Friendship,advice and support if estrangement has affected your life.

Sorry Smiles I didnt mean to open up old wounds for you. ?

Sorry wasn't ignoring you smiles - sim posting. Sorry about those painful memories. x

That's me too DSL - I like to be in control and always like to tackle tasks head-on and get them done and dusted. DH is more of a procrastinator which drives me slightly up the wall but being at the behest of people whose timescale is as long as a piece of string and who could fold on us at any time is horrible.

I'll keep everything crossed for you but you sound to be on it all.

Our lot seemed untrained and unsure and have definitely made several mistakes so we can't relax because we don't have faith they know what they're doing. Unfortunately, we're not too sure either so that doesn't help.

Having said that we've dealt with a fair few other EAs during the viewing of other properties and found them even worse. We felt really sorry for a chap whose bungalow we saw on sale with purple bricks. He said he'd had people say they were going to make him an offer then not do so. We told him, honestly, that we were viewing a couple more that week but we thought his was nice and would decide by the end of the week. We almost put an offer in but then saw the one we liked the best. However, we did get as far as looking at how to make an offer online and you had to get your ID verified with an app before you could even put an offer in and it was impossible for me due to awkward documentation so we wouldn't have been able to do so. I was tempted to go back and tell him but felt it might be weird to turn back up at his door.

We saw another one with Strike and were tempted to put an offer in but wanted one question answering first. The EA promised to find out but never did. We heard her say to another viewer (block viewing) that she's let them know if anyone offered over the asking price. We would have been prepared to do so if the info we asked for was ok. DH reckons once they'd got one offer they didn't bother with the extra work. Another vendor I felt sorry for.

I wish we could have afforded to rent for a while like you but the budget is too tight. It is very stressful handling it all.

The massage sounds lovely. I hate haircuts so I've cut my own for years. I can't see well enough to tell if it's wonky so meh.

Aww, it sounds like your DIL really did want you to have a nice time. And regular time with the GC. That's lovely. I know you're worried it will somehow go wrong if you 'put a foot wrong' but fingers crossed it will all be good.

My rhubarb got scorched in the heatwave. Hoping that will recover. Getting plenty of rain atm.

That's awful Chewbacca. Financial abuse often stays under the radar understandably so as it's hard for a parent to see that their own child is abusing them in that way.

We and my brother provided the deposit for ES's first house and agreed for it be transferred to the house they bought before they were married. He told his dad that the only reason we'd invested the money was to have control over them. Just another example of how you can be damned if you do and damned if you don't.

That must be so frustrating DL. Giving financial assistance/support is one thing when you know it's being made good use of, but seeing your hard earned money thrown away on alcohol and gambling must be infuriating.

You do seem to be having a carry on hugs, no wonder you're not sure whether you're coming or going.

Oooh me too DSL especially when someone else's timescale is playing havoc with mine.

I think it's unkind to put someone with inadequate training 'before the public' so to speak when they're doing their best.

Gosh, that's a huge positive, being asked to help out with childcare. Good idea to start off with one day a week rather than commit to more and then have to reduce it.

I was supposed to have our first GC two days a week and was asked to have him full time for four weeks until his place at the childminder's was available.

Never had him at all. No, not going down that rabbit hole again, too painful so I'll shut up about it now.

Hugs....you are right it's just a waiting game. And I hate it. I loathe being at the mercy of someone else's timescale. I admit it, I'm a self confessed control freak who likes to call the shots. Lol.

I have just managed to grab hold of the EA. Matthew was on holiday.....how very dare he, ha ha, but Martha was very helpful, bless her heart.

I think I terrify the living daylights out of the pair of them. They know my history, that I spent years in the business. I fear it unnerves them a bit that I am more knowledgeable than they are.

I find half the time I'm teaching them job, once or twice I have had to advise them about quite important technical and legal matters they knew nothing about. I try to do it nicely though.

I bet they dread my phone calls, poor mites. They haven't been trained very well. I think they've just been thrown in at at the deep end and left to sink or swim. It's not fair that people receive so little proper job training these days.

Yesterday I was in a shop and the poor woman on the checkout was in a right pickle. I could see people tutting and getting irritated at the delay but I told her not to worry I had all the time in the world, just to take it slow and easy and she would get the hang of it. Her eyes filled with tears and she confessed it was her first day.

So unfair when people are rude and impatient with servers shop workers and the like. Tutting and rolling their eyes, looking at their watch isn't helpful.

Anyway apparently my buyer is making their mortgage application today, allegedly. No idea what the delay is, Martha couldnt shed any light. I think she's too timid to try and find out.

Tbh this is the first time I have ever been in a property chain. In the past I have always been very fortunate in that my buyers have not had a dependent sale. It does make a huge difference, it slows everything down. I just have to be patient....as long as it happens. ?

I am so glad I made the decision to rent first before buying again because trying to co-ordinate a purchase and sale whilst being in a chain would have sent me over the edge.

Took a proper look in the mirror this Morning, what in the world!! I'm all hunched up like Quasimodo and I know Im dragging my right leg again, as for my hair??. So time to do me, I have booked a massage for tomorrow and a hair cut for Monday.

