General Chat

Hello All, well done Gerard to your OH for extending her hours.

I have had a busy day today doing the dreade H*******k.
OH has cut the lawn and tidied and weeded the garden, I have cleaned the bathroom, lounge, bedrooms, changed bed etc and had a line of sheets out in the windy sun. Black cloud loomed though so I rushed out and brought them in, nearly dry. Gone very cold.. Oh, also bought 10 fuchsia tots and 10 surfinia Petunias this morning ready for the hanging baskets. It makes me feel as though Spring is on the way even if it will be a month or so yet. At least we are nearly at the end of february. Lots of spring flowers out in the garden anyway, crocus, Dutch Iris, Helebores, pansies, primulas, daffodils and the Mahonia bush is in full flower. :-) :-)

Ann, You have tired me out just reading about all the things you have done today.
But isn't it lovely having the right weather to hang the washing on the line.
I love the smell of washing that has been dried this way. (I use a non-perfumed laundry liquid and don't use a Com- - - t type thing.)

Last Saturday (my mums anniversary) turned out ok. I had forgotton when I wrote on here about it last week, that I was going on a Quiz Night with my sister and brother-in-law (Organised by the choir he belongs to).

The evening started with a fish and chip supper. Then the quiz. Our team (the fives and threes) answered most of the questions, we came fourth, six and a half points behind the winners. So came away feeling quite pleased with ourselves.

On Tuesday I went into the town (Birmingham) called in at the Library, to return books and get some new ones, including two for the readers group.
Then went to the local college and had the first of three Indian Head Massages (Special Deal - three for the price of two , only £14).

Thursday, went shopping with the Ring and Ride (special bus).
After all this activity I was rather tired yedterday pm and today.
Pretty sure I will be more up to the mark tomorrow.

It has been quite warm here, with some rain, so weather is brightening up at the moment, just hope it continues.

Have also been working on my tree, after finding new info.
Have sent message to a genes member, who I believe is the daughter of my second cousin.
Haven't had a reply as yrt, so please cross your fingers (or antthing else) for me.


Gerard, although not a church goer anymore, I well remember the inside of a church during Lent. Followed, of course by the wonderful Easter Sunday, with its profussion of flowers, and all ststues pictures etc. uncovered. Well done to your other half.

Green fingers, thank you for your good wishes. I am sure that your thoughts have helped.

Tess
:-) :-) :-) (now with a smile)

Tess, yes lovely to be able to hang the washing out and it all smells lovely.

You did well in the quiz. I don't enjoy quizzes, mainly because with my hearing I often miss questions which is not a lot of help.

You have had a busy week. And I have got everything crossed for a reply for you.

When I don't hear a question properly (under any circunstances, not only quizzes) but think I have heard what is said, I often get funny looks when I give an answer.

(To a completly different question than the one asked)

My comeback is "Right answer, wrong question!"

Here in Oz, we have had the wettest February in many years. Only yesterday, we had a shower-free day and a top of 31c. To-day is expected to be fine and 27. That's more like the last month of Summer - but a bit late! Yes, I agree that over 27 is too hot (and we had many days around 40 last year). Our Spring and Autumn are much nicer. However, last winter, we were waiting for the heavy rain and it didn't happen. In fact, we had a very mild winter, so we don't know what to expect when it comes around again this year.

A mild sunny day today (Sunday) here in the West Midlands, England. Have had washing out on the line again, lovely.

Also been working on my tree, as at last have been able to get some more info. from 1911 Census.

Haven't heard from my second cousin once removed (member of GR) yet, been nearly two weeks.

I know that isn't very long, but have now found contact details from a second cousin, who put them in her local magazine.

May well email her in the week if I haven't had a reply.


Also managed to do a little vaccing today, so quite pleased with myself.

Ann the question master was really good, he spoke clearly and slowly, repeated each question, and told us to ask him to ask the question again if we hadn't heard.
This was probably because most of the people taking part were in their seventies. A lot of them wearing hearing aids.


Will be back soon, hope that you are all well.

Hi everyone

Have got medcal today for my benefits. I have found a way to get there without having to use stairs. There is no parking in the centre or anywhere near the place that i can see.

Going also to pick new glasses up be for i go. The later someone is taking me to pick new laptop up :-D So will enjoy playing with that tonight.

Hope all are ok.I am hoping if i am up to it tomorrow to go to the TNA at Kew. As helping 2 people with they tree and they have ask me to carry on working on it for them.So hope body wants to work so i can go.

Not so nice here this morning cloudy and they siad rain, :-(

Hope you all enjoy your day.

Hazelx

Meant to go up the road to photocopy a couple of death certs. to send to cousins.

Also should have given the kitchen a good clean.

However the "Jelly Legs" came back, so just given the kitchen a quick tidy.

Tomorrow I am off to town again to have the second of my Indian Head Massages. If I get two buses I can sit down for most of the journey, i.e just a very short walk to the bus stop, and there is a shelter with seats. So I should be ok.

