Help calm me. House buying and selling stress *Part 9*

yes, good neighbours are so incredibly important, that is why I took my time getting to know mine ie no cups of tea etc. I think it took a year and we three are very good neighbours, always there for each other but not at all intrusive. I learnt my lesson from my sister, who was always friendly but ended up with a neighbour who would knock and walk in and would not stop talking. I am looking after a neighbours plants from today and will be sorting both their sets of bins but if I needed help, they would come running

I made quiche today, haven`t made quiche since my husband was alive. I had leeks in the freezer so made paper thin ,butter pastry crust, filling was leek and chopped onion and thyme. Topped with 4 eggs, gruyere and double cream. I went the whole hog re the eggs cream and cheese but wow. I made 2 x 7" quiches and have cut into 8, will freeze 6 portions. It was so scrummy and filling

I really dislike scratching around for a meal, I make a salad every day, might pop nuts, cottage cheese or salmon with it but now also have the quiche. Later I have a cooked meal, all in one large frying pan, or steamer, if I can help it. Today is chopped onion, potato and greens from my garden and edamame beans

re neighbours, also watch when they step back, when they and their wives realise that we are widows. They seem to expect that we will always be asking to fix this and that. The opposite is true tbh, personally I have never needed to ask anyone for any handyman favour or cycle problems, in fact I offered to lend my power drill and I research stuff re maintaining my own cycles. Did a good safe job too with my bikes

Morning all, quite cool and rainy here today, poor tourists!

Rang the vet and getting three anti-b tablets before tomorrow, reception said to go in about 11, he can't be seen today. It could be the sand karmalady, but it has only been the last two years, so I think age is a factor too. And perhaps stress - he's moved twice in the last two years, and he does miss the kids.

Yes Yogi, my neighbour became very intrusive when my husband died, he worked from home, and I think he was bored. I had a large semi circular drive and he'd often be fiddling about with his hedge, standing inside my drive, smoking. His partner is my solicitor. He watched me struggling to move out for weeks, and only offered to help once, when his partner was with him in the garden. As it was full on lockdown I didn't expect help, but thought it interesting he chose that moment to offer! They employed an unpleasant builder who allowed people to park in my drive regularly without asking, I also found him in my north courtyard without asking, and he was abrupt and unfriendly towards me. It was about five months after my husband died when their builder said 'I want to show you the 'waste land' where I'm putting the new oil tank' - and he took me into my courtyard. I explained it was my land, I was going to have to sell, and he was very aggressive. I had the gate put up after that. My neighbours were in Spain when my husband died - apparently a few people rang them, they thought it was their builder

I know Zoopla use a logarithm for house prices and they are to be ignored, but I've just had a peek, makes me feel better about spending all this money on the place!

Have a good day everyone.

Fran Thank you very much for the info. it was very good of you to take the time, very interesting.

Oh dear Shandy so you had a bit of what I have with my upstairs neighbour too. To start off you don't mind too much, but as the months go on, you do start to mind the intrusions.
I really made an effort to be friendly & helpful with my upstairs neighbour when I first arrived, but now I really dislike him.

Karmalady I always have a little nap after my lunch, I feel I need it, otherwise by 9pm I'm dozing off. I have evening classes so need to be refreshed for them. When I come in I water the garden then go to bed with a book, I'm usually in bed by about 10pm.

Oh dear Shandy you are always so busy! you must long for the day it will be all finished, nice your son is helping you, you certainly need a bit of help with all the work needed. Sorry to hear your dog has another cyst, dogs do seem to suffer with them as they get older. Good luck at the vets.

might the sand be causing those cysts shandy?

You are going to have to sleepwalk through that horrible time ahead, day by day. Just have to be robotic to get through it all. All the planning will be well worth it

My poor dog has got another interdigital cyst, guess where I'm going tomorrow.

I nearly always feel sleepy after eating lately too, I just lie on the bed and read for a bit. Lovely you managed to make two tops today.