Got to thinking.....it's nearly a year since that awful time when I was estranged for 3 months. We are ok (ish) now. I'm glad I accepted that olive branch. I still feel a bit apprehensive at times, and still find it hard to relax and trust them. I never did get an apology or an explanation. Maybe one day my son will be able to open up.

As you know it was my birthday recently. DIL pulled out all the stops to give me a good time, arranging a meal in my favourite restaurant, buying me a lovely handbag, I think it's her way of trying to make amends. I know she means well, she can't help being a narcissist any more than my father could help himself.

Its such a shame they have these deep seated character flaws because narcs can never be truly happy in their skin. No matter how brilliant and charismatic they are, they always self sabotage.

I have been asked if I will provide after school childcare. I have said yes to one day a week to start with, possibly upping to 2 once I've moved. I'm looking forward to it, hopefully it will help strengthen the bond between my grandchildren and I. Of course I'm wary of upsetting DIL by "not getting it right".

I can but try. Lol.

Right off to try and dig up my camelia and repot it, and see if I can revive it, although it's looking very sorry for itself.

That's such a shame diamondLily. If he's already learned to use that behaviour with his mother I suppose it had become normalised by the time he also did so with you.

Our house buyer was too ill to come but sent his brother who it turns out used to be a surveyor and did an impromptu survey. He was very polite but gave nothing away. So still no idea where we're at. They still haven't put any paperwork in but the brother did say that we could consider the survey done. I've no idea why they told us they were coming to 'measure up'. I didn't take them to task about the earlier 'misunderstanding' about their paperwork so I'll just have to wait and see now.

The 18 year bouncing estrangement with my adult stepson, is all about money.

He is eaten up with anger that we won't hand it out to him. He drained his mother dry, and is continuing to try with us.?

He hasn't got the sense to realise that he stopped some of the alcohol, and all of the gambling, he would have more money anyway..?

But, it won't get him anywhere,so his tantrums will have to continue.

I have worked in and around property most of my life, as well as being an amateur developer in my spare time,

I have met very few people who started out in what we might now might call a forever home. The one who stood out for me and who opened my eyes was a girl I worked with, She was the beneficiary of inherited wealth. She was lovely but she lived on a different planet from me.

When she married she invited me to lovely new three bedroomed detached home (first house). She had the most beautiful cream Italian leather corner sofa unit. (I had an a couple ancient tapestry chairs I had been given). Actually looking back they were beautiful, probably Victorian originals.

Anyway I admired her sofa. Her reply knocked me for six.

"Humph, do you know I had to sell some shares to afford that"

I nearly fell off said sofa. ??

Chewbacca, so sad but as you say that family is probably happier without the bad apple in their midst,

Whilst I don't have any experience of having estranged children (being an EAC myself) I do know that money is the reason for my neighbour's estrangement from their eldest adult son. All 5 of their children were raised and treated the same, given the same support, the same financial help; the eldest has been bailed out with help for debts for unpaid rent, evictions from flats, new start ups, credit card debts, pay day loans and, sometimes, being chased by drug dealers for debts. He's had more financial, practical and emotional support than the other 4 put together, which led to some resentment by his siblings. By the time he was in his mid 40s, and my neighbours in their mid 70s, they had to start refusing his demands for more money- they just didn't have it any more. So he cut them off. Wouldn't answer calls to them or any siblings and eventually moved away without telling anyone where he'd gone. It's been 3 years now and my neighbours have said that, whilst they know that they've done nothing wrong, and know that they were being financially abused by him for many years, they still love him but feel relieved that the constant anxiety of being pressured to give more money, has now gone. It's also made relationships with their other children and grandchildren much happier and relaxed. It's true that some families do just have a bad apple and they come in all guises, for all sorts of reasons.

No shame in that at all Mandrake.

I sometimes watch programmes on tv about people wanting to move to the country or buy their first home and I'm often taken aback by how much some young couples, with a mortgage of course, have to spend.

Oh, my children found some pictures from the first ten years we had kids. They commented on how cheap and low quality the furniture was. We bought it all second hand when we got married. They didn't remember. I used the opportunity to remind them that most people start with humble beginnings and work their way up over many years. No shame in that.

You can find a study to support just about anything you want. I tend to prefer qualitative studies. Suits my field better anyway.

You're right about working your way up DerbyshireLass. Everyone I know started with one or two bedroom small homes. As they got older and the value of the previous house increased, they were able to sell and buy something bigger. I don't know anyone who hasn't moved several times, improving the size of the house as they went. I thought that was normal.

We started out renting a cheap and run down two bedroom apartment.

Mia.....we have a saying here in the U.K.

Clogs to riches and back to clogs in three generations.

(Wooden Clogs were worn by textile workers in the north of England during the industrial revolution).

Sums it up nicely.

As I said earlier it takes decades to build wealth. Doesn't take nearly as long to lose it.

Some families can pass that wealth down through the generations, getting steadily wealthier through time, sometimes they can't. Some families (like mine) will fall on hard times through no fault of their own, some squander that wealth.

