How much is too much?

I would, if need demanded. Faeces are very biodegradable.

Why not? It's a bloody useful skill to have!

Been thinking.... re nostalgia for outside loos.... you could go the whole hog bog and have an earth pit or the modern version of that, a composting toilet, and then you'd get the full whack nostalgic experience with pongs as well.

Do it!

When we were evacuated to a tiny village during the war, we had a 'tippler' lavatory outside. One the bucket was full, it tipped the contents down a 'long drop' where I presumed it degraded eventually. It was not a cess pit or a septic tank, which I have had in France. It did smell in summer, though.

I may have been sitting on the outside lavvie but I was looking at the stars!

You needed the hole in the roof to do that.

I'd go with the hole in the ground (plank across the pit I assume) but our back garden slopes steeply upwards so even sitting there for a cup of tea feels like being on stage.

Anyway, why is it okay for us to leave our faeces about when dogs can't?

Yes I take your points and perhaps the young parents I see when I'm in England are higher earners and therefore more privileged than most. Mea culpa. But - I saved my family allowance to buy my kids' clothes; I didn't have a dishwasher; I bought furniture from the small ads; I drove a beaten up old mini .. I won't go on though I could!

But nothing would have made me expect my own mother to give up her day to day life to care for my children! She had done her 'bit' with me and my brother and in my opinion was entitled to have her own life. That is my real point - it seems expected now that Grans commit to grandchild care. I know that if I still lived there, my DILS would expect it of me. So I'm staying here . What a wicked old bag I am!

People usually don't leave their droppings on paths. People usually only shit outside when there's no alternative. I'm not saying it's a good idea generally (in fact it's a health issue in many parts of the world), but if you're going to be nostalgic about freezing cold outside loos.....

Well, I couldn't resist!

Sometimes, when DD was a baby and we were at the allotment, I'd hold her over the compost heap, then bury the results deeper in the heap. No harm done.

speki, I'll join you in the Wicked Old Bags Brigade (WOBBS Away! ) though I suspect both of us would do anything we could in an emergency. Like you, I brought my kids up to live indepenedently from me though once they were adults.

It was when I too went to grammar school that I realised how little money we had, Greatnan. My mother was a great one for keeping up appearances, and she made sure that I didn't have the local accent, so at my little back street primary school I was considered posh. Always the one who narrated in plays etc. Bit of a shock to the system to discover another world of relative affluence!

It took me a while to realise that you can, actually, just be who you are! And what a relief it was.

I do the odd bit of child minding for the youngest aged 6. But at 69 I am retired. If I was still working DD wouldn't expect me to give up my job.

I think I might qualify for the WOBBS. Little GS went down with chicken pox yesterday. As I am taking prednisolone I am advised to avoid contact with anyone with this ailment. That means I can't do any child minding next week (second of the school hols). I love little GS to bits but can't help feeling .... not relieved exactly, but more time for reading?

As an added qualification, a year ago I took on the family rabbit. Sometimes little Basil lies very still in his hutch, not moving when I open the door. I start to think he might have died in the night. A bit of me feels unburdened.

Whoops, wrong thread! Sorry folks, will copy it over!

No it wasn't. Will have lie down in darkened room.

Think the concept of WOBBS is brilliant!

This Wicked Old Bag(itha) is going to do some work outside and will join the rest of you again later. Ciao!

PS Happy Easter, everyone!

I think I might easily qualify as a WOB.

This WOB is signing off for a while to go and cook Sunday lunch at DDs for the family,8 adults and two little ones so I'll be back later tired but happy.

WOBBS - I am definitely one - always here in an emergency (there have been a few) but (apart from helping aged P) want to do the things I have never had time to do now working only part time.

petallus my 9/12 GD has it as well. If you're on steroids you must keep away until the last scab has fallen off! Have a nice rest!
I'm going up to help tomorrow!

Please can I join WOBB, do I need to send in a reference or will my word do!

specki not having a dishwasher is not being poor nor is driving a beat up old mini. If you could afford to drive any kind of car, tax and insure it you were still better off than others.
Try living in an unheated building, no car and not enough money for bus fares and we are referring to most of the people I knew when I first got married.

Your word will be quite sufficient, yoga.

Hey, do we need a WOBS AHOY! thread?

When you say unheated, I presume you mean not centrally heated, harri?

Nobody I knew had a dishwasher when I was a young mum! And I couldn't afford to drive anything! (Nor the lessons...)

I still don't have a dishwasher. Don't particularly want one either. Bought my first car from my brother on privately arranged HP (he's an accountant), paying him a little each month over two years. The kids were eight and six by then. I had that car for nineteen years. It died of body rust and old age though the engine was still fine. [nostalgic]

I still don't have one either, bagitha! For a start, I don't know where we'd put it - there isn't any spare space in the kitchen.

There is a space for one in my kitchen but it's where I keep all the recycling boxes and the rubbish bin and the compost bin. Where do people put stuff-that's-on-the-way-to-the-wheelie-bin in posh kitchens?