Floor wise, the timetable is - removal men are coming at 9 am on Friday 29th July. My son is coming on Saturday 30 July to help me take the five carpets and underlay up, then I've got to wash down all the floors to get rid of the black mould. I'll have to go to the dump with the carpets etc when I get my strength back. The men are coming on Monday 1st August just to take the floors out and put in some joists, and I have a chemical toilet coming. The following week they will be putting the new floorboards in.

I got the blowup bed out today, and eventually managed to set up the dog cage for my cat. I'll have to move in there on Thursday 28th, and keep the cat in the cage until the removal men have left on the Friday. Stupidly I've stacked pictures against the wall with the power point, so I'll have to run a cable from the other side of the room, but it doesn't matter, it's going to be hellish anyway!

Hopefully the plumber will come to take the shower out, and the builder promised to come to remove the storage unit/wardrobe. Still a few weeks to go.

it has been what I would call a satisfying day today, I managed to get past that post lunch feeling of wanting to nod off. Ok, I do that by using my body and mind to start some prep for sewing. I managed to squeeze two tops out of a 2.4m length of flowy viscose challis. Only cut for now but it was like tetris, as both have sleeves, one sleeve is very large and cut on the bias, took a lot of room.

£25 is what that fabric had cost then. I looked up a couple of my fabric records and prices have gone up at least 50%. Stands to reason that it was good to have stashed things, the return is much better than savings. I read a thread on mumsnet earlier about the large increase in individual items

Is the 1st of august still the date shandy?

I know Franbern, it's been my downfall more than once, will I ever learn!

I saw a very expensive wallpaper I liked, and as the hall is so small, thought I might splash out. As it was densely patterned, I ordered two samples on the assumption I would see two different areas of the paper. Just arrived - the samples are identical. £8 up the chute!

Interesting about access, worth investigating Yogi.

My neighbour at the station became very odd about 'needing access to his drains' in my courtyard at the back when I put the gate up, and I ended up giving him a key. He also used to go into my main drive and during the early days of grief I didn't care, until the day he asked whose drive it was? Mine, of course! I don't miss his endless fag ends, I must say!

Yogi, interesting point about whether or not you can refuse the window cleaner coming onto your property. If nothing about this is actually written into your lease, etc then the following may be of interest to you -

^If there are no rights of access reserved in their title deeds, then the Access to Neighbouring Land Act 1992 may be of help, provided the work being carried out can be shown to be necessary to preserve their property and not easily undertaken otherwise.

To qualify as preservation works they will typically need to show that access is needed to:

maintain, repair or renew their property or another structure on their land;
clear, repair or renew a drain, sewer, pipe or cable;
fill in or clear a ditch; or
treat, cut back, fell, remove or replace a hedge, tree, shrub or other growing thing which has or may die or become damaged, diseased, dangerous or insecurely rooted.

If the court agrees to grant access then it is likely to impose strict conditions on what they are permitted to do, at what times of the day access can be obtained and the time frame within which the works must be completed. They may also be ordered to pay you compensation.^

*Shandy& you are very kind hearted and generous to a fault.
However, think sometimes you do go OTT.

Thinking if it was a child (instead of a pet) involved how I would feel if someone to whom I gave permission to once, then gave that child 'treats' every day. I would get annoyed TBH.

A 'treat' should be just that, something very occasionally, not a daily occurance. The costs of all these treats and expensive gifts (hotel stays) etc you send out could well be saved up towards some more 'treats' for yourself.

Morning all, feeling guilty here, haven't touched the inside or outside of my windows since I've moved here!

All the wasps have gone, thankfully, blocking the last airbrick today. 44 houses in this street, why choose me!

Glad your friend is going to enjoy lovely weather Franbern.
Enjoy your cycle karmalady. I think I told you I looked at the two electric bikes available at my bike shop - £1500. I'm still thinking about it.

