pain, Rasa. Teen years can be an absolute nightmare and it sounds like you're in the thick of it.

With the kitchen and where you eat, what would sway it for me is which room is warmest in winter and which costs the least to heat.

I did want to point out to DD1 that her very behaviour of misusing the password, spending more time than allowed on her devices, and accessing stuff we said she couldn't, demonstrated that she wasn't behaving in a trustworthy manner. And it is true that we do not allow them any social media except WhatsApp; it was a condition of them being allowed devices in the first place. But I thought it more important to calm her down and get her to bed.

As for not going on a sleepover until 14(?), she didn't ask until then. And the date thing - I just looked bewildered and said, "Did you want to go on a date?" and she got even crosser because it turns out she's never wanted to so far 🤷🏻‍♀️

Re: kitchen eating, it's a toss-up which room is colder 🥶 The kitchen is in the sticky-out part of the house so has 3 exterior walls and a draughty back door (although this will be replaced soon) and is partially north-facing. The dining room faces northeast and is right next to the neighbours garage, meaning it never gets any sun at all and is the dampest room.

You've kept two 16-yr-olds off SM (largely), Rasa? That sounds amazingly difficult!

I am super excited this morning. Off to London shortly for the Barbican tonight, and then meeting my baby grand-daughter tomorrow!

Yes, that's good going with the social media. At least when you can't manage it any longer and they hurl themselves upon it with ferocity they'll have a few more sensible neural pathways to defend themselves! I kept baby weasel off until the approved age limit for each app, to her disgust, but had I realised the impact at the time I'd have been stricter - with myself also. She is now determined that when she has kids they wont be allowed on it at all.

I know the teen drama is an inevitable set piece, but god it's so tiring - especially the lying, which I find more unbearable than anything.