My nephew, (by marriage) went to see Stoke play in Valencia last week, he was very impressed with the stadium, says it is much better than Wembley.

I will be phoning my (ex)sister-in-law up later this week for a full report.
(Only heard about her sons thoughts, via a message board site).

Has been wet here today, but still great for febuary.

hope that you are all well,

What a lovely lot of messages to read through and I hope that you are all well.

We have been having a horrible time followed by a good time!
Money has been flowing out at a speed which is to be recommended!

Our main hot water boiler died, not gently with some warning, oh no, that would have been easy....no we suddenly saw water coming out of the veg and bits and pieces room..hot hot water which within a few seconds was flowing across the kitchen and very hot! Thank goodness OH was here!
He managed to get into the room whilst I took everything I could move into the kitchen. He closed off the water and then removed the screws and lifted the 100 litre boiler down onto the floor....
Fortunately we had managed to deal with much of the water before then! Plus whist it was technically for 100 litres the scaling which had developed and was very thick
.
Of we went to buy another...what a shock the cost was!! €1000.00for one the same size as that which had died. We bought a 50 litre instead and eventually with help from friends everything turned back to normal......total
time from start to finish was about Six hours.

Then OH had an email saying that 999.00euros had been taken out of his bank.....we had not authourised that this money could be taken out......two calls to the the bank, in India we gave up. An hour later we had a call to say
that there had not been any transitions and the message was someone trying to gain access to the bank from overseas, Africa!!!
Not sure what to say about such people.

Have decided not to go back to the UK for two weeks to see my new granddaughter and my other grandchildren, the cost for flights, care hire, etc is just to much
I told my son and his wife who fully understood and we are going to Skype each other on alternate days. I then told my daughter who is dissapponted
and then she called me back to suggest that I looked for two short visits,
Thursday to Sundy for example then car higher,travelling costs across the country etc would not be necessary......so I will try this for early April

Well I have now run out of time....sorry about the rambling. If I have made spelling errors I apologise in advance!

Best wishes to you all

Bridget

Good afternoon all
Well it has been ages since I contributed and I do feel guilty. Our weather has improved so much and is so much warmer - but not much rain to speak of so I am sure we will pay for this. The winter has been so dry which is most unusual. I cleaned my windows last week so I am expecting a downpour !!
We have booked a trip to UK for May - wanted to go over for my mom's 89th birthday - as a surprise - but a week ago she told me my sister - who she lives with - had booked a weeks holiday 19th May - so I rethought and have booked for 18th to 23rd May so she will only have a few days to look after herself instead of the week. I looked at flights from Alicante to Exeter and nearly fell off my chair over 500 pounds for the two of us. Eventually managed to find one to Bristol with Ryanair - cheap and cheerful - which cost 220 euros for the two of us. Mind you then the cost of hiring a car pushed that up by another 100 pounds but heyho it will be great to see my mom again.
Well hubby will be home soon for lunch so must go and heat up homemade soup.
Will try and contribute more than I have been. Hope you are all ok
Take care
Love Mary xx

Bridget, I hope that you are feeling rested.
I think that it is positive news that your daughter is eager to see you. I hope that you are able to work something out.

Gosh, the boiler going like that must have been scary, not to mention dangerous. At least you hsve noe got it sorted.

I often have emails ststing that my bank account has had an "unauthorised transaction" or words to that effect.

Most of the time it is supposidly coming from a bank that I don't deal with, i.e. I am NOT their customer! So I know it is a scam. Once in a while, they hit lucky and send it "from my bank" As my bank does NOT have my email address, I know that these too are a scam.

I ignore them completly, they are in my Junk Folder and will eventually disappear.

Also have phone calls from people stating that they are phoning on behalf of my provider and they have got the solution to my internet connection being slow.

This is another scam!!!
Do not go on line and do as they instruct, they are theives.

I am pleased that your OH has had contact from his real bank and has been reassured by thm.

Another warm day here, on leap day (around 52 degrees f.

Had my second head massage yesterday, not able to complete it all as I had on of my nausia (sp) and weakness turns. Only missed a few minutes of the massage though, the young girl looked after me very well, to make sure that I soon felt better.


Feeling a bit better today, am off to get the photo copies of the death certs (at last).

One of them is for my great uncle who died at the end of 1918, aged 38, with the 'flu.
It is his descendants that I am trying to contact.

Mary in Spain, that IS expensive, trying to get back to your Mum in the UK.
My nephew, who went to watch Stoke play Valencia, last Thursday, went with a Stoke Supporters Club.

Eveything was laid on. They just had to get to the Stoke Griund (Brittania Stadium) where they caught a coach to Manachester airport. From there, a chartered flight to Valencia, and then a coach to the town/stadium. Made everything very easy for them
He got back home at 3am on Friday morning, So rather tired. But he loved everything (except the result).

Tess
Have a great time when you get here.

Finally getting our tree cut down tomorrow, yippee...had to get permission as we are in a conservation area, then its only the decking to repair, and the fence....the list goes on and on and on ....money floating out quick.