I am sorry to read about the window cleaner access Yogi, but think it is access you have to allow. Throwing the muck onto your flat roof was dreadful, I hope he swept it off.

I didn't drop the bag of treats off last night, I'm just going to change my route and hope I don't bump into them on future dog walks. I got into the situation through kindness and now have to be cruel, it's sad.

Off to the PO to post 'The Duke' DVD to my aunt, anyone else watched it?

Morning all

My tree is a 'Skyline' Honey locust tree Shandy there are different types. Some have huge spikes on them! not mine of course.

The Sycamore tree is about 60 feet high Fran a tree surgeon would be needed. My other neighbour told me he has a beautiful white Clematis which is always full of beautiful blooms, some spill over onto 'him upstairs' fence, instead of enjoying the beauty he cuts them all off and chucks them back over the hence! I said sod law they fall over his fence, I'd love them to fall over mine.

Karma I am cleaning my windows now, as single ground floor flat. 'Him upstairs' window cleaner has to enter my garden to enable him to reach his upstairs windows. I never liked the intrusion, but now even more so. I was mowing my lawn Saturday and along comes said window cleaner, normally we would have a little chat, I know he supports West Ham football, as did my dad. This time I could tell 'him upstairs' had told about our falling out, as he gingerly asked if he could come through. Him upstairs was walking behind him with the widow cleaners bucket of soapy water [never done that before] I did ask, as his windows open all the way, big enough for the window cleaner to step out and clean, without entering my garden, but him upstairs said he'd tried that but couldn't step out [yea right!] So up he went, I didn't move any of our garden furniture out of the way for him, with my metal bench seat pull over the entrance a bit to enable me to do the mowing. I carried on mowing, looked up to see the window cleaner standing on the very top of the window, balancing with half a foot on the tiny ledge, cleaning out the roof gutters [the one's my son was asked to clean out] . He was using his bare hand to scoop the gunge out and slop it onto my flat roof. I called up to the poor guy and said ' you can't leave that on my flat roof, you should have had a bag to scoop it into, you'll need to clean it all up!' I don't want them both in my garden again, not sure where I stand if I refuse access to my garden for his windows to be cleaned [?]

Sorry for waffling on about all this.

Fran hope you enjoy your cream tea with your friend and enjoy the whole visit with her. What a funny story of how you both met.

Shandy Oh dear re that doggie getting too may treats, he is going to miss you now, when you change your route.

Karmalady hope you enjoyed your cycle. When we lived in Holland, we all had bikes, myself and H had child seats on ours, we would go out for the day with the C on our bikes. I wasn't too good on mine and fell a couple of times, until both the C would only go on their dad's bike , older Daughter had her own.

I use a Karcher for inside my windows. Very large ones in this flat, and have a lovely window cleaner for the outsides every six weeks. As I am on the first floor, he does not even come through my flat to do the very large patio doors, etc. but puts a ladder up against the low wall of my balcony and climbs over - so can do them even when I am not at home.

I can still remember sitting on the window cill, facing indoors, pulling windows down as low as possible, whilst I cleaned the outsides. Hated doing that.

Talking to a lady at the knitting group who is going through the selling/purchasing procedure (again - after having her first attempt fall through after six months), does seem that solicitors have too much work and are really being very slow. A flat here, had an offer accepted on it over three weeks ago, yet we (Management Company), still have not had a word from the purchasers solicitors asking for statutory forms they will require. I contacted the sellers on Friday saying they need to chase up their purchasers to chase up their solicitors. No wonder property sales are taking so very long.

Summer seems to be arriving here in WsM, this week. I am looking at a clear blue sky with bright sunshine and virtually no movement on the tree tops.

It took me just ten minutes, while my coffee was cooling and I whizzed around all the downstairs windows outside this morning, managed to get to the back ones before the sun hit them. I have saved a fortune doing my own windows, so quick and easy with the special professional liquid and tools.

