General Chat

Jean (Monmouth)

It does sound as though your bus system (EU funded) has been designed by young bureaucrats in Brussels. The system here for superannuitants is a Gold Card (not that I have ever bothered to apply for one) that allows I think free travel on buses trains and ferries between certain hours of travel. We never go on the bus nor the others for the car is so handy and has a flexibility that the others even for day trips do not have. You can always go a fill the tank or use the toilet if need be without buying petrol.
PS I would not be surprised if they did not even employ someone to record the number of trips you have rung about.

Huia
It is years since I had something like that go but it does sound a lot for a water pump unless the radiator had to be done as well. Blooming cars there is always something happening that costs "an arm and a leg".

Bob, it finished up at under $1000. And the taxi home and back was less than suggested. A motel probably would have cost about the same and I would have missed out on my eyedrops night and morning and some tabs that I take. Since I was seeing the eye specialist this morning about the early stage glaucoma for which I use the eyedrops I didnt want to miss them. As it was, the reading was a bit higher than he liked, though not too bad. I dont want it to get to the stage where I cant drive or we will have to move to town, although I am trying to get rid of a lot of 'junk' just in case the time comes.

My husband and I have the Gold Card so we use it if we want to go to Auckland, go by train or bus from Papakura and it doesnt cost us anything and no parking charges, or the stress of driving in the city traffic and finding a parking building.

Huia.

It's 6.14am here. Some may be still asleep hopefully. Others will be sitting down for dinner. I'm off to golf hoping to repeat my 80 on Wednesday.
FORE!

>>>>>>>> runs out of the way!

Have a good day Bob. and all others down under

Had my mammagram results today, CLEAR. See me in twelve months unless I have any problems. Pleased as punch with me as it is 7 yrs since the mastectomy and he says I am not old at 74! Lovely man!

Well done, Jean! That must be a tremendous relief, and an inspiration for others going through the same thing.

So, what next? Walk the Great Wall of China? Paragliding? What ever you fancy (not that you'd catch me doing the above LOL) go for it!!!!

'n'

Back from Golf!
Standing on the 17th tee with 69 to that point. A par 5 and par 4 would give me 78. Wishful thinking! Put my drive out of bounds and ended up with an 8. Even worse on the next, out of bounds again and finished with a 9 and total of 86. 17 in the last two holes but that's golf sometimes. So Jean walk the Great Wall of China and do not take up golf.
DET
You will have to let me know whether "LOL" is "little old lady" or "lots of love"!
Sorry Jean but I have got to get to know the terminology around these threads and any way the doctor say that 74 is not old.

Lol – laugh out loud. Used in response to someone else to indicate you found their post amusing, or added to your own to show that your comment was tongue in cheek, or not to be taken too seriously.

On other more light hearted threads, you might also see
Pmsl – P*ss myself laughing
Rofl – roll on floor laughing
Wmsl – wet myself laughing

You are not alone. It took me ages to work them out myself and had to ask our offspring for confirmation. Their faces were a picture – mum trying to get her head around txt (text) speak!

I would love to go paragliding but pocket doesnt allow things like that.
Will have to get Dr to change OH's tablets, he is getting very light headed. It is not worth it to save the occasional small angina attack.

Jean

What a brave young (Well the lovely doctor said that you were not old!) person you are. I have flown a few kites in my time and somehow that is one of the last things together with bungy jumping that I would want to do and probably be the last as well.
I think the bravest thing I ever did was to challenge a bully that had we younger ones (10 yrs old) held up in a neighbour's house. I told him (12) that he was too frightened to put the gloves on to settle the matter. Of course I was wrong. Can't remember getting hurt too much but still am aware of the respect gained from my opponent. He won't remember that day for he is now in a home with Alzheimers and was not able to attend the recent funeral of his sister. You may gather from that as well as this thread that I am still a bit of a talker but have learned (most of the time) when to "keep mum".

My English relative who is 77 did a tandem parachute jump when she was in New Zealand a few months ago. She wants to do one in England for charity but her doc wont give her the all clear. She didnt need it here. She is a real character.

Huia.

That's amazing about your relative Huia. Strange that NZ aren't quite as concerned about H&S. common sense still rules!

If Jean was serious about paragliding, I'm wondering if a local club would be willing to arrange something for you if you were doing a sponsored flight for charity?

Hope the GP can sort out different tablets for OH. Otherwise you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Hi Jean

Don't take any notice of my negative thinking about paragliding, that's just me, "head in the clouds" but "feet on the ground" sort of person.
Just saw and interesting interview on TV where a para (now isn't that interesting) plegic spoke about the first para chute jump by a para plegic in NZ. (Well he was an Aussie!!). I suppose I should now start a new para graph.
Anyway he has done 53 jumps altogether including 15 as a paraplegic and has now started his own website: -

http://www.imthinkingofyou.com.au/

So Jean, while I still prefer "Fore" with my golf, you achieve your dream by reaching for the skies with a joyous "Jump"!

The mother board in my computer was fried by lightning about 36 hours ago. I had to take it to be restored and am finally back on it (and happy).

I suspect that our health and safety rules are probably fairly strict but my relative probably did a bit of embroidering of the truth to do her jump. Or she might have had to sign a waiver. Who knows with her, she seems to have a strong Irish streak in her.

Huia.

Huia

That sounds expensive. Was it that thunderstorm that did the damage? You are having a bad month, what with the water pump and now the motherboard. Glad you did not lose the data on your hard drive.

Is it true that once you learn embroidery you continue doing it all your life? Or perhaps it may be the "Irish eyes are smiling" that did the trick even at 77 for it sounds as though no bone in her body would allow her to sign a waiver.

Bob, it cost $140. I got my computer from The Ark which refurbishes computers when businesses upgrade and sells them cheaply to schools and the likes of me. Of course, I should add the cost of travelling about 40km to The Ark to take it to them and then to get it back, but at least it is an outing for my hubby and me.

I think they actually put my hard drive and my CD burner into another computer which is the same as mine. Anyway whatever they did I am happy. Yes it was the thunderstorm that cooked it (I presume) even though I have what I thought was supposed to be a surge guard. Not sure if they protect from lightning strike. Obviously not in this case. In future when there are storms in the air I will unplug from the power, hope that will protect things.

I am not sure if the English relative does have any Irish blood but she does have a twinkle in her eye, and apparently it was a bit cloudy and the company did not think the jump would be very good in that weather but she persuaded them otherwise.

My sister and brother in law used to go hang gliding until my sister injured her tail bone in a heavy landing and her husband had a couple of accidents, the last of which left him brain damaged and in a coma for a week. His brain damage consists of memory problems. Otherwise he is ok. Another b.i.l. used to have a hot air balloon and the sister mentioned above used to go up with him but when it was tethered one year to advertise the Easter Show a gust of wind caught it, took it up a bit then dumped it. B.i.l. got minor burns to the back of his legs. His wife (my youngest sister) would never go up with him as they had 4 young children and she felt somebody had to be there for them if there was a serious accident.

Huia.

Huia

Gee whiz! After reading your stories, do I feel much better for giving off my earlier negative vibes. I was feeling a bit like a party pooper for a time.

Jean

After reading Huia's note, please stick to DET's recommendation of the Great Wall of China but do not look too far over the side for it's still a long way down.

But on the other hand....just think of the hundreds of thousands of hours 'flown' yearly with NO accidents!

You could be 'run over by a bus' tomorrow anyway, Bob and DET, so why worry?

Huia.