You quote statistics, I tell stories. Statistics do have their place but they don't tell the full story. They only tell you how many and when.....they don't explain why. Sometimes stories can illuminate statistics and bring them to life and make them easier to understand.

Personal testimony may be "only anecdotal" as far as scientists are concerned and are therefore dismissed but to historians personal testimonies, whether verbal or set in writing, taken from people who lived through the times being investigated, are seen as a valuable primary source.

If they can be backed up by things like the census or parish records or increasingly the camera, then so much the better but historians never dismiss or devalue personal testimonies.

You have said your family are poor, living on benefits but you are an educated professional so obviously you are already richer than many of your family. You can use your education and skills to earn a good income and build wealth, but like several of us older posters have pointed out, building wealth can be a slow process.

I started my life living in one room with my parents, sharing a bathroom and kitchen with several other families. My poor mother. She started her life as the daughter of a comfortable bourgeoise farming family but WW2 put an end to their comfortable life. They suffered greatly living under the German Occupation. The managed to hold on to the farm but they were bankrupt and starving by the end of the war. They had to rebuild.

So my start in life wasn't that great. Now I live in a nice detached home in a good postcode. It's been a long journey. It's taken years of hard graft to get here. I too nearly lost the lot when husband got sick but I managed to scrape through and have spent the last 8 years since his death slowly rebuilding my finances.

I think the mistake SOME millennials make is that they see their parents comfortable homes but they don't understand how hard their parents had to work to acquire them.

You said that despite your net worth all you could afford was a one bedroom condo. It was the same for most boomers. We started small and worked our way up.

Your story is anecdotal, so is mine but our stories do flesh out the statistics.

Personal testimonies put the meat on the bones .......

Anyway I really must crack on......

We still had a black and white TV in the 80s and I remember helping my mother put the clothes through the mangle in the same time period. That was quite fun. She was just worried about our fingers. In the late 80s she finally got an automatic.

So glad it wasn't just me hugs. I had a twin tub too, before we really went up in the world and went automatic. It was a good machine but quite labour intensive when compared to an automatic one.

I think it's a bit sad that we can so easily take what we have now for granted. My washing machine's doing it's thing at the moment, and it would never occur to me to sit on the floor and watch the washing go round.

I think we were pretty fortunate Whiff. First house on our road to get a coloured tv and a freezer. Having a house full of kids to see the tv wasn't a problem for mum and dad, but when they came back one hot day, and there was no ice cream left because we'd given it to all of our friends, they weren't too pleased.

A and always makes the world look better, I agree DSL.

Dream big, not bug. Lol.

Sorry worded that badly - first automatic washer in 20s - the mangle was most of my life at home with mum.

Here's a few of my mantas....take them or leave them but they guide me......

Chose life, chose happiness.
Don't bear grudges
Ignore the haters and naysayers
Don't let anyone steal your dreams.
Never look back in anger
Always look forward with hope
Don't think small, dream bug

And finally.....

One for the Brits. Put the kettle on.

The world looks better after a hot beverage and nice piece of cake. ??. ..

Oh, seems like I am a boomer after all from that definition - the one google gave me was off by a few years. But I'd rather we were all just people.
I remember the joy of my first washing machine too. I was in my 20s. I watched mine as well.
I was pretty chuffed when we got our first twin tub because we had one of those single tubs with a mangle on top for most of my life. Hubby's mum had a peggy tub and wash board for quite a long time while he was growing up.

I wasn't brought up with money and have always been careful. Both my children where brought up to be I would like not I want.

What my husband had and I have got is because we worked and went without.

My children and there other halves did the same. My daughter and son in law are better off than my son and daughter in law. Like my husband and I were better off than my brother and his first and second wife .

My son didn't estrange me because of money. But because he wanted to. The things he said and what he called me was horrible. But I was brought up you face your problems . We brought both children up the same. But my son didn't face me to say all those things. He did it via email and text. A cruel and cowardly way.

In his email he said he didn't like me but loved me . He knew I was waiting to have a bubble echo on my heart as the echo showed a problem . But he choose to dump me before I had it done. If he had opened his birthday card he would have read my letter telling him the results . And I do have a problem with my heart as well as PAF . But it showed me that he can't love me as to do that is hate not love.

Even when I let him know about the HPX and how to get tested incase he is a carrier. Not even a text to say at least you know what's wrong or thanks for letting me know. My symptoms got worse when he was 6 months old and his sister 4.

My loving caring son died no idea who he is now . ?

Yes that's true DL. I remember when I got my first automatic washing machine. I felt like a millionaire and actually sat on the floor watching the washing going round through the little window.

I was 21. My mum didn't get one until she was in her 40's!!

I think perhaps some younger people need to modify their expectations a bit.

They want all the luxuries of life, the gadgets, the flash cars, the holidays, and they want houses, but they want it all now.

Generations past spent years building up their homes and working towards any luxuries.

We didn't expect much from anyone, so anything was a bonus!

Enjoy your time in the garden Whiff. We're off shopping today, hopefully this morning if I can get my self organised.