I have a pole for the front but can reach all the others without. I got rid of some of my kit including the big bucket, when I was downsizing but basically all I use is a sleeve and a T bar, a squeegee and a handle, a pole and an old washing up bowl. and a cloth for the frames and cills The key ingredient is the ungers liquid, nothing is as good as that. I can`t remember where I got the stuff from but it was a special window cleaning site. I made sure to get the correct widths for the windows

Upstairs never looks dirty, I think my windows are self cleaning on the whole. Three houses ago we were in a townhouse with a management company, window cleaning included. 2010 we were in the eco house with very big windows on the s side and all reachable from the ground or balcony. That is when we bought the ungers. We used to go up a stepladder and used the pole to quickly clean the three normal -sized upstairs windows on the n side. My neighbour had a window cleaner and many a time it would rain the next day. I only do mine maybe three times a year, in this house, depends on the dust in the rain and the wind and how well the self-cleaning is working

Yogi, about how old is that bar-steward neighbour? Your experience with him is such a lesson to us buyers, the importance of good neighbours cannot be over-estimated. A huge amount of luck is involved.

I need to get out for some cycling exercise this morning, I have been feeling like a blob for a couple of days, too many days indoors, glastonbury traffic mainly and then the rain. It is only a short hour but makes all the difference to my well-being

Nice to think of you munching on your scones with your friend Franbern, I hope you have a lovely time.

I'm in trouble over giving a dog a treat, with the owner's permission, and have to go on a treat bag mission tonight. I was giving this little dog one treat when I walked past each day, and leaving a few with her owner. In the end if the owner was out, I had to put the treats in a bag on the fence because the crows found them. Has all got a bit ridiculous as it seems the dog isn't eating her breakfast now, just sitting at the fence waiting for me to come. I'm going to deliver a bag of treats tonight, so the owners can give them to her whenever they want, and change my route. Lonely women and dogs, eh!

Yogi, I am sure that you know that you have a legal right to cut any branches of a neighbouring tree that is overhanging your property. So, you could get your son to do that. He could then put those branches in your neighbours garden for him to dispose off ( again that is what the law states should be done). Did you point out to your son how very rude that man was to you and why on earth he ( your son) to do him any favours whatsoever in the circumstances.?

Spent yesterday morning in park at Pride, but having had a bad night, came home early and went to sleep. The upside of my occasional very bad nights is that the night following is always a very excellent one. So very refreshed this morning.
Last tidying cleaning before friends arrives tomorrow, We originally met at the Well Baby Clinic where she was with her first and I was with my third. My middle one (2 years old) managed to get her head stuck between the slats on the back of a chair, and she watched me place baby (a few weeks old) on floor, tip daughter upside down so I could release her easily. So, she came over to talk to me. That baby of hers just celebrated her 50th birthday!!!

This morning have Sainsbury's delivery- have included clotted cream in it. I have some lovely jams, and will make scones tomorrow morning. We can gorge ourselves happily. Will need to go to knitting group this afternoon, as I am deputising for the group leader this week.

Weather forecast is quite summery. I have arranged the hire of a mobility scooter for my friend whilst she is here and we intend to spend the few days being 'tourists' at the seaside.

And I agree about the sycamore tree - very adept at rooting. I was horrified to have a seedling root under the steps at the station.

Morning all.

Yogi, I am very sorry to read your story, what a nightmare. I hope, after discussion, your son agrees the neighbour treats you with a lack of respect, and agrees to your plan to block this man from your lives. I'm off to google a honey locust tree!

Oh dear Shandy re your friend.

