Re the babydoll, I'm not gonna leave it open, that ruins the surprise
The type of biscuit she ate was a savoury kind like Ritz crackers, or pretzils (sp?) - you know, the kind your president choked on, on an airplane.
Cookies are generally chocolate chip ones or shortbread ones, oatmeal, rye etc are called crackers. I haven't heard of oreos. Gabriel mentioned them and I didn't know what he was talking about.
I don't know what temperature my heat is set but I can tell you my house is tiny so it gets really warm. It comes on twice automatically and I never look at it - once at night and once first thing in the morning.
I pay £18 month for gas, £18 for electric. In the summer I don't have it on at all.
It was about 12 or 13 degrees C outside yesterday so I went out without my coat. Spring is here!
Lou, I used to live in an 1860's railway cottage with no heat. It was totally original like it used to be except for the toilet and the double glazing, but even the windows were the original 1860's shape (oval) - all the neighbours were the same, no heat.
I wrote about it in my book so I thought I'd paste you that part since you are interested in Brits and heating issues, it'll come in handy for your research
Here it is:
We moved into a bigger house in preparation for the baby, a lovely railway cottage from 1860, opposite a railway line, with a large garden. We were pleased to find the neighbours extremely welcoming and friendly, and a real community atmosphere. You don’t often find that these days. There were 10 cottages, which were originally built for the railway workers and their families, and then an 11th cottage, which was much bigger and set back from the rest. This was the ‘Station Master’s’ house and was now occupied by a frail old lady in her 80’s! I wondered what she did all day, rattling around in that huge house, all to herself. We lived in the third cottage. There was no central heating in our house, or in any of the other houses. The only type of heating we had was a gas fire in the living room. Nothing else at all. Rail Track owned the road and the land, so until 1985, there were no toilets. If you had the call of nature, you had to go down the bottom of the garden to the outhouse! Some of my neighbours had lived there for years and still remembered this. Then they all complained that it was freezing to sit on an outdoor loo in winter, so Rail Track demolished them all, then gutted the pantry’s that were still in the cottages and turned them into tiny bathrooms. There was only just enough room in our bathroom to fit everything and we had to squeeze round the tub to get to the lavatory. The lack of heating meant that I noticed the changing seasons much more than usual. Winter really meant winter. Sometimes it was so cold, that Peter and I would sleep in the living room, on the floor by the fire. Our neighbours did this sometimes as well. Suddenly I realised why bed socks were invented; they weren’t the domain of granny’s, they were a necessity – you’d freeze otherwise. Occasionally if it was unbearable, we put on this really old electric heater that was older than both of us. It took all night before you even noticed it was on, and wasted so much energy and money that we only used it if we were desperate. Many an evening was spent huddled in bed under millions of blankets, cuddling and making love, not just for the romance and because we were in love, but because it was too damn cold to do anything else! I really understood how it was that people in the past had such large families, with no heating and no TV, what else was there to do!?! It was too cold to use our bath. Despite being a tiny bathroom, it didn’t make any difference to the temperature. I’d be wiping frost off the window when I walked in. The idea of getting undressed to bathe in there was enough to have me fainting. We got the baby bath that we’d bought for our expected baby (much bigger than standard baby baths) and put that in front of the living room fire, then filled it up with water from the kettle. I’d strip off and sit in the bath by this fire, sponging myself down. It was just like the old days, when they had tin baths and would wash in the front room, it was the only way to do it with no heating. I would be sitting there, soaping myself and my little ‘bump’ that was our child, and Peter would be on the phone, talking to his dad! ‘How’s Jo? Yeah, she’s fine’, he grinned at me, there in the nude with bubble bath all over me while his dad asked how I was! Some of the neighbours had given in and spent thousands on central heating, but most of us couldn’t afford it, so we braved the world as we were, like one huge community. Group meetings for warming tea and biscuits were commonplace and we frequently discussed the latest deals in the local textile shop, for bedding and other heat-saving things. It was totally normal to knock on someone’s door and ask if they wanted to come round for a hot chocolate drink!
BTW, changed his name for book purposes - that brought back a few freezing memories.
PS, we also had electric lighting and a cooker but when we moved in there was no plumbing for a washing machine so I had to hand-wash to start with.
