SUPPORT for all living with the pain of estrangement

My MIL welcomed me into the family like a daughter. I was included in everything and never put down. She constantly tells me I'm an amazing mum.

Please don't think I'm accusing you ladies of these things. As I said, estrangement can happen regardless. It's not always the parents 'fault.' These are just all things I've read from DILs

StellaStreet -- Welcome. Your comment of, "But I do feel a germ of anxiety that history could repeat itself, which @Smileless2012 picked up on. It's probably irrational, so I'll try to relax and not let it become a thing. I've already spent far too much energy on the past – it really depletes you, doesn't it? – without worrying about the future."

You gave yourself fantastic advice. Often when people worry about what might/could occur, they subconsciously do things that may actually lead to the 'bad thing' happening. Self-fulfilling prophecy...

Morning everyone. I've been watching Captain Tom's televised birthday celebrations with tears in my eyes. What a lovely man.

Some great advice there Ironflower. It's lovely to know about your great relationship with your m.i.l. Mine got off to a very rocky start as she did the opposite of everything in your post but thankfully we managed to move on from that and have a lovely relationship.

Like your m.i.l. she's very complementary, especially about the way I 'keep the house' and my cooking. She's not one for expressing her emotions and what will always be my most precious memory of her is the day, when we were talking about our estrangement and I was very upset, she put her arms around me and cried.

As you say "estrangement can happen regardless. It's not always the parents 'fault'" it's good though to be aware of the potential pit falls that lie ahead and do our best to avoid them.

I am ok thanks Smileless. DH is at the hospital all day for chemotherapy, so just trying to take it a day at a time. The prognosis is not good, although he is doing fine at present, so I just try to stay positive. But, in my darkest hours, usually in the middle of the night, I feel that I have come out of a living bereavement just to go into a real one. Sorry, that's not very upbeat, is it? All any of us can do is try to live in the present, let go of past grievances, and treasure what we have.

PF you never have to apologise for not being "very upbeat". You know we are here for you and to listen to whatever you need to share.

Please give my very best wishes to your DH and for you, a BIG (((hug))) and lots of love xx

Thanks Smileless - big hugs back! X

Evening all. Goodness lots happening on here atm.
Well done with the curtains smiles - I'm trying to teach myself to sew but I'm not much kop.
A Happy birthday indeed to Cptn Tom.
I'm sorry your DH is having to deal with chemo in the middle of all this and I'm sorry things are so tough for you PF. Goodness, nobody expect you to be upbeat, it must be so scary, but we are all rooting for the best outcome possible for you.

hugshelp

I have not tried mine yet, but my mom gave me an easy bag pattern to use with my sewing machine. It's intended to help you become familiar with your machine by requiring many of the machine functions.

You might see if you can find an easy pattern that might work for you. Something simple, such as a bag, might work.

Thanks hugshelp they look great and I'm very pleased with them. I decided against using my sewing machine as they're rather heavy and it's been a long time since I did any sewing so was rather nervous.

The weekly Aldi shop's been done and it was a much more relaxed experience than last week. Everyone seemed more relaxed with a bit of chit chat going on at the required social distancing. I felt quite anxious TBH last week but was OK today; maybe I'm just getting used to it.

Myself and another lady were trying to help a man with his shopping list. Quite a selection of herbs for him to buy and he had no idea where to look for them bless him, or if it was alright to substitute dried for fresh.

I've bought myself a knit kit to make a cushion cover. Everything's included and I thought it would give be something to do. Not much of a knitter and haven't attempted anything since I was pregnant with DS 37 years ago, and then it took me 8 months to make one matinee jacket.

With a lot of luck I might get this finished before the end of the lock down.

Good Afternoon Ladies and it is a much better day today.
Where has this weather come from? I have felt cold since
Monday. Yesterday there was five different heavy downpours
and it rained all day such a contrast from the beautiful warmth we were enjoying up until last week-end.
I was feeling as changeable as the weather myself and with it being miserable I never made any little trips around to see the GC. My daughter did not call me so everything must be okay. I do hope she is not in a mood with me as when it was lovely and warm she wanted me to take the children for a drive in the car and tire them out with a long walk.
I had to say no because I did not feel it was helpful considering the social distancing aspect of things. I was tempted as I miss them but just did not want to put any- body at risk.