All kicked off again with my upstairs neighbour. I had just finished my rock garden at the back, put the really heavy stone seat in and 2 blocks of wood like sleepers at the side to hold the earth in place. My son dug a small trench to put the sleepers in, had just finished and asked me if it was ok, I was sitting on the patio by the house and 'him upstairs' came along and walked up the back and was asking my son for the wood at the back, my son didn't know what he was talking about, so I went up and asked what he wanted [it was the sleepers!] he looked at me and said in an aggressive manner I'm talking to G. I lost it, told him he was rude, told him we were not his maintenance service He then asked about my tree, that he'd asked my son to cut down a few weeks back. so I told him to cut his tree branches that are hanging over my side and dropping leaves [which doesn't bother me at all] before we discuss my tree branches. My tree is lovely, a Honey Locust tree, which gives mottled shade and the birds love it. He's is a monster, think it's a sycamore.

He finally walked off, smiling and saying ok G, see you later, to my son. So he is trying to stay friendly with my son whilst being really, quite nasty & rude, to me.

I spoke to my next door neighbour [detached] he came into my garden to take a look at my rockery and he pointed out 'him upstairs' 's tree, saying what a nuisance it was and that all the seeds drop into his garden, he has to pick them up quick or they'll take root, also takes away the sun from his garden. I then told him the problems I have been having with him and he replied I know, I know, he's a real nuisance, always asking for something!

So sorry about your dear son Fran and Karmalady about your friends!

Shandy shame they weren't bees nesting, you could have had fresh honey every morning

Just to top the day off my friend has just phoned - back from her birthday weekend in Norfolk a day early. I'd bought her a gift voucher for a meal/room in what looked like a nice hotel for her birthday last December.

Apparently the hotel room was very nice, but situated over the front door, and she likes to sleep with the windows open. Noise from outside, plus the front door was banged all the time, interrupted her sleep. There was also a big Indian wedding on the floor above their room, and the ceiling was creaking and groaning. Her dog decided to want to go out at 4 am this morning and the only place to go was the local church yard.

Not a great success!

oh crikey me too re being bored, hate it and am talking to myself as usual, am glad I haven`t got any biscuits in the house

My neighbour's friend encouraged her to go and be checked out. She had an ECG and blood tests, but as the attack was a few days ago, they didn't show any indications. Cholesterol was normal. I saw her later this morning and her ribs are still hurting a lot on one side. I hope she gets well soon, it was obviously painful.

I do wish I hadn't packed everything up so early. I need a book of maps that is under about a hundred weight of boxes and bags!

I'm so very bored I thought I'd get some chips and sit down at the harbour - chip shop was already closed when I got there at 7.30 pm. Covid has affected everything, when my friend visited the pub was closing at 9.30 pm.

Might splash out and buy 'Operation Mincemeat' on Prime Video, nothing on tv for me this evening.

If your neighbour actually had a heart attack then it is highly unlikely she would be back home so quickly. Could have been a TIA or (as Karmalady said), heartburn - which is often mistaken as a heart attack. Always best to have it checked out.

Have had a lovely day at the park round the corner to where I live at the WsM Pride Festival, assisting my daughter on the NEU stall there and donating my knitted item to the 'Colours' Stall. (This is a local based group which operates to provide support for youngsters who have having any problems regarding their genders, etc.

Very, very busy, and really enjoyable, I will be back tomorrow. Poured with rain first thing this morning, really teemed down, fortunately dried up just before it was all due to open to public and have had sunshine and cloud since then. Also gave me the opportunity of actually seeing and talking to two of my g.children - will see a third one there tomorrow, as she is working today.

Virtually all the knitted and crochet articles I took have been sold today, just very few left for tomorrow. Will start knitting more for next year when we will be hosting Pride UK.

I have PAF but before I was diagnosed never thought it was a heart attack just my heart racing out of control which made my motor movements harder to control.
But having your heart race out of control was frightening but took months to catch on ECG as everytime they did my heart was back to normal. Until August last year when they caught it. So now on tablets to help control it.

At least I had my neurological diagnosis this year only took 34 years. And found out I was born with it.

Chest pain can be frightening and should always be checked out. Medical staff I found don't mind if it's a false alarm. Better than a seriously ill patient .