Later we got a washing machine and had to put the back tube into a big bucket when it was 'on'. On several ocassions, it came free from the bucket and flooded the kitchen. After about the 3rd or 4th flood, our landlady paid for the plumbing to be put in so we could connect up the washing machine properly.
The coal fire in the front room was also converted to a gas fire prior to us moving in, which was our only source of heat.
We sometimes put the cooker on in the kitchen and stayed in there if it got too cold.
Quote: I haven't heard of oreos. Gabriel mentioned them and I didn't know what he was talking about.
Oreos are cookies with two hard, thin chocolate exterior wafers with a yummy yet mysterious inner layer of white filling that tastes a bit like sugary marshmellow yet thicker, starchier. Kids (and adults) like pulling the outer parts of the cookie apart to eat the inside, or dunking them in milk to eat.
Quote: Re the babydoll, I'm not gonna leave it open, that ruins the surprise.
I've learned so much about the value of mystery and patience from this BB and the art of DBing. Even extends to romance and seduction (so says the guy working on 6 months of abstinence! ). Before, I sure didn't appreciate W's limited uses of lingerie, but I sure would 'get it' now. Not to proceed like a kid on Christmas morning, gunning to shred the package to get at the goods, but savoring the moment and the thoughtfulness and intentions behind the careful wrapping of the loving gift. I imagine that a person's hard, patient DBing could be seen as a form of loving romantic effort, a long drawn out often painful form of wooing.
We've just got back from this thing called Lunch Time, Play Time.
It was quite good. The kids (aged 0-4) play with loads of toys, then we have this healthy lunch together and after that they have story time. It only cost £1 and that was including the food. We will definitely go next week. DD loved it.
Still awaiting my newsletters Will nag my printer's if he doesn't hurry up and send them.
I wouldn't like Oreos then as I don't like marshmallow's. I also can't stand soggy biscuits, it's a pet hate of mine. H used to dip his biscuits in his coffee and I used to sit there and cringe.
I noticed DD4 do it a few weeks ago. She had a biscuit and she came over to me and dunked it in my coffee That reminded me of her dad so much.
Re the babydoll, there would be no suspense if there was immediate nudity. I usually don't bother with PJ's as it's more comfortable without, but if I am trying to seduce H, I'll wear PJ's or lingerie first because it's not so exciting without the 'undressing'
I can't understand people who walk around nude and think that's sexy. It ruins the build up
I totally agree that DB'ing is a painful form of wooing. Even though things are usually fairly good between H and I, we still have issues to work through and I go several days without seeing him or the kids which is difficult and lonely so I can empathise with you.
Oreos topic: they're not really like marshmellows, kind of like thicker sugary twinkee filling. Yum! Isn't it amazing to see your spouse in your child(ren)'s behavior or their personality?
Seems like you're doing a nice amount of socializing with friends. That really helps my PMA and leaves me with fewer resentments regarding my W or sitch.
In terms of pjs, I think some folks feel cold more often than others. When we moved to FL, I hoped that W would start sleeping more 'sans PJs' and she did, but then was way less snuggly than when we lived in cold Wisconsin. She always described me as a 'furnace' - I give off lots of body heat - high metabolism usually. S5 is just like me that way.
There's quite a few things about you that remind me of my H, it's quite funny.
H was never cold either and when we slept together (as in sleeping, NOT sex), he was so warm I didn't need heating. I used to call him my 'radiator', same as your W calling you a 'furnace'.
He also preferred nude sleeping and he has a similar (but I think more extreme) attitude towards my parenting. Even the dunking biscuits in drinks, he does that too *ugh*.
Yes I do try to socialise as I work from home so if I didn't try to get out, I would be stuck in all week and it would make me depressed.
Weekends are quieter and on the weekends H has dd, I don't go out at all as I catch up on the ironing (2 weeks worth)and write my book the whole weekend. I can think of maybe twice when I went out, but I don't care as it's nice to have quiet and I lie in bed till 10.30 am on the Sunday he has her as it's the only chance I ever get
Your comment about sleeping reminded me of something.
My W truly treasure her mornings of sleeping in when I keep S5 overnight. She shared how I had him over on a Tue night and she realized with horror that she had an 8am meeting to go to on Wed - had been looking forward to sleeping in the whole prior day. So I think I've found a way to make deposits in her love bank!