I am sure that when Boris does his plans list next Thursday
we will see a big difference to the social distancing and plans that are in place just now. Many people around the country
want to start getting back to normal and I think Boris will set out plans to get things moving as he is more interested in the economy than to carry on like we are. Once he changes things then I will take the GC out and we may have a little bit more freedom.
Have a good day all.

I so need some routine back. I feel all adrift. I'm used to running round all over the place. I just hope we can do it and keep the infection rate down. If you think that for the numbers to stay the same, each infected person only needs to infect 1 other person and if each infected person infects 2 other people, the numbers double.. It feels like a lot at stake here

You're right about the weather 3nanny we had our bedroom radiator on last night, first time for weeks.

I hope your D understands that of course your tempted to have some physical contact with her and your GC but you're sticking to the Government guidelines. Easier said than done I know, but try not to worry.

I think you're right about there not being an ease of this lock down any time soon, or at most some minor changes. I honestly don't see us doing much differently to begin with. I'm not rushing back to my gym and as much as we enjoy going out for meals we wont want to be in full restaurants.

Having watched a video on you tube about how to trim the fur on a cockapoo's fur, we took the the plunge. Bless her, her fur was too long around her eyes and the fur around her mouth and under her chin needed a trim.

Result ...... not bad, not bad at all so feeling more confident we gave our little poodle a light trim with Mr. S.'s hair clippers. I think I may have told you we thought we'd need to do something as they get groomed every 6 weeks and, Mr. S. did his own hair, well head actually because he hasn't got much hair last week and served as my guinea pig as neither of us had used clippers before.

Having had her trim first, our cockapoo hid under the table and watched us clip her brother and is totally unaware that the clippers are being re charged do we can give her a light all over trim tomorrow.

I am impressed Smileless. Our Westie desperately needs a trim, especially as he has a skin condition, and I have been looking at the clippers on Amazon but not sure if I am brave enough. So far, I have just trimmed the fur round his eyes so he can see

Well we did experiment on Mr. S. first PF. Best thing to do is use them on the setting which gives the longer cut first. We did that and it made no real difference to our poodle's coat so we went to the next but one down and it was fine just to take some of the extra length away.

The problem is his top knot needs a trim and I'm not sure about that because if it goes wrong it'll look really obvious.

Evening ladies.
I have done a couple of bags agnurse, you're right they are a good place to start. The sewing isn't great but they do work as bags. I'm not sure how much of my messy sewing is lack of practice and how much is my sight impairment - I do have magnifiers but it's still tricky, but I will persevere and see. I'm loving watching sewing bee though.

Hope you enjoy your knitting smiles - that's more my bag, I usually do a bit most days, though I need to stick to bigger needles these days as well as using x8 specs - which means you have to hold things 2 inches in front of your nose to focus lol.
And well done with the clipping. I did DH with some hair clippers I recently bought. It looks pretty good, except the bits around the ears - I need to find some pics to work out what should be going on there lol.

This weather is rubbish 3nanny. I do hope your DD is not in a mood with you, that would be so unfair. Hopefully not, I think everyone is stressed and out of sorts though really.

We managed a bit of a walk today, but it wasn't really relaxing as, although there were only a few people around, at good distances, they all had dogs off the leads and some of the dogs were getting a bit agressive with each other and the owners couldn't get them back. We cut our walk short and left them to it.

Morning all

Well done Smileless on cutting your doggies hair & Mr.S too! I cut Joey's hair few weeks back as it was so hot. Took me 2 days to complete, as he got fed up and I needed a cuppa after an hours work on him. Did his face, legs, feet & tail with scissors, then the rest with clippers, looked good in the end and he must have felt much better having his thick coat taken off, just like you see on TV with the lamb shearing in the spring time. I did always do my Lilly between cuts at the doggie parlour, but was fearful of doing Joey for the first time!

I went to 'Pets at Home' to get Joey's biscuits & treats as we were all out, the assistant taking my purchase said Is that Joey? and made a big fuss of him, I was surprised she recognised him [she was the groomer of Joey] as we had only gone twice for his hair cut there, they really do a good job, more expensive than elsewhere, but worth it.

