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🙈CURMUDGEONS' CORNER 11🙉

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  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited November 2020
    I presume you don’t go pheasant shooting @josusa47 ? 😉 

    https://www.guntrader.uk/guns/shotguns/purdey-james 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530
    Never have, never would.  Where I come from, Purdey's is a refreshing soft drink in a can.  Thanks for enlightening me.  All I need now is an opening to drop "a pair of well-matched Purdeys" casually into conversation.
  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    ..and I thought it was a reference to Joanna Lumley. How the heck you'd wrap her up, I don't know though..,
    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited November 2020
    Thought it was unlikely to be ‘your thing’ @josusa47  😉 but it’s all useful knowledge, even if just when you come across it in a novel. 📚 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • KT53KT53 Posts: 9,016
    Unfortunately Christmas seems to have become the time to spend money you can't afford on presents people don't want.  I suspect many on this forum are at the stage of life where we have everything we actually need, and would rather choose for ourselves the things we want.  I know my sister-in-law agrees with me that we should just buy something small for each other but my wife, although agreeing at the time, still went out last year and bought bagfuls of stuff.  That resulted in my sister-in-law feeling guilty, which probably means she will now spend money she genuinely can't afford.
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    We have members from all walks of life in this forum so can anyone tell me what on earth you get at a £30,000 a day resort. I had a look at the website for Mr Green's holiday retreat. Nice beach,nice pool, bedroom not to my taste. It appears you get food and a massage thrown in. But there must be something else😕
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • Nanny BeachNanny Beach Posts: 8,719
    Yes, Jenny that was my grump, I send a lot of letters etc, stuff that wont go through the post box slot has to be taken to the post office of course.  I have pen friends who have move away folk I have known over 30 years.  I sent a letter to one thought it was a bit thick, so put 2 first class stamps, her postie whome she's on first name terms with said "Why on earth has your friend put 2 stamps on".KT53, you are absolutely right, years, ago, having had my house repossessed, and thousands of pounds debt left by ex husband, my second hubby and I had 2 mortgages, I worked 60 hours a week, every year come October I am going round crying becuse we cannot afford realistically to buy for his family, stuff they dont need/like/want, I set a price limited we rowed over that, and every year got into debt with a credit card and took 6 months to pay it back.  My late family, by the time over 30 of us got together at grandparents house, said presents for the kids only, no-one was upset offended. One year we took a deep breath said to my husband's Mother, please don't buy us presents this year we aren't buying any.  Well, she went ballistic, didn't speak to us for 23 months!! Also, we bought for other my hubbies siblings' children, they only bought for the child we have together, which i thught was out of order.
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    One year we took a deep breath said to my husband's Mother, please don't buy us presents this year we aren't buying any.  Well, she went ballistic, didn't speak to us for 23 months!! Also, we bought for other my hubbies siblings' children, they only bought for the child we have together, which i thught was out of order.
    I tried a similar thing donkeys' years ago when I asked family to donate to charity instead of giving me presents. You'd think I'd told them I murdered someone, the reaction I got. 
    I'm the biggest atheist going, but the whole thing has become three ring circus, and I find it all quite sad that people have lost sight of what matters. I couldn't care less what I get given as long as people are spending within their means. 

    I'd have been quite happy if the MIL hadn't spoken to me for 23 months.  :D
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    The best Christmas present idea, to my mind, was the time we agreed that the maximum spend per person  was a fiver or a tenner ( I can't remember which) You had to get as many presents with that amount per person as you could and the sillier, the better. I'm still using the plastic thingy for getting lids off jars and some perfectly sized tin eggcups.
    That's what I'd like to do again, but no one agrees with me.
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    edited November 2020
    My rule of thumb when buying presents is to look for things that are quirky, frivolous or stylish examples of the quite mundane. Something about which the recipient might have said to themselves ‘I like that, but can’t really justify the £5/10/20 to buy it for myself’. 

    Here are a couple of things things I have seen recently that come into that category, both gardening themed and both no more than tokens

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Retro-Shovel-Coffee-Spoon-Stainless-Steel-Dessert-Spoon-Kitchen-Tools-UK/402520627068?var=672750106338

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sass-and-belle-Xmas-Glass-Bauble-Gardener-Christmas-County-Style/264869467346?hash=item3dab7354d2:g:oHsAAOSwbp9fZIaO

    Luxury nougat would be a treat treat for me, or an antique garden dibber (something I think is hard to justify buying for yourself).

    As a child I used to get cross with my mother’s saccharine response ‘it’s the thought that counts’ as I failed to muster sufficient fake enthusiasm for an aunt’s present of socks that I had just opened. If they had thought about it they would have chosen me something I liked was going through my head. 

    I have to say I now get slightly upset when people waste their money buying me things I really don’t like. I try to circumvent that, on my part, by buying presents through the year hoping then to choose things that closely match the recipients’ interests and tastes.




    Rutland, England
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