I'm pleased to see that you are wise to these scammers. No bank will ever email you and ask for any kind of details. If in doubt, ring your local branch.

My neighbour lives alone and has a business with a website. Hackers got into her personal files via the website and found her contact list. This lady is Bulgarian, so in spite of having a good command of English, her writing is in 'broken' English (poor grammar).
I received an email supposedly from her saying that she had made a quick trip to UK and had so many samples to bring home that she had a bill for 'excess baggage' for $5060. Asking that I advance her the loan immediately as she was sitting at Heathrow airport - and promising to refund my loan immediately upon her return. The email was even written in 'broken' English! These hackers study everything!!
One small problem they didn't think about......she and I share a common wall and I can hear water running through the pipes when she uses a tap.....so if she was in the UK, sitting at Heathrow Airport - who was having a shower as I was reading the email?????

If you have a password, change it to something which the hackers could never guess. Never use family or pets' names, birthdays, or words used frequently in your emails. Use something entirely different and put numbers in it too - again no ages or birth years - and certainly, never use the word 'password'. Example: "Saturday" = Sat46urday87" with the numbers not referring to any house, age or phone number, etc. You don't need to use words either - "qtjcplmw" would also take a lot of working out. Just as long as you can remember it or have it written down in a safe place.

I'm sorry if I am boring you with this. You probably all know what to do - but I feel so strongly about these scammers, and I don't like to see people conned by them.
I'll get off my soapbox now.

To you all!
Thank you Foruour kind thought and suggestions about Passwords. I will be having a chat with OH today as we do, I now see we are using the wrong approach.
Cannot be here for long as Computer chap here to go through our comps, he visits once every four months.
I will be back later today.

Bridget

I had a similar experience, with an e mail, rang my bank and they asked me to forward it to them, which I did.. these scammers are bu........................grs.
Mostly from Africa, awful isnt't it

Lovely day today, going out to lunch with my W.I

Jan

Nigeria, to be exact. They are known as the 'Nigerian emails'. However, the one I had supposedly from my neighbour, wanted the money sent to a place in Liverpool - so they can be anywhere.

Don't fall for the one from the man whose little girl is dying and needs an operation, which he can't afford. That one as been sent out ever since scammers began. The little girl would have to be at least 50 by now

Another one I had (again from Nigeria) was an offer to deposit $8,000 in my bank account and all I had to do was transfer $5,000 of it to another account in the US. The remaining $3,000 was mine to keep, with their thanks! All this, AFTER I sent them my bank details, of course!

I am excited.. Have spent some more time researching my Welsh family in Norfolk.

Found contact details for a second cousin (not removed) and sent her an email a couple of days ago.
Had a reply this morning!!!


You must all have been wishing good luck for me, and it worked, so thank you.

I am so excited that I can't sit still, want to tell the world and his wife.

Only downer is that I am still having some difficulty with genes. especially when trying to get on the message pages :-|


Have phoned sister and brother , they are both out!

So you are the first people to know. <3 :-D

Must try to settle down and clean my kitchen (but will have a cuppa first)


Tess

P.S. Hope that you are all well.

Well done with that news Tess, great to make new contacts isn't it?

I think you are not alone in spending time getting on the site/boards etc. Lots of threads on the suggestions board re this problem.

It gives you a good feeling when you contact someone through GR, doesn't it? I have had good luck in the past. Hot Matches found a distant cousin who sent me a CD of my paternal gr/grandmother's family right back to the 1600's and another sent a copy of the complete tree for my maternal gr/grandmother's family back to the early 1700's. Both of these branches of my tree have emigrated to Australia between 1788 and 1837.

My biggest problem is with my OH's family. He was born in Lancashire and emigrated in 1950 - and yet his ancestors had such big families and all named their children after themselves and their siblings, that it is extremely difficult to find them all - in spite of the fact that they didn't seem to move out of Lancashire! This was the branch of our tree which I thought would be the easy one!

I am still excited about contact with my cousin. I didn't find her via Genes. have written to another family member using genes but message has not been opened.
Found this lady by going through a search engine> I had been using all the family names I had found in my research, one-by-one. Actually found her when looking for anything about her brother, who had just died (2009) .

So my email to her would have come out of the blue, as she hadn't registered an interest in researching her family tree, or getting in touch with other family members.
I had to seach through a lot of dross before I hit gold. But well worth the effort.

:-D

It is a wet day here at the moment, temps have dropped, (to around normal for the time of year), but sun is trying to come out. Keeping fingerd crossed that I will be able to put washing on the line later for a quick blow.

Berona, don't give up on your OH's family. There are more details added to the internet all the time.
I have often found info. by researching the place my ancestors have come from (eg. found parish records including baptisms, marriages and burials by searching town mentioned on Census records). Managed to go back several generations, esp as parents names were often mentioned on baptism and marriage records.


Bridget, I hope that you enjoy yourselves picking new passwords. They need to be easy for you to remember, but difficult (if not impossible) for others to guess. Will pm you with "my sort" of ideas.


Tess

:-) :-) :-) :-)