Here's Joey when I first adopted him

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202005/medium-502579-20200118-113208.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202005/medium-436093-20191017-174214.jpg

Here he is all groomed

Gosh you are clever Yogagirl we weren't as bold with our poodle. Joey looks simply adorable, no wonder you adopted him.

It's a shame your walk was spoiled by inconsiderate dog owners hugshelp We're very cautious when and where we let ours off the lead. Our cockapoo has excellent recall but our poddle's a bit hit and miss. They're both such a couple of softies that we do worry if there are dogs about that appear to be aggressive.

I'm not a knitter as you'll have seen from an earlier post so if I get into trouble I'll be needing your help!!

A lovely morning here, bright sunshine but still on the chilly side. I might make a start on my cushion cover, instructions are included so I hope they're easy to follow. I'm not sure if I can even remember how to cast on.

Wow everyone is so busy, it seems you all have been sewing ,starting to knit and clipping your doggies. Keeping busy is good at least it takes your mind off the situation at the moment so that helps.

For me I can sew but rarely bother if it is a hem on a skirt or dress I can do it and the same goes for stitching on buttons I do it. I would never leave a dress with the hem hanging down it looks terrible. I have never done knitting and would not know where to start, we never done it at school and my mother never done it so probably why I do not bother.
I am quite good with a pair of hair clippers although maybe a bit rusty as I haven't used them for a while. I done a hairdressing course for the mature student going back a while and can do hair trims etc, but I liked the clipper work best and always used to do my sons hair and some of the school mums used to ask me to do their childrens hair for them so that course did not go to waste.
I have never practised on cutting dogs hair and my two dogs are very short-haired anyway so no need for the clippers on them. I did buy a toe-nail clipper to trim their nails but they run off on me and will not let me do them so that is not accomplished.
Hugshelp it's a shame your walk was spoiled by aggressive dogs and I wonder why people let their dogs off the lead if they know they can be aggressive. I just like to walk across the big field and have the dogs on the lead. Most times no-body is even in there and a lot of the dog walkers walk around the tree lined pavement with the dogs on leads so it is not too bad. My youngest dog always went off lead in the field and had good recall but now she has diabetes and poor sight so running around loose is not an option but she still enjoys her lead walks and has her fun.
Look at YogaGirls dog Joey he is cute.
Have a good day all.

Oh wow Joey is adorable yogagirl

There's loads of great knitting videos on youtube if you get stuck with anything smiles. I love this lady, she is so clear, and does slow-motion vids you can work along to, which are great for me with my poor eyesight. She has so many just search her channel for anything you are stuck with and I'm sure you'll find it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHZy0-tXUtU&t=20s

I prefer long-tail cast on myself but there's lots of options

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN9cNEozOLc

West Yorkshire is one of the top five spots, 'named and shamed' for not sticking to the lockdown rules and there have been a good few incidents of people spittting at the police, putting tripwires across walkways, and all sorts of unhelpful things. So I consider agressive dogs running lose par for the course. Of course there are lots of lovely people here, many volunteers trying to help people etc, but going out is hard when you don't know who you will cross paths with.

Morning all

Not so sunny today! was lovely yesterday, so went to my local beach, 15min drive door to beach, so decided I'm allowed as they say as long as the drive is shorter than the walk.

Thank you everyone re my Joey x

MAY! Turned the page on my calendar and wham! it hit me. My beautiful granddaughters 10th birthday next Friday & my grandson's the follow week. Been going along ok all year, so didn't think it would hit me, but as always it did, hard! I, as I know others, have been much more emotional since the lockdown, thinking of my M&D that passed 11 & 12yrs ago, thinking; why did my daughter do what she did She was loved and adored by me & her sister and her children were loved & adored by us too, so why, why! [?]

Morning yoga. Walking on the beach sounds wonderful.
I'm so sorry you are missing your GCs birthdays soon. Special occasions are like a slap round the face when you are estranged from loved ones. We all torment ourselves with 'why?' I guess we can only hope they have found their own kind of happiness and try and do the same, even though it's not at all the way we wished and imagined it would be.

Morning all. Hope you all have a good day. x