Thread 19 - TalkLair: "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 18)

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

In the TalkLair, the fairy lights are festooned on the mantlepiece, the tree is twinkling with baubles, the mince pies are in the oven, the MN legendary chicken is ready to feed the hordes. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, 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…

Our festive preparations are on a 'best effort' basis.

Mrs Oney is still up in Scotland, and is staying until 22nd. I'm into my second week of in solo parentis, which is going well (DD is being fantastic) but it's not always easy - definitely some slack parenting going on. I have always had utmost respect for single parents (my mum was one from my age 2-5), and doing it for a week or two only reinforces that.

DFiL has sadly died overnight (a blessed release after a serious decline in his quality of life during 2025). So today I've got the sad job of telling our 8yo daughter about that.

This weekend we have Drama in the morning and then a Christmas party with the Drama lot in the afternoon. On Sunday I think we'll take a wee drive out - I've heard of a pub which has a pet tortoise which I think the bairn would love!

Sad to hear about your FiL, @BezMills and hope telling your daughter goes okay.

'Bairn', my Geordie grandparents called us that.

Yes, tortoises absolutely love certain flowers.

And sorry, I just meant pineapple as the only topping! It’s made with passata and mozzarella but I have to monitor how much cheese I put on due to fat intake (gallbladder issues).

Tortoises are so lovely! Definitely take the bairn - she’ll love it! (Here in Scotland, often hear “bairn” still).

I’m sorry to hear about your DFIL, but I can definitely understand the idea of it being a release, when it’s been a dreadful decline. Very best of luck with breaking it to your DD

I can vouch for the quality of moto's stout.

Pizza for xmas sounds good. We so rarely have it these days. We're getting xmas dinner (chestnut and mushroom wellington) delivered by an excellent local caterer, who's been providing our xmas food for the past 3 years - all prepped and delivered the day before so we just have to bung things in the oven/pans at the specified timings.

Sorry about your FiL, Bez. Even when it's a blessed release it's still all bit rubbish - especially at this time of year. I hope the pub tortoise offers a good distraction.

Liking the tortoise talk. I didn’t realise they have personalities. Commiserations on the shingles. I had it about 3 years ago and gosh it was painful. I was off work for a while and watched the whole of Shitts Creek, so the time wasn’t wasted.
We’ve just received a huge quantity of different British cheeses as a Christmas present - delicious but there is so much of it. We’re starting with the softest.

So sorry to hear about your FiL @BezMills Condolences to you and yours.

Condolences @BezMills

Sorry to hear about the shingles @SinnerBoy but you have reminded me that I need to sort out getting a jab for that.

And hope car gets sorted without any problems @moto748e

Christmas here is as last minute as ever. No decorations up as yet and not much done in terms of present buying. I have posted cards though (admittedly far too late for the overseas ones to arrive much before Easter but that’s par for the course). Festive food is mostly ordered but I haven’t made the Christmas pudding or cake yet. My mother is a bit disgruntled about Christmas coming round again as she thought she’d had her last Christmas last year (she’s been saying this for several years now).

My mother is a bit disgruntled about Christmas coming round again as she thought she’d had her last Christmas last year (she’s been saying this for several years now).

My dad was like that, I think a lot of old people must be. For a good 40 years every time he got a new car or what have you he'd say 'That's it now, this will do me, I won't need another one' or 'Sadly, I won't be here to see that'. When his 70th came round, my brother wrote him a poem called 'I won't be here to see that' and read it out at his party.

The guy who ran into me just rang me again; he has paid the garage the quoted amount, so I can arrange with them to get the work done. Again very apologetic and considerate. So a pretty happy ending really.

'That's it now, this will do me, I won't need another one'

I say that! 😃But as my car only has 17k on the clock, and I'm doing under 1000 miles a year, I dont think it's unrealistic.

Welcome to @FFSToEverythingSince2020 - all photos of tiny tortoises would be very welcome, just saying... I'd really like to be requesting a photo of the tiny tortoise having a bath, but that might make me sound like a weirdo.

Commiserations to @BezMills on your FIL and @BetjemansBear for the upcoming funeral. And recover quickly to @SinnerBoy (and @moto748e 's car).

Christmas prep is partial here, with the added problem of me not being able to remember which part. Work is a seething hotbed of overtired people sending messages saying 'I need this before Christmas!!!' without taking any account of anyone else's workload or priorities. Most people seem to be absolutely frantic, whilst simultaneously having the mental and physical energy of a wilted cabbage. I'd put myself somewhere below cabbage level, actually.