Quote: Lou, I used to live in an 1860's railway cottage with no heat.
Thanks Jo. I like to hear the everyday mechanics of how people live in different areas. I watch the Travel Channel where Ian Wright, Justine Shapiro, and Megan McCormick go to peoples home and see how the average person lives Pilot Productions TV Shows
RE: Houses you lived in. Sounds like you and I had similar living experiences, Old houses without centeral heat, cold rooms, and some out door toilets for me when I was a kid. Myths, Europeans live in mannors and US people all have a 3 bedroom, 1,400 sq. ft. ranch style or a 2 story colonial style house. Thanks for the book segment.
I am kind of behind in my work, so have to work more today. Good to hear you had a good lunch with the kids.
None of the places we've lived in since have been as nice as that Railway cottage. We were there 4 years and I wished we'd never left. I got married whilst living in that house, and brought my first two babies home there. We had two first birthdays there, H's 21st and dd1's Name Day, so ithas loads of fond memories associated with it.
If I'm on a train I often go passed it and say to dd4 'Look, look, that's mummy's house!'
It's true in the UK most houses have stairs (I noticed in Florida you'd be hard pushed to find a house with an upstairs).
After H left, I had a baby and I can't carry babies, which made the stairs dangerous so I moved to a bungalow. It's designed for elderly people with a life-line in it (I am wired up to the emergency services, LOL).
I have burnt my toast a few times at breakfast and the smoke sets off the smoke alarm which sets off the life-line alarm and then this woman comes on the intercom and shouts 'Mrs Jones, shall I call the fire brigade?' and I'm like 'No thank you, I just burnt my toast'
Sometimes they bother me even when I don't call them. I had them shouting Mrs Jones at me for 2 days once and every time I went to the intercom, it turned off. After 2 days of that, I just shouted 'WHAT DO YOU WANT!?' Turns out they only wanted to send an engineer round to check the gas fire. I thought, haven't they ever heard of using a phone? It's like the 'big brother' house in here
It's also completely tiny. The garden is bigger than the house, there's no storage space for dd's toys and only 1 power point in each room.
If the girls come over, I put 1 in my bed, 1 in this chair-bed in my room, 1 on a camp bed and dd4 in her bed. Then I sleep on the sofa. When H used to say, we'd open the sofa out into a bed and sleep on that. We feel like sardines in a can here, but the council would only let me have a 2 bed place as they said in housing law I only have 1 child. They don't count my other children because I'm non-custodial It infuriates me.
Anyway, I'm rambling again. I just want H to hurry up and marry me and buy me a 4 bedroom house, lol.
Thanks for dropping at my thread. You are the only one seems to be happy for the moment. You have plenty of posts and many buddies, you are doing very very well. You've hit the rock bottom at the lowest and now you are rising rising.
I had a pen pal from Greece 25 years ago, he lived in Athens, we corresponded for ten years or more but finally we stopped because we were about 25 yr-old and very busy at that time with our life, he has a very beautiful sister. Don't know if you ever go back to Greece or are you borned in the UK? I'm sorry I didn't go thro' all your posts perhaps you don't mind I ask these questions. What does Andy do? During the chilren custody battle with Andy, how could you pay for the legal fee? I supposed you have family in UK, so you went back to them during the dark period? Pls point me to the posts that tell us how you dated with Andy again, if you have the time to do it,pls. Most of the buddies here I know are all having a very hard time with the divorce approaching. It's very encouraging to read some positive posts like yours.
I hope you and your family a joyful weekend.
Greeting from France Kitty
my last thread : Lost in his MLC
http://www.divorcebusting.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=957116&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1
). Before, I sure didn't appreciate W's limited uses of lingerie, but I sure would 'get it' now. Not to proceed like a kid on Christmas morning, gunning to shred the package to get at the goods, but savoring the moment and the thoughtfulness and intentions behind the careful wrapping of the loving gift. I imagine that a person's hard, patient DBing could be seen as a form of loving romantic effort, a long drawn out often painful form of wooing.
Will nag my printer's if he doesn't hurry up and send them.
Isn't it amazing to see your spouse in your child(ren)'s behavior or their personality? 
It infuriates me.