@weaselyeyes I’ll take a photo of her bath in the morning to share with you lovelies! And so sorry about the stress you’re under, but you definitely made me laugh with the wilted cabbage line. Aren’t so many of us feeling that way right now! Starting to feel like Christmas is a finish line and that I’ll collapse after the photo finish 😂

Sorry to hear about your FiL, Bez. Telling bairns is never a good experience, as I can attest. I hope he had a good run.

Thanks for the sympathy, everyone. I used to get it on the outside of my thigh. It's been electric shocks for about 3 weeks, but no eruption and has decide to come out at the top of my thigh inside, which is making walking a chore.

I took to bed yesterday and dint get up till1:30 pm, which is not like me.

Our tree is downstairs and up, it came down on Monday and didn't go up till Tuesday, on account of my daughter not picking her crap up and hoovering the front room. It was 6:30 on Tuesday when she'd done so, so we put the tree up, but I didn't feel like decorating it so late.

We'll do it tonight, I still feel rubbish, but less so than yesterday.

Get well soon, Sinner! Practically everybody seems to be ill one way or another at the moment.

Sounds like you need to keep taking it easy @SinnerBoy.

The joy of having older teen DCs is that we left it to them to Christmas the house last weekend, the main adult contribution being to pay for the tree and help with the unglamorous sawing and installing in the stand. So we do have our tree and mantlepiece decorated.

🎄🎄🎄

In less festive news, this morning (I finally have a day off, been working every day in a desperate attempt to get everything ready for handover when I leave my job early in the new year) I decided to get the actual vacuum cleaner out to do all the nooks and crannies. Y'know, what with guests coming and all. Usually we just send our Eufy robovac around every couple of days. In the living room, I pulled out the kindling basket from its little space next to the chimney breast and was immediately assailed by a smell of damp, looked closer and the carpet was all wet in the corner 😭

I cannot work out where it's coming from! I think I've eliminated rising damp, pulled up the carpet and the boards underneath appear dry, also went outside and the wall is looking dry and blameless, airbricks look clear - it looks like it's coming down via the skirting boards as they look grotty and feel damp. Could it be coming from a hole in the roof and down through the cavity wall? Or down the chimney behind the wood-burner? The roof is in a complete state and we were going to get quotes for a new one in the spring.

Maybe I should ask in Property?

Down the chimney sounds likely to me, kuc, as someone who is assailed by repeated leaking chimney problems. Leaks for me in and around the chimney breast have bee caused by flashing coming away, cracks in flaunching and crumbling pointing. If the roof is poor, it's likely it could well be the flashing around the chimney moving too.

I would ask any quoting roofers to look specifically at the chimney and make sure they factor this into their proposed work. If you're planning on having a new roof done, it can be sorted at the same time if it is the chimney. My issue is my roof doesn't need replacing, so I keep having small bodged repairs (I don't requesting the bodging that's just what I get!)

Thanks @weaselyeyes! I've been saying to DH for ages that the roof needs replacing, but he has been bizarrely resistant to this - IMO more so that simply the eye-watering expense, like it's some weird emotional trigger. We've had roofers in to do spot repairs a few times in the last 10 years and they've all said the whole thing needs doing and soon, DH has always refused to think about it.

The eye-watering expense is terrible, but if it's any consolation when I had my roof replaced it wasn't nearly as bad an experience as I feared. In fact, it was less stressful than having a repair done and wondering if it would hold or if I'd just been ripped off with an out of sight bodge again. Roofers like doing a whole replacement as it's easy, straightforward and lots of cash for a big job rather than fiddly repairs. I was a bit scared about what would happen when the roof was off and we were just covered by a tarpaulin, but it was surprisingly unnoticeable even though I had it done in January! Took about a week.

@weaselyeyes Here’s Bean Bean! All 79 grams of her in the bath. She fits on DH’s palm and he’s her person. (MN pics take a bit to be attached/approved, so pic may not appear for a few minutes).

She's adorable! And so, so tiny! 😍

@FFSToEverythingSince2020 She's so cute! Her little face!

@weaselyeyes Yes, she’s still a “baby” Western Hermann’s tortoise at only a little over a year old, and she’s a bit small even for her breed so a bit of a “runt.” She won’t reach full-size for ten years! Part of tortoises living so long is how long it takes them to reach adulthood.

@Kucinghitam I know! You don’t realize what expressive little faces they have until you see one up close. Here’s a better photo; she sits on DH for a while after her bath and gets her shell scratched (they have feeling in their shell, so they enjoy it being scratched or brushed lightly with a toothbrush).

Aw, she's lovely!

I'm doing all the squee's 😍